Recently I was offered the opportunity to drive through the breathtaking scenery of the Northern Peninsula as part of the Nickel Film Festival school tour. Ruth Lawrence and I motored around to ten schools delivering a unique experience to junior high and high school students, a mobile film festival and a two-hour filmmaking workshop. With a cinema and a mobile film production studio packed into a rented mini van, we headed to the snowy north to teach and inspire the youth. Hmmm, sounds romantic, it has quirky road movie premise potential. John Hughes and Don McKeller can co-write, I see Bruce Macdonald directing.
First off I have to thank the Nickel Film Festival for thinking of me for the gig. Living around the Bay, four hours from town, has its disadvantages. My name just doesn’t get considered for these kinds of opportunities, outta sight, outta mind. What an incredible experience it was though. As a filmmaker, I came out of the program just as enriched as the kids. I wrote a one minute post apocalyptic drama script, Ruth gathered a bag full of props and some fun “dirt” make up, and we shot the film with ten different groups of kids. Shooting the same film over and over again was a bit Groundhog Dayish but totally in a good way. I shoot video for a living but this program really reinforced the basics of filmmaking. We actually crossed the axis slightly with our first group!
The overarching message of the program for the students was that they don’t need money or a huge professional crew to make a film, just a camera and a story to tell. The film festival screening was put together by Reel Youth, a film mentorship program which offers the tools and instruction to kids to create short films. The films were all made and juried by kids under 19. The variety, creativity and maturity of technique displayed by these budding filmmakers was truly inspirational. One of the most popular films, OMG was a comedy, a really smart and simple premise of two teens sitting on a couch, facing forward, communicating in phone text speak. The film sent a powerful message about miscommunication, and the depersonalization of society through technology. The film had a grainy look which we guessed was shot on a cell phone, reinforcing the tour’s theme that creativity and a simple camera offers endless story potential.
The screening included 4 local films that were very well received. Tails From The Trails, a witty rap homage to Gros Morne Park hit close to home for the kids and Nathanial Loman’s two claymation comedies, The Misunderstood Gentleman From The Black Lagoon and Zombie Attack were huge audience faves.
We discovered through our workshops that incredible talent exists in every pocket of the province. The kids operated the camera, added lighting fill through a reflector and acted with speaking roles and in silent on camera roles. The kids received a crash course in shot lists, camera angles, the need for room tone, the amount of takes necessary, subtle acting technique, make-up application, set etiquette and language and that looking into the camera or at us at the end of each take for affirmation, spoils the shot.
It was amusing, albeit cumbersome, that Ruth and I couldn’t resist constantly improving the one minute film, expanding the already long shot list with meticulously directed background reaction shots and adding a scary power failure lights out sequence with screams and a search party entering the room with flashlights. Our folder for one school had 60 shots in it!
Reception to the program was exceedingly positive and we got to visit some incredible schools. The two smallest schools on our schedule gave us very special receptions. James Cook Memorial in Cook’s Harbour has a school of nineteen kids. The small staff arranged a pot luck lunch for us. Eight dishes and some of the tastiest cod au gratin I’ve ever eaten. After lunch the principal demonstrated their video calling system, very similar to Skype, that connects the school to all other remote schools in the province. I was intrigued by the idea that technology makes it possible for remote students to develop relationships with students in distant communities.
I thought James Cook Memorial would be the smallest school I’d ever visit but they were beaten by Conche’s Sacred Heart All Grade with 15 kids. We were immediately struck by the school’s immaculate cleanliness. Ruth took a picture of the hallway, a floor so highly polished that the lockers reflected on it like water. Floors you could actually eat off of. The teachers told us that the janitor is so dedicated to his job that on snowy days he stands at the door and instructs the students to turn their pant cuffs up. The Conche school was in a tacit competition to outdo Cook’s Harbour’s welcome and treated us to home baked goodies and fresh fruit at recess and even more deliciousness for lunch.
Napoleon’s quote that an army marches on it’s stomach is often advised for filmmakers to keep their cast and crews at peak performance, but it works just as well for an army of two road warriors and we can’t thank these schools enough for their generosity and thoughtfulness.
The School Tour is an intensive program. I brought a stack of books that between the driving and editing of our considerable amount of raw footage (thanks to our insanely long shot list), I didn’t have much spare time to read. Ruth and I came out of the tour with a bit of a bug from the rigors of the road, but hopefully we passed on a much bigger bug to the kids, our enthusiasm and passion for making films!
Martine Blue is a freelance video journalist for CBC news and an impatient filmmaker. She is currently waiting, waiting, waiting to see which film fests will program her short psyche thriller Desperate Scribbles, featuring road pal Ruth Lawrence, Melanie Caines and Mike Daly. She is also anxiously waiting to discover the status of her funding requests for two other short projects. In the mean time she is writing another draft of her feature Hunting Pignut, which offers some comfort because it’s in too early a stage to be anxious about.
