On Grief, Failure and Being Forever Uncool:

The Making of Station Wagon Vikings

Photos by Ariana Brophy

We shot in 2021, which somehow feels like it could be both over a decade or only two weeks ago. This shoot was the most fun I’ve ever had, even though it happened at a difficult time. I was working on a tv series when my grandpa passed. It wasn’t shocking news, he had been sick for a few years, but it left me aching to visit home. 

The only vacation time I had booked was to shoot this film, which was already pretty far along in its planning stages. So I changed the plan, rewrote some scenes and dragged my team homeward. We turned my grandma’s house into a studio, used my younger brothers as free child labour and resuscitated some my favourite childhood memories into set dec. 

When I was a kid, my grandparents and I used to camp and fish at this swampy little lake. By the time I returned to film here, their lean-to, fire pit and cook station had all been torn down, the spot left abandoned after a series of interpersonal dramas that would probably make a great film on their own. 

Standing at the same dock where I used to catch frogs, the air thick with wildfire smoke, I watched my brothers in their kayaks trying to drag our dinky handmade raft across the waterlilies. Nothing about this film is slick or cool or marketable or professional or perfect or vibey or any of those other stupid words so many artists and creators have to waste their brains trying to embody. 

I’ve been putting off sharing Station Wagon Vikings with the world. Not because I don’t love this movie. I love it a lot, actually. But adjudicators did not. It had no official screening and received no laurels to hang on its vimeo page. As creations become content (a word I loath with every ounce of my being) it's important to remember the love of process. The doing, not just the end product. 

Posting a film on the internet can feel a little bit like throwing a twig on a wildfire: pointless, lame and maybe even a little destructive. After dozens of rejections I’ve been waiting for the right moment to send it off into the void, the right words to accompany its debut, or some good news to brag about on social media. The best I can come up with is this gmail review from my grandma: 

“hi toots just watched your film again  i love it you are very smart but you knew that,,,,”

Station Wagon Vikings is dedicated to my grandpa, Robert Stephenson

and was made by:

Kalen Agar, Jonah Florell, Jenna Herdman, Will Hanlon, Zachary Hill, Connor Couzens, Justin Skrundz, Luke Clifton-Friend, Alexis Moar, Ariana Brophy, Elizabeth Harrison, Finn, Griffen and Ridley Gouger- Davis, and Ingrid Vargas. It also owes a great deal to the kindness and generosity of Tina Davis, Joe Jack Talcum, Araina Cross, Brigette Bennet, Katherine Benny, Colin Benny, Neil Brooks, Amanda Trimble, Mark Woodgate, Kyle Curran and of course all my friends and family who support my constantly changing process and whims.

xoxox

Kaytlyn Turner