GUELPH POLITICAST #289 - Guelph Business and the Pandemic: The Movie

At an event hosted by the Guelph Chamber of Commerce next week, a new documentary film project will be screened called Celebrating Guelph. It's a love letter to the Royal City, it’s homegrown businesses, and their perseverance in the wake of the greatest financial and societal test since the Great Depression. This week, we go behind the scenes with the director.

Hard and fast numbers about the effects of the pandemic on the local economy are still being developed, but we can see with our eyes just how much things have changed in the last 18 months. We also know the stories, media reports about how businesses have had to pivot like Danby’s production of freezers for vaccine storage, and Linamar’s manufacturing of ventilator parts.

But Celebrating Guelph isn’t just about the big companies making big swings. Think about a small clothing retailer like Sidonio’s and the Art of Denim downtown, who were sometimes open to the public a few people at a time, but with long stretches where they were closed. It’s the story of a lifetime, but the story isn’t over yet, and Alex Vander Vlugt, the post-production manager of Ward 1 Studios, has caught it all on film, and it will be revealed to the public for the first time next week.

So on this week's podcast, Vander Vlugt will talk about the logistics of shooting a documentary with all the health and safety rules, and shooting a movie with the ever changing conditions of an ongoing pandemic. He will also talk about how the various businesses featured in the film were selected, and the type of story he wanted to tell with the documentary. And finally, Vander Vlungt will talk about how Ward 1 Studios has compiled a pandemic record, and what he hopes people leave the movie with.

So let's talk about putting Guelph business on film in this week’s edition of the Guelph Politicast.

To learn more about the work of Ward 1 Studios, and to see some of their work, you can go to their website here. Enbridge Presents: Celebration Guelph will screen next Thursday, September 23, at 7 pm at the Bingemans Drive In at 425 Bingemans Centre Dr. Admission is $40 per car, and that includes movie snacks and drinks, and to learn more click here.

NOTE: You can hear interviews with all of the Federal election candidates running in Guelph every Monday on the podcast version of Open Sources Guelph, and every Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU 93.3 fm or cfru.ca!

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, and Spotify.

Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.