Burns and Coyne had no clue as to how a film is made, but they didn't let that stop them. They just did it, with a little help from their artsy friends. Positive response to what they achieved lead to another big idea. The veteran stage actresses set up a film production workshop to encourage young Canadian women filmmakers to make their own pithy 8 minute slices of life. Burns’ husband Paul Gross and Guy Maddin mentored the filmmakers and everyone learned to make movies one step at a time. A year later the anthology Little Films about Big Moments includes ten short films, all done on a shoestring. schedule.
“Everyone would have to make a short film about seminal moments in their lives or when the penny drops and you make a decision that just changes things”, says Burns. “They had an hour of film and a day to make it, everyone was involved in the process and everyone had an interesting experience. With one day to shoot you have to be great. You learn thing how amazingly organised you have to be even though some seem to be winging it. The really good never are; only if you are prepared can you wing it.”
A Little Help from Close Friends
Gross was one of many veteran filmmakers to lend a hand. Good thing he was there to help. Burns had no prior experience producing movies. “Mentors gave us practical advice as talked us through our films,” she says. “Paul made himself available to do shot lists for half of us. He was really wonderful taking apart the shot lists and being available for us. He would say, “What do you want to do here?” and figure out the goal of the scene. He’d give us choices and help us see it from a practical point of view. He also came in at the end and did technical work.”
As rewarding as the experience producing Little Films about Big Moments has been, Burns has not turned her back on acting. “I did put my theatre career on hold and for four months I couldn’t do anything. I’m returning to the stage to do two shows for 2010, the new George Walker play at Factory Theatre “And So It Goes”. It’s so wonderful and I am so excited. The next one is a play at the Tarragon Extra Space “A Boy Called Newfoundland”. It’s very sweet and I wanted to do it right away. It got so busy! In the middle of producing this short film project and that was unwieldy, I decided I was never going to do it again. And now, I’m looking at three projects to produce all of a sudden!”
The Translator Transforms Filmmaker
Burns oversaw the making of Sonya Di Rienzo’s first short film The Translator, which premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival's Short Cuts 2 Programme. It concerns a bored young woman who types English dialogue over foreign subtitled films, who is given to daydreaming about the lives of people onscreen and in real life. She subtitles fellow commuters on the subway ride home and gives them the lives she thinks they should have. The film is comic, whistful and evocative.
“I started from the idea of someone romanticising what people are thinking” says first time filmmaker Di Rienzo, “ something I think filmmakers do and anyone who tells a story, in public places. What are they doing where are they going with their lives? Storytellers do it anyway. We had some guidelines but we only had one day to shoot it. We shot as much as we could and finished early in the morning, 4 am. Once we got all the footage back it became a new story. The story told itself. Once we got the footage the film it told me what it wanted to be.”
“I definitely caught the directing bug. One of the most amazing things is you get to work with all the departments and the whole village and I love that. You have an idea and you find these collaborators who make it better.”
The Translator will screen on TMN and Movie Central in Jan 2010 and soon after online.
