War of 1812 Documentary
Anthony Grani (left) explains a scene to Scott Paterson (right) and cast for The Desert Between Us and Them documentary in Maidstone, Ont. Oct. 13. (Photo by/Hailey Trealout)
by Hailey Trealout
A documentary portraying aspects of the war of 1812 was filmed in Maidstone Oct. 13 with 17 local horses and riders.
The Desert Between Us and Them is a non-profit project that started in 2009. It is a three-part series titled Traitors, Raiders and Refugees. The weekend of Oct. 13 focused on Duncan McArthur’s raid where 700 mounted Kentucky infantry men burned and pillaged a path from Detroit all the way to what is now Brantford, Ont.
“We have a history of producing historical documentaries and we’ve been doing it since 2000. So it’s sort of something that we’re into and with the bicentennial of the war of 1812, it’s sort of the perfect opportunity,” said 29-year-old documentary producer Yvonne Drebertand. “You see a lot of media around like Queenston Heights, the big battles and the burning of York but here in the central part of Southern Ontario, we were sort of left out. We have stories here too and so we were really interested in what life was like for people who were here and how they experienced the war.”
Most of the 17 participants in the film were volunteers while others were re-enactors with no acting experience.
Gen. Duncan McArthur was played by Scott Paterson, 50, who has been doing re-enactments for 32 years and is a construction manager in Toronto. He said despite how terrifying his first time riding was the overall experience with the project has been great.
“Everything here is really accurate,” said Paterson. “Yvonne and the team have been studying this for a long time and they did a lot of community projects through the county systems where they’ve learned a lot about Canadian history as they went along. They’ve picked up on some really good kit and some really good people.”
Like Paterson, some of the actors had no experience with horses making the shots a little more difficult for some of the riders. Anthony Grani, 38, was the re-enactment director whose job was to help keep everything simple for the amateur actors. He said this segment of the project has been more about the horses than anything else.
“Having the horses in the shots made things difficult because you have to work around their schedules and it takes a long time to do things, but for me it’s a gift to be around this many horses,” said Grani. “We also shot some stuff with a small group of crazy riders in the woods riding really fast and jumping things. That was my favourite and my least favourite at the same time because as a film maker it looked amazing and I was so excited, but as a horse lover I was just terrified that somebody was going to get hurt.”
The Desert Between Us and Them will be sent to schools, museums, historic sites and libraries across Southern Ontario free of charge after being shown in premiers from Windsor to Burlington, Ont. next spring.
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