Cellos, crimes, capers, action!

Made-in-Hamilton heist film features stirring music by Hamiltonian cellists

Things I Do For Money actor Max Aoki busking on the streets of Hamilton on set.

Cellos, crimes, capers and heists, all on the streets of Hamilton.

A new addition to Hamilton’s homegrown film scene, heist film Things I Do For Money hit the market with a digital release in August. The film tells the story of two Japanese-Canadian brothers forced into planning an $8 million painting heist while trying to get into a prestigious conservatory as cellists.

“It’s the first Canadian genre film directed by a Japanese Canadian, starring four Japanese Canadians, ever made,” said director and executive producer Warren Sonoda.

Sonoda and co-writer Gary Nolan began their two-year filmmaking journey after Nolan saw real-life Japanese-Canadian cello players Theodor and Maximilian Aoki bring the house down years ago at Hamilton’s now-closed Delta Secondary School.

“The very first time I heard them play, it sent shivers down my spine,” Nolan said.

A couple years later, when Sonoda and Nolan were planning an indie film project, they remembered that performance and reached out to the Aoki brothers with a proposal to cast them in lead roles and feature their music. It would be their first time acting.

The brothers “blew us away” with their tenacity, Nolan said.

Sonoda and Nolan showed the brothers the script and asked them to compose a piece that would effectively carry the flow and ending of the film.

“And it does,” Nolan said. “They wrote this one piece of music that I think is going to become a cello standard in high schools, it’s really hard to play.”

They finished filming that summer in two weeks, during which the Aoki brothers composed the original score for the movie.

The pandemic disrupted the nine-cinema spring opening that Sonoda and Nolan had planned for the $160K film, forcing a complete pause during the lockdown.

Spectators wait in their cars to see Things I Do For Money at the Starlite Drive-In Theatre.

The filmmakers got their chance at an opening night with a sold-out show at the Starlite Drive-in Theatre in Stoney Creek in late July.

The two Aoki brothers have been playing together for the past five years under the stage name versacello. For the film they produced an original score called “Monument” in the summer of 2018.

“That was really a trial by fire for the whole production, because we jumped straight into composing the song,” said Theodor Aoki, 20. “We had nothing yet.”

In the film, Theodor’s character Eli struggles to master the music in time for an important performance.

“It had to be something so difficult that it would be believable that Eli wouldn’t be able to play it,” Maximilian Aoki, 22, said. “We wrote something that was so tough that we can barely play it in real life.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever played it perfectly,” Theodor said, chuckling and recounting the dozens of hours spent practicing.

“I hope that all the other cellists out in the audience, feel and recognize my pain,” he said.

Sonoda and Nolan were proactive when seeking representation of racialized communities for their film, which has a very diverse cast.

“We had written a part for a black female figure skater,” Nolan said. “We didn’t know if we could find someone like that.”

After spreading word of their search through family and friends, they eventually did; Hamiltonian figure skater Yodit Tewodoros.

Things I Do For Money Actor Yodit Tewoderos skating on set as character Laura Mickel.

“I honestly couldn’t have believed it,” Tewodoros said, recounting the time when a coach at the skating rink told her who the filmmakers were looking for.  

It was exciting to read the part of her character, a figure skater named Laura, and see the similarities to her own experience, Tewodoros said.

“I’d always been the only black figure skater,” Tewodoros, 20, said. “It was almost like it was written for me.”

In the film, Laura intensifies the drama when she decides to steal a bag of money to further her and Eli’s artistic ambitions. She also performs her own routine to the Aoki’s score, Monument.

The film is, of course, set in Hamilton and features a mostly Hamilton cast, with many first-time actors.

Hamilton is an interesting city, Sonoda said, and it’s moving from an industrialized, blue collar city to a research and medical hub.

“So, the culture’s changing there,” he said. “With it comes all these sort-of diverse families who are having to pivot as well, and that’s where we find [the Aoki] family in the film.”

Hamilton is an increasingly popular place for film productions, with the number of productions and shooting locations booked in Hamilton going up year after year. Hamilton hosted 120 productions in 2017, 135 in 2018, and 141 in 2019.

However, the pandemic arrested that trend this spring.

“Like many industries, filming was unfortunately shut down completely for several months beginning mid-March,” Kimberley Adrovez, senior project manager with the City of Hamilton’s film and creative industries team, said in an email.

“The good news is that film permitting resumed in Hamilton on July 6th and we’ve already seen a number of productions returning to Hamilton to film, with many more making preparations to return here in the fall.”

While the showing at the Starlite Drive-In made for a nice opening for cast and crew, Sonoda says a main focus for him has been the digital release, which happened on Aug. 11.

“Music is so important to the film,” Sonoda said.  “I want the audience to experience the music that these two kids wrote.”

 The film is available on iTunes, AppleTV, Bell, Cineplex, Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw, Telus and Vimeo.

“We’re really hoping people support us by renting the movie,” Sonoda said. “It matters for a movie like this because we have very small windows to actually make our money back.”