LIGHTS, CAMERA, HURRY

by Ken Hegan

At 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 16th, Ken Hegan and his team of guerrilla filmmakers accept their mission: to write, rehearse, light, shoot, edit and deliver a short film in two days. To encourage spontaneity, the rules are: no recycling old scripts, the film has to run 10 minutes, maximum, and use 10 people, max.

The process begins with an "inspiration package" of elements that must be included in the film. Here's what happens, according to a diary kept on the fly by director/headwriter Hegan:

6:09 pm, my West End apartment

Sarah calls, excited. She's picked up our package. Our team (Wolverines!) will be working with: a photo of a deserted roadside diner called the Ark; a sound bite from "Jump" a hip-hop classic from Kris Kross; we have to shoot at least part of the film at the Bayside Lounge on Denman. The surprise is a plastic orange cocktail donkey. And our catering donation is a $20 Starbucks card.

Our first thought is to build the story around a bleak nightclub, with heart and bitter-sweet humour based on real human experiences. I'm not in the mood for wacky stuff. After my previous short films, WILLIAM SHATNER LENT ME HIS HAIRPIECE and FARLEY MOWAT ATE MY BROTHER, I'm all wackied out.

The Wolverines agree. They are: producer Sarah Nixey, actors Chris Robson, France Perras, Meredith McGeachie, Craig March, and Darcey Johnson. Sound: Jeff Carter, and Director of Photography, Dean Hannas. A great bunch and everyone's contributing smart ideas.

6:46 pm Damn. So now our film is a wacka-wacka story about a woman who wakes up, spits out a plastic donkey, then realizes she made a pact with the devil to have the best night of her life. Yeah, that sounds easy to shoot. But I like Darcey's title: DUDE, WHERE'S MY SOUL?

A documentary guy arrives to film our weekend. "Ignore me. I'm a fly on the wall," he says, as he steals Meredith's chair. Suddenly, someone says "how about a speed-dating night at the Bayside Lounge."

Yeah! What if a lonely man and woman endure speed-dates in a Bayside-type lounge called the Ark. It starts with the host, Noah, welcoming five men and five women. He says they get five high-speed dates lasting five minutes each. We then separately follow the lonely man and woman. When it comes time for their speed-date together, they awkwardly realize that they once had a fling.

The Wolverines all love this idea, except for Dean who's never liked date films. He thinks they're low-stakes stories, plus he hates Meg Ryan. "But Dean," I coo, "Romantic comedies are high stakes. Our human quest for love and companionship is incredibly powerful. Everybody in this room is scared and scarred by their need for love."

He's single, so he buys it. Pizza break.

9:56 pm Arggh. Worried. Stomach's seizing up. We're still musing over that infernal pact-with-the-devil idea. Oh no: I'm getting The Fear. I leap to my feet, pace around, and rant, "Nothing's going to work, it's all going to suck. Why are we even bothering? We've wasted our entry fee. We're never going to finish this. We're not even going to hand in a script, let alone a film!"

My teammates laugh and keep drinking.

9:57 pm The Fear's subsiding. In our speed-date story, when the 5-minute bell rings, the men "jump-jump" and "criss-cross" to the next date. On the last date, when we see the lonely man and woman finally meet, we realize that they once had a whirlwind affair that ended in a sudden breakup.

Not bad but still no twist finish. Sarah says, "What if the woman kills the guy then stuffs him in her trunk." Craig says, "Yeah, then Meg Ryan shows up and she gets stuffed in the trunk, too." Dean sure likes that.

11:03 pm Still no ending. My apartment buzzer just buzzed. Hopefully that's our ending arriving. Enough brainstorming, it's time to fly solo. The Wolverines grab the video camera and head to the Bayside for "research." I sit alone to face my arch-nemesis: the blank computer screen.

Midnight Chris calls from the bar. They're drunk. I'm trying to write. Chris and Craig say, "Wait-wait-wait, here's the opening credits: plastic animals that enter the Ark photo two-by-two in stop-motion." I don't need my Calcuwatch to figure that this idea alone would take all weekend to complete. I hang up and keep typing.

1:35 am Tired. Wrote three pages but still need to write the breakup flashback. Yet I happen to have written one last week that would be perfect. In a moment of weakness, I paste in the old scene. "It's organic!" I rationalize, "it's destiny! It needs to be part of this script!"

But if I use it, I'm violating the most sacred Reel Fast rule: no pre-scripted material. After two minutes of shame, I delete it and start fresh. Only pussies use old scripts.

4:12 am Everyone's sleeping but me. Four pages down, two to go. Hitting the wall. Gotta sleep.

Saturday, August 17th, 2002

6:30 am Ugh. Two hours sleep. Still no ending. The Wolverines are arriving, so I scribble a flashback affair/breakup montage told with symbolic balled-up socks. It climaxes with the woman (Meredith) kicking the snot out her boyfriend (Chris). And it's possibly the worst mound of stink that I've ever vomited onto a page.

9 am Our first script reading! 5:20 minutes. And it doesn't suck, except for the weak-ass sock montage.

10:34 am Odd Fellows Hall

I'm in guerrilla film nirvana. Picture a massive imperial ballroom with a mirror disco ball, plush red carpet, ornate symbols, and giant wood medieval chairs. Darcey and Dean set up dolly tracks for the opening scene. I play Noah, the speed-date host. Darcey will dim my spotlight as Craig dollies Dean back to reveal Chris and Sarah's speed-date.

12:26 pm Damn. The hardest shot in the film and we had to pick it first. 13 takes so far, plagued by sound dropouts, jerky dolly movements, and battery death. We're badly burning time. The Wolverines are tensing up. The Fear's gnawing my vitals. On the 14th take, we finally nail it. Dean "checks the gate." We chew our nails. "It's good," he says and we all yell, "Wolverines!"

1:30 pm I'm biting my shirt to keep from laughing and ruining takes. My actors are slaying me:

· Darcey plays a geek whose mother bought him a speed-dating membership. · Craig is a married boozehound who fiddles with his plastic cocktail donkey as he aggressively sweet-talks Meredith. · Jeff, our sound god, doubles as Craig's sad-sack sidekick. · Chris' character hits it off with France, a French-Canadian hottie. When Chris jauntily asks "Parlez-vous Francais?" she launches into a long excited spiel, entirely in French, about how grateful she is to finally meet a man who speaks her language. Chris clearly has no idea what France said. A brutally awkward moment, then the bell rings and they escape each other. · Sarah discovers Chris is unemployed and it's his birthday. "That is so sad," she says, then leaves to buy him a drink. She never comes back.

6 pm The halfway point of our 48-hour journey. Now we've got to choose a beginning, middle, and end for the "bitter-sweet love montage." Yep, time to find the non-existent ending that's eluded me all weekend. This flashback montage will illustrate the rise and fall of Chris and Meredith's relationship. It needs a sunset shot, plus shots of them laughing with a dog in the park. Sarah knows where we can get a wedding dress. And we'll definitely need scenes of them arguing. But how can we avoid cliches? William Goldman was right: "Endings are a bitch."

Whatever I come up with, this ending needs punch and heart, yet still should be funny, so the final shot of Chris and Meredith leaving separately feels rich, sharp and bitter-sweet. Must NOT veer into wacky-land. My responsibility is to protect the story's heart.

6:09 pm I'm sweaty and filthy and my Calcuwatch reeks of Taiwanese sweat shops. Our docu-guy, Clancy, has been filming us for 10 hours straight. He's so exhausted, he passes out on a bench. Jeff spins Clancy's camera around and films him while he sleeps. The team giggles. Clancy's become our Fifth Beatle.

6:16 pm Sarah gives me her "daylight-is-fading-if-we-want-to-eat-and-finish" speech. She's right. A few Wolverines are worried we'll miss filming the Magic Hour sunset. I'm so foggy now, I need to be lead around and told what to do next.

6:45 - 7:03 pm Wow. This film has become my therapy. As I direct Chris' and Meredith's silent speed-date closeups, I whisper stream-of-conscious memories of my own lost loves. How it felt when I first touched someone special. That electric spark when we first held hands. The jet-propelled rush of soaring early infatuation.

As the camera rolls and Chris and Meredith quietly express my words, I then whisper about the downward trajectory of love:

"But then love leaks away, despite your best efforts and excuses. You argue over nothing. Separate in tears. And you think you see her face everywhere. In a car going by. On a passing bus. Or maybe was that your face floating by; the part of you that was part of her, wounded forever."

Then BOOM: I start blubbering. So does Chris. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. A hush spreads over our set. The only sounds are my muffled sobs and the slowly revolving disco ball. Dean keeps rolling as I whisper to Chris:

"Weeks pass, and you practice what you'd say if you ran into her. But the truth is, you never do. Then, years later, suddenly you do see her again, just when you've forgotten how much you missed her smile. And it's wonderful and it's awful and it's tearing big jagged holes in your hearts. But by then you've forgotten your speech. And there's nothing left to say."

The Wolverines are stunned. I whisper "Cut," then hug Chris and Meredith. Clancy says "Holy shit." Well, now at least his film has an ending.

Craig and Darcey take me aside, wowed. Craig says, "Ken, there's your ending. Forget the cheesy montage. They meet, hold hands. Show a quick 5-second flashback of them dancing, in love. It's real and it's heartbreaking and then DING, it's over. Nothing left to say."

The perfect ending. Love this team.

8:08 pm Magic hour. We're breaking for dinner at a Kits condo. It's so nice to just appreciate the sunset without racing to exploit it.

8:37 pm I'm terrified. We just had an amazing tofu Pad Thai dinner courtesy of Jed, Meredith's brother who's a chef. But I'm carrying the master tape of all our footage in my baggy khaki shorts. I'm worried that I'll lose the tape or sit on a magnet.

9:45 pm Odd Fellows Hall

Our film's in trouble. We have to be off this location by midnight or the Odd Fellows will kick us out. And worse, the Wolverines are in danger of falling apart over "artistic differences." We're all tired and everyone's tossing their two cents in on how to shoot the flashback dancing scene. Chris says "Let's pull the carpet back and use the hardwood floor," Dean says "No, let's keep the carpet. It's lush and red and symbolizes love." I say "Let's take the camera off the sticks and go handheld," but Dean's worried this will ruin the whole film. "Our camera's too light," he says. "It'll look like bad home video. Instead, let's shoot them in a bright white light so they look dead." Meredith winces. Chris frowns. My gut churns. Oh no: The Fear's back.

Sarah grabs me and says, "Make your choice. Now." So I hobble upstairs with Dean to scout a tiny closet window way up at the ceiling. We move some boxes, then peek through the opening and gaze onto the dance floor. It's an awesome view. Dean rests the camera on three sandbags, focuses on the dance floor, and smiles. "I can light three setups in 20 minutes," he says. Beautiful.

The Wolverines jump into action, lighting and rehearsing under the glowing mirror disco ball. We rehearse then shoot all three shots from the same ceiling setup. Chris and Meredith are dancing in a tunnel of light, as the mirror ball splashes white dots over the red carpet. Chris kisses Meredith's forehead, and it looks like they're dancing on a red sea filled with swimming neon fish. Magical.

"Dean," I gush, "you're a god-damned genius." Dean grins and says, "Yeah, yeah, but the director always gets the credit."

10:50 pm We're done! We wrapped this film and stuffed it in a trunk. We have two miniDV tapes with 113 minutes of footage. My friend Kevin Shortt, off making his own 48-hour film, phones me up and yells, "Dude! George Lucas watched us make our movie in Gastown. Our film is blessed and we're going to win!"

11:24 pm I'm so tired and spent, I just walked into the hanging TV and almost knocked out a tooth.

1:46 am My apartment

Sarah and I are hurriedly logging the best takes. My body's breaking down. Angry red sores have sprouted on my nostrils and thighs. She warns me not to fall asleep, then leaves to have a cigarette. The second she's gone, I disobey her and nod off. But these first snatches of sleep are agonizing. It feels like screeching demons are dragging me down to make that pact-with-the-devil flick.

I've now reached the point of sleep deprivation where it actually hurts more to fall asleep than to just stay up and drink Darcey's beer.

3:40 am A sore just opened on my left mouth. Must sleep soon or I will die.

Sunday, August 18th

6:32 am Up early again. I've only slept 5.5 hours since Thursday. But it's the home stretch now. Can't screw it up. We've got great footage, now it's my responsibility to help Karen Porter, our super-fantastic editor, spin it into gold.

12:30 pm Gearhead Entertainment, downtown

While I pick lounge music and Barry White tracks, Karen races to cut this beast into shape. In the next four hours, she has to finish what would normally take 16 hours. Her boss, Marc, visits with Stinky the dog, a big shepherd malamute. Stinky's favourite trick is to fart then leave the room. We've lost ten minutes just getting up to open the window.

4 pm Karen's eyes are glued to her screen. Her eyes are bugging out but her edits are tight and elegant. I'm so bloody tired, I trip on the carpet and nearly crash through the glass coffee table. [Later, I learn that another filmmaker actually did fall through a glass table and was rushed to Emergency. Glass coffee tables: the scourge of indie film.]

5 pm Damn! The computer's crashing. Edits disappear. Sync goes haywire. One hour left. Almost puking from stress. Dude, where's our film? No idea on its ETA, but it does have a title: Revolv-a-Date.

5:30 pm Karen still hasn't outputted the film. Sarah calls and starts freaking on me: "What's going on?! Why aren't you done?" I'm wracked with guilt. I call the Reel Fast executive producer, Kathy Duborg, and beg for the nine minutes we were delayed on Friday. She pauses then wishes me well.

6 pm (ish) I grab the tape and race outside. My friend Jim's waiting with his revving motorbike. I hop on and he races me through the streets. I'm so tired, I'm barely hanging on. The city screams by in an apocalyptic blur. At Kathy's house, I jump off the bike, throw my helmet to the ground, run through her front door, fall to my knees, hand over the film, and beg forgiveness for my delay. Kathy's sister, Chrissy, hugs me as I kneel. It's over.

THE END

Revolv-a-Date is coming soon to a screen near you. Visit Ken Hegan at http://www.voiceoftreason.net

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