A fictional teenage tragedy has turned into real-life celebrations for some young filmmakers.
Northern FanCon is an extravaganza of pop-culture, but it is also a catalyst of the formative northern B.C. film industry. This year, as part of the festivities and the fostering, Northern FanCon hosted a short-film competition for teens.
The award for best picture went to the Duchess Park Secondary School quartet of Tula Moore, Jared Quarenghi, Sevy Veeken and Heidi Mikkelsen for a show they entitled 16 which told the story of a car crash that killed a teenager and left a friend behind to grieve.
"It had emotional impact, it had screen effects, it had heartbreaking writing and performances, so it was a significant effort. It was exciting to see teenagers come up with something with so many qualities," said Northern FanCon coordinator Norm Coyne, himself a veteran independent filmmaker.
"We wanted to have some punch. We knew we had to stand out," said Veeken, a Grade 9 student, who acted as director, screenwriter and producer.
The punch came in the first few moments when two vehicles collided with a grotesque slam to set the stage.
Next, an actual RCMP vehicle is seen through a window as it pulls into a typical neighbourhood driveway. An actual local Mountie, Cpl. Craig Douglass, gets out of the car and walks solemnly to the door in a depiction of how police so often deliver the most awful news to next of kin.
"Instead of just having some flashing lights off-screen kind of implying police, we wanted that to be seen directly. We wanted that scene to be taken as seriously as possible," said Quarenghi, a Grade 10 student, who coordinated the sound and visual effects, operated camera, planned the shots and acted as co-producer.
From a technical point of view, the jump-scare car crash was the film's top achievement, especially since no vehicles were actually harmed in the making of this movie. It was all done with tricks of the filmmaker's trade and some ambitious creativity on the part of these young auteurs.
They actually considered it a harder task to obtain an actual police member to appear in the short-film. They put in a call to the city's designated RCMP public relations specialist Cpl. Craig Douglass to ask for his help.
"It was the most awkward phone call of my life," said Mikkelsen, a Grade 9 student, who was one of the actors, screenwriter, co-producer and designated Mountie liaison. "I told everyone to leave me alone so I could make the call in total peace and not have any pressure being watched. But when I opened the door, everyone had their ears pressed up, listening to everything."
The news from Douglass was good. The subject of the film - a tragic motor vehicle incident and the emotional aftermath - fit with the RCMP's mandate to educate the public on the deep need for traffic safety.
"Craig didn't have a lot of time for us, so we had to get that shot right," said Quarenghi. "We only had two takes to make it work, and we got it. We really have to thank Craig and the RCMP a lot for helping us out."
"We all have really busy schedules so for all of us, we had to just keep going and going, getting it done and getting on to the next shot," said Veeken. "There wasn't a lot of room to do re-shoots."
"For me, the hard part was the crying, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do that on-camera, but we found a way to make it work," said Mikkelsen. "We knew we wanted a good relationship story and what better than death to bring people together?"
She and Moore are already planning a new project together. Quarenghi and his sister have done some work with local filmmaker Jon Chuby on his locally filmed comedy series Geoff & The Ninja. He isn't looking at this industry as his main career path, but he sees transferable skills.
Veeken, too, said she was undecided about her future but filmmaking was helping her in any case. "I'm interested in screenwriting and photography," she said. "No matter what career you go into, those communication skills will be good to have."
Perhaps an intensive education in some of these competencies will help them hone in on their eventual careers. Each member of the 16 cast and crew won a scholarship to Vancouver screen arts facility SchoolCreative Institute of the Arts as a reward for their Northern FanCon victory.
Actor-producer Gigi Edgley called out the names of each category's winners and presented them with their prizes, alongside SchoolCreative's Paul Donnett (screenwriting teacher and administrator).
The students competed for five scholarships, each for $2,000 at SchoolCreative. Donnett thrilled the Northern FanCon audience by announcing just before the first prize was handed out that instead of the single winner per category, SchoolCreative would give that $2,000 tuition grant to all students involved in each winning production.
"I've been in contact with all of the winners, we've been working through how they'll use these scholarships, and I see it as nothing but gain for them and for us," said Donnett. "No matter how they use this opportunity, what's most important is how these young people got recognition for their work. That is so important for defining in their minds that their work is worthy. They put in the work and did the preparation to make themselves successful in this endeavor and isn't that exciting for what they might do for themselves in the future, no matter what they chose to do with their lives?"
SchoolCreative teaches a number of disciplines from acting to animation, photography to writing, video gaming to voice-overs, theatre to comedy. Local success stories in the screen arts like Dylan Playfair and Chris Carson have done some of their learning there.
Donnett said that Northern FanCon, these two burgeoning acting stars, and other signs are pointing to the Prince George area becoming a viable participant in the B.C. film industry. The more it's done, the more demystified the process becomes, the more capacity gets built, and before too long it can be a noticeable contributor to the local economy.
Student filmmaking, he said, is an important component to developing that industry, but it is also important for developing young people.
"If you've got an idea, if you've got a project you want to work on, don't let it sit in the shelf," Donnett advised any aspiring artist, regardless of genre. "Doing it is better than waiting. Do it even if it's less than perfect. If you wait for things to be ideal for your project, it might never happen, and doing the work is going to change the work for the better, as you go. Take ownership of your dreams and keep moving forward, and then do it again when you have another project in mind,keep doing it, and success will become almost inevitable."
The five student film finalists (title and filmmakers) screened at Northern FanCon were:
- Midnight Snack - Sam Lybbert and Matt Lybbert
- Salt & Pepper - Riley Gaboury, Brenden Gaboury, Scott Cousins
- 16 - Veeken, Quarenghi, Mikkelsen and Moore
- Jimmy & Doug's Ultimate Guide To Dual Lands - Klee Leman
- Trap X Trap - Matthew Robinson, Tim Ward, Dayton Scott, Cain Wiebe, (music) Yoko Takahashi
The winners were:
Best Picture - 16
Best Director - 16 (Veeken)
Best Screenplay - Jimmy & Doug's Ultimate Guide to Dual Lands (Leman)
Best Male Performance - Jimmy & Doug's Ultimate Guide to Dual Lands (Leman)
Best Female Performance - 16 (tie: Moore and Mikkelsen)
