Synopsis:
Images of life from birth to death. Shows stages of life from being a child to growing as an adult to having your own kids.
Dedication:
This film was dedicated to the Director's Grandfather LEO TOFFOLO who died in early 2005 at the age of 90 and was the inspiration for making the film.
Writer/Director - MATTHEW TOFFOLO
Sound Designer - JARED NEAL
Picture Editor - CRAIG ANDERSON
Director of Photographer - CAROLINE BRANDES
WATCH FILM:
Sunday 26 October 2014
Saturday 25 October 2014
Part 3 - Production. Shooting the Film
If only every shooting day could be like this one. A crew of two people without a worry about sound. A paradise for any filmmaker.
On an early Sunday winter morning, I hopped in my car and picked up Caroline the Cinematographer and we were on our way to grab the images needed for this project. Because this film was a bit personal for me (I guess all of them are), I decided that we were going to drive down from Toronto to my home town of Niagara Falls to grab most of the shots.
Another reason was because I figured out how we could accomplish the Reflection of Life stage in the film and the images we needed:
- Streaming water to symbolize life's forward motion no matter how hard we try to hit pause or go backwards. It's a stream that won't stop, just like life.
- Fog to symbolize our regrets, confusions, and attempts to understand things.
- And the sky to symbolize a spiritual question. What is this life all about anyway? People tend to look upwards when we think about these things, so I figured that was a good way to end the sequence before we got to death.
In hindsight, those images are a little arty and subjective in terms of how people feel when they see them, but I figured I could get away with it because it occurred at the end of the film and if people weren't hooked in by now, then there weren't going to be hooked anyway. Plus, I knew how we could grab those shots. The place that symbolizes Canada and of course my home town - the actual Niagara Falls. I knew those falls like the back of my hand as I spent an entire summer as a parking lot attendant when I was a teenager working literally 50 feet away from it. It was looking at me everyday for almost 4 months, so I knew where to grab the streaming water and when the fog was going to come up at the right time for us to grab it with the limitations of using a 8mm camera.
Before the drive we grabbed some Toronto shots. We walked into a church I had an eye on in the east end of Toronto at 8am on Sunday. I talked to the actual minister who was working on his sermon for the afternoon, gave him $20 for the basket and asked him if we can take a few shots of his pretty church for our project. He said of course, signed a waiver and we were in and out in 20 minutes. Caroline had this 8mm camera thing really figured out as she spend a week with it and did some test shots. So it gave us the ability to not linger too long at a particular location.
Then we went to downtown Toronto to take the outside office shots. Downtown in big cities on the weekends are awesome sites because no one is around, especially in the morning. It's amazing how much the energy changes when you're there during this time compared to the usual craziness during the week.
After that, was the cemetery. A creepy place to go to in the winter time as the air is cool and so is everything else.
Next stop was my old neighborhood growing up in Niagara Falls. I wanted to start the film here because the street was such a typical suburban middle-class existence. Going there kind of freaked me out because my parents moved us to a new home when I was 15 and I hadn't been back since. So many memories popped up - mostly good. When we sat outside the home I grew up in contemplating shooting the door and backyard entrance shots there, a lady from the home popped out from the front door asking us who we were. I told her that I used to live in the house. Skeptical at first, I confirmed my story to her by pointing out the names of many of her neighbors on the street as most of them, even surprisingly to me, were still living there.
She said "Cool". As she completely changed her demeanor from cold to open and giving.
"Why don't you come inside and take a look at the place."
This was actually a secret agenda of mine as I was dying to see my old childhood home. When I walked into the house that I spend the first 15 years of my life in, I was struck how small it was in comparison to my memories. I noticed a lot of things were exactly the same, as other things were entirely different such us how they arranged the furniture. It got to be too much for me as too many moments of my childhood rushed to my heart while I was trying to make small talk with the husband and daughter currently living in the home. I got out quick and we continued our shoot.
We picked up all the childhood shots for the film, plus at lunch I figured out how we could do the virginity scene. I figured it didn't matter whatever we were going to shoot because the sound was really going to tell the story. So why not have it happen in a car! I assumed that's where the event would happen for many lusty teenagers because it was really the only place where they could be alone together.
At the end of the shoot I had my film with the exception of the interior office and school shots. But I already knew where we were going to do that: Humber College in Toronto. I was producing this crazy over-budget World War I short film and the editors of the piece were graduates of the program. Their professor gave them this empty office space to start up a post production company (talk about bad timing). The space was giant and completely empty missus their editing equipment settled in the far corner of the office. When I went in there to check out a current edit on the film, I couldn't believe my luck. I really had no idea what else I was going to do to grab these shots. I did have a backup plan, but that was a bit of a covert operation. Good thing I didn't have to do it.
The next day we drove over to the school and picked up my favorite shots of the film. I liked the way the camera moves in those shots. Then we walked around campus and grabbed the rest of the school section shots we needed.
We were officially completed with production. Now all I was hoping for was if the shots turned out. That was the world we lived in back in 2005 when you shot on film. You didn't see what you shot until the film was processed at least 2 days later. So you worried for awhile and thought the worst possible things. You had hope, but other than that you prayed that you didn't completely waste your day or money shooting it. There are too many horror stories of friends/colleagues that you heard that forced you to be in a bit of panic.
- Matthew Toffolo
On an early Sunday winter morning, I hopped in my car and picked up Caroline the Cinematographer and we were on our way to grab the images needed for this project. Because this film was a bit personal for me (I guess all of them are), I decided that we were going to drive down from Toronto to my home town of Niagara Falls to grab most of the shots.
Another reason was because I figured out how we could accomplish the Reflection of Life stage in the film and the images we needed:
- Streaming water to symbolize life's forward motion no matter how hard we try to hit pause or go backwards. It's a stream that won't stop, just like life.
- Fog to symbolize our regrets, confusions, and attempts to understand things.
- And the sky to symbolize a spiritual question. What is this life all about anyway? People tend to look upwards when we think about these things, so I figured that was a good way to end the sequence before we got to death.
In hindsight, those images are a little arty and subjective in terms of how people feel when they see them, but I figured I could get away with it because it occurred at the end of the film and if people weren't hooked in by now, then there weren't going to be hooked anyway. Plus, I knew how we could grab those shots. The place that symbolizes Canada and of course my home town - the actual Niagara Falls. I knew those falls like the back of my hand as I spent an entire summer as a parking lot attendant when I was a teenager working literally 50 feet away from it. It was looking at me everyday for almost 4 months, so I knew where to grab the streaming water and when the fog was going to come up at the right time for us to grab it with the limitations of using a 8mm camera.
Before the drive we grabbed some Toronto shots. We walked into a church I had an eye on in the east end of Toronto at 8am on Sunday. I talked to the actual minister who was working on his sermon for the afternoon, gave him $20 for the basket and asked him if we can take a few shots of his pretty church for our project. He said of course, signed a waiver and we were in and out in 20 minutes. Caroline had this 8mm camera thing really figured out as she spend a week with it and did some test shots. So it gave us the ability to not linger too long at a particular location.
Then we went to downtown Toronto to take the outside office shots. Downtown in big cities on the weekends are awesome sites because no one is around, especially in the morning. It's amazing how much the energy changes when you're there during this time compared to the usual craziness during the week.
After that, was the cemetery. A creepy place to go to in the winter time as the air is cool and so is everything else.
Next stop was my old neighborhood growing up in Niagara Falls. I wanted to start the film here because the street was such a typical suburban middle-class existence. Going there kind of freaked me out because my parents moved us to a new home when I was 15 and I hadn't been back since. So many memories popped up - mostly good. When we sat outside the home I grew up in contemplating shooting the door and backyard entrance shots there, a lady from the home popped out from the front door asking us who we were. I told her that I used to live in the house. Skeptical at first, I confirmed my story to her by pointing out the names of many of her neighbors on the street as most of them, even surprisingly to me, were still living there.
She said "Cool". As she completely changed her demeanor from cold to open and giving.
"Why don't you come inside and take a look at the place."
This was actually a secret agenda of mine as I was dying to see my old childhood home. When I walked into the house that I spend the first 15 years of my life in, I was struck how small it was in comparison to my memories. I noticed a lot of things were exactly the same, as other things were entirely different such us how they arranged the furniture. It got to be too much for me as too many moments of my childhood rushed to my heart while I was trying to make small talk with the husband and daughter currently living in the home. I got out quick and we continued our shoot.
We picked up all the childhood shots for the film, plus at lunch I figured out how we could do the virginity scene. I figured it didn't matter whatever we were going to shoot because the sound was really going to tell the story. So why not have it happen in a car! I assumed that's where the event would happen for many lusty teenagers because it was really the only place where they could be alone together.
At the end of the shoot I had my film with the exception of the interior office and school shots. But I already knew where we were going to do that: Humber College in Toronto. I was producing this crazy over-budget World War I short film and the editors of the piece were graduates of the program. Their professor gave them this empty office space to start up a post production company (talk about bad timing). The space was giant and completely empty missus their editing equipment settled in the far corner of the office. When I went in there to check out a current edit on the film, I couldn't believe my luck. I really had no idea what else I was going to do to grab these shots. I did have a backup plan, but that was a bit of a covert operation. Good thing I didn't have to do it.
The next day we drove over to the school and picked up my favorite shots of the film. I liked the way the camera moves in those shots. Then we walked around campus and grabbed the rest of the school section shots we needed.
We were officially completed with production. Now all I was hoping for was if the shots turned out. That was the world we lived in back in 2005 when you shot on film. You didn't see what you shot until the film was processed at least 2 days later. So you worried for awhile and thought the worst possible things. You had hope, but other than that you prayed that you didn't completely waste your day or money shooting it. There are too many horror stories of friends/colleagues that you heard that forced you to be in a bit of panic.
- Matthew Toffolo
Friday 24 October 2014
Part 2 - The Development and Pre-Production - Start to Finish Short Film
I don't think I'm a natural screenwriter as I have always collaborated with a writer on any given film I've made. Mostly to fill in the holes of the overall structure and story pace I figured out. For Start to Finish, it was all me in the initial concept but realistically it was my sound designer who really was the co-writer of this piece. I'll get to him later.
For the initial written script, it was really a blueprint written for the Cinematographer I worked with. She was someone who was making some noise in the Toronto Indy world as she just moved here from Chicago. She attended one of the reading series events I used to run at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), and at the bar most people attended afterwards I pitched her my idea. I told her my idea, and how long I needed her for (a day and a half) and wondered if she wanted to shoot in 8mm for perhaps the only and last time in her life. She was intrigued by the idea and shooting on this stock, and asked me for a script.
The script at that time was all in my head. That's almost as useless as having a glass hammer. So when I got home I worked out an outline for the story. What are the general stages of life?
- Birth
- Childhood - playing, school, parents
- Teen years - trying to figure yourself out. Intro to sexual feelings
- Losing your virginity
- Work. Career. Employment
- Love. Marriage
- Kids. Parenthood
- Reflection. Regrets. Happiness
- Death
So I wrote all those feelings down in separate scenes. 9 stages that I wanted to tell in 20 second segments to make a 3 minute film. Any longer than that and I knew it wouldn't work.
The next step was figuring out how to tell those stages and feelings in images. My entire concept was to never show a person in any shot and let the images and sound design tell the story. In the initial script I wrote a general summary of the images I wanted to use to tell the story for each segment. The two tricky segments were the virginity and reflection stages. How was I going to show those?
I kind of BSd in the script detailing flowers, a bed etc.... for the virginity segment, and an old home, office, family room etc... for the reflection stage. But I didn't like those ideas at all but added them in the script so I could move forward and hoped that I could figure out a better way or my collaborators would help me with it. And luckily that happened. I was actually looking for a comedy moment/break in the film with the virginity section to ease the viewing experience and not make it too wanky. Plus, I thought it would be ironic which are always my favorite moments in films as it usually leads to an honest and true emotion. But I still had no idea how to pull that off.
So I sent the script off to the Cinematographer and she emailed me right away that she was in. I already had the camera and film stock lined up from the LIFT job I worked at, so now all I needed were locations. That and a sound designer and editor so when the film was shot I didn't have it sitting on a shelf forever.
The picture editor was easy to find as I had someone I wanted to work with right from the start. We met at his office and he was in right away. His editing station sat near a window that looked out to a funeral home across the street in the High Park area in Toronto, and I knew that was a great sign.
The sound designer was a little tougher. This is 2005 and back then most sound designers didn't have their own system at home. And whenever you needed to work on your sound when making your movie, you had to rent it at a post-production house for lots and lots of money. I was trying to make this film for under $300, so that wasn't going to work. After a couple of weeks of searching, I found a guy in Los Angeles who had all the right tools and experience and was definitely interested. He's was the key find for the film and we had a great working relationship. The amazing this is that I've still to this day never met him in person. It was the start of many relationships I've had with collaborators: The online file-sharing, text, email, phone call, work relationship.
So I had my script and my team. Now I needed was the locations. But I had some ideas and some locations just landed on my feet without really trying. When you get breaks like that you know you're on the right path!
- Matthew Toffolo
For the initial written script, it was really a blueprint written for the Cinematographer I worked with. She was someone who was making some noise in the Toronto Indy world as she just moved here from Chicago. She attended one of the reading series events I used to run at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), and at the bar most people attended afterwards I pitched her my idea. I told her my idea, and how long I needed her for (a day and a half) and wondered if she wanted to shoot in 8mm for perhaps the only and last time in her life. She was intrigued by the idea and shooting on this stock, and asked me for a script.
The script at that time was all in my head. That's almost as useless as having a glass hammer. So when I got home I worked out an outline for the story. What are the general stages of life?
- Birth
- Childhood - playing, school, parents
- Teen years - trying to figure yourself out. Intro to sexual feelings
- Losing your virginity
- Work. Career. Employment
- Love. Marriage
- Kids. Parenthood
- Reflection. Regrets. Happiness
- Death
So I wrote all those feelings down in separate scenes. 9 stages that I wanted to tell in 20 second segments to make a 3 minute film. Any longer than that and I knew it wouldn't work.
The next step was figuring out how to tell those stages and feelings in images. My entire concept was to never show a person in any shot and let the images and sound design tell the story. In the initial script I wrote a general summary of the images I wanted to use to tell the story for each segment. The two tricky segments were the virginity and reflection stages. How was I going to show those?
I kind of BSd in the script detailing flowers, a bed etc.... for the virginity segment, and an old home, office, family room etc... for the reflection stage. But I didn't like those ideas at all but added them in the script so I could move forward and hoped that I could figure out a better way or my collaborators would help me with it. And luckily that happened. I was actually looking for a comedy moment/break in the film with the virginity section to ease the viewing experience and not make it too wanky. Plus, I thought it would be ironic which are always my favorite moments in films as it usually leads to an honest and true emotion. But I still had no idea how to pull that off.
So I sent the script off to the Cinematographer and she emailed me right away that she was in. I already had the camera and film stock lined up from the LIFT job I worked at, so now all I needed were locations. That and a sound designer and editor so when the film was shot I didn't have it sitting on a shelf forever.
The picture editor was easy to find as I had someone I wanted to work with right from the start. We met at his office and he was in right away. His editing station sat near a window that looked out to a funeral home across the street in the High Park area in Toronto, and I knew that was a great sign.
The sound designer was a little tougher. This is 2005 and back then most sound designers didn't have their own system at home. And whenever you needed to work on your sound when making your movie, you had to rent it at a post-production house for lots and lots of money. I was trying to make this film for under $300, so that wasn't going to work. After a couple of weeks of searching, I found a guy in Los Angeles who had all the right tools and experience and was definitely interested. He's was the key find for the film and we had a great working relationship. The amazing this is that I've still to this day never met him in person. It was the start of many relationships I've had with collaborators: The online file-sharing, text, email, phone call, work relationship.
So I had my script and my team. Now I needed was the locations. But I had some ideas and some locations just landed on my feet without really trying. When you get breaks like that you know you're on the right path!
- Matthew Toffolo
Thursday 23 October 2014
Start to Finish Short Film. Flashback to 2005
The film industry has changed a lot since I made this film back in 2005. Shot on 8mm film stock and processed, I don't think anyone can make a film like this anymore. Does anyone have 8mm stock left? And if they do, who now processes it?
This was the film that changed my life. Yes, I'm going to be that dramatic about it because it really did. There are about 10-12 moments in your lifetime where something happens and it's never going to be the same again. This film was definitely that.
After producing more than a few big budget short films, and working in the mainstream film industry for 4 years, I wasn't a happy person. It seemed like my future was set and I was going to have a successful life - or at least that's what it looked like on the surface. But inside I was craving my independent expression and have always wanted to make my own movies.
So I went back to the basics of film-making. In a span of a week in early 2005 I attended my grandfather's funeral and a seminar at the Kodak headquarters. Kodak, in hindsight, was scared out of their wits about the fast approaching digital technology so they were bringing in everyone for a ritzy lunch and presentation to tell them how great they were and how so much better they were then digi****, they really couldn't say the full word!
Back then most people still made films in actual film stock. But when Hollywood even started to make their movies in Digital (I remember when Collateral came out and half the film was shot in high definition digital and everyone was SHOCKED! that they did this), you knew it was only time for everyone else to do it as well. This was also the same year that YouTube came out, a site that literally changed the world and our consumption habits.
At the seminar, Kodak was stating that they were going to phase out 8mm film stock and their competitor Fuji was doing the same. This was the film stock that gave birth to film. This is the initial invention and where it all began, and now it was all going to go away and the next generation would have zero idea this type of film-making even existed.
It was then that I decided to make a movie on 8mm before it all disappeared. Birth of film? Death of my grandfather? Perhaps I can make an arty short film on the stages of life. And that's what I did.
As of this writing the film has only garnered 25,000 hits on YouTube since it went up in 2010. Some will say that's not too bad, but I was hoping for more. Who knows, it might have a bit of a rebirth (sequel anyone)!
- Matthew Toffolo
This was the film that changed my life. Yes, I'm going to be that dramatic about it because it really did. There are about 10-12 moments in your lifetime where something happens and it's never going to be the same again. This film was definitely that.
After producing more than a few big budget short films, and working in the mainstream film industry for 4 years, I wasn't a happy person. It seemed like my future was set and I was going to have a successful life - or at least that's what it looked like on the surface. But inside I was craving my independent expression and have always wanted to make my own movies.
So I went back to the basics of film-making. In a span of a week in early 2005 I attended my grandfather's funeral and a seminar at the Kodak headquarters. Kodak, in hindsight, was scared out of their wits about the fast approaching digital technology so they were bringing in everyone for a ritzy lunch and presentation to tell them how great they were and how so much better they were then digi****, they really couldn't say the full word!
Back then most people still made films in actual film stock. But when Hollywood even started to make their movies in Digital (I remember when Collateral came out and half the film was shot in high definition digital and everyone was SHOCKED! that they did this), you knew it was only time for everyone else to do it as well. This was also the same year that YouTube came out, a site that literally changed the world and our consumption habits.
At the seminar, Kodak was stating that they were going to phase out 8mm film stock and their competitor Fuji was doing the same. This was the film stock that gave birth to film. This is the initial invention and where it all began, and now it was all going to go away and the next generation would have zero idea this type of film-making even existed.
It was then that I decided to make a movie on 8mm before it all disappeared. Birth of film? Death of my grandfather? Perhaps I can make an arty short film on the stages of life. And that's what I did.
As of this writing the film has only garnered 25,000 hits on YouTube since it went up in 2010. Some will say that's not too bad, but I was hoping for more. Who knows, it might have a bit of a rebirth (sequel anyone)!
- Matthew Toffolo
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