Every small film festival is as much about the movies it screens as it is about the place it is held in. So it was only fitting that the movie that opened the inaugural Yukon International Film Festival earlier this year had a starring role for the territory.
The Big White , starring Robin Williams, Holly Hunter and Giovanni Ribisi, offered plenty of gorgeous looks at the Yukon's snowy White Pass region, where much of the film was shot in April 2004.
Although the Fargo -esque thriller failed to win theatrical distribution, it was by far the film with the biggest hype at the fledgling celebration of local and global cinema. It was also perhaps the least interesting of the 33 movies that were screened over five days at the festival, which kicked off on June 21.
Much more interesting was the array of environmental and First Nations films on offer. Both issues provided the festival with its central themes.
"When you think of the Yukon, you think of a place that's exotic, you think of the north, you think of the land and of the people who live here, of which our First Nations peoples are very prominent, so it just seemed to make sense that this is how we would theme the festival," explained festival director Nancy Lewis-de Graff.
With producers, directors and actors from eight countries on hand to present their work, the festival was as much about the local industry getting to rub shoulders with their peers as it was for the Yukon's 23, 000 residents to take in movies they hardly ever have a chance to see otherwise.
"We want our filmmakers, our actors, our writers and producers to have the chance to mingle with talent from the industry who will be coming from around the world," said Yukon Film and Sound Commissioner Margarita Ramon, days before the festival began.
Plenty of deals were made. Lee Harris, a producer with Canamedia in Toronto, plans to turn Yukon filmmaker Ross Burnett's environmental documentary, Ernie's Earth: Room to Roam , into a 13-part TV series, and left the festival with several other planned projects.
While the deal-making might have been crucial to a territory looking to beef up its film industry, the real joy for film buffs was the chance to attend an intimate, low key event. Ticket holders were just as likely to chat with filmmakers in the hotel lobby where several films were screened as they were at the screenings themselves.
Director Albert Nerenberg, who screened his documentary, Escape to Canada , at the festival, was just one of the filmmakers who gladly took the time to talk to those in attendance. The same went for Sam Dunn, whose documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey received a warm welcome from northerners.
While Films like Metal and Escape to Canada already had a bit of dust on them before the festival, there was a good dose of new flicks to take in, many of which were fresh, engaging, and like nothing you would ever get to see at your local megaplex--meaning exactly the kind of movies you should go to a festival to see.
Allan Code's CANOL , a 45-minute documentary about a failed arctic pipeline project, was a standout on that note, as was Andrew Connors' Artifacts , a 38-minute drama set in Keno City that tells the story of a man out to solve the mystery of his grandmother's disappearance.
One unfortunate aspect of the festival was the fact that the panel discussions were geared to industry insiders in the north or those looking to get in. Panels on how First Nations peoples can get funding, how to produce a film and how to secure international co-production deals didn't offer much for the casual film buff. Still, the panels on cinema and social change and how filmmakers are raising environmental awareness through their work offered a chance to engage a number of issues via film for anyone not holding a union card.
If you've ever considered trekking up to the great white north and spending time in Whitehorse--and let's face it, we've all been curious at one time or another--the Yukon International Film Festival is an excellent chance to do so.
The festival still has plenty of kinks to work out. Most festivals with just one year under their belt usually do. But if you're looking to see shorts and features that reflect the splendour and creative diversity of the north, the Yukon International Film Festival has it in spades. You could always try to get your hands on some of the movies - but there's nothing like actually venturing to a place to fully appreciate it.
There's no doubt that Sofia Coppola has worked hard to earn her reputation as one of America's brightest young voices in cinema. Each of her three features, The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003) and now Marie Antoinette (2006), demonstrate a wonderful knack for visual storytelling. They also share a commonality in their protagonists, as each film follows a conflicted young woman trying to find her own identity. The realism and depth that she brings to these characters truly makes her one of the foremost contemporary filmmakers telling stories about young women today. But it's another weapon in Coppola's arsenal that makes her films so effective: her undeniable ability to marry music to pictures.
In this FilmCAN exclusive, Geoff Morrison reviews Sofia Coppola's anticipated new feature Marie Antoinette , while tracing through the musical tradition of her earlier works.
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Her decision to use modern dialogue, for instance, pays off. Instantly, the wall that often alienates period characters from young audiences is torn down. I love that young girls will be able to watch this film and relate to the feelings of Antoinette by hearing dialogue in their own language.
Yet there are missteps, some of the auditory variety. Much of the plot and story of Marie Antoinette concerns the young queen's degradation as a public figure. To show her waning support, Coppola uses a device whereby her aides and so-called friends are seen whispering and gossiping just out of her earshot. The intention behind the device is great - watching Antoinette traverse long hallways to the sound of mean-spirited whispering seems so high-school, which is perfect. However, Coppola overuses the device, which becomes something of an annoying crutch. Nonetheless, the director still manages to insert a sharp comment about the cult of celebrity in contemporary society, in how Antoinette's public downfall plays out.
On the subject of music, Coppola is typically spot-on and particularly impressive in her keenness to break from the traditional form of period films. Also notable is her strategy for placing music. Spare the opening credit sequence, the film begins with a classical score, which underlines most of the first act, representing both the environment that Antoinette comes from and that which she moves to. But as she begins to rebel and grow frustrated by her situation, the soundtrack starts to change and classical violins become replaced by guitars and cymbal crashes. Coppola cleverly stretches the transformation to reflect Antoinette's slow-changing emotions, and the pay-off is worth it. As both the music and the young queen cut loose, we grow closer to the character and relish in her rebellion.
With Marie Antoinette , even more so than in her previous works, Coppola selects pieces that work on both lyrical and musical levels. In one of the first bursts of rebellious behaviour, Antoinette parties the night of her birthday away to the tune of "Ceremony" by New Order, and to the lyrics, " I'll break them down, no mercy shown, heaven knows, its got to be this time / watching her, these things she said, the times she cried, too frail to wake this time. " In addition to foreshadowing her downfall, the song externalizes Antoinette's true feelings, which in this sequence are masked by drinking and partying. In another example, a disgruntled and terribly bored Antoinette is playing cards with her husband, but can't help but daydream about another man whom she'd rather be with. After politely excusing herself, The Strokes' "What Ever Happened?" explodes onto the soundtrack with Antoinette racing through the castle to get back to her bedroom where she can be alone. The lyrics scream, " I want to be forgotten, and I don't want to be reminded. / You say, please don't make this harder. No, I won't yet. " The film remains ambiguous about what exactly she does when she gets to her bedroom and lies face-up on her bed, but it doesn't even matter because the lyrics speak so clearly of what she is feeling inside.
Of course, Coppola is not the first filmmaker to use good, clever music and lyrics to soundtrack a film, but with Marie Antoinette , she successfully deviates from the conventions of a classic genre. Coppola's nuances and choices regarding the film's modern tone, dialogue and music are what really make it stand out. They also help you forget about the film's main shortcoming, which like many biopics, is its editing. Regardless, Coppola deserves to be commended for daring to do something different and bringing a cool, youthful approach to a hoary genre.
Realist filmmaking, a genre which was once essentially signified in audio terms by the use of diegetic sound and a lack of scored or pre-composed music, has of late been commodified through the emergence of the documentary as a popular genre. With audiences ignoring technical and artistic cinematic proficiency in record numbers (see Michael Moore, game docs, etc.) in favour of "good stories," many docs have slowly but surely begun scoring their most dramatic moments, or at least the transitions between these moments. (For an up-to-date example of this, see the ubiquitous, quasi-aboriginal new age that mars the otherwise decent The White Planet .) Of course, the silence of location sound alone is as much of a construct as any musical cue - and, moreover, one employed effectively in many successful crossover art films of recent years, from the work of the Dardennes to Von Trier's original Dogme pictures. Still, a confluence of coincidences - doc (and, subsequently, doc-style realist) popularity rising, serious fiction filmmaking withering in the face of mass market mediocrity and downloading, digital video becoming more accessible - has led many fiction filmmakers to turn to the hand-held realist feel for key dramatic moments, and to simultaneously re-think music within the confines of realist fiction. (Of course, most blockbuster or franchise movies pander to neither crowd, employing generic dirge mixed to LOUD to ramp up typical action scenes: cars turning corners fast, actors kicking ass, and people chasing each other in industrial settings.)
Interestingly, this realist re-think - largely taking place in independent cinema - also coincides with the rise in popularity of independent Canadian music on a world scale. Though it's usually our producer-driven divas or suburban copycat pop-punk bands who receive the most attention, now, musicians with artistic merit - The Constantines, Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, The New Pornographers and Feist, to name a few - are finally breaking through commercially. And these bands don't even begin to represent the disproportionate amount of indie acts that are happy to make outstanding music on the fringes, yet may be no more than a Pitchfork review away from commercial success.
Canadian cinema has so far been unable to match its musical counterpart in terms of quality production; a great Canadian film is still much harder to come by than a great Canadian record. But with a new slate of films set to debut at festivals across the country this Fall, and two of 2005's critically and publicly acclaimed English Canadian films, It's All Gone Pete Tong and The Life & Hard Times of Guy Terrifico , not only relying on music to help propel their narratives but actually featuring made-up cult musicians as their lead characters, Canadian filmmakers seem to finally be acknowledging the music in their own backyard, and taking a good look at why it is successful. Yet while even lauded independent American films (including the recently released Half-Nelson ) have tuned into the Canadian music scene for inspiration, many of these preliminary efforts at blissful integration have, unfortunately, used said scene's energy alongside realist camerawork to simply mask a lack of dramatic tension.
Premiering at TIFF (and likely playing other Canadian fests this fall), Everything's Gone Green (Paul Fox), Citizen Duane (Michael Mabbot), and Monkey Warfare (Reg Harkema), point to a new awareness of contemporary independent music within Canadian film. Though both EGG and CD suffer from clichéd scripts that not even the best music can overcome, that doesn't stop the directors from trying. Paul Fox even employs a sample from underrated, emotionally evocative Toronto instrumentalists Do Make Say Think, though he generally all too often reverts to straight vocal pop numbers by Fembots and Jason Collett. As the movie moves along and montage after montage of Canuck music and strained transitional visuals wears thin, the film finally reveals a sad truth; Fox may have in-touch, homeward-looking musical tastes, but not even the hippest Canuck music can make Douglas Coupland's out-of-touch slacker tale relate to the generation it's supposedly presenting. Meanwhile, Mabbot, who did such a great job with ex Superfriendz/Flashing Lights frontman Matt Murphy as both his lead actor and composer in Guy Terrifico , fills his otherwise unremarkable teen comedy Citizen Duane with a host of great tunes (by Joel Plaskett and Fembots, among others) that again are used as an energy source from outside the film, with no relation whatsoever to the high-school lead's particular sensibility; it seems worth pointing out that Duane is supposed to live in a small town, where such music likely wouldn't have the kind of relevance it would in an urban setting.
It's not Canadian, per se, but the recently released Half-Nelson (Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden) is an interesting and germane case, in that it features almost the entire 2002 Broken Social Scene recording, You Forgot it in People . The music is not only used as a non-diegetic score, but also often happens to be playing within a place the lead character Dan (Canada's Ryan Gosling) visits. Though it's easy enough to envision a white, hip, drug-ingesting New York twenty-something grooving out to BSS in his spare time, as often as not the music is incongruous with the story. When Dan seduces his fellow teacher by showing his tender side, they slow dance to the Feist interpretation of Broken Social Scene's "Lover's Spit" (also used to poor tonal effect in Clement Virgo's Lie With Me ). Here the film manipulates the viewer via montage and music into an emotional association with Dan that feels false; it's as if by turning on this tune, level-headed characters are given the impetus for decisions they wouldn't normally make. (And seriously, slow dancing?) Later, during the climax of the film, when his student Drey (a remarkable Shareeka Epps) visits the crack den he's holed up in with a group of non-white 'friends,' you have to wonder if they'd really have Broken Social Scene cranked at that particular dramatic moment. Even if the viewer has no previous knowledge of BSS's oeuvre, there is simply too much pre-recorded music floating through the film, and suggests the filmmakers were not confident enough in their inherent drama to face the viewer stripped of this crutch.
There are exceptions, films that have picked up on the value of soundtracking without substituting musical interludes for genuine drama. Monkey Warfare , Reg Harkema's second feature film, while somewhat infatuated with Godardian narrative breaks, also uses music to energize scenes, but thankfully has the sense to realize that not every scene with music need be dramatic, and is comfortable enough to let them play out as fun excursions - which many of the best musical breaks in film history are; see the iconic bike sequence from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , or the surrealist bowling fantasia in The Big Lebowski . Harkema also shys away from jumping on the contemporary Canadian indie train, excluding Canadian music from his film but for a smoky whiff of Leonard Cohen. The point is, he's not relying on the audience experiencing a degree of familiarity and meaning that's contemporaneous with - and, crucially, dependent on - the popularity of the songs to carry his film's dramatic weight. For that, he simply uses good acting, a solid script and confident direction.
The different degrees of success experienced by Canadian music and film, respectively, inevitably brings us to the ever-present issue of bureaucracy and the government's role in cultural promotion. And, of course, to the CRTC. For 30 years now, the Canadian Radio and Television Commission has required 35% of all music played on a Canadian radio station in a given day to be of Canadian origin, based on the MAPL (Music; Artist; Production; Lyrics) system of analysis. These regulations have arguably been responsible for as much bloated, unit-shifting industry rock as for encouraging a thriving independent response from musicians uninterested in the mainstream music industry's bullshit. But right now in cinema, the alternative to mediocre projects supported by Telefilm, the Canadian Film Centre and many TV networks is practically non-existent outside the festival world; even if one is produced, it's rarely possible to see outside of the major three urban centres.
It may have taken over 30 years, but the independent audio voice arguably fostered by these controversial regulations may finally be reaching its apex: a point where bands can self-record and release an album, tour, and - if the songs are good enough - gain an instantaneous audience. As digital technology paves the way for independent filmmakers to home-produce on a similar scale, the music model is one to look to for production inspiration, a sense of adventurousness in creative matters, and hope that an audience for Canadian films is waiting in the wings (perhaps just beginning to download their first Guy Maddin films, natch.) What it shouldn't have to do is shoulder the dramatic burden of independent film. Tunes can sustain cool visuals, and complement dramatic scenes. But the level of emotional engagement demanded by realism shouldn't be substituted with a few bars of indie-pop, just because the country has finally discovered that it likes the sound of its own music.Readings are a real eye-opener. Dialogue that looks good on the page can sound terrible when you hear it spoken, just as dialogue that seems banal can sound amazing. You never really know how good or bad it is until you hear it, and it's much better to hear it now than when you've got a full crew sitting around smirking at the stale dialogue on set as it's being filmed.
When you're making comments on drafts, be thoughtful and careful not to give the writer contradictory instructions. During the first draft you may have been convinced that the character of Bob should be a wheelchair-bound pianist, and tell the writer that. By the time of the third or fourth draft, though, you now think it's a bad idea, and instruct the writer to change it back again. But the writer becomes frustrated, you start to get lost, and the project suffers.
I'm generally suspect of any writer who can write a new draft - not a pass; a draft of substantial changes - in less than three or four weeks. I worked with one writer who supplied me with three new drafts in less than three weeks. The changes were unremarkable - there was no real improvement - and he couldn't understand why I kept repeating instructions to him. As the script never got to the point where I felt that I could show it around, we parted company.
Usually those long stretches between the time of the original idea and the finished product are the result of trying to nail the script. Given that it's at least a month between drafts, just do the math: outline, first draft, final draft, polish - there's four months right there. Add in periods of feedback between each of those phases, and we could be up to a year. Spend a few months with that first 'final draft' trying to raise money, then realize that you need a rewrite and go through the process again. Now we're up to a couple of years. Time flies, even when you're not having fun.
At this point, still early in the game, you want to at least figure out who your 'keys' (heads of departments) are: focus on finding a DOP and Production Designer. Once these keys are tentatively locked in, the rest of the crew will fall in place once prep begins. And the more input that you can get from these keys, the more prepared they'll be, and the project will start to shape itself.
As for casting, you can at the least start thinking of the people you have in mind, and find out availability - if you have a decent sense of when the production might start. If you're able to find your lead characters, all the better. As with your 'keys,' early input from lead actors will help you shape your project, and it will begin to have a life of its own.
In my experience, the first pass at the budget - a totally realistic one - is shocking, because you usually discover that you don't even have half the financing you need. This proved true on everything from the ultra low-budget Cube right up to multimillion dollar productions such as Hedwig & The Angry Inch , The Safety of Objects , and Foolproof .
And so you start picking away at it, line by line - but be careful not to be penny-wise and pound foolish:
Don't be intimidated by what seems to be a huge gap in the film you have in your head and what the Production Manager thinks it's going to cost. It always happens, and it almost always works out somehow.
If you're lucky enough not to have to deal with actor's scheduling problems, scheduling can be fairly straightforward. Anyone can do it - but a good assistant director will do it much much better. Some basic rules are: try and shoot in order of scenes, but don't be bound by that; night shooting should be scheduled with all other night shooting, and should be contained in a block of time - eg. one week of solid nights, then a weekend off, then back to days. If you have any 'action' scenes or stunts, make sure that you schedule more time for them.
Similarly, if you have a conversation between a couple of characters you should be able to shoot more than the usual number of pages in a day. In general, try to keep at least one day open at the end of the shoot for the inevitable 're-shoots' and 'pickup shots'. I've rarely been on a shoot where we didn't have to squeeze in shots on the last day, and many last days can stretch for twenty hours. In the case of Cube , the last 'day' was about thirty-six hours.
When you go to book your equipment, most suppliers will be sympathetic to your cause, and will give you a break as long as they have equipment available. Sit down with the supplier, tell them how much money you can afford to spend, and then do a bit of back and forth with the supplier's list of equipment and what your grip, lighting and camera department wants. You can usually work out a happy median, and a rule of thumb for dealing with production rental houses is that once they send you the initial equipment quote, you call them back and ask for a better deal. And once that new quote comes back in, do it again.
Rehearsals of at least the lead characters is a huge help, and will speed up the shoot days. You'll probably not be able to afford the time or money to do a full rehearsal, but any you can do will ease the production process.
Finally, once the money is coming in, the locations are set, the script is locked, and you're ready to roll, take a deep deep breath and say goodbye to your loved ones for two to six weeks. Buy an obscene amount of tube socks and undies, and get your laundry done. Have a chat with your bank manager. And jot down the contact info of your loved ones, so that once the production roller-coaster starts, and the weasels start gnawing at the inside of your head, you can remember what's really important.