History
In 1998, director Mike Clattenburg wrote and directed a film short titled "One Last Shot," which was shot in black and white. The film followed the exploits, in documentary style, of Ricky (Robb Wells) and Julian (John Paul Tremblay), two criminals doing what they did just about every day. In the following 1999 feature film "Trailer Park Boys," also in black and white, the character Julian states to the camera in the film that he wanted his life to be documented after receiving a telephone psychic's prediction that he would die soon. He hoped that the film would deter others from the life of crime he had chosen.
The feature film was shown at the Atlantic Film Festival in 1999, and it caught the attention of producer Barrie Dunn who saw potential for a TV series. Clattenburg and Dunn, along with Wells and Tremblay worked on a proposal for a 13-episode season of the show, and travelled to Toronto to pitch the show to The Comedy Network. After being turned down, they made a snap decision to pitch the show to Showcase before returning home to Nova Scotia.
They found that the network was receptive, and sent them back with a commitment to a first season, with the provision that a second experienced producer (which ended up being Michael Volpe) be brought on board to assist the team. The first six 30-minute episodes were then written and filmed. Some modifications were made to the characters and story line for the series, and more humour was added to the series in comparison to the film.
The biggest change from film to series was the addition of Mike Smith's "Bubbles" character, who was originally developed for the earlier short film "The Cart Boy;" a film that Smith, Wells, Tremblay, and Clattenburg worked on together in 1995. Smith's character was soon to grow from a recurring character to one of the show's primary protagonists (even though in the earlier film, "Bubbles" was the name of Smith's character's cat). Trailer Park Boys resided with Showcase for its entire seven-season run.
Read more about this topic: Trailer Park Boys
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)