Answer Print Fall 2012

ANSWER PRINT FALL 2012

HARVEST

IN THIS ISSUE CSIF Board of Directors: President Melody Jacobson | Vice President David Jones | Treasurer Michelle Wong | Directors Caitlind Brown, Karla Carcamo, Sara Walde, Rolf Stengl

QUARTERLY MANIFESTO 4 MEMBER’S MISSIVES 5

STAFF Operations Director Bobbie Todd operations@csif.org Programming Director Nicola Waugh programming@csif.org Communications Director Nicola Waugh communications@csif.org

LEGEND OF A WARRIOR

SCREENWRITING TIPS 10

Production Director Yvonne Abusow production@csif.org Designed and Compiled by Dave Reynolds + Nicola Waugh Editors Erin Sneath + Nicola Waugh Cover Photo by: Sitji Chou: chou.sitji@gmail.com

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A FILMMAKER’S HARVEST

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ON THE SLATE 14

Advertising Inquiries: communications@csif.org The Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers (CSIF) is a non-profit, member-driven media arts cooperative that encourages the production and exhibition of independent film.

Suite 103-223 12 Avenue SW Calgary, AB Canada T2R 0G9 Phone: 403.205.4747 Hours: Tues-Sat, 10am – 5pm Web: csif.org

CSIF is grateful for the involvement of its members, the network of artist-run cooperatives throughout Canada and for the financial assistance of its funders: The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts, Calgary Arts Development, and from its donors, members and individuals.

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QUARTERLY MANIFESTO Harvest is this issue’s theme, mostly because it is autumn. When we think of harvest as a word, farming of course springs to mind, but what could the word mean for film? In a way, footage is harvested from the available light during a shoot. An editor harvests the good footage and turns it into the completed piece. Film festivals and distributors harvest from submissions. From those, the audience picks the films for their viewing feast. Is that stretching the metaphor? Just a bit?

In any case, some will be talking about project completion and others about the end of an era. For instance, movie theatres are being pressured into switching from 35mm film stock to digital only. Some articles are not at all influenced by the harvest theme and that’s okay too.Yes, the days are getting dimmer and shorter.Yes, the year will crawl to a close sooner than we would like, especially for those who have difficulties Christmas shopping. For some cultures, the New Year itself begins in the fall. We will move on, as we always do, to other stories and images and screenings. The days will be lighter for longer once fall has fallen. In the meantime, the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers has lighting kits for rent.

Fall has Halloween, which is incidentally the name of a film, but mainly it is also a holiday of transformation. Things change and die and the nights are longer, but no matter how the holiday originated, it is occasion enough for candy, as well as for toddlers dressed up like Angry Birds. This is the time of year where more productions begin, especially those by students. For anyone keen on learning, there are the new fall workshops, including the

already sold out Scarlet Camera workshop. We have a new Screenwriting Club, the Experimental Film Club and now the annual OneEight Challenge. An exciting season over all, fresh from the celluloid fields to you.

There are other things to love about film in autumn. Magic hour becomes longer than an hour, especially this far north. Now is the time for night scenes. The leaves add colour to any shot that is not purposefully grey scale. Best of all, there is a significantly smaller chance of hail than in summer. The Calgary International Film Festival is a popular autumn tradition and so is the continuation of Secret Cinema, imagineNATIVE’s Canadian Indigenous Shorts screening, and the release of early Oscar wannabees playing at a theatre near you.

I imagine that the farmers among you (and there is definitely some crossover between the farmer and filmie communities) are rolling your eyes right now. I am honestly not trying to make light of your field. Imitation, or the co-opting of words in this case, is the sincerest form of flattery. The second most sincere form of flattery is representation. In our Hundred Dollar Film Festival, there are always a few projects in the lineup that are shot where people grow food. The harvest is a part of who we are as human beings. That is one of film’s greatest strengths, to show each other and ourselves all the things that are important to us and to society as a whole. The least sincere form of flattery includes the word ‘but’ after any compliment.

MEMBER’S MISSIVES Built on Film

By Erin Sneath

The people who live or vacation in central Ontario’s cottage country have a special place for film lovers. In Kinmount, a village of approximately five hundred, Keith Stata screens movies at his house. This is Highland Cinemas.

Stata can seat 550 guests watching 35mm first run movies in five theatres. Not only that, the house includes a labyrinth of a museum full of historic filmmaking equipment, a remarkable collection of film projectors, and a Memory Lane hall full of memorabilia from different decades. This unique establishment is under threat this year as the studios change to digital copies only. The new digital projectors are expensive and untested for long-term use.

A cinema owned by a major corporation can afford to make the leap, and make it again if their equipment fails. For something literally home-grown, it is not so simple.

Stata has been sharing his love of the movies since he was a child. “I got my first projector when I was six,” he says. “I used to get these 8mm capsule films and show them in the woodshed and charged the kids two cents apiece.” He spent many years as a filmmaker.

“When I was a kid I wanted to be a famous movie producer,” he says. “In the sixties [...] the equipment was prohibitively expensive. [...] We did four or five films in high school and then we did some art stuff for the National Film Board. I hated art films.” He says “if I had had the ability to use digital over film it would have been a great thing because of the inexpensive nature of it. When I was doing it, we couldn’t have even synch the sound unless you had a nagra. [...] So I went off into something where I could actually make a living.”

Stata got involved in construction and put the two interests together to create his own movie theatre.

Building began in 1975 and it opened in 1979 as a 60 seat theatre. “The mortgage company

There are plenty of things to see and do over this season, both inside and outside the film community, and unlike this Quarterly Manifesto, we don’t need convoluted agricultural metaphors to enjoy and be enriched by them.

- Erin Sneath

4 Keith Stata at Highland Cinemas

had said at the time that it couldn’t look like a theatre. It didn’t. It looked like a house.”

Stata’s multiplex was complete in 2000. The tourists kept coming. “Our busiest night we had almost 1600 people,” he says. “The thing is that as we got more people we had to keep adding on. The other problem is we couldn’t have the 4 and 5 theatres right at the main door of the building just like a Galaxy, but everyone had gotten so used to the fact that it didn’t look like a theatre that first thing they said was ‘Don’t lose the ambiance.’ They liked bringing their guests. Here, they thought they were going to watch movies in a house and then they got lost.”

Each of the theatres has a different style, put together from all sorts of items. In the ancient Egyptian themed theatre, the pharaohs on the wall were originally underwear mannequins. The hall that once held a historic costume exhibit now holds a tribute to movie monsters. The life-sized models of the most iconic horror villains of motion picture history stand crowded together but the busyness of the display works in its favour. Guests notice even more on the way back than on the way in. Even the hidden treasures are impressive.

A giant projector has been sitting by the front door for years, but most guests are unaware that it contains the first reel of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Stata says “We spend the whole off-season fixing things and working on the museum.”

Recent years have been hard for Highland Cinemas. “There has certainly been a decline in attendance.” Stata says. “I think it’s because of the terribly dry summers we’re getting. If it’s raining you get 500 people. If it doesn’t rain, you know, then you’re screwed because you don’t get that extra influx. Not only that, all the illegal downloading and illegal copying and bootlegging DVDs certainly has taken its toll. [...] You make money on the candy bars and only if people show up.” They need 55,000 guests a season to stay afloat. Stata says “We used to have more [staff] than we have now but we have eight kids and my business partner.”

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As for converting to digital projection, the response from large theatre corporations has been clear. In the United States, National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO John Fithian told the independents to “Convert or die.” He may as well have said “Let them eat cake.”

Keith Stata says “They claim they gave us ten years [notice to switch over] “but the stuff started out at $150,000 when Lucas rereleased Star Wars.” As well as being cost prohibitive, Stata has learned from others that the new projectors may not be reliable. “If you get 5 years [of work out of the projectors] maybe, you’ll be lucky [...] Don’t get it right, sell it anyway. That’s the problem with digital projectors. Don’t get it right but we’re just going to sell it.” If sales are guaranteed because theatres have to buy them, they have little incentive to make them durable.

“I’m against the idea of a fundraiser. It’s a private business,” says Stata. “We have gotten a grant of 50,000 dollars but because of the amount we’re spending” the grant cannot cover all the costs. “We had some people come in and I finally said okay, you can make a donation. A number of people make donations. The money will go into a trust account until I’ve decided what I’m doing. If we decide to go ahead, we’ll use it, if not, we’ll give it back. I don’t know for sure, might change my mind but my thinking is probably if we salvage the place we’ll need at least four screens. If we don’t, we can’t sell the place but we could sell the collection and tear it down [by quite a bit] because I can’t afford the maintenance.”

Undoubtedly, most of Highland Cinema’s patrons will want to keep coming for many seasons to come. Five movie theatres and a museum in a house in the woods. There are no other places fitting that description. “The theatre is a labour of love,” Stata says. “I didn’t have to do it. We started it because we were having fun.”

LEGEND OF A WARRIOR Local Filmmaker’s Martial Arts Movie K.O. With Emotional Punch

By Norbert Many Grey Horses

Harvest to the farmer means to reap the crops, the rewards for all their hard work during the growing season. In filmmaking, harvest is reached at the end of the production shoot. Then, moving into post-production, promoting, and finally screening their finished product, involves a lot of hard work, time and effort. This issue features CSIF member Corey Lee and his film Legend of a Warrior, which had its Calgary premiere at the Plaza theatre on September 7, 2012.

In the world of make-believe movie making, the hero often overcomes great obstacles and defeats the enemy. In Legend of the Warrior, our hero confronts the not an enemy, but himself in a more realistic scenario - within his own world. In this real-life documentary, it features the amiable filmmaker on an emotional journey that engages the audience, and at times is affectingly sweet and tender.

The movie is reminiscent of martial arts hero and heroine, Daniel in The Karate Kid (1984) or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill I & II, where we are rooting for the hero on his or her journey and learning from his master, be it Mr. Miyagi or in this case Corey’s own father, Frank Lee, a martial arts expert and trainer.

Corey Lee said the response has been “overwhelmingly positive” after his movie opened at the Hot Docs film festival earlier this year in Toronto and that the National Film Board of Canada, “as a distributor decided they wanted

to do a theatrical release, which is great and pretty rare.”

Corey said the toughest part of the film shoot was that “initially the training [martial arts] was tough to shoot, to separate and turn off everything and be present. Once I did that, it was just so much easier.” One thing he hated doing, which didn’t end up in the final cut of the film, but was of great help later on, were the diary cams. “Just talking about how this passage of shooting went,” he said. It proved a valuable insight to the laying out the structure of the film. It took approximately 4-1/2 years to finish the movie. The only issue in postproduction that arose was the 90 hours of footage shot and editing it down to a 78-minute movie. This was Corey’s first documentary film.

Why didn’t we get to see him fight? He said stepping into the ring to do an amateur fight would have taken away from the story about a dad and a kid trying to reconnect. “It was more about who is my dad, why did he make the choices he did, how does he feel about them. How does he feel about me, is he proud of me, does he give a crap about me, does he want me in his life” and stressed that those were the kinds of things that started to rise to the top and “everything else faded away and became less important.”

Corey’s childhood introduction to the film world was when he got to hang out on the set and worked as an extra with one of his dad’s fighters, when after retiring, he got into making movies. It was Corey’s love of writing stories, drawing, and painting, that led to him doing still photography in high school and led to further education studying at art college.

He mentioned that his mom has always been supportive of his choices “ to follow your heart and do what you want to do,” he said of his mother.

Mainly it was his love of stories and storytelling. “You look at every culture around the world – that’s how they passed these things on, not only life lessons but tales of generations passed.” “We all like a good story, whether it is a book or movie,” he said.

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On set of “Legend of a Warrior”

His weakness as a filmmaker would be “I am a big believer in story, so if there is no story there, then you don’t have much of a movie.

But sometimes you can get so focused on that narrative, that arc, you can be ignorant to some of the other little details that are important.” He credits having a great film crew, “You’re only good as your team, film making is collaborative. It’s hard to do it all by yourself.”

He added the rewarding part is working with people that are better than him – be it behind the camera, sound or producer and he prefers

to bring to the table what he is good at – writing and directing.

“Legend of a Warrior is about family, forgiveness, understanding, sacrifice, compassion,” said Corey. “It would totally be a different movie if my dad was a plumber. The National Film Board probably wouldn’t have given me money to make this thing, but because my dad is who he is. Right? And then also, what would you do with the animation [in the movie].

Plumbing animation is like - not as exciting as fighting animation,” he laughed heartily.

A FILMMAKER’S HARVEST A Journey in Distribution

By Signe Olynyk

With the fall season on us, ‘harvest’ is an appropriate theme for this month’s newsletter.

For a filmmaker, distribution is the equivalent of reaping a crop. But how do you ensure that you have a bountiful harvest, and not just a gathering of rotten fruit?

Distribution means many things to a filmmaker. It means finding an audience. It means sales of your project, and perhaps pre-sales to trigger financing. It means assigning the rights to exhibit your work for a fee, and getting your work into the world.

I recently wrote and produced the feature film, ‘Below Zero’, released on August 28th.

We shot it for $1.2 million, but that doesn’t mean we had that money in hand. Instead, we made ‘soft money’ deals that allowed us to raise that budget. Instead of spending money we didn’t have on a RED camera package, we arranged a trade with a Director of Photography who owned his own gear and who was 10

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also looking for his first directing credit. We also worked with others who were looking for ‘step up’ positions (ie. an Art Director became our Production Designer, a production assistant became an Assistant Director). This crew helped us out by working at reduced rates in exchange for professional credits, important to each of their careers. In turn, we were able to piece our budget together, using the value of each of these line items in our budget.

Combined with approximately $350K hard cash, a ton of favors, and hard work from everyone, it allowed us to reach our budget and get the film made.

For many reasons, we chose not to have distribution in advance. We didn’t believe, at that point, that anyone would support us, or give us the deals necessary to produce the film the way we wanted. We decided to believe in ourselves and move forward making the best decisions we could in order to get the film made and then sell it as an acquisition.

Now, you can make a low budget movie (at $1.2M, ours is still considered a low budget), and you can get distribution. Whether you want that or not is another question. If traditional distribution is your goal, there are things you will want to consider: Internationally Recognizable Cast: ‘Who is in your film’ is typically the first

question any distributor will ask you. You can sell a film without stars, but it generally makes it a tougher sell.

Great Artwork with sex appeal: Your artwork for the poster, dvd cover, onesheet, website, etc, should ‘tell a story’ in the image that is portrayed. If possible, provide an image that conveys the story of your movie.

High Production Values: If your film looks like a low budget movie, that is likely going to reflect in the deal you get from your distributor (unless there is a good story reason for it, ie found footage films). We wanted to produce what looked like a studio movie.

Thrillers & Horrors: there is a glut of horror movies out there, sure. That doesn’t mean that the audiences are going away. New material is always sought out by fans and distributors, especially work that brings something new to the genre and has an original voice.

Once ‘Below Zero’ was complete, we started the daunting task of finding a distributor.

There are more and more options, but at the time, these were the distribution options we were considering:

Producer’s Rep: This is an agent who represents you and your movie. For ‘Below Zero’, we decided to sign with a Producer’s Rep because ‘we didn’t know what we didn’t know’. As first time producers, we wanted to work with a company who had more experience and connections than we did, to help us secure the best distribution options for our film. It was an education we felt was necessary for our first film.

For us, giving 7-10% away of our sales felt like a reasonable trade because that percentage was essentially paying for lessons on how to navigate the world of distribution. Although you are able to safely ask questions and confide in your Producer’s Rep, the downside is that you never really know if they are doing exactly what they say they are doing. Everyone in this business has their own agenda and interests at stake, including you. Make sure your interests are protected by questioning everything, and weigh all advice against your own experience and the experience of your fellow filmmakers.

Sales Agents: It is easy to get excited when you start being contacted by people who want to represent

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your film, and they express their excitement and enthusiasm for your film. Be wary of this – especially if your film hasn’t even gone out into the world yet. Like many producers, our film was pursued aggressively by a number of sales agents and some of them were adamant that we were “ruining our chances of selling the film if we didn’t sign with them right away so they could pursue sales immediately at the next upcoming market.” When you are new to the distribution part of the process, that can leave you really questioning yourself and second-guessing all of your decisions. You can feel very pressured to sign because you might miss out on sales that you so desperately need.

The truth is, there is always another market coming up.

A sales agent is a middle man, and they take your film to the various distributors around the world and negotiate deals on your behalf.

It is very possible to arrange sales without a sales agent, sure. But in most cases, you will want a sales agent for your foreign sales because it is a massive, time intensive undertaking that is extremely expensive to cultivate and maintain international relationships with foreign buyers. It means travelling to foreign markets and meeting buyers from all over the world. It helps to speak multiple languages, and have buckets of money for travel expenses, conference and market fees, long distance, courier and shipping costs, etc, etc. Since most indie producers don’t have access to that kind of capital, it is my opinion that you must have a foreign sales agent if you want to achieve foreign sales.

Distributors: Distributors are companies with the means to get your film into the world. They often work with Sales Agents or Aggregators, and sell the rights they have to your film to VOD, DVD, cable, etc for a percentage.

So how do you get distribution? Or a sales agent? How do you find your audiences, and the money?

For ‘Below Zero’, we were pursuing traditional distribution. For us that meant attending the American Film Market in Santa 12

Monica, finished film in hand. We contacted companies prior to the market and requested meetings. In our email queries, we provided a link to a professionally developed trailer and poster, and made our meeting request as succinct as possible. It was essentially a written pitch to buyers requesting a meeting at AFM, highlighting our cast and their credentials, a synopsis, links to some of our film festival reviews, and our available meeting dates/times for their convenience.

We then met with those companies at the AFM, we interviewed them to see if they would be good parteners for us before expressing interest. We studied the posters and artwork for the films they represented. We listened as they pitched buyers to see how well they represented the filmmakers. We met with other producers in the hallways to seek advice and connect with other resources who could help us to advance the film. In the actual meetings with these distributors, we were prepared with our trailer on a DVD that we could show on their large screens, and we were also ready to show it on our laptops.

As a result, we had an impressive number of meetings and offers. It also allowed us to develop relationships with a great deal of companies who we will continue working with on various projects.

SCREENWRITING TIPS “Make it Sing!”

By Neil Champagne

As a writer, one only has a handful of tools at their disposal to make their work unique.

Having recently read a very dry and characterless script, I thought I would pass on a piece of wisdom that can help separate your work form every other writer using Final Draft.

Like we were taught in middle school, to “have a voice in your essay,” screenplays are not much different. As a reader of more scripts than I can count, screenplays that use description in unique ways are the ones I remember most. ‘Making it sing’ means using your voice to describe things in a visual way. Do not just describe what you want the reader to see, but describe it with flare! It also means how the

words, metaphors and similes rhythmically work together to paint the best image. For example, if someone has purchased a new vehicle, the amateur writer would describe the color, and maybe that it is driving down the street. The experienced writer will take it an extra step and use a memorable grouping of words. “The candy red car parades down the streets like a trophy wife down the aisle on her wedding day.” The more vivid you can be in a unique way the better your screenplay will be. Every writer has their own signing voice, the sooner you find yours, the quicker your screenplay will be more than just a bunch of words on a page. Below is the opening scene from Breaking Bad. Vince Gilligan is not only singing, but using economy of language, the tip we discussed last issue:

Now, all that being said, would we do it this way again? Would we sign with Sales Agents and Producer’s Reps, and pursue traditional distribution again? Not sure. Our film has just been released, so it will depend partly on how that goes. Overall, we are pleased with the foreign sales agent that we signed with, although it is still too early to tell whether their sales projections will prove accurate. For domestic, we will probably self-distribute in the future for a number of reasons. There is no longer the need to partner with distributors in the same way as we have in the past.

Audiences and the means for getting your films out there have changed significantly.

Signe Olynyk is a Calgary based Writer/ Producer info@belowzeromovie.com www.belowzeromovie.com www.pitchfest.com

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ON THE SLATE

SUPER 8 TRANSFER WORKSHOP Saturday Nov 17: 1st Session 10am-1pm and 2nd Session 2pm-5pm Cost: Members $50 Non Members $95 Enrollment is limited to 4 Participants in the A.M slot and 4 in the P.M slot.

PROGRAMMING October 16th: Secret Cinema (Halloween Edition!) @ the Old Y Common Room 7:00 pm Curated by Peter Hemminger October 18th: M:ST Performative Arts Festival copresentation @ TRUCK Gallery 7:00pm October 19th: imagineNATIVE’s Canadian Indigenous Shorts @ the Old Y Common Room 7:00pm

PRODUCING FOR TELEVISION FROM IDEA TO CONCEPT TO PROPOSAL TO FINANCING Sat Nov 24 & Sun Nov 25,10am-5pm

Instructor: Michelle Wong

Cost: Members $160 Non-members $200

Enrollment is limited to 10 Participants

EDITING FILM + VIDEO WITH FINAL CUT PRO Sat Dec 8 & Sun Dec 9 10am-5pm Cost Members $135 Non Members $180

Instructor Duane Martin Enrollment is limited to 8 Participants

November 20th: Secret Cinema @ the Old Y Common Room 7:00 pm Curated by Mike Peterson WORKSHOPS Experimenting with Film Club Every second Saturday of the month 10:00am @ CSIF office 7:00pm @ CSIF office

Screenwriting Club Every second Tuesday of the month,

2012 One Eight Challenge: Registration deadline Sept 30th INTRODUCTION TO AFTER EFFECTS WORKSHOP Saturday Oct 20 & Sunday Oct 21, 10am- 5pm Cost: $145 members, $190 non-members

Instructor: Mitch Barany Enrollment is limited to 8 participants

SHOOT A SCENE ON FILM + DIGITAL Sat Oct 13 & Sun Oct 14 10am-5pm Cost: Members $375 Non-members $420

Instructor: Philip Letourneau Enrollment is limited to 8 participants

CASTING FOR FILM Sat Oct 27 & Sunday Oct 28 10am – 5pm Cost: Members $250, Non-members $300

Instructor: Juan Delgado Enrollment is limited to 8 participants

WRITING A SHORT FILM- CONCEPT TO SCRIPT Sat Nov 3, Thurs Nov 8, Thurs Nov 22, Sat Dec 1 Saturday Classes 10am - 5pm Thursday Classes 6pm - 9pm Cost: Members $200 Non Members $245

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Instructor: Corey Lee Enrollment is limited to 8 Participants

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