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.

Adam Reider (Key Grip) holds the camera on the rig the team built to shoot directly downward.

We wrapped up our first day of production – we were a couple of hours late, yes, but everyone was in great spirits and the footage we are getting is fantastic. The RED Camera we are using gives us so much freedom, and its so much fun pushing the limits of its new sensor. GreenGround Productions upgraded the camera to the newest and greatest sensor so recently that we’re actually the first lucky production to shoot on it, and from what I have seen so far it’s fantastic. Frankly, they could have given us the very first RED camera and I would have been happy considering my last short was shot on P2 – but having this opportunity is way beyond what I could have hoped for.

I don’t have a lot to say other than the crew has been great, and I am looking forward to moving forward. Tomorrow: Chinatown!

There are filmmakers out there who are able to make really amazing works, and sometimes really popular works, on a shoestring budget.  Feature films for under $100,000.00.  Under $50,000.00.  Under 10,000.00… and some for basically no money invested at all.  Usually a lot of favours and indirect investment (they already have the equipment) are involved, like I mentioned in my last entry.  Its great that we are moving closer and closer to having inexpensive video technologies, a time where you can make film art for very little investment.   Jean Cocteau said,  “Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.” But we aren’t quite there yet, and besides that, I think that it really depends on the kind of art you want to produce.

Lighting sets the mood for both the actors and the audience. Still from Useless Things (DP Osheen Harruthoonyan).

It’s true, we could go Dogme 95 and get rid of many of the complications of filmmaking but I don’t think those are the kind of movies I wish to produce.  I like them certainly, but I am definitely moving toward my films becoming more complex with lighting and sound, not less so.  One could look at some of my earlier movies and say I was adhering to the rules of Dogme, when in fact I simply had no idea what I was doing.  I’d probably rather no one actually looked at my earlier movies at all, its far too embarrassing.  I think of myself as a late bloomer, which is code for: my first films are terrible.

What I am getting at is that until I happen to own an amazing assortment of lights, sound,  and camera gear, or know people who do (who are also generous), I will have trouble making what I want to make without a little bit of money.  Osheen Harruthoonyan my DP and our production managers Katarina Soukup and David Eng have been tirelessly trying to get us affordable quotes for our lighting package, and it’s been hard to balance the need to ensure we have the equipment to make it look great, and the need to save so I don’t end up putting the post production on my credit card.  It’s a sensitive balance, and one that every filmmaker is presented with.  “How much of the money that you are spending is ending up on screen?” is a question people regularly ask. The answer had better be, “quite a bit.”

I don’t like to judge other filmmakers too harshly because I know how insanely hard it is so make a movie.  It’s unbelievably difficult, it involves an immense amount of work, and you never really know how it is going to turn out in the end.  Good producers know how to hedge their bets when making films, they know where to put the cash where it is best needed, where it will most likely will be seen.  This in itself doesn’t guarantee the success of a project, but it at the very least ensures one aspect of the movie will be sellable.  It’s an important talent directors need to learn as well, knowing what part of your film will be the most memorable, the part that the viewer takes home with them and thinks about.  I think that knowing that, and putting your money and effort there, is a key element to making a movie work.  Hopefully, with Mr. Crab, I have figured that out.

The pre-production for my latest film is well underway, and it seems as though things are coming together.  Katarina Soukup and her company Catbird Productions along with David Eng are production managing / associate producing Mr. Crab and are doing a great job.  It’s made me really think about the details of the directing – something that sometimes has gotten missed when I have done it all myself.  It’s the difference I suppose between no budget productions and mid level, because with this we have many people taking care of many details – and amazingly enough, getting paid to do what they love.  This is rare in the indie world – especially with intimate projects such as this.

In the past I’ve worked for free countless times, and will do so again in the future I am sure, but it helps to have some money in your pocket so that you can pay for groceries.  I often lament that I barely have enough time to write projects because I too busy with finding work to pay the rent, so it is a welcome change when you get a grant and can relax for a moment.  The moment is short, but it is always treasured.

I also appreciate the ability to pay something since I’ve often asked people to work for free on my films or films I’ve produced.  It’s positive filmmaker karma I think that we eventually cash in when we have a project that has no budget to speak of.  I’ve been really fortunate, both here in Montreal and Vancouver when I lived there, to find great people who have taken a lot of time and dedicated it to my films.  I am eternally indebted for that; I am eternally grateful.

Future film stars?

Something that I’ve noticed over the last few years is that I have grown more and more interested in the art direction in my films.  I remember one of my first student films the art direction consisted of making a fake market in a somewhat post-apocalyptic town.  It wasn’t bad actually, considering I did everything myself and we shot on an old Bolex in black and white 16mm so the faults weren’t readily seen, especially when transferred to SD video back in 1996.

Erica Smith holds a wooden elephant in Useless Things (2009).

Now, especially with my last film Useless Things, art direction is almost the most important element I use in telling a story.  I’ve been blessed by the work done by Zahra Peal who has production designed my last few films, even the opening sequence to My Cultural Divide.  Inserting a little subtext and metaphor into the props and decorations have become vital ways that I have been able to create a world for characters to inhabit.  The music video I directed and Zahra worked on for the High Dials, My Heart is Black, created this kind of space for the band, and I am still quite proud of what we did  there.

Mr. Crab, which goes to camera in a few weeks, marks our next challenge.  I’m incredibly excited about it, especially since as opposed to previous films, the RED camera we are using will show off every single detail.

I will be making a short film called Mr. Crab in the coming year thanks to a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. It’s a film that explores the immigrant experience through the imaginative eyes of a child of Trinidadian parents now living in Canada. This may not be the only project I will be working on in the coming year about the West Indies, as plans are being made to go to Trinidad & Tobago in the new year to shoot a documentary. It a sequel, in spirit rather than content, to My Cultural Divide.