Residents of Bristol and the neighbouring communities had the unique opportunity to both laugh and learn about the municipality on Saturday evening, when the final filming for an episode of a nationally broadcast television show took over the Jack Graham Community Centre.
That’s because the popular reality and comedy CBC show Still Standing has been filming in Bristol over the past week, with the culmination of their learning summed up for a taping of a live show.
It was standing-room-only by the time the comedians took the stage in what would be over an hour and a half of comedy. Three of the show’s writers – Fraser Young, Graham Chittenden, and Steve Dylan – warmed the crowd up with general acts, producing lots of raucous laughter, before Still Standing’s host, Jonny Harris, took the stage.
Harris’ act consisted of material focused on Bristol and the places he visited within it. His performance appeared as if a presentation in a classroom, where he spoke of what he learned at each business that will be featured on the episode, with jokes sprinkled throughout the summaries.
For example, Harris spoke about visiting Willow Lane Alpacas and learning much about their products and the animals themselves. One thing that really stuck out to him and the writers were how the business owners could tell if an alpaca was pregnant.
“To find out if the alpaca is pregnant, what you do is you reintroduce the father,” said Harris. “If she’s pregnant, she will spit in his face.”
To follow this up, he joked about how it’s quite a way to find out they’re going to be a father.
“I thought, my God, for the male, what a way to find out you’re a father,” said Harris. “Spit in the face, that’s worse than being on Maury Povich, right?”
Although Saturday’s fun may have seemed fairly straightforward, those who were a part of the filming said the process was quite interesting and the culmination of a couple months worth of work.
Willow Lane Alpaca’s Gayle Graham explained that first, about two months ago, the researchers reached out to different businesses to see what stories they could pull out for an episode. From there, the episode’s story producer, Michael Schultz, met with the business owners and community members to film a short video on a handheld camera, to bring back to the production crew. With these videos, it was decided who would be featured on the episode.
Graham said the next step was for the crew to actually come out and film, which saw 14 people show up. They came in three parts, with an initial scouting of the lighting and taking drone footage on the first day, a second day spent in the barn, and a third day spent in the shop.
“It was certainly a lot bigger than I anticipated, you know, the number of people physically coming and going,” said Graham. “You have no idea what goes on in the background of any of these shows, so to have 14 people blend in and they all have their part, it’s like a ballet. They all do their thing. Sebastian [Cluer], the director, he’s got quite an eye because he knows exactly what kind of shot he wants and from what angle. He can see it in his head.”
All the while that the business owner is speaking to Harris, the recorded audio is relayed to the writers working away on their laptops with headphones on. The writers are quickly turning this material around on the fly, working right there to produce jokes or highlight certain aspects of the conversation to return to later.
“So while we were being interviewed in the barn, there were three writers in the store and they were listening to the interview,” said Graham. “We didn’t know it at the time, but they were listening to the interview and already starting to write some of the jokes.”
Gord Black of Logs End said the whole experience was quite professional, not to mention enjoyable. His business has been featured on different broadcasts before, including National Geographic and Discovery Channel, but Black spoke highly of Still Standing’s crew and the host himself.
“They worked well together, were very polite, very professional and just caring,” said Black.
Black was impressed by Harris’ interest in the business and community, as well as their curiosity and organization. After all, it was this attention to detail that led to the creation of multiple impressive tongue twisters on Saturday night, such as when the writers learned that Black had sold flooring to Mike Fisher and Carrie Underwood.
“I said, ‘You brought flooring to Carrie Underwood?’” said Harris, during the performance. “He said yes. I said, ‘You carry Carrie Underwood underwater wood?’”
Black was proud to say that, in turn, he was able to astound Harris, too. When talk got to where the host grew up, Harris tried to pass it off as just another small town in Newfoundland.
Pressed by Black, he fessed up to growing up in the town of Pouch Cove.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I spent 10 days at Pouch Cove,’” said Black. “He almost fell off the chair. He said, ‘I’ve been in Toronto now for [a few] years, I’ve never met anybody who knew where Pouch Cove was.’”
Both Graham and Black spoke highly of their experience with the show and were just as impressed with Saturday night’s fun at the community centre.
As well as these two businesses, Coronation Hall, Ski Pontiac, Timberland Tours, and La Paysannerie were featured in the comedy show.
Still Standing is a CBC show that explores once-thriving communities across the nation to see how they’ve changed over the decades. It focuses on areas that continue to reinvent their financial prospects, exploring how they’ve come to do so.
A bonus for the towns featured on the series is usually increased tourism, as both Black and Graham shared.
Black was impressed by Harris’ interest for agri-tourism in the area, which would encourage guests to visit and explore the agricultural side of the region. Graham said that speaking to the crew, they had become aware of people building their vacation time around visiting municipalities featured in Still Standing.
“So a season of Still Standing will be on, and then people will plan their holiday and go and visit all these places,” said Graham. “I would have never thought of that.”
The Bristol episode will be featured as the final episode of the show’s fifth season, though it remains unknown when it will air as of yet.
Story and photos by
Donald Teuma-Castelletti
