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Feature - Just give’er

Whistler’s filmmaking community steps up to the big screen

By Kara-Leah Grant

It was a simple idea born from a desire to see something through from conception to delivery. Let’s make a short film – after all, everybody else in town is doing it so how hard can it really be? We just need to come up with an idea, write a script, grab some friends, film it, edit it and hand it in on time for the Second Annual B-Grade Horror Film Festival.

But of course, it wasn’t easy. Our movie, The Starring Role, took five weeks to go from the initial idea to the edited piece, including four days of filming and four nights of editing. Maybe more, the days and nights started to blur together after a while.

We borrowed a house from a friend and a camera from another friend. We begged friends to act in it, telling them we only needed them for a day, then asked them for another day, then another. We sat down to edit and discovered shot after shot we were supposed to get, but didn’t. There were continuity problems, lighting problems and sound problems.

We’d planned to get our short in early, but our sound engineer (who quadrupled as cameraman, lighting guy and actor) was trapped in Vancouver courtesy of the washed out road. While I race to meet my deadline writing this article, my editor and sound engineer are racing to finish our short film so we can get it in on time.

But despite everything, all the work, the ‘beg, borrow and steal’ methodology and the imposition on friends’ time, all we can think of is, what shall we film next? Do we have time and energy enough to make another short before the crème de le crème forum for the Whistler filmmaking community, the Panasonic Filmmaker Showdown during the spring’s World Ski and Snowboard Festival? After this experience, we know one thing for certain, we need to learn a lot and the only way to learn a lot is to film a lot.

And that’s exactly what the Whistler filmmaking community is all about. If the community has a motto it’s: "Just give’er."

There is no funding. There is no financial reward. But there is a talented group of filmmakers in Whistler who, short after short, are learning the craft of filmmaking, guerrilla style.

If the movement has any leaders, then it is the men behind Heavy Hitting Films. Not because they are necessarily making the very best films, or the most films, (although they might be) but because Heavy Hitting Films care so much about providing a forum for the movies they want to make, they’ve created their own.

In doing so, they’ve given Whistler filmmakers a very good reason to produce another short, plus the incredible satisfaction of seeing their work up on the big screen.

Feet Banks is one of those men. He’s done the film school thing but maintains the best way to learn filmmaking is a combination of watching DVD movie commentaries and just getting out there and doing it – givin’er.

He’s done the ski movie thing. Heavy Hitting Films produced Parental Advisory Volume I a couple of years back, a ski movie that showcased Whistler’s best skiers in a successful blend of both big-mountain skiing and new-school skiing. It was also notable for its twisted animation and graphics. This was a ski movie made by men with more than just snow on their mind.

"Chili (Thom) and I were disheartened with ski and snowboard movies, plus we had all these ideas for shorts but there is no way to get them out there," Banks explains over a hot chocolate at Second Cup. "The first Filmmaker Showdown was the only event you could make a film and show it in town.

"We had a Halloween party we’d been running for a few years that was quite popular so we said, screw this, let’s make a horror film festival. The whole thing was to give us an excuse to make a movie."

But, as their festival proved, Banks and Thom weren’t the only people in town looking for an excuse to make a movie. They expected four or five movies last year. They got 10.

"Everyone had a good time. The festival was almost too big for the venue. We didn’t have any prize money but we didn’t have an entry fee either. It was just all supposed to be for fun," says Banks.

"The winner, Lauren Graham, won the Great Horror Movie Trophy.

"When Lauren showed up, she said it was the first time she had ever screened one of her movies for a large audience. She was so excited, and I’m sure a lot of the other people felt the same way. That’s what it’s all about – getting people’s movies up on the big screen."

Rob Picard is part of Whistler’s filmmaking community. He worked with Heavy Hitting Films on their films Divine Intervention and Super Frog and produced snowboard videos for camps.

"As much fun as it is to film skiing and snowboarding, it’s more fun to do these short films because you can get really creative and do anything," says Picard. "Filmmaking is just about getting people involved and having more festivals is the big thing to motivate people. Anyone with a computer can edit their own video and anyone with a camera can film their own video, but the filmmaking community needs a venue to show their stuff.

"We didn’t sleep for 72 hours during the Showdown because we had such a tight deadline. That kind of pressure is good because there is nothing like a deadline to force you to finish a project."

And then Picard has to say goodbye because his team is putting the finishing touches on their Horror Film Festival entry. The deadline looms.

This year, Banks was expecting 15 to 20 movies in the Horror Film Festival. He believes the last couple of years have seen the beginning of a film community in Whistler, brought about by the advent of the Panasonic Filmmaker Showdown and the Horror Film Festival.

"Maybe one day someone will make a short film and get it in the Whistler Film Festival," says Banks. "I think there will be a viable filmmaking community five years down the track."

While Banks credits the Panasonic Filmmaker Showdown with jump-starting Whistler’s filmmaker community, he also says he’s disappointed the forum didn’t offer a prize this year.

"It’s not that we make movies for money, but it would be great for the Showdown’s winner to walk out of there with a brand new camera and go make another movie. Especially when the major sponsor of the Showdown is a camera manufacturer," says Banks.

This year’s Showdown winner was Ace Mackay-Smith for her dimension bending, Barbie-and-Ken-starring look at annoying men in ski resorts. Her film was one of over 30 entrants in the increasingly popular World Ski and Snowboard Festival event, organized by Doug Perry’s W1, who is quick to correct the statement that the Showdown’s winner didn’t win anything.

"We did offer a prize. We funded a television special featuring the winner and the winner’s film, which is distributed to over 100 countries worldwide," says Perry. "We're working hard to build the Panasonic Filmmaker Showdown to where it can provide even more to the winner. It is a gradual building process."

Perry says the Filmmaker Showdown was formulated like its sister events in the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, the Pro Photographer Showdown and Pro Photographer Search.

"Both of these provide action-sport and lifestyle photographers with a forum to show their work to an audience and peers that they may not otherwise reach. It is an exhibit," says Perry.

"The Panasonic Filmmaker Showdown was originally designed as a forum for emerging and established filmmakers to show their talent and creativity to a broad audience of locals, visitors, media, other filmmakers and influencers in the filmmaking world."

It’s a forum that worked for the 2002 winner, The Last Cigarette. The Mirrorball Productions’ short has had a swift rise to fame since its debut at the Showdown. Directed by Martin Prihoda, the film also involved teammates Lorna Carmichael and Ryan Harris. After a showing at the Director’s Guild of Canada general meeting, it went on to win the 2002 Giggle Shorts Film Festival, in Toronto (Best Director), and came second in the 2002 West Fest Short Film Festival in Abilene, Texas. It was most recently chosen as one of the finalists in the 2003 Actors Bone Short Film Festival in Hollywood. Not bad for a four and a half minute film made in only 72 hours with very little money.

It’s something that wouldn’t have been quite so easy even 10 years ago because the rise of guerrilla filmmaking has paralleled the dropping price tag for filmmaking equipment. Digital technology, cheaper computers and editing software make it possible for more people to afford the equipment needed to produce a short movie.

And once you have the basics, it’s possible to improvise everything else. A skateboard doubles as a dolly, bedside lights with halogen bulbs provide the studio lighting and a hula-hoop wrapped in shiny material becomes a light reflector.

"I’ve never approached anyone for funding, because we’ve always just believed if you want something done right you have to do it yourself," says Banks. "As soon as you put someone else’s hand in the pot they have a say and you lose creative freedom. I figure most problems you encounter can either be solved with money or with creativity. If you have no money, you are forced to get creative to solve those problems and I think that is where really good work comes from."

MacKay-Smith’s last two shorts both starred Barbie dolls to great effect, but it wasn’t just a creative decision, it was also a practical one. Using dolls shortcuts the biggest problem facing Whistler’s filmmakers: actors. Good actors are hard to find, and even if you could find a few, very few professional actors want to volunteer a day or five to make a short.

Mark Gribbon, himself a star of Heavy Hitting’s Super Frog, teamed up with Rob Picard and Dano Pendygrasse to make Terror in the Shitter for this year’s Horror Festival.

"The hardest thing when you’re making a movie is getting actors. You’re asking people to give you two days of their lives for nothing in return," says Gribbon. "It’s even hard to ask a friend, ‘hey, I need you all day today to sit around and wait’. It would be nice to give something to those people for all their time and effort but none of us are in a position to do that. I’d like to thank all the people who worked on our film, because if it wasn’t for them, there would be no film."

Banks agrees. He says he finds it difficult asking people to give up their time because you are relying on their goodwill to see the project to the end.

"I feel bad if I am wasting their time. I am sure there is something else they would rather do than lie on the ground with blood all over them and scream every 30 seconds," says Banks. "A filmmaking community can’t really grow unless there is a theatre or acting community growing at the same time."

Of all the art forms, filmmaking is the most collaborative. It requires everything to come together in order to make something great. The best movies of all times have the best directors, the best screenwriters, the best camera people, the best cinematographers, the best editors and the best actors. It is not an art form that lends itself to the one-person show – although that’s not to say it can’t be done, and be done well. Kramer and MacKay-Smith proved that. But for filmmaking to grow in Whistler, it needs to be a collaboration among a host of people with different skill sets and everybody has to be getting something out of the production. Banks believes it can be done.

"What we really need is someone to step it up and make a feature movie in Whistler. Johnny Thrash and Johnny Amsterdam did their documentary which gave Whistler a lot of exposure but someone has to do the same thing with a feature narrative," says Banks. "I’m not talking about a Hollywood unit that comes into town, but just some local guerrillas getting together 10,000 bucks and spending the summer filming a movie. Then everyone will see there is something going on up here and as soon as one person does it, someone else will think they can do it and Whistler filmmaking will build from there."

After producing The Starring Role, I know making a short isn’t easy. Many hours go into a short film and much good will. Even with a fantastic script containing minimal locations and effects, the thought of how much work a feature film takes is as daunting as considering climbing Mount Everest after walking the Lost Lake Loop.

Yet after seeing our vision go from idea to script to film to the big screen, the thought of making a feature film is tantalizing. It’s intriguing. It’s seductive. Imagine – a Whistler movie made by Whistler people showing off our vision of Whistler.

Kevin Smith did it with Clerks.

Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez did it with The Blair Witch Project.

All it takes is creativity and a ‘give’er’ attitude, and after watching this year’s Horror Film entrants it’s obvious Whistler has plenty of both.



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