Despite the warm weather, parts of Sault Ste. Marie recently looked like a winter wonderland. It was the final week of June when our camera spotted people wearing winter coats. There was a skating rink and even snow. It wasn’t a bad dream. Thankfully it was all pretend for a big Hallmark Christmas movie called “Nostalgic Christmas”.
Leif Bristow is the film’s producer. “Being a good Canadian, we’ve all suffered through a pretty long winter already. So to all the sudden start blowing snow as you can see in the background and everything else and putting out over 100 Christmas trees, it feels very surreal in the middle of June." says Bristow.
Making it look like winter in June is difficult. It takes a lot of planning as well as luck.
Bristow adds "The biggest challenge when you do something like this is identifying locations where you can put lots of snow you can do those things to hide the green and be able to limit your visual effects."
Ann Bromley is a production designer. "Trying to find backdrops that are evergreen rather than leafy. When we started prep there were no leaves on the trees. So we tried to predict when they would be leafy trees in the background." Says Bromley.
While the crew enjoys the warm weather, it can be difficult for the actors, including Trevor Donovan. "It's been pretty warm and we have to obviously sell that it's middle of the winter so we’ve got sweaters on, multiple layers, jackets. There is a lot of sweating and pretending to shiver. " says Donovan.
The crew spent three weeks filming in the area. The economic spinoff for the community is more than a million dollars. Those involved say the generosity and support from the city was overwhelming.
The Hallmark film is expected to airin mid-December.
