Some of the most impactful moments in Songs She Wrote About People She Knows, a locally produced indie comedy, occur when Carol – the morose and quirky “she” of the title – croons the startling, truth-telling compositions she leaves as voicemails for estranged friends and relatives.
The moments are powerful because they’re uncomfortably intimate: staring down the barrel of the camera while recording a song for her boss entitled “Asshole Dave,” Carol (portrayed by Arabella Bushnell) makes the viewer a co-conspirator in her twisted attempt at musical therapy.
These moments helped make the hilarious Kris Elgstrand-directed feature film a critical darling of the 2014 Vancouver International Film Festival, and largely function as they do thanks to the ingenuity of director of photography Amy Belling.
In many ways, Belling was Bushnell’s original co-conspirator. Whenever Bushnell’s eyes were boring into the audience, she was actually singing directly into a super 16 camera that Belling was holding mere inches from her face.
“If it’s handheld, and you’re working with the cast, it’s like a dance,” says Belling during a recent interview. “It’s so personal, and so organic, and so wonderful.”
It’s a type of filmmaking sensibility that Belling – a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s film production program and the American Film Institute – has put to use on several features over the last three years, including the critically acclaimed Stress Position, Highway of Tears, two 2014 VIFF features (Two 4 One and Songs She Wrote About People She Knows), as well as numerous shorts and television series.
Belling is a rising star in a segment of the industry in which women are vastly underrepresented.
Fewer than 2 per cent of working cinematographers are women. In the States, there are only 11 active women in the American Society of Cinematographers; the stats aren’t any better north of the border.
Still, Belling – who was recently accepted into IATSE Local 669 – says that nearly half of the cold call inquiries she receives come from filmmakers who’re intentionally looking for a female cinematographer.
“Sometimes if there’s a female lead and there’s going to be nudity scenarios or intense scenes, maybe the actress would be more comfortable with a female behind the lens versus a male,” says Belling, who divides her time between Vancouver and Los Angeles.
“I don’t love when I get an email for a job interview that starts out with, ‘We’re looking for a female cinematographer’,” Belling continues. “How about you’re just looking for a talented cinematographer, and I either fit the bill or I don’t fit the bill?”
Belling had one of the most transformative experiences of her life and career on Highway of Tears, the eye-opening documentary about women who have gone missing or been murdered along a 724-kilometre stretch of highway in northern BC.
“The documentary says that 600 women nationally, across Canada, have been declared missing. That was in 2014. By the time we premiered at the Women in Film Festival, that went up to 1200,” says Belling. “I’m so thrilled by how far the film has actually pushed the issue of doing a national inquiry into the murdered and missing. I feel privileged to be a part of [this film], and for people to trust us with their stories, too.”
Belling is one of the few DPs in the business who’ll often juggle her DP responsibilities with a producer’s lengthy and ongoing to-do list. “I’m a director of photography, and I’m also a producer, and it’s super unorthodox,” says Belling.
She wore both hats on Songs She Wrote About People She Knows, which was shot over 15 days in 2014.
Filming took place in Los Angeles and Vancouver – at 27 different locations.
“It blows my mind how much we actually accomplished, because it was fast,” marvels Belling.
She shot the film using a handheld camera package she rented from Clairmont Camera – one which staff had to dust off because it had been years since anybody had rented it.
“I learned with film, and I was originally inspired by the graininess and the texture of film, so it’s what I’ve endeavored to always create,” says Belling. “It just made so much sense thematically to shoot it [Songs She Wrote] on film, and it also helped with the scope of the project.”
• Songs She Wrote About People She Knows screens April 25-30 at Vancity Theatre. The April 25 screening includes a cabaret and open mic; the April 27 features a musical performance. The April 29 screening will run as part of VIFF's special National Canadian Film Day program. Details at VIFF.org.
Here’s the official synopsis of Songs She Wrote About People She Knows from the VIFF website:
What would happen if you could take your quiet desperation and channel it into song? Office drudge Carol (Arabella Bushnell) does just that, and what starts as an exercise in therapeutic self-expression turns out to have serious drawbacks. In short order she is visited by the cops, fired, and worst of all, becomes the fixation of her ex-boss, "Asshole Dave" (Brad Dryborough), who quits to pursue his own rock-n-roll dream, and insists on Carol coming along.
The two misfits soon find themselves collaborating with a strange record producer, Silent G (real name: Doug, played by Ross Smith of Edmonton Block Heater), whose work inspires Carol to confront her biggest emotional obstacle: her mother. Unable to find satisfaction, Carol pours her entire severance into producing a full album that she shares with her “friends” at a special LP release party... Kris Elgstrand (Doppelgänger Paul) directs this twisted take on interpersonal communication, a tale that ends up as nothing less than a musical romp through Carol’s psyche.
