Keith Reed flips through his photo album of film stars and stops at a photo of Kathy Bates.
Bates had been shooting a couple of scenes for Fargo. After standing in front of cameras for 12 straight hours, the dog-tired actress personally stepped up to thank the Namao locals for their assistance. Reed was impressed.
He operates the Namao Store known throughout the area as Johnny's Store, a well-lived in country general store that has the distinction of being the location set for four films and one commercial.
The first was Bordertown Café, a 1993 film about quirky characters that frequent a café on the Canadian/American border. The latest is Blackstone, a dark, compelling window into a First Nations reservation.
“It's going to wake a lot of people up. It's going to tick a lot of people off. But it's telling you what is going on on reservations today. They don't pull any punches,” says Reed, who first moved to Sturgeon County in 1967.
When locators were scouting for a stand-in reservation, Namao, with its wide-open spaces, a high school, a community hall, a church and a variety of different houses, was ideal.
While Johnny's is Namao's social centre where locals would just as soon stop in to buy gas as bottled water and a candy bar, it's generally far removed from the film world's bright lights.
However, Johnny's is on a data bank list of popular film locations valued for their community co-operation and inexpensive facilities. “I'm told that it's used because the location is so close to the city. They can put actors up at hotels in Edmonton and fly them in and out fast. And shuttle buses pick them up and drop them off for their call.”
When Blackstone was filming the 2009 pilot, Reed became the go-to guy. At one point director Ron E. Scott of Prairie Dog Film and Television wanted to roll a car. Reed suggested they use Carbondale Road that follows the river but was off the main drag.
Last year when Scott was filming a nine-episode season throughout July, no one seemed to mind the film crew taking over the town. Craig and Leeanne Carson's upscale two-storey home was borrowed as the Chief's house. “Craig and Leeanne were put up in a hotel for four days.”
The Namao United Church was turned into a holding pen for actors and was thanked with a donation. By day, the Sturgeon Composite High School parking lot was filled with caterers and by night with equipment trucks.
At Johnny's the name was changed and the outdoor mailbox covered. Several scenes were shot inside with monitors set up in the storage room and the prop girl using the office. Everyone was compensated for their troubles, says Reed.
“Not everyone has the opportunity to see how a movie is made and to see the cost they go through. It's a learning experience and you can't put a price on that.”
