By Allendria Brunjes
James Lumsden has been interested in filmmaking ever since he can remember. When he was a child, he used to pretend he worked in the movies.
After participating in the Hands-On-Film workshop for Aboriginal peoples sponsored by the Independent Filmmakers Co-operative of Ottawa (IFCO), he doesn’t have to pretend to work in the film industry anymore.
“It was great,” he says. “I’d been trying to get into their other workshop for about a year, and when I was accepted into this week-intensive program it got me started.”
Lumsden, who was born in Inuvik, Nunavut, and raised in Ottawa, took the workshop in January 2006, which was an intensive five-day introduction to filmmaking.
“It covered all the basics, and that is exactly what I was looking for,” he says.
Patrice James, executive director of IFCO, says the Hands-On-Film workshops give people an introduction to filmmaking. They teach participants how to use lighting, sound and other aspects to make a film. Normally, she says the workshops are held over the course of six weekends, and cost about $550.
The co-operative started holding its Hands-On-Film workshops specifically for Aboriginal peoples about three years ago, James says. It also started holding the Filmmakers of Diversity Hands-On-Film workshops, workshops for those who are from visible minorities, around the same time.
She says to participate in these workshops, people only need to join the co-operative, apply and explain why they should be considered. The co-operative covers the workshop costs, and the only charge for the participant is membership with IFCO.
“We’re focusing on the demographic of the local community that’s generally under-represented in local media arts,” she says.
“We’d like to see, over the next few years, films that reflect the diversity of the community we live in. There’s no other organization in eastern Ontario that offers the kind of training we do, because we’re film based and all the others use digital.”
James also says while she cannot vouch for a direct correlation, there has been an increase in people from visible minorities within the co-operative since the workshops were first held.
“The cultural make up of the co-operative has changed,” she says.
Tasha Waldron, who took the Filmmakers of Diversity Hands-On-Film workshop in November 2006, is now working with IFCO as its membership co-ordinator.
“I always had a passion for film and filmmaking,” she says. “I had a really biased view of film before, like you had to have a lot of money to make a film, especially a good film . . . But [the workshop] showed me you didn’t have to have thousands of dollars to make a film.”
Waldron says her first film was made in a group at the workshop. She says her first solo film will be presented at the One Take Super 8 Event. The screening is to be held by IFCO at the Mercury Lounge, April 14 at 8 p.m
For this challenge, people shoot using one roll of Super 8 film, which is then shown to the audience without the filmmakers having seen or edited the film. Super 8 film is an 8-mm-width film that was developed in the 1960s.
Roger Wilson, the technical director for IFCO, says this event has been held in cities like Montreal, Winnipeg and Syracuse, N.Y.
He says this is the first year that IFCO is holding the event, and it has had a good response from Ottawa filmmakers.
“We ended up getting 23 films,” he says. “It’s a nice event for us
. . . It’s a very diverse group of filmmakers.”
Lumsden says his first solo film was made for the Super 8 challenge as well.
“I guess the biggest thing about this Super 8 challenge is that it makes me want to make more movies,” he says.
“I think it’s a way of accustomizing people out there to follow on what their dreams are. If anything else, it gives a window into letting people know that they can explore and follow what they want to do with themselves.”
He says the Hands-On-Film program really helped him learn about how to make film, and gave him confidence in the field.
“The biggest thing, I think . . . is taking that first step and actually applying for it, not being shy to ask what avenues there are to pursuing something like making film.”