All Posts Tagged With: "film"
Raunchy comedy stirs controversy at Western
Student filmmaker questioned by police for online teaser
Screen shot from 3 Audrey
A University of Western Ontario student and his filmmaker friend have created a raunchy comedy series—and university officials aren’t amused.
It’s easy to see why. The trailer for 3 Audrey features multiple references to Western interspersed with jokes about a mother’s vagina, breast implants and excessive amounts of liquor.
3 Audrey is a six-part scripted series named for the house where a group of fictional Western students welcome a Carleton transfer student, Tommy Noble, into their oft-partying family.
It was co-written by Western media student Dave Provost and his 21-year-old director friend Miguel Barbosa, who is not a student at the school. Barbosa is part of YEAH! Films, a collective that plans to sell product placements in YouTube based viral videos. Provost took part in order to launch his acting and writing career, he says.
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Atom Egoyan lands at Ryerson
Film director will work with students on stage production
Atom Egoyan, celebrated Canadian film director, will join Ryerson University’s faculty of communication and design for the 2011-2012 school year.
The director, who studied international relations at the University of Toronto, produced Palme d’Or-nominated Felicia’s Journey, Oscar-nominated Where the Truth Lies, and the 2009 film Chloe.
Some students will work with him as he prepares to direct Cruel and Tender for the Canadian Stage. Egoyan will also participate in a retrospective and public discussions while on campus.
Youth suicides rise in step with film suicides
Authors blame PG-13 rating for increasingly graphic portrayals
Photo courtesy of HaoJan on Flickr
Authors of a report from the Annenberg Public Policy Center have shown a correlation between the dramatic rise in the portrayal of graphic suicides on film and the increase in the youth suicide rate.
Their study looked at 855 films produced between 1950 to 2006 and found that the number of explicit representations of suicide had tripled over the period. That increase paralleled the tripling of suicide by young people aged 15 to 24 in the U.S. from 1960 to 1990.
“While we cannot establish a causal connection here, it is interesting to note that the tripling of U.S. teen suicide since 1960 coincided with this increase in movie suicide portrayal,” Patrick E. Jamieson, the lead author, said in a press release.
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How to become a star
Want to get to Hollywood? Start writing, start shooting, and don’t ever stop networking
After a tough day of classes, you’re sprawled out on the couch watching television. In a flash of inspiration, you suddenly realize that you hate your chemistry classes and would rather be a writer on a television show. You think to yourself, “Heck! I could totally write an episode of Heroes that is way better than this one.”
So you sit down at your laptop, fingers poised delicately over the keys, ready to become famous. But how can you actually make it happen?
“I think to be a writer, you have to write,” says Michael Baser, head of the writing for television and film program at the Vancouver Film School.
“To be a director or an actor, you have to be hired to give yourself validation. You can’t be up in your room doing Othello at night and say, ‘Ok, I’m an actor.’ But you can be in your room at night and writing a script, then having a script in hand – you are now a writer.”
Once that script is written, though, it needs to go somewhere. Ultimately – and perhaps unsurprisingly – that somewhere is Los Angeles, where who you know will make a big difference.
“The key thing in T.V. and film is that it’s a highly nepotistic business,” says Baser. He says his own career, in which he produced and wrote for shows including Three’s Company and Full House, started because he was talented but also because he knew the right people.
For someone sitting at home in Canada, making those connections might seem impossible. The key, according to Laura Doyle, screenwriting teacher at VFS and the British Columbia Institute of Technology, is getting your foot in the door.
“I started out in Television Production at BCIT learning to produce, shoot and edit. After I graduated, I got myself some jobs as a production assistant on set,” she says. This ultimately led to a job as a script coordinator and the opportunity to co-write an episode of Neon Rider.
From there, Doyle wrote for MTV and CBS, during which she lived – you guessed it – in Los Angeles. Her career blossomed to include music, some of which was featured on Dawson’s Creek.
What’s important for young writers to remember, say both Baser and Doyle, is the idea of being prolific – to keep writing, and if possible, producing lots of your own original content. The Internet can provide a perfect showcase for your blossoming genius.
Amal and the definition of success
How does one measure their own success?
I know we’re supposed to taylor the first few blog posts to the central theme of being young, having graduated and trying to find your way in the world, but something came up which I couldn’t resist writing about. Not to worry, there will be plenty of blog posts recounting some incredible stories from the early lives of well-known Canadians — from astronaut Roberta Bondar to children’s performer Raffi, and beyond.
But last night I saw a movie; or , rather, a “film.” It was called Amal. It is a Canadian film, already in theatres (or, more accurately, “in theatre“) for the past five days, that follows the events surrounding the death of an eccentric Indian millionaire, his misguided — and surprisingly cruel — children, and the title character, an autorickshaw driver whose heart is so golden, it weighs him down endlessly, as he weaves his way through the congested streets of Delhi.
Director Richie Mehta tells a simple story. One could even call it a fable. It was put together for less than a million dollars, no small feat for a film these days. The ending comes as a surprise, though it makes absolute sense. And the theme of wealth reverberates throughout the story. Who has more of it — the heirs of a rich man or the one who leads a peaceful, altogether happy, existence?
That question was one we tackled while conducting our interviews for Kickstart. We set out to learn the early stories of Canada’s most “successful” citizens. But how does one measure success? Is it an individual’s net worth (think of billionaire Jim Pattison)? Or is it the amount they give away (think of entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Munk)? Does it mean leading a balanced life (a lesson passed on from so many of our interviewees, including Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Beverley McLachlin)? Or being happy within yourself?
We hear these questions buzzing around Amal’s rickshaw as he escorts his patrons in and out of the city’s byzantine centre. The ultimate result of Amal’s insouciant quest is that he never knows how close he may come to attaining wealth, unless of course he’s had it all along. “The wealthiest person is a pauper at times,” goes the song, performed by everyone from The Byrds to Johnny Cash and Jeff Buckley, “compared to the man with a satisfied mind.”
The film is touching in its poignancy, believable in its intimacy and endearing in its home-made style. My co-author Paul could go on at length about how important it is to support local films in their first few days: if the theatre senses a lack of audience, it will immediately withdraw the film, letting it flounder and end up in a vault somewhere, unseen by the masses.
Do yourself a favour: go and see this movie. It’s well worth the investment.
Alexander Herman is co-author of Kickstart: “How Successful Canadians Got Started,” a book based on interviews with over fifty well-known people from across the country. He has studied at Trinity College Dublin and is currently studying law at McGill University. He has also written a work of fiction called “The Toronto Trinity.”
