My first project that I could call my own was Cinderfella, I wrote it in grade eight long before I even knew who jerry Lewis was. We were given the assignment of doing fairy tales and I didn’t like Cinderella as it was presented so I went home and wrote out my own version; my friends Nathan, Jim and the Hawaii dude came on, we rehearsed and fixed the script…and it was the first time I got to say to a girl, “ I need you to look hot and walk by on stage.” We got laughs, Nathan wore a dress and I was a prince….we were hooked.
Several skits later, grade eleven came around and I tried my hand at filmmaking; I wrote the basic outline of a twenty minute film called ‘bumpy 2: the knuckle sandwich.’ Then on the days we filmed, me and the actors would go through what we wanted, find the funny moments and then act it out. Sure it was stressful, we filmed during lunch break, through SSR, sometimes skipping the occasional class to meet up for a scene and then after school…but it was freaken fun. Not once did we consider stopping just because a teacher lectured us, once the next chance came around we’d be ripping through more ideas. Editing itself was a tale, two in the morning at the cable building; once locked in because they forgot we were in the building.
I followed that up with ‘The deadly art of macramé.’
Then the first taste of real stress, I had just spent ten thousand dollars of other people’s money on film school and was now out in the real world. I put together a crap load of proposals and raised myself six thousand dollars to do a short film called ‘The making of the Cry of the Thunderbird.’
Shot over two weekends on Betacam, with a small crew and friends as my actors. There was a script I wrote, full of humour and good times; followed by the storyboard, but that’s not where the fun was.
The fun, I noticed was during the shoot, standing around with the actors trying to work out scenes, throwing around different ideas and latching onto the funniest moment, or the most series moment. It was ten minutes before shooting a scene that my brother goes…I should wear a moustache for this scene, and we pointed out he wasn’t wearing one for the character in the other scenes…and he says, that’s what makes it funny.
Another moment, and I kept the outtakes from it has my brother and friend Jason playing a producer and director watching their lead actor get eaten by wolves. The first take they seemed upset, so between takes I said they should be freaking out., so the second take was louder, so after the third take I went ‘dudes, just go nuts.’ The fourth take, Jason races at the fence and starts climbing it and screaming at the wolves, my brother Robert pulls him down and starts rubbing his hair saying ‘it’s okay, it’s okay,’ I laughed for nearly twenty minutes, it started a giggle fit that spread through the cast and crew and it was the take we used.
And the famous ‘let’s do this one completely in the nude,’ outtake, wasn’t in the script, we came up with that when we realized we would have to come back the next week. Nine pm on Sunday night, there were six of us in the basement sitting around joking about what we could’ve done; my sister has video footage of my face lighting up when the idea popped into my head and trying not to laugh as I explain it.
That was filmmaking to me.
It occurred to me tonight, I will never have that feeling again; because I now work with professionals.
I did a short filmed called ‘The great bear bait,’ about four men that show up at a diner after one of them, who’s now knocked out inside a sleeping bag, fought a grizzly bear. I wrote it for the same friends that did ‘Thunderbird,’ but decided to go with people from the industry including a crew that’s been at it for awhile. We also had a producer working so I could concentrate on directing. The shoot went fast, the set-ups were quick and I like the way it looked at the end…not so much the sound. The actors were so serious though, so strict, the only suggestions they made were how to deliver a line or angle to the camera. No suggestions about a better line, a funnier line or a better way to deliver it that would surprise me. I can watch the rough edit, but it doesn’t have any smirk….a smirk is the knowledge of the actors that what they’re doing is silly.
Then came two professional feature film writing jobs, very serious as well. The first one has its own heartbreaking moments but in the end I learned a lot, and was paid well enough to be able to do another short I thought would be funny.
‘Half Crazy,’ actually didn’t work out for me, it became too big so I handed it off to another director hoping to piggy back a second one off of it. Which led me to a ten minute short called ‘Urn.’
“Urn” to me was funny, and was full of funny moments. I actually chuckled a few times while reading it. It was another film with professionals, actually more professional than ‘great bear baiter.’ It also suffered though, mostly though I think, from the lack of familiarity that we had with each other; to them I was a new director and I admit I was still getting my footing working out of my normal environment. There were some suggestions make to make things better, the DOP certainly helped in changing things around…but it was still missing that feeling, that moment of ‘let’s just have fun,’ yes he’s very upset here, but blurt out something. Ryan actually changed a moment, putting his arms out at one point that made me chuckle…but where was the giggle fits?
Then we come to ‘Clean Fight.’
I wrote Clean Fight several years ago after a very heated debate with my mother, who was just diagnosed with diabetes but was in denial, she was under the impression she could still eat chips and chocolate. I put in kickboxing because at that time I was taking part in it and loved the sport, and I made it about a man who was good at something only to lose it because of himself, and a disease he can’t control…something that happened to me I will never go into the details. So it was a very personal, all around my story. I put a lot of my emotion into it, statements I’ve made, and a lot of fear I’ve gone through… and then, I put in what I also add when I feel horrible… I put in humour. I love humour, humour makes me laugh.
That was the last time that script was ever pure.
I had another producer attached at that point, it was an interesting dynamic we had going; I spent a lot of time explaining who we should be pitching to at the Banff Television festival and setting up meetings while she preferred hanging out at parties. I pitched to the network, who seemed very interested but was less than excited about our producing team.
My producer pulled out because we couldn’t trust each other; but by the time she did I already had two others attached. Then following that, one of the producers became the director and pulled his friend in to direct, and it morphed into a project by his company. It wasn’t decided, it just happened.
Another year passed and I found myself at the Banff Television festival again, going through the same motions; only this time watching the project be at the bottom of a pile my producing partners carried around with them. My first sign of lack of fun was trying to bring up my projects at meetings I booked, trying to get them into the conversation.
Another year passes, with talks with the network coming and going before they finally came forward with the great news that they would give us a broadcast license. I was quickly moved from being the producer to just a writer, my first real taste of being an outsider on a project I loved.
Then I was needed again. And this is how I became the token Indian.
The network, aboriginal by nature, needed a company to be controlled by an aboriginal person or they wouldn’t push the project forward. I was sold, another chance of keeping control over the child that was going into its teenage years. Out came the promises, a say in events, a director promising me that I’m going to be with the script every step of the way, something writers never get to do (they do, I just didn’t know it at the time). Look at me people, I’m the president.
Not really.
I’m the ‘Clean Fight Proxy.’
When the film really took place, I was left out of choices, decisions and not even required to talk to people that were being hired. Major Corporation mergers were made without input…we almost partnered with a larger company that wanted to change everything. And my script was being rewritten. I was demeaned, ignored, belittled, lectured and handled (when you’re handled, and told there’ll be a grievance process, and a quick verbal fellatio about how great a project we have here)…but worst of all, there was no moment of hanging out with the talent and bantering, no joking around to make a scene different. I saw very little humour in the scenes, the fast chatter was played for heartfelt reactions, the raised eyebrows were replaced by anger, and the thing that got me though the dark times…the smirk was gone.
I’m getting no artistic satisfaction from the project, no emotional satisfaction, and none of the closure you get when dealing with issues; and as it turns out, there’s going to be no monetary satisfaction either.
I did take some pleasure with paying back a few people, Aaron Nicholson was my friend from ‘the thunderbird,’ but again, he didn’t have time to be fun; or the courage to smirk. My brother, also from ‘Thunderbird,’ who had four years of acting training, several films under his belt wasn’t allowed a cameo because they thought he would look at the camera.
Yeah…right.
My last hope, Clean Fight, the project that would give me a reason to enjoy this industry again after a few projects that lacked fun…turned into the worst of them. Mostly because its expectations were already so high to me that it had the furthest to fall, and fall it did. Leaving me to wonder, is this all there is to look forward to. It was ‘Clean Fight’ that made me realize, those days of hanging out in a basement after a day of filming out in the rain, and coming up with better ideas were gone. That spark that made you go out into the rain, that made the arguments worth it that made the politics worth it that made the paper work worth it…it’s gone for good.
I noticed it’s starting to effect my other work, they’re starting to take a darker tone…not supernatural, that’s where I love to delve all the time…but darker in their delivery. The humour is stretched further out, the characters have less to be happy about; a script I started before ‘Clean Fight’ and ended after has such a different tone that people are even asking what happened when I got to page fifty that it went that way.
Thus bringing me here, at two in the morning I was lying in bed and hit with an epiphany. The fun of filmmaking isn’t there anymore, and I don’t know if it’ll ever return; it’s not a business, the objective is to make product and to make cash. You don’t do it because it’s going to be fun, you do it because there’s demand out there for it.
There’s talk of going to series with ‘Clean Fight’ and we’re still waiting to find out if it is, there’s still it chance it might not but we’re crossing our fingers and hoping. After the experience of the pilot I had to ask myself, what idiot would put himself through that again; left to feel like the bottom of society without any tangible rewards or feeling of accomplishment for going through the hardship. I considered not going forward with it, simply walking away but then more information presented itself. A person I consider a friend, a really good guy, talked me into it as he’s one of the producers and views this as worthwhile. I’ve also considered the other people working on it, from crew and actors that are counting on coming back to it…and some members of the community looking for their break into something bigger than presented by living on reserves.
Thus, like taking bitter medicine, I cover my nose and swallow with a bit of sugar.
All mute if it’s not picked up…but still interesting to think about.
Andrew.