Toronto - a brand new start

After all the shitty experience in Montreal, I desperately needed a change. After graduation, I found a job in Toronto as a software developer and I immediately moved.

48 Hour Film Project

A brand new start means everything has to start from zero again. That’s something I’m not afraid of.

Usually, we tend to wait for a great idea to appear in our brain like a bolt of lightning that strikes. But this rarely happens. In fact, if you keep waiting, thinking you might do it one day you might put it off forever. I know I’m exactly like that.

So I thought the best way to kickstart my film career in Toronto was to participate in a competition. A deadline is always the best motivator. After looking online, I found out about 48 Hour Film Project - in which you write, shoot, and edit a film in just two days. This is a competition that I recommend every filmmaker to practice with.

After my big failure in directing the last short film, I decided not to direct this one, instead, to be a producer and find some directors to work with so I could learn from them. 

20 days before the competition, I started building the team. The first person was Noah, just a guy I know from my church who is a writer. Then I started posting in the Facebook groups for all the key members. In Toronto, talented people are everywhere. The crew members joined one by one. As we were getting closer to the date, we were still missing a DP. I was getting a little bit anxious about that.

All of a sudden, one day a French guy from Paris reached out to me on Instagram. To this day, I don’t know how he found me. This guy, Ozzy, seems like a very sick videographer. So I asked straight ahead if he’d like to help out with our 48-hour film. He happily said yes and I couldn’t believe that he owned a RED V-Raptor camera (at least 40,000$ worth) and tons of other gear. When I gave him a call, I found out he was in Paris. So he actually flew over to Toronto 2 days before the shoot and brought in a studio of equipment on the day of.

Two weeks before the competition, I got a heavy cold which I later knew was Covid. With a heavy fever, my brain was getting delusional. I somehow still managed to arrange the shoot, all thanks to the things I learned in Montreal.

Even tho the product we made wasn’t the best, we definitely had lots of fun doing this competition. It made me very glad that some of the cast said “This was the safest environment I’d felt on a film set”. That meant a lot to me as I wanted to do a better job than how it was for Latte Art.

A Wild Drive

Brayden, one of the directors of the 48-hour film told me that he would like to participate in another competition soon afterward, with mainly the same team. I was still the producer on this one.

For this film, what I remembered most was not the filmmaking part.

We ended up choosing one of our crew member’s homes as the location. Apparently that was always the cheapest way. But that place was 40 km away from downtown Toronto where most of us live. 

We decided to rent a van - and it seemed like I was the only candidate who could be the driver. That was HUGE for me as had almost 0 driving experience after I got my license the year before. The 7 people who I needed to pick up had to entrust their lives to me. I don’t like that pressure but I still took the challenge. But of course, I didn’t tell them about the fact that I never drove before.

When we were about to go on the highway, people were already so scared of the experience in my car. The make-up artist stepped up and offered nicely if I didn’t mind her driving. I sensed a huge relief and willingness from the passengers. “Well, sure.”, I told the makeup artist unwillingly.