Cinema Canada (Feb-Mar 1974)

Produced, directed, written, edited by Dennis Zahoruk. Assistant Director — Don Brough; Production Manager: Barry Clavir; Director of Photography — Josef Sebesta; Assistant Cameraman — Ivan Martin; Soundman — Richard Flower; Assistant Sound — Susan Reeve; Gaffers — Jim Fisher and Susan Wolfson; Grip — David Leach; Props — Pegi Trowsse; Continuity — Laurinda Hartt; Production Assistant — Kathy Wing; Music — Michael Snook. A Tundra Film Company production featuring Gary Peterman as David McKay, Alan Raeburn as Brian Castle and with Moira Sharp (Lilian McKay), Rita Floren (Julie), Ron Scott (Richard Beavis), Arnold Wild (“Junior” Beavis), Beverly Murden (Wanda Sheridan), Tony Miller (Henry Foxworth), Edith Jones (Celia Scofield), Bob Yarwood (Johnson), Curt Jacobs (Tom Duncan). Sometimes they met in the dead of night, working swiftly and solemnly in the shadows of skeletal dinosaurs or knee-deep in a village of miniature Elizabethan houses. Meetings were held regularly every weekend for seven weeks from late June to mid August but rarely at the same location. No fewer than 14 and generally not more than 25 people were directly involved. Each meeting lasted anywhere from seven to 18 hours. Leading the group was a 23-year-old university graduate; his 14 primary group members ranged in age from 20 to 28 years. And yet what emerged from these clandestine meetings was not a comprehensive plan to overthrow the Trudeau government, but a 55-minute 16mm colour film, The Shakespeare Murders, written, produced and directed by Mr. Dennis Zahoruk. With a basic crew of 13 and a cast of 11, the film’s principal photography was completed this past summer during the aforementioned seven weekends — 14 shooting days in all. The entire film was shot on location in Toronto, Hamilton and 32 Cinema Canada Seo Sbahespeare Mudas by Laurinda Hartt Dennis Zahoruk in Jason Borwick Stratford Ontario, with the specific locations carefully selected to enhance the film’s visual style. The most striking of these included Shakespeare’s Restaurant in Toronto, a restaurant decorated to resemble an English pub in the time of William Shakespeare; Hamilton’s Dundurn Castle; Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum; and Stratford’s “Shakespeareland’’, a miniature recreation of Shakespeare’s village birthplace. Before the end of 1973 most of the editing had been completed and the murder mystery parody was ready for scoring, sound mixing, negative cutting, etc. Total cost of the film to this point: $3,600. But back in November, Zahoruk’s money began to run dangerously low and he applied to the Canada Council for a $4,600 grant to cover post-production costs and thus enable him to complete the film for a remarkably low total budget. Presently, while Dennis awaits the Council’s decision, Michael Snook is preparing a detailed and complex musical score that will be crucial in establishing and enhancing the film’s overall style. Dennis is determined to complete the film. He will not let it die, especially after the remarkable energy and dedication displayed by his crew and cast who, with relatively little professional film experience, had worked long and hard every weekend for free to make a film of which they could be proud. Television distribution is a strong possibility and if the film should make a profit, the cast and crew will receive some financial remuneration on a share basis. But getting rich was the last thing on anyone’s mind — they were working together to make a film and that film was their prime concern. Dennis Zahoruk was a member of the first graduating class