THE EVENTS

1. Filmmakers & Photographers Showcase
This event has always been a great hit in the past. Photographers and filmmakers will fill a beautiful small room in  a historical building in Gastown. Everyone is welcome to submit work (i.e. photographs, music videos, short films, experimental films, trailers etc). Each participant will be given the opportunity to show their work on an 8 foot screen and discuss the vision behind their project and take questions from the audience. Not everyone who attends needs to show their work, but it’s a very friendly environment so don’t be intimidated to show us what you’ve been working on.

To learn more about this event and to RSVP please visit the following page:
If you’re a filmmaker click here
If you’re a photographer click here

2. Actors Studio @ Romantic Child
For this event local actors will  fill a beautiful small room in  a historical building in Gastown. Actors will first be given a short lecture on audition strategies before breaking into small groups where we’ll workshop a few small scenes from some of the world’s best films and plays. At the end of this event all of the actors will crowd around a small stage where each group will perform in front of the other actors. This gives the entire group the opportunity to sit on the other side of the casting table and analyze performances the way a Casting Director would.

For more information on this event please sign up and RSVP here

I hope to see you all there!

In September we’re holding three events that members of our meetup groups are welcome to attend. We will be posting the new event information within the next few days on our meetup page.

For information on RSVP’ing for one of these events please visit the corresponding meetup page below:

Photographers Meetup
Filmmakers Meetup
Actors Meetup

However, in September we’re going to try something new. We’re going to hold our first online webinars. These new (free) online events can be found below:

FILMMAKER WEBINAR
Title: Increasing the production value of your independent films
Description: In this webinar we will discuss the importance of adding production value through design, cinematography, typography and color. Join us in a discussion on ways of achieving a high production standard on a limited budget.
Date / Time: Sunday August 29th at 6-8PM Pacific Time
To RSVP: email info@romanticchildstudios.com with “Filmmaker Webinar” in the subject line.

PHOTOGRAPHER WEBINAR
Title: Online exhibition: Show your creations
Description: In this online webinar we will showcase the work of independent photographers around Vancouver. Each photographer will present and discuss 5 of their photographs. Each photographer will then be given the opportunity to take questions from the other photographers in attendence.
Date / Time: Monday August 30th at 6-8PM Pacific Time
To RSVP: email info@romanticchildstudios.com with “Photography Webinar” in the subject line.

ACTOR WEBINAR
Title: Audition preparation: How to increase your chances of getting an audition.
Description: In this webinar actors will learn how to increase their chances of getting an audition. You will learn communicative strategies when submitting yourself for a role, audition tips and best practices and preparation strategies to help you feel confident and secure during the audition process.
Date / Time: Tuesday August 31st at 6-8PM Pacific Time
To RSVP: email info@romanticchildstudios.com with “Acting Webinar” in the subject line.

Casting for the role of our protagonist’s wife, Ana, was one of our biggest concerns because her character requires an actor who’s comfortable going deep and exploring the themes of manipulation, control and the possibilities of love.

Ana needs to have a particular thirst for life. A thirst that she uncompromisingly pursues. We want to see the poetry in her actions, relationships and behaviour. Someone who’s aware of the microscopic details of life. Someone who doesn’t simply exist in a functional sense of the word, but instead is aware of the patterns of the moon, psychological effects of color, the importance of romantic bliss, uncompromising love (or at least the pursuit towards this emotional potential). She’s an adventure seeker and someone who’s in love with the potential of the world.

Distortion of Truth

We had a mountain of submissions for the role of Ana and we called in roughly 30 actors to audition for us. All of the actors did a great job but some of the actors were slightly too sentimental with the part. Jane Campion’s quote kept running through my mind warning me against the dangers of sentiment.

“I hate sentiment, which I believe is a distortion of truth”.

What we were looking for is a much more genuine belief in the character’s dilemma. We were not looking for a calibration of an emotional outcome, but instead we wanted to see a deeper understanding of the experiences of the character.

Many of the candidates had incredibly strong auditions, but in the end it was Erika Walter who captivated us. Erika embodies everything we’re looking for in our character of Ana. We need an actor who can be  booth cold and bohemian, warm and elegant, flawed and confused, calculated and smart and beautiful in a natural and honest way.

As an actor exploring our character of Ana you’d be forced to explore the darker sides of your personality. Not darker in the cartoonish sense of the word. For example, it might be emotionally less risky for an actor to play the role of a sex worker, a thief or a scoundrel because they will likely have no experience with those modes of living. Therefore it will inevitably lead the actor down a path to create something completely fictitious.

Of course, even when exploring such obviously fabricated characters an actor will still use emotional replacements which will allow them to draw on their own personal history to bring something unique to the character, but in the end they can still hide behind the fictitious mask of the character. Something obviously not real, which can potentially make the role a little safer in the emotional sense of the word.

Of course there is a substantial amount of character development and research that needs to go into the characters mentioned above, but the roles wouldn’t be intimidatingly personal. The actor when playing one of the roles mentioned above would likely be judged on how well they absorb information and present it on screen. Essentially, it’s an emotional research project. On the other hand, an actor playing a role that has some truth in their own character will be judged on how much of themselves they expose. Our character of Ana is a risky role to play because we’re not giving Erika a mask to hind behind.

However, I believe that his is what makes our script “actor friendly”. It’s full of subtext and is a story in that will be both challenging and unusual to navigate through. This gives actors a lot of room to breathe life into the script and make it their own. My strong guess is this will be one of the most magical elements of making this film – Seeing actors pour their hearts and experiences into their character and relationships.

Essentially, with our character Ana we were looking for someone who we sensed would be brave enough to take emotional risks, both by themselves and with the other actors. Brave enough to expose their darker side on screen. We all have this side to us, but most of us would rather keep it secret, work on suppressing it or at least minimizing it. To ask an actor to explore this part of their personality on a deep level and then show it to the world is a lot for us to ask. However, it was a challenge that Erika was up to.

Audition Process

After her initial audition we called Erika in for a callback and had her read with 5 potential characters for our protagonist of Liam. We wanted to see the dynamic between Erika and the other potential male leads. The day of callbacks went incredibly well and at the end of the day my strong suspicion was that it was Leif and Erika that should be matched together. They both have a slightly more bohemian and tender look. The type of couple that wouldn’t live in a modern condo downtown, but in a cozy little loft somewhere in a more artistic part of a city.

The most important thing for us was keeping the relationships believable. There are a lot of magical moments in our script but we want to have a fim footing in reality and this is the relationship where we will achieve that. We wanted our characters to have a strong creative, imaginative and adventurous slant to their personalities.

Erika  minored in Theater studies from St Mary’s College in Alberta and she’s taken acting classes at Shoreline Studios in Vancouver as well as audition classes with Ty Olsson. She’s worked or lived in Tokyo, Thailand, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau, Paris, Milan and Rome to name only a few of the places.

What’s most impressive about Erika is her level of commitment to her craft. Seeing her work on her character backstory,  voice and relationships will undoubtedly prove advantageous.

Searching for a Cinematic Look

From the beginning of the audition process we knew we were looking for a couple that had a very cinematic look. It’s hard to accurately describe what that look is, but most film actors look very different than TV actors. On the one end of the spectrum you have the casting of arteur films which use hyper realistic actors to embody a generally hyper realistic world. On the other far end of the spectrum you have soap operas which use hyper unrealistic actors to portray a hyper unrealistic world. If I had to draw it out it would look something like this.

On the far right you have a focus on the physical in a very two dimensional way. It’s lowest common denominator. It’s a very sexualized sense of beauty. As we work our way left the sexualized component of the characters start being tamed. The characters start becoming a little more rough around the edges, more textured, conflicted, tortured and experienced. It’s this left end of the spectrum we we wanted to explore.

Erika falls within that spectrum beautifully. Of course, she’s a very pretty actress (just as Johnny Depp is a very handsome actor), but there is something interesting and poetic about their look and something richer about their personalities. Something that says “I’ve lived”.

Welcome aboard Erika!

Our Other Characters

1. Liam – Leif Nygaard
2. Young Liam – Coming soon
3. Ana – Erika Walter
4. Chunga – Coming soon
5. Marni – Coming soon
6. Jackson – Coming soon
7. Poldy – Coming soon
8. Giom – Coming soon
9. Paulo – Coming soon
10. Sara – Coming soon

We’ll be shooting a short teaser trailer for the film sometime in September which means besides working overtime on our script we’re also starting to plan our film’s first trailer.

Our story tackles the theme of love from a bit of a bizarre angle. Our trailer will therefore demand a unique narrative voice to help us establish that tone.At the same time we want to use the trailer to give a hint of the aesthetic we’re working towards. So get ready for a poetic narrative, off beat characters, high design and great locations.

The image above was taken by Lisa in her travels around South America.

Welcome aboard Lisa!

What we are looking for:

Feature length Scripts
Screenplays that can be shot on a budget between $10,000 – $50,000
Unique & compelling stories – We like magical, dark, unusual & bizarre

Submit your script to us by contacting us here

Photographs were taken by Julia Kozlov

Makeup: Timothy Hung
Producer: Damian Kuehn
Director: Sterling Pache

1. Terminal City (Hastings and Victoria) – Studio backlot with old buildings. Not open to the public. Worth calling to see if you can get in.

2. P.N.E: Boundry and Hastings. Not open to the public during off season.

3. Below Burrard St. Bridge (Falls Creek)

4. English Bay: Corner of Pacific Ave there are buildings with a lot of contrast and interesting colors

5. Granville Island Wall: Between the Keg and the parking lot there is a corrugated metal wall.

6. All side streets in Granville Island are interesting.

7. Pacific Spirits Park: Close to UBC. You can’t tell that you’re downtown. Beautiful lush forest.

8. Capilano Dam: Just off Cleveland Rd. Beautiful view of the mountain ranges.

9. 16th and Marine Dr. Turn left and then make your next right. Beautiful park with ocean view.

10. Burnaby: Deer Lake

11. Burnaby Art Gallery

12. 1st Ave and Renfrew: Houses are very interesting colors

13. 1st and Train Tracks. Old trains and interesting colors. Very industrial looking

14. Graffiti walls on the bridge around Hope Depot on Terminal Ave

15. Old Mattress Studio off Venables (near Parker): Old buildings, broken windows etc.

16. Burnaby: Barlett and Marine Park

17. Gastown

18. Army & Navy parking lot: Graffiti wall

19. 1st and Main: Over ramp there are interesting brick walls

20. White Rock and Promenade: Great walkway along beach and peer. Especially great at sunset

21. Grouse Grind

22. Squamish: Chief mountain climb

23. Horseshoe Bay where the ferries come in

24. Salmon Hatchery: Capilano

25. Lynn Canyon

26. Construction by the Olympic Village: False Creek. Second St. between Manitoba and Ontario there are many great old buildings.

27. Burnaby Village Museum: There is an old carousel and a beautiful little village.

28. Queen Elizabeth Park: 25th and Cambie. It’s very high up and there is a quarry.

29. UBC

30. Riverview (Coquitlam): Abandoned mental hospital

31. Prop Studio: Canam Importique

32. 2nd Arrows Bridge: Backlot studio.

33. Just to the right of the Seabus on the North Shore there are the skeletons of old shipyards.

34. BC Mining Museum: The inside is very interesting

35. Whytecliff Park: Interesting underwater sanctuary. This place is great for wildlife like eagles, sea lions, whales and otters.

36. Barnett Park: Remains of and old pulp and paper mill

37. Steveston: Area of Richmond: boutique type shops, cannery, very friendly.

Important: See BC Film’s commission “world of Looks” PDF here

For this part of the process I lay out the individual scenes on small cue cards in front of me and focus on making sure everything fits together well. This also gives me a chance to see a visual overview of how our story will unfold on a scene by scene basis. This also allows me an opportunity to see the film’s structure, pacing and placement of major dramatic beats. Of course it’s possible to find these story elements by reading the script, but I find this visual presentation helps me see the story more clearly.

This is our 7th month of script writing  and we’ve seen many changes along the way. Some of those changes have been dramatic and consequently we’ve lost some of our story’s logic along the way. Constructing a visual breakdown like this helps me realign our story so I know that there are no jarring scene transitions or errors in logic.

If you’re currently writing a script you’ll likely be using a software program that can create  digital cue cards for you. However, I personally feel that having physical cards in front of me helps me make changes much quicker and visualize my scenes more effectively. I’ve tried both approaches but I like the pen and paper approach much more.

A little while ago I found this place…