Hiring Wheelchair Bound Actor ‘Marcus Ross’

In the original version of Search Dog’s Raven, the eerie story of a wilderness search dog team known as ‘Lost Raven’, the search backup liaison was a computer named ‘Jesse’. But as the production developed, it became apparent that a human character would be more compelling for the story. Many of my ideas come at night, and I awoke one morning with the desire of having a wheelchair bound backup liaison. This of course led to the casting of a wheelchair bound actor to play the wheelchair bound character.

‘Marcus Ross’ was our first choice. Suffering a spinal cord injury, from a diving accident, Marcus is a quadriplegic in real life. He had no previous acting experience, but is very empathetic and a pretty smart guy. Intuition told me he could pull it off, though you really never know until after the first day of filming. His enthusiasm also never wavered despite having to wait some time before being filmed, being bumped two days until the lights arrived from Prince George and enduring the difficulties we had securing a wheelchair friendly location.

With our dwindling production budget, such a location was never found. Fortunately, Marcus has his own ramp. So a nurse and myself managed to push him up a steep set of stairs while he gunned his powerful Quickie brand wheelchair.

Our first day of filming Marcus wasn’t perfect. Filming in a house, transformed into a group home, the set was less than ideal. There was little room for two large lights and even less to maneuver a two camera setup. Due to my hectic production schedule, and some unforeseen problems, I was functioning on about twenty minutes of sleep. Only part of the food had been prepared, plus one of the light stands had pulled out of the wall. (Never buy a cheap stud finder!) I was up until five am fixing those problems, when the headphones suddenly stopped working. I had to drive across town and back during rush hour traffic to rent or buy another pair before that day’s shooting began. Calgary’s Cine Audio loaned me what they still had available. The small Sony headset worked reasonably well for a consumer model. Caught in rush hour traffic, my car started making a sound that made me certain I would not make it back. My dog was also riding in the car. She was becoming alarmed at the drive shaft breaking sounds and started absorbing all my sleep deprived anxiety. (It turned out to be the drive shaft) Though stressed right out, the car brought us back.

For his first day on a set, Marcus did well. He knew all his lines and followed my directions.

I indulged his desire to wear a couple generic looking baseball caps, which turned out to be my mistake. Two of the caps must have had some pretty thick plastic in the brim as they significantly altered the sound quality. There was a lot of street traffic outside so we had to boom the microphones about two inches above Marc’s head. No matter how well you sound proof a set, the sound of street traffic is tough to mute. Thanks to Jay Rose, sound engineer and DV.com sound columnist our sound was excellent. He stressed that we should be using a hypercardioid shotgun mic and not just the cardioid model I’d been advised to buy. He also gave a thumbs up to the Earthwork SR30HC specs. So without Jay Rose’s advice and the Earthworks quality, traffic sounds would have ruined our sound.

After lunch, I was nearly shot and Marcus was having stomach discomfort. He did not get a good nights sleep and was likely absorbing his director’s declining energy. One of his first surgeries damaged some stomach nerves which sometimes leads to pain after eating.

I also had to monitor Marc’s voice during the last few hours. As he was the only actor on set, I was working him hard. He has a great voice, but had a tracheotomy for some time, so his voice can get a bit croaky. This usually isn’t an issue, however, something to consider when using the deadly accurate and non-flavored sound quality of the Earthworks microphones.

Scheduled a week later, Marc’s second day of shooting went extremely well. Backup liaison ‘Jesse’ lives in a sparsely furnished group home with white painted walls. Unlike our set, the character’s room overlooks downtown Calgary out one window and the mountains out another. So we were already using blue screen in some areas. This is when I changed strategies and shot Marcus on a well lit white screen. We will put his computer screens and background room shots in digitally.

We managed to shoot over thirty five script pages, 200 plus shots and on set promo shots, which is amazing for an actor’s second day of filming experience. Shots also include several lines for the ‘Lost Raven’ trailer. (This is the animated spin off of the film.) I’m reserving the right to bring him in for voice overs, but his shooting days are done.

Unlike other actors, Marcus needs a body stretch every hour or two and his voice sometimes gets a bit croaky, but overall directing him was one of my most pleasant experiences on this film. Also unlike a few of the other actors, he never complained, showed up when asked and was well prepared with his lines.