TIFF 2012

Hey everyone, it’s been a really long time since I’ve done any updates, but that’s for good (read: busy) reasons. Fall 2012 was busier than I expected it would be, and January/Feb brought about some great opportunities, so I’m just now doing some site updates.

Highlights:

DIRECTING:
-Attended TIFF as an industry delegate for 10 days
-Attended Women in the Director’s Chair Workshop at the Banff Centre in Nov and Jan/Feb – shot a scene from my feature film
-Wrote a feature film script

CINEMATOGRAPHY
-Shot a short film and photos with Canadian celebs Jane MacLean, Corey Sevier, Cristina Rosato, DJ Miguel and Daniel DiSanto
-Was cinematographer on short film Roomies
-Shot two music videos, for London Swagger and Gold Teeth
-Was cinematographer on a corporate film in January

I’ve updated the site with a new Cinematography section and will add more work as it becomes available.

WIDC 2013

Guy vs. Girl Shoot

Here are some videos and songs that get me all jazzed about things:

RUMBLESEAT
One of my fave short films/bravoFACTs ever…

SAM ROBERTS – BRIDGE TO NOWHERE
Some pretty cool comping in this. I like that Sam’s videos aren’t super slick/polished.

SAM ROBERTS – HARD ROAD
This video has pretty simple effects, and I do feel more could have been done with it, but an amazing song nonetheless.

AKIDO – LES HUMAINS
I’ve loved this video forever…

INCUBUS – MEGALOMANIAC
Directed by the one and only Floria Sigismondi…

QUEEN OF CLUBS

Last week was another busy week as I attended both the Female Eye Film Festival, and Breakthroughs Film Festival. Both events were huge successes… on Friday night, my short film Queen of Clubs played to a sold out crowd before the feature film Beat Down by director Deanne Foley. Beat Down drew a crowd and rightfully so – it’s a hilarious film about an eighteen year old girl who only wants to wrestle like her dad once did – but he’s doing everything he can to stop her from getting sucked into that world. It was an honor to screen before this film and alongside two other really great short films – Bill, Please! and Lady Bare Knuckles. It was a solid program overall.

On Saturday night I was at the inaugural Breakthroughs Film Festival, hosted by Octavia Films. They are a new not-for-profit in Toronto and focus on fostering female filmmakers under age 30. 12 short films, including my film BODYMAX screened that night, and they were all very strong. It was also great to see such a variety of genres and styles.

So, because it’s now done it’s festival run, I’m officially releasing Queen of Clubs online. We made this film in spring 2011 as part of the 24-hour Toronto Film Challenge.
I apologize for the long wait, but finally I can share it with you, an online audience!

If you haven’t already seen it, also check out BODYMAX which recently won first place at the 48-hour Toronto Film Challenge just recently.

Finally, a big thank you to both festivals for screening my films! Hosting a film festival of any size is no small feat, and it’s great to know there is so much support out there. I hope to do it again next year!

BODYMAX

EVENT PHOTOS
All photos by Lauren Hogarth.

Queen of Clubs TEASER from Christine Buijs on Vimeo.

Just a quick post for now – I’m about to head off and register for the Female Eye Film Festival which kicks off today in Toronto. Later this week one of my films will be screening and this is officially my first time in a film fest!

The Female Eye film fest celebrates films created by – yup you guessed it – female filmmakers. There are also lots of free panels. More info is on their website:

www.femaleeyefilmfestival.com

And in some interesting timing, the Breakthroughs Film Fest, which features short films directed by women under 30, is happening Saturday night! There really aren’t enough initiatives for women in this category who are emerging and building experience, so kudos to the Breakthroughs team for the work they’re doing.

I’d love it if you could come out and support me, and other young female filmmakers and check out the screenings! Here is all the info:

QUEEN OF CLUBS screening as part of the
CANADIAN FEATURE PRESENTATION
FEMALE EYE FILM FESTIVAL
FRIDAY JUNE 22nd
6:30pm – 8:30pm
Carlton Cinema
20 Carlton Street at Yonge
Tickets $10 at the door
Festival link: http://www.femaleeyefilmfestival.com/program-events/feff-program-2012/

BODYMAX screening as part of the
BREAKTHROUGHS FILM FESTIVAL
SATURDAY JUNE 23rd
7:30-11pm
The Projection Booth
1035 Gerrard Street East
Tickets $15 at the door
Our film will be in competition so it’s up for awards!
Festival link: http://www.octaviafilms.com/breakthroughs/

Finally, one last plug – this week I saw an amazing theatre production called The Loyalists put on by my friends over at Single Thread Theatre Company. Based on the War of 1812, audience members not only watch but actually participate in a story where the town of York (Toronto) has been occupied by American troops, and attempt to resist the occupation and take back their land. This production is unlike your usual sit in a theatre and watch show… you get to actually participate and are given tasks and can roam around and take in one of many possible storylines. It’s the type of show you can see more than once, and has been getting great reviews from audience members and critics. Check it out while you still have the chance – it will be an experience to remember. It closes Friday night. Tickets and info are on the Single Thread website:

www.singlethread.ca

Opening night

Jean-Marc Vallee Master Class

Well, it’s that time of year… summer has started, and the Worldwide Short Film Fest was hosted last week from June 5-10 here in Toronto. Last year I attended for the first time, took in as many screenings and symposium events as I could with my do-it-all combo pass, and came away inspired and encouraged. I had a great time so it only made sense to do it again!

Wow… what a fantastic event. My last five days have been jam packed with symposium events, screenings, and parties. I am exhausted today but it’s all been well worth it!

This year was a bit different, because I got to actually participate in the festival because my short film script was accepted into the Working Lab. I submitted to this in early May and just got the notice on May 18th that my script had been selected, and I was really excited. Along with two other writers, we sat down with industry mentor John Galway from the Harold Greenburg fund, and gave each other feedback. This was hugely valuable for me for many reasons… because I’ve been so busy with shooting and directing, I haven’t had many outlets lately for writing, so it was nice to just focus on the writing for once. It’s also always a great idea to test your script with actors or writers so that any holes or issues can be figured out before you spend lots of money on getting it made! I got lots of valuable feedback and also some inspiration and advice as far as getting it made, which is my next step.

The other thing that was different for me this year, was the fact that because of all this, I also got to upgrade my pass to a delegate pass – which meant all the same perks as before, but I also got to go to additional industry-only events that I couldn’t last year. I went to as many as I could and I also met a tonne of other filmmakers, many of them with films in the festival, and it was fantastic to make new friends. I strongly believe that filmmaking is collaborative right down to its core, and the more we can help each other out the better our films, and our community becomes. So, I’m really happy I could meet and talk to so many inspiring people.

Some other highlights of the festival… last Saturday around noon, filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee (C.R.A.Z.Y., The Young Victoria, Cafe de Flore) did a master class at the Isabel Bader Theatre. This was open to anyone and he shared his insights on filmmaking, music and passion and the floor was open to questions. I am a huge fan of Jean-Marc’s work so I was really happy to hear him speak, and also got to meet him afterwards.

The Industry Roundtables was a new idea which was very helpful – filmmakers signed up and had a “speed dating” session with short film distributors and buyers. We had 10 minutes per table and there were 8 tables. The most valuable thing about this was getting to actually meet in person and get some face time and exchange business cards directly. This was probably one of the most helpful symposium events for me so I really hope the WSFF offers this again in the future.

Screening wise, I didn’t fit in as much as I would have liked, but that’s also because it’s pretty much impossible to see and do everything even if you are well organized! When you accept that you can pick and choose. This year I also checked out the Scene Not Herd (Music Video) selection and Celebrity shorts. I didn’t get to see the Sci-fi: Out There program (which was a bummer) and really loved the Night Shift (horror and weird films, which I always love), although I wasn’t able to stay to the very end.

Some of my favorite films this year from the official selection (in no particular order) included:

Good Night, a story of two 14-year old girls who go out for a night on the town and act like 20-year olds. The subject matter was handled beautifully and what could be a creepy topic elicits sympathy in the viewer for the characters.

We’ll Become Oil, an insanely beautifully shot experimental film. I was drinking in every shot and wondering how it was pulled off.

The Last Bus, another fantastic stop-motion live action piece about animals trying to escape on a bus while being chased by hunters.

The Master Cleanse, hilarious look at what happens when a couple decide to go on a cleanse together, and cleanse more than just the food toxins from their body.

Remember Me My Ghost, (Honorable Mention for Best Doc Short) Beautiful black and white documentary about one single mother’s experience living in a Dublin slum.

Unravel, (winner of the audience choice award) another really interesting documentary about discarded western clothes being recycled in India, offers a really unique perspective on how westerners and our consumer culture are percieved. I love the many layers of this doc (no pun intended).

The Maker, (winner of best animated short) – Fantastic stop motion piece about a rabbit-like creature who has to renew himself before time runs out.

Dr. Breakfast, (Animation) hilarious and fast-paced cartoon about a guy trying to eat his breakfast, that hits you over the head with its randomness.

You can check out the full listing and award winners on the festival’s website: www.worldwideshortfilmfest.com

I strongly encourage you to check out some of these films whenever you can!

It was a pleasure to be a bigger part of the fest this year and since we’re now goin’ steady I look forward to doing it all over again next year.

the Night Shift

Opening night party

Awards picnic

I also want to share two awesome music videos that I’ve always loved, and for some reason have popped back into my head recently. Neither of them are new, but both are worth checking out if you haven’t already seen them!

I’m really excited for this week because the CFC’s Worldwide Short Film Festival kicks off on Tuesday night – and I’ll be workshopping my script on Wednesday. Then I’ll be back to school as I take in tonnes of symposium events and screenings!

MOONRISE KINGDOM TRAILER

KASABIAN – EMPIRE

THE KILLERS – WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG

TORONTO 48-HOUR FILM CHALLENGE:

If you missed BodyMax, it will be screening again in competition as part of the very first Breakthroughs Film Festival hosted by Octavia Films. The Breakthroughs Festival is aimed at showcasing short films by young women under 30 – and I think it’s great to finally have a niche festival for this. This screening will happen June 23rd.

In a nice bit of timing, my other short film from last year, Queen of Clubs, will be screening at the Female Eye Film Festival on June 22nd as part of the Canadian Shorts and Feature presentation. June is a big month for female-focused film festivals!

Finally, my last bit of good news is that I’ve been selected to participate in the Worldwide Short Film Festival’s WORKING LAB. I’m really excited about this one - I attended the Worldwide Short Film Fest last year and had a blast and learned a lot by going to the symposium events, so I’m really happy to actually get to be a part of the festival this year. Basically, it means that along with two other writers, I’ll have a new short film script workshopped by an industry mentor, John Galway from the Harold Greenburg Fund, who will help provide feedback and advice on pushing it forward to fruition. This is a private workshop event rather than a public reading, so unfortunately I can’t invite people along to watch, but I’ll share details on that project as it materializes more.

As a side note, if you’re an aspiring filmmaker I highly recommend getting the $170 do-it-all-combo pass for the WSFF which gets to admission to all symposium events and screenings – it’s really not that much money considering all the education you can get! Get it here: WSFF Box Office

And, if you’re a female filmmaker under 30 working on short film projects and need some funding, check out the initiatives by Octavia Films – we also recently got awarded a grant for another short film project called Second Honeymoon. They’re a new not-for-profit organization doing great things: Octavia Films

So without further ado, here are all the details for the upcoming screenings, I hope to see you there!

BODYMAX at the Breakthroughs Film Festival
Saturday June 23, 2012 from 7:30-11:00 PM
at The Projection Booth
1035 Gerard Street East
Tickets are $15 at the door or can be reserved in advance by emailing breakthroughsfestival@octaviafilms.com, or calling Brian Carver at 416-554-3639

There is also a Facebook Event link HERE

QUEEN OF CLUBS at the Female Eye Film Festival
FRIDAY JUNE 22nd
6:30PM – 8:30PM – CANADIAN SHORTS AND CANADIAN FEATURE PRESENTATION
Carlton Cinema
20 Carlton Street

Bill Please, dir. Jessica Han. When a bill comes between two friends, they go to lengths to make sure the other doesn’t get to pay for it. (TP, 2011, Comedy, 3 min. Burnaby, BC)

Queen of Clubs, dir. Christine Buijs. In a post-apocalyptic world, playing cards are used as insignias and characters scrounge together what they can to survive. A drifter arrives in an abandoned city and seeks vengeance for the death of his wife, family and tribe. (WP, Drama, 4 min, Toronto, ON)

Lady Bare Knuckles, dir. Madison Cawker. Elizabeth Stokes is a Regency girl who has to make the ultimate choice between a gentility marriage and her one great secret; she moonlights as a no holds barred bare-knuckle boxer. (WP, Drama,15 min, Courtice, ON)

FEATURE PRESENTATION: Beat Down, dir. Deanne Foley. Beat Down is an irreverent comedy about wrestling, family and following your dreams no matter how painful that can sometimes be. Fran Whiteway (Marthe Bernard, Republic of Doyle) is eighteen and a real firecracker. More than anything else, Fran dreams of becoming a professional wrestler. Her single-father Whitey (Robb Wells, Trailer Park Boys) is a former-pro (known as White Lightning in the ring) is dead set against Fran wrestling. Fran is determined though and when Whitey’s old rival Dark Thunder (Tony Nappo, Saw II) comes to town, she runs away to join his tour. Whitey is devastated and while he tries to get his daughter back, Fran learns the ropes of the wrestling game and of life itself. (WP, Drama, 01 hr : 32 min, St. John’s, NL)

It’s that time of year again…this past weekend, me and 9 teammates participated in the Toronto Film Challenge yet again. A few of us are now veterans of this challenge, but the majority of our team were new people, and I must say I’m pretty impressed with how well our team worked together. After running into so many problems that derailed us with Harvest, our 48-hour horror film last fall, we really learned from our mistakes, and planned much, much more effectively to minimize problems and make sure everything ran smoothly. We worked like clockwork and looking back, I feel like we pulled off a superhuman feat on Saturday by shooting at 5 locations (and lots of sub-locations within those), doing something like 100 setups, on an 18 hour long shoot, on a next-to-nothing budget. I’ve been on a variety of productions from large to small and I can definitely say I’ve never seen this many shot setups and locations within the space of one day.

Something else was new this time around, which was that it was my first ever shoot with the new Canon C300. Some of you who have been following this blog will know that I’ve had my eye on this camera for a while now, and have been dying to do a test shoot with it. Well, through the generosity of Canon Canada and Cinequip White, I was able to borrow the camera for the entire weekend to shoot this, and get a sense of what it’s actually like to shoot with. It’s one thing to read about a camera, or look at specs online, or pick it up and play with it for a few minutes at a show, but it’s another thing entirely to actually do a shoot with a camera and put it through it’s paces.

I had originally thought about doing a more planned shoot or test with the camera, but there is something very real life about a 48-hour Film Challenge – the fact that no matter how prepared you are, you always have to be ready for the unexpected; the fact that you have such limited resources; the fact that you have to just embrace your idea and go for it; the fact that you have to be able to work quickly and efficiently and make changes with no notice. Again, I’ve worked on a variety of shoots from extremely planned to totally haphazard, but in all of these experiences it’s important to be able to adapt quickly, and have a camera that can do the same. For these reasons, I felt pairing the C300 test shoot with the 48-hour film challenge would be a great “real world” test.

And the verdict is… I was incredibly happy with the camera and fell in love with how it operates. At first, it felt a bit foreign and I really need to familiarize myself with its controls and settings – but did this last Wednesday during a camera test. Once I figured out my essentials, I decided to customize some of the buttons (there are 15 customizable buttons – a great feature) to make some of the key shooting functions more accessible. One thing I love about this camera is the fact that you can pare it down to its simplest, or build it up to a full blown studio rig to suit your needs. I love that kind of versatility in a camera. I was pleased to see that I could set it up with my existing Redrock Micro parts and could see having a lot of configuration bliss with this thing. I did plan to use my Redrock Micro shoulder rig and follow focus, but found that with the number of setups we were doing, and need to work quickly and efficiently, it was actually easier to just operate it with only the handgrip and monitor/XLR and top handle attached. I left the focus gears on my lenses and did all my own focus pulling. Doing handheld with the camera isn’t a “traditional” way of doing things ergonomically (by putting the camera over your shoulder) but I was still able to have a nice comfortable grip and keep it steady, operating it more like a medium-format Hasselblad. Coming from a photography background, this felt very natural and comfortable to me. I do strongly believe that this is the direction cameras are going (smaller, lighter, and more versatile, but packed with the essential quality and features) so I see this new handheld operating as a sign of things to come. We also only had two batteries for the full shoot – but this was plenty as the battery life was quite long.

I used my own EF mount lenses for the shoot – love the fact that this camera has an EF mount! I use Canon’s L series lenses which are quite sharp, but the image quality on this camera, combined with my lenses, just made the detail so sharp and clear that I was blown away. I shot in Canon Log mode, which of course made the images very flat, but retained the maximum detail and dynamic range and this also blew me away. I did a quick test of the camera beforehand – shooting in both C-Log and EOS mode – pointing the camera at a high contrast scene (indoor to window, which usually gets blown out) and it retains WAY more detail in C-Log. My exposure settings were identical, the only thing that changed was the picture profile. This really blew me away … this camera sees far more like the human eye than your typical HD camera does. I’ve read much about its dynamic range but again, it was a different experience entirely to see it with my own eyes. While shooting inside a convenience store, I was able to see full detail outside the windows – pretty fantastic, and of course this also means way more leeway when colour grading.

UPDATE: I have also verified that Canon’s new cine lenses will be coming in both PL and EF mount. This is great news as it means we won’t be as restricted by having to choose between the EF or PL mount versions of the camera – we’ll still have the full versatility of regular EF lenses and will be able to reap the benefits of the new EF Cine Lenses. Canon has more in production and plans to release more of these.

We also shot sound direct into the camera via a shotgun boom mic, and the XLR inputs. In some cases we also used a second lav mic. We had the mics plugged into a mixer which my sound recordist could control levels from, and then the mixer plugged into the camera. This was a learning experience in itself as I’ve never done this kind of setup, so it was great to understand what was needed to pull this off. I found the audio quality quite good and was also pleased to see that the camera could also work with a regular mic like the Rode VideoMic Pro. Normally I would shoot dual-system audio, as that is still industry standard to maintain a higher quality sound recording, but due to the nature of the challenge and the extreme time constraint (48 hours to brainstorm, write, plan, shoot, edit, and deliver the film) we thought it best to shoot audio direct to the camera in order to avoid having to sync the footage manually, as we have had to do in the past, and it really ate into our editing time.
Our editor was relieved to be able to just dive right into editing the footage. Unfortunately I didn’t get to test out a timecode slate, but I love the fact that that is also an option.

I got some feedback from our editor on what it was like to work with the footage – here’s what he said about it:

“The C300 workflow was a dream. Straight from the camera into the Avid, editing immediately through AMA. The only hitch was was when I slowed 60fps to 24fps, but I had a work around. I suspect because I was working from a usb 2 drive which couldn’t handle the increased bandwidth requirements. And if I had transcoded to another format I suspect it would have worked better. System was a 2010 iMac i7 running Media Composer 5.0.”

I also sat with him through most of the colour grading and while it is one extra step to grade all the footage when you shoot in C-Log, it was again incredible to see just how much detail we were able to pull and work with.

Finally – the low light capabilities. Much has been written about this and there’s really nothing new to report here – I did a few tests at each ISO setting and felt I could easily get a very clean image up to 12,800 ISO. 16,000 and 20,000 ISO do have noise but as many others have stated, it’s a far more “filmic” and grain-type noise. The fact that this camera can shoot in such low light conditions is fantastic and meant I was able to seamlessly blend available light shooting with lit shots. Of course the cleanest shots were between around 320-850 ISO but it’s great to have the option to boost the sensitivity when needed, and especially when under such strict time constraints.

Oh, and the other thing I love about this camera is that it actually records full metadata for each of my shots – which is, in my opinion, an essential feature and something I always missed when shooting HD video on the DSLRs. All in all, I look forward to using this camera on other shoots as it has pretty much everything I look for in a camera (except for 4K resolution – but that’s what the C500 will have!)

I’ve put a few screen grabs below (not allowed to release the film online yet) and some behind the scenes photos.

In a nutshell – this film challenge was a fantastic experience. We had a great team whose energy and enthusiasm and dedication were evident. We were far more organized which led us to pull off the superhuman feat that was this film. I also got to stretch myself more as a director (in addition to stretching myself as a cinematographer) as I had more technical help and was able to focus more on the actors’ performances… and I directed a comedy. I’m extremely proud of my team and what we managed to pull off, and I’m very excited for the upcoming screening, which is happening Sunday May 6th at the Toronto Underground Cinema at 7pm.

SCREEN GRABS:

BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTOS:

I’m way overdue for a blog update – I think I need to hire a monkey to read my thoughts and write them down! Lots has been going on since my last post, and while I’ve had a few things I want to write about, sometimes when you get slammed it’s hard to find the time to post!

So, let’s start with a quick news update:

-Took a trip to Costa Rica for two weeks end of Feb/beginning of March. Mostly vacation, but of course took my camera along and shot a tonne of photos and had a tonne of fun! Had my first crack at wildlife photography, and lots of beautiful landscape opportunities as well. Rather than post a few photos here, you can check out my gallery of faves HERE
(Note: for those curious, prints and digital copies of these photos are available for sale)
Got me curious about bird photography as it’s tricky, and researched what kind of lenses are used by serious bird photographers!

-Got to check out the performance of Campbell House put on by my lovely friends at Single Thread Theatre Company – it was fantastic and a beautiful production and location as usual. Never before has Canadian History been so entertaining!

-Shot day 4 of 5 on a new music video I’ve been DPing, for a song called AEYIOU by the band INTF. It’s a remake of the original 80′s song, AEIOU (which is pretty hilarious by the way). We turned the basement of a house into a Club Scene with extras and the like. My job was to take this space and light it to give it that club feel – with limited equipment. I’m very proud of the results and very excited for the finished product – this video is shaping up to be a great one. Also made use of the Steadicam again. See behind the scenes pics below!

-Have been prepping for the upcoming Toronto Film Challenge this weekend – in which me and 9 other teammates will write, shoot, edit and deliver a short film, all within 48 hours. It will be an intense but fun weekend and I will of course do a separate post on that as soon as it’s done!

-And…. to go along with that last bit of news, I will be doing my first ever test shoot on the Canon C300 this weekend! I am very, very excited to finally use the camera I have been drooling over for months now… and get a chance to really see how it works in a pressured situation. So of course I will also share my impressions and reactions on working with this camera.

So this time… expect another update soon … see you out the other side!

Canon C300 Test for our shoot this weekend!

Just like with Much Ado About Nothing at Spadina House last fall, they will be using the entire house as their set and the audience will walk through and follow the actors as the scenes play out. Only this time, the story is based on Canadian historical figures like Judge Campbell and his wife Hannah, and William Lyon Mackenzie. The play is actually a fictional comedy but it’s all based around real events. I attended a reading of the script last fall and it’s pretty hilarious – so be sure to check it out if you can!

Here are two promo videos from the shoot – one short and one long.