With only $100 bucks in their pockets, a mini-DV camera and an unfinished poem, two Vancouver filmmakers landed their short film in North America’s most popular independent film festival. Co-Directors and Producers Justin Adam and Mike Hawley are the only Canadians in competition at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival, and their 10-minute short, “The Man with a DV Cam,” will be up against films submitted from across the U.S. The festival take place in Park City, Utah on January 11-19 and runs simultaneous to the Sundance Film Festival. “The Man with a DV Cam” plays on January 13th at 3 pm and is the closing film of the festival on the 16th at 8 pm. This year, festival organizers received 2,450 submissions, out of which 23 finalists were selected.
Vancouver actor James O’Sullivan plays Lindsay Farnsworth, a Director and one-man crew on a quest to share his artistic vision with the world.
A comedic “film poem,” “The Man with a DV Cam” pokes fun at the cliché stereotypes of the tortured artist. Taking the guerrilla filmmaking approach seriously, all shots in “The Man with a DV Cam” were improvised on location, and the entire production took shape without a traditional film script or shot list. All sound was done in post-production and no on location dialogue was used. Every phase of the post-production process took place in the comforts of the Directors’ bedrooms.
According to Adam, the DV format allowed creative freedoms during production and post-production and fit perfectly with the film’s improvisational nature. “The premise of the film is that Lindsay Farnsworth is shooting it on his own. That was virtually what we did, except myself and Mike were carefully blocking and setting-up compositions… DV allowed us to shoot hundreds of different scenarios and not be concerned about costs.” Adam is currently a Digital Film Instructor at the Center for Digital Imaging and Sound (CDIS), a Vancouver-based entertainment technology college. He was able to use the school’s equipment in the making of the film, including use of the school’s Sony VX1000 (NTSC DV) camera and post-production facilities for final output.
For more info, visit the Slamdance Film Festival web site, and check out scenes from The Man with a DV Cam on the CDIS website.
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