Shawn Desman’s new movie ALIVE premieres tonight at 7 p.m. EST on MuchMusic. It received a big screen debut in Toronto on January 31 at its premiere, with the cast, crew, their closest friends and family and The Magazine in attendance.
Shawn Desman and Kaitlyn Leeb (Liv)
ALIVE tells the story of a small town dancer named Liv (Kaitlyn Leeb) who has dreams of being on a bigger stage than that of her community centre in Fergus. Her idol, Shawn Desman, inspires her to take a chance, so she enters his dance competition and moves to Toronto to pursue her dream. In Toronto, she realizes her journey isn’t all glitz and glam – she’ll have to find a place to live, learn new dance routines and adjust to some stiff competition, namely fellow dancer Roxy (Bree Wasylenko). Liv needs to stay focused and follow her heart to come out on top alive.
The movie sticks to its Canadian roots and uses all Canadian actors. In fact, you may recognize Bree and Izaak from SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Canada! The locations are all within Ontario and the big performance scenes were shot at MuchMusic’s The Big Jingle concert in Toronto, so look out for yourself in the crowd if you were there! The movie is also set to the soundtrack of Shawn’s new album, ‘Alive’, which comes out on February 5.
We caught up with cast members Shawn Desman, Izaak Smith, Bree Wasylenko, Kaitlyn Leeb and director RT! at the premiere to chat about the story of ALIVE and following your gut.
Making a movie centered around an album is really cool. How did that idea come up?
RT!: Shawn and I did a video two years ago called “Electric / Night Like This.” It was the biggest hit of his career and we won Best Video at the Much Music Video Awards that year. We knew we wanted to do something innovative again. When he played me this album, every song started to feel like those songs that you hear in a movie when someone is having a bad day and they start playing a song underneath. It started to feel like the most emotional parts of a movie; so I told him that and I said, “We should do a movie man!” Stuff like chasing your dreams was coming through. We could use this emotional music underneath moments of a character on a journey. He loved it and we started putting it together with Much and Universal.
Izaak Smith (Matt)
How do you relate to the story of ALIVE?
Shawn: Growing up I wanted to be a singer, but people were like “No you can’t do it, you shouldn’t do it, you shouldn’t try” and I followed my heart and my dreams and that’s what ALIVE is about.
Izaak: I’m a dancer myself and I had to make the big move to the big city and pursue my dreams. So I know a lot of what Liv’s going through. Unfortunately they weren’t looking for me to play Liv. They said I was a bit too tall and a little too guy, but they had the character Matt which is a lot like the relationship I have with my girlfriend right now where I support a loved one as they chase their dreams.
Bree: Like Liv, I am from a small town in Alberta and I made the move to big town Toronto to pursue dancing. I relate to really working hard to pursue your dreams.
RT!: I think anybody in show business, who is trying to make anything happen, can relate. It’s about chasing your dreams no matter what, just following your heart, and just going for it. That is so echoed in Shawn’s music. We’re all inspired by our idols and mentors and Shawn is a mentor in the film – he inspires somebody to go for their dreams.
What challenges did you face while filming ALIVE?
Kaitlyn: I’m not a dancer so I had to go through a full week of intense training and that gave me a huge insight to how dancers really are. It was all hip-hop so all of it was hard. I had amazing choreographers and cast members that are also dancers to help me out.
Director RT! and MuchMusic’s Liz Trinnear
The story of ALIVE is about a girl chasing her dreams. What advice would you give to people wanting to chase their own dreams?
Shawn: I always tell people to stand big – never listen to any negativity people are telling you and follow your heart. I’m a firm believer in going with my gut. I don’t usually listen to my mind, I listen to my gut.
Shawn has a song called “Dum Da Dum”, which is about the feeling you get after meeting someone and you can’t stop singing. What makes you sing “dum da dum”?
Bree: Getting to work on projects like this and getting to wake up every day and do what I love: dancing and singing.
Kaitlyn: When I finished a piece of choreography that I couldn’t get and I finally got it.
RT!: This project makes me sing “dum da dum”! It was a dream come true to do this project and make it happen. Also, my mom makes me sing “dum da dum” when she’s not yelling at me.
Thanks to the cast and crew of ALIVE! Make sure you’re watching it on MuchMusic when it premieres nationwide on February 5 at 7 p.m. EST.