FFWD Hearts The Challenge
Super, challenging films
Super 8 festival forces inspiration on local filmmakers
Published February 25, 2010 by Anh Chu in Film Features
“There will be a lot of sleepless nights, frantic emails and whatever it takes to get it done,” says Vancouver visual artist Michael Markowsky. He’s referring to the short animation he created for the fifth annual Calgary Super 8 Filmmakers Challenge, a friendly competition where filmmakers must weave randomly selected elements into their short film’s narrative.
The criteria are literally drawn out of a hat. This year’s are: fairy tale (theme), fisherman (character), slow-mo or one-shot scene (technical requirement) and someone getting poked in the eye (random element).
“The [pre-determined] elements can be limiting, or extremely liberating,” says Markowsky, whose submission, The Fisherwoman and the Merman, is fully animated and features actor Alex Arsenault of Battlestar Galactica spinoff Caprica.
“We consider them inspiration points,” explains event co-founder James Reckseidler. The requirements act as a jump-off point for filmmakers, and the firm deadline eliminates procrastination on starting that next project.
Challenge co-founder Mike Peterson agrees. “The criteria can spark an idea or provoke insight,” he says. The duo began the event as a result of what they saw in Calgary: many talented independent filmmakers who worked too independently of each other.
“The challenge provides an opportunity to showcase filmmakers’ work, but we’re doing all the legwork,” says Reckseidler. Even though he and Peterson donate a generous amount of their own time and money to organize the event (as well as making their own films), the payoff is in seeing new collaborations form. This year’s challenge will include submissions from filmmakers around the world.
Calgary filmmaker Jim Thalheimer, who works in TV and film commercially, eked out time for his short film Once Upon Tough Economic Times “after work and at odd hours,” he says. The short film uses the grasshopper and ant fable as its theme. Thalheimer shot his film on Super 8mm film, which needs to be processed in Toronto, so he created a work-back schedule that wouldn’t have him scrambling to finish.
“Super 8 is the original consumer-based film stock,” explains Peterson, adding that the use of the film is not mandatory, but a metaphor for the challenge. “There’s no real bar to entry both in knowledge and price, so it’s purely about ideas and using whatever’s at hand.”
Although filmmakers are given about three months’ notice to make their short films, the challenge prefers spirit to perfection.
“My strongest memory over the years is seeing people laugh with sheer delight at seeing the variety of films [that] fulfil these four criteria,” Reckseidler recalls. Markowsky likens the Challenge to a “spontaneous way of filmmaking.”
“It really is independent filmmaking at its best,” says Thalheimer. “It’s fun, loose and the audience is in on the gag.”
The event at The Distillery is more than just an evening of independent short films; it also features musical performances from bands Random Black and Night Committee, $12,000 in prizes for participating filmmakers donated by local sponsors, and door prizes for the general public.
The challenge made its way down to Los Angeles in 2009, and there are plans to grow the event across other cities.
Markowsky sums it up best: “If this thing turned out to be a major worldwide event, you can say ‘I was in Calgary for the fifth anniversary.’”
