Local filmmaker Frank Desrosiers of FD Productions looks relaxed during this interview in his office in downtown Revelstoke on Wednesday but looks can be deceptive. He’s wide awake and ready for anything. That’s not unusual. Frank’s always like that. And it’s those qualities that land him some pretty good gigs, like a two-week job handling lights, sound and the cameras for a Rugged Media documentary of the Country Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville in June. David F. Rooney photo
Revelstoke filmmaker Frank Desrosiers has worked for years to build a reputation as the kind of guy who will go anywhere and work insanely long hours on almost any project with a smile on his face. That kind of work ethic is paying off for him as he just completed a gig handling the lighting, sound and camera work for a documentary on the Country Music Awards in Nashville.
“It was an amazing experience,” he said in a recent interview. “It was definitely an eye-opener and I sometimes felt like a fish out of water. Here I was in this place where everyone wore cowboy hats and boots and I was just a French-Canadian boy with a beanie. It was a different world from Revelstoke.”
Frank said he and the rest of the production team rented “a multi-million dollar house and… interviewed people for 15 days straight. I was working 12-hour days and when we weren’t interviewing people at the house we were downtown shooting B roll. B roll is a term for the supplemental or alternate footage intercut with the main shots in an interview or documentary.
“It was the experience of a lifetime,” he said. “Will it be my last opportunity? I don’t think so. This was a real stepping stone for my career.”
Over the last several years Frank has come a long way from the day several years ago when he was almost killed in an avalanche. He recovered even though the incident broke most of the bones in his body and he still spends a lot of time each winter working in the backcountry. He knows that his professional success depends on his personal willingness to work long, hard hours to establish himself as a filmmaker and videographer.
Here are some photos from Frank’s recent gig south of the border, which he expects will be broadcast this autumn:
Despite the gruelling pace of his last job, Frank got a real kick out of Nashville, like seeing the Grand Ole Opry’s Hall of Fame. Photo courtesy of FD ProductionsNasville at night. Frank had never been here before but, despite an amazingly heavy workload, found moments to snag images everywhere he went. Photo courtesy of FD Productions“The production crew stayed in a multi-million-dollar house,” Frank said. “It was pretty amazing.” Photo courtesy of FD ProductionsThe fact that the house had a private recording studio in the basement really impressed Frank. Photo courtesy of FD ProductionsHere, Frank shoots video from a vehicle. Photo courtesy of FD ProductionsFrank was amazed at the size of the crowd that attended the Country Music Awards. “Americans really take their country music seriously,” he said. “There were thousands maybe even tens of thousands of people there.” Photo courtesy of FD ProductionsFrank shoulders some of the tools of his trade. Photo courtesy of FD ProductionsNews conferences are not a normal venue for Frank and he says he found it very interesting to see how they are conducted. Photo courtesy of FD ProductionsThis, believe it or not, is Kenny Rogers. He may not look the way he did on the cover of his famous album, The Gambler, but he is, after all, now 74 years old. Photo courtesy of FD Productions
