SEptember / october 2012
$5.00
Film, video, internet and digital production in Western CanAda
Random acts of romance The multi-talented Kristine Cofsky’s
In No Particular Order The Festival man
Alan Franey
Va nc Fi ou lm ve Fe r I st Nt iv er al n Is atio su n e al
Canadian Mail Publication Sales Agreement Number: 40006834
Star power: TV’s Amanda Tapping stars in Katrin Bowen’s
Contents
16 THE FESTIVAL MAN
4 Production Update
He has been running the Vancouver International Film Festival for a quarter century now and has quietly turned it into one of North America’s biggest film events. Alan Franey looks back at his beginnings in the difficult exhibition industry and how he discovered a love for film and a passion for programming.
5 bits and bytes
20 COMEDY CLUB
12 Behind the Scenes
We may think of Canadian films as being rather bleak but a trio of Canadian comedies could change the minds of audiences at the upcoming Vancouver International Film Festival.
9 Legal BrIEFS 10 Beginnings 14 Question and Answer
21 THE TREND SETTERS
15 Reel West Profile
The Vancouver festival’s Film & TV Forum will lead off this year’s five day event with Global Trends Day which will bring together some of the leading experts on the subject.
30 FINAL EDIT
22 STAR POWER Katrin Bowen managed to recruit some of BC’s most high profile television actors for her second film, Random Acts of Romance. Their fan base could give the film a boost when it goes looking for an audience, something that could occur more often as the acting pool grows and independent filmmakers take advantage of newly minted local stars.
26 CREATING ORDER Kristine Kofsky decided to parlay her acting credits into something bigger, taking on the producing, codirecting, writing and lead role in a film called In No Particular Order. As she recalls in her diary on the making of the movie, there was no money and she had to overcome her overwhelming desire to rewrite every scene.
Cover: Amanda tapping stars in Random acts of romance; photo by dennys ilic Contents: VIFF festival director alan franey; photo by Janos Molnar - janosmolnar.com 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. Sales: Randy Holmes, Adam Caddell 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 2010 Reel West Productions Inc. Second Class Mail. Registration No. 0584002. ISSN 0831-5388. G.S.T. # R104445218. Reel West Productions Inc. 101 - 5512 Hastings Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5B 1R3. Phone (604) 451-7335 Toll Free: 1-888-291-7335 Fax: (604) 451-7305 Email: info@reelwest.com URL: www.reelwest.com. Volume 27, Issue 5. Printed In Canada. To subscribe call 1-888-291-7335 or visit our website at www.reelwest.com. Reel West welcomes feedback from our readers, via email at editorial@reelwest.com or by fax at 604-451-7305. All correspondence must include your name, address, and daytime telephone number.
Reel West September / October 2012
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Production update
What’s coming. What’s shooting. What’s wrapped.
Radha Mitchell (pictured here in the 2009 feature The Waiting City) will star in Red Widow which began shooting in Vancouver in late August.
Strong Fall Forecast for Local Industry
Some new series have arrived in BC for a lengthy stay while two Mandarin language films have also chosen to shoot in the province for much of September. Add a recent Oscar nominee and an iconic wizard and it looks like the fall will be both busy and interesting in the streets and studios of Vancouver. The Asian films are Crazy in Love which has Fei Gu directing, Yu Sun as executive producer, Mike Yim as production manager and Eric Zhang as location manager and Love Song In 2012 with Lei Wang directing, Yanming Liu as executive producer, Yiting Jiang as producer, Eric Zhang as line producer, Fulai Dong as DOP, line producer: Eric Zhang, Xiaoyong Shen as production designer and Maung Tin as location manager. Two locally produced features Filthy Beasts and Project Potato are projects from the same company, Potato Pro-
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ductions West Ltd. Both are scheduled to wrap September 15 after a three week shoot. They are being directed by David Hicks with Michael Baker and Jeff Sackman as executive producers and Laurie Maxwell and Shel Piercy as producers with Cynthia Chapman as line producer/production manager, Samy Inayeh as DOP, Jeremy Stanbridge as production designer, Michael Lien as production coordinator and Rico Mielnicki as location manager. The series include Cult, the story of a TV show called “Cult” that experiences several mysterious deaths. The show, scheduled for the fall on the CW network, has J.B. Moranville producing, Attila Szalay as the DOP, Rachel O’Toole as the production designer, Penny Gibbs as the production manager, Jill Christensen as the production coordinator and Michael Roberts as the location manager.
Here until February is the CTV series Motive, the fictional story of a Vancouver police detective and her team of officers. The executive producers are James Thorpe, Robert Merilees and Louise Clark, the line producer is John Lenic, the DOP is Mathias Herndl, the production designer is Don MacAulay, the production manager is Christina Toy. The production coordinator is Deana Kittso and the location manager is Heather Vedan. The series Red Widow stars Radha Mitchell as a housewife who may have to join the family crime business to avenge her husband’s death. The ABC network show has Dan Sackheim directing, Melissa Rosenberg, Howard Klein and Alon Aranya as executive producers, Tim Iacofano producing, Liz Benjamin as supervising producer, David Wagreich as DOP, David Willson as production designer, Patti
Allen as production manager, Kaayla Ryane as production coordinator and Greg Jackson as location manager. It is scheduled to be here until November after starting up in mid-August. Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) stars in the series Bates Motel, a prequel to the film Psycho. It is here from late September to January and has Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin as executive producers with Justis Greene and Tucker Gates as producer, Tom Yatsko and John Bartley as DOPs, Mark Freeborn as the production designer, Heather Meehan as the production manager, Jennifer Metcalf as the production coordinator, and Abraham Fraser as the location manager. The feature film Chaos 3D is here till late September and has Nimrod Antal directing, Doug Merrifield as executive producer, Charlotte Huggins producing, Gyula Pados as DOP, Helen Jarvis as production designer, Colleen Mitchell as production manager, Bliss McDonald as production coordinator, Ann Goobie as location manager, and Alex Burdett as special effects coordinator. And Harry Potter will be here in late September as well. Daniel Radcliffe will be starring in Horns, a feature from horror master Alexandre Aja. Radcliffe plays a young man who grows horns that force people to confess to crimes and secrets. The movie will be executive produced by Joe Hill and Shawn Williamson with Riza Aziz, John Thompson and Cathy Schulman the producers. The DOP is Fred Elmes, the production designer is Alan Cameron, the production manager is Allan Cameron, the production manager is Bonnie Benwick, the production coordinator is Laura Livingstone and the
Reel West September / October 2012
Bits and Bytes
Continuum Continues
Photo © ABC, INC.
supervising producer/production manager, Kim Miles as DOP, Rick Whitfield as production designer, Joey Setter as production coordinator and Amy Barager as location manager. It wraps September 25 after a two week shoot. And a digital feature 12 Rounds: Reloaded starring wrestler Randy Orton has Roel Reine directing Richie Lowell and Mark Bienstock as executive producers, Michael Luisi as producer, Chris Foss as co-producer, Donald Munro as line producer, Tony Metchie as DOP, Troy Hansen as production designer, Chris Foss as production manager, Thomas Newman as production coordinator and Monty Bannister as location manager. n
Emmy-nominated Once Upon a Time
location manager is Thierry Tanguy. Two locally produced television movies, A Bride for Christmas and The Trainer are scheduled to wrap in September. A Bride for Christmas has Winnipeg’s Gary Yates directing with Tim Johnson as executive producer, Oliver De Caigny as producer, Mandy Spencer-Phillips as line producer, Brenton Spencer as DOP, Brian Davie as production designer, Mandy Spencer Phillips as production manager, Crystal Remney as production coordinator and David Fullerton as location manager. It wraps on September 17 after a three week shoot. The Trainer is directed by Ron Oliver with Shawn Williamson as executive producer, Jamie Goehring as producer/
Emmys Open up Categories The Emmy-nominated visual effects supervisor of two Vancouver television series says that creating new award categories for this year’s Emmys allows Academy voters to
Showcase has renewed the BC-produced Continuum after choose between traditional visual effects of science fiction characters and shows that create seemingly ordinary elements that don’t exist in the original shot. the series played to over a million viewers and shattered Andrew Orloff, an Emmy nominee this year for both his Vancouver shows, the previous records on the network. The network’s parent sci-fi series Falling Skies and the fanatasy Once Upon a Time, says that creating a company Shaw Media said the first season concluded with category that recognizes shows with magic at their core and one for imagery that plays a supporting role in a program makes sense. the most-watched finale in Showcase history. “We want to see recognition for creative work being done, but it’s hard to compare “Continuum was a tremendous success for the chan- spaceships and aliens and castles and ogres to, say, a computer-generated period nel,” said Shaw vice president Barbara Williams. “We building,” says Orloff, special effects supervisor for Zoic Studios. The nominees for Outstanding Visual Effects are Falling Skies, Game of Thrones, are proud to green light such a prolific ratings hit and Inside the Human Body, Once Upon A Time, Pan Am and The Walking Dead. The original series for a second season.” nominees for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Supporting Role are Boardwalk Empire, Continuum is a one-hour police drama centered on The Borgias, Breaking Bad, Hemingway and Gelhorn and Touch. The Emmys will be held on September 15. Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols), a cop from the year 2077 who finds herself trapped in present day Vancou- Partners in Technology US-based film technology firms Digital Nirvana and Venera Technologieshave formed ver, searching for convicted criminals from the future, a partnership. According to spokespersons for the companies, Digital Nirvana “will known as Liber8. The show also stars Victor Webster, leverage Venera’s test and measurement components within Digital Nirvana’s flagship Eric Knudsen, Stephen Lobo and Jennifer Spence. It Monitor IQ broadcast monitoring solution.” “Our intent with this partnership is to produce products with unprecedented capawas created by Simon Barry while the other executive bilities to monitor and analyze digital video and audio signal integrity,” said Ned Chini, producers include Jeff King, Matthew O’Connor, Lisa vice president of sales and marketing, Digital Nirvana. “The need for such products is Richardson, Pat Williams and Tom Rowe. Sara B. critical in our industry. We anticipate that our joint development roadmap will result in powerful new technology and capabilities that will greatly improve and streamline our Cooper is the co-executive producer. customers’ operations.”
According to Vikas Singhal, executive director of business development for Venera
Sky Launched Victoria-based CHEK TV has launched an original series that looks at the world of business, travel, dining and arts and culture. The show, titled Sky’s the Limit will be hosted by Levi Sampson, part owner of Nanaimo-based HARMAC Pacific, and photographer Suzanne Teresa, acclaimed photographer and owner of ST Photoworks,. According to spokesperson Jasmyn Pozzo, they “navigate the world of business travel and give audiences an inside look at can’t miss events and attractions for the business traveler.” The show is scheduled to premiere on September 17th. Reel West September / October 2012
Pozzo says the half-hour television series will feature interviews “with accomplished personalities from around the world, who can relay to audiences the nuances about the history, customs, food, culture and lifestyles of the cities they visit. They take us inside some of the best sights for business travelers who have limited time to explore a compact guide to each city’s finest offerings.” Pozzo says cities profiled in the first season include Sydney, Melbourne, The Island of Tanna (Vanuatu), Montreal, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, and the BC resort town of Tofino.
Technologies, the company is “extremely excited about the synergy between our two companies and the potential of this relationship. Our two companies are a very good match because we both offer complementary best-in-class products and in-depth expertise in the field of digital video signal monitoring.”
Blue Ant Gets Bold Toronto-based cross platform company Blue Ant Media has entered into an agreement to purchase digital specialty channel Bold from the CBC. According to Blue Ant CEO, Michael MacMillan, the transaction is conditional on the CBC obtaining approvals from the CRTC. He said the channel carries programming that focuses on the lives of rural Canadians and has 2.6 million subscribers. “Acquiring Bold will give Blue Ant another platform to engage audiences with unique entertainment content,” he said in a statement. “We definitely see a lot of opportunity with the channel, while also expanding our array of channel offerings.” MacMillan said Blue Ant completed a deal to purchase High Fidelity HDTV and its four channels, Oasis HD, EQHD, RadX and High Fidelity HDTV, earlier this month.
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Seeds, Package Greenlit Immigration Law Group
Toronto-based CityTv recently announced that it has greenlit two Vancouver comedies. The shows, • Work Permits Seeds and Package Deal will be on catherine a. Sas, Q.c. • Permanent Resident Applications csas@millerthomson.com the network’s mid-season schedule. Registered Foreign Legal Consultant • Business Applications: Entrepreneur with the State Bar of California Seeds, from Force Four Entertain and Self-Employed ment is a 13-episode, half-hour series For more information please call 604.687.2242 about a bachelor who finds his foray added experience. added clarity. added value. into the world of sperm donation has resulted in kids and becomes entangled in the lives of his new-found children. Miller Thomson LLP millerthomson.com Created by Andrew Orenstein vancouver calgary edmonton saskatoon regina london kitchener-waterloo (Malcolm in the Middle, 3rd Rock guelph toronto markham montréal from the Sun) and produced by Thunderbird Films, Package Deal is a 13-episode, half-hour, multi-camera MT_Reel West Digest Ad_v6.indd 1 5/5/2011 1:35:47 PM
original comedy about three overly close brothers and the woman who comes between them. “Citytv has long been the home to some of the most successful and critically-acclaimed comedies from the U.S. - and now we’re throwing our hat into the ring!” said Rogers Media’s Claire Freeland. “We’re excited to be working with the seasoned teams at both Thunderbird Films and Force Four Entertainment, where together, we will create two comedies that are edgy and hip - and most importantly, funny. Our audiences love comedies, and Citytv’s strength in this genre is undeniable.”
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A Vancouver-shot reality series about a former mistress’s determination to help other women avoid the pitfalls of infidelity is running throughout September and October on Shaw’s Slice network. The show profiles Sarah Symonds, an author and self proclaimed former mistress to both chef Gordon Ramsay and author Jeffrey Archer. According to spokesperson Julia Wilkinson, the show follows Symonds on her mission to rescue women caught in the despair of an extra marital affair. Wilkinson says that Symonds takes each mistress on “an emotional journey of self-realization and empowerment, giving viewers a unique glimpse into the life of an often-vilified woman.” “Admitting that you need help and fully committing to reclaiming your life is the first step for any mistress who wants out of her relationship with a married man,” says Symonds. “I’m thrilled to be able to bring my expertise and message to television, ensuring that a wide range of women receive the advice and support they need to walk away from this toxic lifestyle.”
Mistress Sarah Symonds
Mistress Premieres
Reel West September / October 2012
Jamie Davis of Highway Thru Hell
Hell Takes Western Route
The Discovery Channel’s reality series Highway Thru Hell, which debuts September 4, spotlights BC’s Coquihalla Highway, which it refers to as “a trucker’s worst nightmare.” The series, produced by Vancouver’s Great Pacfic TV follows the adventures of Jamie Davis Rescue, a company responsible for keeping open well-travelled trucking routes throughout North America. “In the mountains that surround Merritt, Princeton, Lytton and Hope, B.C.,” says a spokesperson for the series, “the highways are steep and icy terrain where Mother Nature reigns supreme. Beautiful but dangerous, these vital arteries form a nerve-wracking gauntlet that truckers must conquer in all weather conditions. Trying to climb a long and gruelling 8% grade during winter storms, truckers spin out and smash up. During the worst storms, the big wrecks can comes as often as every 12 hours. And when these wrecks close the road and choke traffic, the call goes out to Jamie Davis. Dropping everything to respond, it’s is their job to remove the often-dangerous cargo, clean up the twisted metal, clear the road and get traffic rolling again for hundreds of drivers.” The series is produced by Mark Miller with Miller, Blair Reekie and Dan Jackson the executive producers.
Reel West September / October 2012
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Hairy Deal A buddy comedy set in Fernie , BC is currently shooting in the East Kootenays and Vancouver. The movie stars Robin Nielsen as a Toronto junior executive who reunites with old friends when he returns home, to discover that his best friend’s business is in serious risk of being taken over by developers and there is a Sasquatch on the loose. According to spokesperson Owen Cameron, the film also stars Viv Leacock, James Wallis, Katharine
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Isabelle, Karin Konoval and Garry Chalk. It is based on a story by Ian Simpson and Catherine Allen with the screenplay written by David Chiavegato and Richard Pryce-Jones. It is being directed by David Hicks. Cameron said the film is being produced by Laurie Maxwell and Infinity Films’ Shel Piercy and executive produced by Jeff Sackman and Michael Baker. He said it will be distributed theatrically in Canada by Alliance Films in early 2013.
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Hidden Wraps Roy Lee. It’s being produced by Mason Novick and Lawrence Grey with John Middleton, Sebastian Aloi, Jim Rowe and Katterli Frauenfelder as executive producers. Michelle Knudsen is serving as co-producer. Gormley says the DOP is Attack the Block’s Tom Townend while Jeffrey Werner is the editor and Alice in Wonderland’s Colleen Atwood is the production designer. The production coordinator is Adrienne Sol and the location manager is Geoff Teoli.
Urban Suburban host SARAH DANIELS
The Warner Bros. feature Hidden wrapped in September after two months of shooting. The film stars Twilight’s Alexander Skarsgard and W.E’s Andrea Risebrough as a couple who have survived outside devastation by living in a bomb shelter for almost a year. According to Warner spokesperson Victoria Gormley, the film was written by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer who also made their feature film debut. In addition to the leads, the film stars Emily Alyn Lind as daughter Zoe and
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The Vancouver-produced series Urban Suburban has been picked up for a second season and will be running for 26 episodes beginning Tuesday, August 28 on HGTV Canada according to a spokesperson for producer Force Four Entertainment. The spokesperson says hosts and realtors Sarah Daniels and Philip DuMoulin “continue to face off as they guide families through urban and suburban houses – competing to find each family their perfect location, price, and home. Philip champions city living, while Sarah reveals the perks of life in the suburbs. Family feuds aside, Sarah and Philip continue to put the real estate needs of Canadians first in order to find the perfect home.” “We are thrilled HGTV Canada is set to air twentysix more episodes of Urban Suburban,” says John Ritchie, the show’s executive producer. “More than ever, the urban versus suburban dilemma makes for entertaining television and season two will provide viewers with even more insight into the process couples go through with this fascinating home-buying decision.” The show profiles the housing crisis in several Canadian cities including Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. Reel West September / October 2012
Legal Briefs
I
Low Budget Program Should Benefit BC Filmmakers
photo c/o industryWorks Pictures
s your production faced with a budget so tight that paying performers the full UBCP/ACTRA rates is a near impossibility? If so,
Doran Chandler Entertainment Lawyer
Mary an American Success
A spokesperson for Vancouver-based IndustryWorks Pictures says the company could have an international hit with the horror film American Mary. The movie recently premiered at Fright Fest UK, the Europe’s largest horror fest. The movie is also scheduled to play at the Fantastic Fest in US, and the Sitges fest in Spain. A spokesperson said that the film is also receiving acclaim from leading genre magazines including Fangoria, Total Film, Dread Central, Twitch Film, Bloody Disgusting and Daily Dead along with mainstream trades such as Daily Screen and Time Out. American Mary stars Katharine Isabelle and Antonio Cupo in a story of medical student who is increasingly broke and disenchanted with medical school and the surgeons that she once admired. The allure of easy money and notoriety sends her into the messy world of underground surgeries. The film was directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska and was produced by Evan Tylor and John Curtis. Discovering Security A half hour Vancouver-produced documentary series about Canada’s border crossings premiered in early September on National Geographic Channel. Spokesperson Andrew Poon says the series, titled Border Security: Canada’s Front Line looks at the day to day drama faced by border guards. “Every day, tens of thousands of people arrive at Canada’s border crossings,” says Poon. “Most are legitimate travellers, but not all of them. From Canadian citizens with undeclared food to international drug smugglers; from confused visitors to phony immigrants; Reel West September / October 2012
from impaired drivers to wanted felons. Border services officers see them all, and need to figure out which is which – keeping Canada safe from threats of all kinds, big and small.” Poon says the Force Four Entertainment series features exclusive access behind the scenes at the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The series is based on an Australian series now in its eleventh season. The Australian version won Most Outstanding Factual Program at the Australian Television Awards in 2009.
UBCP may have just the program for you. The Ultra Low Budget Program was created to let producers work with union performers on certain types of low-budget productions, allowing the producer a reduction in performers’ fees while still permitting union performers to take part in the production while under the protection of the union agreement. The main benefit to producers of the Ultra Low Budget Program is that it allows them to engage union performers as long as all performers are paid a minimum of $100 per day (whether they are union members or not. However, there is no obligation for the producer to pay background performers. That being said, the performers, including the background performers, are not restricted by the Ultra Low Budget Program from negotiating better terms for themselves. Despite the reduction in the performer fees provided by the program, there are a number of restrictions set out in the program guidelines that limit the number and types of productions that are able to qualify. For example, all of the performers engaged under the Ultra Low Budget Program must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada for the production to qualify. Productions that are produced under the terms of the Ultra Low Budget Program must be produced and used “primarily” for educational, evaluation, critique or non-commercial uses. Those uses include showing productions produced under the program at film festivals, showcase screenings, workshops or other noncommercial venues where no admission is charged. Despite the limited intended use of productions produced under the Ultra Low Budget Program, pro-
ducers are by no means prevented from exploiting productions more broadly. However, to the extent that any revenue is generated by such further exploitation of a production, the producer is required to pay the performers a shared use fee equal to 5% of all revenue generated (defined as Distributors Gross Revenue in the UBCP Master Production Agreement). The union has the right to evaluate each production applying to qualify under the Ultra Low Budget Program on a case-by-case basis and, in addition to requiring a $150 application fee, the union will need to review the budget, the script and the crew and cast lists. The union will also require the producer to obtain insurance, the type of which will depend on the kind of production in question (including whether there are stunts involved in the production). In addition to the restrictions set out above, the Ultra Low Budget Program will not apply to certain types of productions, including any productions for which performers must stay overnight at distant locations, industrial/corporate videos, animated productions, pilots or presentation programs, series, MOWs, commercials or educational productions. Due to the various restrictions, of course not all productions are going to be able to take advantage of the benefits of the Ultra Low Budget Program. However, to the extent that a production qualifies under the Program, the producer will realize substantial savings in amounts otherwise due to performers. If ever in doubt whether your production will qualify (or to find out more about other low budget programs, including the Student Ultra Low Budget Program, the 20/20 Ultra Low Budget Program and the Member Initiated Production Program), contact your local union office or website. Doran Chandler’s practice focuses on providing legal services for the entertainment industry, including services in relation to film and television financing, intellectual property issues, production services and music. n 9
Photo by Phil CHin
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Reel West September / October 2012
Beginnings
Joely Collins “Memories include dressing up in groovy duds and putting together impromptu theatre shows, rock concerts and puppet shows...”
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guess you could say that from a very early age (the day I was born), artistic people and the entertainment industry surrounded me. What I was exposed to has definitely had a big impact on me and the way I’ve shaped my life, but that’s not to say I grew up knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Since my Dad was in a rock band, watching then lead singer Peter Gabriel dress up like a giant vampire daisy, get loaded into a coffin and carried on stage as he started singing was my introduction to creative self expression. Or maybe it was the giant marijuana mushroom cloud that enveloped me as I watched the concerts from the sound booth that opened the pathways to creative freedom. Nonetheless, I’ve always felt comfortable expressing myself. I am after all, a Leo. Memories include dressing up in groovy duds and putting together impromptu theatre shows, rock concerts and puppet shows. Fawlty Towers made a big impact on my family and I have to admit, I do a mean Basil Fawlty. But all jokes aside, was I gonna make a career out of performing? I didn’t know. After participating in lots of local theatre, by age 11 my attention turned to horses. I had to shovel shit for three years to prove that I was serious, but finally I earned my own horse and he became my world for the next ten years. Competing on the circuit, with the constant smell of barn in my hair… I had found something that made me profoundly happy. But they say the pilot light never goes out and it wasn’t until I turned 20 that I started to think about acting again. Unfortunately, after a nasty back injury forced me to hang up my reins, I retired from horse riding, retired my horse - bless him, and decided to rekindle my love for acting. This decision didn’t come easy and wasn’t born overnight but I’m a very thorough person and if I was to take this acting thing seriously as a career, I needed to build my chops. So I studied. I did workshops. I took classes, lots of them. Thank you to a great mentor of mine, Linda Darlow, who helped me get over myself and do the work. Michael Shurtleff, you were an inspiration…and there’s a few others who’ve helped me find my way, until the time came to finally get myself an agent and book some jobs. Let the auditions begin! I think the television series Madison was the third job I booked. It was a show that would change my life because of the wonderful life long friends I made during the series (that’s how I met my StoryLab business partner Chad Willett, but more about that later) and because I really grew up as a person doing that show. I went on to win a Gemini award for my role as Rachel. Life was great. I did four seasons of Madison along with various other TV shows, TV movies and feature films. We in the business now refer to this time as ‘the glory days’, the good ole 90’s, when there was a plethora of work and actors were actually making a living acting – imagine that?! The 90’s were also a memorable time for the emergence of electronic music, something else that made a huge impact on my life. I LOVE dancing, so much so that I decided to learn how to spin records, another form of self-expression! I was so inspired by the rave scene that I decided to make a documentary about it called Summer Love’ which was essentially an ‘ABCs to raving’. This adventure was my foray into producing and was a real eye opener. I learnt a lot and felt appreciation for what goes on behind the other side of the lens. But the experience of creating my own film also felt strangely comfortable and I realized that, after being an actor for so long, I knew more than I thought. I was trained to follow my instincts after all and my instincts were good. I got the opportunity to attend various film festivals and eventually sell my little raver film. So the producer bug had bitten me. The seed was planted. After more acting, lots more auditioning, and even more driving back and forth between LA and Vancouver, I landed another great Canadian series, Cold Squad. This
Reel West September / October 2012
show formed another little family in my life and it was during this time that I wanted to learn more about the production side of things. You see, as an actor you are the last piece of the puzzle, the last one to step onto set. So many decisions have been made beforehand and I wanted to get in on all that good stuff. So I started shadowing the producers to learn more about the production process. I got to sit in on some casting sessions for the first time. That was the best acting class I ever took. You definitely know within the first 10 seconds if someone is right for the role. I also got to see how much it shows when you aren’t properly prepared. Duly noted. But I enjoyed every minute of discovering what goes into make a television production and I asked lots of questions. I think it helps to enjoy what you’re doing to really learn it. I couldn’t possibly reflect back on things though without mentioning one of my favourite roles to date. Playing Ms. Gillian Guess in Bruce MacDonald’s film, The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess was creative freedom to the max and I loved Bruce’s eccentric take on things. What a blast we had. The Vancouver Women in Film presented me with the ‘Artistic Merit Award’ during the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival. It was truly an honour to get acknowledged for doing something I love. Speaking of love...just before I started the film I met my wonderful Dutch husband, who so dearly reminds me that ‘if it ain’t Dutch it ain’t much’. A year of traveling back and forth between Vancouver and Holland ensued and the rest is history… In 2006, I executive produced a feature film called Almost Heaven which I also starred in along with Donal Logue and Erin Karpluk. Directed by Shel Piercy, it was a fun romantic comedy about fishing. No seriously. A great script, we shot the film in Vancouver and Scotland and, for the very first time, I collaborated with my Dad professionally when he wrote an original song for the film, something I’m very proud of. Storytelling is a unique and incredible privilege, and by now that seed was sprouting and I was ready to start creating my own. Cue Chad Willett, my Madison friend. It just so happened that Chad was feeling the same thing. We began to talk about our ideas and lo and behold, ‘StoryLab Productions’ was born! The name has a couple of important meanings for us; that everything begins with a good story and hard work requires collaboration. This was the beginning of a dream. Something else happened once I started my own business. I also became pregnant and embarked on a complete renovation of my home. And they said I couldn’t multi-task! I was still taking meetings the day before my daughter was born. As nutty as it sounds, I enjoyed every minute of it, and all this activity completely transformed my life. Chad and I read and continue to read lots of scripts as well as develop our own projects. One particular script that stood out for us was a feature film called Becoming Redwood written by Jesse James Miller. It struck us both for different reasons, but the story spoke to me because it revolved around a young boy named Redwood, who was trying to survive his parent’s separation. I consider myself somewhat ‘seasoned’ on this particular subject matter and I found it very touching to see how this young boy attempted to cope with his new life. Of course you’ll have to see the film to find out what happens! Making Becoming Redwood has been such a rewarding accomplishment and I’ll never forget the feeling of arriving on set for our very first day of shooting. All that good stuff that I was talking about earlier, that takes place before the actor steps onto set; the decisions, the haggling, the ups and downs, the blood, sweat and tears, was all worth it. We had a green light and were making a film. Our film. I want to thank everyone who has supported and championed me to get to this point in my life and if I’ve learned anything worth imparting, it’s to never give up, manifest your wildest dreams and be a good person. n 11
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Reel West September / October 2012
kristie clarke and xavier callamand with brett ineson
Photo by Phil CHin
behind the scenes
Animatrik Film Design “I had the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting characters I had ever seen. Trolls, Orcs, Gollum...”
M
ost of us are lucky if we discover our career path in our twenties. Brett Ineson was 11 when he knew what he wanted to do with his life. Well, perhaps not exactly but it was a good beginning. Ineson, who founded Animatrik Film Design, a Burnabybased motion capture, pre-visualization and virtual cinematography company in 2008, was given an 8mm camera with a trigger release at 11 and was encouraged by his parents to spend summers at Seneca College in Toronto learning how to make cell drawings and stop motion animated movies. After graduating from Carleton University in Ottawa he headed west to enroll in Vancouver Film School’s 3D animation program. He got lucky again when Mainframe Entertainment hired him as an animator on the iconic animated series Reboot. He later moved on to Mainframe’s Sony series Heavy Gear, which introduced him to another side of animation. “By this point in time I had become a technical director,” he says, “and was invited to join the motion capture side of the production by a wonderful computer science veteran called Chris Welman, who was Mainframe’s CTO at the time. After spending four to five years key-framing and a year applying that skill to motion capture, I decided to take a breather from animation production and join Vicon Motion Systems to dive deeper into the hardware side of the business. During my time at Vicon I Installed and demonstrated hundreds of motion capture systems and setups. The highlight was a personal demonstration at USC to Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas all at the same time! It was the experience of talking to these filmmakers that inspired me to once again join production.” Ineson’s career path from animator to Animatrik included a stop in Laguna Beach to work on the Matrix videogame before traveling down to New Zealand to join the motion edit team at Peter Jackson’s famed Weta Digital, home to Lord of the Rings (and later Avatar among other productions.) “I had the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting characters I had ever seen. Trolls, Orcs, Gollum. It was clear that by using cameras that can reconstruct 3D, animators can access the performance of great actors and a new level of realism is possible.” The path to Animatrik continued when Ineson received an offer to join the 3D software design company Alias Software, eventually acquired by Autodesk Inc.. “I was able to work with real time performance animation software,” he says. “That was a fantastic experience. Through that role I had the opportunity to support performance capture cohorts on stages all around the world. I was eventually promoted
to Technical Product Manager for Virtual Production. It was during this time I was lucky enough to get reacquainted with my friends in New Zealand. Weta Digital and James Cameron’s Lightstorm entertainment had formed a development partnership with Autodesk to further the next generation of real time animation tools. “ But Ineson had further ambitions. While he was working hard in software design he had dreamt about developing a local business. “I was learning the ropes of software development as well as the larger scale business. It was both challenging and fun. I had a dream to develop a local company and the business and timing presented itself when a performance capture, creature film went into production.” The film was Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 and was the catalyst that was needed to found a company devoted to full performance motion capture work which is the capturing of actors, body face and fingers using custom engineered head mounted camera systems. Three years later Animatrik Film Design has already moved from its original studio to a 15,000 square foot purpose built sound stage in Burnaby with 10 employees. In addition to District 9 it has worked on Blomkamp’s Elysium, starring Matt Damon, Twilight Saga: The Eclipse and several other high profile films with recent projects taking the company to New York, Los Angeles and Toronto. “Animatrik is a high technology boutique,” says Ineson. “The thing we noticed about the film industry here is that it is very much run and occupied by film craftsmen. Whether you are a DOP, producer or grip, it is the care and experience of the people who treat the business like a craft that makes Vancouver so successful. It was important to Animatrik that we attract local motion capture craftsmen and women to join us. We are really proud of our ability to offer in house accountability and security of the product. Performances are precious in our business and our clients rely on us to keep their property close. We are extremely lucky to have people like Sara Cameron, Petar Milacic, Kristy Sorgard, and Xavier Callamand and Tim Bobyk on our team. “Animatrik was also very fortunate to convince the talented VFX Producer Stefanie Boose to manage key features of the business. Stefanie has a rich background in VFX production and joining Animatrik as executive producer proved to be pivotal in its success. We are happy to announce that Tamara Poirier has just joined the team. Tamara comes to us from Citytv / Omni Vancouver / Rogers where she was director of operations. We are so pleased that Tamara has agreed to come on board. Her experience with people, stage and production management is a wonderful fit for us and we know our clients are going to love working with her.” n
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question and Answer
William Friedkin H
“It’s not a rule but I believe more in spontaneity rather than perfection...”
e is 77 now, but William Friedkin continues to make movies and direct television shows. He is 40 years removed from his two most successful films, the Oscar-winning The French Connection and the nominated The Exorcist, but his latest film, Killer Joe, won critical praise upon its August release and is scheduled to be released on DVD this fall. The movie stars Matthew McConaughey as a police detective who moonlights as a hit man and co-stars Emile Hirsch as a man who hires him to kill his mother for her insurance and Juno Temple as his sister who becomes collateral. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. In a local hospitality suite, Friedkin talked about the filmmakers who inspired him, the importance of casting and
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how sometimes you might get a little lucky when it comes to picking the right actor for a role. The material for this film comes from a play with a modest run 14 years ago. Tracy Letts who wrote the play turned it into a screenplay for you. You are rather picky. What did you like about the material? “It was a screenplay as was Casablanca which was derived from an unproduced play called Everybody Comes to Rick’s and all the characters were there and they only changed one character who was an American woman and they thought ‘why would an American woman be stranded in Casablanca?’ so they changed it to a European woman and they cast Ingrid Bergman. Everything that is in that movie is from an unproduced play. It’s the material. It could be a
novel or an original script or an adaptation of an event that occurred, like The Exorcist.. I have been directing for 40 years and I think I have made 16 films because I am not that attracted to what they are making, especially today.” Can you talk a little about the fact that this is a movie where there are no heroes but a lot of desperate people? “Citizen Kane; there are no heroes in that. The main character is the embodiment of goodness and kindness and compassion and evil and he evolves throughout the film. That is a quarry for filmmakers from everywhere in that it contains the very best in all of the cinematic disciplines: composition, lighting, screenplay, story, acting and cinematography. It is all done at the highest level in that film. No one can do it that well. They
haven’t yet but those of us who are still doing it are still trying. That is what keeps me going. I haven’t made a film that could latch the bootstraps of Citizen Kane.” Can you talk about casting Juno Temple. Apparently you were under pressure to hire someone else, which must happen a lot when you are dealing with distributors. “It’s all subjective. I was going to cast two other women whose names you would know and one day comes this email with an audition she did in England where she put herself on tape with her ten year old brother reading Joe’s lines and I watched that tape over and over again. I thought ‘that is Dottie. That is her.’ I had never seen her in any of the films she had made.. I now realize that she is going to have a really stunning career but I didn’t know her work. I saw her tape Reel West September / October 2012
and it was all subjective. I was urged to cast one of these other women because they had a lot so-called ‘heat.’” How important is casting to you? “Well, the script and the casting are 90 percent of the film. I had a perfect cast for The Exorcist and they are all identified with their roles and they came to me somehow in a mysterious way each of them. But for The French Connection, I didn’t want Gene Hackman. There were six other guys we went to. He wanted to do the part but once he got it he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to play a guy who used the ‘N-word’ like that and beat up suspects and was such a hard head so he fought against it. I had to constantly remind him who he was playing and what. Ultimately he was great and I have a gold statue (Best Director Oscar) at home because of him. So he was a gift against my better judgment.” Do you put planning ahead of coverage when you are shooting or do you like a lot of takes? “It’s not a rule but I believe more in spontaneity rather than perfection. Earlier in my career I would do 20 or 30 takes hoping for a miracle and it never happened. I would get in the cutting room and see that what impressed me the most was the first printed take and I came to realize that was where the spontaneity was. Sometimes a scene isn’t a take because there is an accident or the camera is out of focus or a light falls on a shot because many things can go wrong after you say ‘roll it.’ It’s like throwing a forward pass in football. There are several bad things that can happen. An interception, a miss, a drop but I believe in spontaneity. I don’t have a two take rule but the most important job a director has is to create a movie wherein the actors you have chosen can reach into themselves and produce their best work, where they can feel free enough and comfortable enough and know that I trust them and they can take a chance that they can create and surprise me. That is all I do as a director. I cast it, I pick the material and I try to create an atmosphere where people can do their best work. That is what directing is. It is not my face up there and I didn’t write the words but once I cast these people I pretty much have to figure out what their capabilities are and not look for a miracle. But I will only do a second Reel West September / October 2012
take if someone really blew a line or there is a technical mishap.” Do you see kindred spirits among today’s filmmakers? “There are lots of filmmakers I admire but I don’t know how they work. I like the films of the Coen brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson who is a very interesting filmmaker and would have been in any era. I still like the European filmmakers of the 1950s. That was where my inspiration comes from, people like (Michelangelo) Antonoioni and (Federico) Fellini. (Akira) Kurosawa was not European but he was inspiring and Jean Pierre Melville, who made a great film called Samurai starring Alain Delon. That was very influential on me. But the ones that come to mind today are the ones I mentioned. David Fincher’s Seven I think is a masterpiece. It is one of the scariest films I have ever seen. It’s brilliantly directed.” You have said in the past that Alfred Hitchcock was the most complete filmmaker. Can you talk a little about his influence on you? “You don’t need to go to film school to make a film. Just look at Hitchcock’s movies. It’s a master class in all kinds of filmmaking, not just suspense but romance, humour, understatement and storytelling. If you want to be a filmmaker that is all you need to do, watch his films. I get invited to film classes at various universities and the professors ask me to talk to the kids and I tell them that. I say ‘get out of film school and get hold of all of Hitchcock’s films and then go and buy or rent a little digital camera and make a film and you will know how to do it just by watching the work of a master.’ That is how all the traditions are handed down. Look at the great painters. There was (Johannes) Vermeer in 17th century and before him there were so many others. Films beget other films and paintings beget other paintings and music begets other music. The classical music of Russia in the early 20th century led ultimately to (Igor) Stravinsky who cracked the mould completely with The Rite of Spring and people didn’t get it. They didn’t understand what he was doing but what he was doing came very much out of the Russian tradition and the people who preceded him. My work as a filmmaker comes from the films that came before me.” n
Profile
Penelope Buitenhuis Director Penelope Buitenhuis has a directing resume that covers almost every form of film and television. She has helmed experimental films, shorts, dramatic features, television movies, documentaries, series and an episode of the acclaimed mini-series Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. Hometown: I grew up in downtown Toronto near Yorkville in the 60’s and 70’s. To stop the Spadina Expressway that would have flattened our neighbourhood, my community (of professors/artists/lawyers and eccentrics) established the first republic in North AmericaThe Rathnelly Republic. With Newsweek and Time reporting, snapshots of us kids- child cadets in white shirts and jeans carrying wooden shotguns appeared in their pages. We had passports and an English Queen (wait a minute this is a republic) and the annual street party all weekend. Almost every house in the 3-block radius took part. My rebellious character was formed there but as soon as I was old enough, I left for Vancouver. Start date: In the early 80s I enrolled in the SFU film program in the radical days of Al Razutis, David Rimmer and feminist Kasha Silverman. Film wasn’t yet a business so we were free to experiment. I made my first short, Granville Alley, in 1981 about a punk girl walking down an alley seen from different perspectives. Rebelliousness defined the content and spirit of my films in Vancouver, Paris and Berlin in the 80s and 90s. I continued in the experimental vein until my first feature Trouble about speculation and racism in Berlin after the fall of Berlin Wall. Today I would say I am more interested in transformation, which I guess in its self is subversive. Best Day: In recent career history it was the day I won best feature for A Wake at the Carmel Arts and Film Festival in 2010. I was staying in a fabulous old hotel looking over the ocean and got a call to be at the reception on time for press shots. Later, to my surprise, Clint Eastwood gave me the award and we hung out backstage after. Most memorable working experience: Shooting A Wake which was entirely improvised, using a treatment for structure. With only ten days to shoot, it was quite a challenge. But the actors fell into their groove and with two opposing cameras capturing the action they danced in marvelous handheld choreography. It was magic to watch authentic, in the moment performances unfold and with Francois Dagenais’ gorgeous cinematography, the movie was on fire. I had directed improvisation on the series Train 48 for two years, but had never done a feature that way. I had to practically memorize every word the actors spoke so they didn’t repeat themselves. It’s amazing what the brain can do when put to the test. Five-year plan: My aim is to make media that matters before quitting altogether. I don’t want to make mindless entertainment and thus am optioning books, creating docs and writing features that have something valid and hopefully amusing to say about today’s society and its crazy inequities. Splitting my time between Vancouver, Toronto and LA, I am developing a series called The Healer with Aircraft Pictures in Toronto, working on a TV movie and hopefully optioning a satirical book that is both funny and shocking in its political implications. If I won an Oscar I would thank: Jean Luc Godard for breaking the predictable narrative tradition, Lars von Trier and the dogma crowd for re-examining what films should be about and my agent for sticking by me forever. But most of all, I would thank my father Peter Buitenhuis for believing that art was a valuable and honorable pursuit. n
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VIFF Festival Director Alan Franey marks his 25th year in the position this fall. Photo by Janos Molnar
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Festival Feature
The Festival Man He has been running the Vancouver International Film Festival for a quarter century now and has quietly turned it into one of North America’s biggest film events. Alan Franey looks back at his beginnings in the difficult exhibition industry and how he discovered a love for film and a passion for programming. Story by
Ian Caddell
O
n September 27, when Alan Franey walks into his office in the theatre complex that he helped build it will mark the 25th year that he has been the Director of the Vancouver International Film Festival. Franey took over the job in 1988, which was the seventh year of the festival founded by Leonard Schein. (This year’s festival runs from the 27th to October 12.) It was a city that was beginning to build an identity on the success of Expo 86 but it was a slow process. It was still far better known for the characters that ran its pioneer-like stock exchange and the local developers who flipped properties like pancakes than its cultural progress. When Schein had founded it just six years earlier there was no Comedy Festival, no Jazz Festival and no Fringe Festival. By 1988, there was Schein’s film festival but no others. There are 50 film festivals in Vancouver now and when Vancouverites talk about fall events they more often than not will be talking about “the festival season.” Attendance at the Vancouver International Film Festival, which was under 20,000 in 1987, is expected to be over 150,000 this year. While Alan Franey would never expect to take credit for any of the changes in the city or even for the success of the festival itself, 25 years of running any cultural event in a town whose dedication to arts and culture and even “fun” have been questioned along the way, would not have been an easy task. Schein was a mentor to Franey. He hired him to work on the concessions at the Ridge Theatre in 1979 and watched as he moved to cashier and then eventually manager of the west side cinema. But Franey wanted to book films at the Ridge and, eventually, Schein gave him a two week program to prove himself. “He said ’Alan, I want to give you a try at programming,’” recalls Franey in his office above the Vancity Theatre. “’You have two weeks. You can book in what you think is going to do well.’ So it wasn’t just about films that I liked. I had to prove there were good business reasons to book the films. So I showed (Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1966 film) Andrei Rublev and things like that and they were successful and it was very gratifying.” Thirty three years later Franey is still programming but on a much larger scale. He heads up a team that will have selected over 380 films by opening night. Schein, who currently runs the seven screen Festival Cinemas, liked him from the first day he met him and says he came to realize that he was the rare individual who had both business instincts and artistic sensibilities. And Reel West September / October 2012
he trusted him enough to hand over a theatre to him for just one dollar. “He was young and bright and a hard worker,” he says. “We had similar personalities in that we were calm through a crisis, which is what you need in the film industry. I had a lot of confidence in him which is why I charged him one dollar to take over the Vancouver East Cinema. He had programmed the Ridge and since he had worked with me he understood what would be popular. (At the Ridge) we were programming six different films a week and they each had to have some commercial aspects but you could really afford to have only one film no one would come to. “I knew that his father was a businessman and from him I think he got the sense that things have to work economically, that you have to have a balance between the artistic and business. You have employees to pay. I think his sense of business is the reason why the film festival relies more on attendance than government grants, which is not common in the festival world.” The Van East Cinema on Commercial Drive may not have seemed like the ideal home for an art house programmer looking to cut his teeth in the early 1980s. It had been built for South Asian films but by the 1980s most of those films were available to the community on VHS before the prints could be shown in the theatre. Schein was approached by the owners and asked Franey to run the theatre. By 1985, he had sold it to him. “The owners had said ‘we don’t know how to program non-Indian films, can you help?’” recalls Franey. “That was a wonderful opportunity for me. I have had a lot of luck in this. (Franey’s wife) Donna and I were given the opportunity to purchase the business in1985 and that was a very gratifying experience.” Franey’s interest in arts and culture had started at a young age with an interest in music. By the time he was in his final year at Burnaby Central Secondary School he was running a film club. There was no VHS rental service so he had to go downtown to get the material. “I had a group of friends that I could take pleasure out of sharing with and arguing about ‘why you like and don’t like things.’ If you get some pleasure as a young person in sharing things and you turn people on to what you like there is a certain amount of confidence that comes from that. I would travel around town and get films at various sources like the National Film Board or Idera Films and show people back at school. It became a feedback loop and if you enjoy sharing and you get positive feedback from that it can become even more of a passion.” Prior to working at the Ridge, Franey had studied film at Simon Fraser University and assumed that he would end up making movies. He says that instead of producing films he became fascinated by filmmakers and was excited to become involved in their world through programming. 17
(Bottom) Niall Matter playing Evan Cross.
Photo By Ed Araquel
VIFF Festival Director Alan Franey in front of the 2012 schedule board. Photo by Janos Molnar
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“I didn’t think I would work in exhibition but once I started doing that I discovered that I loved talking to people about film in general. Seeing people get turned on and off by films is very fascinating because you realize how smart most people are and how valid most peoples’ tastes are and you can see that it’s a big wide wonderful world where there are varying reasons for liking and disliking films. I think some people are more neutral than I am and they like all sorts of things but when you have strong likes and dislikes there is a passion about arguing your point of view.” Franey’s resume was tweaked in February of 1988 when he was hired to run a film festival during the Calgary Winter Olympics. When he returned to Vancouver he went back to the Vancouver East Cinema. However, in May of that year, when Schein and Festival board chair Michael Francis went looking for someone to run a festival that had seen two successive years of declining ticket sales, Franey seemed like the best choice to turn things around. “His responsibilities were to pull together a festival that would regain the trust of the audience,” recalls Francis. “He had a maturation to him and the qualities then that he has now. He was highly intelligent and he managed to get the job done in the first year against long odds. Since then he has managed to turn the festival into a great arts organization and a lot of that was done with a group of people who have stayed loyal through many years and have enjoyed his support.” Jane MacDonald retired from the festival five years ago but was with Franey for 20 years as the festival’s fund raiser, beginning with the first year. She says that it was a tough time with only the building of the Vancity building arguably as difficult. “When we started out in 1988 we were in debt and there were heavy duty problems. None of the grant applications had been written and we had some scrambling to do. We were fortunate enough to get the Hotel Vancouver as our host and that kind of set the tone for the festival because the international guests were impressed and they wanted to come back. But every day I had to get a big bucket of money in order to keep going. Once we got back on track Reel West September / October 2012
“He had a maturation to him and the qualities then that he has now. He was highly intelligent and he managed to get the job done in the first year against long odds. Since then he has managed to turn the festival into a great arts organization...”
- Michael Francis, former Festival Board Chair
things were fine until we decided to build a new home for the festival. No one had really done that before. Toronto’s festival did it after we did it, for instance, so it was all new to us.” “I think the building was extremely stressful for Alan,” recalls Francis. “The board was keen on hiring someone to oversee it and Alan wanted to do it himself. He was right but he paid the price for it. He had all these responsibilities but he did a wonderful job and kept standards up and even when the developer was pressuring he never compromised and held him to the original specs. Alan did it his way.” Franey, for his part, says that while he has had moments where he began to question whether he could keep running the festival, most of them were less connected to the stress of the job and more about raising a young family and having to spend less time with them and his aging parents than he would have preferred. “There are days every year where you think you have had enough,” he says. “That is especially true where there are challenges in your personal life. There was (his youngest of two sons) Evan’s deafness when I didn’t know if I could afford to have a job where I was away from the family so much. And Donna’s (lengthy battle with) cancer and my mother had brain cancer. So those are times
where your family is signalling you that they need more time with you because this job is easily 80 hour weeks for five months of the year. A lot of that is fun for you because you are travelling and seeing films but nonetheless you are not being a full time father or partner.” Even after all these years, it is the thing that got him involved in the first place that keeps him interested. It’s still about the programming and the sharing of the films that he and his staff find at festivals and through various cinema grapevines. He says it’s also the selection of the movies that keeps him believing in the sense of a community of filmgoers. “I still love the programming because for me that is the reward: the completion of that circle. The essence of it is still the sharing. That is the payoff. It’s a wonderful way of transcending the isolation that comes with life in general. We long for community whether it is in churches or in groups of friends. I think that the pursuit of art is as simple as enjoying sharing because you have a sense of being rewarded in building a community. That is actually when you get down to the nitty gritty.” The journey to find films can still be extensive. While the team of programmers employed by the festival has grown over the years, Franey still attends most of the major inter-
national film festivals. “I go to Berlin and Cannes and either Tribeca and San Francisco or one other festival. This year it was Palm Springs and the year before it was Rotterdam. I get a lot of pleasure looking at films on DVD here as well. I am not watching everything now because we have good selection committees so most of the films go through the first lines of programmers before it gets to me.” His own bias is documentary films. He says that over the course of the years he has found that non-fiction films are like non-fiction books: they are easier to get right than their fictional counterparts. “I love good novels but I find that great novels are few and far between, whereas really interesting non-fiction is pretty easy. It’s similar for film to me. I think non-fiction deserves equal respect to (fiction-oriented) cinema so that it’s a matter of pride in building a strong group of nonfiction films here. But I also love discovering some completely fresh American indie that has its finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist or a wonderful Indian film that has the exoticism of a foreign culture and the ability to travel, through cinema, to those places. I think cinema offers a wonderful way to see the world and I know that is what our audience is responding to.” n 19
Festival feature
Jesse James Miller’s Becoming Redwood is one of three Canadian comedies showing at this year’s festival
Comedy Club
Photo by Andrés salas
We may think of Canadian films as being rather bleak but a trio of Canadian comedies could change the minds of audiences at the upcoming Vancouver International Film Festival. Story by
Ian Caddell There is at least a little irony to the fact that Canadian actors seem to get funnier when they move away but that our English-language movie making reputation is so bleak. The decidedly dark films of Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg haven’t helped that reputation but many of the films selected for festivals from this country are decidedly gloomy. This, despite the fact, that the country has spawned the likes of the stars of SCTV, Mike Myers, Jim Carrey and Leslie Nielsen. We’re funny people but we don’t make a lot of funny movies. The 2012 Vancouver International Film Festival will have its share of difficult Canadian films including Cronenberg’s son Brandon’s Anitviral, the story of a virus spreading through a frightened community and Rafaël Ouellet’s Camion, the story of a tragic trucking death in a small town. But there will also be some relief. Two western Canadian comedies are coming to the rescue as is Michael Clattenburg, who followed up the TV series and feature Trailer 20
Park Boys by injecting humour into the British Columbia-shot film about the war in Afghanistan, 2011’s Afghan Luke. He will open this year’s Canadian Images program with Moving Day, the story of four men who must learn how to move forward in life and face their challenges in order to save the moving company they work for. The BC films are Jesse James Miller’s Becoming Redwood, the story of an 11 year old in the 1970s who decides that the best way to reunite his parents is to win a game of golf against the then-reigning champion Jack Nicklaus and Camera Shy, Mark Sawers’ dark comedy about a man who hallucinates the existence of a cameraman and believes he is in a movie. Clattenburg says that he sees dark humour as a way of taking the bleakness out of lives that are filled with catastrophe. He says that people who work within bleak situations often use dark humour to cope. “It’s just too much to bear sometimes and humour helps people keep their sanity. War correspondent Patrick Graham, the main writer of Afghan Luke, told me ‘if you are going to war, you better have a sense of humour.’ With Afghan Luke, one of the central themes was that the war in Afghanistan really can’t be Reel West September / October 2012
understood, and believing there is any kind of solution is part of the problem. So our plan was a M*A*S*H-like approach and to explore some dark humour, yet keep it dramatic but not too heavy. It’s about tabloid journalism, it’s pro soldier and I’m happy it was irreverent and not preachy. A few Canadian military brass got a kick out of it and thought it was a very accurate account of what soldiers are facing over there.” So is there a thin line that a director of a dark comedy has to walk that perhaps a director of lighter comedy fare doesn’t worry about? Clattenburg says that not only is it difficult to walk the line he himself has crossed it on several occasions. “I’ve thrashed that line more than once because I’m drawn to drama as much as comedy. Sometimes comedy will send me in a dramatic direction and vice versa. I like my characters to be realistic not zany, coming from a real place. Don’t get me wrong, I like sketch comedy and broad whackedout comedy movies, but I like my characters to be people you can believe actually exist; characters who have believable complications and goals.” Chad Willet, who co-produced Becoming Redwood with Joely Collins, and plays the father in the movie, says there is comedy throughout the film but that Miller, who wrote the script, took a few risks with humour that comes from another era. “There is a very poignant moment in which my character is trying to tell his son that his mother has a new family. It’s the 1970s so while he is doing this he is smoking marijuana and we see Redwood going off into his own world and imagination (from the second hand smoke.) We can’t say that kind of thing never happened but it is a touchy area. There is the realization that the son is getting high and that is so wrong but we are humans and we make mistakes and it is funny.” The toughest part for a filmmaker, he admits, is watching comedy with an audience. What if the audience laughs at the wrong places? “I think you look forward to watching it but you never know where the big laughs are going to come from. You put it in front of people and assume that they will laugh but there are no guarantees. In the end it’s just story telling. We have made an inspiring light film rather than a traditional Canadian film but Comedy Club continued on page 29
Reel West September / October 2012
Festival Feature
The Trend Setters: Leading experts take the stage on Global Trends Day at the VIFF Film & TV Forum If you are going to have a grand
(most notably people who haven’t played
die filmmakers/players around the world by
title for the opening day of an industry trade
games in some time). As a young genre,
Variety, co-founded the independent com-
forum, you should probably back it up with
it offers an unprecedented opportunity for
pany Film Workshop in 1984 with her hus-
some substance. When the Vancouver
growth and experimentation in writing as
band, director Tsui Hark. The company’s
International Film Festival’s Film & TV Fo-
there are fewer conventions that writers are
films include Detective Dee and the Mystery
rum organizers decided to call day one of
required to meet (or defy).”
of the Phantom Flame which was both a
its annual five day Forum, Global Trends
MacLennan,
whose
gaming
writ-
critical and commercial success. The film
Day, they knew they would need credible
ing debut is entitled Splinter Cell, says
grossed $46 million (CDN) in China alone
guests who were familiar with the new di-
that when he first checked out the basic
and was in competition at the 67th Venice
rections that the film industry is taking.
statistics of the gaming industry he was
International Film Festival in 2010.
The day is divided into four parts and
“floored” by its growth and its global rec-
Shi says that the world’s filmmakers
includes several panellists whose creden-
ognition. “Games are a huge part of the
are looking to work with China on co-
tials suggest they know which way the
entertainment industry and are only go-
productions and that she sees Canada
wind blows. There will be a session on
ing to get bigger. It’s a global movement.
as being in a strong position to succeed
“Emerging Markets & International Financ-
Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?
in that endeavour.” In the last few years
ing”, one entitled “The Next Generation
Games in general need better story tell-
many filmmakers from around the world
of Storytellers,” a session on” Innovation
ing. A lot of effort and skill goes into creat-
have been trying to access the China
and Advancement in Technologies” and
ing a captivating game world but often the
market by doing co-productions. The
“Trending Now: Indie Marketing Canadian
story/dialogue in a game is so poor that
benefits are obvious. The percentage of
Style.” (The four following days are divided
it breaks the magic of that world by pull-
film rentals is higher for co-productions
into sessions under the titles Film Program,
ing the audience out of their experience.
than imported films of which there is also
Factual Program, TV Program and New
As a writer, I find that unforgivable. When
a quota. I think that if Canadian and Chi-
Filmmakers Day. The Forum runs from
so many amazingly talented people (level
nese filmmakers find stories which reso-
September 26 to September 30.)
designers, concept artists, game design-
nate with the audience and makes sense
To sponsor Global Trends Day, the
ers, actors, sound designers, modellers,
to be a genuine co-production, then the
Forum brought in the province of Brit-
directors, programmers, animators, edi-
relationship would prosper. Canada has
ish Columbia through the Ministry of
tors, etc.) have done so much to create
unique natural resources and many pro-
Communications, Sport and Culture. A
this amazing fictional space, their work
fessional filmmakers. Chinese filmmak-
Ministry spokesperson says that Global
deserves to be supported with good story
ers who need to shoot on the kind of
Trends Day is a key part of its overall
telling, character and dialogue.”
locations Canada has will certainly look
festival sponsorship which amounts to
One international trend many British
$112,000. There appears to be bang for
Columbian filmmakers would probably
Chartier will be on the same Emerging
the buck. The guests range from Chinese
like to see pursued here is a relationship
Markets panel. His company, Voltage Pic-
producer Nansun Shi to indie producer
with the Chinese industry. According to
tures, will soon launch The Company You
Nicholas Chartier (The Hurt Locker), from
the Ministry, part of its cultural mandate
Keep, a Vancouver-shot film starring Robert
Toy Story 2 screenwriter Rita Hsiao to
was to initiate an Asia Pacific Project
Redford and Shia LaBeouf. He says that it is
longtime Deepa Mehta producer David
Team to explore new business oppor-
imperative to keep up with changes in inter-
Hamilton, and from Phil Tippett, who
tunities for B.C.’s creative industries. It
national territories to stay competitive. “The
designed the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park
says that in addition to its involvement in
Company You Keep is sold out worldwide,”
and is one of Hollywood’s leading special
the trade forum, “stakeholders from this
he says. “We stay relevant and on the pulse
effects supervisors to writer Matt Ma-
group are currently working together on
of each territory, tracking trends, change and
cLennan, who decided, after working for
organizing another September industry
fluctuating value. Booming economies trans-
TV shows like DeGrassi and Whistler to
event, transmitBC, which will see 100
late to a healthier film climate, which means
explore another trend: gaming.
screen-based industry members de-
aggressive deal making with emerging buy-
“I was a kid who played table top RPGs
velop a brand development strategy for
ers and leading distributors. The international
(role-playing games) and every video game
domestic and international markets.”
marketplace continues to evolve, so (at the
from ‘Pong’ on up,” he says via e-mail. “I
(The Ministry says the B.C. government
Forum) I will discuss how I see the indepen-
have always been fascinated with games
also provided $50,000 in support of the
dent film business of the near future.”
and games are where I learned how to tell
Whistler Film Festival’s China Canada
Michael MacLennan says that his own
stories for the first time. Story telling via
Gateway for Film Script Competition
approach to the writing panel will be to
games presents unique story rewards (im-
which, it says, introduces experienced
try and steer the conversation towards
mersed audience, interactivity, active audi-
Canadian writer/producer teams to Chi-
ideas that he thinks will be interesting to
ence feedback while generating content)
nese studios with as much as $15 million
the local audience. “(I prefer) the notion
and challenges (an audience is wired to be
in production financing.”)
of redefining the writer as story teller in-
at Canada as a possible location.”
active instead of passive, understanding
It would appear a key part of its contribu-
stead of as a format specific creator (ie.
that story must be a game in and of itself).
tion to Global Trends Day includes assisting
feature writer, TV writer, game writer), un-
Story telling in games is a young form of
in bringing Nansun Shi to Vancouver as part
derstanding that there are fundamentals
writing. Often I find people are surprised to
of the Emerging Markets session. Shi, who
of story which apply to all genres and all
learn writers are involved with games at all
was named one of the 50 most influential in-
Trend Setters continued on page 29 21
Cover feature
Star Power
Amanda Tapping as Diane Random Acts of Romance Photo by Brendan Uegama
Katrin Bowen managed to recruit some of BC’s most high profile television actors for her second film, Random Acts of Romance. Their fan base could give the film a boost when it goes looking for an audience, something that could occur more often as the acting pool grows and independent filmmakers take advantage of newly minted local stars. Story by
Nathan Caddell
T
he script for Random Acts of Romance was first found under a different name with the purpose of going to the big screen four years ago. After a major re-write, it was finally ready to start filming two years ago. Then funding fell through. After starting shooting in January of this year, the “anti-romantic comedy” as people involved like to call it, stars Amanda Tapping and Zak Santiago in the story of two couples whose relationships are falling apart, has been selected for the upcoming Vancouver International Film Festival. Delays due to financing are a Canadian filmmaking tradition. However, the film was made and is heading to the Vancouver festival, which makes it somewhat unique. It is also intriguing because it’s going there because of the people who worked on it. The integrity of the people involved, as well as the steady, growing presence of Canadians in television, and the solid community of Canadian actors have, according to the film’s director, been a large part of the reason that she managed to get it completed. In a coffee shop on Commercial Drive looking like, in her own words, a “frazzled Cameron Diaz,” writer-director Katrin Bowen sits down for probably the first 22
time in many months. After preparing for the making of Random Acts two years ago and then being blindsided by the funding fallout, Bowen didn’t skip a beat. She went off and made another film, Amazon Falls, in 12 days with $50,000. Then, when funding came back, she eagerly went to work on Random Acts, a film with a budget ten times the size of Amazon Falls, eager to put her experience in making films to the task on a bigger project, having learned both positive and negative lessons on how to handle the business side of getting a film distributed. “Oh I learned so many lessons,” says Bowen.“I distributed Amazon Falls myself, so I learned how to navigate that landscape and really get a film out there so that was a real lesson learned. I learned a lot of patience, I think. You make a film and then you just have to do your best to get it out there and work through things and really do your research. Some negative lessons were there as well. There were some things I did with Amazon Falls, like we gave everyone shares in the film, for instance, and I realized that that’s not the best thing to do because it takes so long to see any kind of financial rewards. So, in a way you can kind of set them up to think that they’re going to make money off the film and it doesn’t really work that way.” Bowen also learned how much working with people you’re familiar with and trust can help a director, especially in the Canadian film industry in which you have to be able to put faith in your cast and crew. “You make tons of connections, and you Reel West September / October 2012
“...I knew it would be a low budget, all hands on the wheel, everyone works together kind of thing, and I love that experience, especially having come from big TV shows where a lot of money is thrown at them. It was nice to be in a really intimate group where everyone helps each other out.”
- Amanda Tapping
and gave her an award, and she’s just an incredible director and a really cool chick. So as soon as I heard ‘Katrin,’ I was in, and then I read the script and just went ‘Oh my god.’ It’s a fantastic script. I just loved all the different characters and could have played any of them. And then when I found out it was Zak Santiago I was playing opposite of, well I just adore him. So all the pieces fell in place. It was perfect and just a no-brainer for me. And I knew it would be a low budget, all hands on the wheel, everyone works together kind of thing, and I love that experience, especially having come from big TV shows where a lot of money is thrown at them. It was nice to be in a really intimate group
where everyone helps each other out.” Though Tapping talks about how refreshing it is to work on a film like Random Acts she, and others on the cast and crew credit a lot of their success and even their chances to work on these projects to television and the opportunities that the small screen has given Canadians to develop their talents. That is a boon to Random Acts as the film already has a strong buzz due heavily to Tapping’s status as a TV star with a loyal fan base, thanks to her roles in the Stargate franchise and Sanctuary. “We still are a service industry in Vancouver for American productions but there’s a lot more indigenous stuff being done here and I
think because of the big TV productions a lot of the actors get experience, and get to be on big sets, and that’s a big thing. It’s not just about being an actor, you’ve got to understand how a set works, your place on that set, the etiquette of the set. So those productions really give young actors the chance to embrace that and explore it. It’s invaluable experience just being on a set.” Born in England but having moved to Canada at a young age, Tapping lives in Vancouver and has completely embraced the film industry here, giving back in a way that’s helped Vancouver actors contribute to film and television. “Almost every actor in Vancouver came through the Stargate sets, and we tried Katherine Isabelle (L) and Ted Whittall (R) Photos by Brendan Uegama
learn who to work with. You can work on short films with people but you don’t really see what they’re like until they’re in the trenches on a feature. And then some really shine and are amazing and you take them with you forever and others don’t.” Bowen has found several that shine, as many of the essential cast and crew members for Random Acts had worked with her before. Such was the case with co-star Santiago and casting director Lynne Carrow. Santiago, for his part, isn’t hard to cast, what with being a professional boxer, dancer and DJ in addition to acting. He credits his success in the latter medium to the city of Vancouver and the way people in the industry help each other out. “Everyone’s scratching each other’s backs,” he says. “You’ll help them on one of their projects and they’ll help you on yours and it’s a collective like that. And it’s been a necessity for the film industry in Vancouver the last couple of years.” Santiago has been a direct recipient of this kind of sense of community in the film industry here as he’s currently writing a feature film that Bowen is slated to direct, showcasing just how far a little bit of familiarity can take you. Random Acts star and Sanctuary producer/star Amanda Tapping has an interesting history with Bowen. “As soon as I saw that Katrin Bowen was attached to (Random Acts), I said ‘oh yeah, I’ll do it,’” says Tapping. “I’ve known Katrin for 15 years. She used to be one of my stand-in photo and stunt double on Stargate SG-1, way back in the beginning. And I always thought she was just incredibly cool, and we kept running into each other through Women In Film and Television. “A few years ago I hosted the (Women In Film) Spotlight Awards
Reel West September / October 2012
23
(Top) Robert Moloney and LAURA BERTRAM as David and Holly. (Bottom) Amanda tapping as Diane. Photos by Brendan Uegama
to do the same thing with Sanctuary. We only ever cast Canadians. It was really important to us and it was great to see how much the talent pool has grown here. There’s so many people making passion projects that are independent projects and there’s a huge talent pool, not just with actors but with the crews as well. So there are a lot of people that get really great experience and then they’re able to bring that to the smaller projects.” Carrow, who’s been a fixture in the casting scene in Vancouver since January of 1980, has seen the film industry benefit greatly from the presence of local actors on television: “For many years, Canadian actors were auditioned for the small roles in the U.S market, the extras and parts with a couple lines. When I started working on The X Files in the early 90s, I was able to convince them to at least look at Canadian actors for guest star roles and for larger roles. We cast a number of guest star roles with Canadians by the third year. We were always look24
ing for guest stars here, unless they had a name actor that they were bringing up from L.A. When I started on (the Canadian series) Da Vinci’s Inquest in 1993, I said I would never do series TV again, because it’s brutal, but I read the first script and just said ‘holy smokes this is amazing writing, I have to be part of this.’ So I then became part of that family and obviously you have to cast local actors. You try not to use (the same) actors too often, but it does happen, as there isn’t the endless pool here like there is in New York or L.A or even Toronto. But we did pre-screen as many actors as possible, twice a week. That became paramount to finding the new talent.” Another television series that gave actors the experience necessary to get the job done on the big screen was the science fiction program Andromeda. Laura Bertram plays Holly in Random Acts and spent five years on Andromeda, which like Stargate SG-1 was sold to many territories and thus had an international following.
“In terms of technical aspects it definitely helps to work on TV,” says Bertram. “The speed at which television is filmed is way faster than in film. For example, on Andromeda, we would have sometimes 11 pages a day that we would have to shoot, which is certainly more than on a film set. In terms of working with a crew, and working at a faster speed, it’s a great experience.” Of course, in this city there’s always the urge to move to Los Angeles looming in the background and that has captured more than a few actors and crew members from here, the lure of fame and fortune becoming too big to beat. Given that Canadian productions tend to find funding hard to come by, one might think the country would just be a training ground for American productions. Fortunately for Vancouver’s film industry, talented and recognizable veterans like Tapping, Carrow and Bowen have no interest in being anywhere but here, and they seem intent on cultivating and promoting the
Vancouver film scene. “I have no desire to go,” says Tapping. “I lived in L.A for a while and worked there for a bit. I didn’t like it. It was all industry all the time. The cab drivers all have scripts. But here, I just like the home grown aspect of it. I don’t plan on leaving, I think there’s so much we can do up here, and I think the more we embrace local productions and our own projects and the talent pool, the stronger we are. Thank god for the American productions because that drives a lot of money into this industry, but we also have to support the little guy.” Carrow shares both Tapping’s passion for the actors and crew in Vancouver and her desire to further the local film industry, even in the face of certain financial security in the U.S: “Yes, I was asked to (move down), and I actually have dual citizenship since I was born in the States but it never seriously crossed my mind. For me, what I see in LA is an aura of desperation in a town that’s not very liveable unless you have a lot of money. On two different occasions people tried to talk me into moving down and I wasn’t interested. “Canadian actors are just amazing. They will work for a nickel to support Canadian directors and producers. All of these actors in Random Acts are top Canadian actors, and they all work for less than scale. No one got fancy dressing rooms. I joke that they would work in tents. I went to the set one day and they just had one dressing room in this house in the basement. But they are working on great roles, roles that they wouldn’t get to do in big studio features.” “One thing I really want to get across is how people in Vancouver really help each other out,” says Bowen. “They are there for you. My fellow filmmakers are there for support, and if I need anything, there’s no job too big or too small. And I think that’s really important because we really have to support our independent community here and keep it going.” It will never be easier to make a film in Vancouver than in L.A or New York, but for all the troubles of trying to get a movie made, financed and distributed here, Tapping says there’s satisfaction when it’s completed because there is proof that rewarding film work is being done in this city “It was just so much fun and my husband said ‘I just want you to keep working on this movie forever’ because I was so happy. He kept saying ‘this is so awesome.’” n Reel West September / October 2012
Kristine Kofsky ALLISON KUHL PHOTOGRAPHY
diary feature
Creating Order
Kristine Kofsky had been acting in Vancouver for several years when she decided to parlay her more than a dozen credits into something bigger. She decided to take on the producing co-directing, writing and lead role in a film that seemed to have the decks stacked against it. There was no money, she wasn’t sure if it should be union or nonunion, she wanted a big wedding in the movie, which she was told was a recipe for disaster and she had the overwhelming desire to rewrite every scene. Things worked out well, however. In No Particular Order was completed on time to be selected for the upcoming Vancouver International Film Festival where it will have its world premiere. Diary by
Kristine Kofsky Sometime in 2006: I feel as though this tale should start with a little backstory, as there is one person to mention right off the bat without whom I’m fairly (and by fairly, I mean very) certain none of this would have ever materialized. Scouring craigslist and various actors’ guides in my early acting career, I came across an audition for a film by a writer/director named Terry Miles. A few days later, I walked into the hair salon where he was holding the audi26
tions, and was subsequently cast in his first film. And that’s when the course changed for good. There are some folks who talk about doing, and then there are some folks who really do. I was lucky to have met someone in the latter group so early on. October 2009 The bar that I have worked at for many years is closing for renovations. Other than the projects I’ve been fortunate to collaborate on with Terry, I am feeling unsatisfied with the industry, frustrated at the lack of auditions, and, to be honest, a little cranky. Despite my hard work, there are casting directors in the city who still have no idea who I am, and I feel like I am standing on the outside, looking in. I have a conversation with myReel West September / October 2012
self that goes a little like this. “Hey, Kristine, if you’re so frustrated, why don’t YOU just write a role for yourself.” To which I follow with a quick response to myself along the lines of, “Yeah right! Get lost.” Except, I don’t get lost. Instead, I install a copy of Final Draft onto my computer, fire it up, and stare at a blank white page for a really long time. November In the past month, that blank white page has turned into 60 some odd pages with words on them. And people saying words. It’s fun, but by no means do I think this is something that is ever going to be a real movie. More like an experiment. Sixty pages turns into 70, and soon I am dreaming about the characters. Rushing home from random events to write, re-write, write, re-write. At some point, I take a deep breath and attach the script to two e-mails. One to my mother, and the other to Terry. My mother is a wonderful writer, but also still my mother, so of course she tells me she loves it. The surprise comes in Terry’s reply, when he tells me he thinks it is actually good. That I should keep working on it and eventually consider making it. Hearing that, I become immediately terrified, turn off the computer, and instead pretend it doesn’t actually exist. January 2010 We start principal photography on Terry’s new film, A Night For Dying Tigers, which I have taken a co-producer role on. My little untitled document gets hidden away on my computer desktop as the madness of filming ensues. May It’s time to revisit, to let the script free of my computer. So far, only a handful of people have read it. I decide to do both a script readthrough with a few actor friends, as
“The quality of the actors that have taken time out of their schedules to even audition for my little film makes me beyond happy, and the support from my community has been overwhelming.” well as some preliminary casting sessions for the film. I have since finally decided on a title- In No Particular Order. I put out a call for non-union actors city wide, because at this point, I am struggling with the decision to do the shoot union or nonunion, as it greatly affects the budget. (the budget I don’t have). Hearing the words spoken out loud for the first time has one very prominent initial effect on me: nausea. Over all, the feedback has been positive almost across the board, but I am now consumed with the desire to change almost every scene I’ve written. Summer Terry has decided he wants to get the team together from our 2008 film When Life Was Good, and make a sequel. I think it’s a fabulous idea, and wholeheartedly commit to helping produce it. Summer 2010 becomes dedicated to the new film but summer quickly turns into
fall, and the premiere of Dying Tigers at TIFF, and then, as it predictably does, fall turns into winter. Looks like 2010 is not the year of In No Particular Order. Spring 2011 I am slowly letting go of my dream that In No Particular Order is going to be a summer film. As written, the central event in the script is a big ol’ outdoor wedding. I have already been told that I am completely crazy to write a wedding into my first film, simply from a logistical standpoint, never mind a weather dependent wedding. As the summer creeps up and I slowly realize that I realistically won’t be able to shoot until the fall, I make the decision to move the thing indoors, to eliminate the risk of rain and give myself more time to get everything together. I will make this movie in the fall of 2011. No more excuses. July At this point, I know that I will
be funding this film myself. I also have decided to make the film under the UBCP Ultra Low Agreement, as opposed to a non-union shoot, so that I have access to a much larger pool of actors. It means more money, but casting is the single most important thing to me. I have spent some time researching the various fundraising and crowd-funding avenues, and decide to launch an Indie Go-Go campaign for my film. It goes live July 18, 2011, and within a day I have my first few donations. I think that it is only at this point I realize there is no turning back. There is an immediate outpouring of support, and now I actually have to deliver. I have to make a movie. I have asked Terry to direct the film, and after some discussion we decide on a co-directorship. August With Terry’s help, I have decided on the camera, (the Canon
(Left) SONJA BENNETT and STEPHEN LOBO as Claire and Jay. (Right) CASEY MANDERSON, TERRY MILES and KRISTINE KOFSKY producing. ALLISON KUHL PHOTOGRAPHY
Reel West September / October 2012
27
7D), and we have hired our DOP, Byron Lamarque. The wonderful Maureen Webb has volunteered (or perhaps I begged her, I can’t remember) to come on board as our casting director, which allows me to set up some casting sessions with a really amazing lineup of actors. Casey Manderson and Michelle Kim have jumped on board as co-producers, to help take some of the workload off me. They prove to be absolutely indispensable. Everyday my mind swims with worries about locations, casting, equipment, paperwork, finding a crew, and if there is even enough money to actually make this happen. The other pressing concern is Terry’s schedule. From the beginning, I couldn’t imagine making the film without him, but his fall is quickly filling up. The film is currently scheduled to go to camera in mid-September, and Terry has been hired to direct another feature starting around the same time. I’m faced with a decision. Lose Terry, or push the shoot. Really there is only one answer. October it is. September It’s the first week of September, and casting sessions have begun. And this is the part where I start getting really excited. The quality of the actors that have taken time out of their schedules to even audition for my little film makes me beyond happy, and the support from my community has been overwhelming. Everyone seems genuinely excited that I am making this film. After a few casting sessions, and a few offers, I have the majority of my cast assembled, with actors I never dreamed I could actually get. The crew has started to come together as well. We will
“I can honestly say, without an ounce of hesitation, that this has been one of the most perfect experiences of my life.” be filming with a tiny crew of eight, with everyone wearing multiple hats, so it’s important to me that we get the right people. The biggest concern to me at this point is that everyone wants to be there, and that the atmosphere of the film is always positive. October We’ll have to push the schedule one more time. It’s nonnegotiable in my mind that Terry direct, and his current film won’t wrap now until the end of the month. November 4th will be our first day of principal photography. Luckily, I don’t lose any cast or crew with the schedule change. Not one of them. I am already feeling as though I may have somehow found the best people in the world to work with. November 4th I wake up this morning to the realization that I will be making a movie today. My movie. Slowly, the crew starts arriving. Terry, Byron, Casey, Michelle, Brian Lyster (sound), Anna Macdonald (Assistant Camera), and Alisen Hunt (Assistant Editor). A dream crew of seven. Everyone is smiling. From the get go, I have promised two things: really good food, and no day over 10 hours. From the get go, I am laughed
at, but I hold strong and believe it can be done. The first day is on the lighter side, scene and cast wise, so that we can all get used to working with each other and find a natural pace. Lunch is dropped off by my friends Graham and Travis, who run a catering company called The Modern Chef. It’s delicious. We wrap after eight or so hours, and everyone is still smiling. I’m unbelievably happy. November 5th Sonja Bennett and Stephen Lobo join the cast today. They are both dreamy to work with, and bring so much to the table. We eat well, and wrap after eight or so hours. Everyone is still smiling. I’m bordering on ecstatic. November 7th A wedding. Who writes a wedding into a no-budget first film? So many times leading up to this day I have declared myself clinically insane. But it just had to stay. I have been having recurring nightmares about this particular day of filming from the get go. This is the first day that I have been visibly stressed, and I try hard to hide it. Pretty sure I didn’t fool anyone. Miraculously, we have found somewhere to film (although for one day, and one day only), and people show up in their
wedding best. There is a cake, a cast and extra crew, and the cameras roll. The following is taken from my production blog during the shoot: ANATOMY OF A NO-BUDGET MOVIE WEDDING You will need: • the best. crew ever. Along with the addition of Steven Deneault, Gaelle Jego, Mischa Haman-Dass, Kelly Tatham, Laresa Neufeld, and Alyssa Satow all to lend their amazing hands for the day. • a cast that nails it, everytime. Sonja, Stephen, Ben Cotton, Mike Dopud, P. Lynn Johnson, and Greg Webb. And, of course, my mother’s cameo as wild Auntie Pat. • an amazing location like Guilt & Co – Thank you Jody Bowen. • 30 plus China balls. • a True Confections lemony masterpiece of a cake from Rob Carpenter. • a potluck lunch provided by friends and family. • flowers from the Flower Factory. • a spectacular wedding dress created by Chloe Angus Designs. • a photographer named Allison Kuhl. • Casey Manderson and Michelle Kim. • canapes from The Modern Chef Catering.
(Left) Filmed at Vancouver’s Guilt & Co., the wedding scene came together in one day of shooting. (Right) MIKE DOPUD and KRISTINE KOFSKY as Matt and Sarah. ALLISON KUHL PHOTOGRAPHY
28
Reel West September / October 2012
• amazing humans that will sit through eight hours of a fake wedding reception without even having a real drink in front of them. That alone is enough to make a grown woman cry. THANK YOU ALL. November 23rd It is the last day of filming. I can honestly say, without an ounce of hesitation, that this has been one of the most perfect experiences of my life. I am still in a state of shock with how well the entire shoot has gone. They gently scoffed at earlier promises of good food and reasonable shooting hours but we somehow prevailed, and the crew was an absolute pleasure to be around, everyday. The cast exceeded all and any expectation. I almost feel guilty when I explain to people how magical it really was. Early Summer, 2012 Terry, who is also editing the film, has a first cut assembled. We watch it
together, take some notes, change some things. Sleep on it. Change some more things. Jot down some more notes. Change just a couple more things. Hand it off to Brian, who is also doing the post soundmix. A few weeks later, we have an official screener to start sending out into the world just in time for festival deadlines. Is it a perfect movie? Nope. Are there things I would have written differently, performed differently? Yep. But would I change one part of the experience on a whole? Not a chance. August I get the call that we have been invited to screen at the Vancouver Film Festival. This means that I will get to share my film with my hometown, with my family, my community, my amazing cast and crew, and all the people who helped me along the way. There are countless of them. I think you probably never forget your first film. n
Comedy Club continued from page 19
at the same time a film like Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y is an example of an inspirational film with dark themes. Hopefully there will be more Canadian films that are not classically dark but have humour and inspiration.” Sawers believes that the difference between humour and bleakness can come from the way the story is told. He says that when he looked at the script for Camera Shy he could see that it could go either way quite easily but that he knew if he kept the tone light within the darker context of the story the humour would stand out. “I do worry that audiences aren’t sure if it is funny but the tone is quite silly despite its darkness. I think that it is one of the things where if I told the story a little differently it could have been a Polanski-style serious film or it could have been a silly farce. You can tweak a script and it can be so many different things. On the surface, this is a serious story with a guy going crazy killing people and cheating on his wife. But then you make a few chang-
es in the script and it’s funny. When you are taking things too seriously I find it uncomfortable.” He admits that he doesn’t start out with an agenda in terms of the genre of the film. Instead, he says, he follows the plot and, with Camera Shy, found himself heading towards the humour, discovering that every character eventually encounters moments of dark humour within the drama of their lives. “I wish I could say that I set out to write a light comedy. I write what works and I chase it down and then you get into it and you twist it. Whenever things get too serious it means darker but it’s always sort of the worst case scenario. You ask ‘what is the worst thing that could happen to this person?’ even if it is a romantic comedy where someone is on a date. It’s not murder but it is still bad and I don’t know how you do comedy without something going wrong. It is probably somewhat dark because no matter what the context is there is some tragedy. Even if you watch The Brady Bunch there is tragedy to it somewhere.” n
Trend Setters continued from page 19
and as trouble-shooter and collaborative
Reel convenient.
Final Edit
problem solver when you’re away from formats. There are keys to understanding
the keys. (I like to talk about) the requisite
the limitations and benefits to each par-
time management, people management
ticular genre and format that you may be
and leadership skills that are necessary
working in. And there is a need to learn
when writing for mass media, a skill
the importance of frustration, experi-
which is often foreign to writers.”
mentation and iteration when at the keys
Reel West September / October 2012
Current and archived issues of Reel West Magazine are now available online at www.reelwest.com
– Ian Caddell
29
Mark Sawers’ Camera Shy will be at this year’s VIFF.
Photo by wendy d
Final Edit
VIFF’s Western Films an Eclectic Group
If you like variety in your film selection, the western Canadian films in the Canadian film program at the Vancouver International Film Festival will be eminently appealing. The list runs the gamut from funny movies to romances to poignant documentaries and hard-hitting dramas. Director Jesse James Miller is bringing Becoming Redwood to the festival. The film focuses on an 11 year old boy who decides that if he can beat Jack Nicklaus at golf he can bring his family back together. The BC-produced film stars Chad Willet, Jennifer Copping and Ryan Grantham. Mark Sawers’ Camera Shy stars Nicholas Wright as a corrupt Vancouver city councillor who has a rare psychological disorder he’s been diagnosed with, and a mysterious cameraman who won’t leave him alone. Veteran Vancouver director Bruce
Sweeney returns to the festival with Crimes Of Mike Reckert, a thriller in which character psychology and suspense are merged. The film stars Vancouver actors Gabrielle Rose and Nicholas Lea. Vancouver actor Kristine Cofsky makes her directorial debut alongside Terry Miles with her screenplay for In No Particular Order. She also stars as a woman suspended in post-adolescence, alternating between hedonism and ennui and eventually awakening to the possibility that life could be different. And Katrin Bowen’s Random Acts Of Romance is about the crazy and obsessive behaviours that spring from that thing called love as characters confront the brittleness of relationships. There are three western Canadian documentaries in the Canadian program including Manitoba’s We Were Children from Timothy Wolochatiuk.
The film explores both the individual experiences of children forced into Aboriginal residential schools and also the impact that the schools have had on the lives of survivors and Aboriginals as a whole. The other documentaries are from BC. 65 Red Roses director Nimisha Mukerji’s Blood Relative follows an activist fighting to save two young adults dying from Thalassemia, a rare blood disease. Chronicling one man’s battle, the film exposes modern India’s broken healthcare system. Julia Ivanova’s High Five: An Adoption Saga follows the story of a couple that decides to adopt five Ukrainian siblings at any cost. The real journey begins when, after several years, they succeed The festival will be showing over a dozen BC shorts including Callum Patterson’s Peach Juice the story of a teen-
age boy who becomes attracted to his aunt while vacationing by the sea; OMG, Siobhan Devlin’s story of a teenager who runs away to her grandmother’s with her parents over her texting habit only to discover that her phone has died; Sophie Jarvis’s The Worst Day Ever, which looks at a sweet child who tries to redeem himself after a bad day. Also in the short program is Jay Fox and Steven Deneault’s Binner, about a mysterious man armed only with his shopping cart and his wits to keep him alive; Darcy van Poelgeest’s Corvus about a weary police detective who puts together the pieces of a young woman’s murder; Bojan Bodruzic’s Pirandello in which a Bosnian actor tells of his solitary new life in Canada and Elle-Maija Tailfeathers’ A Red Girl’s Reasoning, the story of the victim of a racially motivated sexual assault who becomes a motorcycle-riding, vigilante. Award winning documentary director Nettie Wild is bringing Uninterrupted, a meditation on clean, flowing water and the fish that inhabit it while Ken Tsui’s To Scale looks at the idiosyncratic world of scale-model building. Jenn Strom’s Assembly plays against the rhythms of a Steenbeck, while Kevan Funk’s Leaf looks at a reserved and sensitive boy who sees the world through the eyes of his mischievous imaginary friend. In Juan Riedinger’s Float a man finally agrees to let his wife teach him to swim and discovers that he can learn to stay afloat all on his own. Adrian Buitenhuis’s Pordis is an interpretation of a traditional Icelandic tale while Jason Goode’s Late is the story of two strangers who struggle for an honest connection in a chance, and brief, encounter at a cafe. n
Announcements and Appointments
Alberta documentary filmmaker Tom Radford will be honoured for his career accomplishments and support of the screen industry during a special Alberta Media Production Industries Association event in late October. “Tom Radford’s impact on Alberta’s media production industry is immense,” says Bill Evans, the association’s executive director. Radford has written, produced and directed films and TV programs for over 40 years including such titles as Worlds Collide, and, with co-director Niobe Thompson, Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands and Code Breakers …The Vancouver Women in Film Festival has extended its submission deadline to October 15th 2012. All films screened at VWIFF have a woman in at least three of the key creative roles: writer, producer, director, cinematographer, editor, composer, and lead performer (one woman may serve in more than one role). Films completed after March 2010 are eligible….The National Screen Institute recently announced that Manitoba Lotteries is a founding NSI Aboriginal Training Programs Partner. The NSI says this commitment includes financial support of the pilot year of the NSI Aboriginal Documentary course, launching fall 2012, and NSI New Voices for the 2013 training year. 30
Reel West September / October 2012
Sept. 26-28, 2012
+ new FIlmmakerS’ Day Sept. 29
BuSIneSS SeSSIonS IncluDe:
creatIVe SeSSIonS IncluDe:
emerging markets and International Financing
the next generation of Storytellers
• nicolas chartier (CEO, Voltage Pictures) • David Hamilton (Producer, Midnight’s Children) • nansun SHI (Producer, Film Workshop)
• rita Hsiao (Screenwriter, Toy Story 2) • matt maclennan (Writer, Splinter Cell)
Innovation and advancement in technologies
• kirby Dick (Director, The Invisible War)
program HIgHlIgHtS
• craig Berkey (Sound Designer, X-Men: First Class) • phil tippett (Founder, Tippett Studio)
getting to the Heart of the Subject • nisha pahuja (Director, The World Before Her) • paul Saltzman (Director, The Last White Knight)
cinecoup: Disrupting the packaging, marketing and Financing of Independent Films
working the runner: making the most of your c plot
• J. Joly (CEO, CineCoup) • michael kennedy (Exec. VP of Filmed Entertainment, Cineplex Entertainment)
• al Jean (Writer/EP, The Simpsons) • chris mckenna (Writer/EP, Community)
game changing tactics in a DIy world
• leonard Dick (Writer, The Good Wife) • tim Schlattmann (EP, Dexter)
• lisanne pajot and James Swirsky (Co-Directors, Indie Game: The Movie)
mastering the micro Budget • Steven Schardt (Producer, Your Sister’s Sister) • Jay van Hoy (Producer, Beginners) • Sean Baker (Director, Starlet)
Brand Integration in original web Series • Jonas Diamond producer (Guidestones) • cJ yu (VP of Branded Entertainment and Integrated Media)
Success Stories in reality • Bachelor canada (Force Four Entertainment) • the real Housewives of Vancouver (Lark Productions)
companion Series in a Digital universe • Jay Bennett (Creative Director, SmokeBomb) • cal coons (Writer, Murdoch Mysteries) • michele ricci (Writer,The Murdoch Effect)
Va n c o u V e r
Drop In anD get InFormeD
the premise and the Hook Success Stories • robert Byington (Director, Somebody Up There Likes Me) • tanya wexler (Director, Hysteria)
Frame By Frame • Dan Swietlik (Editor, Re:Generation) • kate amend (Editor, First Position)
the working actor: creativity across multiple mediums • John cassini, alexs paunovic, Joely collins and Julia Benson (Actors)
creating Sci-Fi Storyworlds • amy Berg (Writer, Eureka) • Jane espenson (Writer, Once Upon a Time)
PLUS! telefilm canada tête-à-têtes; Speed Dating Sessions; the art of the antagonist;
Directing in the 21st century; telefilm canada’s talent to watch; Industry Hours; keynote; trending now: Indie marketing canadian Style; and new Distribution Strategies.
all sessions take place at the rogers Industry centre located at the Vancouver International Film centre – 1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver, Bc
Follow us on Facebook and twitter! @ VIFForum
www.viff.org/forum forum@VIFF.org | tel. 604.685.3547
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