"White Slaves of the Nootka" film production

[Mike Cleven]

Yikes.  Kinda have to boast a bit; some of you know I'm an actor but for
those who don't that's where this is coming from; I went to an audition
for one film today at the Capilano College film department and wound up
in the same holding room for auditions for "White Slaves of the Nootka";
took a walk-in and auditioned for the part of John Thompson, the other
of Maquinna's two "guests"; the script is fictionalized and the scene I
read for has Thompson counselling Jewitt after the latter's meeting with
Maquinna, where the chief decides to get him a wife - anyone but his
daughter Youqua; there were several young natives auditioning as well as
a few in the crew/production; when one of the co-producers was delighted
I spoke the Jargon I said something and she asked her companion "did you
understand him?" he said, "yeah, no problem" (the phrase was simply
"maika ticky klootchman" adapted from the English pidgin in the
script).  During the audition proper I offered to consult on the use of
Jargon instead of the anglo-pidgin and was warmly received for it; even
if I don't get cast, I'm hoping to get a language credit on the film.
Cool, huh?

I know, I know, the Jargon was barely in use during Jewitt's sojourn at
Nootka; of course the Chinook-Nootka "proto-Jargon" seems to have been
already around; I'd venture (for the sake of the script) that Jewitt and
Thompson living in Nootka for two years was part of the formation of the
Euro-content Chinook Jargon proper; certain words like "ship", "stick",
"piah", "house" and so forth were probably very early marine fur-trade
adaptions and could be used in Jewitt-era dialogue.

Dialogues between Nootka characters will be in Nootka (Nuu-chah-nulth)
from what I saw of the script; dialogues between whites and natives
(mostly Maquinna or Youqua) seem best if rendered in the Jargon, even if
it's a bit asyncrhonistic.  The young native actors near me were dissing
the pidgin in the script a bit, so using the Jargon could help with
PC-ness maybe even if it's a-historical (or conjecturably historical,
anyway).

>From what I saw of the scripts and the audition crews, the productions I
auditioned for a were a cut above the usual student film scene; seems
they have a budget, and professional backing and technical hands-on
experience; and "White Slaves of the Nootka", if not the other two
productions today, is probably in line for federal cultural grants; so
it might be a really good shew......

MC