If it sounds insane, that’s because it is: Shoot and lock a short film in eight days.
Most filmmakers choose to do the same over the span of a few months, sometimes even a year. Why would anyone want to commit to making a movie in just eight days?
And yet, every year, that’s what the Crazy8s teams do: They shoot their shorts over three long, nerve-wracking days, and spend another five days in frantic post-production sessions, and then – after a brief period of recovery – they screen their completed masterpieces to a packed house of industry insiders and Crazy8s fans at a hot-ticket gala.
To even get to the first day of filming, these filmmakers had to have been selected from dozens of their peers. It’s an honour to be chosen; they’re eager to create under these nutty conditions.
A big part of the Crazy8s appeal is the special kind of magic that occurs when you’re creating work under the gun, says Paul Armstrong, executive director of Crazy8s.
“I think any time you have something that you’re under the gun with, it squeezes all of your creativity out. There’s no chance for second thought,” says Armstrong. “You just go for it, and squeeze it all out, and usually the results are something great, because there’s no hesitation.”
There are other perks to shooting a short film as part of Crazy8s. Winning teams receive $1000 cash, in-kind assistance from industry sponsors, and workshops in directing and cinematography from top-tier professionals.
“There’s months of preparation that goes into each film,” says Armstrong. “They’re crafted in pre-production, as well as production and post-production, so there’s time to plan. That’s probably why things go so well, because they do a lot of planning in advance.”
To date, 97 films have been created in the Crazy8s pressure cooker. Many have been sold to the CBC, or gone on to play at prestigious festivals: 2013’s sweeping film noir Under the Bridge of Fear, and last year’s The Twisted Slipper – which put a drag queen spin on the Cinderella story – both played the Cannes Court Metrage in France.
And 2014’s Bed Bugs: A Musical Love Story (which, with puppets and an original score, was ambitious even by Crazy8s standards) walked away with three Leo Awards in 2015.
“People seem to want to outdo the previous year in terms of production values, but they all seem to pull it off every time, no matter how complex the story is to shoot,” says Armstrong. “We’ve had no failures.”
A selection of recent Crazy8s films can be screened on the organization’s web site.
Back to 2016’s crop of films. Armstrong is excited about this year’s filming locations, which include the $15,000-a-night suite at the Bayshore Hotel (“We’re filming in this massive suite the size of a house”), Hycroft Manor in Shaughnessy, and Jamestown, the specially built “cowboy town” – a favourite of Westerns and period dramas – located out in Langley.
But it wasn’t all five-star suites and mansions for this year’s filmmakers. In addition to the usual Crazy8s challenges (ie, limited sleep; limited time), they faced a new challenge, one that’s directly related to the surge in activity on the service side of the industry.
“A lot of the teams had trouble finding crew and equipment just because Vancouver is the busiest it’s been in years, so it was tough,” says Armstrong.
Applications were also down – 179, a slight tumble from a record 189 in 2015 – for the same reason. “A lot of people said they were busy this year working in the industry,” says Armstrong. “People are so busy working on set so they don’t have as much time.”
You can bet the community will be out in force when the six films – which represent a range of genres, including sci-fi, rom-com, period drama, and horror – screen this weekend at a gala hosted by actress-comedienne Ellie Harvie.
Those six films are: A Family of Ghosts (director/writer Shannon Kohli); Grocery Store Action Movie (director Matthew Campbell, writers Peter Carlone and Chris Wilson); I Love You So Much It’s Killing Them (director/writer Joel Ashton McCarthy, writer Mike Doaga); Iteration 1 (director/writer Jesse Lupini, writer Lucas Kavanagh); Meet Cute (director/writer Patrick Currie, writer Brendee Green); and Trying (director/writer Shauna Johannesen).
“They get the whole film community to watch their films, and hopefully this will be the stepping-stone to other projects,” says Armstrong. “That’s part of the idea of Crazy8s is it’s their entry into the local film industry so that they can start to take their place in it. A lot of them have already, but this is a way for them to formalize it.”
The Crazy8s gala takes place at the Centre for the Performing Arts on Feb. 27; an after-party will follow at Science World. Tickets and info at Crazy8s.film.
