A boom microphone operator captures the sounds of a gun battle in the fictional town of Barclay’s Brush while Vancouver actor Jody Racicot fires a rifle nearby. The scene will be included in the film Gunless, which is currently filming in Osoyoos. Photo by Paul Everest

By Paul Everest - Osoyoos Times

OSOYOOS TIMES-June 10,2009

Every footstep creates a small dust storm.
The scents of pine, sweat and gunpowder melt together in the 30 C heat and a bear can be seen wandering in the haze a few hundred metres to the south.
The paint is peeling off the general supply store which conveniently doubles as a saloon and there are few places to escape the sun as it beams down through a cloudless sky.
Welcome to Barclay’s Brush, population: oh, about 17.
It’s hard to believe this town, built on the aptly named Testalinde pastureland of Ace Elkink’s property in the hills above Osoyoos, isn’t found at the end of a time portal leading to a 19th century B.C. border town.
In fact, it’s the set for the Western-themed romantic comedy Gunless starring Canadian icon Paul Gross and British actress Sienna Guillory.
Look right and you’ll see a 1890s-era school house.
Look left and you’ll see a blacksmith shop with tractor trailers parked beside it while crew, dressed in modern clothing that sharply contrasts the dust-caked period costumes of the actors, move cameras and lights the size of pickup truck tires.
On this day, June 4, gunshots echo in the hollows of nearby Mount Kobau as Guillory, playing the role of Jane, and Jody Racicot of Vancouver act out a gun battle on the town’s main street under the watchful eye of director Bill Phillips.
While the actors shoot weapons with blanks, a special effects marksman fires a pellet gun at the side of a building to send up bits of wood and debris into the air to make it appear the actors are really being shot at.
To emphasize just where this film takes place, Racicot, playing the role of Paul, fires his rifle a few times and then apologizes to an unseen character.
After Phillips yells cut, Racicot looks to the director for approval.
“When I’m yelling ‘sorry,’ does it sound Canadian enough?” he said.
A small band of local reporters, provincial dignitaries and members of the Okanagan film industry stand off to the side of the action and chuckle at Racicot’s question, while crew members, many with bandanas over their faces to keep the grit out of their noses, shuffle equipment for the next scene.
“It’s like the dust monster’s attacking,” one said.
Gross, who is best known for his roles in the television series Due South and films such as Men with Brooms and Passchendaele, which he also directed, said the biggest thing that’s different about this shoot from others he’s participated in is the climate.
“It’s just hotter,” he said, sweeping aside locks of long black hair from his tanned face. “Passchendaele was probably the most miserable. But this one is kinda more fun because I can go and jump on a horse, I get to spin a gun around and I’m here.
“It does kind of knock it out of you though, the heat, actually. We shoot for about 12 to 14 hours. The bathtub at the Spirit (Ridge) is never going to get clean.”
Gross plays the Montana Kid, an American gunslinger who wanders into Barclay’s Brush and immediately runs into trouble with the town’s blacksmith, Jack, who is played by Tyler Mane of X-Men fame.
The Kid challenges Jack to a showdown but finding a working pistol in town proves difficult.
Unable to give up the code of the American Wild West, the Kid gets caught up in the town’s strange rituals and characters, including Jane, who may be the Kid’s only hope of finding a way out or his only reason to stay.
Filming on Gunless began in Osoyoos on May 25 and will wrap up on June 21.
Along with Elkink’s ranch, scenes for the roughly $10 million film have been shot on Osoyoos Indian Band land, in the Kilpoola area and at Fort Langley in the Lower Mainland.
Fish-out-of-water story
Producer Niv Fichman, who, along with his production company Rhombus Media, has put out other Canadian films such as Thirty-two Short Films about Glenn Gould, The Red Violin and Snow Cake, said this has been a unique shoot in that the crew has been able to stay in one place and “cheat” to make it look like a “vast location.”
“You turn the camera this way and you can see an amazing view and then you turn it that way and it’s a whole different view, but equally amazing.”
Roughly 20 actors are bringing the story to life here, Fichman said, and the tale plays upon the world of Canadian-American relations.
“It’s a fish-out-of-water story for this American gunslinger who comes to this town and everybody’s so darn Canadian. And that’s where the film derives its humour,” he said, adding that Canada serves as a “surrogate” for any country in the world that has to deal with the U.S. “I think what we’re doing is taking a Western and maybe flipping it a bit.

“A Western is a form of American mythology. What we’re doing is taking that American mythology and superimposing it into a Canadian reality.”

That’s part of the reason, he said, that Guillory was brought on board. The producers hope the star of Love Actually, Eragon and The Time Machine will help broaden the film’s appeal to a European audience.
Just to the southwest of the main town location, which is made up of about a dozen buildings, is a ranch that was also built for the production.
From this direction saunters up Elkink in a cowboy hat and sunglasses.
He looks like he could be a modern-day descendent of one of the characters in the film and he has been sure to watch each day’s activities on set.
The buildings will be left standing on his property after filming ends, possibly for use by another production after Gunless is released next year.
Elkink said he was approached by the production team because his sprawling property provides a sense of isolation necessary for the film.
“Basically this was the only area they could find without civilization around,” he said, adding that the Okanagan Film Commission had pictures of his land that were passed on to the producers.
The arid, hill-enclosed ranch is no stranger to film crews as parts of the science fiction series Taken were filmed here along with the 2001 comedy The Shipment, Elkink said.
Commissioner Jon Summerland of the Okanagan Film Commission said producers were shown the area earlier this year when there was still a great deal of snow on the ground and there were concerns the location might not be right for a Western set in a hot and dusty border town.
“They were freaking out every day,” he said, adding that the B.C. community of Chehalis was Osoyoos’s closest competition for the film as it was sunny and snow-free when scouted by the film’s crew.
In the end, however, the producers received just what they needed and Summerland said everyone involved in the production couldn’t be happier with Osoyoos.
“They came here for A: locations, B: tax incentives, C: infrastructure, because a lot of this crew are our people,” he said. “Also, they came here for Osoyoos. They came here for wine and fun.”
And while the people of Barclay’s Brush seem to be happy, many believe the residents of Osoyoos can be just as content thanks to the presence of the filmmakers.
Rico Mielnicki, the film’s production manager, said more than 100 people involved in the film are staying at local hotels including the Holiday Inn, Spirit Ridge and the Best Western Sunrise Inn.
Each one of those people, he added, receives an allowance which they are spending here because it’s their home for several weeks.
When you add it up, Mielnicki said, 100 people spending about $500 a week for four weeks means about $200,000 going into the community.
On top of that, the production hired 15 locals to work on the set and security for the location is also from the area, he said.
Summerland said he expects Osoyoos to get at least a $4.5 million boost from the production.
Jessica Harcombe, a spokeswoman for the Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort and Spa said the facility has seen a huge boost in occupancy because of the production.
Usually, she said, the resort is between 40 to 50 per cent full in June but that rate has jumped to upwards of 80 per cent since Gunless began filming.
That kind of occupancy, Harcombe added, translates to more than $100,000 in revenue for the resort.
Gross said now that he’s had a taste of Osoyoos, he won’t hesitate to return.
“I think it’s one of the most beautiful places on the planet,” he said. “The lake is gorgeous. I’d come back here in a heartbeat and recommend it to others.”
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