James Hoffman’s short film has been accepted into the NSI Online Short Film Festival, and you can watch it right here too.

The story: Avery wishes he were the kind of man to make friends, go back to school, find a girlfriend. Unfortunately he’s haunted by self-doubt, the ceaseless swirl of thoughts running through his head, and the ghost of the man he witnessed being murdered in the park. The ghost, Vik, wants the answer to one question: ‘Why didn’t you help me?’

The link to the festival, where you can watch the film in its entirety, is here: http://www.nsi-canada.ca/2013/02/things-worse/

James Hoffman recently finished his short film “Things Worse”, which I acted in and produced. We had a cast / crew / friend screening at Montreal Improv last week to watch that and a few other shorts (The Audience & Encounter Abroad by David Eng, Only Sky and Water by Tamara Scherbak, Once Upon a Many Time by Eva Cvijanovic, Where the Heart Is by Adam Reider, and Cry Baby by Gabi Kislat & Emory Murchison) and it was a fantastic show. We also played a few of the music videos James and I have worked on over the years, as well as a number of others by some very talented friends.

I don’t think we do this enough actually – it is so rare that (film & video) friends get together to watch each other’s work. It’s a shame, and I was thinking that perhaps we should make it more of a habit to get together to socialize and watch the things that we toil so long on but so few of us get a chance to see. Film festivals are great and all, but sometimes I just want to see a few films by people I know rather than strangers (regardless of how good they may be).

Director James Hoffman, AD Adam Reider, DP Tristan Brand (in back), and producer actor Faisal Lutchmedial on location.

We wrapped for James Hoffman’s film this last weekend, while it was raining, and right before it started snowing. I can safely say we are very happy with the results.  A great crew helped us make what we hope to be a pretty funny, occasionally thoughtful, and sometimes disturbing short film.  James has assured me he will try to make me look good.  As good as I am supposed to look, considering I was supposed to be dead the whole way through.

The cold weather and night shooting, along with my not so warm costume has come close to killing me actually – one of those downsides you pretty much accept when you decide to shoot a movie that was originally supposed to take place in the summer very close to winter.  Thankfully my costume changed from gym shorts and a tank top to a black suit, or this message may have very well been sent from the grave.  Did I mention I didn’t go out for Halloween because I was sick?  Very sad days indeed.

In any case, as I sip on my ginger lemon honey tea I am reminded that all good things require sacrifice. I am all about good balance, but sometimes one needs to be all out selfish with their time and energy to move ahead with their projects. It’s a difficult thing to do and still keep yourself happy.  Adam Reider, who was the AD on “Things Worse” and has worked with me on several productions now, just mentioned in his blog that he’s lost a girlfriend and given up lots of opportunities to go out and enjoy himself because he’s been pushing so hard to make a film career work.  I’ve been there too, all too often.  But I keep on telling myself that it’s what you have to do.

Or maybe not.  There are those who have great social lives, get married, have kids, and are successful filmmakers or other artists.  It happens, so I have heard.  So I guess there is a balance of sorts to be found, or perhaps its about finding the right people to surround you so that everyone is moving toward the same goal – and they actually get there sometimes.  I’d like to think that that was true.  Someday, the money will come more plentifully, I’ll be continue to be deliriously happy with my social life, and I’ll be making art full time.  That, I think, would truly be sick.

Its been a couple of weeks since we finished shooting but we are only getting into the editing now.  Reason is, it took a very long time for my almost five year old computer to transcode the footage from the raw RED files to offline editable files I can work with, as well as converting all the 5D files into prores too.  This has been thus far a learning experience for me, and something I am not used to, since usually I am the tech on shoots and know exactly how everything works – from camera capture through all of post production.  On this shoot, I only learnt how to turn on the RED (I should say boot the camera) halfway through the shoot.

Thankfully, the RED workflow isn’t hugely different on FCP to the P2 workflow that I am very familiar with.  But the process did make me think about how much technical information I have picked up over the years simply because I was making my own films.  This time though I liked not knowing it all on set because if there was a problem other people were there to solve it, rather than me taking up the time I should have been thinking about directing.  On the set of my previous short, Useless Things, we shot on my own HVX200 (along with a Cinevate Brevis 35mm adaptor) and I knew more about how that all worked than anyone on set.  Consequently, when we had more serious technical issues I was pulled away.  That was definitely distracting, especially considering I was acting in the film too…

Emmanuelle Francoeur and Bourbon the Bulldog from Dog Sitter (2010)

Speaking of Useless Things, it will be playing at a screening at the Cinema du Parc this Saturday the 21st of August at 1pm.  The screening was set up by Rail City Media to showcase the newly completed Dog Sitter by director Adam Reider, and produced by me.  We’re showing a number of great shorts at the screening, including Eva Cvijanovic’s Play (winner of the 2008 Air Canada enRoute Achievement in Animation award).  Eva also did the animation for Useless Things – and I can’t wait to start showing people her stop motion work in Mr. Crab.  So, back to editing then!

We finished shooting Mr. Crab a few days ago and I am still exhausted from the process.  I can safely say this film was one of the few I have shot where virtually nothing went wrong during the production.  There were some mishaps of course, and we went a little too long on a couple of the days, but for the most part it went off without a hitch.  Key element: Pre-production.

Katarina Soukup, David Eng, and Caroline Bacle did a bang up job in making sure we had everything we needed to make this production work, and I can’t recommend them enough.  Them, along with all of our crew who stepped up when problems came up made the process so smooth.  And importantly it allowed me the luxury of only having directing to think about.

Osheen Harruthoonyan (DoP) was fantastic again (he shot Useless Things and My Heart is Black for me previously), and I am so looking forward to editing together the images we captured.  We worked out the lighting plans and the shots together a long time before the shoot, and somewhat surprisingly didn’t change much from my storyboard (actually, I don’t draw, so it was more like a photo-storyboard really)

And of course our actors, Cindy and Vian Persad, and Ryan Singh were phenomenal, and brought the characters on paper to life.  There was a lot of effort put into our casting, including a couple of trips into Toronto – and I was very happy to find the talent we did.  In actual fact, there were a lot of people who auditioned who were great, some of which I may end up casting in the future.

So, here  we are.  All that work for 6 minutes of screen time.  The new hard drives just arrived at my door.  I’ve got to start working again.

(from left to right) Ryan Singh as Gobin, Cindy Persad as Sandy, and Vian Persad as Rishi.

I am looking for actors for my next short film, and I was hoping that someone might know someone else who would be great. If you do know an actor (especially an Indian-Trini) please send this along to them. It’s a paid position – and we’re going to look at people from Toronto and New York (and surrounding areas) to find the right person. So even if they aren’t from Montreal, don’t let it stop them from getting in touch!  We’re shooting July 30th, so please don’t reply after that.

———————-

Green Dragon Productions is looking for actors for its next short film, “Mr. Crab”. Written and Directed by Faisal Lutchmedial who won a Writers Guild of Canada award at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema for the script of Useless Things (his last short, trailer here:http://www.lutchmedial.ca/uselessthings). The short is a drama about a little boy’s relationship with his loving but frightening father, and his attempted escape into a dreamworld.

The characters we need to cast are:

Rishi: A brown skinned 6-9 year old innocent looking boy. Must be able to swim underwater. No accent required.

Gobin: West-Indian (Trinidadian) man, 35-45 years old father of Rishi. Gobin is a caring father, but can be a stern and frightening man. Must be able to do a Trinidadian accent.

Sandy: West-Indian, or Afro-Carribean mother of Rishi. 30-45. Must be able to do a Trinidadian accent.

Please send a photo and resume, and demo if you have it. We are looking at both union and non-union performers.  Send all applications to mrcrab (AT) lutchmedial.ca.