Vancouver International Film Festival

As the Vancouver International Film Festival gets under way the affiliated Vancouver Film and Television Trade Forum, a three day event (25-27 Sept) which focuses on the business of filmmaking, from screenwriting to financing, was drawing to a close. Attendees are usually either in the film industry or looking to get into it, so it’s a great place for like-minded people to meet in a relaxed setting. This year it was held in the Roundhouse Community Centre, a revamped railway building set in one of the city's newest neighbourhoods.

Watching a panel of commissioning editors take apart five filmmakers’ pitches provided a rare insight into documentary-making at its early, rawest stages (see our special report).

Another panel struggled to agree on the future of interactive entertainment. The subject, "Evolving Media: Interactivity in Entertainment", was too general, but the discussion also reminded us just how slow the dot com world is now compared to two years ago.

For those with aspirations to be the next big thing in film, New Filmmakers’ Day started with a sobering reminding of the obstacles ahead. A distributor, commissioning editor, producer and lawyer told us market conditions in Canada for film-funding are bad (don’t finance people always say this?). If you are making a first film, "don’t expect to make any money," said one. Film-financing seems byzantine in its complexity. No wonder everyone wants to do the creative stuff.

Fortunately, director Bryan Singer, currently filming X-men 2 in Vancouver, and Ed Lachman, cinematographer on The Limey and Far From Heaven, were on hand to perk things up by sharing tricks of their trade.

Lachman, who cut an enigmatic figure with his long face and trilby hat, stressed that "the cinematography should come from within the interior of the character." Lachman spoke of the difficulty of keeping to an original vision when working with a director. "The hardest and most important thing for a cinematographer is to be consistent," Lachman said. "You take this journey: sometimes it all clicks, it all meshes and sometimes it doesn’t mesh at all."

Singer was a bundle of energy, hands constantly waving about when he talked. Hearing him talk about his relationship with his cinematographer, Thom Sigel, was like hearing somone talk about their lover. He described how he sets up a shot - the actors go through their paces while he runs around within them framing each of them with his hands for Thom. "He just kind of knows," said Singer.

It was interesting to hear about their different visual styles. Singer, who says his role-model is Stephen Spielberg, favours coverage of the subject-matter, with multiple camera-angles (the Hollywood approach) against what Lachman called "a more European approach" of filming where you take a point of view. "A lot of times the focus is not where you think it should be, but for the story it’s right."

Singer went well beyond the call of duty, holding court after the session outside the meeting hall with a group of keen young filmmakers, who wanted to know everything about the multi-million dollar X-Men 2. Expect X-Men 2 to be "darker and more moodier" said Singer. He chatted away so enthusiastically that about an hour later, one of the doorman had to direct him away from the door.

The same afternoon the focus moved to screenwriting. If any screenwriters were deluding themselves about how easy it is to get their film from page to screen, then these events set them straight.

Local writer-director and journo Guy Bennett, whose first film, Punch, is showing that the film festival, talked at length of the pain that he had to endure in writing and rewriting and rewriting his script. When asked what he found tough about being a first time director he was to the point. "The real mountain to climb is to write a good feature film script. It is a really fucking hard thing to do."

Even when he thought he had completed the script he found he had to cut ten pages on the insistence of the bond company, who were insuring the film. "I literally cried," he said.

The film took five years to make from the date it was optioned. Such a gestation period is not unusual. Milo Addica, writer on Monster’s Ball, had to fight for six years to see the film he wanted made, made. An Italian American from New York, living in London and LA, he was in no doubt what the problem is. "There’s this unwritten rule in Hollywood that you should crush the screenwriter and make him the lowest of the low. And it shouldn’t be that way," he said, to great applause.

He and Karyn Kusama, writer-director for Girlfight, were speaking about "Successful First Screenplays". There was much less talk about the actual creative process than how to protect the integrity of the original idea when entering the marketplace.

Addica warned first time writers to be especially careful when choosing a producer. "You want someone who believes in it <the script>. You don’t want someone who when they come aboard and make contact with the studio, becomes the spokesperson for the studio." He added: "All producers are assholes: pick a small asshole rather than a big asshole."

Welcome to the wonderful world of moviemaking.

More VIFF coverage

[an error occurred while processing this directive]