Remote Film Production Panel

This event took place on Sunday, Feb. 13, 2022 at 11:30 amOnline

This event will be live-streamed over the Eventive platform, participants are encouraged to ask questions through the chat feature. If in-person participation is an option, registrants will be contacted directly to signup to attend.

Filming in remote locations is a reality for filmmakers who live in the north. Whether it is on an ice road over a frozen lake, on a canoe heading down a river, or in the grizzly bear populated tundra, there is a certain skill required to whether the elements and still get the shot needed. This roundtable of skilled filmmakers will share personal anecdotes, and tips and tricks to ensure that safety is always top of mind while assessing risks in these dangerous terrains. 

Facilitator: Sarah Spring Executive Director of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) and a veteran producer and consultant, Sarah has been actively involved in Canada's vibrant film community for the past fifteen years. As a producer, Sarah was known as a champion of independent cinema and innovative storytellers. As Executive Director of DOC, Sarah advocates toward an equitable, functional and inclusive film industry. 

Panelists: David Curtis is an off-grid dwelling filmmaker, artist, commercial fisher and carpenter who has had the honour of living in Dawson City, within the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Traditional Territories, Yukon for the past 24 years. In all aspects of his life he nurtures a close relationship to nature, kairos and laughter. 

Caroline Cox is a Northwest Territories based filmmaker who lives off-grid and specializes in projects that focus on the culture, environment and lifestyles of Canada’s far north. . Raised on a farm in Southern Ontario, Cox moved to the NWT as a young woman working as a folk musician before embracing film as her preferred medium for story-telling. A self-taught cinematographer and editor, Caroline brings a raw authentic lens to her storytelling in the remote part of Canada she has come to call home. 

Caroline is the producer and director of the hit TV series Wild Kitchen and CBC series NorthernHer Caroline also works as an Associate Producer for the Discovery Channel. and She is a co-founder at Copper Quartz Media with her business partner, Inuk performing artist, Tiffany Ayalik. Food For The Rest of Us is Caroline and Tiffany’s first feature length documentary film. The film is a Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund recipient as well as a Doc Society Good Pitch and Redford Centre selected project. 

Cox is also a freelance Shooter/Producer and specializes in documentary film with an emphasis on women, the arts and the North. 

Brian Ladue is a Yukon filmmaker, and a proud member of one of the 14 Yukon First Nations (Kaska & Mountain Slavey), and also has Scottish roots. Brian is the Owner/Operator of Northern Wild Productions, a full service production company based in the northern-most region of the Kaska Dena Traditional Territory. Brian started out in film with a sheer passion and desire to capture the beauty of nature and wildlife. He then later established a production company after more than a decade and a half of working with his community and elders as a video/audio/GIS tech documenting ancient stories and language. After years of studying, working, and fine-tuning the art of storytelling by way of video and audio capture Brian is an established filmmaker in the Yukon Territory. 

Stephen A. Smith has been exploring in the far North since the late 1970s. A wildlife biologist, Smith has three decades of experience in polar wildlife research. As an expedition leader, he organized and led more than 60 projects in the High Arctic. As a director, Smith's films have been informed and shaped by the intensity of his experiences on polar ice. Albedo is his third feature documentary focused on the impacts of Arctic sea ice declines. His previous film Vanishing Point tells the story of diminishing sea ice through the eyes of an Inuit elder whose culture is being challenged by a changing Arctic (finalist: Best Feature Documentary, 2014 Canadian Screen Awards; finalist for People & Nature Award, 2014 Panda Awards). His International Polar Year documentary Arctic Cliffhangers examined the impact of ecological changes to the polar marine environment (Best Wildlife Film, 2010 San Francisco Ocean Film Festival). In 2004, Smith was director of operations for the feature documentary production Abandoned in the Arctic.

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