Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

Short one this week.

Right off the bat, I’d like to say that my phone number will be changing as of May 1st. So if you’re reading this on, like, May 2nd or something, wondering why you can’t reach me anymore… That’s why.

I’m in the process of moving. It’s a big process. A lot of things come to light. Like packing free weights. They’re literally weights. That’s what they do. And while planning the displacement of all the heavy shit that it turns out you own, you start asking yourself; why the hell do I need dumbbells at all?

I’ve also become acutely aware of all things coming into our current place; knowing that I’ll soon have to move them out. It’s gotten to a point where I’m putting off buying just about anything until after the move. We’re out of toothpaste… Can we go another week without toothpaste? Godammit, if not I’ll just have to pack and move a whole new tube of toothpaste.

As you can see, I’ve also been working on my stand up comedy routine.

On the Once and Future Projects side of things there may be a lot going on but if that’s the case, nobody’s told me about it. A couple of my projects are currently being vied for by different parties but sadly (for me) none of these contenders are yet offering up any monetary incentives so as usual I am floating around in the world of spec. On the positive side, I will be able to have a garden at the new place and thus be able to grow my own food. Because that’s what it’s coming down to, gang. Subsistence living in order to continue to pursue a career in filmmaking (or whatever it is I do now!).

However, you do have a nice new header image to contemplate while I live out of boxes for the next little while. More on that soon…

I think most people in probably any creative field, maybe any field altogether, live in fear of the tap. The fear that someone, at some point, especially when we’re experiencing some measure of success is going to tap us on the shoulder and say, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s been some mistake. You’re not supposed to be here, this spot is actually for someone else.”

The more successful, I imagine, a person becomes, the more they must live in constant fear of the tap. And I don’t know if it’s a fear of responsibility or a fear of not being able to top one’s own success. Maybe it’s the fear of not being able to explain how you’ve attained the success at all.

In that way, perhaps it’s not fear at all but guilt. Guilt that what you do is somehow beyond the abilities of others who strive for the same thing. Guilt that by whatever natural selection these skills are yours whether you have honed them or not.

I’ve had some measure of success in some of my endeavours. Less in others. I’ve been praised, rewarded and flattered and with this I’ve long lived in fear of the tap. It’s what keeps us striving isn’t it? Hereditary talent or not, it keeps us training, trying, practicing and fighting to prove ourselves.

But prove ourselves to whom? I hadn’t considered that question much. And it’s recently become quite clear:

To the only person who cares about any of this, of course.

I wound up doing a lot of writing this past week. A lot of writing, a lot of pre-writing and a lot of talking about writing, as it were.

Something that came up a lot was character. Not surprising, as I was at the point of creating some new characters for a project. It got me thinking about a meeting I’d had not so long ago with some writers where I’d gleaned a bit of clarity on something that I’d never really thought about before.

We were discussing a fellow’s project for which he was writing a number of character profiles. The characters were all male, of roughly the same age and ethnicity. The main issue he was facing was that it was difficult for the reader to keep track of which character was which.

Even though the author had given them each very different temperaments, careers and motivations, their descriptions weren’t memorable one from the next. That’s when it dawned on me that in discussing each character we were discussing them on their own, separate from the others. Once we started talking about their relationships to one another the characters started to really take form and thus, take root in our memories.

I was reminded of a memory exercise I once learned in a psychology class. Memory by association. It works like a charm; I haven’t carried a grocery list to the store since. The exercise is simple, you associate an item (say you need to buy milk, eggs and a turnip at the grocery store) with another item that you pair through rhyming to a number.

Huh?

Okay, it goes like this: Start with number 1. Rhyme the number 1 with whatever comes to mind first: “One is a bun.” Now visualize your first item in association with the rhymed item. I picture a bun being dipped in a glass of milk; and milk is the item I’m trying to remember to buy at the grocery store. Same goes for 2. “Two is a shoe.” I visualize a shoe with an egg in it. Eggs are the second item I need to get from the grocery store. “Three is a tree.” I picture a tree shaped like a turnip, and so on.

Merely by associating one thing to another – as ridiculous as the visuals may be – I remember them both by constructing a more complex memory.

To a certain extent this memorability would probably come about in the story writing process just by having the characters interacting together, thereby forming some of those associations. But in the context of my fellow writer who was just trying to define his characters early on in the form of profiles, it was a great revelation. Also a good way to start his characters off on the right foot by giving them strong ties to one another.

And that grocery list thing is pretty top notch too.

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.