Jim Filippone has a pretty good idea about what kind of country we live in. The North Vancouver helicopter pilot spent 400 hours looking at it from above, working on a film aptly titled Over Canada.
His impression is just what you might expect. "It's such a huge country," he said. "And so diverse. The East is different from the West, the North is different from the South."
But if that revelation doesn't take you by surprise, Over Canada just might. Peggy's Cove, the CN Tower, and Lake Louise have been flogged to death by postcard photographers, but they actually come alive when you see them from the swooping high-vantage point of a helicopter.
Even Niagara Falls, that overcommercialized Wonder of the World, seems fresh and new seen from the sky, with no one elbow-jabbing you to get a better view. Over Canada takes you just above the edge of the falls and then tips you over, a vertigo-inspiring plunge.
It's
hard to believe some places, as Filippone says, even belong to this country.
Ile de la Madeleine, a white-sand island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
seems like a tropical paradise.
The film was shot over two periods, between August and October 1998 and May to June 1999. Over that time, Filippone saw every province and territory. For the 21-year veteran pilot, it was a unique experience - it was the first time he had ventured east of Saskatchewan.
It was also rewarding in other ways - Filippone and
director of photography Marc Pingry received an Emmy for their work. The regional
award (for the Pacific Northwest) was given to them at a ceremony in June.
Filippone says his favourite part of the filming was meeting people from coast
to coast. But other than tiny dots on a faraway landscape, you don't actually
see many people.
The star of the film is certainly the land - the vast and diverse textures and colours of the Rockies, the Muskoka lakes well-known to Ontario cottagers, and glaciers in Nunavut.
Most of the shots of famous landmarks like the Terry Fox memorial in Thunder Bay or Green Gables in Prince Edward Island were meticulously pre-planned. But a few scenes, said Filippone, show "people at play," - kayakers negotiating the crests of the Reversing Falls in Saint John, N.B., - things the film crew caught sight of while in the air.
Flying to Sable Island to shoot the wild ponies was one of the challenges of the cross-country trip. "If anybody knew what it takes to get to that place," he said, of the island almost 300 km off the coast of Nova Scotia. "You've got nothing but water around you, so you better be on course."
Filippone also worked on Over Beautiful British Columbia, an earlier film by Over Canada Productions Inc., a division of the Jim Pattison Group. Over Canada is available in video stores for renting or purchase. But to really appreciate the majesty of this land, go see it at the Science World Theatre.
