It’s been a while since I’ve posted on the site, and I suppose that is good, because I have been insanely busy during that time. When I finished my WGC internship in The Listener’s writing room at the end of February (which I will eventually write a proper post about), I started work on editing the web capsules for the interactive web project “Burgundy Jazz“. The project launched last month, and it is safe to say this was one of the most rewarding jobs I have done in my career. The subject, the history of Jazz in Montreal told through the lens of the black community that lived in Little Burgundy, was one that urgently needed to be told, and I am proud I could have been part of it.

The project itself has a lot of elements; it’s part web series, part interactive historical document, and part time capsule. It can be experienced in a web browser, in an iOS app, and in an e-book. Each platform has different content focused on what that medium is best at. Truth be told, I had little to no involvement in anything other than the 14 short docs we made (directed by David Eng), with the rest of it being handled by a fantastic team brought together by producer Katarina Soukup of Catbird Productions. I did however wear several hats (cinematographer, motion graphics artist, and editor). Tamara Scherbak (assistant editor) and I, along with our encyclopedia-like director David set out to make short (3-4 minutes each), dynamic, informative films, that would capture the essence of the personalities, the community, and the music that made the district special. After getting a hugely positive response at the screening and cabaret show at the Corona Theatre for the launch, I can safely say we succeeded. It has given me great joy to be a part of telling this story, especially the story of people whose fame didn’t reach out past the confines of Montreal.

It was especially rewarding to find out that so many people we interviewed or talked about found their roots in the Caribbean, with some having family from Trinidad & Tobago, where my dad’s from too. I became fascinated with how their immigration stories compared with my family’s experience. I got lost in daydreams of what it must have been like to be a young man or woman from the islands, and then to be suddenly thrust into the biggest party town in North America during Prohibition. These daydreams are slowly forming into fictional stories I am developing, melding my life as a documentary filmmaker and fiction writer together in a way I didn’t expect. I feel like I’ve always had my feet in two different professional worlds, and three different countries, and sometimes this has made me feel unfocused, and lost. It’s nice to have moments where things become clear, and you feel at home no matter where your feet are planted.

If you haven’t already, please take a look at Burgundy Jazz on the Radio-Canada site by clicking on this link: http://music.cbc.ca/modularpages/dynamicPage.aspx?pageUrl=Burgundy-Jazz&permalink=Burgundy-Jazz

You can download the free iOS app here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/burgundy-jazz/id658159457?ls=1&mt=8

You can buy the e-book here: https://itunes.apple.com/book/id663804807?mt=11

And the soundtrack (essential for jazz lovers) is available on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/burgundy-jazz/id659705582

Trailer below.

Faisal Lutchmedial behind the camera

I was the cinematographer for a short web-series about local fashion designer Yvonne Marie, directed and produced by Adam Reider / Rail City Media.

It was a small doc like shoot we put together to showcase Yvonne’s stores and her designs. I think there are 6 episodes in total, but here is one that was just released. The locally designed clothes are durable and comfortable, and fit a wide range of body types. YM Style stores can be found in and around the area of Montreal if you like what you see. You can also visit the official website to order online: http://www.ymstyle.com/index.php?main_page=meet_ym

Watch Adam Reider’s new short film DP’d by Faisal Lutchmedial.

Mimes! Lots and lots of Mimes! The Nina Slash music video for “Candy Box” is now online. Green Dragon’s Faisal Lutchmedial did the cinematography, with Adam Reider directing.

Director Phad Mutumba and Producer Xena Bantarizah just got word that their feature comedy / drama “Making the Band” will be the opening film to the 2011 edition of the Zanzibar International Film Festival. For those who are keeping track, I served many roles in this production: screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor, as well as playing a producer role in the background. Oh, and I even filmed myself in a cameo.

Actors Helen Koya, Lynda Lerato, Kim Nelson, and Whitsa Jean

It’s a great honor to be playing at this festival, the most important for East African films, as both Phad and Xena are immigrants from Uganda, right next door to Tanzania. They are obviously overjoyed, as is the cast and crew, and we look forward to having it screen to what I am sure will be a enthusiastic audience.

A lot of work remains to be done – we only sent them a very rough assembly cut, and the festival happens in about a month. Xena will definitely be going to present the film, and we’re looking into how we can get anyone else (including yours truly) there as well. It would be wonderful if we could present with as many people as possible involved, especially the talented cast who shine on screen.

More information to come on screening times, but we know for sure it will play on opening day, June 18.  Here’s the announcement from the festival.

Director Tamara Scherbak answering an audience question

The cinema was packed, and from all accounts they loved Only Sky & Water, and especially liked how the two films (with The Pirate Tapes) worked well together. Two more showings next weekend – catch it while you can.

Speaking of which, the feature presentation The Pirate Tapes is a startling film that more documents a filmmaker putting himself into mortal danger than investigates Somali pirates. It’s questionable judgement perhaps on his part, but some parts of this life and death account are riveting.

I’ve been editing the feature fiction “Making the Band” for Ugandan-Canadian filmmaker Phad Mutumba over the last couple of weeks, since we wrapped shooting. It’s a very tight schedule so we can get it out to festivals, which is a lot stressful, but the film looks great. It had better be, since I shot it…

Still doesn’t stop me from internally yelling at the DP for shaking the camera at the most inopportune moment, or not framing in a better way. But considering he had only a few lights and usually only 1 other person helping him with the equipment, not bad at all.

Here are a few stills from the shoot, enjoy.

Whitsa Jean as Shabella

Phad Mutumba as Deanno and Adam Reider as the as yet unnamed guitar player

Kim Nelson as Annitah and Shant Sarkissian as Zack in Making the Band

Whitsa Jean as Shabella

Mizinga Mwinga as Aydee and Helen Koya as Lillian from Making the Band

I recently attended the Caribbean Tales 2011 Film Festival / Symposium in Barbados and took part in their Content Incubator, developing a television series called “Welcome to Trinidad”. It was a fantastic opportunity and experience.

The trip didn’t start well though. The plane Tamara and I was on from Montreal to Barbados was halfway through the flight when we noticed it turning and descending. Moments later, the captain got on the p.a. and told us that because of a “small crack” in the windshield we were being forced to land early for safety. Not to worry though, it’s just a small crack, everything is fine, we’re all fine, don’t panic. We didn’t, and within half an hour or so, we had landed in Bermuda (of course famous for mysterious vortex-triangle).

t-shirt in Bermuda

When we walked out of the plane I got a glimpse of the crack on the windshield and it seemed as though the small crack had become a giant spider web covering the entire pane of glass to the front of our airplane. I was immediately not perturbed at Air Canada for the early landing that had ruined my schedule.

We waited for about ten hours before we were able to get onto another plane and finally fly to Barbados, and sadly weren’t even allowed to go through customs and enjoy Bermuda; the very sight of the beaches and sun beyond walls of the airport mocked us. But we did get to our destination, and once there had a beautiful time, working hard, but also getting invigorated by the positive and enthusiastic energy that seemed to permeate through all the participants of the Incubator and festival.

Television and Film Production as an industry is somewhat new to the Caribbean, so there isn’t a lot of support in the form of tax credits or production funds there. Given the amount of talent, some raw and some very polished I saw at the festival though, they should be aggressively pursuing this as a valuable sector in their growing economies. I fall somewhere in between the raw and polished filmmaker categories, and I was able to get here thanks to organizations like SODEC, the Quebec Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts who have supported my development and films. It’s been a long road, but now my work plays in festivals internationally, and I am moving toward making fiction features and television (knocking on wood). Governments in the Caribbean should take note: artists aren’t grown overnight, they take a long time and investment to nurture. But the rewards reaped culturally and economically are well worth it.

With help from the mentors at the Incubator my television series is getting to a place where I feel comfortable pitching it (and myself) to anyone who wants to lend an ear. The idea itself was fairly new when I got there but since then I have already written a new draft to the pilot, focused more clearly on the conflict, and developed my characters’ personalities. Moreso, some keen insights from Michelle Materre and other mentors about marketing have made me rethink how I am going to be presenting my newly completed short film Mr. Crab to the world.

Other highlights: A masterclass by Neema Barnette that focused my ideas about long form filmmaking, and how I want to approach both the series, and my feature, Path of Light. Screenings for great local Caribbean films A Hand Full of Dirt, and The Skin. An impromptu birthday party for Tamara with all our new friends, drinks in the hotel courtyard discussing the business of art, basking in the warm sunshine, and morning swims in the sea with bathing racehorses.

This voyage to the Caribbean was magical for me and I am sure will help my career move forward. I’ve already been invited to attend a festival in Trinidad & Tobago, and a couple of producers have asked me to come and DP their work later this year. I definitely have a feeling I will be spending a lot more time in warm waters soon. Which again all goes to show that even though it may be a long and hard trip getting there, the destination is well worth the trouble.

A short documentary which I shot for Tamara Scherbak in Trinidad & Tobago will be premiering at Hot Docs this May. I am particularly proud of this project because of the “rich cinematography” we were able to shoot came from a very small and limiting camera, the Sony Webbie PM1. We used it because Tamara was competing in a TIFF Talent Lab Emerging Filmmakers competition, and they provided it. It’s a small and low cost HD camera that isn’t really built for filmmaking in any way, but it goes to show that when you use the tools you are given – and know what they are capable of, you can still make beautiful work.

Tamara and I discussed it for a while, and noticed a number of things about the camera. First, the compression is very high, and as a result anything moving becomes jello, or stuttered. Also, it seems as though there is a very high shutter speed when shooting with a lot of light automatically, which I assume is done to lower the light coming onto the sensor rather than stopping down. This is amazingly annoying because it looks as though everything is fast motion (even though it is not) and again stutters and strobes the footage. What we ended up doing to work with that is we went for a super 8 pushed a few stops kind of look (some of that accomplished in color correction) and I think it came out very well. Second, Tamara accented the strobe to add a feeling of desperation in the underwater (or by the waves) shots, which added a sense of uneasyness.  Along with the “haunting musical score” she created, it made the piece really stand out.

We also used an underwater bag which helped us in two ways, one obviously so we could shoot close to the water and underwater, and second, because the plastic of the bag shined from the sunlight and added really interesting lens flares to the footage. The bag itself was about $20, and we got some really nice stuff from that small investment. In fact, we used a bigger brother to that for Mr. Crab’s underwater sequence (and a DSLR), and it worked flawlessly.

Tamara and I will be attending Hot Docs this year in Toronto, so if you are around, please join us at one of the three screenings!

Cafe with Shabella & Lilian

I do a lot of things for work, my favourite ones being writing and directing. But I also edit, act, produce, and do camera. I occasionally cater the sets I work on too, just for kicks. I always have fun being the cinematographer of a film, even though I usually get someone else (like Osheen) to shoot my own fictions to keep my focus on the actors. I also think he’s far better than me, which is why eventually I’d like to stick to the writing/directing angle. That said, right now I am shooting a feature film for Phaz Entertainment, directed by Phad Mutumba. I edited his and Xena Bantarizah’s first feature, the award winning My Policy (Chairman’s Award at the Zanzibar International Film Festival), and this time I am taking on a lot more responsibility.

Girlfriends chatting after dinner

Phad is making films for the (very) low budget African market, centered in Nollywood, although Phad himself hails from Uganda. Nollywood films have a fairly low production value as a result of some of the features are actually made in as little as a week, which to any other standards would be considered insanity. We’re trying to go a number of steps past that though, and make this something special. It takes a lot more time than a week (more like 10 weekends), but so far the movie is looking really great.

I am very involved in this film. I am the screenwriter too – having rewritten a draft Phad and Xena wrote based on their original concept. Add to that I will be editing – so that’s three roles in one movie, which is why I call myself a Jack of All Trades.

Shabella played by Whitsa Jean

We’re only about a third of the way into the production of this movie, and so far I am really happy with the images  we are capturing. The talent is superb and Phad’s doing a great job getting them ready for some really difficult scenes (did I mention that this is a movie about a musical act?). In any case, considering we only have a handful of lights, and roughly 1-2 other person(s) other than myself working behind the scenes, I am happy with what we’re doing.  More on this film as we move along with the production…