With a Golden Honu Award for Best Foreign Feature at the Big Island Film Festival for his film Patterson’s Wager, he’s eager to share the film with local audiences in just a few days at the Vancity Theatre.

O. Corbin Saleken gave us the lowdown on the film and his process in bringing it to life.

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Can you start by telling us a little bit about you?

I am a Vancouver-based filmmaker whose primary goal is to make engaging, original stories.   I love it when a movie surprises me, when it takes me somewhere I haven’t been before, so that’s the kind of experience I’m trying create for an audience.

How did you get started in the industry and who were some of your early inspirations?

I got my start making movies back in high school, using a VHS camera to make bad skits and horror movies with my brother.  I eventually went to film school at UBC.  After graduating, I just kept plugging away, making shorts and writing scripts, until eventually I decided to take the leap and make Patterson’s Wager, my first feature.
As far as early inspirations, I’m a kid of the eighties, so I was hugely inspired by filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, Robert Zemeckis, and James Cameron.

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You’re the writer and director of Patterson’s Wager. What can you tell us about the film and how you got started with it?

Patterson’s Wager is a romantic comedy with a dash of fantasy.  It’s about a man named Charles (played by Fred Ewanuick, from Corner Gas and Dan for Mayor) who discovers that he has the unpredictable ability to see two minutes into the future.   The key word here is “unpredictable.”  Charles can’t control his ability, nor does he know when it’s going to happen, which introduces a significant amount of uncertainty into both his life and the life of his girlfriend Audrey (played by Chelah Horsdal, from Hell on Wheels and, currently, The Man in the High Castle), to whom he wants to propose.

The impetus for the film was twofold.   The concept came to me when I was thinking about useless superpowers, and how I could introduce a single fantastical element into an otherwise grounded story.  I figured that being able to see a minute or so into the future wouldn’t really allow you to do anything spectacular, but it would be just enough to seriously complicate matters.  I then used this conceit to explore particular themes in which I’ve always been interested, these being trust, faith, and the nature of belief.

What should audiences expect from the film?

Audiences who see Patterson’s Wager should expect to see an original story that they haven’t seen before.  It’s a film that comes straight from my heart and mind, and its narrative journey is as unpredictable as are its main character’s “superpowers.”  Audiences can also expect to have an engaging, thoughtful, heart-warming experience that leaves them feeling particularly good when they exit the theatre.  At least, that’s my hope, and, judging from some of the comments I’ve received from audiences who’ve seen the film at festivals, it seems to be what a number of people have felt.

In your own personal experience, did the film change a lot from how you originally envisioned it during the writing process, or was it close to how you imagined it?

Honestly, the film turned out pretty much exactly as I envisioned it, to the point where many of the line readings were uncannily similar to what I’d imagined when I initially came up with the dialogue.   This only happened because people just kept saying “yes” to me whenever I approached them about contributing to the project.   This list of incredibly generous individuals includes the all-volunteer crew, the great cast, the people at William F. Whites and Sharpe Sound and Skylab, and everyone else who gave me access to a particular location, who loaned me or let me use a special prop, who carved me a special prop, and who sewed me a special costume.

What was the biggest challenge for you in making the film and how did you handle it?

The biggest challenge in making Patterson’s Wager was deciding to do it.  I knew that I was going to have to self-fund the movie if I wanted it to get made, which would require a huge financial and time commitment on my part.  I also knew that it would require access to a whole bunch of external resources, such as top-notch actors who’d have to be willing to work for next to nothing.  Despite these limitations, I was also determined that I didn’t want to go ahead if it meant I would have to compromise my intentions in any way.  If I couldn’t do it the right way, I didn’t want to do it all.

I handled this challenge by initially engaging three key people: my long-time friend and the movie’s eventual co-producer (and co-star) Alex Zahara, and the super talented cinematographers Nelson Talbot and Graham Talbot.  Once these guys were onboard, I started adding more and more people to the roster, until eventually I’d gained enough forward momentum that I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.

What advice would you have for other directors who want to direct their own screenplays?

To answer this, I shall quote a writing instructor I once had, who said that every writer’s problem is that they can’t see their screenplay’s biggest flaw.  Now, I don’t necessarily believe that every screenplay has a big flaw, but when you’re directing your own script it’s certainly easier to overlook, or simply be oblivious to, some problems that might be there.  For example, I will admit that there was one scene in Patterson’s Wager that I overwrote.  It was an important monologue with which I, the writer, was a little too enamoured.  Unfortunately, I, the director, hadn’t realized that I’d overwritten the scene, so we shot it the way it was written, which meant that it was eventually left to me, the editor, to fix it.

I guess, then, my advice is to be very critical of your own script, and make sure you ask for feedback from people you trust.  More importantly, make sure that you listen to this feedback.  If you truly understand the story you want to tell, you’ll be able to apply this feedback in ways that will make your project stronger.

What books and authors have been influential to you throughout your creative journey so far?

My two favourite authors, the ones who’ve had the biggest influence on the way I think about stories, are Jonathan Carroll and Neil Gaiman.  Both of these writers have a knack for creating original narratives, ones that often mix the fantastical with the quotidian, which is something I also like to do.   I’ve also been influenced by D.H. Lawrence, Iris Murdoch, Brian K. Vaughan, Alan Moore, and Roald Dahl. Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach and E.M. Forester’s A Passage to India are probably my two favourite books.

As for film-related books, I loved Hard Core Roadshow, which is about the making of what I consider to be the greatest Canadian film ever made, Hard Core Logo, as experienced by the movie’s screenwriter Noel Baker.  Another great book on filmmaking, and just life in general, is Herzog on Herzog.  During pre-production on Patterson’s Wager, I found Master Shots Vol 2: Shooting Great Dialogue Scenes to be particularly useful.

What other projects are you involved with at the moment?

My next project is probably going to be a short film that will also feature Fred Ewanuick. I’ve written a bunch of feature scripts, so I’m hoping that I can use Patterson’s Wager as a springboard to get one of them made. My dream project is called Peach Fest, it’s kind of the Canadian Dazed and Confused. I’ve got another one called The Dummy Factor, which is about a group of kids investigating a possible local connection to some child abductions.  I’ve also got an unconventional ghost story that I wrote with my cousin Ben Rollo.

Where can we find out more about you and Patterson’s Wager?

You can find more information about Patterson’s Wager at PattersonsWager.com, facebook.com/PattersonsWagermovie, and @PattersonsWager on Twitter.

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Thanks to O. Corbin Saleken for speaking with us!

Patterson’s Wager will screen at the Vancity Theatre on April 17th as part of the Canadian Film Week series and on April 20th for Canadian Film Day.

Tickets are available through VIFF.org

The post The Biz Interview: O. Corbin Saleken appeared first on Biz Books.

Film Details

Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

In theatres on November 16th, 2012.

TheLincolnMovie.com

Screening Details

Date: Monday, October 29th, 2012

Theatre: Esplanade 6 Cinemas (200 West Esplanade)

Time: 7pm

How to Enter

Please send an e-mail to info@bizbooks.net and please include this information:

• Your Name

• Your E-mail Address

• Your Phone Number

• “Lincoln Movie Contest” in the subject line

Winners will be selected at random and will be contacted by e-mail.

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon represents Richard’s first project for director Michael Bay and he graciously took the time out to discuss his work on the film and insights into the industry of being an art director in Hollywood.

What general elements in Transformers: Dark of the Moon can audiences pick out as being your work?

The streets of Chicago. The vast piles of debris… The physical elements were largely set in place by myself and [Nigel Phelps] on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. It’s a massive undertaking to take what is an intact, beautiful city and make it look like what it looks like in that movie.

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What would you say is the most challenging element of the film for you and what are you most proud of as far as what you accomplished on it?

Everybody contributes as much as they can and I’ve gotta say the overall look of the film is what I’d say I’m most proud of. It looks spectacular. It’s shot brilliantly by Amir (Mokri) and Michael (Bay). It’s pretty amazing to take a present-day world and make it look like that. The moon was the other thing. I didn’t have a huge hand in it. I helped develop the actual dust that was on the moon – the whole surface of the moon. It was a big deal.

What was the most difficult thing to put together?

I think the spacecraft. We were dealing with a world that was glimpsed at in the previous two films – the Autobot spacecraft that crashed on the moon. It was a complicated thing to visualize and pull together. I suppose Chernobyl. They go to the bowels of Chernobyl and what does that really look like? A handful of Russians know what that is and the rest of the world will never know. We’re not going to get there.

You’ve worked on so many film projects and they’ve ranged a lot as far as budget and genre. How does your approach change if you’re doing an action film like Transformers: Dark of the Moon vs. a drama like State of Play or a comedy like Tropic Thunder?

Transformers is a very fast-paced film where you want to do things in broad strokes because (Michael) Bay’s constantly cutting from one angle to another angle to a different angle and [with] his rhythm, you’ve gotta have something visual back there that helps the rhythm and doesn’t confuse the audience… In his films, the action itself is its own character. In say The Road to Perdition, that’s all about invoking the time and the place and Chicago in the 1930s. Oddly enough (it) was shot where Transformers was and it was a whole different approach there. It was muted colour and it was also to set a tone of The Depression and the feeling of what it was like in the ’30s. It was very desaturated, not because we were cutting it quickly, but because that was the feeling Sam Mendes was going for… Then there’s Tropic Thunder where it’s all about a mockumentary (of) what Hollywood does when they make movies… [Tropic Thunder] is more about having a good time, so you can be a lot looser and freer about things in a comedy.

You have a huge range of filmmakers that you’ve worked with – Michael Bay, Oliver Stone, The Coen Brothers, and Tim Burton to name a few. What are the keys to a successful collaboration between an art director and a film director in your experience?

It’s really tough. You’ve got to do a lot of listening. A director will come to you to help. Your job is to help realize their vision. It varies director to director. For instance, Tim (Burton) pretty darn well knows what he wants his films to look like and you’ve really got to pay attention to him and listen to what Tim’s doing and trying to do, then just help him get there with that as much as you possibly can, and just be patient and bring your skills to help him get what he’s after. Other directors like Ben Stiller – he’s not as visually-driven as someone like Tim, so you can [collaborate] a lot more with somebody like that… It’s all incumbent on someone like me to really pay attention and listen to what these guys are trying to do cause they’re the captain of the ship. To be a good crew member, you have to follow the captain.

What inspired you to get started to become an art director to begin with? What people or films influenced you the most?

A lot of European filmmakers, Bergman in particular. I’m Swedish by birth and his style of filmmaking is spectacular, in my opinion. There’s nobody today that even gets half close of that… Initially, I wanted to be an architect and found architecture to be a really closed loop – not that filmmaking isn’t, but as a designer and creator of architecture, you can really do a lot more in a hell of a lot quicker time in the film business. The palette’s so much bigger.

What advice would you give to people who are interested in working as an art director?

I would tell them to get a very, very, very strong background in graphics design and architecture. Proportion is the single most important thing a designer can have and there’s a hell of a lot of people out there that don’t know anything at all about proportions that are trying to be designers and it’s frustrating. It’s very key to the success of a look is proportion and balance and it’s taught best to graphics designers…. Study photography. It’s all about the look. Follow the world of photography – modern photography. Somebody like Annie Leibovitz, her images are striking. Or Mary Ellen Mark – she’s another brilliant, brilliant photographer. Just how they compose and what they do – and what’s that background doing because their eyes are following that background. Don’t for a second think that it’s just about the foreground. .. There’s a lot that goes into these films that the average person in the audience would never imagine.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is in theatres now.

The post The Biz Interview: Richard Johnson of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” appeared first on Biz Books.

They spoke with us about their visual contributions to Thor and the keys to making an unbelievable effects sequence feel believable for film audiences.

Can you start by giving us an overview of what creative elements you contributed to Thor through Legacy Effects and what will we see on-screen that’s yours?

Shane Mahan: We were asked to do the race called the Frost Giants – which was to help in the development of the design creation and also the actual practical physical make-ups, which are large, full-body prosthetic make-ups that are then enhanced sometimes to look larger – the digital magic where they kind of increase the guys or they replicate larger hordes of the [Frost] Giants – but for close-ups and interactive moments where the scale is correct, it’s practical physical effects on actors. And then we did a large-scale version of the Destroyer, which is Odin’s destruction tool. And then we did some frozen ice – encased frozen effects on Heimdall… I think we made five or six body replicas of Frost Giants that the actors could jump over and run around and things like that. But it was a massive undertaking. I think it was, all told, between stunts and hero make-ups, I think we had 18 to 20 characters to do on a daily basis.

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Can you talk about the collaborative process when you put these elements together? In other words, when we’re seeing it on screen, how much of the final vision is yours vs. Kenneth Branagh’s input vs. the original comic book and so forth?

Lindsay Macgowan: From a design standpoint, it took a long time to get to the final design of the [Frost] Giants. In the comics, the giants are actually huge – 20 feet tall. When we started to do the design work on it, that’s what we thought we were designing to, but as we got into it, we realized that – in production meetings – that they actually weren’t going to be that tall. They were only going to be 8 or 9 [feet] tall. So the design process was extremely long but you had to make sure that the Giants – that they still looked human and so that the audience could still sort of relate to [them].

Shane Mahan: I think it’s fair to say that we come from the world of fantasy and horror and things where our brains go a little further past the point of where we start from. It’s sort of a place of the extremes and so then we start reeling things back. I think it’s also interesting that I think the original concept – the early, early conversations with Marvel – was, even before we got on, that the [Frost] Giants would be purely digital creatures much like the (Na’vi) because Avatar had not come out yet at that point. There was talk about it, but Wes Sewell – the visual effects supervisor – really felt and Kenneth Branagh really felt that this is an actor’s piece, even though it’s a big swashbuckling fantasy epic, you’ve got classically-trained actors working against each other to make it feel real as a contrast. So they felt having actors in make-ups were essential to make it believable. We actually took a lot of pride in the fact that we could help on that level… It’s everyone’s vision. I mean, the great thing about Marvel is it’s a very roundtable, knights of the realm kind of feeling there. It really is. You’re not being dictated to. You’re being asked to bring what you know and Kenneth Branagh’s great. Kevin Feige and all the producers really listen and understand what the elements are, so in the end, I think it’s a collaboration of about 15 people that that’s the work you’re seeing on-screen.

You touched on the idea of giving things a realistic feel. For any visual effects sequence, what are the keys in making it look believable to a viewer?

Lindsay Macgowan: Just try to ground it in reality as much as you can. We try to bring as much physical stuff to the sets, so that when it goes to the digital side of production, they have something to have to match to… We always try and work together with visual effects. I guess that’s really the main thing is try and get both worlds working together, so you have a seamless effect that the audience aren’t too distracted.

Shane Mahan: We’re asked to do things that are very extraordinary. So it’s like it seems commonplace to guys like us, Lindsay, our other partners and all the artists who work here because that’s what we do every day. But we have to take into consideration the audience who is going to go in and be asked to believe the world of Jotunheim exists and that these characters are real. At some point, you want it to be as organic as it can be within that parameter so that people can just sit back and enjoy the movie and not think about a distraction like an effect, you know what I mean? You should just kind of buy into it and enjoy it and maybe think about it after the fact.

Our thanks to Shane Mahan and Lindsay Macgowan for speaking with us.

The post The Biz Interview: Shane Mahan and Lindsay Macgowan of Legacy Effects for Thor appeared first on Biz Books.