Scaley

Why did I choose to make a story about a Mermaid living in Alberta, Canada?? I had just finished working as the 1st Assistant Director on "Wyonna Earp", the first series to return to work in Canada since the start of the Covid-19 lockdowns and was emotionally gearing up to start work on the reboot of "Fraggle Rock" when local Writer and Producer, Kelsey Andries, asked me to direct "Scaley".

I was busy, burnt out, mentally exhausted and genuinely missed laughing. I giggled my way through the script, loving the dynamic between two beings telling their own versions of the same halted stage in their life. I laughed imagining Kelsey as a stunning mermaid dragging herself across a carpet and tumbling down a spiral staircase. It was the right project at the right time and it meant a lot to me to get to direct comedy as comedy has the unique ability to explore flawed characters without being judgemental.

At its core, "Scaley" explores challenging topics like tokenism, ableism and the often flawed and incorrect “personal perspective” of a shared experience. The fact that two people in close proximity, experiencing the same event can then walk away with two completely separate personal experiences and entirely different memories is fascinating to me.

The biggest challenge we faced creating this film was, you guessed it, Covid. The pandemic was, and still is, a difficult and strange time for the independent film scene. Small and seemingly simple projects became big challenges and the costs to keep everyone safe and feel comfortable ate up precious dollars in our small budget. But we were not deterred! Our fantastic Covid team stepped up, keeping everyone safe.

Since New Year’s celebrations were not recommended, we decided to prep and shoot on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. New Year's Eve is also my birthday and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than collaborating with friends and colleagues on a hilarious and quirky project, all while ringing in the New Year. With masks on of course!

Due to the general fear of working on independent projects during the pandemic, we had trouble finding a body performer to play the role of Nevermore. We cast the part days before shooting and planned to find a suitable voice actor after shooting. While "Scaley" was in post-production, I was spending my weekdays laughing, singing and creating joy with the Fraggle Five and my weekends putting the pieces together on Scaley". During my time on "Fraggle Rock", I developed a friendship with Jordan Lockhart, the Puppeteer and voice of Wembley. I kept imagining his voice bringing the corvid spirit of Nevermore to life. I didn’t think he would be able to help us but to my delight, Jordan was in. He felt the character of a hard hitting Raven journalist exploring the dynamic between human and half human relations was a perfect role for him and brought a fresh and hilarious layer to Nevermore. I have never laughed so hard in an ADR session in my life.

This project was unique in many ways, but one of the biggest components that REALLY excited me was the mermaid tail and regalia created by Tracy Falkouzi. The craftsmanship and quality of the mermaid costume was breathtaking, unique and silly. I couldn’t wait to see Kelsey, in her full mermaid glory, falling down a spiral staircase. We could not have brought this character to life without the generous donation of Tracy’s work.

Working on "Scaley" has given me the opportunity to do what is most important to me, create shared experiences through storytelling, be creative and weird with like-minded individuals, and spread joy through laughter. My goal is to create a film where the audience identifies with our awkward characters, and has a laugh at them, and ultimately themselves. And if I’m lucky, maybe they’ll walk away thinking about how our identity shapes our memories and that two people can have the same experience and feel very differently about it and both can be correct.