101 Dalmatians

There is a feeling that our entire film class just got slapped across the face. REPEATEDLY. This Cruella de Vil guest-speaking producer (aka soul-crusher, kiss of death) is beating everyone’s filmmaking dreams to the pulp by the minute. The “industry” she describes is a cold, harsh and competitive place. If we want in, we HAVE TO decide on what we WANT, pronto. And [unfortunately] she has a certain disdain for the Canadian industry. Basically she laid it out for us: you can’t go anywhere if you don’t go down to the States. So when we went around the room speaking about what we want to do in the future film-wise, I can sense a certain defiance in everyone’s voice.

It’s as if we are 12 years old again and we’re being spanked for being too naive. I mean, yes, we ARE graduating soon, and yes, we —well, most of us anyway— somehow or other wants to make films when we’re done school. So yes, we are looking to involve ourselves in some sort of filmmaking endeavor post-education. But in what capacity and how will we go about achieving that are two of the many questions that we can’t quite answer yet. As much we are about developing a secure career, we are still students. Art students with troubled hearts who haven’t completely figured out who WE are yet. So please, put yourself in our shoes before you march in and lay out your entrepreneurial career crap. (No, it’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we have too much on our plates at the moment that it has simply been ousted from our priorities or thought process)

And there are many ways to go about achieving our filmmaking dreams. Ways other than joining the union or moving down south. So the system Canada has in place is indeed application-based bureaucracy. So there’s a better chance of success if you make something in the US and market it across the border north. That doesn’t mean people hasn’t been able to make a splash without having gone that route. (Or maybe we’d all like to believe that we’ll get lucky like that small portion of filmmakers who made a name for themselves on their own did)

So for a brief hour and half, I can feel our entire class of passionate Canadian filmmakers coming together secretly. There were glances going around the room, and we knew we were seeing eye to eye against what she’s presenting. It’s sort of magical, like a silent bond occurring in an instant —something that I felt our year lacked compared to the other years.

Perhaps this cold smack on the face was exactly what we needed. It’s our wake-up call. The bucket of icy water poured over our head. We’ve been in film school for 3 years now. Maybe we have gotten too comfortable and too used to hearing the sugar-coated reality of the filmmaking world. We are, after all, a fresh crop waiting to realize our full potential. And we won’t be able to do that unless we decide what specific kind of crop we choose to be. We can’t spend forever reveling in what would be “fun” or “nice” or “cool”.

But, as bittersweet as it is, I’d like to believe that we are still young… and as young people, we are still allowed dream.