All photos by Steve Wilkie, courtesy of CBC
except as noted
"Small town and a motel," Brunton
told him.
"What about a creek?" Smither recalls
asking. "We must want a creek running
through the town, right?"
"Yeah."
"OK. When do I start?"
Schitt's Creek, an 80-episode comedy
series created by Eugene Levy and his
son Dan, is about the Roses, a wealthy
family whose business manager stole all
their money. While regrouping, they are
forced to move to the only property they
own—the tiny town of Schitt's Creek—a
place they once bought as a joke. The
parents (Catherine O'Hara and Eugene
Levy) and their two adult children (Dan
Levy and Annie Murphy) move into two
adjacent rooms in a rundown motel and
try to readjust their lives. The sitcom,
which ran for six seasons and is now
available on Netfl ix, Amazon Prime and
Pop TV, brought a new comic force to
television: Dan Levy, who served as
showrunner for this Canadian sitcom, also
co-created, wrote, directed, produced and
starred in it.
In the beginning, Smither had no idea
what a huge success Schitt's Creek would
become. Now he says, "In the last year, I
have met 'Schittheads,' as they are called,
from Australia and Boston in Goodwood
(the Ontario town eventually chosen to
be Schitt's Creek) and at the motel, as set-
jetting becomes more popular."
During the winter of 2013-2014, Smither
started searching for locations. "I spent
a few months traveling the back roads
around the countryside outside of To-
ronto in my little black rented Fiat 500," he
says. "It was not my fi rst choice for a win-
ter, country-lane car, but we survived a lot
of kilometers and some heavy weather.
"Once the new year rolled around and I
had to take folks out to scout, I swapped
the Fiat for the Soccer Mom vehicle. I
submitted just under 30 towns for consid-
eration, and Eugene and Dan, the show's
creators and shepherds, expressed inter-
est in about six or seven. I kept trying
to steer them to towns that didn't have
a highway running through them, so we
would be able to control traffi c through-
out the day while we fi lmed there."
DEALING WITH TRAFFIC
Eventually, the team stopped in
Goodwood, a hamlet with a regional
highway running through the middle of
it and surrounded by gravel quarries.
