Yukon who is who

Richard Lawrence

Richard Lawrence came to the Yukon in 1978 and worked as a reporter with the Yukon News. He wrote and performed comedy sketches for CBC Radio and wrote articles for Maclean's Magazine and the Globe and Mail.¹⁾ Lawrence left the Yukon in 1983 to obtain a master's degree in English and Drama. When he returned in 1989, he worked at Yukon College and Yukon Literacy Council and provided Macintosh computer sales and support.²⁾

Lawrence was one of the three co-founders of the group responsible for bringing the first internet service to Whitehorse in 1995. Richard was the first project manager. He and Rick Steele made numerous trips around the Yukon pitching the idea of internet connectivity. Richard headed up a club called NUGYT (NeXT Users Group Yukon Territory) which eventually became the YukonNet Operating Society. Richard's NeXt was set up as the mail server for the club's local network. They would dial to his computer once or twice a day to pick or send local e-mail. Richard then got an internet account with a university in Alberta and programmed his NeXt to make late-night, long-distance calls to pick up and send e-mails. It was a high cost service so the group established an internet node in the Yukon. Once the internet was up and running, Richard went on to develop the Yukon's first commercial web-hosting service, founding YukonWeb. Richard was named a Yukon “IT hero” at the Yukon IT Expo in 2002.³⁾

Richard Lawrence and Rachel Grantham have produced an impressive body of film work since 1999, the vast majority of which has been produced in the Yukon. Prior to 1999, neither one had experience in film or any training in it. Lawrence filmed the choir portion of Rachael's Voices of the Yukon and that served as their introduction to the filming business. They started an independent production company, Elsa Entertainment, the same year. Their first real film was a documentary called Lost Cabin: Jack London's home in the Klondike (2000). They worked in collaboration with Dick North, who lived in Idaho. Lawrence and Grantham were among the first to receive funding from the Yukon Filmmakers Development Fund. The money paid for their travel and the helicopter trip to get a shot of where the cabin was found.⁴⁾

After that project they shot Me, music (2002). Their next film, Snowbirth, was a classical music video short for CBC's Opening Night program. It featured the work of three local musicians and also showed Donald Watt and Gisli Balzer creating a snow sculpture nativity scene. Their breakout piece was Mother's Day (2005). It was shown at the National Screen Institute Film Exchange in Winnipeg and the Toronto Canadian Film Centre. Mother's Day was a springboard for the 15-minute smallfilm.⁵⁾

The $150,000 budget for smallfilm was funded mainly by the Canada Council for the Arts with support from the Yukon Sound and Film Commission and a local investor. It was the first Yukon 35-milimeter film and was intended for theatrical release. It was shot in Toronto and features Dolby Digital Surround and professional actors Henry Woolf and Jean Boht. Lawrence spent two years writing the script and a year in production and post-production before sending it out to festivals in 2007. Lawrence and Granthum moved to Western Shore, Nova Scotia just south of Halifax in 2007.⁶⁾ Making the film put them so far in debt that they had to sell their Whitehorse house.⁷⁾