24 - The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday April 25, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com Artscene Oakville Beaver · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2007 Juno award surprises director By Krissie Rutherford OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Andy Keen isn't sure where he'll put his Juno award yet. It's supposed to arrive by mail in the next couple of weeks, so the Oakville Trafalgar High School graduate has some time to think about it. "I've heard the bathroom's a good place we'll have to start there," Keen told The Oakville Beaver, laughing. "I don't have a fireplace, but I guess it would make sense to put it there. "Maybe I'll just wear it around my neck to all my future meetings, just so people know." A Juno recognizing the best in Canada's music industry comes unexpected to Keen, a producer and director, who more than a decade ago established Regular Horse Productions, and has since been involved in a host of projects including commercials and music videos. "The Junos are a musicians bracket, so it was a great surprise to me," he said of the win earlier this month. "I guess that's what happens when you're working with a great musician." The great musician he's talking about is Burlington native, Sarah Harmer. In the summer of 2005, Keen followed Harmer on a tour called I Love the Escarpment. The resulting documentary, Escarpment Blues, earned him a Juno for Best Music DVD. Tonight, Keen's effort will be viewed on TV for the first time it was available earlier on DVD, but will premiere tonight on TVO for television viewers. Escarpment Blues marks the director and producer's second documentary. Seven Painters Seven Places, back in 2000, earned Keen a Gemini nomination. "That was my first long-form project," he said of the initial documentary, which followed a group of Canadian landscape painters, and was picked up by Bravo and CBC. "I didn't really set out to make documentaries. Both of these things have just been of great interest to me, so that's why AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR: For his work in directing Sarah Harmer's Escarpment Blues documentary, Andy Keen was awarded a Juno for Best Music DVD. Although previously released for sale as a DVD, the documentary will be aired on TVO tonight at 10 p.m. I pursued them." along the Niagara escarpment, telling local Keen was already a fan of Harmer's residents about her message to preserve music, and then heard the natural environment. "The film in the end is about her I Love the The tour was in support Escarpment Tour to bring really focused on Sarah of PERL (Protecting awareness to and stop the and her message and Escarpment Rural Land), destruction of the Niagara her ideas. It's a really a conservation group Escarpment, and to pre- important film and it's Harmer co-founded. serve Ontario's Greenbelt. "She just wanted to very timely, and Sarah's "Sarah is so, so passionplay little community ate about this, and it just done a lot of work halls along the way, just seemed to be something to toward making this cause to make the community me that was so important to very well known" aware of what was going record," said Keen. "If she'd on and how the escarpgone and done this and it Andy Keen, ment was slowly being hadn't been recorded, it Escarpment Blues director destroyed," Keen said. would be gone." PERL's main goal is to The two-week long I Love the prevent a mining company from expanding Escarpment Tour saw Harmer playing all their quarry by engulfing the natural area around Mount Nemo. The film captures Harmer's journey as she fights to protect the remaining fresh water supply for local inhabitants, save species like the Jefferson Salamander and butternut tree, and preserve the area's overall ecology balance. And while politicians and locals were interviewed along the way there's even a meeting with mining company executives in the film the documentary is really about one thing, Keen says. "The film in the end is really focused on Sarah and her message and her ideas. It's a really important film and it's very timely, and Sarah's done a lot of work toward making this cause very well known." To be recognized with a Juno for a DVD that furthers her cause, Keen added, makes it that much more special. "It's a really important issue, so it's crowing in more ways than one. The fact it's got a lot of attention is one thing, but it's something I'm really proud of. It's given a voice to this cause that otherwise lived in the shadows," he said. "When you bring it together with beautiful music and images, I think a lot of people are going to have their eyes opened. I think a lot of people already have." Keen says he always wanted to make documentaries, "but in the meantime I eek out a living working in television and television commercials." Since his Juno win, things have changed for Keen, who now calls Toronto home. "This (Juno) puts me in a position to make another documentary, and I'm now developing a couple of my own ideas for the first time," he said. "What you always need to make these things go is some broadcast interest, that's how these movies are made. Because we did really well with Escarpment Blues, TVO is excited about more projects. "I guess I'm now officially a documentary film maker." Escarpment Blues makes its world broadcast premiere tonight, Wednesday, April 25 at 10 p.m. on TVO's The View from Here. It will be repeated Sunday, April 29 at 10 p.m., also on TVO. YOU PUT IN 110% EVERY DAY. 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