Dear reader,

The morning following morning 4, (morning 5) we are hearing a lot of chatter about hitting the wall, taking some time for ourselves, making sure we are keeping up with our other responsibilities outside of seeing movies, etc… I think it’s really important that this is being discussed. It would be almost too easy to just come to Toronto, see a dozen movies, and then just end up back in Michigan, perhaps a more well rounded movie viewer, perhaps not.

But coming from the day and night of Day 4, I’ll give you a brief recap of some of the encounters from my first, nearly successful, movie viewing day.

Everyday so far, I’ve started with a plan. A plan of potential viewings, movies, industry panels. They are usually decided by either a name of an actor, producer, or director. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of talk about writers but it does get mentioned if it’s noteworthy. So Day 4, having just come out of what may forever be known as, The Princess Bride Massacre, I wanted to see what Jason Reitman has been doing outside of breaking my heart. I found out he was a producer for a new show that was just picked up by Hulu.

The show is called ‘Casual’ and basically deals with the ideas of casual sex in the modern age. According to various other sources, ‘the series follows the story of a dysfunctional family with a bachelor brother and his newly divorced sister who together coach each other through the world of dating while living under the same roof again and raising a teenager.’ Now that’s a great pitch for a modern TV show if you ask me. It covers a few demographics and is relatable to a modern audience. Writer Zander Lehmann nails it. Lehmann’s imdb page has less written on it than my imdb page, if that tells you anything.

Unfortunately for the show, Hulu, and their intended audience, the performances fall flat. While the sister and daughter character were completely realistic, modern, and quirky enough to hold your attention, the dimwitted/slacker, half in the bag, inventor of a new dating/hookup app brother feels like a character we’ve soon too many times before. Even if the performances weren’t so much an issue, the delivery and tone of the pilot episode isn’t set concretely enough and early enough that you find it appropriate to laugh at the absurdly dark humorous moments. I really wanted to like this. There were moments when I was the only one in a half full theatre laughing because I got the joke but the delivery was poor or it was in bad taste according to the tone they had created for the show. Another thing that stuck out to me while I was watching was the music. It had a semi traditional set of music in between cuts but the genre of the music didn’t always feel to be fitting with the flow of the episode, it was like they just REALLY liked the idea behind the music and were determined to fit it into it somehow.

Prior to ‘Casual’, I attended my first Master Class. Let me admit something, I don’t know what that means. Upon looking it up, it basically means someone talking to highly talented students (thank you) by an expert in their field. Moving on, I attended a Master Class, with an old colleague of Professor Kredell’s, Liz Czach. Liz was insightful and she spoke about many aspects of her former life here at TIFF as a programmer in charge of the Canadian films by Canadian Filmmakers at this Canadian festival, the Festival of Festivals. Her term here lasted from 1995-2005, starting in May every year until the end of the festival midway through September where she was constantly part of a balance 2-3 person team. She said that it was because of the timing of this event that she was able to do it for so long while she was seeking a higher degree, although the festival would interfere with her first week of classes, telling the professors that you’re a TIFF programmer was an easily valid excuse in this industry. Liz said when she first started they would view somewhere between 60-70 feature length films when deciding which films would be in the program and around 200-300 short films but near the end of her time with TIFF there were closer to 120 feature length films being submitted. She credits it partially toward the advances both in technology and the prestige of the event itself.

What I found especially interesting about Liz’s story was her work history up until she was working with TIFF. She was a cashier, working part time, and she had a degree from the University of Alberta in an unrelated field. But Liz found herself enjoying and viewing a lot of experimental film and meeting a lot of filmmakers who were doing that sort of thing. At the time there wasn’t really a place to view and showcase works like that, the filmmakers decided to do a sort of homebrew style film festival. It was out of her time spent watching and meeting that she landed a gig helping put together local talent and films in this niche market. She advises anyone who wants to blossom in this industry, or any industry, needs to start at the bottom and sometimes being at the bottom with everyone else is the best way to standout. From volunteering at start ups, and working at the grocery store she found herself in a position to apply to the Toronto International Film Festival on multiple occasions. She told us that once she was rejected the first time she was planning on treating the process like baseball, three strikes and she would move on. She would later find out that the reason for her lack of success the first two applications was because her tastes and flavor was similar to that of one of the other members of the team at the time, so in the interest of fairness and diversity amongst the films it was in their best interest to sit her out until that member stepped down.

Liz, with some minor help from Professor Brannon Donoghue, gave us some helpful ideas and skill sets into what someone in this business might need to have a good start/career in the Film Industry. Liz first stated, “Watch everything.” It was as easy as that, “you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.” It was an idea that certainly made sense in the history classes I’d taken throughout my stay at Oakland and even in high school, Liz wants to echo that idea in the programming world. There are plenty of repeated ideas that could be or need to be expanded on in films in other ways, there are also some ideas that maybe shouldn’t be repeated. Liz says there’s nothing worse than corresponding with a young filmmaker who thinks he has an original idea but it’s actually something we saw in 1938. Film history is important, “know what you’re innovating on,” she says. Other, less tangible, skills were resiliency in terms of both giving and receiving rejection, being able to negotiate, and being able to keep a diplomatic relationship both with colleagues and filmmakers alike. Liz also repeated the name David Cronenberg enough to make me feel like a bad film watcher for not knowing the name, so this will be my place to remind myself to watch ‘Dead Ringers’. Another thing to note from the meeting with Liz is the use of Vimeo and Withoutabox for modern film submissions into festivals. One of my favorite things she said was about the submission process itself, “We don’t need your $25 submission fee, so it was often that I waived it entirely.”

Now, following the pilot for casual, I dashed off to what I expected to be THE industry panel entitled, Your First Feature: Making the Jump from Shorts to Features. As I suspected this event only held 100 people in the main room and a couple dozen in the viewing room. I was lucky enough to get into the viewing room, however, the things they were telling these filmmakers were painstakingly obvious. Some notes I took from the speakers were.

• Don’t be afraid to make compromises. And later when you have enough money backing your feature, remember the things you compromised on and make them the way your original vision was.
• Realize where you want to go. Know where your film is going to debut, you don’t necessarily have to cater to that audience, but knowing where and when the film is going to debut is important. Think about the premiere of the film.
• Take higher aim and don’t be afraid to come up short.
• Know your audience. Have an intended audience. (Example of well written, well executed movie with an intended audience of children/teens that used the word fuck repetitively) Nobody would be willing to pick up or distribute a movie that wasn’t geared properly toward it’s intended audience.
• When you’re pitching ideas, have scripts ready and have five more ideas on the back burner.
• When searching for an agent or producer, do your research and homework. Not every agent is the right fit for your specific needs.

After all the generic notes I was taking, I dipped out early and headed toward the other event going on simultaneously, “Pitch This!” An awesome concept/game show where six filmmakers have the opportunity to pitch their films/ideas for a chance to win $15,000. There were a few really strong ideas. What I thought was odd was the different stages each film was in, some were actually in post production while a couple were still seeking a casting director. The standout film from that event, to me, ‘Claire, from the Bus’. Not only was the idea for the film kind of brilliant but the pitch was absolutely perfect, at one point they mocked the the idea of the film using a bus by referencing ‘Speed’.

The day was still young by the time that was over. After a long walk around the city, and a mediocre Calzone from Mamma’s Pizza, I found myself with one of the groups from Oakland waiting in line for Cemetery of Splendour. This was apparently a huge event and we were in the front of the line. People were telling us how lucky we were to be getting introduced to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films here at the festival. We were all lost in translation. After about ten minutes I followed the rest of the group out of the theatre, giggling at how graceful we all were.

From there the group gathered and recruited, finally ending up at Black Bull Tavern for a night filled with Karaoke.

With this, dear reader, I say until next time.

Oh yeah, Lawson borrowed my hangers without asking, typical Lawson.