FILM CORNERS DRUG DRAMA

Langley Teen Finds Street-Level Role An Eye-Opener

A 30-something mental health worker and a fresh-faced Langley teen have
teamed up to put a feature-film face to Vancouver's downtroddden eastside.

Nathaniel Geary trained as a filmmaker and won awards for his 1998 short
film Keys to Kingdoms but for five years has worked with the mentally ill
and drug users at the eastside's Portland Hotel, a non-profit facility.

Dsuring that period Geary wrote the story that became the feature film On
the Corner, which finished shooting earlier this month. Geary mixed fiction
and real-life by filming partly in a building borrowed from the Portland
Hotel society. The movie is about Angel and Randy, an eastside girl and her
younger teen brother. As the sister finds a way out of addiction and off
the streets, her brother is drawn into that life.

"We wanted the movie to be as much of a benefit to the area as it could
be," says Geary, adding he hired locals to work as extras in the film and
the production made a donation to the society to use their building.

Playing the key role of the younger brother is a 16-year-old from Langley,
Simon Baker.

"He was the first guy we saw," says Geary. "He did his reading and I said
'That's Randy.' Simon is very mature and disciplined."

While Geary knew the downtown area well, that lifestyle was a revelation to
Baker, who has been acting since he was picked out from a crowd of child
extras at seven years old on the movie White Fang 2. Baker's had more than
a dozen roles since, including a recurring role on TV's North of 60 and the
award-winning U.S. independent film Smoke Signals.

"It just opened my eyes -- I live out in Langley and we don't see anything
like that," says Baker of the three-and-a-half weeks spent filming On the
Corner. He says the role's intensity and scenes of drug abuse were hard to
shake off afterwards. "Just getting down from Randy-level to Simon-level
again -- once I finished shooting, it seemed a weight was off my shoulders.
It was good just to play some PlayStation for the weekend."

Montreal's Alex Rice played Baker's sister. Baker researched the role by
spending pre-production time on the eastside with Geary. The film's
$650,000 budget was a switch from Baker's last major movie, two weeks in
Alberta on the Jackie Chan action comedy Shanghai Noon.

"They didn't know what to do with all the money on that movie," says Baker.
"Four ice cream trucks, craft services, Jackie Chan had his 30-person
entourage."

If On the Corner was a slice of grim reality, Shanghai Noon was pure teen
dream. "Jackie was doing all this crazy stuff. I thought it was a myth that
he did all his own stunts but he really does."

Now Baker is back at Grade 11 classes at Langley's D.W. Poppy secondary. He
keeps up with school work on set by spending three hours a day with a tutor.

Geary will continue working on the movie with an editor until December and
then he'll be back at his job at the Portland Hotel. The film is to be
ready for next fall's festival season.

For his part, Baker aims to finish school and wants to study filmmaking
himself at Capilano College. "I want to try directing and producing."