COCHRANE— A new feature film has put the spotlight on Cochrane local Chris Ball, perhaps best remembered in the community for a series of stunts— Including jumping onto a moving train in 2010— Is making waves in the film industry.
Since his early days on YouTube, Ball has established himself in the film industry as a writer, producer and actor.
Summerland is the story of three friends, Stacy (Maddie Philips), her boyfriend Oliver (Rory J. Saper) and his best friend, Bray (Chris Ball), who are travelling to the Summerland music festival.
It’s a classic road trip story, Ball said— A lost group of teenagers, directionless and free after graduating high school, finding themselves along the lonely highways of the United States, looking for love and something more out of life.
One of the main characters, Bray, has catfished another young man on a Christian dating website, pretending to be the girlfriend of his best friend Oliver. Bray and the young man he’s tricked, Shawn (Dylan Playfair) have fallen for one another and plan to meet in person at the Summerland music festival.
The film was almost entirely shot without permits, a six-person production crew while living entirely in the RV the characters in the film inhabit as they make their way across the country.
Shooting without permits meant the film had to be filmed “guerrilla-style,” Ball said. Without all of the equipment, the crew was able to shoot, often in high-profile areas, without drawing the attention of passers-by or authorities that would shut down the production.
“The challenge of shooting on the road and being a guerrilla crew was kind of a blessing in disguise. When you’re shooting with a large unit … It looks like a film crew. You’ve got 30 people set up on the side of the road— You’ve got the camera, a crane, all this equipment and stuff. We didn’t have anything like that,” he said. “The biggest challenge, shooting it guerrilla-style with a minimal crew, was actually our greatest strength.”
There was one exception, Ball noted, that was unexpected for the crew. The film has scenes in the Space Needle in Seattle, on the Las Vegas Strip and the Cosmopolitan Hotel.
“Out of all of those locations, the one place we got kicked out of was a parking lot in L.A.,” he said. “We were shooting one scene and we had to shoot it in three different parking lots and stitch it all together in the movie.”
Not only did the small crew allow them to stay incognito, but it also led to a much more involved process for all of the crew members, actors included.
“We had a small little mixer that someone would just hide in their coat. Basically, whoever wasn’t in the scene was doing sound,” he said. “Even Maddie, our actress, she would be doing sound if everyone else was doing the scene. Everyone was really a part of the project in that way and helping out that way. You don’t get that kind of authenticity or that kind of involvement in bigger sets.”
The film is focused largely around Bray, a gay character, and the trepidation he feels due to the lies that he is caught up in.
Ball said his role in the film felt very personal for him as a gay man.
“One thing that was important to me is that there is no homophobia in the film, that the characters that are gay, of which there are many, are just gay, just because.”
It was important to make the movie this way, he said because it helps to normalize gay people and LGBTQ2S+ issues in general.
“The kinds of films that I was growing up viewing the gay characters are just comedic relief, or the side characters or they were a trope, like just a stereotype,” he said. “That’s what I think is important about Summerland, its portraying characters that are just gay. They don’t even come out in the movie. There’s no homophobia in the movie, there’s no coming out, because the process of coming out still implies that it has to be a process where you have to come out and tell people.”
Ball said he is hopeful to see a future that is inclusive to the point that sexuality and sexual orientation are completely secondary characteristics, rather than something that you have to lead with.
“I would like to picture a future, and this is what we’re trying to show in our film, is a future where you don’t even have to come out. You can just say ‘I’m dating so-and-so’ and their [sexuality] doesn’t even matter.”
Because of the stunts Ball filmed and put on YouTube, he gained a reputation among his peers as a daredevil. When he finally did decide to come out, he said he used that reputation to shield himself from any hate or bullying that might be directed his way.
“And it worked,” he said. “I’m not proud of that. I hope it’s different now where somebody can just come out without having to think ‘is it safe for me to come out yet?’”
Once he did, Ball said he had a good experience, and that he felt “lucky” regarding the reception of his announcement.
“I had a positive experience coming out in high school. I waited until I was 17, and I was lucky I had a really good group of supportive friends,” he said. “Even though I had a positive experience coming out I didn’t feel like I was myself, I felt like I was wearing a mask and pretending to be someone else.”
Media often portrays being gay in a certain stereotypical way, but when handled correctly, it gives both gay and straight people an opportunity to see a different view of what it’s like to be gay, he said.
“I thought that’s such an interesting dichotomy that you don’t often see in films. Usually, gay characters in films are the stereotype, the comedic relief or if it is about them it’s about their struggle coming out and the tyranny of bullying, and these kinds of things. And those are all very important stories to tell, but I think it’s important to just normalize gay characters,” he said.
Despite his view of a completely normalized future for gay characters in film, he said, he feels it’s necessary for the film to have an LGBTQ2S+ tag attached to it.
“Right now it’s important to have that distinction so that youth that are growing up can seek those films out and know that there are gay films and gay characters that are out there because that’s so important when you’re growing up,” he said.
But despite the tag, Ball said it is not an LGBTQ2S+ film.
“We’re not even calling it a gay film, it’s a road trip dramedy at its heart, and it’s a love story,” he said. “Just as Bray’s sexuality in the movie doesn’t define his character, the gay themes of the film don’t define the film either.”
The indie coming of age tale, Summerland was released on Sept. 14, and is currently sitting at a 92 per cent critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It is available on video on demand, including iTunes, GooglePlay, Vudu and Amazon.
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