Carl Brooks was born in Millinocket, Maine in 1927. The youngest of eight children, his mother died when he was just five weeks old and he was raised by his neighbours.

He worked for Great Northern Paper just after the 2nd World War.

In 1964 Carl moved to Fairvale with his wife, Libby. They raised eight children there.

While Hunting Lessons was Carl's first time in front of the camera, he was a natural. Despite the fact that he was very ill during filming, Carl was determined to finish the film.

Although he didn't have the chance to see the finished project, generations of his family will.

Sadly, Carl passed away in the fall of 2004.

When Michael McDonald started thinking about casting his short film, Hunting Lessons, he didn�t have to go much further than down the street.

�The film really only has two characters. The film shows the evolution of a boy to a man over a twenty year period so I was hoping to be able to cast brothers, but the most I could manage was two out of three,� says McDonald, who acts as the film�s screenwriter, director and producer.

Two out of three came in the form of Quinten and Justin White, brothers who live just down the street from McDonald.

�One of the reasons I cast Justin and Quinten is because of a personal philosophy I have about working with kids,� says McDonald. �I think that when the children know you, they�re going to be more comfortable and take direction easier.�

Despite the fact that Justin and Quinten have known McDonald for six years, there were still some jitters on the set.

�I didn�t have any idea of what it was going to be like,� says Justin, 13. �I was nervous at first, but once I knew what Mike wanted me to do it was okay.�

Justin�s little brother, Quinten, 8, agreed that nerves did play a part but �once we figured out who everyone was, it was better.�

Their parts didn�t require many speaking lines, but the boys did have to carry ducks and chickens.

�That was the hardest job,� laughs Quinten, �carrying the duck was heavy.�

Although the boys weren�t required to say more than a handful of lines each, McDonald was still looking for each of them to deliver a performance.

�I wanted them to be able to show the audience the evolution of their growing up,� says McDonald. �Even though they didn�t have very much to say, their body language spoke volumes and that was really important.�

Sometimes it required more than one take to get it right, but no one seemed to mind.

�I�ve been in the film business for several years and I understand that sometimes there�s a lot of �stand around and wait,� which is not always easy for energetic kids. So when it came time for them to do a scene, I would walk them down the road and try to bring them to the time period and the place I wanted them to be.�

When the camera wasn�t rolling, McDonald threw a few baseballs with the boys and their third brother, Andrew, who acted as assistant to the prop�s master.

Trying to get the boys to reflect on their experience isn�t so easy. Quinten, the comedian, says he did it for the money. Justin says it was exciting to be in a movie. And at the end of a boisterous water balloon fight on the street, when McDonald suggested that Quinten pick up the spent balloons, his reply was: �I don�t pick up balloons; I�m a movie star now.�

Hunting Lessons also features Steven Doiron and Carl Brooks Sr. McDonald hopes to have the film ready for film festivals in 2005.

Born on December 19, 1979 in the outskirts (sticks) of Saint John, New Brunswick, Steven Doiron has always shown an interest in activities which were not-so-common with his peers. Although much of his early years were spent playing ball hockey and building camps in the woods, he also began acting in church plays and musicals at a young age. This performing interest led him to gain early employment as first a puppeteer, then later as a magician.

Interest in filmmaking did not arise until the early high school years, when he purchased his first camcorder. The majority of the summer that year would be spent running around the city, shooting short movies directly onto his camcorder, then enjoying with friends. �Hunting Lessons� was the first actual set Steven has worked on where he acted as a general production assistant, shot a making of featurette for the cast and crew members, and had a short, non-speaking role in the film. Since then, he has taken the role of production assistant, and continuity photographer in two other films, as well as completed his second short film.