We've got it all right here, folks! Everything that's ever been written up, photographed, and discussed on the Sad Mag website. Enjoy browsing our archives!



Matt Muldoon is the owner of Knuckles Industries: a rapidly ascending design company that just released (to much publicity) their new 60/61 furniture series.

Based on vintage Americana and old-school airplanes – the pieces were built with 6061 aircraft grade aluminum – the collection marries craftsmanship and not-quite-functionalism. Does a shoe rack really require speed holes? Of course not, but then, it doesn’t not need them.

Things are going well so far at Knuckles Industries: the 60/61 series was recently featured at Vancouver’s IDS West show, and has been lauded in publications from The Globe and Mail to Montecristo Magazine.

But back to Matt – what kind of person is it that comes up with this stuff?

Knuckles_23b1-684x456

A Total Hick

Matt was born in Nanton, Alberta, and describes himself as a hillbilly. He grew up going to scrap yards and buying materials on the Bargain Finder, and at fourteen, he built his first piece: a go-kart repurposed from a smashed-up motorcycle.

As an adult, Matt divides his time between Alberta and B.C., and runs his business a bit like a farmer coming to market. He works mostly out of his shop in Calgary, but wheels and deals in Vancouver. While on the west coast, he lives in an enviable loft space on Main and 2nd, but still misses Alberta’s Wild West vibes.

“The part that was hard for me in Vancouver was it sort of separated me from being a hillbilly,” he says.

“It’s a very different scene in Vancouver. Even if I could build a go-kart out of a motorcycle in Van, someone’s going to arrest me if I drive it down 2nd the way that I drive it at home.”

Knuckles_bed1

A Serial Killer

Not really, of course. But Matt admits that he looks like one – a little bit – when he’s staying up all night in his shop, alternately listening to classical music and Nine Inch Nails.

“I just fall back to Trent Reznor at eleven or twelve o’clock at night,” he says.

And then there’s his love of machining and clean lines.

“I prefer that surgical look.”

Knuckles_04DESK1

An Awesome Boyfriend

Recently, Matt’s girlfriend needed a new countertop. So Matt built her one, out of some 90-year-old barn wood that was presumably lying around her apartment.

I think there was very little planning that went into it,” he says.

Sounds like a fun date!

Knuckles_271

A Real Straight Shooter

More than anything else, Matt deals in authenticity. He describes himself as a half-designer, half-fabricator, and is capable of building any piece that he comes up with. He takes pride in his work; loves quality, well-built materials; and believes in completing a project in its entirety.

“I have an obsession with the 1930s and the 1940s, and everything that was made then. Sort of that Americana manufacturing days, when people went to work and made what they did and they were proud of it, and it turned out really well,” he says.

“I have this thing with the work pride of days gone by.”

Wade Comer presents “Time Passages”, a continuing series of long-exposure photos split into two series: “Mountains” and “Cities”. Taken from the decks of passenger ferries in motion as they pass along their routes, Comer essentially paints with the camera. “Mountains” is a series compiled from over two years of travelling aboard the various BC Ferries; contrastingly, “Cities” is a series that includes images from Istanbul, New York, Toronto, and Vancouver. I caught up with Comer to discuss his photographic practise and how he was able to express the emotive quality in his works.

Cities by Wade Comer
Cities by Wade Comer

How did you get involved with photography?

Finding my ‘definitive’ creative outlet was a long process, and one that I don’t think I was actually looking for until my early twenties. I went to broadcasting school, and had been an announcer, copywriter, and producer at a radio station called ‘Coast 1040’ from 1990 to 1993. I spent a lot of that time working with music, making huge tape loop experiments in the production suite after hours. Somewhere in there, I realised that my preferred way of expressing myself was via photography. I never considered myself a musician – even though I spent a decade in the music industry – but from that point of recognition onward, I have always considered myself a photographer. I owe a debt of gratitude to an old friend, Steve, who upon hearing about my desire to take up photography, loaned me his dad’s Nikon ‘F’ until I could buy my own camera. Soon afterward, I purchased a Canon ‘Ftb’, and then taught myself how to process my own film, and within a couple of months I was off trying to get a gig as a photographer’s assistant. I managed to get a job working for John Douglas Kenney, a commercial and portrait photographer, who had worked with Irving Penn, in New York. Working for John I learned a lot, and had the luxury of lots of time to myself in the studio and darkroom, which was invaluable.

What inspired “Time Passages” and using long-exposure?

I had been working with the technique of long-exposure photography for about a year, trying different scenes and landscapes, even taking workshops to see if there was something more I could get out of the technique. For all of its spontaneity, photography involves a lot of planning, and I wanted to add the element of chance into the equation. Ultimately, I found my interest in the long-exposure technique waning, as I felt that there were several good photographers out there using the process, and the subject matter seemed limited (there are only so many old docks to shoot). It was on a ferry ride to Galiano Island that I realised I could use the long-exposure technique to both ‘capture time’, and insert the chance element I was looking for. By focusing on the actions of the boat – moving, changing course, speeding up and slowing down – I could capture an image of the feeling of being in these places. From then on I was a walk-on passenger on BC Ferries for over two years, Tsawwassen to Schwartz Bay, Duke Point to Tsawwassen, Horseshoe Bay to Langdale, Bowen Island, Nanaimo… then New York ‘Circle Line’ tours, and Istanbul commuter ferries, and London water taxis.

“Light and colour,
like memory,
are details often fuzzy”

The effects of long-exposure create a painterly feel, it is interesting how photography and painting then become mixed in your works. Was this your intention?

I wanted to create a painterly feel in the images – to use the camera as a paintbrush. I do not personally have the patience for painting, but I found I could create the simulacra of a painting using the camera and photography, but would never have to spend all that time cleaning brushes.

Thinking of a single image as film, can you expand on this concept?

Film – a movie – is a series of thousands of frames of stills, hundreds of feet and minutes long,that are then played back to give the clear impression of movement, or transition… and time. “An image as film”, is the opposite effect: a single frame that captures the movement of a thousand frames of stills. Not by superimposition, but supercompression. All that time in one frame.

In this sense, your works make time a tangible entity that the audience can see. Do you think this quality enhances the theme of loss and/or death in photography? Why?

I don’t see it as about loss or death, for me, it’s more about memory. The images in ‘Time Passages’ are literal – they are of a place, or location – but it is that feeling of being there that I think is most evocative. You don’t have to know exactly where an image was taken, but it brings you to that place in your mind… especially if you have been there before. The blurring and softening reduces the place down to its basics: Light and colour, like memory, are details often fuzzy.

What is the importance of water in your works? The majority of your works contain bodies of water, you are also  travelling across bodies of water in order to document your work.

Growing up on Vancouver, water is just an integral part of the city, whether it’s the view of Burrard Inlet I had from my home in Burnaby Heights, or torrential rain. My apartment looks at Lost Lagoon, and my office looks out at Burrard Inlet and all the ships, moored and moving. I have been working on another project over the summer, photographing Vancouver’s parks, and you‘d be hard pressed not to find water nearby, or a stream, or pond. Water in Vancouver is omnipresent. Our commerce and much of our food and culture come from our relationship with the Pacific Ocean and the Fraser River. I grew up on the coast, and it has just become a part of who I am. I mean, I really love the desert too, but a desert near the ocean is even better.

Mountains by Wade Comer
Mountains by Wade Comer

What has been the your most memorable experience aboard a BC Ferry?

As dry as it sounds, I think it has been the interest people have in my camera. Using a 4×5 camera is not something most people are familiar with these days, so I get a lot of questions like, “Is that a video camera?”, or “Seen any whales?” I’ve shown people how the camera works, and described what I’m trying to do with the photos, and it has been interesting engaging with people ranging from island locals to tourists from around the world. I usually let them, or their child, look through the back of the camera to get an idea of how the camera works and how its just like your eye… except your brain does a lot of processing to turn the image back right side up. And no, I didn’t see one whale the whole time I was out there.

How does the theme of human impact on the environment and the contrast of urban existence with nature underlie the works in the series?

Many of my previous projects speak to the relationship between nature and humanity and our use of it. Projects like ‘Pyres’, where piles of flotsam from the Fraser River – remnants of BC’s logging resource industry – are piled up to await the wood chipper, represent a conversation about how we treat and interact with our world. ‘Carnage/Garages’ examines, in an abstract and literal way, our love of the car and how that has physically shaped and scarred our environment. ‘Time Passages’ is about the application of a technique, or process, and the insertion of chance. The concepts of memory and time compression came from within the work itself. If anything, “Time Passages” negates the effects we have made on our environment by blurring, or obscuring the clearcuts and highway overpasses, and by softening the hard shapes of buildings and cities. Ultimately, I have this Mark Rothko affinity, I like striations. I just wanted to create something visually appealing.

What’s your favourite “secret” spot in Vancouver?

It’s not really secret, but my living room window. I like the view. There are a couple of secret spots in Stanley Park… soon after the big wind storm in 2006, the Parks Board commissioned artists to make works out of the windfall in Stanley Park. There is a piece, now decomposed, that was off the South Creek Trail where an artist had created a ‘healing blanket’, out of medallions of a cedar tree limb, and sewed them together using cedar bark. It was placed over top of a stump of a very old tree; a beautiful piece. The other is on Squirrel Trail, where an artist has cut the fallen tree into sections, including a sphere out of cedar. The tree/void is a neat impression as you approach it from the top of the trail. On a more urban note, I like going to Iona Island and Sea Island, or roaming around Railtown and along the waterfront, underneath the Shaw tower and convention centre – lots of good urban waste and curious corners down there.

What’s next for Wade? Would you ever dabble in filmmaking? Painting?

I have several filmmaker friends and a few painter friends, and I think I’ll leave it all to them. I have dabbled, as many creative people do, but I keep coming back to photography. I have a few multimedia pieces and a large sculpture or two in my ideas book, but my next projects are kind of long-term, involving homage to Hokusai, and a series on Vancouver parks that has been a precursor to a larger project. I would also love to spend my days making money recycling beer cans I collect off the bottom of the ocean while living on a small Greek island.

 

For more by Comer, check out his website or visit his exhibition opening for “Time Passages” at Make Gallery on November 5th.

When Helena Marie’s masterful short film CRAZY LOVE (2013) debuted last February at the VISFF it took the festival by storm. Marie’s tense, unflinching dramatization of domestic abuse and revenge stunned audiences and wowed judges, winning every major award, including Best Film, Best Performance, Best Writing, and Best Technical. Since sweeping the VISFF, CRAZY LOVE has been touring other festivals in Canada and even won the Best Short award at the 2015 ACTRA festival in Montreal. VISFF recently caught up with Helena Marie in her current hometown of Vancouver and talked to the actor­/writer­/producer about domestic violence, friendship, filmmaking, and the importance of dreams in her creative life.

001

SAD Mag: You started your artis­tic career as an actress. How did you tran­si­tion to filmmaking?

Helena Marie: About three years ago I started audi­tion­ing and get­ting lit­tle parts here and there and hav­ing fun with that. But I real­ized that even though it was really excit­ing to get a part on a TV show, sometimes my part would only be for a few minutes or even sec­onds and that I wasn’t getting enough storytelling time. I wanted to tell sto­ries and actually con­tribute to these projects. When you’re an actor you don’t always get to choose what you get to tell and what part of it you get to be. So I decided it was time to make my own film.

SM: What inspired you to write the script?

HM: I hap­haz­ardly have been a writer for the last six or seven years. Never publishing anything. It was sort of an out­let for me, mostly a result of crazy dreams. I wake up and remem­ber these epic dreams and if I’m dili­gent enough, I take a pen and paper near me and write it all out. But I’d never go back to it as a story; these are just things I need to let out right at that moment not to for­get about them. I have pages and pages of half­written sto­ries, half­written dreams—

SM: Are they dark?

HM: No, they are epic.

SM: Did you base your CRAZY LOVE story on one of these dreams?

HM: No, but it was a story that I as an actor always wanted to tell. The main con­cept of the film is spousal abuse. When you’re an actor, peo­ple always ask you “why?” “Why choose this ridicu­lously hard, drain­ing career path?” And the con­cept that always came to me was, if I could tell a story, for exam­ple of an abused woman who decides to fight back, and if there’s one per­son up there who is in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion, sees that and gets encour­aged to fight back and get out of it—then that’s the ideal out­come. You’ve touched some­one, affected them. I watch movies and TV, I lis­ten to music because I want to be affected, I want it to make me think and feel some­thing. So when I started this jour­ney mak­ing my own project, there were a few ideas float­ing around. I’m a big sci­fi fan, so I started with that, but real­ized it was quickly turning into a feature, and I wanted to start with a short film for my first time, so I decided to scale back and focus on an inti­mate story. So I chose to write about spousal abuse, because it was always some­thing I wanted to do as an actor.

SM: Do you have any expe­ri­ence with that issue?

HM: Not per­son­ally. I’ve never been in that sort of rela­tion­ship. But I have friends who have. In the first few min­utes of the movie, there’s this girls’ poker night scene. It was really impor­tant to me to show the dynamic of dif­fer­ent kinds of friend­ship that can exist around some­body in that sit­u­a­tion. One of the girls is totally aloof and has no con­cept of what’s going on. Another one hints that she kind of has an aware­ness, but when there are ques­tions being asked about Sam’s injured foot, she doesn’t want to rock the boat and get into talk­ing about it. And the third one is “that” friend who’s like “What is going on? What are you going to do about it?” I came at it from the posi­tion of some­body who’s seen friends in these kinds of sit­u­a­tions and I’ve felt like all three kinds of char­ac­ters at some point. I’ve felt like the friend who is clue­less and when I find out I’m in total shock. I’ve felt like the one who knows but doesn’t know how to talk about it, and I’ve felt like that per­son who is like “I’m tak­ing you out of this right now.”

SM: Is this how you’ve pro­gressed as a per­son or did it reflect the dif­fer­ent kind of rela­tion­ships you’ve had with people?

HM: I’d say it’s a com­bi­na­tion of both. My first reac­tion would be to say that’s my pro­gres­sion as I grow up and become more aware of what’s going around me, but the truth is that I don’t. I like to think I do, but I don’t always know what is hap­pen­ing with some­body else. And at the end of the day, it’s not always my busi­ness. Not to say that when some­one is in a bad sit­u­a­tion it is not my place to try to help them, but we don’t always know the whole story and what kind of help they need. I might assume that I need to get them out of that sit­u­a­tion and be there for them emotionally, but maybe what they actu­ally need is finan­cial support. And I might not be the best person to help them. They may need someone else and me getting involved isn’t what they want. You can’t always be a mind reader unfortunately.

SM: What do you think Sam (your char­ac­ter) wants from her friends? What is her perspective?

HM: I think she has gone totally numb after what hap­pened ear­lier that day. She’s out of it and doesn’t know what she’s done. They’re lit­er­ally play­ing this poker game as her boyfriend is lying in the back­yard and she thinks he’s dead. When she finds out he’s not, it’s a big shock to her.

SM: There must have been years of ten­sion build­ing up in the rela­tion­ship. What do you imag­ine your character’s back­ground is?

HM: I think the abuse started off sub­tly and it got to a point for her where it was eas­ier to pre­tend. If she had broken the teacup two years ago, there would have been a fight with yelling and hit­ting, but at this point, it’s eas­ier for her to turn around and do what he says. Then it’s done and she can carry on with her day. It’s really creepy when you think about it.

SM: So she’s not look­ing for help or some­one to get involved?

HM: It’s scary. You might have to look up the exact num­bers, but sta­tis­ti­cally, if there’s going to be a mur­der com­mit­ted in an abu­sive rela­tion­ship, the major­ity of the time it’s going to hap­pen on the abused part­ner after the abused part­ner leaves. That’s ter­ri­fy­ing. When you’ve got­ten to that point when stay­ing seems more fea­si­ble. I wouldn’t know what to do. You can call the cops, you ask your friends and fam­ily, every­one is going to help you…but it’s still scary. What do you do? There’s not one answer for any­body. Everyone’s dif­fer­ent, every­one needs a dif­fer­ent fix. And with abu­sive peo­ple, you never know how far they’re going to go. I’m sure she does want help – but at this point she’s so far into the abuse she has no clue how to escape – it all seems so impossible.

SM: How did the char­ac­ters develop over the time of writ­ing the script and shooting?

HM: The script went through so many revi­sions. At one point, the char­ac­ter of Alan had a much bigger part. There was even a reverse tor­ture scene where she holds him cap­tive and repeats all the violent acts onto him that he has done to her. There were a lot of rea­sons we didn’t go that way, but mostly because we didn’t want the focus to be on him. I didn’t want the abuser to get much screen time. Even if he was por­trayed as a hor­ri­ble per­son, I felt that the more time he’d get, the more glo­ri­fied the char­ac­ter would be.

SM: Funny that the char­ac­ter of the abu­sive part­ner is played by your real life fiancé. Did that have any impact on your relationship?

HM: Not at all! It’s funny. I needed some­body who could go through a whole range of emo­tions, espe­cially in the orig­i­nal script where there was a stronger focus on his character. And Jason is just really tal­ented and could do that. I also needed some­one who could be charm­ing and not come across as an aggres­sor. Some­one you’d see walk­ing down the street or hang­ing out with friends and say, oh, there’s a dude, he’s hot, he seems nice. We didn’t want a mus­cu­lar mean face with a shaved head or what­ever the typ­i­cal image of an abu­sive per­son is. And Jason did a great job, but it didn’t affect our rela­tion­ship at all, in fact it made it stronger. I once said at a party that Jason was per­fect for the role, and every­body went “Um, what do you mean?” I meant that he killed it!

SM: You said you “aim to cre­ate films which address mature sub­ject mat­ters and ask [audi­ences] to ques­tion their stance on the def­i­n­i­tions of right and wrong.” Wouldn’t almost killing a per­son be con­sid­ered wrong?

HM: Going back to the con­cept of the friends—it could be any­thing triv­ial or any­thing seri­ous a per­son could be talk­ing about, but some peo­ple would go: “Oh, I’d kill him, let’s find him and do it.” And I think, “Okay, but really? You’d really do it? Because that’s pretty seri­ous.” Just hear­ing stuff on the news, you go “I’d do this, or I wouldn’t do this.” It’s so easy to say. I wanted to see at what point the audi­ence is still okay with what’s hap­pen­ing. First, we see this woman, and her boyfriend is an abusive jerk. He’s mak­ing her walk on a bro­ken teacup. And there’s a his­tory, there’s gotta be a rea­son why she’s doing that. Peo­ple don’t like what they’re see­ing but they are not at the point where they’d say “kill him.” But by the time we get to the end of the movie, the guy is a veg­etable. Now, where’s that line? Where do you still say, “Okay I’m sup­port­ing this, or maybe this is get­ting a lit­tle weird, and now it’s too much.” I want to have peo­ple to go through the tran­si­tion and think about it afterwards. And most importantly we wanted the audiences to actually talk about spousal abuse, have it enter into our everyday conversations so they can understand a tiny amount of the difficulty that these people are going through and not be afraid to address it if they think there’s something going on with their friends or loved ones.

SM: Is there room for wor­ry­ing about Sam not as the vic­tim but as the aggres­sor who will have to face the con­se­quences of her vio­lent action?

HM: Who knows? Obvi­ously, the law is there to try to pro­tect peo­ple. But it doesn’t always. Peo­ple get hurt, mur­dered, raped, kidnapped…The law doesn’t always help. My point isn’t to tell peo­ple to go out and take a base­ball bat to the per­son who’s hurt­ing them. That’s more of a metaphor for stand­ing up for your­self. But the way our lives work now we don’t know what’s going on with people. It used to be that when some­body was an ass­hole in the community, they just took him out. Now we have all these nice lit­tle homes and nice lit­tle cars, we all do our thing and don’t know our neigh­bours’ names. We hear yelling some­times out­side the win­dow and think, “Is it just a little fight or…?” We don’t know our com­mu­nity, and the peo­ple around us anymore. It would be nice to think that the law would be on her side, but again, that’s up to the audience to see how difficult the verdict would be to make in that situation.

SM: When did you real­ize you had pas­sion for acting?

HM: I went to the­atre school after high school. I was very shy; pub­lic speak­ing was the worst. But in the­atre, I was able to express myself, because it wasn’t Helena—it was a char­ac­ter. These char­ac­ters can say things in front of peo­ple and not be embarrassed.

SM: What is the most impor­tant part of prepar­ing to get into a char­ac­ter?

HM: It took me a long time—and I’m still kinda learn­ing it—to real­ize that even if you have a nat­ural abil­ity and you’re com­fort­able doing cer­tain things, that it’s all about prac­tice and being prepared.

SM: Did you always know you want to fol­low this career path?

HM: I had a real life after I left the­atre school—a typ­i­cal nine-­to-­five life for a cou­ple of years and I stopped act­ing, danc­ing and singing. I had a great time, but at some point I real­ized I wasn’t dream­ing any­more. Lit­er­ally; I wasn’t wak­ing up with any mem­ory of hav­ing dreamt, which for me is not nor­mal. I often wake up remem­ber­ing two or three very vivid, very long and detailed dreams from that night. So that made me real­ize I was sti­fling my cre­ativ­ity; a part of me, that cre­ative per­son, had gone dor­mant. So within a few years I was back to act­ing and being cre­ative. Also, before I dis­cov­ered act­ing, I wanted to be a psy­chi­a­trist. I was inter­ested in how the brain works in terms of emo­tions and how it makes us feel things. And around the same time I was decid­ing to pur­sue act­ing, I real­ized that being an actor was a study of human behav­ior. It wasn’t just show, it’s express­ing of how we all feel. We have been sto­ry­tellers since the begin­ning of time. We relate to peo­ple through sto­ries; we want to con­nect and know what they feel, and under­stand why dif­fer­ent peo­ple feel dif­fer­ent things, and know that we are not alone.

SM: How do you treat a char­ac­ter that requires a more emo­tional background?

HM: I’m pretty open in terms of emo­tional avail­abil­ity. I cry at radio com­mer­cials if they put the right music with it. I’m a total sucker. So I iden­tity with sen­si­tive char­ac­ters eas­ily. When the char­ac­ter is tough, and doesn’t show a lot of emo­tions, that’s been a challenge for me. But I like a good challenge!

SM: What advice would you give to aspir­ing filmmakers?

HM: Work with peo­ple you want to work with. Don’t work with jerks just because they’re the “best” at what they do. If they’re mean and belit­tle other peo­ple on set, don’t give them another chance. As you get into big­ger and big­ger pro­duc­tions, there are a lot of peo­ple that are always get­ting rehired just because they were part of a suc­cess­ful film, but maybe on set they’re sex­ist or rude. You can still make a film with­out them. You’re going to be able to find other great peo­ple. Because at the end of the day, work­ing on set is really stress­ful and there’s a lot of money in the pro­duc­tion, so you should sur­round your­self with peo­ple who are pro­fes­sional and team players.

SM: How did you come to work with Math­ieu Charest (direc­tor of CRAZY LOVE)?

HM: I was introduced to Mathieu by our cinematographer Benoit Charest. Mathieu had already read the script and was so so excited that he started right in explaining their relationship (Alan and Sam) and just got absolutely everything I was going for. It was like he was in my brain. He also has decades of experience behind the camera. So it was a no brainer to work with him. I think he and I share a love of the weird and dark. Like, for me, there’s that part of CRAZY LOVE where, after she hits him, she tears up a stack of porn mag­a­zines and uri­nates on them as a sym­bol of her mark­ing her ter­ri­tory and dom­i­nat­ing him. And I per­son­ally enjoyed the fact that I got to pretend to uri­nate on a porno and people gave me an award for it (laughs).

SM: What expe­ri­ence from VISFF are you tak­ing to the next festival?

HM: If it’s a fes­ti­val where there are are awards—and I rec­om­mend this to everyone—always know what you want to say if you do the speech. Mine was the worst; I went up there and was, like, “Hey! Let’s party!” I’m not good under pres­sure (laughs). Be pre­pared, because you have every right to be proud.

 

You can sub­mit a film to VISFF until Novem­ber 1st, and the fes­ti­val will be held in Feb­ru­ary of 2016. Visit their web­site for more details, and their socials for updates: @visff.

412931F3-A3D7-4B82-A0AD-A9FBC95B90C8

With two Pick of the Fringe musicals, composer Stewart Yu and writer Angela Wong can probably add crowd pleasers to their CV, right? After a successful 2012 Fringe run and another remount in 2013 with their first musical, Riverview High, they’ve done it again–this time with a parody of an early aughts TV show that was a parody itself.

The O.C.: The Musical follows Ryan Atwood, a troubled yet ruggedly charming bad boy from the wrong side of town who is abandoned by his parents only to be adopted into the high-class, sophisticated world of Orange County by his attorney-turned-adopted father, Sandy Cohen. The transition to privileged life isn’t easy for Ryan, and soon after he develops a bromance with Sandy’s son, Seth, Ryan gets caught up in a series of love triangles, drama, musical ballads, feelings (oh, so many feelings), and inclusive Chrismukkah celebrations. Really, it’s a classic tale of teenage romance and privileged rich kids living in gated communities.

As a big fan of the TV show way back when, I was excited to hear what Yu and Wong would come up with, this time around. Yu sent me a cut of “The Summer of Summer” and I was hooked. Catchy and upbeat, The O.C.: The Musical is just that–a fun and witty parody that everyone, including people who haven’t seen the show before, can enjoy.

While working with Yu and Wong, I was able to talk to Wong about creating and producing a second musical, her experience with Fringe, and her growth as an artist.

Sad Mag: How is The O.C.: The Musical different from Riverview High?

Angela Wong:Although both shows dealt with teenage drama, angst, love, and romance with a comedic twist, they are also very different. Riverview High was our firstborn. It is a heartwarming story that celebrates friendship, diversity and acceptance. Like any firstborn, it made its way into the world through two first-time writers who tried their best, and wrote from a place of pure love for the creative venture.

The O.C.: The Musical, however, is the fun, flashy, and uninhibited second-born. It is all about magnifying the melodrama of the beloved television show, and parodying the already over-the-top storylines of The O.C. Through the campy songs and snappy quips, The O.C.: The Musical highlights the absurdity of teenage dramas, and shows how the storylines are usually anything but teenage reality.

483D8D1D-278A-4529-BCE1-73CED7471D01

SM: How have you changed as artists since 2012?

AW: When we first wrote Riverview High, it was the greatest creative adventure that either of us had ever embarked on. Although I had dabbled with creative writing and Stewart had music-directed a number of theatre productions prior to Riverview High, neither of us ever wrote a musical before. Our inexperience showed in some of our earlier drafts of Riverview High.

However, as we progressed, we became more confident in our writing, especially after we received some positive feedback from people who participated in our workshops. Despite the successful run of Riverview High in Vancouver Fringe 2012 and the remount in 2013, we knew that we still needed to grow as writers. Since our favourite parts from Riverview High were the comedic moments, we wanted our second project to be a comedy. When the idea of turning The O.C. into a parody came up, we thought that would be the perfect show for us to write as it allowed our imaginations to run completely wild.

The process of writing The O.C.: The Musical was different from Riverview High because we were definitely more confident in our writing abilities right from the beginning, and creatively, we were in sync. Also, since I was working in Toronto and Stewart lived in Vancouver, we had to manage our time effectively especially because our goal was to debut the show in 2015 as part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Overall, we have grown tremendously as artists since 2012. We became more confident in our writing. We became less self-conscious about the ideas we would throw out there, no matter how crazy or absurd they may have sounded. We also made sure that we embraced this project with the same delirious love that we had for writing, which was so prominent during the creation of Riverview High. We’ve enjoyed every step of the creative process – from the first time we sat down and developed the outline for the The O.C.: The Musical almost two years ago to the last performance of the show in Fringe.

SM: How has your Fringe experience changed from then? Was that your first Fringe experience?

AW: Fringe is such an incredible experience. It is not only a celebration of theatre, creativity and imagination, but it is a supportive community of artists. We were very fortunate that Riverview High was so well-received in the Vancouver Fringe Festival in 2012. The support we received from the community and fellow artists was life-changing. Despite our inexperience, we were embraced by our peers, and we knew that we wanted to return to the Fringe again with another show. Three years later, we’re back in our old stomping ground, the Firehall Arts Centre, and part of Fringe again. Once more, the Fringe community has shown us so much support and we are grateful to be part of this fantastic festival.

 

 

Didn’t get to see The O.C.: The Musical? Here’s your last chance, as the production is doing an encore on Thursday, September 24 at the Revue Theatre on Granville Island. For more ticket information, check out http://www.vancouverfringe.com.

Firehall Arts Centre_Love Bomb_publicity image

“Love Bomb” sounds like the name of a fizzy bath product, but a quick Wikipedia search of the term will reveal a tumultuous and contradictory history of use. In essence, to love bomb is to use affection and attention as means to manipulate another. And it’s this sort of love bombing that Vancouver playwright Meghan Gardiner explores in her new play, which is titled after the phrase. Fresh out of rehearsal, Gardiner gives me insight into the production that is part rock musical, part mystery, with heaps of social awareness and feminism in between.

“Love bombing, ultimately is about the power of love,” says Gardiner over the phone, “which sounds so super cheesy, but on a secondary level…we have to think about how powerful love is as a tool and as a weapon and as a way of…coercing people into doing things they wouldn’t do otherwise. It truly is a power and it can be used for…damaging purposes.”

The play itself is set in a small music venue, where the performer, Justine, is confronted by an unexpected guest. The events unravel before the audience is let in to see Justine perform. “The clues and the hints and the story [are] told through the songs, so it’s kind of a rock concert,” explains Gardiner, who worked with composer Steve Charles to create an indie rock score for the production. This was Gardiner’s first time writing lyrics rather than singing them. A veteran of musical theater acting herself, Gardiner was an obvious choice for Shameless Hussy Productions––who also put on a run of her first play, Dissolve––for the commission of a musical centered around women and controversy.

“I shaped the story around the issue I wanted to address,” says Gardiner. As a playwright, she is inspired by women’s stories and social justice issues, she says “I know I need to write something when I hear things in the media or hear things in the news that make me furious…I [will] feel so strongly about an issue that’s happening in society, and that’s when the script comes together.” Gardiner is no stranger to writing about hard-hitting feminist topics: Dissolve is a one woman show that discusses drink spiking and sexual assault. It was largely based on Gardiner’s personal experiences.

“I want to engage and I want to enrage my audience,” Gardiner says of her vision for the production. “I want my audiences to feel something, first, and then I want them to have to think. Then, hopefully after having seen the pieces…I kind of want them to change. I want people to learn something and perhaps be made aware of something that they weren’t aware of.” Gardiner’s approach to engaging her audiences comes from a place of creating solid entertainment and a deep love of writing compelling mystery. She says, “I think every single thing I’ve ever created has been a mystery, it’s just the way I like to write. I just love those very slow reveals, I love dropping clues, I love laying out the groundwork and having people piece it together.”

Gardiner tells me, abashed, that the music is so good that she’s been listening to it on her own iPod. Love Bomb promises to be a provocative, genre-crossing affair, using it’s entertainment value to address social issues that have been very present in and around Vancouver. Despite the heavy themes––which are an integral part of the mystery to be solved in the play––Gardiner assures me, with a confident laugh, that “It’s going to be good, solid entertainment.”

 

Love Bomb will run from September 26 – October 10 at The Firehall Arts Center. Look out for our review of the final production next week. 

 

Vancouver won’t stop growing: expanding outward and spiraling back in, rebranding old neighbourhoods and finding names and spaces for new ones. New people are the overlooked catalyst for all this outward change. While a fresh condo development shoots up into our field of vision, a new city dweller slips easily into the periphery.

Zakir Jamal Suleman, director of The Belonging Project, is attempting to bring the experience of Vancouver immigrants to the foreground. Through a series of six video interviews, posted weekly to The Belonging Project’s website, Suleman and his collaborators address the question of what it takes to belong in our notoriously antisocial city.

Zakir Jamal Suleman, director of The Belonging Project
Zakir Jamal Suleman, director of The Belonging Project

Suleman, a philosophy honours student at UBC, was inspired both by his own experience as a Second Generation Khoja Ismaili Canadian and by a 2012 report published by The Vancouver Foundation. The report claimed that one third of survey participants struggled to make friends in Vancouver, and fifty percent of recent immigrants felt the same feeling of social isolation. These results resonated with Suleman, who describes his own process of belonging in Vancouver as a complex one: “You are born here, but there are still questions–where is your culture and the culture you are living in, how do they mix, where is home for me, is it here or is it there…”

He conceived of The Belonging Project as a means to help Vancouverites combat this isolation and connect with one another. Video interviews are a uniquely immediate way to break through what Suleman calls “barriers to entry,” allowing website users to hear a stranger’s story in the physical space of their daily life. Whether you are watching on your laptop or your phone, the project website creates a virtual space for immediate intimacy. Suleman hopes that these online interviews can be more than an “abstracted story,” the goal is that “those connections be something real and something that…people can gravitate to just like a real conversation.”

The interviews are certainly real. The brave participants share a lot in their interviews: stories of depression and illness, as well as revelations about the joyfulness of finding connection. All the videos are six minutes long, a challenging timeframe to try to convey something “true to the complexity of the people we were talking about.” Despite the time constraints, everyone who worked on the project does an admirable job of covering as wide a range of experience as possible.

Tien shares his story with The Belonging Project
Tien shares his story with The Belonging Project

As important as the voices of newcomers are to the project, the experience of First Nations people in Vancouver is something the project is also intent on exploring. As Suleman says in the website’s video introduction, “Vancouver is built on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people, so that means we are all from somewhere else.”

Ultimately, The Belonging Project aims to create a point of connection based on disconnection. Suleman explains that “we were trying to explore something that is, I think, common to everybody.” The irony of dissatisfaction is that it compels you to speak up: something Suleman has noted himself. “Think about complaining about the weather, something that people in Vancouver are champions at…I think that it is actually really great that people are dissatisfied, because you can use that dissatisfaction to motivate you [sic] to do something about it…One thing you can count on is that everyone is dissatisfied in some way.”

The Belonging Project is a model for turning discontent into connection, one that Suleman hopes will continue beyond the initial six video outline. A community gathering is planned for September 19th, a way of gauging the success of the project and attempting the tricky work of translating an online platform into real space. “We want to get people together, people who have been watching… all these stories, and get them into a room,” he explains.

As quickly as Vancouver is growing, it is still small enough for the idea of a community gathering to feel apt. By asking Vancouverites to “take a moment, grab a coffee, and meet a new neighbour,” The Belonging Project reminds us how close we really are to the people who share our city.

 

The Belonging Project will be hosting a community art show at Untitled Art Space (436 Columbia Street) on Saturday September 19th. The event runs from 6 – 11 pm. To find out more, follow The Belonging Project on Facebook or visit their website.

DSC_5018-1

Katie So is bent over her iPad when I meet her for coffee on a rainy Monday morning. So is answering emails (“like always,” she sighs) which doesn’t surprise me, because the illustrator-cum-tattoo artist has already inked two of my friends and seems to be fielding more tattoo requests than she can handle. “I’m just learning about the tattoo business,” she says, “And I can’t say no to anybody, which I think I have to start doing soon!”

So helped open Black Medicine Tattoo last May with owners Joel Rich and Daniel Giantomaso, in exchange for mentorship from Rich. Vancouver born and bred, So has been practicing art since she can remember. “I always grew up in a really creative home,” she recalls, “So it was always like, everything, all creative materials were at my disposal.” Her move to tattoo work was motivated by her desire to progress her career as an illustrator. “I guess I was in a spot where I was just doing art and I wanted to…get it out there any way I could, and make money doing it,” So explains. “I met Joel [Rich] and he tattooed me. I asked if he wanted and apprentice but he [said] ‘Not really, but I’ll help you!’”

Bronchitis by Katie So
Bronchitis by Katie So

So says that attending an arts high school put her off the idea of pursuing visual art, but that she rediscovered her love of drawing during a gap year. She then registered in the Capilano IDEA Program where she realized that illustration, rather than graphic design, was what she was passionate about practicing. So was attracted to comics because they allowed her to combine her habit of creative writing with her drawings. She has since put out three print compilations of her work: Destined for Misery, Bad Boyfriend, and Attempts at Positivity. So’s work––narrative driven and punchline-heavy––is both hilarious and honest, and her ability to capture awkward moments, pathetic self-pity, and heartbreak is so accurate, it’s uncanny.“The comics kind of started almost as a way to laugh off my problems,” she says.

The magic of So’s work is that she manages to create scenes that are deeply personal but touchingly universal. Panels from Destined for Misery show a tired girl hunched over in identical positions eating dinner, sitting on a toilet, at a drawing table, and laying in bed. The cheeky caption reads “Slouch Life.” “I hated autobio comics, like: ‘I feel that way, too, but it’s just making me feel worse,’” she says, “So I guess I just wanted to approach it with an air of humour, and that was my reaction to the way I was feeling, and thats how I worked [my feelings] out. The problems are real but you should be able to step back and laugh at it a little bit and realize how ridiculous things are sometimes.” (See her panels in Bad Boyfriend to laugh out loud, and cry internally).

Eat Your Heart Out by Katie So
Eat Your Heart Out by Katie So

What makes So’s tattoo work so interesting is the dark edge that is present in her illustrations and comics. Shaggy vampire bats and dark haired ladies with cold eyes dominate her online portfolio. She can be both cutesy and gruesome in one drawing. Her somber aesthetic translates beautifully to blackwork tattoo. “I wanted to keep drawing for illustration rather than drawing for tattooing,” she explains. “It took me a while to get the effect that I’ve got in my illustration and bring it across tattooing. I definitely had to learn how to adapt designs for tattoos, because sometimes shapes of things aren’t going to work on somebody’s body. I still really wanna maintain my illustration style throughout tattooing.”

“Tattooing was one of those things I was like ‘I want to learn how to do this,’ and I just did it every day. I still have so much to learn but if you wanna get shit done you just gotta do it,” she says of her learning process. The transition to tattooing was creatively and financially necessary; it allowed So the freedom to pursue her art and make ends meet. “I’m proud that this last year was kind of when I took the plunge, like ‘Ok I’m gonna be an artist full time.’ I think I could have done it a long time ago if I had just done it but I was too scared that I wouldn’t have any money or anything. If you just do it, you figure it out and you force yourself to make money.”

DSC_5028-1

I ask So what it feels like to put her hard work on someone else’s body. “I’m always scared when I finish a tattoo and I’m letting it go,” she laughs, “I hope they take care of it and I hope it heals well because it’s my art walking around. It’s nerve wracking, but also super exciting [to] see someone walking on the street…I’m like, ‘Oh I did that!’”

So’s wisdom to artists looking to take the leap into self-employment is to “just go hang out with people you think are cool and talk to them and tell them that you think they’re cool. Chances are they already think you’re cool, too.” Her final nugget of knowledge before we bundle ourselves up against the relentless downpour: “Please, get tattooed on a full stomach!”

Find out more about Katie So from her website, or find her on Tumblr

“I’ve always had a purpose to my creativity,” says Pomona Lake, a Vancouver graphic designer and artist. She found that purpose fast and early, when an image from a high-school art project went profoundly, monumentally viral.

IMG_0345-0.jpg
Pomona Lake by Grady Mitchell

This particular picture shows the back of a woman’s legs with her skirt pulled up. Running up her left leg is a sequence of markings, each labelled with a different qualifier, starting with “matronly” just above the ankle and finishing with “whore” just under the cheeks. It was a simple and scathing commentary on sexism – “I think that art came out of feeling my sexuality for the first time,” Pomona says, “feeling sexualized by external people,” – and it understandably took off.

Just 18-years-old, fresh into her first year of design at Capilano University, she suddenly became to thousands of people worldwide the face of young feminism. She was inundated with messages, both caustic hatemail and proclamations of support from likeminded supporters worldwide. She was interviewed by major publications like The New Statesman and cited in university classes across the globe. At one point it took her to Belgium to battle a racist group who co-opted the concept for their own agenda.

Pomona Lake
Pomona Lake

Few creatives get such an all-encompassing response to their work, especially as a teen. And even people decades older would have been hard-pressed to handle it with Pomona’s level-headedness. While the outpouring of support was empowering, she didn’t let the anonymous attacks faze her. “It’s really easy to see through the hate mail,” she explains. “They’re just scared.”

Although she’d been declared an expert, the unexpected success of the photograph was what actually sparked Pomona’s activism. At the time the piece came out she didn’t even identify as a feminist, she was just working off her own experiences. “I realized I was completely ignorant and needed to know things,” she says. She embarked on a serious self-driven education, focusing on feminism but spiralling into other areas, and hasn’t slowed since.

Today Pomona makes a point of offering her design services to deserving people and companies that otherwise couldn’t afford them. During business hours she works at Yulu PR, which she describes as “the Robin Hood of PR firms.” Off the clock she helps out worthy causes.

IMG_0346.JPG
Pomona Lake by Grady Mitchell

Through her work she hopes to change the flawed and unbalanced system of capitalism by gaming it from the inside. It’s not that she thinks the system is run by some cat-stroking, monocled super villain. She just recognizes that most people are looking out for themselves – “everyone’s just dumb, not evil,” – and with a little readjustment life could be a lot more fair for everyone.

She’s a proponent of “liberating funds,” using money earned through her work in responsible ways like shopping at small, local businesses, finding alternative ways to meet needs, and re-investing in the community. It’s all part of her life mission, which she’s honed down to this: “To open eyes and ears and bring people together.”

She pauses for a second, thinks, then nods. “And fix bullshit.”

On August 22 the CBC Studio 700 will be taken over by the second annual Movin’ On Up-Staged Readings. Movin’ On Up presents the new works of two local, emerging playwrights and puts them on stage using top-notch, well known actors. This years works include Strip by Christopher Cook and Rogue Horizon by CJ McGillivray, directed by Brian Cochrane and starring Allan Morgan, Deb Williams, Emmelia Gordon, Yoshie Bancroft and Georgia Beaty. The event will be hosted by local comedian Adam Pateman!

Sad Mag recently had the chance to interview playwrights Christopher Cook and CJ McGillivray over email to get some insight on their writing process and the upcoming presentation of their works.

CJ and Chris-1
Playwrights Christopher Cook and CJ McGillivray

Sad Mag: Can you tell me a little bit about yourselves and your experiences with theatre?

Christopher Cook: I grew up here in Vancouver, and I swore I would never live here as an adult. (I’ve lived here for the majority of my adulthood so far–I really do love this city.) I studied theatre in Montreal, at Concordia University, and in London, at LAMDA.

My focus was always performing, and I came to writing later–I’ve been writing plays for about five years now. At the moment, I am working on an MA in Counselling Psychology by day, and playwriting by night.

CJ McGillivray: I am a young interdisciplinary artist who was born and raised in Vancouver. I went to theatre school at Capilano University because it allowed me to keep writing, acting, directing and making music. I was able to combine all of my creative passions with an interest in behaviour, psychology, interpersonal relationships, and human nature. Theatre has always been a platform for me to explore fearless expression, compassion, and absurd thoughts.

SM: What got you both into theatre in particular? Did you have your own local theatre moments to inspire you when you were younger?

CC: I was desperately shy in high school, and closeted–it was the 90s, and I knew I was gay, but I didn’t feel comfortable letting anyone else know. I felt incredibly isolated. I got involved with the students that were rehearsing plays after school so I wouldn’t feel so alone. It really helped. I made some of my strongest teenage friendships through theatre.

CM: I enjoyed expressing myself through music and saw theatre as a way to explore my creativity further. I found that studying drama in high school could be a positive method for developing confidence and empathy. Theatre is the one place where anyone can feel at home in a strange environment.

SM: How have your writing styles changed since first starting writing? Did you have any ‘aha’ moments that changed your perspective? CJ specifically: can you speak to the influence the LEAP program has had on you?

CM: I have so much gratitude for the playwriting mentors who have supported me so thoroughly in the past number of years. Through guidance and experience, I now focus less on being clever and put more emphasis on the value of honest writing. So much of that insight and self-awareness was developed under the mentorship of Shawn Macdonald through the LEAP playwriting mentorship in association with the Arts Club Theatre.

When I was younger, I pushed away from the absurdity of my writing but then it occurred to me that I could cultivate the quirkiness instead. I stopped apologizing for being eloquent.

CC: My “aha” moment as a writer is still happening–I feel like my “aha” moment is lasting for years. With each play I write, I become more and more comfortable with myself as a writer, and get a little more courageous. I am beginning to question assumptions I always had about my writing, particularly about structure and form. I am asking myself questions like: “What shape is the story I am telling?” “What sounds does it make?” “If I took it out on a first date, what would it wear, what would it be like, and where would it want to go?”

I find these are the questions that now interest me, compared to questions like: “What’s the rising action?” There’s nothing wrong with asking about a play’s rising action, but I am beginning to think of it a bit like asking about someone’s favorite color–ask a bland question, get a bland answer. And I suspect that bland questions are death in the play development process.

SM: Describe your ideal writing set-up. Do you have a favorite writing location or music playlist?

CC: A room in the woods with skylights and huge windows. No music, but the sounds of running water and nature. I usually settle for my East Van apartment–an old chair by a window and a good cup of tea.

CM: I create a playlist for each script that I am working on. The playlist for Rogue Horizon features contemporary blues and alternative folk music from Pokey Lafarge, Mumford and Sons and Jasper Sloan Yip.

SM: Where do you grab inspiration from for your plays and their subject matter?

CC: A lot of my inspiration comes from personal experiences–my plays aren’t autobiographical, but at the heart of their stories is always a personal experience. My way into my plays is through the characters–they are what I start with. I hear their voices in my head, see them together in various environments, and start writing. A version of this play, Strip, and these characters, first came up for me three years ago, after I took a trip to Vegas with my partner.

CM: I am often inspired by imagery, song lyrics, old photographs and moments of observation from people all around me. In regards to Rogue Horizon, having an older brother gave me support and laughter throughout my childhood. But the concept of sisters is so foreign to me. I wanted to explore the tensions and beauty of a relationship that I have never personally had but have embraced through close friendships.

SM: Both of your plays seem to centre around complicated and dysfunctional women. Is there something particularly appealing to either of you in writing about flawed characters?

CC: I don’t see my characters as dysfunctional–I think they’re all functioning pretty well, given their circumstances. As for flawed characters, I don’t think I would ever want perfect characters in my plays. I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I wonder if perfect characters might be reserved for commercials, and selling products.

Flawed characters are the ones I want to meet, cry and laugh with, and maybe carry with me. When I am writing a play, it’s like a romance–I fall in love with the characters, each of them, all at the same time. Really, I do. I look forward to spending time with them, and getting to know them better–and if I could meet them at a bar for a drink, I would in a heart beat.

CM: Our character flaws and personal struggles are what make people individually beautiful and compelling. Of course people are complicated and dysfunctional by nature. People run away from vulnerability and connection. People kick and scream. Theatre reflects our universal flaws in order to strengthen our compassion and understanding of the human condition.

MovinOnUp2015-3

SM: What’s it like to be able to showcase your work locally in a space like the CBC?

CC: I really believe that opportunities like Movin’ On Up are essential for emerging writers, and for the play development process. To be able to work with actors and a director, and share my work with an audience before ever thinking about the logistics of a full production allows me to really focus on the script, and gives me the chance to take risks and experiment. I never really know how an audience is going to respond to my work, and getting the feed-back of a live audience is so hopefully in the development process. To be able to do so in the CBC space, with a company like Staircase Theatre is thrilling–I count myself very lucky!

CM: There is nothing more valuable than hearing how an audience reacts to something.

SM: What do you hope people will get out of your plays?

CC: If someone has never asked questions about gender and the many assumptions around gender we have in North American society, I hope this play offers them a way to start asking some questions, if they want to. I also hope that this play reaches out to people and says, “Yes, loving your family can be one of the most challenging things. And loving your family may often require a leap of faith–faith in them, faith in you, faith that you’ll all still be there in the morning. But still, why not leap? Go on, I dare you. Try some faith.”

CM: Curiosity? I want people to embrace the sensations of escapism, aimless confusion, nostalgia, compassion and the universal longing for home in an unfamiliar place. I want people to feel compassion for my characters even when they are brutal to one another.

SM: In 5 words or less, what can people expect from your play?

CM: Heat, sarcasm, nostalgia, escapism, and tension.CC: How to love strangers (i.e. family).

Reserve tickets for Movin’ On Up (Aug 22) here. More information about Staircase Theatre can be found here.

Kiss & Tell with titleThe idea for Kiss & Tell (2015) hit filmmaker Jackie Hoffart like a whack over the head–an emotional, repeated, and unavoidable whack.

Hoffart had been going through a tough breakup at the time of the film’s inception. “There was a place where me and that person had a beautiful moment, directly at the exit of my garage,” she told SAD Mag over coffee last week.“Every time I left my house I would be whacked over the head with this memory. The memory was actually beautiful, but was in such contrast to how I was feeling–I’d have to close my eyes sometimes when I was pulling into my alley.”

What might have led to a dented bumper instead inspired Hoffart to create what she calls her first “somewhat professional” film, landing her a slot in the Vancouver Queer Film Festival’s short film showcase The Coast is Queer. Though VQFF is Hoffart’s official premiere as a filmmaker, she is a practiced storyteller. In the past, she worked as SAD Mag’s editor-in-chief and now produces, edits and co-hosts its official podcast, SADCAST. “Storytelling,” she explains, “is a kind of impulse–one that can be manifested in several modes.”

At just five minutes in length, Kiss & Tell is a compact but powerful expression of that impulse. Pairing striking shots of Vancouver street corners with poetic voice over, Hoffart crafts her own ode to the feeling she discovered in her parking garage, that feeling of “walk[ing] past a memory”. She revisits the locations of eight intimate moments, each of which she shared with a different someone. The result is a kind of cinematographic map of the city that feels both highly personal and surprisingly universal; it places viewers as witnesses–and by definition, outsiders–to Hoffart’s memories, but simultaneously invites them to revisit their own.

Jackie Hoffart
Jackie Hoffart

“What I tried to do was really whittle down what was important for me about memories that I’d had in certain, specific spaces and accept them as they were,” she says. But rather than reenacting the eight moments exactly as they occurred, Hoffart wanted to capture each intersection as it was at the time of the filming. “Those places aren’t anything like they were at the time, but those memories remain intact. You encounter them whether it’s sunny or rainy or the middle of the night–you just hit them.”

To capture the timeless nature of those places, Hoffart filmed most locations on at least two different occasions, in two different lights. Through the collaboration of her director of photography, Jon Thomas, she incorporated different frame rates at different times. “[We wanted to create] an effect of things slowing down and speeding up,” she explains. Like memories themsel, each scene is “out of place and out of time, but then also anchored to that specific place and that specific time.” Kiss & Tell stays as true to those locations as possible.

The true power of Kiss & Tell lies not in what Hoffart captures on screen, but in what it evokes off screen. Each moment she shares suggests a backstory that the audience will never hear; each memory hints at future ones that the viewer will never see. Like a first kiss, Kiss & Tell leaves you moved, curious, and hungry for more.

 

Kiss & Tell is not yet available for public viewing, but you can follow Jackie Hoffart on Twitter or tune in to SADCAST, now (at least) monthly at sadcast.ca, for updates on when and where it’s playing next.

The Vancouver Queer Film Fest runs until August 23. Visit the festival website for tickets and showtimes.