Ree West Magazin - March/April 2010

 CELEBRATING TWENTY-FIVE YEARS: 1985-2010  MARCH/APRIL 2010

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FILM, TELEVISION AND DIGITAL PRODUCTION IN WESTERN CANADA

Vic Sarin’s A SHINE OF RAINBOWS Q+A with Director GARRY MARSHALL Canadian Film Centre alumnus Craig David Wallace is PURE EVIL Inter-provincial Co-production DAYDREAM NATION

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CONTENTS

16 NATIONAL DREAM As the provincial governments fight for foreign-service work through tax incentives, independent film companies are working together to get Canadian movies into theatres.

The latest inter-provincial co-production, Daydream Nation, brings together producers with a collective resume that includes Away From Her, Hard Core Logo, Kitchen Party and Flower and Garnet.

20 CHASING RAINBOWS In his diary on the making of the family film A Shine of Rainbows, Vancouver-based filmmaker Vic Sarin looks back at his commitment to the people of a small Irish town, making a movie about a stormy coast when there was no rain, and the day his production manager walked away.

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PRODUCTION UPDATE

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BITS AND BYTES

10 BEGINNINGS 12 BEHIND THE SCENES 14 QUESTION AND ANSWER 15 EXPERT WITNESS 29 LEGAL BRIEFS 30 FINAL EDIT

24 REWARDS OF EVIL Seven years after he made a short film called Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, as a Canadian Film Centre student, Craig David Wallace is executive producing a Space Channel series based on his original movie of the same name.

ON THE COVER: TARA SCULLY AS NANCY, JACK GLEESON AS SEAMUS AND JOHN BELL AS TOMAS IN VIC SARIN’S A SHINE OF RAINBOWS. PHOTO COURTESY OF HENRY KERR & MARTHA MCCULLOGH ABOVE: VIC SARIN, ON LOCATION IN IRELAND. PHOTO COURTESY OF HENRY KERR & MARTHA MCCULLOGH REEL WEST MAGAZINE IS A WHOLLY OWNED ENTERPRISE OF REEL WEST PRODUCTIONS INC. IT EXISTS AND IS MANAGED TO PROVIDE PUBLICITY AND ADVERTISING THAT SUPPORTS THE GROWTH OF THE WESTERN CANADIAN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY. EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER: SANDY P. FLANAGAN EXECUTIVE EDITOR: IAN CADDELL. PUBLISHER: RON HARVEY ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: PAUL BARTLETT SALES: RANDY HOLMES. CREATIVE DIRECTOR: ANDREW VON ROSEN. ART DIRECTOR: LINDSEY ATAYA. PHOTO EDITOR: PHILLIP CHIN. REEL WEST MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED SIX TIMES PER YEAR. SUBSCRIPTIONS CANADA/US. $35.00 PER YEAR (PLUS $10.00 POSTAGE TO USA). REEL WEST DIGEST, THE DIRECTORY FOR WESTERN CANADA’S FILM, VIDEO AND TELEVISION INDUSTRY, IS PUBLISHED ANNUALLY. SUBSCRIPTION $35.00 PER YEAR (PLUS $10.00 POSTAGE TO US). BOTH PUBLICATIONS $60.00 (PLUS $10.00 POSTAGE TO USA) PRICES INCLUDE GST. COPYRIGHT 2009 REEL WEST PRODUCTIONS INC. SECOND CLASS MAIL. REGISTRATION NO. 0584002. ISSN 0831-5388.

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PRODUCTION UPDATE

What’s coming. What’s shooting. What’s wrapped.

FRINGE IS ONE OF SEVERAL TV SERIES THAT CONTINUED WITH PRODUCTION IN VANCOUVER THROUGH THE OLYMPICS

Industry rings out for Olympics The Olympics didn’t win any medals from the BC film and television industry. Although there may be long-term benefits from the promotion that comes with having a Winter Olympics in Vancouver, several productions left the city during the Olympics while others were reported to have gone elsewhere rather than face expected street closures.

However, several TV series continued on through the month of February. The list included Fringe, which is executive produced by J.J. Abrams, Joel Wyman, Jeff Pinker and Bryan Burke, produced by

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Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci and line produced by Reid Shane with Tom Yatsko and David Moxness the DOPs, Ian Thomas the production designer, Michael C. Young the production manager, Jared Howitt the production coordinator, John Alexander and Scott Walden the location managers and Bob Comer the special effects coordinator. It was scheduled to leave in late March.

Also scheduled to leave in late March was Supernatural which had Eric Kripke, Robert Singer, McG, Peter Johnson, Ben Edlund and Phil Sgriccia as executive produc-

ers, Todd Aronauer, Sera Gamble and Jim Michaels as producers, Serge Ladouceur as DOP, Jerry Wanek as production designer, Craig Matheson as production manager, Yale Kussin and Jason Fischer as production coordinators and Russ Hamiilton and Janet McCairns as location manager. Randy Shymkiw is overseeing special effects.

Here until late April are three series: Shattered, Smallville and V. Shattered has Kari Skogland, Jon Cooksey, Noreen Halpern, Hugh Beard and Debra Beard as executive producers, Ian McDougall as

producer, David Frazee as DOP, Rachel O’Toole as production designer, Charles Lyall as production manager, Carol Schafer as production coordinator, Rob Murdoch as location manager and David Barkes as special effects coordinator.

Smallville has James Marshall as executve producer, Rob Maier as producer, Kevin Fair directing, Glen Winter as DOP, James Philpott as production designer, Scott Graham as production manger, Shalia Edl as production coordinator, Dave Halifax as location manager and Michael Walls as special effects coordinator.

V has Scott Rosenbaum, Steve Pearlman and Kathy Gilroy producing with Stephen Jackson as the DOP, Eric Fraser as production designer, Dennis Swartman as the production manager, Clark Candy as the production coordinator and Phil Pacaud as the location manager. Phil Jones is overseeing the special effects.

The feature The Thing was in Vancouver briefly in March. The movie came to town for aerial shots. It is being executive produced by J. Miles Dale, David Foster and Lawrence Turman, produced by Mark Abraham and Eric Newman with Sean Haworth as production designer, Penny Gibbs as production manager, Jennifer Metcalf as production coordinator and Robin Mounsey as location manager.

Coming to Vancouver in February for a scheduled five week stay were Point Grey Secondary alumni continued on next page

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BITS AND BYTES

Whistler Peaks The town of Whistler, which had already been exposed to international viewers through a dramatic series and the Olympics, will be getting additional exposure to American audiences through Peak Season. The MTV Canada reality series is now airing on the VH1 network.

“We’re excited to share our homegrown hit show with the rest of the world through great partners VH1 in the U.S. and MTV channels worldwide,” said MTV Canada’s Brad Schwartz. “It’s a testament to the cast and our producers’ ability to capture these real life stories of young people coming of age in this remarkable town.”

Spokesperson Alison Salinas said the series offers a behind-the-scenes look into the Whistler community and follows the local residents and temporary workers as they attempt to co-exist. She said the show was created by producer Grant Fraggalsoch who shares executive producer credit with producer Andrea Fehsenfeld and Jesse Ignjaovic. The co-executive producer is Jeff Altrock while Fred Frame directs.

PEAK SEASON’S STEPH JUST

HD 3D Camcorder Unveiled Panasonic recently announced that it will release a professional, fully-integrated Full HD 3D camcorder next fall. A spokesperson, Trell Huether, said the company will begin taking orders in April.

According to Huether, movie companies and content producers are eager to produce more 3D content. As a result 3D video is set to become a mainstream motion picture technology. He said that Panasonic proposed the world’s first 3D home theatre systems in September 2009. The systems were based around 3D-enabled Bluray Disc players and Plasma TVs. “Currently, producing 3D movies is a painstaking process,”said Huether. “Panasonic intends to promote the production of high-quality 3D video content by accelerating the development of 3D video production systems designed to boost production speed and efficiency.”

Huether said that with the fully-integrated Full HD 3D camcorder Panasonic has developed the two lenses, camera head, and memory card recorder are incorporated into a single compact housing. He said that unlike large 3D camera systems, this camcorder allows video shooting with greater mobility and from all angles “significantly reducing the time required for set up and adjustments, thereby leaving more time for creative activities.”

Moving Day The National Film Board’s Pacific and Yukon Centre has a new home. The Centre’s executive producer Tracey Friesen says the NFB is pleased to have relocated to the historic Woodward’s District, joining SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and many other organizations in the neighbourhood.

“We’re just thrilled that we’ve moved in at last!” says Pacific and Yukon Centre execu-

Olympics continued from previous page

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

They are here for I’m With Cancer the story of a young man fighting the disease. It co-stars James McEvoy and recent Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air.) It has Nathan Kahane and Will Reiser as executive producers, Goldberg, Rogen and Ben Karlin as producers, Shawn Williamson as line producer, Jonathan Levine as director, Terry Stacey as the DOP, Annie Spitz as the production designer, Paul Lukaitis as the production manager, Moira Perlmutter as the production coordinator, Terry Mackay as the location manager and Jak Osmond as the special effects coordinator.

Carl Bessai’s latest feature, The Repeaters, was here for three weeks in January and told the story of three young addicts whose lives change

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during treatment. It had Melanie de Klerk as executive producer, Irene Nelson and Jason James as producers, Bessai as director and DOP with Hank Mann as the production designer, Tracey Nomura as the production manager, Adrianne Victory as the production coordinator, Mark Gamache as the location manager and Rob Paller as the special effects coordinator.

The television movie Iron Golem, based on a Dungeons and Dragons character, was here for three weeks in January and February and had Tom Berry as executive producer, John Prince producing, Paul Ziller directing, Anthony Metchie as the DOP, Bob Bottieri as the production designer, Tia Buhl as the production designer, Jim McKeown as the production coordinator, Karen Zajac as the location manager and Al Benjamin overseeing effects. ■

tive producer Tracey Friesen. “Woodward’s is an important development for the city of Vancouver and the NFB is proud to be here from day one. With so many aligned organizations, companies and people in the complex and in the local community, there is no doubt this will be a vibrant and dynamic cultural hub.”

Freisen said the Centre’s January move coincided with its 70th Anniversary, its participation in the Cultural Olympiad and new Vancouver-based productions such as Finding Farley, This Land and the animation Bones.

Awards Leave Home The ELAN Awards are going south for the summer. According to Awards founder Holly Carinci, the ELANS, which honour the best in international video games and animation, will be presented in San Diego in July. The first three ELAN awards were held in Vancouver.

“It’s been exciting, moving this show to the United States,” she said, “but it’s a big step. As it turns out, I had nothing to be concerned about. The sites, venues and production components are phenomenal. They just blew us away! I can’t wait for this show to take place because the video game industry is going to absolutely love it.”

Carinci said the awards will be held over three days (July 17 to 19) at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. She said the hotel will be the location for several of the parties taking place during the 3-day celebration including the Welcome Pool Party, the Champagne Reception and the Dinner Awards Ceremony itself. The production elements will be handled by PSAV Presentation Services.

“The staging and design of the room that Doug Evans of PSAV presented were more-than I hoped for before we arrived,” says Carinci. “There will be times when all of us will feel as though we are actually in the middle of a video game.”

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Sindoor Festival Hit A short film about a young Indo-Canadian woman’s quest to find peace after losing her lover in a car accident is finding a home on the international festival circuit.

According to Vancouver filmmaker Mangla Bansal her film, entitled Sindoor, has been accepted to the International Film Festival of Ireland, the Los Angeles International Film Festival and The Women’s International Film and Arts Festival.

Bansal said she shot the film on a Red Camera on her own after having applications rejected by funders. “I spent months filling out applications but nothing came through. I decided not to give up. I had been working too hard on the film. I had the cast, the crew and the locations in place. The only thing standing in the way was paying for camera equipment. So I sucked it up and poured all my savings into the project.”

Bansal said the film is based on an event that she witnessed while vacationing in India. She said the cast includes Leo Award-winning Balinder Johal who recently starred in Deepa Mehta’s film Heaven on Earth. She said Sindoor was shot over a four day period last summer.

West Wins NSI Spots Several western Canadians were given spots in the lineup when the NSI Online Short Film Festival announced the short films it will be rolling out on its website over the next few months. According to a spokesperson, the NSI website now has over 100 Canadian short films available.

British Columbia films include Pigmalion and Naked, both directed

by Vancouver’s Juan Riedinger; Carleen directed by Vancouver’s Carleen Kyle; Knots directed by Vancouver’s Robert Woolsey; Cortez the Killer directed by Port Coquitlam’s Timo

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and Sirpa Puolitaipale and I’m That Fool directed by Vancouver’s Patrick Carroll.

Alberta films selected were Last Communication with Laura directed

by Calgary’s Alexander Carson and On the Way to the Videostore directed

by Ryan Halun. Manitoba filmmakers are represented by Saira Rahman’s Grad Day and James McLellan’s Intervention. Whitehorse filmmaker Ian Basso has Lift on the website.

The spokesperson said this is the sixth official selection of films in the NSI Online Short Film Festival.

She said new films are solicited four times a year.

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Jim Jumps to Web A spokesperson for a web series about a fictional former NFL player who is unceremoniously dismissed by the league, says new episodes will be available Mondays at 8PM at www.thejim.tv. Called The Jim, the show is comprised of nine “five minute-ish” episodes shot on location at Vancouver’s Groundwork Athletics.

Co-creator Ryan Cowie says the show’s “hero” is Jim Maynes, who was drummed out of football after an “indecent exposure incident.” In an attempt to capitalize on the last shreds of his all-star reputation, he opens a fitness club and employs a

motley crew of personal trainers.

“Each episode navigates the daily life at a gym.” says Cowie. “That includes inventing the perfect smoothie, preventing inter-staff flings, and just trying to stay afloat in the shark infested waters of the fitness club business.”

Cowie says the show co-stars stars himself, Reese Alexander, Nelson Carter-Leis, Robert Clarke, Ryan Cowie, Elfina Y. Luk, Vanessa Parent and Teagan Vincze. It was cocreated by Carter-Leis and Cowie and is executive produced by CarterLeis, Cowie and Luk, produced by Ari Jampolsky and Jason Myers and directed by Jon Morris.

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Filmmakers Reeling Vancouver actors and filmmakers are in the spotlight at the upcoming Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth. According to spokesperson Helen Yagi, the list includes local actors Gabrielle Rose and Alexia Fast who star in Saskatchewan’s Hungry Hills. The drama is produced and written by Vancouver’s Gary Fisher, directed by Rob King, and based on the book

by George Ryga (The Ecstasy of Rita Joe).

“Despite the recent arts cutbacks, we have elevated Reel 2 Real’s program to include films that are thoughtprovoking in their subjects, themes and formats,” said executive director Venay Felton. “We want to spread the notion that a children’s film festival can engage and inspire film fans of all ages.”

Yagi said films in competition will be eligible for all eight awards presented on April 11 by two youth juries and an adult jury of film industry professionals. She said the awards are part of Reel 2 Real’s “continued commitment to the belief that critical assessment of films for young audiences should be made by youth themselves.” The festival runs from April 9 - 16.

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The Alberta-based series X-Weighted: Families went back into production recently, bringing 13 families from Calgary, Kelowna and Vancouver into a world of weight loss. Anaïd Productions is shooting the Slice Network series for the next six months.

“It takes a lot of courage for these families to commit to losing weight and sharing their struggles publicly”, said executive producer Margaret Mardirossian, “but in the end, their successes will inspire many Canadian families facing the same challenges.”

According to Mardirossian, each

CUFF Coming The 7th Calgary Underground Film Festival recently announced that the deadline for its annual CUFF 48Hour Movie Making Challenge is Sunday, March 28th at 7pm. Spokesperson Angel Cheng said short films created within its 48 hour time frame will be screened on the opening night of the film festival, Monday April 12. She said there will be a live judging process and the awards will be announced later that evening.

According to festival producer and programmer Brenda Lieberman CUFF will randomly assign a genre,

hour of the 13-part series focuses on a different family and follows their weight-loss transformations. Mardirossian said fitness expert Paul Plakas and obesity physician Dr. David Macklin, assess the families’ health while they deal with the”inertia, depression, competition and sabotage” that are obstacles to their success.

Mardirossian said the 13 shows in the upcoming season focus on topics ranging from a family devastated by the death of their beloved father and husband to two daughters and their mother who turn to food for comfort and teen girls, constantly at odds, who are united in their fear for their 320lb father, who is at high risk of a heart attack. prop and a line of dialogue to include in all films. She said all creativity - writing, shooting, editing and adding a musical soundtrack - must be completed and submitted before the deadline in order to be eligible for juried awards.

“This part of the CUFF program has continuously picked up momentum since the first year in 2007,” said Lieberman. “There’s an immense amount of hidden talent in Alberta.

‘The 48 Hour Movie Making Challenge’ is a fun way to showcase the versatility of Alberta filmmaking talent in unpredictable situations.” The Festival will take place April 12-18.

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Vancouver-based Mama-oo Pictures has begun production on the third season of its APTN children’s series, Tansi! Nehiyawetan. Series creator and producer Loretta Todd said the series uses traditional storytelling, songs, music videos, animation, games and adventures to teach Cree to children aged five to eight. She said the target audience is mainly children who live in the city who have few opportunities to learn about their traditional language.

“We want children to know that learning Cree can be enriching and lots of fun,” said Todd. “We’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from the first two seasons and it’s even attracting parents who like to watch it with their kids. As a result, APTN has increased its request from six to 13 episodes.”

Todd said the series features young Cree directors Kamala Todd and Jason Krowe, music from Aboriginal performers Art Napoleon, Renae Morriseau, Ostwelve and others, plus the work of award-winning animators Kevin Langdale, Chris Aucher and emerging animator Stephen Gladue.

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CO-HOSTED BY CBC’S GEORGE STROUMBOULOPOULOS, THE CANADA FOR HAITI TELETHON WAS WATCHED BY OVER 2 MILLION CANADIANS

Networks Collaborate for Telethon Canada’s three largest networks managed to get together for one night to co-produce the recent Canada for Haiti telethon. According to spokespeople for the networks, their combined efforts raised more than $13.5 million for relief efforts in Haiti. They said that when the funds are matched by the federal government, the amount will increase to more than $27 million. An additional $6.7 million was raised in Quebec in a Frenchlanguage telethon that ran concurrently, bringing the overall Canadian television total with federal contributions to more than $40 million.

“We are so grateful and humbled by the astounding generosity shown by Canadians both during and after the concert,” said World Vision Canada president Dave Toycen. “This amazing and compassionate response says to those suffering children and families in Haiti that Canadians care.”

The show was co-hosted by CTV’s Cheryl Hickey, Global’s Ben Mulroney and CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos. A spokesperson said Canada for Haiti was seen on average by 2.4 million Canadians, who watched the special on CBC Television, CTV, Global Television, MTV, MuchMusic, Citytv and National Geographic Channel. He said 6.65 million Canadians watched some or all of the broadcast.

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PHOTO PHILLIP CHIN

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BEGINNINGS

Ty & Marcia Schultz Prop Masters “The thought of casting objects in faux materials and not sculpting every piece individually was radical and the materials thought of as something nuclear and dangerous...”

I

met Marcia Naiman at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design during the 1982/83 school year. We became good friends and actually collaborated on our grad piece installation which was something almost unheard of with budding young egos. We were both fortunate to be at ECCAD when artist Mark Prent, a colleague of David Cronenberg’s, came to teach for a year.

Marcia and I were exposed to life casting and fiberglass and learned to integrate it into our sculptures. Fiberglass and silicone rubber moulds were unheard of in art school. The thought of casting objects in faux materials and not sculpting every piece individually was radical and the materials thought of as something nuclear and dangerous especially in an environment of wood construction and pottery. We fell in love with moulding and casting and found new ways with new materials to pursue our art.

At some point in our grad year Betty Thomas of Thomas SPFX called the sculpture department at ECCAD looking for sculptors to work on a big new feature film called Clan of the Cave Bear starring Daryl Hanna. The head of the sculpture department recommended Marcia and together we went to see what this new opportunity was all about.

That phone call changed both our lives in a radical way and opened a door to a world we would likely never have known and we will always be grateful.

It came at a time when we were both wondering what we would do after art school and how we could cement our relationship as a team.

Thomas Special Effects was the movie industry for a many of us. Grant Swain and Ken Hawryliew along with Jimmy Chow, Wayne McLaughlin and Bill Thumm headed up the props department. It is nostalgic to remember the camaraderie and “gung-ho” environment of those early days. People spent way less time fussing over nickels and much more time asking “How can we do that?” and concluding “Make it happen!”

John Thomas was a pioneer, an innovator and the leader of a new brand of heroes. John and Betty brought the work to Vancouver and a great many of us cycled through their doors on the way to a career in the film and television industry.

For the first few years Marcia worked at Thomas SPFX while I played “Mr. Mom” to five small children and started a home-based business in commercials and television and worked on the occasional feature. When our business became large enough to support us Marcia rejoined me and we became “Creative Props Inc.” We worked side by side for twenty-six years, our bond ever strengthened by the demands of this growing industry.

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There was a time in the late eighties to the mid nineties where we had a tiny piece of everything that came through town. The opportunity to work on something different every day was fascinating and exciting. The adrenalin of the deadlines is always pushing you to be more than you are with failure never being an option.

The industry provided work for all our kids, my brother and others over the years. Our daughter, Aleya Naiman, apprenticed with us for eight years until the bright lights of set and greater responsibilities called her. She is now the Prop Master of Smallville and part of the next generation of film technicians.

Working on MacGyver marked the first time we actually thought of the film business as a “steady job.” Stephen Cannell series like 21 Jumpstreet and Wiseguy solidified things and working on The X-Files with Ken Hawryliew(Props) and Dave Gauthier(SPFX) made careers a reality. Recently Battlestar Galactica, Smallville and Supernatural(Chris Cooper, Props)have provided challenging work.

As the audience has become more engaged with the creation of film projects, we have pursued opportunities to teach our skills to other artists at art retreats such as Artfest and Art and Soul. Teaching film technology to artists and the public increases their interest in movies and keeps us all “entertaining.” A trip to the Thomas FX showroom shows visitors a kindred philosophy.

Marcia and I are proud of the work we have done for the industry and the fact that we have maintained our personal standards and relationships with clients and each other under great pressure. The physical and psychological demands of the industry eventually take its toll so after years of around the clock service we were looking to retire completely.

In the process of our “exit” a unique opportunity unfolded. Thomas FX Group bought much of our rental stock and all of our breakaway glass moulds which makes them the greatest source for “breakaway” glass in the world. An invitation to be part of this vibrant future was irresistible. The opportunity to create things and service the film industry in new ways rekindled a spark.

The impressive vision of John Quee is inspiring and as the movie industry emerges from the Olympics, we look forward to this wonderful new venture.

In 2010 we will be adding lifecast fish and biological specimens, replica food and custom prop building to Thomas FX. We invite all the brothers and sisters of IATSE 891 and others to Thomas FX to work with us in a different venue than our home-based shop. Thank you to so many who have supported us as “Creative Props” and we look forward to future service with John and Betty Thomas Quee at Thomas FX Group. ■ 11

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PHOTO PHILLIP CHIN

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BEHIND THE SCENES

The Celluloid Social Club More than 12 years after it started, The Club has become a leader in the promotion of BC independent films.

F

irst impressions are usually considered to be important. Fortunately for The Celluloid Social Club, the first impression didn’t last long.

The Vancouver-based film club got its start on November 13, 1997 at the Empire on Richards Street. Paul Armstrong, who cofounded the club with Jeanne Harco and Cathi Black and is still involved in its monthly gatherings more than 12 years later, recalls that there were a few too many nerds at the original meeting.

“We were infiltrated by undercover police dressed as film geeks,” he says.

“I thought they were there because we showed a racy film but they confiscated our liquor even though we had a license claiming the venue was an illegal late night Rave den.”

Armstrong had returned to his native Vancouver two years earlier from England and promptly became involved in the industry. In 1996 he was working at the Vancouver Film School when he was approached by the promoter of a Kitsilano bar to show “indie” films. (This was early in the “indie” revolution and so he was a little confused, originally assuming that indie meant Indian or Bollywood films.) He did see it as a great opportunity to showcase the 16mm films being made at the School. The only problem was that no one from the group knew how to operate the projector. Fortunately, Georgia Straight critic Ken Eisner, who was there to review the films, was able to jump in and ended up operating the projector for the films he was reviewing. (That is not a problem anymore. Although it is called the Celluloid Social Club, most films screen on DVD.) By the end of the year the monthly screenings had moved to the Web Café at the Vancouver Film School and it had been renamed Indie Film Night.

That endeavour ended when the group was kicked out by the city after the first night. (The screens were too big for public screenings). Armstrong then moved the screenings into the Multimedia Theatre. Around the same time, he met Harco and Black and they came up with the formula that still endures.

After they had survived the “night of the film nerds”, the trio moved the Celluloid Social Club to the Anza Club. It has been there ever since, with Ken Hegan hosting until 2007 when the job went to current host Brendan REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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Beiser. Not too much has changed over time. The Club brings in independent films and follows their screenings with a Q&A with the filmmakers. It also promotes three film contests a year: The Hot Shots Short Film Contest; the 24-Hour Vancouver Film Race and the Bloodshots Canada 48-Hour Horror Filmmaking Challenge.

The Club’s mission to encourage young filmmakers has had a lot of support within the community. Canadian filmmakers like Lynne Stopkewich, Bruce Sweeney, Sandy Wilson, Anne Wheeler and Mina Shum have been part of the Q&As while Toronto-based director Bruce McDonald brought the film Claire’s Hat to the Club for a screening. More recently, Vancouverbased screenwriter David Scearce, whose A Single Man won Colin Firth an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, participated in a Q&A. The Club’s most memorable visitor? Armstrong says that honour goes to Robin Williams who dropped by the Club with a film. “He arrived late so we watched the film downstairs in the bar,” says Armstrong. He says an honorable mention goes to former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham who was greeted by a band covering Stones’ songs when he came to screen Charlie is My Darling.

Armstrong says that the key to the Club’s longevity has been its ability to bring members of the community together to socialize and to make connections, thus helping to grow the industry. He says that while he has always been somewhat surprised by the Club’s success (the average attendance is between 100 and 150) he attributes it to the city’s unusually high number of independent filmmakers. “The Club is constantly expanding due to the strong film industry and large number of film schools. It is thus a mixture of old members with a constant influx of new blood.”

Thirteen years after he started screening movies, Armstrong admits that things have worked out well. While there have been challenges, he says he thinks the Celluloid Social Club has made a difference to the growth of the local industry. “It has been a lot of blood and sweat for little economic reward,” he says. “However, the satisfaction of helping to build an artistic community has been priceless and overall the Club has immeasurably enriched my life.” ■ 13

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QUESTION AND ANSWER

Garry Marshall Funny never gets old

G

arry Marshall was already considered to be one of the most successful creative forces in television history when he decided to leave TV to work full time in films.

In 1984, at the age of 50, he directed The Flamingo Kid. (Two years earlier he had made his feature directing debut with Young Doctors in Love.) The decision has worked out well for him.

The man who took The Odd Couple to television and created Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy, followed up Kid with several hits including Beaches, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride and The Princess Diaries.

His latest film is Valentine’s Day, which brings back several people whose careers were kick-started by Marshall. Among its stars are Pretty Woman’s Julia Roberts and Hector Elizondo and The Princess Diaries’ Anne Hathaway. A short list of costars would include Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, Shirley MacLaine, Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx, Jessice Biel, Jennifer Ganer, Jessica Alba and Patrick Dempsey. Marshall, who has been involved in show business for 14

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over 50 years, talked to Reel West in Los Angeles in late January.

You started out as a writer on shows like The Dick van Dyke Show and The Lucy Show before going out on your own with all these successful TV comedies of the 1970s. Then suddenly you left that and tried film. Were you at all concerned that your sense of humour might not transfer well?

“When I switched from TV I discovered quickly that movies are a different way of working. The results are different. The man who helped me most, oddly enough, was the French filmmaker Jacques Tati. He had a different tempo than I was used to in sitcoms. I was ‘dit-dit-dit-dit’ in sitcoms but he had this comic timing that I really liked. There is a scene in this movie for instance where a young man is running down the street wearing only his guitar. That was totally out of Jacques Tati. He had people running down the street but he also used the whole screen which you can’t do in television. You have to get right in there. But in movies you can do a joke in the background

and the foreground. So it was really a matter of just adjusting to it. You need time to figure things out. This is the 16th picture that I have done and I have learned a lot of things. Mostly I have learned what doesn’t work.

It’s not an exact science. You shoot it and you test it and if they don’t laugh you try something else. It’s a strange thing, comedy. At the end of one scene Taylor Swift is at school and carrying a bear. Part of comedy is carrying props. She says ‘I wonder if this will fit in my locker’ I didn’t think that was particularly funny but I had to get out of the scene. But the (test) audience liked that. They laughed and while you don’t always do what the audience likes you have to test it a little in case the whole audience doesn’t like someone at all or you are pushing the wrong character.

But I think that comedy is something you do just by instinct in that you say ‘I once did a thing like that, let’s not do it again.’ I have done love stories where people run together in a field.

They swam towards each other in Overboard. Here I have them (Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo) running toward each other in a cem-

etery and you make them old so they don’t run that well. I thought that was funny.”

You have always focused on a single key relationship in your films.

Here you have almost a dozen relationships with all of them requiring time to tell. Were you concerned that you may have bitten off more than you could chew?

“You are always concerned that you are going to make everything work. This film, I think, was a salute to business affairs. They have to make all these deals and deal with all the logistics. They get no credit but they did a good job. Sometimes they didn’t tell me who was coming.

You would say ‘oh, hello, welcome.’

One of my favorite films was Love Actually and I loved the way they told all those stories. So when I read the script I saw it was like that and I look forward to movies where several people are passing through and I am interested in how each person reacts to the other. I think it helps to keep the picture interesting because the audience doesn’t know where things are going. That to me makes a different kind of love story and even though we had to do several, they were all integrated well. I thought it would be a good challenge for me but it was something I really enjoyed.”

Do you ever feel the pressure of having to be funny?

“Most of it is funny. Me and the Chimp was not a riot. Some things work out but mostly I like to make people laugh or at least smile and feel good. Most filmmakers do other things. I rarely have people flying through the air but if they were going to fly I would try to make it funny. I never worry how you make it funny because usually if you talk to actors you can find something. I remember when I was talking to Matt Dillon about being in Flamingo Kid he said ‘I don’t do comedy’ and we were having lunch and he was making this strange noise while he was eating. I said ‘Matt, what is that noise you are making?’ He said ‘I make that noise sometimes.’ So we put it in the movie. It is always the same thing. I was talking to Taylor Lautner and he was showing how he can flip and jump and I said ‘we can make that funny.’

So you get the comedy through working with the actors.”

Yes, but what about the audience?

How do you know what will work

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for them?

“Certain things everyone thinks are funny. Most of my humour is not toilet jokes. It’s about getting the comedy to come out of the characters.

That usually works for me. You vary it. For instance in this film, we have to get laughs out of Jennifer Garner being angry with this guy (Patrick Dempsey) who turns out to be married. In that scene (where she goes into a restaurant where he is with his wife) if you used the old style comedy she would throw a plate of spaghetti on him. That is how it ends in sitcoms. But here we wanted her to be cool (so she poses as a waitress taking their order.) But you still have to show the anger. So we had her leave the restaurant and go and smash a piñata. There is another scene where

diences in the second season of Happy Days? Was that a Eureka moment for you?

“The audience is the great referee.

When we did Happy Days we often argued about how to do a scene but the live audience was the best judge of that. You don’t know if it is funny but when the audience stands up and laughs you get a pretty good idea.

When we first brought Robin Williams into Happy Days we had to think ‘is this guy any good?’ But the audience of 300 people literally stood up the first time I used him. So I like the reaction to the humour and as you do love stories the silences are as important as the laughter. If there is dead silence you have them. But things have changed. In the old days, if an audience was bored they showed

“I have had the same editor for my last five pictures because you have to have people who understand comedy working with you.”

EXPERT WITNESS

“I was one of those very lucky people who knew what she wanted to do at a very young age. I told my mother, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to be in the audience any more.’

I wasn’t one bit shy. I just wanted to perform. I did a lot of child acting and I did com-

a character (Topher Grace) makes an ee cummings reference to his girlfriend (Anne Hathaway.) Five people would get that joke. I had a writing partner and when I would say ‘only five people will get this’ he would say ‘that’s more than enough.’”

What about shooting a comedy? Do you have a standard approach or do you make it up as you go along?

“It’s all a theory I have but you have to figure it out yourself. A guy walks down a street and slips on a banana peel. It’s classic comedy, but how do you shoot it? More importantly how do you edit it? Do you have him walking down the street and slipping on the banana peel or do you have him walking down the street and cut the insert of the banana peel and then have him walking down the street and falling. That dilemma comes with every piece of film comedy. You have to decide what to do and it is an endless discussion. And I am used to dealing with that and making the decisions. I have had the same editor for my last five pictures because you have to have people who understand comedy working with you.”

You have talked about testing movies with preview audiences. Did you learn about the importance of the reaction of an audience when you switched from tape to live au-

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it by lighting up their cigarettes. I did a picture once and it looked like an airplane could land and I thought ‘this is a dull part.’ But you have to be a little bit more astute now.”

When you look back at your TV shows and films one of the things that you notice quickly is that you gave a lot of people including Robin Williams, Julia Robert and Anne Hathaway their big breaks and others, like Richard Gere, a second chance. That isn’t really true in Valentine’s Day. Did you miss that?

“I am always surprised by new talent but I do recognize it. When I came to this picture I thought ‘I like this film but I can’t discover anyone because they are all big.’ And then I met Taylor Swift and I said ‘hi, I am very good with 19 year olds. Let’s see what you do.’ I thought she really popped.

It gave me great pleasure to bring her into this film. She can act that one.

She has personality. The boy (Lautner) is very good too but Taylor just has ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ is.”

Is that your greatest pleasure about making movies, discovering people?

“That is the best thing. I seem to be best between 18 and 21. I joke but it’s true. I like to get them on their way up and before rehab. I have a window.” ■

mercials and I did the voices of Sally Brown and Lucy Van Pelt in Peanuts cartoons.

When I was nine I was hired to do a series called Kids Incorporated. It was a Mickey Mouse Club kind of show where you sing and act. I did some very bad acting as a child.” - Singer Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas on the acting experience she had before taking on a role in the movie musical Nine.

“Love in LA is different. When I didn’t have the name tag it was a little interesting trying to date in LA. But it was great. I met this girl on a Monday and we partied. We kicked it. I woke up the next morning and I smelled something and she was cooking breakfast and I was like ‘wow this is great.’ I didn’t call on Tuesday and on Wednesday I was back at this club and I saw her with another guy. She said ‘hey Jamie, how are you? and I said ‘hey girl how are you?’ She said ‘this is Mike and I told him all about you.’ And she said ‘oh, by the way he has a Range Rover like yours but it’s this year’s.’ So that’s my experience with love in Los Angeles.” - Actor Jamie Foxx on falling in love in Los Angeles.

“What does not kill you makes you stronger and tougher. Life’s experiences, whether they be torturous or excruciatingly wonderful or blissful season you somehow and you learn from them, hopefully. All I am trying to do now is put some information I can leave to my progeny on a chip and maybe they can do a better job in the future than I can on this crazy piece of spinning dirt.” - Actor/director Mel Gibson on recovering from the scandal created by his drunken anti-Semitic rant at a Jewish cop.

“I kind of sucked 20 years ago. Far be it for me to say what was good when and where since I barely remember any of it.” - Actor Robert Downey Jr. on the memories he has of London where he made Chaplin and, more recently, Sherlock Holmes.

“When he was asked during the press conference for his book, The Long Walk to Freedom, ‘who would you want to play you?’ he said ‘Morgan Freeman.’ From then on it was like ‘okay, I will be playing Mandela somewhere down the line.’ So (producer) Lori McCreary and I spent a lot of time trying to develop the book into a script but it didn’t happen. However, I would have lunch or dinner with him during that time and I would hold his hand. It was not for camaraderie. I find if I hold someone’s hand their energy is transferred to me and I have a sense of how they feel.” - Actor Morgan Freeman on playing Nelson Mandela in Invictus.

Excerpted from interviews done by Reel West editor Ian Caddell.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF MOVIESET.COM

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Story by Ian Caddell

National Dream

In the midst of the ongoing debate over the merits of provinces raising their tax credits so they can compete with each other for foreign-service work, several companies are taking an alternative approach to bringing work to their hometowns. Inter-provincial co-productions have been gaining momentum in recent years as filmmakers look east and west and sometimes north for partners who can access local funders.

Ontario’s The Film Farm, whose principals, Jennifer Weiss and Simone Erdl, won a Genie for Best Picture for Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, had already worked with BC’s Screen Siren on a film called Year of the Carnivore when Screen Siren’s Trish Dolman contacted them to talk about a second production. The movie, Daydream Nation, seemed like a perfect fit given that the writer/director, Michael Goldbach, was from Toronto. Dolman, a producer of the award-winning BC feature Flower and Garnet, and her Vancouver-based co-producer, Christine Haebler (Hard Rock Logo) were looking at shooting it in the summer of 2009 but Film Farm had another production in the works for that period of time.

Everything changed when the Film Farm movie fell through. Dolman says that although there had been another investor involved at one point, she and Haebler knew that working with Weiss and Erdl would give them access to provincial funds that had not been available through the existing investor.

“We had worked with Simone and Jennifer and we had talked to them about the possibility of working together because Mike is back there and we were looking at doing it as a co-production from the beginning.

They were busy on another project when we had wanted to shoot it last summer, but it was tough to make things come together. We had had REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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a private equity investor on board but it worked out for Film Farm to get involved and to step in for that investor because we had an existing relationship.”

The Film Farm was familiar with the project. Goldbach had written an Ontario-produced film called Childstar and had met Erdl and Weiss through friends. When he was working on the script for Daydream Nation he asked them for some help.

They had worked with him with no real intention to be involved in the production itself. “He handed it off to see what we thought of it,” says Erdl. “It had a different director and producer and he wasn’t giving it to us. He just wanted our opinion and we really liked it and encouraged him. He is such a talented writer and now we see he is a talented director - but at the time we were just reading it for fun.”

The project had started with the now-downsized Vancouver production company Insight. Haebler took it out of Insight because she loved the script and wanted to get it made.

She felt that Dolman could help her accomplish her goals. “I knew I had to make it and knew Telefilm had to be involved so I brought it to Screen Siren. At the time Trish and I were joining forces to deal with difficult times. She had just finished Year of the Carnivore with Film Farm and we had already decided to shoot the film in Toronto and do post production here (in Vancouver) so they

seemed like the perfect partner.”

Haebler and Dolman contacted Film Farm in April of last year and were told that the company was busy. They assumed they would have to take the project in another direction. “When they (Film Farm) went away we decided to make it here,” says Dolman. “We got the money from Telefilm and then got a private investor out of New York. We started to assemble the cast, which at the time was led by Kat Dennings and Scott Speedman.”

Haebler had worked with Speedman on Kitchen Party, which helped to launch his career, one that also includes the series Felicity, the movie Underground and its sequel and Atom Egoyan’s Adoration. But the private money went away and the summer shoot was postponed. “By November we were in touch with Film Farm,” says Haebler. “We knew their film hadn’t closed and that they had an envelope. So we told them they should put it in Daydream.

Then we started a post production deal with them on this and we closed the financing on it.”

They lost Speedman who had signed on to co-star with Jay Baruchel on Notre Dame de Grace and was no longer available. Dennings was still available and they discovered that Andie McDowell, who had dropped out when the movie was going to shoot over the course of the summer, was available again. Then they signed Poseidon star Josh Lucas

and things were ready to go. Haebler says that working with Dolman was the key to getting the movie made.

“Had she not had the co-production experience we couldn’t have done it,” she says. “I wanted to walk away from it but couldn’t because it was in the back of my head to stick with it. But when your financing is up and down three times, as it was in this project, it’s tough. And losing Scott was a big blow. When that happened I thought it shouldn’t be made because the gods didn’t want us to make it. But Trish was strong and Kat’s rep believed in the project so much and then we got a break when Scott’s manager, who handles Josh, got the script to him. He loved the project and it has a second life because of the strength of Mike’s script.”

Haebler says that while Goldbach had never directed a movie before and was originally slated to just write it, the producers felt he was the best person for the job. “Then when the actors met him they saw that he has that magic to him. I think he instinctually knows how to direct.”

Goldbach wasn’t as convinced that he could walk onto the set and do the job. However, he says he couldn’t see how it could be any more difficult than screenwriting.

“My feeling is that anything is easier than writing,” he says. “In a way it is a relief to get out of the cave and out into the working world. So I am enjoying the learning experience. We 17

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“I decided to direct because I felt that when you write a small movie it is your responsibility to fight for your vision...”

- Michael Goldbach, Director

are in day 12 and while the learning curve has been steep it has been pretty wonderful. The tough part was just getting it to this point. It was a painful process. After Childstar I wanted to prove that I had a voice of my own. It was great writing Childstar but I know people were questioning what my contribution was. I decided to write something in a very specific voice to show that I had something to say. So I wrote Daydream Nation five years ago.”

The film stars Dennings as a teenaged girl who hates almost everything about the small town she has moved to. The only thing that keeps her from being bored is the affair she is having with a teacher (Lucas.)

When she breaks off the relationship the rejection has an unsettling effect on the teacher.

The movie is being shot in the Vancouver suburb of Fort Langley but is based on Goldbach’s memory of growing up in a small town outside London, Ontario. He says that he wanted the script to capture the essence of small towns and says his experience was quite removed from that of the images of Norman Rockwell.

“This whole thing of the slowpaced Norman Rockwell environment is something that was completely different than my own experience and I wanted to show that. My town was fast and fun and wild and sexy and filled with danger and anxiety and weird people. I wanted the movie to be fast-moving and not have people sitting around dreaming of leaving but just trying to get through the week. My mem18

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ory of being a teen is that you are so focused on your own psychodrama that you don’t really have time to think about what’s next in your life.

I wanted to capture that feeling because I had not seen it on screen before. I decided to direct because I felt that when you write a small movie it is your responsibility to fight for your vision and overturn clichés. I think that is the only luxury of making a low budget film.”

Erdl says that while Film Farm could possibly have taken on both their first project and Daydream Nation simultaneously it’s not the way they make movies. She says productions work best for them if they can be hands-on. The alternative, she says, is to just oversee the films and not have creative input into the making of them.

“We have a very small office and we read everything,” says Erdl. “We are hands-on with everything we get involved with but we can only do one at a time in that way. We have a lot of projects in development. It would be a stretch to do more than one at a time and not that appealing. We don’t want to just be a management company. We want to be there for the filmmaker and the cast and the crew. It is important to be part of it and to make yourselves available.”

They also want to make movies that are seen by audiences. Thus far their track record is pretty good.

Away From Her had international distribution and won Oscar nominations for both Polley’s screenplay and lead actress Julie Christie. In addition, Erdl has been involved with Egoyan on several productions. She

says that small Canadian movies can find an audience as long as the filmmakers approach the project with a marketing plan that will enable people to see it in theatres.

“It is very different when you read a script and think about who is going to see it. You hope that you are getting what you need for the audience when you are making a film and that includes the cast and the subject matter and following through on the execution of it. I think we are going to have a great film here. Everyone wants to have the next Juno and I think it can be that film. It is the kind of movie that appeals to different age groups and quite a wide audience and sometimes when you think you have targeted a certain audience it appeals to another age group as well.”

Although she and Weiss have made two consecutive co-productions, Erdl says that not all films lend themselves to being coproduced by filmmakers from different provinces. “If the creative material warrants it, it is absolutely worth it to make it into a co-production,” she says.

“It would be a lot more difficult to do it if it didn’t warrant it but when you have an Ontario-based director, shooting in BC makes sense. There were situations that we have come across where it wouldn’t have been worth it but if you have the right mix of companies and individuals it is a great way of getting funding and making films.”

Dolman agrees. She says that in the age of tax credits and provincial funders, it can work out well. However, she says that Canadian film-

makers have several options when it comes to co-productions. She says that her next project will be a UK/ Canada co-production. She believes that Canadian filmmakers have to be open to finding partners wherever they can at a time when one funder isn’t usually going to be enough.

“It is about financial need at a time where there are small pieces of the pie. I think it has really become a great alternative over the last decade. People know they need to go where there are subsidies and where they can create financial partnerships. Basically if we can bring a piece to the table and another partner can do the same you may have enough to make your project. For instance, we are doing a factual series called The Story of Film with the UK. It is based on the Mark Cousins book about the history of cinema. It uses the evolution of film in different countries to show how each evolution has influenced the other. He is quite well known in the UK and so Channel 4 has ordered it and we are putting together the Canadian financing.”

Dolman, not surprisingly, is a big fan of inter-provincial co-productions. She says that in a small country that expects to compete with American films for a place in theatres, access to the talent pool is a priority.

“Co-productions give you access to the whole country’s talent which helps to get films seen,” she says.

“Sometimes you want to work with a cinematographer from Ontario or an actress from Quebec and if continued on page 27

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– Diary by Vic Sarin –

Chasing Rainbows Vic Sarin was no stranger to shooting outside of Canada when he started looking for international locations for A Shine of Rainbows. He chose a small Irish town to play host to his family film about an orphan named Tomas (John Bell) who is adopted by a couple (Connie Nielsen and Aidan Quinn) and moved from the orphanage to a remote island. In his diary on the making of the film A Shine of Rainbows, Sarin looks back at his commitment to the people of a small Irish town, making a movie about a stormy coast when there is no rain, and the day his production manager walked away.

Spring 2007 Co-writer Dennis Foon and I hand over the final draft of the screenplay that Catherine Spear and I began back in 2000, to producers Tina Pehme and Kim Roberts. I feel confident about the shape that the script has taken though I am still not sure where the movie will be shot. I am depending on upcoming location-scouting trips to help determine this. I plan to visit potential locations in Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and Canada’s Atlantic provinces.

June 7 Tina has been in Ireland scouting locations. She calls very excited as she has seen the most breathtaking locations. Dublinbased locations scout Miriam Coleman took Tina all over the Inishowen Peninsula. Tina is in awe at how well the Donegal area suits our film.

She has taken video and is bringing it all home to show me.

June 12 I’m now very intrigued about Ireland. I plan a trip there to see it for myself. I leave cautiously optimistic because I know how many challenges this script poses.

The seals, natural rainbows and ruggedness of the coast are needed but there are challenges shooting in such conditions. I think in some ways, despite Tina’s excitement, my heart is still set on shooting in New Zealand.

August 27 Aideen, our wonderful advocate from the Film Commission at the Donegal County Council, REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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picks me up from the airport. She is the warmest, most passionate and charming lady and she takes me immediately to a breathtaking location on the top of a hill overlooking an amazing vista of aquamarine water and sandy beaches. Needless to say, that is all it takes. I decide then and there to find a way to make shooting in Donegal work. I decide to take some still photos and find I can’t open my car door for the strong winds. Teeth chattering, (since it is summer in Ireland, I’ve arrive without my winter jacket!), I am finally able to venture out of the car and onto the cliff. I know the weather will be my greatest challenge on this shoot.

August 29 As the initial excitement wanes I am becoming more and more nervous about the possible problems that the weather may cause. The locations have the perfect look and feel for the film, but the logistics of bringing crew to this remote part of Ireland - and of course, the weather conditions - are a concern. The costs of shooting in Ireland are also quite high so we need to look at ways to save money to shoot here on our budget. Aideen tells me that there is an extremely high unemployment rate in the area so it is felt that rather than have to bring in a large crew from Dublin or Belfast, we can hire locals to work as 3rds to the main unit, office staff, drivers

and P.A’s. This will avoid the cost of having to bring in so many people as well as help provide employment to the community. As this is also a summer destination, there are many large holiday homes nearby that sit vacant for the rest of the year and can be rented for the cast and crew in order to avoid having to put everyone up in hotels. Aideen is so helpful with coming up with solutions to all sorts of problems. Though the locations are remote, their distance from Carndonagh town, where Aideen’s office (and potentially our production office) is located, is not far.

August 30 I don’t want to commit to shooting in Ireland before I am sure about one final thing: the seals. Seals play a very important role in the film. Originally I thought we would be able to use some stock footage and shoot some of our own at home in BC but on doing further research I find that this will never give me the look I’m going for. I meet Geoff Millar, a local diver and fisherman from Derry (near Malin Head where we plan to shoot) and he takes me to a small island frequented by hundreds of local seals. The weather gets progressively worse as we head out to sea but my flight home is in less than 24 hours and I can’t leave without knowing if this is going to work.

I find out from Geoff after the fact that this was one of the worst days of the season to have been out on the

open water in such a small boat. It ends up being one of the most harrowing experiences of my life, riding over five to eight metre waves. But once we finally manage to dock in a small cove I am delighted to see how many seals have appeared in front of us. Better yet, since the small island is so remote, the seals are not used to seeing people and are curious.

They bob their heads above water for lengths of time. This will be the perfect place to film.

January 18, 2008 I fly to London to start casting for the young lead.

We engage the services of John and Ros Hubbard to cast the film. The Hubbards are a very experienced team especially when it comes to casting children. Finding the right boy to play Tomas will be key to the success or failure of this movie and I’m reminded again of how difficult casting can be, sometimes more so than making the actual film. One is never really sure until it is all said and done. I see many, many kids but the moment John Bell walks in the room I feel we have our boy. He reads the rehearsed scenes and then I ask him to spontaneously read a couple of other more emotional scenes. As he reads, John Hubbard and I exchange looks. We have our Tomas.

January 26 Normally I work with a very small crew, often serving as both director and DP of my films.

I find this allows me to move faster 21

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and to cut corners when needed. My first priority is to find a production designer, assistant director, costume designer and camera operator who I know I can work well with. I have several meetings in Dublin and Belfast and begin to bring a crew together, mixing members from the south and Northern Ireland. Production designer Tom McCullagh and costume designer Susan Scott are from Belfast whereas camera operator John Conroy and first assistant director Konrad Jay are from Dublin. As far as I can tell everyone is very experienced and professional, and though the working styles are different all seem to share a passion for the film. The idea is to hire key position from the major centers but give them support from the local Donegal people. They seem amenable.

January 31 Another significant role in the film, and one that has to be dealt with delicately, is the seal pup, Smudge. Back in Vancouver, visual effects supervisor Dermot Shane and I make a visit to the Vancouver Aquarium to get some first hand information on baby seals. We realize after that first meeting that working with a real seal pup would be virtually impossible. An animatronic is proposed. We consider various outfits in Vancouver, LA and Lon22

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don but are won over by the passion and experience of London-based Neal Scanlan who has won countless awards including two Oscars for his work on such films as Babe, 101 Dalmations, The Golden Compass, and Sweeney Todd. Neal and I talk on the phone at great length and the consensus is made to proceed with the animatronic in stages with each stage to be discussed and improved on at our meetings.

February 5 My first look at “Smudge” is very exciting. I immediately feel close to this new member of the family. Neal and I discuss some of the physicality and movements that would be needed for his performance as well as his overall size. I want the pup to appear emaciated at the beginning of the story and then begin to grow with the help of Tomas. It becomes clear that with so many electronics involved it will be too difficult to reduce his size for his first scenes.

February 9 One of the things that we have come up with to save money is to shoot as much of the live seal footage as well as landscapes and vistas as possible outside of the main unit. I get a camera from Panavision Ireland on standing loan for four weeks. I am going to spend my weekend with Geoff Millar shooting seals, landscapes, and of course,

rainbows, that we can use in the film at a later date.

March 31 Pre-production begins.

Each department head brings their own budget to the producers. To everyone’s surprise, they all want to bring their own crew members from Belfast and Dublin. They are unwilling to hire anyone locally. This is a huge problem for the budget and a major worry for the producers.

April 3 We still need to cast the rest of the child roles locally in Ireland. We make a big push in every surrounding county to find our actors. Young local actress Tara Scully is my first choice to play “Nancy”.

John Hubbard questions whether this is the right decision due to her lack of experience but I stay with my instinct and Tina agrees. I am impressed with the amount of local talent. There are so many wonderful actors to choose from. When we tell her family that she has the part they are overjoyed.

April 9 I still need to cast the two lead adult roles. I fly to LA to meet with Connie Nielsen. She is a mother herself and has told me that she feels very deeply for the script. Though she is 6’ tall and speaks English with a hint of a Danish accent, I’m sure that she is right for the role. I return to Ireland with thoughts of changing Maire’s heritage from Irish to Dan-

ish in the screenplay. I feel this could work very well. I have also heard back from Aidan Quinn’s camp that he likes the script and would like to do it. Aidan has always been my first choice for the role of Alec. His eyes are so powerful and say so much, which is paramount for a character who speaks so little. This is wonderful news. I’m also comforted by the fact that Connie and Aidan have worked together before and have an established chemistry together.

May 3 Our latest challenge is with the schedule. John Bell is only 10 years old and he is in every scene in the film which creates a great scheduling challenge as a child his age is only allowed to be on set for seven hours a day. We need to come up with creative ways to use our time so that we can make our days. Tina and I go over the schedule in minute detail to pull out anything that we can do each day that doesn’t involve the young actors. We need to shoot before or after the kids come in each day and still come up short. We decide to use photo doubles for longer shots and hold a local casting session to cast our child doubles locally. We now have three Tomas photo doubles! We also propose using French hours to allow us to maximize the time we have on set with the kids.

French hours (whereby a crew will REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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1. & 2. CONNIE NIELSEN AS MAIRE AND JOHN BELL AS TOMAS; PHOTOS COURTESY OF TINA PEHME. 3. BEHIND THE SCENES AT “SMUDGE BEACH”; PHOTO COURTESY OF HARRY KERR & MARTHA MCCULLOCH

trade lunch breaks for continuous food service) are a new thing for the crew here in Ireland and the reaction is mixed although the foreign cast who are familiar with this way of shooting embrace it.

May 5 Another pressure on the budget comes from me. I insist on building a weather cover set. I realize that this is a very expensive preventative measure but I’m not willing to go to camera without one. Our schedule is too tight and the weather here is just too unpredictable.

May 7 Tina consults with the production manager about the budget difficulties. The PM is having difficulty getting the mostly Dublinbased crew to work with locals and to buy the majority of props, costumes and materials locally which is a requirement to satisfy the regional spend requirement that makes up a portion of our finance structure. As we had based our ability to shoot the film on using local hires and utilizing local resources it is creating a lot of tension and is the main contributor to the mushrooming budget.

May 8 Tina and I call a meeting with all of the department heads.

We make a plea to them, explaining that we ourselves are wearing many hats, as independent films require, that there is no pot of gold to draw from. It’s not that it’s being spent REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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elsewhere. It’s simply not there. They need to find ways to trim their budgets or this film will not get made. I think the crew has finally heard us.

Some department heads come to us to voice their support for finding creative ways to deal with the challenges in front of us.

The first day on set will tell. Meanwhile in the midst of all of the chaos, Dermot Shane, the VFX coordinator and I are using every available moment running around the island in our car chasing rainbows to film.

There really isn’t a spare second on this shoot.

May 8 The actors are beginning to arrive. Connie Nielsen is insisting on doing an Irish accent despite my assurance that we could write in a character with a Danish accent. She and Aidan Quinn as well as young John Bell have been working with renowned dialect coach Brendan Gunn to perfect the Donegal sound.

Still, I’m losing sleep worrying about all of the accents sounding believable.

May 12 First day of the main unit shoot. The weather couldn’t have been better but the French hours are off to a bit of a shaky start as the logistics of continuous food service on our Five Finger Strand location is still being worked out. Tina is having to run up and down the hill with

food for cast and crew today.

May 17 Another major blow on the logistics side: the challenges of managing the budget prove too much for our production manager and she quits. It is now up to Tina and the already overwhelmed production coordinator and line producer to step in to fill her place. We decide that the only thing to do is to bring over Kate MacPhail from our Canadian office to provide some much needed support to the production office.

May 18 The Irish crew have adjusted to the schedule and they are loving their French hours. It means that they can be off work and in the local pub socializing by 6 pm! With the sunny weather, gorgeous scenery and short days several crew members have now come to me to say it feels like vacation! What a relief!

Our experiment has proven to be a success.

May 19 Neal Scanlan and his crew of four arrive with Smudge, our animatronic seal. Everyone is in complete and total awe. Smudge looks so real!

We have only two days with Smudge so we need this to go as smoothly as possible.

May 22 John Conroy, our camera operator, has turned out to be my biggest asset on set. He has gone above and beyond everything that is expected of him. I feel very proud to

be working with him.

May 25 We shoot our rain scenes.

We were sure we would have at least a few days of rain during this shoot but we haven’t had any. It’s a huge joke among locals. We had to bring in rain towers to create rain in Ireland!

May 28 The ADs are concerned as to how we are going to be able to fit in the cave scenes in Dunluce castle especially considering travel time and getting cast, crew, gear and props in and out of the cave.

Tina and I decide that we will need to pull certain time consuming and logistically challenging elements out of the main unit and tack them onto a smaller, leaner second unit after our main shoot. We enlist our whole Canadian team to form a small guerilla-style unit to travel to Portrush along with some of the actors and their families. Everyone pitches in. It feels like family. I am so impressed by the dedication and enthusiasm of this group.

June 24 I return to Canada. What an experience. Despite all of the challenges that we faced on this shoot and leading up to it, this has been one of the most remarkable experiences of my career. I truly believe that this is a story that will lift hearts and inspire hope. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out. ■ 23

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REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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Story by Ian Caddell

Rewards of Evil

Craig Wallace could be a poster child for those who believe that if you stick with what you’re good at and continue to improve your skills you will get to spend your life doing what you want...

Wallace wanted to be involved in producing films and television shows. After he left Centennial Secondary School in his native Coquitlam, he began to put together the building blocks that would eventually lead to the making of a SPACE network series.

Wallace attended Vancouver Film School and was then hired by local film labs where he was able to work on low budget shorts in his spare time. In 2001, his short film Good Morning was awarded a KickStart production grant (funded by the Directors Guild of Canada – BC and BC Film) which he used to apply to the directing program at the Canadian Film School in Toronto. While there he joined up with Anthony Leo and Max Reid - who were students in the producing and writing programs respectively - to create a short film called Todd and the Book of Pure Evil.

Seven years later the short film is being made into a 13 part series for SPACE with potential for international distribution. Like the short film, the series tells the story of a teenaged heavy-metal enthusiast, Todd who seeks dating advice from the devil, eventually becoming a high school basketball star and winning the heart of the head cheerleader. He tries to change things back but discovers that Satan would rather unleash the forces of hell than be rejected. Wallace says he has had a soft spot for horror for much of his life.

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think about it. I have always gravitated towards horror. I love the early Sam Raimi stuff like The Evil Dead and that was what has informed my own stuff. I have a lot of ideas for occult themes. And Max and I did a film exercise together (at the Film Centre) called The Horror we really enjoyed. From there I had an idea to do a ‘Faustian deal with the devil’ story that brought in heavy metal.

I pitched it to Max and we fleshed out what became the film. We got Bryan Webb from the heavy metal group The Constantines to score it and apparently it was considered the loudest film the Centre had done at the time.”

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and the reaction encouraged Wallace to consider that it might make a good feature length film. He stayed in Toronto assuming that if he was going to take it to another level he should stay connected with people like Leo and Reid. His assumption that a feature would be the next level changed when he bumped into a former CFC colleague who had pitched a television series. “Coming up in the film world I never thought about television,” he says. “But I thought ‘we could do that.’ Little did I know it would take seven years.”

Fortunately for Wallace, Leo had agreed that it was a journey worth taking. The next step was to find out how to make the leap from short film to television series. They had heard about the Winnipeg-based National Screen Institute’s Totally

Television program, applied to it and were accepted in 2005. Leo says that had they assumed the short was going to be a series when they were at the CFC, they might have ruined it by focusing on the wrong elements.

“It was great because we were not contemplating a TV series,” says Leo. “I am glad because it allowed us to focus on the best short film we had.

We would have used it as a trailer of sorts and that would have ended badly. The concept has evolved into television comedy as opposed to a slow-paced film in a cinematic genre. I think that what the short and, to a greater degree, the series have going for them is that people don’t often mix genres, in this case the supernatural and comedy. I think it was the mixture of genres that made people take notice. And it was a great title. People would say ‘I want to see that because of the title.’

When we were at NSI the broadcasters would come in and when they got to the table where Craig and I were they would say ‘we loved the short’ and the other students would say ‘what is going on?’”

By the end of 2005 they had a broadcaster on board. However, CHUM was going through changes and couldn’t make too many promises. “We had a good meting with (CHUM’s) Diane Boehme but she told us that (as a result of the imminent sale to CTV) they had no idea what their mandate was,” says Wallace. “But later they offered a development deal. We had it there until 2006 and that was huge because we

wrote eight scripts in development and we brought in (veteran screenwriter) Garry Campbell as a mentor.

That was a big step to where we are now.”

They are back in Winnipeg now, working with Frantic Films. The company’s Jamie Brown and Wallace are the executive producers on the series with Leo, his Aircraft Pictures partner Andrew Rosen and Frantic’s Shawn Watson producing. Reid, who had co-written the original film, had moved on to write and produce the Family Channel series Wingin’ It so Charles Picco and Campbell are co-writing the series with Wallace.

“It made a lot of sense to go with a Manitoba company for financial reasons,” says Wallace. “But we also connected with the way they wanted to do the show.”

Watson says that when he first joined Frantic three years ago they were just beginning to make a move from unscripted programming to dramatic series. “We had done very little (scripted programming) before that. This (Todd) was the first one we picked up but we have had three in development since then and we’ve completed a couple of pilots and a mini-series on Don Cherry (Keep Your Head Up Kid: The Don Cherry Story) and we produced (CBC’s) the Winnipeg Comedy Festival. We have worked with Craig and Anthony and the writers on this on a day to day basis and we have worked closely with the broadcaster. We have 13 scripts completed which is quite unusual for a series prior to production.”

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“SPACE is confident that the show’s combination of humour and traditional science fiction elements will make it a success...”

- Fraser Robinson, SPACE

Reel convenient.

Current and archived issues of Reel West Magazine are now available online at www.reelwest.com

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Watson thinks that the show could be a hit beyond this country’s borders. He says that having scripts ready before the show began principal photography allowed the company to pitch US and international broadcasters. They have liked what they have seen thus far.

“I think they (Wallace, Campbell and Picco) have a real awareness of the international marketplace and the scripts have been tailored for that. We have been careful to set it up internationally and do things like avoiding having snow in the frame, which is a little challenging in March in Winnipeg. We have been out there meeting with distributors and international broadcasters and I think it would be a great fit in that marketplace. Obviously our biggest push is towards the American market. We think that an American sale would solidify the rest of the world so we are having heightened discussions with the US. And the reaction has been fantastic. All of the distributors have read the scripts and come back with few comments except to say that it is an edgy, racy show that has to be edited for the American market.”

SPACE became involved in the project when it was still owned by CHUM. Like Watson, Fraser Robinson, the network’s Director of Content, says that having the episodes written is a bonus. He says it has made a big impact on their ability to get the show done on time and on budget.

“We (SPACE) were really happy to have greenlit the series this past September. It was great that the producers were able to have 13 episodes put to paper before the series went to camera. It’s not usually the way a production ends up going but with the series written the team has had a great opportunity to surgically map out the production plan and maximize their shoot schedule.”

Wallace agrees. He says that while it is never going to be particularly

easy to produce 13 episodes of a modestly budgeted Canadian series that has an emphasis on set, effects and creature design, working with existing scripts has been a big help.

One of the benefits has been that it has allowed them to bring in a monster designer who can plan the designs for the individual shows before pre-production begins.

“It is great for us to be able to see how things play over a full season because we can concentrate on what is going to happen in future episodes,” he says. “We have lots of monsters and effects, so writing them beforehand is allowing us to do a lot of prep. We are working with a monster guy and because we are seeing all these episodes now through the scripts we are able to block them out and he can prepare the monsters. A lot of times you are writing episodes while you are shooting and you don’t have time for the execution. You don’t have time to design stuff. It also helps for the actors because they can see their characters’ arcs, which is great for a genre show.”

But will a comedy work for an audience tuning in to a network known for classic science fiction? Robinson says SPACE is confident that the show’s combination of humour and traditional science fiction elements will make it a success.

“The program’s tongue is very firmly planted in its cheek and it’s written and produced by guys who like all of us who love SPACE have been raised on sci-fi and supernatural programming. The show has lots of clever fun with elements of the genre while still bringing us wall-towall special effects action and lots of great laughs. I like to compare it to a mix of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose and Army of Darkness. This is a show that manages the very rare and challenging feat of blending comedic and speculative storylines. I think its inclusion in our broadcast schedule is going to offer viewers a fun program that also manages to appeal to their REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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imaginations, which is what we try to do with every show on our schedule.”

Wallace has come a long way since the days of sitting in a room at Vancouver’s post houses working on his own. He says that he is happy to have surrounded himself with people who have as much passion and confidence in the project as he has maintained over the course of the seven years he has waited to get it made.

“It’s funny,” he says. “People wonder what we put into the scripts and it is a culmination of different voices.

I came from a film world where you sat in a room and wrote on your own, but I found co-writing was better for me. And both Anthony and Andrew (Rosen) are creative producers.

Someone would pitch an idea and it would get more outlandish and better all the time. So working on it with other people was good.”

The series went into production for SPACE at the beginning of March. According to Leo the network has been extremely supportive of the scripts. While working on pre-production in early February he said that after so many years of working on Todd, the payoff days have finally arrived.

“We are thrilled that they (SPACE) are helping us to make the show we always wanted to make. The exciting thing is seeing these scripts, which have made me laugh a lot over the years, finally being shot. I am excited about all the craziness that is going to happen. Right now we are working on creating monsters because we would prefer to use prosthetic

monsters and not CGI. So we have these great meetings where we ask questions like ‘should we have four or six tentacles?’ and ‘should this one be fatter?’ This is our job! We are getting to be like George Lucas. We have the opportunity to be able to do that kind of stuff and there aren’t a lot of people who can say that.”

Getting there wasn’t half the fun.

Wallace expects, a few weeks before principal photography is set to begin, that the process of shooting the series will be difficult but is confident that since so much work has gone into it already things will fall into place. He says that as the days lead up to the March shoot there is not much he can do but believe in the concept, the scripts and the team that has come together to make the show.

“We are doing principal photography in early spring and it will be a very tight shoot. There are so many set pieces. The post thing is a big thing for me because I understand that part of it well and to a lot of producers that is a mythical process.

I understand what they are talking about but on the whole my strength comes from being an indie filmmaker and doing it on your own. I have been writing scripts and shooting so I have a great overview. I now know that I can’t do it all by myself and that I have to learn how to get the best out of other people. Hopefully you work with people who will take your idea and make it better. I have a great team and I feel it is a team show and that everyone has input and that together we will make it the best show it can be.” ■

National Dream continued from page 18

on the tough sledding that she went through since she first decided she wanted to make Daydream Nation, that she is still surprised that things worked out as well as they did. “I have no idea what kept me there, but again it was probably the little voice in the back of my head saying ‘this is the one you stick with.’ There were some bleak days when we started prep. We were three weeks in and our financing started to fall apart.

We would have had to pay for that so we would have been furiously in debt, which means mortgaging the house for someone like me. It was a massive risk and a really horrible month but we kept at it. I am so happy that we did.” ■

you are looking at BC or Ontario or Quebec, you are looking at large parts of the country with huge potential. This is true with documentaries as well as dramas. You are showcasing Canadian talent to the world.

On this film some of the key creative is out of Ontario and the requirement of dong inter-provincial is 50% of the post in each province. So you move the picture editing there and do the sound mix here. But the bottom line is that when you are putting together a movie it is totally about relationships and I think Film Farm is the kind of company you really want to work with.”

Haebler says, as she looks back REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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Vancouver is increasingly becoming a hub for animation. There is no shortage of local talent, and this, combined with our favourable federal and provincial tax credit systems, has caught the eye of international animation houses, and has encouraged the growth of local animation companies.

When looking at the animation industry, there are numerous categories that could be explored in-depth. In this column, however, I will briefly look at the Digital Animation or Visual Effects (or “DAVE”) tax credit, and the animation section of the Writer’s Guild of Canada Independent Production Agreement (or “IPA”).

Provincial tax credits are calculated based on a production’s labour costs, and can be up to 35% of the labour spend for BC productions.

With the introduction of the DAVE credit, producers in British Columbia gained the opportunity to significantly increase their tax credits by up to an additional 15% on accredited and qualified BC labour expenditures directly attributable to digital animation or visual effects.

In order to qualify for the DAVE credit, a production must first qualify for either the basic Film and Television tax credit or the Production Services tax credit (or PSTC). Once the production has qualified for such tax credits, then it can also potentially qualify for the DAVE tax credit.

The DAVE credit offers an additional incentive to animation producers, as it can significantly increase their provincial tax credits. This, obviously, means big savings to animation producers.

On February 3, 2010 it was announced that the PSTC would be increased 8% to allow producers to receive tax credits of up to 33%, and, in addition, the DAVE credit was increased by 2.5% to allow for a maximum DAVE tax credit of 17.5%. This change will undoubtedly have the effect of increasing the incentive for animation houses to elect to produce or keep their productions in BC. The adoption by the WGC of the

Animation Section of the IPA marked the inclusion of animation writers as an important part of the guild. When it comes to animated productions, the WGC has taken an interesting and pragmatic approach to the Animation Section, as it is a “stand alone” section of the IPA. This means that only the provisions of the Animation Section apply to animation contracts, thus allowing for writers to benefit from certain protections typical of the guild (i.e. fringes and retention of copyright), while keeping silent on many areas, allowing the standards and practices of animation writing to evolve in the market place and to develop industry-accepted norms in an organic way.

For example, the Animation Section of the IPA does not prescribe minimum script fees, nor does it require writers to be paid a production fee or distribution royalty. This has made it more affordable for independent producers to hire WGC writers, and while this may, on its face, seem like a disadvantage to the animation writers themselves, it has actually proven to be quite the opposite. As Vancouver continues to grow rapidly as an animation center, there is increasingly more work available for animation writers, allowing them to negotiate favourable rates with producers and develop industrystandard norms in this growing area of the market.

The approach of the WGC has proven to be very effective. Independent producers have found the animation section to be very user friendly, and are generally less wary of becoming signatories, while the writers themselves get the comfort of being included under the umbrella of the guild.

Lori Massini’s practice focuses on the entertainment industry, assisting clients with all aspects of entertainment law from drafting agreements and negotiating the hiring of actors, writers, and directors to advising musicians and recording artists.

REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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WA S TH ERE . . .

1.

2.

4.

5.

3.

6.

ON MARCH 7TH VANCOUVERITES GATHERED AT THE PLAYERS CHOPHOUSE RESTUARANT & LOUNGE FOR THE PITCHFEST 2010 OSCAR WRAP PARTY, AND REEL WEST PHOTOGRAPHER PHIL CHIN WAS THERE...

1. OSCAR PARY HOSTS JANA LYNNE WHITE AND COMEDIAN CHRISTOPHER MOLINEUX. 2. AZADEH NABAVI, JUSTIN LEES, ERICA BEARS, RICHARD BRODEUR, CHRISTINE BYRNE. 3. SHAUNA BAKER, BAILEY WINDLEY AND SHANNON BAKER. 4. NJERI WATKINS, NORA AHERN, ADRIAN CUNNINGHAM, JANA LYNNE WHITE, MAHARA BRENNA AND BLU MANKUMA. 5. MELISSA HOWELL AND LUCY SMITH (SAROFINA OPERA). 6. ACTRESS CATHERINE LOUGH HAGGQUIST, WRITER STEVE BURGESS AND TV ANCHOR COLEEN CHRISTIE. 7.

KATHERINE BRODSKY AND DIRECTOR CHARLES MARTIN SMITH. 8. SCREEN WRITER JOAN MACBETH 7.

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8.

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FINAL EDIT Ali Scores Knock Out

DISTRICT 9 HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR FOUR ACADEMY AWARDS.

BC Ups Ante After weeks of pressure from film and television producers and unions and the opposition New Democratic Party, the Liberal government of British Columbia unveiled, on February 4, new tax credit proposals for digital media and production services.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen said the government would be raising the Digital Animation or Visual Effects tax credit bonus to 17.5 per cent from 15% and that the Production Service Tax Credit on labour costs for foreign production would increase to 33 per cent from 25 per cent. Introduced was a new BC Interactive Digital Media tax credit for video game development of 17.5 per cent of qualifying B.C. labour costs. In addition the qualified B.C. labour expenditures cap increased to 60 per cent from 48 per cent of production costs.

The production services credit was raised to allow the province to be more competitive with Quebec and Ontario, which give foreign-service producers a 25% credit on most of the elements within a production budget. A film industry source told Reel West that it was unlikely that the increase would matter to USbased producers given that the overall credit given them by Ontario and Quebec would be “approximately half of a production.”

NDP critic Spencer Herbert told the Georgia Straight newspaper that the needs of domestic producers were 30

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not addressed in the incentives announcement. “They haven’t done anything to support B.C.–based filmmakers. So [for] filmmakers, for example, making Canadian television series, there’s some help. But we’re still in that sense very uncompetitive with Ontario. If we want a truly sustainable film and television industry here, we need to build up and support our domestic filmmakers for Canadian television shows or for Canadian movies, but this announcement doesn’t do that. It doesn’t help us build that sustainable industry.”

Hansen dismissed the charges, telling reporters during the announcement that “there is a different tax credit structure for domestic films, which is slightly more generous than tax credits for foreign films.” The federal government offers, through the Canadian Heritage Ministry, a rate of 25 per cent on labour costs not exceeding 60 per cent of the cost of the production.

VFS Alumni Off to Oscars Several Vancouverites had great seats at the recent Academy Awards.

Most of them won their nominations for working on District 9, which was nominated for picture, adapted screenplay, visual effects and editing.

Also nominated was costume designer Monique Prudhomme, who worked on the Vancouver-shot The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Vancouver Film School alumni

Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell won the screenwriting nomination for adapting Blomkamp’s short film, Alive in Joburg. Tatchell is a graduate of the school’s Writing for Film & Television programme while Blomkamp, a South African who moved to Canada after high school, was in the 3D Animation & Visual Effects department. Blomkamp directed the film and was responsible for the hiring of over 40 VFS graduates. The majority of visual effects were done at New Zealand’s Weta Digital and at three Vancouver digital houses: Image Engine Design, Zoic Studios and The Embassy.

“I remember sitting in class [at VFS], fantasizing about getting a script actually realized on the screen,” Tatchell said through VFS spokesperson Thuy Khuc. “When District 9 came about and I was lucky enough to have a feature-length script made, and in my opinion, made well, I didn’t think it could get any better than that. I certainly didn’t even dare to think Oscar nominations! I don’t think I’ve missed a single Oscars since I was seven years old. I couldn’t (have been) luckier!”

Vancouver’s Julian Clarke won a film editing nomination for District 9 while the film won nominations for three Vancouver-based effects designers, Image Engine’s Dan Kaufman and Peter Muyzers and Robert Habros of the Embassy and Weta’s Matt Aitken.

Facing Ali won the Best British Columbia Film at the recent Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards. The documentary, which tells the story of Muhammad Ali’s career through interviews with the boxers who fought against him, was directed by Pete McCormack, who was in attendance at the event. The other nominees were Bruce Sweeney’s quirky romance Excited and Vic Sarin’s family drama A Shine of Rainbows. Gabrielle Rose won the VFCC’s Best Supporting Actress award in the Canadian film category for her performance as a meddling mother in Excited.

The majority of awards in the category went to Quebec’s J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother.) The film, which stars Xavier Dolan as a young man in a difficult relationship with his mother, won the Best Picture award and Best Director and Best Actor prizes for Dolan. It also won the Best Supporting Actor award for François Arnaud. Emily Blunt won the Best Actress award for the Canada/UK coproduction The Young Victoria which was directed by previous VFCC winner Jean-Marc Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y.) Montreal-born director Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air won three awards including Best Film, Best Supporting Actress (Vera Farmiga) and Best Screenplay (Reitman and Sheldon Turner.) In the film, George Clooney plays a businessman who expounds on the joys of a carefree life in airports.

The rest of the international awards were spread amongst several films with The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow winning the Best Director prize, Carrie Mulligan of An Education winning for Best Actress, Colin Firth winning the Best Actor award for A Single Man and Christoph Waltz winning the Best Supporting Actor award for Inglourious Basterds.

France’s Summer Hours won the Best Foreign Language Film. Anvil: The Story of Anvil won the Best Documentary award.

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Nettie Wild and Vancouver International Film Festival founder Leonard Schein both received the Achievement Award for Contribution to the British Columbia Film Industry. ■ REEL WEST MARCH / APRIL 2010

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