“What once was a plan to unplug from our contract work and take some pseudo-vacation time to shoot scenics in the area, quickly morphed into an editorial effort about the neo bay tourism phenomenon, and became our short film ‘Keep the Lights On,'” says Jon Sturge, part owner of Cloudbreaker.

CloudBreaker offers aerial photography, videography, and inspection services, as well as commercial consulting. Their work ranges from services like surveys and mapping, to capturing footage of live events, or allowing companies to monitor remote or difficult sites. So what are they doing shooting short documentaries in the Port Rexton Area?

Well, they went looking for striking physical footage of the area, to license down the road, but what they really saw around them was a group of businesses and non-profits prospering in a symbiotic way. So they turned their cameras from Port Rexton’s seascapes and scenic areas to its placemakers and entrepreneurs.

“My father has a place out there, and over a few visits, you realize just how many beautiful landscapes you can capture in a few square kilometers,” says Sturge. “So the first instinct was to do a short video just showcasing the area in a physical sense, while banking stocks that we could license down the road.”

But when he noticed Port Rexton “seemed to be experiencing a tipping point in popularity” he felt a short doc would be more comprehensive than an aerial montage.

“Remembering how quiet the trips to the Bay would be as a younger person, it was crazy to have a night out in a place the way you can in the Trinity Bight in 2017,” he says. “In my opinion, between the landscape and the collective of enterprises, the area’s never been a more attractive place to live or visit, and the credit is due to the people who decided to dig in there and make their visions work.”

In promoting their video, Cloudbreaker argues that, for Trinity Bight, 2017 could be seen as a version of late 1960’s San Francisco. “The buzz felt new for many, but through interviewing a small handful of local residents, we learned this has been building for some time.”

He says the people behind Fishers’ Loft Inn, Port Rexton Brewing, and the English Harbour Arts Centre are not only passionate about the organizations they represent, they are pioneering an outport renaissance, and proving that, even three hours from town, if you build it, they will come.