Rock 'n' roll Cinderella story filmed in Ont. stars Jonas Brothers
If you thought the hype for the "High School Musical" movies was huge, get set for "Camp Rock." The song-and-dance-filled Disney Channel original movie premieres Friday in Canada on Family Channel.
"High School Musical 2" drew the kind of audience rarely found these days on broadcast television, with 17.3 million American viewers tuning in to the premiere - at the time, the highest-rated basic-cable broadcast in U.S. history. Disney also raked in millions from the sale of T-shirts, posters, CDs and other related goodies.
So expectations are high for "Camp Rock," a made-in-Canada feature starring a school bus full of Disney Channel series stars as well as the hottest act in preteen pop rock, the Jonas Brothers.
All made the trek to camps Wanakita and Kilcoo in Ontario's Haliburton cottage country region last fall to shoot the musical.
"It was amazing," says Joe Jonas, who stars in "Camp Rock" as a teen idol with ego problems forced back to the summer resort by his fed-up bandmates (played by brothers Kevin and Nick).
"I loved shooting up there," Jonas, 18, said last month at the annual Disney Channel Games in Walt Disney World (airing on Family in August). "I fell in love with Toronto, you know, and then Haliburton of course."
The Jonas Brothers return to Toronto next month to kick off their "Burning Up" tour, playing at the Molson Amphitheatre on July 4. "It's an American holiday but we're going to be rockin' in Toronto," says oldest sibling Kevin Jonas, 20.
"Camp Rock," a rock 'n' roll Cinderella story, finds aspiring singer Mitchie Torres (Disney up-and-comer Demi Lovato, touted as their next Miley Cyrus) getting to attend the prestigious music camp when her working class mom lands a job there as a cook. To save face, Mitchie tells the camp cool girls her mom is a big noise in the music biz. The lie catches up with her, just as romance blooms between Mitchie and Jonas's too-cool-for-camp music dude, Shane.
Naturally, much singing and dancing ensues. The musical numbers have an '80s feel, very "Thriller"-era Michael Jackson. Some of the dialogue is pretty corny ("That is rich but apparently you're not," says one of the cool girls upon learning of Mitchie's deception), but it is hard not to get caught up in the exuberance and good spirits of the production.
Among the talented cast is Jasmine Richards who hails from Oakville, Ont., and who plays the lead in Disney Channel's "Naturally Sadie."
"It was a bonding experience, I didn't know anybody," says Richards of shooting in the relative isolation of Haliburton.
The 17-year-old, who plays Peggy, one of the camp cool girls, got her start several years ago when she auditioned for the Toronto stage production of "The Lion King." She won the part of young Nala and has worked in television ever since.
She insists there was no star-tripping in cottage country from the red hot Jonas Brothers. "They are awesome guys, such gentlemen," she says.
The cast bonded after suffering through every teen's worst nightmare at the summer camp locale - a pronounced lack of cellphone coverage.
"We built a lot more chemistry than we ever thought we would because we didn't have our cellphones to rely on," says Lovato, a Texas native who began her career as a youngster on "Barney & Friends."
"We had a couple of run-ins with raccoons and skunks but it was extremely beautiful. I know people were taking pictures just for the heck of it, it was so green."
Not everyone was charmed.
"It was horrible," says self-described city kid Roshon Fegan. The L.A.-native plays one of the camp's best dancers.
"It was just trees and raccoons and mosquitoes and chipmunks, a really new experience for me."
It got so bad, says Fegan, "I was walking around the whole camp trying to find one little bar." That is, a cellphone power bar. This is, after all, a Disney movie.
The lack of cellphone use didn't seem to bother the one group you'd think it would affect the most - the Jonas Brothers. "We played a lot of golf and kept the phones off, actually," says Joe.
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Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont. He was a guest of Family Channel while reporting from the Disney Channel Games in Walt Disney World.
News from �The Canadian Press, 2008
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