By Steve Hubrecht
Shooting for the independent feature film ‘All Night Wrong’ in Radium Hot Springs is more than halfway over, and so far filming has been going well.
The movie is a comedy-noir about two people who meet through dating app Tinder and get swept up in a series of twists and turns involving a dead body, a killer’s car and a pile of cash. It stars up-and-coming actors Maria Bakalova and Zach Cherry, who may not yet be A-list Hollywood superstars but have garnered plenty of acclaim. (Bakalova earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress several years ago.)
The stars, film crews and the many other people involved with producing the movie have been at work in Radium for a few weeks and still have several days more to go before wrapping up.
Location manager Matheson Kincaid explained that the total shooting time is 18 days, and when he spoke with the Pioneer last week on November 21, they were halfway through the project; with nine days of filming completed and nine more to come.
While the mountainous backcountry of the Columbia Valley has featured in Hollywood productions before, ‘All Night Wrong’ is different in that the entire film — every scene, indoors or out — is being shot in the Columbia Valley front country, mostly in Radium Hot Springs and nearby venues.
“It’s not a mountain movie,” said Kincaid. “There’s been a few nights in the forest, but other than that it’s been in Radium.”
Although there is a dead body — and consequently a murder — in the movie, it is not a stereotypical action movie with car chases, a lot of guns, and loud noises.
Filming has mostly taken place at night (the movie plot occurs over the course of a single night, so darkness is necessary). Film crews have been busy Monday through Friday, for the most part shooting from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m.
“It’s going great,” said Kincaid. He said there’s a big — and refreshing — difference shooting in a small mountain town such as Radium, as opposed to a larger city such as Calgary or Vancouver. In big urban centres “people tend to be, at best, indifferent, or more likely they actively dislike the interruption you are causing them. Here it’s been the opposite. Locals seem really happy to have us, and are even helping us out.”
There haven’t so far been too many cameo ‘extras’ roles for valley residents, but the crews will eventually shoot a party scene that will require some extras, which will be filled by locals.
But there has been other employment stemming from ‘All Night Wrong’, and Kincaid alone has hired five full-time production assistants to work with his own crew. Their jobs can include just about anything on a given night: shovelling away snow, putting up barricades, keeping pedestrians from wandering into the film, or fetching coffee.
Kincaid is based in Nelson, and has worked on movies all over B.C.’s Interior, including in the Okanagan and Kamloops-Shuswap region. ‘All Night Wrong’ is the first he’s worked in the East Kootenay and “it’s been awesome so far,” he said.
Given his extensive background, does he think ‘All Night Wrong’ can become a catalyst for other movies to be shot here in the future, or even for a local industry to spring up around filming movies here?
“I could definitely see it. It’s a slow thing to grow, it doesn’t happen overnight. But (the Columbia Valley’s) got everything you want in a location and has such beautiful natural surroundings,” said Kincaid. “It comes down to working out the logistics,” he added.
