Putting Together the Oakalla Prison story

I note that the Burnaby Now has also web published the story of our Oakalla documentary film project on their website. I guess it's fair to post a hot link , for the benefit of those who live outside of the newspaper's distribution area. (Aug 29 story) I've scraped my photo from Jennifer Moreau's story. She called it "Putting together the prison puzzle".

Ron Jack displays a couple of aerial photos of the Oakalla Prison complex in Burnaby, B.C. They were among the archival images and artifacts used in his recent ten minute documentary film - OAKALLA. (News photo by Larry Wright, BURNABY NOW)

Oakalla - some helpful media coverage

Filmmaking is labour intensive but a joyful creative process. This week I began delivering courtesy copies of OAKALLA to all those who sat to interview or who provided visuals in the form of archival images and artifacts. Some of my week was devoted to research for the longer feature THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA which I hope to film during the rainy winter months, while every other camera is pointing at the 2010 Olympics.

The masthead on today's edition of the BURNABY NOW points readers to the story of the filming of the documentary short - OAKALLA.

On August 17 I was interviewed by reporter Jennifer Moreau of the BURNABY NOW, who expressed interested in the project. I told her of my need to reach men and women who were once inmates or correctional staff at the cluster of prisons which once occupied the Oakalla site. We spoke a few more times as she developed the story. It was published today on page 11 & 12, and in about a week's time I may reproduce it here in the project Blog. NOW photographer Larry Wright took me to the Oakalla site for a few shots, but there really isn't much there to see beyond the obvious beauty of Deer Lake Park. As I suspected they might, the newspaper settled for shots taken in my office with the film paused on a monitor. I'm grateful for the story and I think Ms. Morreau did a great job. She actually quoted from the interviews in the Doc and gave her readers the URL for this Blog. What more could a filmmaker ask!?

Yesterday I went out to Maple Ridge to meet with Don Waite, an accomplished photographer and researcher who has several books to his credit. Don is a retired RCMP officer, once posted to Burnaby Detachment, who had Oakalla stories to tell. He once did prisoner escort duty which nearly got him knifed, or worse. Two inmates charged with attempted murder of an Oakalla guard managed to grind and conceal steel shanks to affect an escape on the way to court. "Cop instinct" and training, saved his ass.

I am working to locate some of the oldest surviving inmates of Oakalla Prison, with the goal of doing some focused interviews. Yesterday I spoke with one of three B.C. born brothers, all of whom did time at Oakalla in the late 1950s and the 60s. He is well spoken and in retirement enjoys family genealogy and writing his memoirs. The brothers shared the experience of an unhappy childhood in foster care and poverty (he 42 placements) and a life on the street. My goal is to bring the bothers together for a joint interview on their Oakalla experiences. The difficulty is that two live in the interior of our province. Just one of many hurdles lined up in front of this project.

OAKALLA - telling a prison's story

An important milestone was reached this week in the pre-production phase of our film THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA. - I have finished editing a ten minute short entitled simply OAKALLA, which draws from interviews I conducted with former prison staff and authorities on the old penitentiary. Copies of the preview DVD will go out next week to key resource people and supporters of our project as this film will need to continue drawing from their energy and goodwill as we progress into 2010.

The initial round of interviews went very well and I am pleased to include three expert voices in this first film. Viewers get a big taste of conditions which existed at Oakalla and which often made the institution boil over. There is also an examination of the contentious relationship of a the infamous prison complex and its "long suffering" host city - Burnaby. It was essential for me to research and achieve a thorough grounding in people and events before I develop a script of depth, which must explore some of the most divisive social and political issues in British Columbia history - to set the stage for old ghosts to appear and tell their stories.

Participants in this first OAKALLA video include:

Earl Andersen was a guard at Oakalla in the 1980s and now serves as an NCO on the Vancouver police force. He was on staff during the New Year 1988 mass escape and is the author of the most complete history of Oakalla, which is entitled A HARD PLACE TO DO TIME.

Derek Corrigan was a corrections officer who later became a lawyer, by way of UBC Law School. He was a Burnaby Alderman at the time of the 1988 breakout and was an aggressive Civic spokesman on the issue of shutting Oakalla down. He is currently Mayor of Burnaby and is still the loudest voice opposing any form of Provincial Remand facility in his city.

Tom Gooden is Assistant Curator at the Burnaby Village Museum, and is an authority on Oakalla property and its surviving artifacts. The village, which is frequently used as a period set by the movie industry, is a "living history" museum on the shore of Deer Lake, adjacent to the former Oakalla prison property.

THE GHOSTS OF OAKALLA is being shot in HD video but I recently spoke to a filmmaker who dimly recalls a student project being shot about twenty years ago... she thought in VHS format. If anyone could turn that dangle into hard information, I would certainly appreciate an email. I am eager to source footage from Oakalla's entire lifespan 1912-1991, be it silent celluloid or amateur VHS tape, especially anything taken "inside".