Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

Wow, that last post was a bit of a rant, wasn’t it?

Told myself I wasn’t going to let it come to that on this here little cordoned off section of the internet but I guess it got away from me last week.

And as I may have eluded to… Jeez, nearly four months ago (what?!) … Sometimes it does get away from me while waiting for the phone to ring or performing whatever mindless crap I have to perform in order to go about melding with the industry around me.

So I thought I might bring things home again to the general purpose of this venue and give you all a little TG state of the union. So, in the form of some atrocious run-on sentence, here goes:

All that optimistic shit from back in December has since evaporated like the snowbank outside my soon to be former apartment window. But that’s how it goes. Who am I to question it.

This month’s optimistic shit includes the following: One feature film project for which I have a dedicated producer now has a team of enthusiastic crew surrounding it and we’re poised and ready for some form of financing to wander by that we can seize it by the throat. A second feature film project which I wrote many years ago and which somehow clawed it’s way back onto the radar is making it’s way through the ranks of Hollywood producers right now so that’s kinda cool in a “hey look, I’m about to get molested by Hollywood producers” kind of way. And perhaps inspired by the latter proceeding or the fact that I’m soon going to be responsible for a mortgage I’ve started writing bigger. What’s writing bigger? It’s writing stuff that I know I can’t just pick up and shoot on my own (though I’ll probably continue to do that anyway) because the budget would be in the tens of millions of dollars. To that end I’ve just written a 37 page treatment for a blockbuster film about terrorism which has about as much chance of getting made as my name not appearing on an FBI watchlist for all the research I’ve been doing lately on bomb making. And last night I couldn’t sleep so I was up writing the pilot to a television series that apparently, like everything else at the moment, I’m writing on spec. Then there’s that thing I don’t want to tell you about yet and another thing that I’m really not ready to tell you about yet either.

Alright a hint. A hint because it’s good of you to still be coming here and reading this after all these years:

I’ve been drawing again. And these aren’t your daddy’s old Minushi drawings.

More soon.

The results are in! The 31st annual Genie Awards recently honoured achievements in Canadian cinema. This year our acclaimed actors included Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Lubna Azabal and Minnie Driver. Let’s hear it for these bright shining Canadian stars.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Dustin Hoffman’s Canadian? Sure! He’s from Thunder Bay. No. He’s not. None of them are.

And here’s the thing – I don’t care. I doesn’t matter. These folks may truly be deserving of the accolades. I wouldn’t know. As a Canadian filmmaker myself, I can rarely afford to go the cinema, let alone one that’s playing a Canadian film. Hell, America’s best actors are British, so it almost makes sense that Canada’s best actors are American. And British. And Belgian.

The joke here that you may not be aware of is that the chief government-run financiers and guilds in Canada have stringent safeguards against this exact thing from happening.

Here’s an embarrassing little tidbit about trying to get a movie financed: You have to give the prospective backer a cast wishlist. Literally a simple list of the biggest stars you can think of that remotely suit the roles in your script. It doesn’t matter if the proposed star really does suit the part or if you know of a super talented “unknown” actor who would be stellar in the role. You just have to give them names they can visualize on a poster. The movie could be 90 minutes of colour bars and tone as long as you have a name brand star on the poster.

Now I get it. I get it. I can only spread my artistic righteousness so thin. It’s the business part of “show business” that rules the day and until the guys with the deep pockets nut up and take some risks they’re going to stick with what they think works best. However, in Canada your wishlist normally means a wishlist of Canadian movie stars. And guess what? Even if they’re holding their Genie awards while bathing in maple syrup and watching hockey, Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman don’t qualify.

Would you like a brief overview of the entire Canadian star system of lead actors in the 20 to 30 year old age range? Here you go:

Ryan, the other Ryan, Rachelle and Ellen. Maybe Michael and Jay if you’re rocking a “quirky” comedy.

That’s it. That’s who you have to choose from unless you’re flexible about turning your male lead from a kid in his late twenties into either Christopher Plummer or Gordon Pinsent.

This isn’t me, incidentally. This isn’t my opinion or assessment of talent, it’s what I’ve been told by people with much shinier cars than me.

What’s the solution to the lack of a homegrown star system? I don’t know. I’m just a self righteous artist. I do know, however, that in times like these I do what all Canadians do. Like an acne-covered fat kid sitting at the fart table at lunch hour and watching the cool kids across the cafeteria, I look South to the Americans for answers. And the good news seems to be that star power is starting to fade in general. Perhaps before long we won’t be asked for cast wishlists at all. Perhaps eventually the names on the posters will be reserved for those who spend more than only four weeks on the film. And perhaps the range of those that do spend those four weeks acting their hearts out before the cameras can be expanded to include the multitude of “unknowns” who currently fall by the wayside.

Well, he’s a real estate agent but still… The elation of having someone else to speak for me is not only a load off my mind but also probably best for everyone involved.

I’ve made the case for agents in the past with regard to actors, but I never really thought about how such a representative would benefit me. After all, I’m quite self motivated, one might say entrepreneurial, I’ve gotten by alright on my own; but lately I’ve been able to glean a little bit of a different way of life. A life of comfortable – and lets face it, necessary – absenteeism.

I use to work at a video store. A what? (Sorry, video stores were these shops that existed at the turn of the century where you could rent movies – before everything was free to own on the internet.) Anyway, one of my favourite things about working at this store (other than that my abbreviated title was “Ass. Man.” for “Assistant Manager” – English language puns go relatively unnoticed here in predominantly French Canada) was the irate customer. The irate customer was like a bomb being tossed into my lap and my job was to diffuse it. The tools at my disposal were simple; free stuff. Free movie, free popcorn, free anything to shut this nut up and send them on their way. After all, these irate customers weren’t angry at me, they were angry at the store. I was merely an agent of said store. After I was done smoothing things over, the no-longer irate customer was able to continue their relationship with the store for years to come.

That’s a beautiful thing.

That’s why agents exist. Because in all things transactional there’s an inherent ugliness that can sometimes boil over into the irate. And in the entertainment business I think most people are already half way there to begin with. Keeping those fragile parties separated during such tender moments makes working together later bearable.

Of course if we could all just grow up and act like rational adults who can be held to account for our own actions then there might be less need for agents at all. But where’s the satisfying feeling of self-importance in that?

I’ve heard it said a few times. Filmmakers of all stripes from writers to actors, when asked in interviews what they would advise a young person interested in pursuing their vocation:

Don’t do it.

Find something else, they’ll caution. The industry is so tough, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

I’d hear this and I’d think to myself, what a terrible thing to say to someone just starting out. I mean… It’s completely true, but still, so cruel.

And yet we try. Whether young and doomed or not so young and meandering around hoping to get asked to dance, we try. We stick it out. Not in spite of the cautionary words from those that much farther along, but because we know no other way. See, we’ve heard the advice. We’ve always heard it. We’ve taken it to heart. But we’ve also considered the alternative. The something else. The anything else. And those that are able, they do follow another path. If not, they at least rack their brains trying to figure out: If not this, what?

But for some of us there is nothing else. And so we work. Whether it all amounts to something in the end or not, we work. Because what all those cautionary advisers should really be saying is, if you can do something else then do but if you can’t then get ready to work your ass off.

I sent an email to a friend of mine. A woman who’s been in the business more years of her life now than she hasn’t. She was soon expecting a baby but showed no signs of slowing down her hectic schedule. Her reply to my email came back within minutes. “I’m at the hospital, my water broke early.” She then went on to outline, in the next ten lines, her work schedule for the rest of the week.

You have to work your ass off. Because if you’re not, someone else is.

I often solicit feedback from anyone who’ll read, look at, listen to or watch my work. Over many years I’ve learned a fair bit about receiving this criticism. Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned – and this can be applied to opinions in general – is to consider the source.

What someone says about your work really does say more about them than it does about the work. Does that mean I should just toss out any opinion I don’t like? Not at all! It just means I have to consider the source, and in addition to that, ask the right questions.

General feedback is where you’re going to get most of the critic’s own personal tastes weighing into the mix. So asking specific questions is a good way to get at the information you need. Again, considering the source, I may ask someone if they understood a storyline; if it wasn’t too confusing; if a certain character came off as shady or down right evil; whether or not an ending was both satisfying and a surprise or not. By getting specific about the points in the work that I may be concerned with, I can skip notes like “I didn’t think it was that funny,” or “it was too gory”. Points like that may still be relevant but only when considering the source of the comments; humour is very subjective and “too gory” for a fan of romantic comedies is a little different than for a fan of horror films.

It can be very difficult to get close to anything resembling objective feedback, especially when dealing with acquaintances. And if all you’re looking for is a thumbs up or down on whether it’s “good” or not, then forget about honesty. The biggest struggle is often extracting that initial objective opinion from one’s self. Once we can do that then we can acknowledge and assess the weaknesses in our work and seek out the feedback that’s going to help remedy it.

And remember, if you’re soliciting feedback you’re asking for it. So suck it up and respect the person taking their time to contemplate what you’re giving them to contemplate. Negative feedback is still much more gratifying than no feedback at all.