Success came pretty early and out of the blue for Paul Spence.
He had just graduated from university and was working in Montreal as a writer, doing copy editing when an old friend called and told him to come back to Calgary.
Armed with a Canon camera, a shoestring budget and a wicked sense of humour, they created the mockumentary FUBAR that follows headbangers Terry (Dave Lawrence) and Dean (Spence).
The film premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival and quickly gained a cult following.
“Getting into a film festival like Sundance, it happened to us in our early 20s and you just kind of assume it’s going to keep happening and it just never did again,” says Spence, who created the role of Dean Murdoch.
“Who’s to say, maybe it might in the future but it really was the most unique and crazy thing that could happen to someone,” says Spence on the latest episode of Face to Face.
Released in 2002, the FUBAR universe spawned two films, a tv series, a book and a video game.
In 2019, Spence and Dave Lawrence (Terry) parted ways with Spence selling his interest in all things FUBAR. However, Spence created the Deaner character and retained ownership to it.
Spence was kicking around ideas on what to do with the character and settled on an origin story.
But Deaner ’89, is not only about how Dean Murdoch learned to shotgun a beer, develop his love for metal music or where his fanny pack came from, it’s also a story about identity.
The film uses humour to spark conversations about identity and the impact of the Canadian government’s decades-old Indigenous adoption policies.
Spence says he always understood that he had some Indigenous heritage but the full story of his families Métis history wasn’t shared with him until 2010.
His father, who grew up in northern Saskatchewan was always told by his parents that he wasn’t Indigenous.
They didn’t feel like Prince Albert was a friendly place to grow up Indigenous in the 1950s and ‘60s.
“At first, there’s an identity question of like who are you and can you call yourself that if you never were your whole life or you don’t really have a place to stay or call your own and so that was part of the question that I wanted to ask as part of the film and I sort of wove that into the story line,” says Spence.
“I’d like to think at the very least it kind of highlights that its’ not something that’s just in the past, that this is a storyline that affects people among us today including me and my father and thousands and thousands of others in Canada, too.”
Spence, whose family roots originate in Manitoba, says the Manitoba Métis Federation had reached out to him and his father to encourage them to get their citizenship cards.
Deaner ’89 was filmed in Manitoba and features some of the biggest names in Canadian comedy including Kevin McDonald (Kids in the Hall), Will Sasso (Mad TV) and Mary Walsh (This Hour has 22 Minutes).
Spence often thinks about why the Deaner character continues to resonate, more than 20 years later.
“One of the things is he’s like a nice guy, he’s simple, he’s funny. And he has this sort of doesn’t give a crap attitude,” says Spence. “People, they like the idea of living vicariously through someone else and so they see Dean up there doing things that they’d maybe not do but they used to do when they were younger or they always wanted to do but didn’t have the courage to do.
“’Oh he’s in a band, even though he sucks, he’s still playing in a band.’ Stuff like that. I can’t play an instrument or sing so I guess I’m not ever going to be in a band but for Dean it’s like don’t worry about that, just do it. And the vicarious, ridiculousness that is Dean, just saying whatever comes out of the top of his head. I think people love that stuff and everyone feels like ‘oh Dean’s my favourite uncle, or he’s like the cousin’,” says Spence who adds not a day goes by that he doesn’t feel fortunate that the character endures.
So, are there more Deaner stories to be told?
It’s a good question, says Spence, who jokes nobody is currently calling with an $80-million budget to make Alien Meets Deaner or Titanic Vs Deaner.
Deaner ’89 is still in select theatres and will begin streaming in December.
