Downtown Red Deer will stand in for small town Idaho when an indie film crew shoots a scene in City Hall Park this weekend.
The “micro-budget” movie Cor Values is being made by St. Albert’s Reyjax Media, and co-produced by Red Deer’s Dean Busch, of BubbaDog Productions.
The film crew will be in Red Deer’s City Hall Park Sunday shooting a scene that may require the Canadian flag to be lowered and temporarily replaced throughout the day.
Busch said the original script centres on a young man named Cor, who returns to his fictional hometown of Black Falls, Idaho, and stumbles across some murders he wants to solve.
The feature film, starring actor Morgan LeBlanc, is being billed with the tag line: “Home is not always how you remember it.”
Busch, a former actor who’s also worked on the production side of some major film projects while living in New Zealand, was originally asked to scout some Central Alberta locations for another proposed Reyjax project that never made it to production.
Edmonton-area filmmaker, Gilbert Allan, liked the look of Red Deer and Lacombe, however, and thought the two cities would work well as the backdrop for Cor Values instead.
Allan, with 30 years of film experience and seven previous features under his belt, “has a passion for this project,” said Busch, who believes this city historic downtown can easily pass for a smaller centre in the U.S.
Private investors are funding the production, which will be distributed by Sony Distribution to video on demand services.
“Hopefully it will eventually end up on DVD,” TV or Netflix, said Busch.
The crew, which was also on the City Hall site earlier this month, obtained a special-event permit through the City of Red Deer, and has approvals to film in and around city facilities.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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