“In high school I saw a movie by Gus van Sant where Joaquin Phoenix and Nicole Kidman conspire to kill Matt Dillon’s character. It was set in a small North Eastern, North American town. It took place largely in winter. It must have resonated with me because I remember it vividly. I can see the overcast skies casting cool light over moss greens, rust reds and any number of shades of brown and grey. I remember back alleys, trees without leaves, dead grass, snow, dilapidated white-sided buildings and small, unused, wooden churches. It wasn’t really the plot of the movie that was interesting – I think Casey Affleck and Phoenix are arrested for murder and David Cronenberg makes a guest appearance as a hitman and promptly kill’s Kidman’s character – it was the setting that I was really attracted to. And what was interesting was that the movie was shot, in part, in the small town where I lived at the time. So, it wasn’t that I could just relate to the feel of the setting. I actually, literally, knew that place intimately. And maybe it transformed the way I thought about and how I looked at where I lived. It was still the place where we went about the banality of our daily routine – where we trudged through the snow to school, didn’t wake up on time, dressed badly, bickered, weren’t as good looking as movie stars, had poor posture, anxiety and shortcomings, and generally exemplified all the frailties that encompass the human condition – but it also became rich with possibility.”-Mike Bayne, October 2011