The Vancouver film industry is a great place to make connections, or reconnect with other connections. There a lot of events and places to do so, sometimes at film festivals, sometimes on film sets, and sometimes in my case but not often enough, during an interview via Zoom, which if you ask me, isn’t the same. The fact that it’s still a thing kind of upsets me, but distance is a BIG deal when some of us have jobs that require traveling to another location. But do you know what’s a really great way for us all to connect and reconnect? At social events. Lately, I haven’t seen too many of those happen. The Dimofte’s who hosted the Booze and Shmooze are way out in Europe and I haven’t seen a meetup ever since, Paul Armstrong is trying to bring back the Celluloid Social Club, but it’s going to take a while. Mitribe Media has shut down and I haven’t checked meetup.com in a long time to see if there are any active filmmaker get-togethers. However my dry-spell was doused over the weekend with a great new style of social gathering at a studio full of premium equipment, Sunbelt Rentals Film & TV. When I saw the event was happening, I RSVPed and spent the whole day there soaking in all that went on. This is how you do an event. Bars in the evening may seem nice but the time tends to be limited, and you might forget who you connected with depending on how intoxicated you get. Not here, this gave me a lasting feeling of excitement and thinking back on it will boost my spirit. This gathering had it all: Presentations, Workshops, Food, Alcohol, a wide array of familiar faces, great music, and even some games for the children to play. Yeah, some people in the industry have kids, so why not bring them along to play some board games or in one of those giant inflatable bouncy castle things? I have GOT to bring Phoenix to the next one.
Now, I have to get into detail about what was experienced. First off, as you may know, I have to give some shoutouts: To Tug Phipps for hosting this event and giving so much to us for free, Suzette Laqua for that delightful conversation looking back on the past, Lynne Lee with her bright smile, Panta Mosleh, David Aboussafy, Paul Armstrong, Joel Reimer, the Robbins twins, and Michelle Muldoon for some great conversations, and of course everyone who chose to attend and not let the miserable weather ruin their day. I know my day was awesome, and here’s why.
Panels and Presentations – I attended almost all of these, but I have to say my personal favourite had to be Straight Up: Raising the Bar for Vertical Dramas. I know, I know. There have been some inconveniences with some production companies who make those, I recently had a rotten experience with one that made me never want to work with that company again. But there are some who I have lucked out with, and I’m looking into getting work in verticals very soon. For the troublesome companies, I think Isaac will have something drafted if we get several emails complaining about one specific Vertical company that know hows to spark discomfort. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. The panel explained the origins, how episodes are about a minute and 30 seconds long, the majority of audience being female, and how the Chinese have found more opportunities and ways to shoot out here in Northern America. I may not fully agree with the adult content they’re trying to make as they explore these new opportunities, and I like the idea of how everybody’s paycheque whether they be cast or crew ends up being an equal amount. While shoots are around 8-11 days, the crew is a mix of gen-z and veterans, and the companies do have to be comptetitive with rates, it seems things are working for the better, and that soon these productions will be union designated. After hearing about some of the Behind the Scenes deals with how they did things, I can understand how they were misunderstood, but they are learning. It used to be they brought US residents to work out here in Canada, now they’re hiring Canadian talent AND even flying with said talent out to China to film stuff. If travel and accomodation are covered, I’m DEFINITELY going to look further into being an actor on these. Improvements are happening, and if you want to know more on how Verticals are getting better check out VFSSA managed by Andy Chu, Monika Dalman, Alicia Reed, and Dani Barker.
Other panels included the short quick discussion of AI in production and how Filmustage had a major amount of inconveniences, the Art of ODD, which was MC’d by Joel McCarthy which told us how the company of Oddfellows was established, along with how they find unique people for their productions, and a couple others.
Workshops and Demos – I didn’t get to attend any of these, it’s hard to balance things out and be in so many places. On top of that, I have little experience with operating cameras. Last time I tried, it was incredibly ammateurish and inferior compared to the experts I know, but Nathan Slattery begs to differ. As you may have gathered, some of these were about camera operation, one being about constructing a camera car that would make for great movings shots, and another about how polarity shifts work. The last one was about operating a wireless Lighting system. I can see we are increasing in technology and I know just about all the film sets could benefit from this product. Even though I wasn’t there, I bet everyone who was got a good education out of what was taught.
Social Gathering Area – As I mentioned, I couldn’t be at all the panels or workshops since there was so much going on. Even when I had arrived, a MAMM meeting was happening in one of the conference rooms. One of the greatest places though was the great big gathering area where all the games, food, and even lounging couches were. While cookies and other snacks were of the Kirkland brand which I’m not personally fond of, the alochol provided was of a crisp and delectable variety from local breweries and they even had hamburgers and hot dogs to enjoy too. While it’s hard for me to ingest such products both with braces and chest pains, the meals at this gathering filled me up and satisfied me immensely. Even hanging out in this area and meeting people, eventually talking to them really made me feel like this was the perfect event to be mingling with fellow film industry folks.
All in all, Tug Phipps and Sunbelt Rentals really outdid themselves with this kind of gathering. It was something they wanted to do for a LONG time ever since the COVID pandemic subsided and I’m glad they got the opportunity to finally do so. WIth how successful it was and seeing how many people attended, I do hope we get more of these gatherings in the near future, it’s the perfect venue with the perfect layout to do so.
