Vancouver 24hr Film Race

The Peak
On your marks, get set, action!
By Nick Pannu

Lights, camera, action. Movie sets, flashing strobe lights, and roadblocks have become a fixture almost as permanent in Vancouver as the mountains surrounding the city. On Saturday, June 21, local filmmakers committed themselves to a challenging and arduous task — filmmakers created an original short film in just 24 hours. The films had to revolve around two themes: greed and action. Twenty-nine of the 30 enrolled teams managed to make the ominous deadline and were screened at the Vancouver Film Race on June 25 at the Ridge Theatre.

Over 300 people in attendance witnessed some very creative and unique short films. Competition director Charlie Wysman commented that “Vancouver is the ninth city in the film race, and Vancouver has had the strongest group of films so far.” The film race is on a tour of 17 cities in North America, and is only inclusive to two Canadian cities: Vancouver and Toronto. Starting the event from New York in 2002, Wysman had no real motive other than to put on a fun event. According to Wysman, “the first event went well in 2002, so we decided to keep doing it. It’s a great opportunity for first-time filmmakers, as well as people in the industry who’d like more creative control.” He also stressed that the film race is a great learning experience that filmmakers can apply to future projects.

According to recent film school grad, Diane Donaldson a team mindset is very important when working in desperation within the 24-hour deadline. Donaldson said, “Overall, when you do something like this, it is such a [team] bonding thing when you totally push your body to the extreme. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, and you just go and film, and film, and edit, and edit, and at the end you just kind of collapse together, and it’s like, oh my God, we did it.”

In spite of having only two themes to work with, the films were quite diverse. Farce door-knocking charities were featured, as well as robots and rocks that look like Elvis, which often engaged the 300 audience members at the final screening in bouts of laughter. Local filmmaker and judge, Kryshan Randal, felt the event was well-organized, high quality, creative, and entertaining. Randal has judged other film events, and commented that this event is unique because the tight 24-hour deadline means filmmakers must survive on creativity and instinct alone.

Local producer for the event, Paul Armstrong, had less than a month to put the whole event together. Armstrong had full confidence in the local film community, and that it could be pulled off successfully. Armstrong articulated that “there are a lot of people in town who want to make film, and this is a great opportunity for them.” A lot of film grads signed up for the competition, as well as filmmakers from Vancouver’s film industry. According to Armstrong, one reason why the local film community is substantial and talented is because of all the exclusive film schools in town, as well post-secondary institutions that have reputable film departments.
One finalist will be selected from Vancouver to compete with other North American cities in the film race. Vancouver’s top 10 finalists will have their films screened at the Celluloid Social Club’s monthly screening at the Anza Club on July 23.