Duct Tape Forever: Steve Smith Reaches for the Handyman's Secret Weapon

by Kenn Scott

"In 1997," recalls Steve Smith with a wistful grin, "I got everybody involved with The Red Green Show together in a room and asked them to tell me what they thought the positioning of the show was. And the guy from PBS said, 'I think the positioning should be this: It's not as stupid as you think it is.'"

Smith, the headwriter, co-creator and star of The Red Green Show, shakes his head mock-ruefully and breaks into laughter when he tells this anecdote. He's obviously delighted that the PBS guy somehow finally crystallized for him the very core of Red Green's appeal. Furthermore, he knows that countless loyal TV viewers would no doubt agree with the network exec's unspoken assessment–that the show actually is a clever mix of silly slapstick, sly satire and gentle whimsy.

But what Steve Smith is not yet sure of is this: Are his loyal TV viewers loyal enough to leave their televisions and go out to the movies to see Duct Tape Forever? Or will the idea of giving wide release to a film based on a cultish low-budget TV series–one that's been bounced from three networks, mind you–wind up looking stupider than you might think it is?

The Fans Lead the Way

If the track record of Red Green viewers is anything to go by, Smith doesn't need to worry. "It wasn't my idea to be making Red Green T-shirts," Smith says. "The fans told us what they wanted. We made it and sold it. People are amazed that everything we do seems to be profitable, but it's because the market tells us first what they want. And from the second or third season of Red Green, the emails and letters came in, saying 'there's got to be a Red Green movie.'"

Some might take those notes as mere flattery, but Smith has always paid close attention to his fans–he claims that they have yet to steer him wrong. So the decision to make a motion picture was a relatively straightforward one. If a movie was what the fans were calling for, it was up to Smith to figure out how to make one.

"It took us about five years to put it together," the soft-spoken Smith says. "It's hard to get the funding, because there isn't the same international market for comedy that there is for drama. It doesn't translate well. It's culturally sensitive. Which to me is all the more reason to do it.

"Fortunately, Anne Mackenzie [of Telefilm] was a champion of this film from day one," he continues. "It probably helped that Men With Brooms was being made at the same time. We weren't the only ones with the audacity to suggest putting money into a Canadian comedy film."

Duct Tape Forever wound up with Telefilm, the CBC, the Movie Network, PBS and Movie Central (a US cable network) as investors. But even with all those production partners contributing to the kitty, the budget was still a relatively tight $3.5 million–and Smith's production company, S&S, was still taking a big risk.

"We hadn't made a film before, so not only didn't we realize we'd be doing the movie for free, but also that we'd be putting our own cash into it on top of that. That was a bit of a surprise," explains Smith with a smile. But there was at least one advantage to sinking S&S cash into this project: "We could get quite attitudinal towards someone who'd asked us to put our houses up and then tried to tell us what's funny. We'll invest in ourselves, but we're going to decide what's funny."

More than Just a Big TV Show

Despite Smith's insistence on doing things his way, he knew there were some legitimate concerns. "Everybody's biggest fear was that it would become just a big television show," he confesses. "And that would be the death of it. There's no reason for someone who's watched The Red Green Show to pay ten dollars to go see a bigger version at the movies. So it had to be a movie. It had to satisfy a higher standard."

Smith undertook some rigorous and intense measures to ensure that his first full-length feature screenplay would meet the higher standard. "I watched a lot of movies," he says with a laugh. "I really like Christmas Vacation and The Three Amigos– movies that in terms of pace and content make every effort to take you from one good scene into another good scene."

Smith eventually lets it slip that his feature-writing training was perhaps a little more rigorous than that. "I had done some studying with Robert McKee and John Truby," he admits, "and I'm familiar with story structure and the basic dramatic turning points in a movie. So I wasn't just writing a really long sketch."

Smith describes the writing hierarchy of The Red Green Show as being straight out of the 1950s. "It's the classic structure of a headwriter and a bunch of guys trying to please him. In this case, I'm the headwriter. If I don't have scripts that I like, I know that I can write one that I dislike less–in an hour. It won't necessarily be a good one, but I'll dislike it less. That's a huge safety net for me."

But when it came to writing the film, Smith knew he would need some professional guidance to help turn his sometimes loosely defined sketch personas into full-bodied movie characters.

The complete article can be found in the Spring 2002 issue of Canadian Screenwriter.