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June 30, 2011

The Journey Begins, Twenty Years Later!



When I was twelve, I wrote a letter to Steven Spielberg telling him how E.T. had changed my life.  (These are the things that alter the course of your existence when you’re a pre-teen.)   


I sat at my Gramma’s dining room table, nervously gnashing away at a grilled cheese sandwich and thinking of what to say.  (I remember the sandwich because of the greasy fingerprint of planet Earth I left on the envelope addressed to Universal Studios.)  

I was careful to clarify that the change in question had nothing to do with hoping I’d meet an alien one day, or deciding to launch my BMX bike off the edge of a cliff (though I thought about it, trust me), or even aspiring to become a secret government agent assigned to lurking through neighbourhoods on behalf of Area 51.  The change was much more down-to-earth, yet no less fantastic: simply put, E.T. had inspired me to want to make movies. 

“For the rest of my life, by the way, Mr. Spielberg.”

Direct them, star in them, score the music, guard the bathroom key – I didn’t care, just so long as I was anywhere in the rough vicinity of where movies were being made.  I’d loved films before E.T., of course, but that one triggered my first conscious realization that movies were more than just entertainment, more than just a way to whittle away the hours on a boring, rainy afternoon.  (Growing up, our black-and-white T.V. only had two hit-and-miss channels, so there wasn’t much happening on that screen.)  For the first time, I recognized the power - the adrenalin-pumping, heart-wrenching, mind-altering power – of a good story, well-told.  I recognized that good stories can rock people, indeed had been rocking people since the beginning of time, changing the way they think, the way they feel, the way they treat others, the way they choose to live their lives.   

But E.T. revealed something else to me: if I wasn’t mistaken, that bit of magic onscreen appeared to be the result of some special combination of acting, writing, directing, special effects, music and other stuff I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  (I mean, how else could you possibly get people to cry over the “death” of a mechanized puppet covered in grey rubber?)  I imagined a lot of people must have put their heads together to get a movie like that made.  And I wanted in.  Badly.

Beside my signature, I drew a picture of myself holding hands with the aforementioned extraterrestrial, and thanked Mr. Spielberg again for being so awesome.  (I believe I also P.S.’d that I’d be available for his next picture if he was scouting for a blond, blue-eyed wunderkind from Canada.)  Then I stamped it, mailed it, and thought about nothing but making movies from that day on.

In the years that followed, I bought soundtracks (LP records back then), watched Entertainment tonight (pre-satellite), did research (pre-internet), read biographies (pre-Wikipedia), eventually bought screenplays (when they became commercially available and I could afford them), and auditioned for plays, hoping to find whatever “in” I could into a business that seemed to exist in a galaxy far, far away from Port Moody.  There was no “Hollywood North” in those days.  There were no film schools in Canada - none that I knew of anyway.  I was lucky to have a family that stoked my passion, teachers that furthered my technical understanding (including a brief foray into stop-motion animation in grade five - thank you, Mr. Spring), and an unflagging hub of creative friends (Glen, Craig, Graham) with whom I wrote my first short stories and laid down original skits on our parents’ tape recorders, including classics such as “Omega” (total Star Trek rip-off) and “Booger Nuggets” (engendering nicknames that would last a lifetime). 

But how could I break into the film industry itself?

Unable to find answers and unwilling to stall, I redirected my energy toward other creative pursuits like songwriting, graphic illustration, and writing fiction which culminated in a children’s book-CD combo incorporating all three.  Then, for reasons both known and unknown to me now, I decided to chuck the whole works for a life devoted to God.  In hindsight, a yoga class and a good self-help book probably would have done the trick, providing the organizing principle I was looking for.  On the other hand, I can see now that I was also drawn to a holy life because, in the end, I simply love a good story; and, frankly, the Bible struck me as the best damn collection of stories I`d ever come across.  Eventually I’d go about telling those stories to my church members in an honest attempt to bring meaning and direction into their lives.  And eventually I would stop because it was obvious they were taking those stories a bit too literally and trying to interpret “the will of God” a little too zealously, and I really wasn’t the right person to facilitate that, at least not anymore.  During that time, I rooted and uprooted six times in towns from northern to southern Alberta.

Then James was born, the first of three, all Albertans.  (Incidentally, this province was where it all began for the Donnetts back in the early 1900s, when my great grandfather moved his family from Scotland and took up farming on the Canadian prairies.  After eventual moves to Winnipeg, Toronto and Vancouver, where I was born, a part of the Donnett clan has finally come full circle.)  Jennifer and Richard followed in relatively quick succession, and through them I would recall the letter I’d sent to Spielberg all those years ago, and my reasons for writing it.  In their artwork and stories and wide-eyed imaginings of their own possibilities, I felt twelve again.  (Not that I've ever needed that much help, let’s be honest.)  When the Lord of the Rings trilogy hit theatres and the inevitable parade of merchandise marched into stores, I told them I was buying the action figures “for them”.   When no one was looking, I’d fly two toy spaceships over my head and into my field of vision with one eye closed, replicating the opening minutes of the first Star Wars film, imagining what it must have taken to make a scene like that work so well in the prehistoric era of modern cinematic special effects.  At night, I’d become a living audiobook in their bedroom doorway, reading the Chronicles of Narnia to them and carefully logging each character in my head so as not to get the voices wrong.  Next day, I would listen to them tell me their stories and love every minute of it.

In other words, I was busy imagining, hearing, telling, editing or dramatizing a story just about every minute I spent with them.  The three of them functioned like muses, and hopefully I functioned as one to them.   In 2004, I heard about Vancouver Film School at a travelling road show (where had it been all my life?) and decided to make up for lost time.  The whole idea of finally doing what I’d dreamt about my whole life felt like a rebirth, a resurrection, a reclamation of my true self.  I don’t care how that sounds, that exactly how it felt.  This was it.

Then came a divorce, not entirely from left field, but with its accompanying stages of demolition, devastation, reconstruction, and underneath it all, of course, postponement.  Everything took a very necessary backseat to making sure the kids (and I) were alright, including that year’s hopes of film school.   It would take five years for those hopes to regain traction.

In 2006 I began working for an oil field safety company called United Safety, and found my legs again, both financially and personally.  In 2008, I met Melissa Devolin, a lady so beautiful, so smart, so positive, funny and good-hearted, I knew I didn’t stand a chance.  Two years later, we were married.  In her I found the truest and sassiest pairing of my soul - my best friend, my sounding board, my muse, mentor, and constructive critic.  I’ve never loved anyone the way I love that woman, never felt so safe with anyone, never so completely supported.  It was no surprise, then, when she asked me this past spring when I was planning on getting my ass back to film school.  As they continued to sprout, blossom, and bear the fruit of their own opinions, my kids started asking the same thing.  “How do you expect us to chase after our dreams,” they asked matter-of-factly, “if you’re not chasing after yours?”  

I think it's safe to call that a sign.   

I don’t know everything and I can be pretty dim about a lot of things, but I do know this.  When I’m 80 and looking back, I won’t be nearly as concerned about the state of my bank account as I will about the state of my hopes and dreams, and the degree to which I answered the callings of my own heart.  Failure won’t haunt me nearly as much as the knowledge of not even having tried.  That’s got to weigh pretty heavily on a person at the end of their days.  Frankly, I’m not interested. 

So, having measured the risks, planned the moves, prepared for the huge financial and lifestyle shift to come, and above all, made sure the kids will be okay with us gone for a year, Mel and I will be on our way to Vancouver at the end of this month to pick up where I left off in 2005.  To document the experience, I’ve started this blog with the hope that it will help keep me on track right through to the end, remind us why and how we did it, and possibly inspire others as they take those gutsy steps out of their comfort zones and be true to their own souls.  Nothing holier-than-thou here.  No psycho-analysis or preaching.  Just one couple taking the plunge and charting their progress as they remember what their twelve-year-old selves knew all along.  Use our experience if it helps, discard what doesn’t work for you.  Above all, enjoy! 

As for me, I’m off to make movies.  “For the rest of my life, by the way, Mr. Spielberg!”