Ottablog - Day 2

Today was a busy day with a total of four screenings and a panel. The highlight for me personally was the Canadian Showcase and meeting two filmmakers that have inspired me greatly, Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby. Their new film, Wild Life, was screened in the Canadian Showcase and was later discussed in a Masterclass panel they hosted. I picked up some great insight into their process which I can relate back to my Senior film, though before that I would like to run over some thoughts about the other screenings I saw today.

The first screening I saw was the Canadian Showcase, which I found the most impressive in screening selections so far. As I am looking at my showcase guide I can see I have circled half of the films in the screening to remind myself to write about them, though to prevent myself from writing into the night (its already 2am! How did this happen?) I'll try to keep it down to three pieces I found myself most impressed by.

Wild Life - Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
This was the main reason for me to go to the Canadian Showcase - I saw When the Day Breaks many years ago and I still remember how engaged and affected I felt afterwards. They had captured a very ineffable, intrinsic part of what it is to be a person and to be connected to others in this film. In Wendy Tilby's own words, Wild Life is very much like the opposite of When the Day Breaks. It acts as a documentary describing a remittance man's gradual isolation after he moves to the harsh prairies of Alberta in 1910. I was struck by the beautiful and poetic manner they capture the sadness of the main character, and also still be able to juxtapose it next to light hearted and comical scenes. Their work always reminds me that despite what systematic divisions of genres demand, the description of a human nature does not carry those boundaries.

Dimanche (Sunday) - Patrick Doyon
This film really captured my heart, it had a simple but distinct line aesthetic. It was a cute and funny look into a child's memory of how his family would spend Sundays. I found it insightful into how the main character of a child's attention is distracted by all sorts of things, especially when he is the only kid in a large group of adults. It was quite charming and one of my favorites at the festival.


Second Hand - Isaac King
This was also one of my festival favorites (maybe its my Canadian bias?). It has a focus on different 'timings' of people and the pacing of the film reflects that exactly. It juxtaposes a fast paced businessman next to a slow and calm elderly couple next door. Storywise I found it surprising not preachy, because it appears at first to be a pro-green film, but I found it really revealed more of a message on balance and organization. The visual technique was what I enjoyed the most about this film, as King managed to merge 3D and stop motion dimension with 2D animation seamlessly.

CMYK - Marv Newland
This film was particularly exciting to me because Martin Rose was the producer! He had shown us some sneak peeks in class for this film, and also explained it was Newland's first foray into experimental work. It is nice to see animators crossing over to try different work, I think I found that encouraging.

Short Competition 5

PES - the deep - always love pes
Das Haus - great 2d /3d, flat animation in layers in AFX good sound and timing

Short Comp 3

(blanche fraise?)

Did not enjoy curation so much because it frequently went between very dark films and then very silly/sophomoric intervals. Was hard to feel any carryover feeling from films.

I'm Fine Thanks - was good but I thought lacked some elements that I assumed from the trailer

Muybridge's strings - very different from his previous films (mt head and Kafka) though contained some elements.

Panel notes -

process driven - lots of experimenting to fin the correct feel for the story. They tried digital but it lacked the 'heft' of traditional textures and media.

piece together film loosely, but it all comes together with sound.

what I love about their films is the mise en scene, the insight into the characters lives and not just the character stand alone. Their setting is just as important, and how they act with other people is just as important as their own actions.