Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Young, the Restless, and the Dead: Interviews with Canadian Filmmakers
    The Young, the Restless, and the Dead: Interviews with Canadian Filmmakers
    The Young, the Restless, and the Dead: Interviews with Canadian Filmmakers
    Ebook196 pages2 hours

    The Young, the Restless, and the Dead: Interviews with Canadian Filmmakers

    By Wilfrid Laurier University Press

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Young, the Restless, and the Dead captures the spirit of Canadian filmmakers through interviews with the most accomplished and dynamic of yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s film greats. Funny, provocative, and enlightening, the filmmakers reflect on their careers and explore with the interviewers the issues that challenge them.

    This book features an interview with a late director (Jean-Claude Lauzon) whose work is recognized in the canon as outstanding; interviews with filmmakers who are accomplished in their fields and have to their credit a sizeable body of work (Blake Corbet, Andrew Currie, Brent Carlson, Guy Maddin, Lynne Stopkewich, Anne Wheeler, Gary Burns, and Mina Shum); and an interview with a young director new to the field (Michael Dowse). Together these players in the Canadian film scene capture the energy, success, and tribulations of a fascinating cultural industry.

    The Young, the Restless, and the Dead is the first volume in a series of interviews with key cultural creators in the field of cinema. It seeks to bring to a wide audience the insights and emotions, the trials and achievements of significant figures in Canadian film.

    George Melnyk talks about The Young, the Restless, and the Dead with Eric Volmers of the Calgary Herald. Read the interview online.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilfrid Laurier University Press
    Release dateOct 22, 2009
    ISBN9781554584338
    The Young, the Restless, and the Dead: Interviews with Canadian Filmmakers

    Related to The Young, the Restless, and the Dead

    Titles in the series (21)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Reviews for The Young, the Restless, and the Dead

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Young, the Restless, and the Dead - Wilfrid Laurier University Press

      85.

      PART i

      THE YOUNG

      Michael Dowse

      1   it needed to go to a dark place

      MICHAEL DOWSE

      interviewed by Bart Beaty

      Beaty How did you first get involved in the film scene in Calgary, and what role did that play in your formation as a filmmaker?

      Dowse I started at the University of Calgary and worked at the University of Calgary television station (NUTV), which was a great place. I just basically found a place where they would rent you a camera cheap and had editing equipment. As long you volunteered on the show, and helped produce their half-hour show on cable television, you could basically use the equipment any way you wanted. So, I started there and then got involved with the CSIF (Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers) which was sort of the graduation up to film, shooting off of 16 mm. And so there were tons of good resources in Calgary where you could go to start learning. The influence of Calgary? It’s kind of evident in FUBAR, you know, which is a take on something that’s so Calgary to me, which is the headbanger.

      I started at the University of Calgary television station, which was a great place.

      I found a place where they would rent you a camera cheap and had editing equipment.

      Beaty Do you think that the headbanger is a particularly Calgarian thing?

      Dowse I think that it’s universal, but I think that Calgary provides some great examples and is a great breeding ground.

      Beaty Are these the kind of guys that you met in university, or in high school in Calgary?

      Dowse More like on jobs, and working in gas stations and playing against. Not necessarily in high school, more in junior high, I’d say.

      Beaty When you made FUBAR it was edited at CSIF (Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers). Did you borrow the equipment from CSIF as well?

      Dowse The sound equipment we borrowed. We did all the sound, and all the sound editing, at CSIF.

      Beaty The film was shot on DV [digital video]?

      Dowse On mini-DV. And then the CSIF helped us out.

      Beaty Was there a sense, growing up in Calgary or going to school in Calgary, that it would be a good place to make a film? Or did you have a feeling even then that you’d have to leave in order to make a career in film?

      Dowse I knew eventually that I’d have to leave Calgary, but I think that it was a good place to make the first film because the community will help out. I didn’t really want to get involved with the runaway American productions. In terms of staying in control behind the camera you kind of have to leave Calgary to really gain success. If you’re just interested in working on a crew, I think that you can stay in Calgary. But that’s definitely something that I wasn’t interested in.

      Beaty Was it difficult shooting in Calgary? Did you get permits, or did you just wander around downtown with the cameras?

      Dowse We just wandered around. It was very easy to shoot in Calgary for that reason. We got no permits. I didn’t really want to think like that at all on FUBAR.

      Beaty Watching the film, I found myself trying to figure out exactly where the action is taking place at different moments. Some are very recognizable, like the LRT stations or the ice cream place on 17th Avenue. But otherwise, other than in the trip to High River, I’m not sure that the film really foregrounds the fact that it’s set in Alberta. It could be set almost anywhere, and it’s a more universal story that way.

      Dowse Yeah, it could be. Actually, we shot most of it just behind 17th Avenue on 18th Street, where a giant condo development now sits.

      Beaty Is that where you rented the house?

      Dowse That’s where we rented the house and we got it really cheaply because they were ripping it down. At the end of the day, they didn’t really care what we did in there because they were going to rip it down. It was sort of a ritzy neighbourhood, but it works. You don’t really notice the BMWS driving by. I think that one of the things that we missed out on was putting them in a duplex, but you can’t have everything.

      Beaty Tell me a little bit about the trip to High River. I think that FUBAR has just about the greatest opening disclaimer in the history of film, which is the apology to people who thought you were making a real documentary, which is mostly the people in High River.

      It had a certain danger to it that made it better in terms of the acting. Everyone went up a notch.

      Dowse [laughs] Well, it was basically just a hot summer night. We were going to do a scene where Dean gets a hooker, and that’s at the end of the night. But then we got there and we thought, Oh, what the fuck, let’s go out and start shooting and see what happens. It was either that or sit around for five hours waiting for it to get dark. And it was great. As soon as we turned on the camera people were genuinely interested. Literally, we shot for about five minutes walking around the town, when Paul Leonard, the guy who got attacked by the hawk, who told that story, just rolls up on his bike and says, How you guys doing? So it wasn’t really a conscious artistic decision, just more of an idea that something interesting would happen if we embraced it and just went out and did something. And it had a certain danger to it that, I think, made it better in terms of the acting. Everyone went up a notch.

      There wasn’t a line scripted. We wrote out the narrative but we didn’t script a line. The only scripted line was Dr. Lim’s moustache joke at the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1