Had a great time Saturday night at the screening of The Doctor’s Case.
The brainchild of James Douglas, who toils by day at Barkerville, and Norm Coyne who, among other things, brought us Northern FanCon, The Doctor’s Case is a full-length motion picture produced by northern British Columbians and shot in B.C.
The movie based on a Stephen King short story and, as a giddy Douglas pointed out several times before the screening Saturday, the final product (it still has some fine tuning to be done) will be sent to Stephen King himself for viewing.
It’s all part of King’s Dollar Babies project where he grants the rights to some of his works to aspiring filmmakers for $1 and demands only a copy of the final product. No pressure there. Douglas applied for the rights under the Dollar Babies project and, lo and behold, got them. Now the pressure was mounting.
Coyne got involved, a Kickstarter campaign was launched, local sponsors like Brent Marshall and Kyle Bachman got involved, the Northern Film Commission through Northern BC Tourism got involved, MP Todd Doherty helped navigate some bureaucratic hoops and, and in less than a year, a full-length feature film was created.
It includes some well-known actors such as William B. Davis who played Cancer Man on the X-Files and Denise Crosby who played Lt. Tasha Yar on Star Trek – The Next Generation.
Did I mention that this is a full-length feature film, not some short film that examines the quintessential existentialism of post-modern post-truths and how they relate to non-essential post-isms.
This is a murder mystery. This is a classic Sherlock Holmes locked-room murder mystery. And, even though it is a Stephen King story, there is nothing supernatural about it, except the super, natural way the crime was almost pulled off. (With Holmes and Watson on the case, though, we knew they weren’t going to get away with it.)
The film was shot entirely in B.C. including Craigdarroch Castle and Emily Carr House in Victoria, and Barkerville Historic Town and Park and Cottonwood House Historic Site in the Cariboo.
Douglas and Coyne were like proud fathers Saturday night as they unveiled their ‘baby,’ and so they should be. They obviously have poured their heart and soul into this project over the past year and it has paid off with a finished product they can be definitely be proud of.
And they didn’t do it for the money. The catch of the Dollar Babies program is the rights are non-commercial. Dollar Babies candidates are permitted to raise money to make the film, and can show it at festivals and some non-profit venues after the fact, but any commercial rights to the product are moot – unless King likes the finished product. Then … who knows?
All I know, if you get a chance to see The Doctor’s Case, do so. You won’t be disappointed. Congratulations to everyone involved.
