In 2016, when Warner Bros. first came to Port Hope to begin filming Stephen King’s horror classic IT (now called IT Chapter One), Queenies Bake Shop (16 Walton St., Port Hope) was there. When that first film was screened at the town’s historic Capitol Theatre, Queenies was there. When the cast and crew returned to film the sequel last year, one of Port Hope’s favourite little bake shops was once again there to support filming.

Naturally, when the opportunity presented itself to host a screening party of IT Chapter 2 that could accommodate a large number of local people, Queenies owner Adam Pearson once again put himself behind the project.

With a goal to provide a special experience for as many movie-goers as possible, and to raise money for Northumberland Fare Share Food Bank, Pearson engaged the help of a few local artists and volunteers to create a large-scale art project for the screening at Cobourg’s Rainbow Cinemas on Thursday, September 5th.

“I wanted to make the event special for everyone who purchased a ticket in support of a great cause,” Pearson says. “I’ve been involved with the production in many ways since the beginning, and was very excited to be able to offer this experience to so many members of my community. The reaction to the instalment art project has been fantastic. It’s very cool to see the joy it has brought to local fans.”

While the Rainbow Cinemas screening was working on raising funds for the local food bank, some very impressive numbers were released by the Motion Picture Association of Canada — numbers detailing the overall economic impact to the region and the province of Ontario that both the original film (and now its sequel) have had.

“The data released today demonstrates the significant boost a single production like It Chapter Two can deliver for the provincial economy, and for communities where filming takes place,” says Wendy Noss of the Motion Picture Association – Canada.

“The film and television industry is a substantial part of Ontario’s economy, creating local job opportunities in a variety of creative and technical roles on-screen and behind-the-scenes.”

Warner Bros. spent more than $56.4 million in the province of Ontario during filming — including a staggering $1.4 million on food and bakery goods, something Queenies Bake Shop truly appreciates.

“Serving the cast, crew, and production team during the filming of both movies was my pleasure,” Pearson says. “Anyone associated with Warner Bros. or any filming initiative in Port Hope is always welcome at Queenies Bake Shop.”

“We definitely benefited from having such a large group of people looking for local food while filming, and we 100 per cent welcome this type of business to frequent our establishment while staying in the area.”

For both IT films, Port Hope was transformed into King’s fictional Derry, Maine. Local extras were hired as part of the 1,800 Ontarians who can be seen in the background of both films. Extras such as Halle and her brother Lucas, who attended the opening night at Rainbow Cinemas with their dad Zak, were hoping to catch a glimpse of themselves on screen.

“I could see myself in the background so that was probably my favourite part,” Halle says. “But it’s so weird seeing yourself on the big screen like that!”

Adam Pearson and Queenies Bake Shop were also seen on screen in the film. Pearson, sporting a pair of sunglasses, can be seen as he is shoved out of the way by X-Men actor James McAvoy as he rushes into the film’s funhouse during a scene in the latter half of the film.

“It was a lot of fun to participate in the filming … I can now say that I’ve been shoved by James McAvoy,” Pearson jokes.

Part of the screening included an installation art project at Rainbow Cinemas. A collaborative piece completed by three local artists, Pearson himself, and a few additional volunteers and contributors, the installation will remain in place until the end of the day on Saturday, September 7th. It is a reproduction of that same funhouse entrance that can be seen in Pearson’s on-screen moment.

Lee Higginson, founder of Fluke Craft, was the first artist to sign on to the project and was instrumental in the design process.

“I absolutely loved seeing people react to the art installation,” Higginson says. “It’s an artist’s dream to have people engage so actively with something you’ve been a part of creating. Large-scale projects are the best. It’s so hard to manage something of this scale on your own, both in cost and size. Working with other artists on this was fun and inspiring. I hope we can collaborate again on something like this, and credit to Adam for making it a reality.”

Among the many fans who attended the screening, some chose to dress up in honour of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, including Melindah Knott and Laurie Stata.

“We’re long-time friends, we both love Halloween, and we had the outfits so we thought, ‘Let’s just do it, let’s do it up right’,” Melindah says. “Laurie won our tickets and she picked me to go with her.”

Natalie Fisher also dressed up for the occasion with a Pennywise clown costume of her own. The 11-year-old is a big fan and attended the film with her parents. Her favourite Port Hope parts of the movie were the Memorial Park scenes with the giant Paul Bunyan statute.

IT Chapter Two showcases Port Hope in a way that no other film (perhaps other than its own predecessor) has done to date.

“It was really nice to see so much Port Hope in the movie, more than the first one,” says moviegoer Chantelle Sturgess. “I loved it — bigger, better, stronger!”

The sequel includes a lot of establishing shots in Port Hope and a plethora of recognizable landmarks, including the town’s City Hall building (a stand-in for the Derry library), the Memorial Park bandstand, and the Ganaraska River.

“Once again our community shone as the back drop to the sleepy little fictional town of Derry, Maine,” says Port Hope Mayor Bill Sanderson. “We are excited by the prospect that millions of viewers will get to experience the beauty of our incredible little corner of Canada.”

“Many of our residents and business owners were fully engaged in the filming process; as spectators of the outdoor scenes in Memorial Park and along our downtown streets, welcoming the cast and crew into their businesses every day, and starring as extras in the film itself. The production of It Chapter Two was the biggest that Port Hope has hosted to date and it was truly a thrill to be part of the action.”

A second special screening is slotted for Friday evening (September 6) at the Capitol Theatre — yet another Port Hope landmark with a lot of screen time in the franchise’s second instalment. Tickets for the Capitol Theatre screening have been released to contest winners by local businesses over the past few weeks.

Attendees will get to watch the film in the very theatre they will see on screen multiple times.

Some of last night’s viewers will be seeing the movie again over the weekend, either at the Capitol or at the Port Hope Drive-In where a double feature of both IT Chapter One and IT Chapter Two will be screened.

VIDEO: “IT Chapter Two” Trailer

Lilly Sawyer attended last night’s screening with her mom Jennifer Brooks. At just 10 years old, Lilly says she wasn’t scared at all.

During filming, she met Saturday Night Live alumni Bill Heder (who plays the adult Richie, portrayed as a youth by Finn Wolfhard in the first movie), and has been a big fan of the movie since the first instalment was released.

“I recognized downtown Port Hope and the ending was my favourite part … Beverly and Richie are my favourite members of the Losers Club — because he’s funny and I got to meet Richie!” says Lilly, before turning to her mother to say, “I want to see it again!”

Due to provincial funding cuts, the City of Peterborough plans to get out of the business of directly operating child care spaces by June 2020.

The city currently directly operates 88 spaces at Pearson Day Care Centre (201 McDonnel St., Peterborough) and Peterborough Childcare Centre (127 Aylmer St. S., Peterborough) along with 209 before and after school program spaces at Edmison Heights and Westmount public schools.

The proposed closure of the two directly operated child care centres and the school programs would eliminate 30 city staff positions as well as some additional on-call staff positions, according to a media release from the city issued on Thursday (September 5).

“Given the substantial budget pressures expected in 2020 and the province’s changes to funding for children’s services starting in 2020, we feel it’s necessary to look at restructuring how we administer children’s services to maximize the number of child care spaces while minimizing the impact on taxpayers,” says city CAO Sandra Clancy.

The city, which is also the administrator of children’s services for Peterborough County, estimates provincial funding for its operation of children’s services will be reduced by $425,000 in 2020, with further funding changes expected as the province phases in reductions over three years. The Ontario government has said it expects municipalities to find efficiencies to make up for the funding reductions.

As well as directly operating child care spaces, the city supports 3,745 licensed child care spaces, most operated by community-based child care providers.

The city says it would be “reinvesting” an unspecified portion of the money saved by closing its direct child care operations, to support fee subsidies and operating grants into community-based child care programs. The city also says it expects the total number of child care spaces in the community will ultimately remain the same or be increased.

Under the city’s proposed restructuring of children’s services, families affected by the closure of directly operated child care programs are asked to use the centralized Child Care Registry and Waitlist Site at www.onehsn.com/peterborough to help find alternative childcare.

City staff would also work with families to assist in the relocation of their children to other child care programs.

Peterborough City Council will consider the proposed plan at its general committee meeting at City Hall on Monday, September 9th. While there are no public delegations at the general committee meeting, residents would be able to speak on the issue at the regular council meeting on Monday, September 23rd.

In Terry Novak’s perfect world, there’s a film role awaiting him in a tropical locale where the heat of the sun is eclipsed only by the unforgiving hot glare of set lighting.

“They were the two coldest weeks … it was so bad,” recalls the longtime actor who, in March 2018, found himself in Barry’s Bay for the filming of The Manhattan Project, a poignant comedy-drama set to premiere Wednesday, September 11th at the Toronto Independent Film Festival.

“The pay was good, the character was good, the story was good, but I didn’t want to do it outside,” Novak explains. “I went to bed and the next morning I was still thinking about it. I thought ‘Why am I still thinking about it?'”

“I emailed my agent to submit me for this character. She emailed me back and wrote she did submit me but they gave out auditions and I didn’t get one. The last line of her email was ‘I’ll give them a nudge.’ Later that day, I got a date and time for an audition.”

Novak nailed that audition, earning the lead role in the film. And so it was off to Barry’s Bay from his oh-so-warm-and-cozy home in Peterborough.

“I had to mentally prepare but it didn’t work. Cold is cold. I went out and bought thermal everything. Unfortunately, a lot of the scenes were shot outdoors and my character was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts and, in one scene, no shoes or socks.”

But for those who subscribe to the no-pain-no-gain theory, Novak’s showdown with his nemesis has indeed brought him yet another highlight to add to his long, varied, and impressive acting resumé.

All the more impressive is the Brooklyn, New York native didn’t get into the film acting game until 2000 at age 50 when, five years after his broadcasting career came to a premature end and he was “floundering,” he enlisted the services of an agent.

“I started off life as a musician,” recounts Novak. “I was touring with a band all over the United States, from coast to coast. We got a gig at the CNE in Toronto. Our manager booked us another gig, so we weren’t wasting too much time.”

“Peterborough was that other gig, at the Ganaraska Club in the Queen’s Hotel. That’s what first brought me here.”

“The job of a musician, very much like that of an actor, is not a steady job. You work and you don’t work. I was at an age where I wanted a steady income. I only knew music. I thought ‘Why don’t I try radio?’ Communications was my major in college, but I only went to college to stay out of Vietnam. As soon as I knew I wasn’t going to Vietnam, I left school. I wanted to go into radio or television, but they made me take physics — I can’t even spell physics.”

After taking a course in radio broadcasting in Toronto, Novak secured his first radio job in Cobourg. Come the late 1970s, he was in Peterborough full-time, working for CHUM Radio at what was then CKPT. Toning down his Brooklyn accent took some work and still does, says Novak, noting he had to re-do a scene for The Manhattan Project because “I delivered a line very New Yorkish.”

The acting bug bit Novak hard when he got involved with Whispers Dinner Theatre in Peterborough. Asked to audition for a show, he did just that, securing the role and setting himself on a new path.

What followed was a long local stage career that saw Novak appear in some 50 plays, several of those with the Peterborough Theatre Guild where, he says, “I learned my chops.”

“It was like an addiction,” Novak says. “I was acting more and more and more. I loved it for the same reason I loved being Bob Bevenah (his character in The Manhattan Project). I got to be other people. I got to step out of my own skin into the skin of others. That was the fun for me and still is — taking the character off the page and making it my own.”

Novak certainly did that in portraying the small-town cocktail lover Bevenah in The Manhattan Project — the Manhattan reference a nod to his character’s preferred whisky-based drink.

“Fifteen years before, he (Bevenah) watched his beloved wife die of cancer,” Novak says of the film’s plot. “He watched her suffer through all the so-called treatments, the radiation and the chemo. When he’s diagnosed with stage four cancer, Bob decides he doesn’t want to go through what his wife went through. His 30-year-old son (played by Francesco Felice) is living with him — he dropped out of medical school to be with him. Bob doesn’t want to put him through what he went through, so he decides to kill himself.”

“There’s a guy who lived across the lake who broke his hip and ended up in a wheelchair,” Novak adds. “He couldn’t go out on the ice to fish. He couldn’t go downtown. He couldn’t go up stairs. So one night he wheeled himself out onto the lake ice wearing almost nothing and with a bucket of booze. He drank, blacked out, and froze to death. This is what Bob wants to do.”

That would have been the end of things except Bevenah confided his plan to his best friend, asking that he keep it quiet.

“The next morning phones are ringing all over town. Everybody knows about it. So he has to deal with the town and he has to deal with his son.”

VIDEO: “The Manhattan Project” Trailer

Film locations included QHC North Hastings Hospital in Bancroft and the Arlington Hotel in Maynooth.

“The townsfolk come there to discuss the problem with Bob. On the marquee it reads ‘Friday night at 9: What to do about Bob Bevenah?’ There’s talk of screening the film in the Barry’s Bay area so they can see it. When I watch the audience (at the film festival screening), they’re not going to be as connected to the film as (Barry’s Bay residents) are.”

The film’s Toronto Independent Film Festival premiere at Toronto’s Carlton Cinema, notes Novak, is sold out.

He’s hopeful it will gain entry into subsequent film festivals, and the film’s writer and director, Matthew Campanile, also hopes to get the film on Netflix or another streaming service in the future.

“September 11th will be a pinch-me moment,” says Novak.

“I’m over the moon. I’ve seen the final edit. I love the film. The director did a terrific job. I know the film. Now I can watch the audience. Who knows? I may walk out of there disappointed … like if the guy sitting behind me doesn’t know who I am and he says ‘This sucks.'”

As for what’s next for him, Novak says there’s nothing in the works, but that’s nothing new for him.

“You never know what’s around the corner … that’s why you take every audition that you can,” he says, noting his voice-over work for various projects, which he does from the comfort of his home, keeps him busy otherwise.

“This might be my last hurrah, who knows? There are fewer roles for guys my age. This may be the biggest thing I do and so what if it is? Enjoy the ride.”

And while Peterborough has been good to him, Novak makes it clear that Peterborough is home in a geographical sense only.

“I’ve been here a long time. This is where I have a home, but home is New York City. That’s the only place I would want to move to. I’ve had that itch since 1980 but I can’t afford to go back to New York. I own a nice house in a nice neighbourhood. I couldn’t afford that house anywhere else bigger than Peterborough.”

For more information about The Manhattan Project, visit www.manhattanproject-movie.ca. For details of Novak’s acting career, including his credits, visit terrynovak.workbooklive.com.

Scenes for the upcoming Netflix film sci-fi thriller Awake are currently being shot in Peterborough.

Production crews are working on various streets around Little Lake, including Crescent and Lock.

The cast for the film includes Gina Rodriguez (Annihilation), Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight), Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan), Finn Jones (Game of Thrones), Ariana Greenblatt (Monster Problems), Frances Fisher (Watchmen), Shamier Anderson (Destroyer), Lucius Hoyos (Heroes Reborn), and Gil Bellows (Patriot).

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Lots and lots and lots and lots of takes. Makes me wonder how many hours, and dollars, it takes for a minute clip in a movie.

A post shared by Jim Lanciault (@jim.lanciault) on Sep 3, 2019 at 10:07am PDT

Awake is set after a sudden global event wipes out all electronics and also takes away humankind’s ability to sleep.

As chaos quickly begins to consume the world, Rodriguez’s character Jill — an ex-soldier with a troubled past — may hold the key to a cure in the form of her own daughter. But she faces the prospect of saving the world before she herself loses her mind.

The film is being directed by Mark Raso (Kodachrome) based on a script by Greg Poirier, Joseph Raso, and Mark Raso.

Shooting is taking place until late September at various locations in southern Ontario, including Hamilton (where the engineering building on the McMaster University campus was transformed into a medical research facility) as well as Toronto.

The film is expected to arrive on Netflix sometime in 2020.