HollyNorth is a comedy web series about two aspiring actors who just moved to Vancouver and share a sublet. English is also their second language.
Anastassia Kivelä was nominated for a Leo award for her portrayal of Nora.
We met the showrunner Clive Scarff at the reception and then had the following conversation.
HNMAG: Are you originally from Vancouver?
Clive Scarff: I’m originally from Toronto but I’ve been here thirty-two years.
HNMAG: What drew you to Vancouver?
Clive Scarff: I’d bought an investment condo here. Believe it or not Vancouver used to be affordable and so was a good investment. Of course you have the Mountains and Ocean that’s attractive and theoretically nicer winters. There was also the fact that the film industry was taking off.
HNMAG: Of course one of the draws of Vancouver is that it doesn’t snow. You did address that is one of the HollyNorth episodes that it does snow at times and may actually stay for an entire week.
Clive Scarff: I always have an issue with Vancouverites who complain about the snow here. ”Oh my god, I wish the snow would go away. You don’t have to shovel rain.” It’s going to be here for two days. It’s as pretty as can be, shut up!
HNMAG: Were you working in film and television when you moved to Vancouver?
Clive Scarff: Initially I was but then by pure chance I became a golf pro. I had been working for CTV on the Olympics. It was an incredible job. I wrote profiles of top athletes all over. I also had a part-time job at a golf club. My first friends in Vancouver were all golf pros. Then I got an opportunity to become a golf pro and had been inspired by so many of those Olympic athletes, so my ego got the better of me and I gave it a shot. I had to qualify in a tournament and eventually became a teaching pro. I became busy with that and then wrote a book about golf. That allowed me to blend my two passions. The book is called ”Hit, Down, Dammit!” It’s instructional.
HNMAG: When a player is hitting up at the ball, is that due to trying to get some lift with the ball?
Clive Scarff: Exactly, they’re trying to get under it. It’s hard to get under something that is already sitting in the grass. Then they wonder why they keep hitting the grass. On a tennis court, if the ball is on the court surface, a player will downwardly tap the ball with their racket, the ball will compress and then bounce up. Golf is like that too except on a different angle. When your club is coming down at say a forty-five degree angle, the clubhead hits the ball on the way down, the ball takes off at the reciprocal angle. If you don’t hit down, you’re screwed.
HNMAG: Your second book was “Why You Suck at Golf.”
Clive Scarff: I knew the book would sell with that title. But then it got a lot of good reviews because what I put in it actually helped people. It also spawned a movie that we made four years ago. It spoofed that book. It was pure fiction comedy. It was not golf instruction. It’s on Amazon prime in the US, UK and Australia but surprisingly not in Canada.
HNMAG: How did HollyNorth come about?
Clive Scarff: HollyNorth came out of a side gig of mine making demo reels for actors. The business is called ER for Actors. It’s the basics such as headshots and reels at affordable prices. I met a lot of emerging actors that way. That is how HollyNorth got going. The series is about two emerging immigrant actors who moved to Vancouver because of the industry. They also both come from other countries where English is not their first language. From my forty years in the industry, I’ve learned that the hardest thing to do is pitch. You can have a brilliant idea but not always does the document communicate your vision effectively. So I thought it makes sense to go ahead and make a short series that shows exactly what your show is. No guessing. We had a truly great and generous crew that made it a wonderful experience. Now we can pitch a Network or a production company.
HNMAG: Is the goal that you will get green-lit for a single-camera comedy on TV or streaming?
Clive Scarff: Exactly or if we see the three-camera sitcom come back, we could adapt it for that format. The ideal would be something in the vein of CBC’s Kim’s Convenience.
HNMAG: What else are you working on right now?
Clive Scarff: I am writing a few novels. I also have a play running downtown. It’s a unique dinner theatre experience at a restaurant in Chinatown. It’s the Shamshiri Caveman Restaurant on Keefer near Main. The play is a comedy about online dating and as the main character is often on their computer, online dating, this is revealed on monitors all over the restaurant. The audience sees everything on the big screens. It’s called ”You’ve Got Male.” The next performance is on Saturday, August 17th.
HNMAG: HollyNorth is also set in Vancouver. This is quite important and unique.
Clive Scarff: That is certainly a key and really crucial. There hasn’t been much since DaVinci’s Inquest that is set in Vancouver despite how much is made here. It’s not like it’s a hard city to show. We really feature Vancouver. It’s the third “character” in the series. On a future episode, they will go skiing on one of the local mountains. It’s on a perfect, gorgeous day outside with snow just up in the mountains.
HNMAG: Would having a prominent, beautiful Vancouver become an inspiration for other productions in the future?
Clive Scarff: I hope so. I kid you not, it’s my lifelong dream to see Canada put on the map for Film and TV. There are over two million Canadians working in the US film and TV industry but how often do you see something where a Canadian is front and centre? It’s not up to Hollywood, it’s up to us. Let’s see Vancouver as Vancouver, not Seattle. People around the world, especially since 2010, know Vancouver. If you set something here, audiences wouldn’t turn it off. It would be the opposite, they would want to see that. We have fun with that on HollyNorth. The characters choose Vancouver to make it in the film industry. They didn’t go to Hollywood. I theorize that if you put Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Gosling in a movie together set it in Canada it would be a hit and instantly the greatest Canadian movie of all time.
HNMAG: What are you happiest about with your series?
Clive Scarff: I’d say the cast and crew. Anastassia and Gleyse have been so wonderful playing Nora and Holly. They have been a huge part of this, giving HollyNorth life. They have such amazing on-screen chemistry. They get comedy. They have been fantastic through all of this. I can’t say enough about them. They are like my surrogate daughters now!
HollyNorth could be a great inspiration to other Canadian film and TV creatives. It can also be a great lesson for anyone who has a terrific script and performers but doesn’t have the resources to produce an expensive project or the connections to get a funding agency, studio or network to back your production. The internet, with all its faults, is still a place for anyone to share their work. Don’t let the financial barriers stop you. Make it and upload it. That’s my theory anyway.