When Jacob Bradley wakes up in the middle of an abandoned warehouse, he has no recollection of who he is or how he got there.
Finding himself in the midst of a tactical raid, he has no choice but to trust the woman who claims to be his girlfriend. He soon learns a terrorist organization is about to release a lethal virus with the antidote provided to a select few – and he was one of the only people to uncover the details.
With the clock ticking, Jacob must put the pieces of his past back together before it’s too late; humanity’s survival depends on it.
This is the premise behind High Rise Studio’s latest film Extraction Day, an action-thriller helmed by Fergus native Matthew Ninaber and shot entirely within a one-hour radius of Kitchener-Waterloo.
The whole process took approximately two years, growing and changing dramatically from what initially started as a short film to a full-length feature, and is now being picked up by major U.S. production company Millennium Films.
Ninaber said from the beginning the project was a huge risk, as producers pooled all of their resources into the movie and put other projects aside with no idea whether it would be well received.
They never expected sold-out screenings at home, let alone global distribution.
“You’re making something and you’re showing it to your friends, family and the world and seeing their response to it,” he says. “Our budget is nowhere near what Hollywood would spend on a movie, but we’ve been getting amazing feedback. Millennium picking us up is amazing … it’s been a crazy risk, but I think it’s completely paid off.”
Extraction Day for the most part follows the standard template of most action movies: catalyst, intense shoot-out, an all-is-lost moment and final termination of the bad guys. Ninaber said they didn’t want to stray too far from this model because the template works for a reason.
“There’s definitely moments in the movie that follow the Hollywood standard,” he says. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Our big thing was we wanted to sell it and have people enjoy it.”
That being said, action movie aficionados will be pleasantly surprised, as Extraction Day contains multiple twists and an unexpected ending. The audience, for the most part, only knows what Jacob knows and as he puts the pieces together, so does the viewer. Ninaber says this was intentional.
“There’s a lot of twists in the movie – in a typical action movie you’d maybe only have one or two, but we have twists going all the way to the end and only in the last 10 minutes of the movie do you actually understand everything that’s going on,” he says.
“I think good art keeps you in the dark – not in the sense that you have no idea what’s going on, but you don’t have the full grasp and you’re very curious.”
Ninaber says action films from the ‘80s inspired many aspects of Extraction Day – especially when it came to pulling off special effects on a modest budget.
“At that time, they relied on more practical effects and that’s the approach we took,” he says. “We really tried to make everything actually happen. Instead of doing digital explosions we tried to do real explosions as much as possible.”
Extraction Day also contains some pretty unique camera angles, including a number of birds-eye-view shots typical of Hollywood blockbusters. When asked how they accomplished this, Ninaber laughs.
“Pegasus – what we call our overhead crane – I just built it in Home Depot’s aisle,” he says. “I literally sat in their hardware section for three hours … it’s made out of clothes line pulleys. Hollywood would charge you hundreds of dollars for [something like] this, whereas it cost me $60 and we use it all the time; it’s a great little machine.”
Despite numerous gun and fight scenes, Ninaber said some of the most difficult to film are those that appear the simplest when watching the movie. One scene in particular takes place in a cornfield at night.
“The whole scene is actually just six feet of corn and it looks like we’re wandering through the whole field, but literally we could only light six feet,” he explained. “So to make sure it looked different, that was difficult.”
Another scene was shot in Belwood on the coldest night of the year.
“We had those hot packs that people usually put in their shoes and we took them away from everybody and wrapped them around our camera because our camera was shutting down,” he laughs.
Watching Extraction Day, Ninaber says audiences have been wowed by the fact it was shot in their hometown; they can quickly identify many of the locations, from Fergus to Waterloo to Wingham. He says the area is ripe with filmmaking potential.
“There’s just so many cool locations and I think we as a society just kind of get by and walk through life and don’t take the time to take new experiences in,” he reflects. “I’m always trying to take things in with fresh eyes.”
Though Extraction Day utilizes many popular Hollywood tropes, Ninaber says he always aims to appeal to a higher sentiment or ideal in his work, and give viewers a message they can walk away with.
“It’s an action movie, but a lot of action movies these days are revenge-oriented and very negative. With this we’re trying to inspire people,” he says. “It’s a movie about purpose and where you come from and your purpose having a significance. When you live out your calling, it affects other people … It’s asking the question that we all ask: why are we here on this earth and what can we offer?”
Bolstered by the success of Extraction Day, the studio is planning to shoot two more films in the next year while also continuing to produce commercials and ad campaigns for major corporations. Needless to say, they’re going to be busy, but Ninaber couldn’t be more excited.
“Canada has had a bad name in terms of movies for a while in the sense that people say, ‘oh that looks Canadian’ – but the tide is turning,” he says.
“It’s really exciting to see what other filmmakers are doing and for us to be able to be a part of that, is super exciting and I feel honoured.”
