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Our Story
A Time To Drum
Feature Documentary
bluemountain entertainment
- A Time To Drum is a film about young men and women on the cusp of adulthood as they navigate the heady world of Celtic Pipe Band Drumming.
- Originally members of a North American Championship winning competitive pipe band, the College of Piping from Summerside, PEI, the kids are growing up and fanning out in different directions - one, Christopher, is playing in an elite level band in Vancouver, two have gone to a competitive band in Fredericton, some remain at the College while they complete High School.
- The North American Championships, in 2006, were an unprecedented win - the College of Piping's band at the time had few adults, consisting mostly of youth, some as young as eleven. Against all odds, the kids won in a field primarily consisting of adult bands who had practised together for years. That year, the College kids were handed a promise orchestrated by their leader, College Director Scott MacAulay, himself a world championship piper. If they won, they'd be flown the next summer to the World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland courtesy of benefactor Doug Hall. They won. They went to the Worlds and placed fourth overall, second in drumming. One year later their leader succumbed to a cancer the kids suspected he had, but to whom he had never shared the dark news of his impending passing.
- A Time to Drum picks up a season later, and follows the kids on their 2009 competitive Highland Games season. The film explores Christopher's journey in the stressful level of elite Pipe Band competition, his visit home to learn from multiple world champion solo drummers, his search for a career and the finances to travel to the Worlds with his new band.
- Back home, his old friend Sam, once labelled a drumming prodigy, is graduating High School, and the College no longer challenges him as a drummer. He has no post-secondary school or career plans - the only thing he truly knows is that he must drum in a pipe band, somewhere. Where will he go? His parents have regrets - they were actors in High School. Now they have raised four kids and their dreams have passed them by. Will they watch their son repeat their pattern, or will he pursue his drumming dream and climb to the top with an elite band?
- Will Christopher forsake a career to stay at the top? Will his piper friend, Nyall, pick up his pipes again - he hasn't played since his old mentor and friend Scott passed away. Without Scott, it seems the College is adrift...the band has lost members of its award-winning team, and the College itself has been through three replacement Executive Directors.
- Perhaps the glory days are over as the real world beckons and the kids grow up.
A Time To Drum was conceived and filmed in 2009 by Susan Rodgers, mother of the drummer Christopher, as a tribute to the fabulous heady days when her son and his friends were growing up and honing their skills as pipe band drummers and pipers. As they begin to travel down different paths, they will always remember their kilt wearing summer weekends eating traditional Scots fare and hanging out together on 'the field'. They will remember the 'glory days' of their youth, and Christopher's mother will recall the bittersweet days of traveling kids to Highland Games all summer long, knowing that the 'growing up' was happening too fast and soon all would be lost to that serene place where memories go.
A Time To Drum reminds us that there is a a time to laugh, a time to weep, a time to cry...and that time is a bittersweet thing as life passes us by in the blink of an eye.
The Impact
What We Need & What You Get
This film project is currently being placed on vimeo.com as a web series (at the beginning of this campaign a preview episode and five chapters are up) and has received $ 3000 from the PEI Council of the Arts as well as $2000 from the National Film Board's Filmmaker's Assistance Fund. These monies have gone towards a digital logo for bluemountain entertainment, a poster and DVD graphic design, teasers, and a small amount towards the editing costs, including an 800 firewire hard drive. There remains a large loan on the camera, tripod and editing package (Sony EX3 and Avid Media Composer) as well as further editing costs. It is also my dream to publish both the web series on DVD and to create a feature length film out of the footage. The money raised would go towards the existing equipment loans, as well as to a sound designer who will design the entire feature length film, and to an editor who can assist in the final edit and prepare the film for film festival theatrical release.
