Ryan McNeil
I’ve always believed that ground rules can breed creativity; give an artist unlimited resources and they could very well come back to you with something lovely. What happens though when their palette is limited, their guidelines specific, and you throw in the added pressure of a deadline? Some creative minds might come up short under such constraints while others may very well flourish within the structure.
Tonight, The Toronto Youth Short Film Festival will be presenting films submitted for their fourth annual T24 Project. The project is akin to a filmmaking 100M dash: filmmakers are given 24 hours to envision, write, shoot, edit, and deliver a short film. Films can be no shorter than 7 minutes, no longer than 10 minutes, and all team members must be between the ages of 18 and 28. Finally, the subject matter has to specifically address the challenge question: “What is Your Toronto?”
Like I said – ground rules.
In watching eight of the films that will be screened, I was struck by an unexpected commonality to the shorts. There seems to be a sense of unease to them – a sense that all is not well in this town we call home. There are suggestions that we are reluctant to change as the city evolves. There are theories that a sense of isolation has taken hold of citizens and that, while we are surrounded by people, we want nothing more than to keep to ourselves. There’s even the notion that the city itself doesn’t understand or celebrate beauty in its various forms. One film goes so far as to say “It’s tough not to think of yourself as a cog”, and I can’t say I disagree.
The films all have charm and tell very different stories. PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS for example, centres around the sort of person we see every day – a person who is down on his luck. The film points out that it is our habit not to stop and pay attention to these people even if we were paid to do it. On the flip side, there’s TRINITY – the film that delivers the quote about the cog. Much of it seems full of skepticism; worried that the white-collar economy that drives this city won’t have a place for them. In some ways, it’s worrisome seeing so much local angst and skepticism on one screen.
The interesting thing about the challenge is how tricky it can be to stay inside the lines. Three of the films I watched have been deemed ineligible for the festival’s Visible Thesis Award because they failed to meet one of the challenge’s criteria. Therefore some of the most interesting work submitted – like the dialogue-free JAN. 31 – is playing the festival out of competition. It’s unfortunate, especially given how well some of the ineligible films play out.
What’s unsurprising for films both in and out of competition, is how multi-faceted the stories are. Toronto has become a city that is diverse, with pace and attitude differing greatly from community to community. The culture uptown is not the same as the culture near The University of Toronto. The pace in The Beach is not the same as the pace at Yonge and Bloor. More and more, each neighbourhood is establishing its own taste, fashion, and standing within the greater whole. Appropriately so, the films submitted within the project reflect this. Another thing they all reflect is the lifeline that connects us all – as almost every film either shows or makes mention of the TTC.
The stories inspired by the T24 challenge are both engaging and worrisome. The unrest amongst its participants is evident, but so too is their desire to tell their story, and make their voice heard in the patchwork that Toronto has become.
Toronto Youth Shorts is screening the completed shorts tonight at Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Ave) at 7:00 pm. You can purchase tickets at the door for $12. For more information on the T24 challenge, check out the website here.
Nice writeup, Ryan. I’ll be there tonight, hope to see some other familiar faces. I’m also doing a giveaway for Shorts That Are Not Pants’ next screening on April 13th. Just find me and say the secret word (“pants”) and you’ll score yourself a free double-pass. There are two passes available.
Did anybody we know win the passes? And what film ultimately took the jury prize?
Nobody won the passes. 🙁
I’m a terrible marketer. I only thought of the idea yesterday and should have talked to Henry about it. But I saw two really good films that I’m going to show on April 13th, so I’ll offer the two filmmakers passes instead.
Among the competition films, Face the Strain won. And from the the full slate, including the out-of-competition films, Metro took the Audience Award. Both well-deserved.
I also found that the ones I enjoyed the most were the shorts playing out of competition. The creativity was there for all but, as someone suggested on my site, a 48 hour period might have better severed some of the less successful entries.
Maybe. My qualms with the films weren’t anything I would chalk up to them being a rush job – I also believe that the momentum of creating something on-the-fly like this would be drastically altered with a full night’s sleep in between.
Reminds me of when I used to work on a drawing well into the wee hours, would leave off with very little left to do and then come back to it the next morning. I screwed them up more often than I care to count.
I was searching for any reviews online and noticed a lot of reviews praised Jan. 31 but like Ryan said, it’s all about staying within the rules. Jan. 31 felt really short which is what made it work. If they stretch their silent montage film to 7 minutes, I would feel different. While a great film was produced from that team, they took an approach that did not fit the parameters of the challenge and was therefore locked out of competing for the award.
Likewise, there are some films that hit the max run time and obviously needed a few extra minutes to flesh things out. Ivory Giants felt like one of those. Same thing with Trinity (Spadina) with that abrupt ending.
Though it really is to bad a film like Wake Up, who apparently was only 2 minutes late, was out of the running.
Apologies for the delayed response Audience…
I wonder what would have become of JAN. 31 if it had been the right length. The concept could lend itself to a seven minute runtime, or it just as easily start to lose our interest as the minutes add up. I guess we won’t know!
I also agree about WAKE UP, which had some very interesting philosophy behind it and felt quite original as the only doc I was screened. I can only imagine how frustrated the team must have been to miss by two minutes…
…geez, two minutes is probably the difference of one traffic light being red instead of green.
Pity.
Thanks for reading!
“…geez, two minutes is probably the difference of one traffic light being red instead of green.”
According to the team, that’s exactly what happened. But they were amongst the top 3 for Audience Choice.
Such is life!
Thanks again for making me aware of this project and allowing me to provide some interest and feedback. Hopefully next year I can even make it out to the big event.