The life of Canadian astronomer J.S. Plaskett, and the Canadian space explorers of today.

It all started with a visit to the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory on Saanich Mountain, near Victoria on Vancouver Island where we were filming for a history series for the Mill Bay Historical Society. The Director Emeritus, Dennis Crabtree, gave me the book “Northern Star” written by Peter Broughton, on J.S Plaskett.

Plaskett grew up on a farm in Ontario in 1870 and became a world-renowned astronomer and was responsible for building in 1918, at that time, the largest telescope in the world which is still in use today.

The story intrigued me right away and for the next month I had conversations with Peter Broughton and others about whether we could tell his story in a documentary. With CBC Science writer and author Bob McDonald, we created a trailer and started the long process of pitching and getting funding. The most frustrating part of documentary filmmaking is hearing the words, “Great story; let us know when you have it done.”

Finally, there was CHEK TV, our employee-owned station on Vancouver Island, which gave us a broadcast license. With that, we got some extra funding from the Canada Media Fund and could start the project.

This took two years … and I never gave up on the idea because it’s a great story.

So here we are: We have created a variety of short promotional videos titled “Behind the Scenes of Northern Star” leading up to the broadcast date. It will give you an idea of what it takes to create a documentary with a relatively small budget.

Thanks to the creative people who worked with me to tell the story of John Stanley Plaskett.