Ode To My Brthren - Part 1 - Conception

I'm not sure when this came about, but my brother, Carey Ashton, and I had shot ideas back and forth for a long time about a film involving our friends. I grew up witnessing and hearing about the crazy things my brother and his friends did. As my older brother, he got to see me and my friends doing crazy shit as well. We talked about this script a long time before we ever put anything on paper, but one thing is for sure, the story was inspired by our friends and a lot of things that we all went through.

One day I sat my ass down and banged out a rough script. I printed it up and gave it to my brother to read and see what he thought. Soon we were at it with vigour and the story developed. Before we knew it, it no longer resembled our actual friends and real experiences, but it was cohesive and we both liked it – little did we know that it would re-resemble them and our experiences…

Ode To My Brethren - Part 2 - Pre Production

Once satisfied with our story, Carey and I decided to share it with the actors/friends. We had chosen the real people that we wrote about to represent themselves. Donnie Deliva, was to play Dino, the lead role without a single word of dialogue. It wasn't that we didn't trust that he would learn his lines, although we know he has trouble reading, but we wanted the character to act without dialogue. It was an experiment in story telling as well. Something we both knew Donnie could pull off, drawing from his real life experiences and emotions. Donnie read the script and asked, "Where are my lines?" We then involved Kenny Sullivan , to play Kool-Aid, and Curtis Ali, to play Pappi. They both enjoyed the script and were anxious to get going on it. Peter MacGregor, playing Lil'Pete, was also interested in the script and excited about shooting. We asked my brother's son, Wayne Ashton, to play the boy in the cemetery. There were a few other roles written into the script, that eventually got cut out, do to no money, no time, and no locations.

The actors, my brother and I got together at my place and read through the script together. The reading went really well. We knew that we chose the right people for the job (considering we wrote it about them in their voices). The most common question asked after everyone had read it was, "What happened to Dino?" Everyone asked what was in the envelope, but most of all they wanted to know what was up with Dino and why he didn't talk. I was thrilled that everyone was asking questions. I really wanted this small script to allude to a much greater story, but not give those answers. My experiment was to make the audience an active participant in creating and furthering the story. When ever anyone asked the question, I would answer, "Whatever you think."

The next part was to shoot the bloody thing!

Ode To My Brethren - Part 3 - Production

On the first day of production my true love said to me, "WAKE UP!" Storyboarded, scripted, scheduled, what could go wrong? Many things, always! I won't dwell on the problems.

I wanted to direct this piece and not look through the lens of the camera. This was a challenge for me, as I was so used to being hands on with the camera. I vowed that I would trust my (limited) crew and direct the piece through good and bad.

We shot all of Donnie's scenes at Dino's Shithole, my brother's garage. The location looked great. Donnie's acting was exactly what I wanted. I thought the lighting was really cool. I was thourghly happy with just directing and not DOPing.

Kenny, Curtis and Peter did their thing and it was really good. I only wished I had more for them. Especially Peter, his role was so minimal, but his performance warranted more!

A few scenes had to be improvised and on the spot decisions had to be made, but we moved on and made a good first day of production.

To celebrate, we all headed up to a pub near my flat for a few beers and something to eat. The cast all wanted to watch the last of the Sunday night football game. I just wanted to sit back, enjoy a cold beer, and exhale.

That night and all of the next couple of days I watched the footage. All I could see were the short comings and flaws. I couldn't blame anyone in particular, as I had entrusted them with their jobs and maybe should have given them better direction. I was discouraged, but the good stuff was so damn good.

It took a few weeks before I could start the second day of production. I gave up on being just the director. I wasn't completely happy with everything, so I decided to save it as best I could. I am not sure if that was the best decision,.

I met up with Donnie and we shot all of his running/alone stuff. We picked up my nephew and drove out to teh cemetary that my brother told me about in Dorval. He was bang on about the location. I scouted it out and blocked the shots. I figured out exactly what I wanted. Donnie knew what was required of him. We spoke briefly, but intimatly about it. Very few people know the pain and tragedy he has suffered and overcome in his life time. I asked him to put it all out there in one single action - the silent scream. A good part of me felt incredibly guilty and ashamed for asking him to do so, but I knew that I would capture something incredible. If I had one success with this film, it was that moment. Donnie did it, he screamed with all his might, without a sound. It moved me, it still does and I am so proud of that moment.

Donnie took a much needed break and I shot the scenes with Wayne. He was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly, because I wasn't sure he could do it. He made me really proud.

We wrapped up and drove Wayne home. Donnie and I dragged our asses through some desolate buildings in the Turcotte Yards. We didn't have much sunlight left so we used what we had and the shots turned out beautiful. I am really happy with the look, as well as Donnie's performance.

With the sun gone and all of our energy with it, we called it a day - a bloody good day!

A few more weeks went by and I arranged to meet with Kenny and Curtis to finish up their scenes in the car. We met at the Atwater Market and banged out the first scene in no time. I was happy with their work and my coverage.

We moved on to the interior of the car. I gave them free reign to shoot the shit, but told them to stay in character and remember they were worried/looking for Dino. The stories they told were true and funny and in character, because they couldn't possibly be out of character as themselves. I enjoyed the shooting and the good time driving around with them.

I was soon able to call it a wrap. I was finished shooting. I couldn't believe that it was complete. The next obsticle that faced me was post production...

I'm Black And I'm Proud - Part 1 - Conception

Originally the idea for this short film started sometime late in 1997. I was back in Montreal, fresh from my first trip to Ireland and I was heavily influenced by Guinness' advertising and marketing there. I was bartending, again, at McLean's Pub and pulling a lot of pints of Guinness. Sweet Daddy, the funniest man I know, would often come in for his pint(s) and we shoot ideas back and forth about creating a Guinness commercial. By mid 1998 I had a developed great relationship with the Guinness representative for the pub, Pat Bisson. He loved the way I took my time building a proper pint and would show off my talents to the other reps as well as his boss'. I even bartended his wedding atop the tower of the Olympic Stadium, pouring shamrocks in Black Velvets for all the guests. I'd share with Pat some of the ideas Sweet Daddy and I had. He loved them, but there was no way he or we could approach their marketing department overseas. Still, he met with Sweet Daddy and I a few times and eventually said he'd fund the film with beer - one full barrel of the beautiful black stuff! By that time I had come up with a script. The commercial idea had turned into a short film idea. The title, well that was easy: it describes Guinness perfectly; it describes Sweet Daddy perfectly; and it was a great scene as well as a great version of the song in the film The Commitments - it all made perfect sense. I couldn't believe Guinness hadn't thought of it already.
The story was going to be a day-in-the-life of Sweet Daddy, as his day starts off miserably but gradually improved beyond his greatest expectations.

I'm Black And I'm Proud - Part 2 - Pre Production

I started talking to people about the production and opening up to a few trusted friends about what I wanted to do. It was actually very hard for me - exposing myself this way was a lot easier than getting drunk and whipping out my Cocker Spaniel! I had worked quite a bit on other peoples productions, but never asked people to work on something of my own. Probably the first person I asked, was a man who's name will add utter confusion to the story, but is so damn cool, Guinness Rider. I had recently met Guinness in a Director's Workshop with Roger Cardinal and had been the DOP on his short film, Three Million Yen. I asked him to be the first assistant director and all around go-to-guy! He was probably the first person I allowed to read the script and has since become my most trusted creative confidant.

The story is much the same as in the final product that you can see when you watch the film: Sweet Daddy having some trouble at home; taking a long lonely walk; running into a couple of guys and almost getting into a fight; but then he meets an old Irishman. He helps the old man and talks with him. The old man tells him to cheer up and gives him a "lucky" coin. Sweet Daddy starts flipping it, thanks the man, and continues on to the pub. He walks into the pub, it is completely empty. He meets and greets his friendly barman and offers him a challenge - flip the coin and the loser buys the pints. He flips the coin, it dances on the bar, and instantly the pub is full of patrons with pints of Guinness in their hands. Again, at this point the story continues as it does in the final product: Sweet Daddy meets a girl at the bar; also meets a big guy; and the girl disappears. In the script he flips his coin, is bumped by the big guy, loses the "lucky" coin and the girl. He sees she has walked off flipping the coin. He hurries after her and finds her trying to feed the coin into the nut machine. Sweet Daddy intercepts, gets his coin back and makes a formal introduction. "Hi, I'm Sweet Daddy, what's your name." She smiles, "Rockwell." He laughs, "I'm sure you do!" The big guy interrupts and wants to fight with Sweet Daddy. Sweet Daddy flips his coin high in the air, the big guy's eyes follow it, Sweet Daddy gives him a flurry of punches to no effect, catches the coin and the big guy turns into a wee leprechaun. Sweet Daddy taps him on the head, grabs the girl by the arm, and takes her onto the dance floor. The end!

I approached Rita Wong, a good friend and fellow bartender at McLean's to play the role of Rockwell. To my surprise she accepted. I wanted a friend of mine Sydney "Buddy" Langford to play the role of the big guy, but he was somewhere missing in action. I asked another friend, who shall remain nameless, who agreed, but eventually didn't show up on set that day. I asked aspecial little customer, Frank Dietrich, to play the leprechaun – he also agreed and didn't show up. I wanted another customer, Desmond Scanlon, to play the old Irishman, but he couldn't, so I ended up getting my brother to play the role and readapting it to be his wheel chair stuck in a train track that Sweet Daddy helps him with. My nephew, Jared Ashton, and Donnie Deliva agreed to play the two tough guys that run into Sweet Daddy. Kenny Sullivan agreed to the part of the bartender. Guinness had arranged to have a bunch of his friends hang out as extras and drink free pints. I got a couple of the girls from the pub to do the same.

The main actors and I rehearsed and went over the script multiple times. They were completely ready to film. I blocked out everything and storyboarded every detail I wanted. In doing so I knew exactly how the film would be edited. I planned on directing as well as shooting the film, and I was comfortable with both roles. I rented sound equipment and the technician also agreed to record for us. Guinness and I scheduled everything and planned for a one (long) day shoot - what could possibly go wrong?

I'm Black And I'm Proud - Part 3 - Production

The day of the shoot soon came and I wasn't sure I was ready. My assistant Director, Guinness , and I went over the schedule and my confidence grew. We had decided to shoot in sequence which brought us to Sweet Daddy's apartment. We didn't need sound for the first few scenes, which was good, because it was scheduled to show up around lunch time. After forking out a couple hundred dollars on sound equipment, I had no money for any other rentals, so we got to work on lighting with every lamp and light we could find. The opening shot was framed, Sweet Daddy moved in to position and action was called. The first take was perfect, but we did another for security. We set up in his hallway and did the next series of shots. This took us a lot longer as lighting posed many more problems. Soon I was happy and we were able to wrap the first location.

Driving to the next location I was so pleased with what we shot. So far the footage looked exactly how I had storyboarded it. The next location we shot was Sweet Daddy by the train tracks. We wasted a lot of time on a moving camera sequence that I really wanted and that meant a lot to my expression, but ultimately did not make the cut. We moved on to some shots from the roof of my loft - windy, but very nice. Then we met up with my brother and the sound guy. Setting up the sound and rehearsing with the actors took a little more time than I would have hoped, but we were soon shooting. I thought it looked great and would edit well. Switching from an old Irishman to my brother with the wheel of his wheelchair stuck in the train tracks was incredible. The shiny coin in his hand, the way he played with it and passed it to Sweet Daddy was incredible. I couldn't wait to use it. We wrapped it and I checked the footage. Everything looked good, but there was no sound. I played with my controls and still no sound. I spoke with the sound guy and he assured me everything was working. "Working, my ass!" I had no sound at all. We ran some tests, we fiddled with everything, and I realized this guy really didn't know what the fuck he was doing.

This was my first setback and what a setback it was. I had secured everything for this one day, we were on a really tight schedule, I couldn't afford setbacks. After some discussion and near tears, I decided we would shoot it without sound - fuck it! Talkies killed the silent film era. My true inspirations were Buster Keaton, Harold Loyd, and Sergei Eisenstein.

We moved on to the next location and filmed Donnie, Jared and Sweet Daddy in the tunnel. Back on track, it looked just the way I storyboarded it. I couldn't wait to get to the pub and have a pint!

We got to McLean's Pub and it was exceptionally busy for a Sunday. Pat Mercier and Jason Campbell were working. People had already started to arrive for the shoot. We had no sound, so we had no problems with the ambient sounds - a small blessing. After a quick run through and some camera tests we were ready to film, but two of the actors had not shown up yet. Ok, beer break, I got on the phone and called and called and called.

This was my second major setback. I was two actors short of a fucking Happy Meal! What the heck was I going to do. Guinness' friend Justin stepped in and said he would play the big guy. Great, now all I needed was a wee leprechaun. For that I was not so lucky. No one could replace Frank. He looked the part. I had the clothes ready. Oh well, I had to scrap that bit of the story. Tightened my belt and set up for the next shot.

It really wasn't that easy - my heart was in my throat and I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed. I would have to change so much, how could I tell the same story? I was also starting to feel the pressure of being the director as well as the director of photograhy. It was difficult to deal with all the setbacks; answer all the questions; direct the acting; frame the shot; shoot it; and watch the acting. I was on the verge of giving up, but I was too scared to quit. So, we shot the rest of the sequences as we had planned and readapted the fight scene - which never really worked. A few more pints later I was able to call a wrap to the production.

This along with a few too many pints ended the one day shoot!

I'm Black And I'm Proud - Part 4 - Post Production

I was miserable and felt completely useless the next few days after the shoot. I was embarrassed at asking for so much help and having nothing to show for it. I put the tapes away and said I would take a break from the production before logging the footage. It ended up being a very long time before I started looking at the tapes again. Eventually, I logged all the footage and was surprisingly happy with what I got. With no money and no sound I actually had something that could be interesting. I restructured the story and had to cut out a lot of scenes that I really liked. My brother's stuff had to be cut out; a really fun sequence with Sweet Daddy stealing a sip of a pint; and just about every sequence with the "lucky" coin had to be scrapped. I sorted out my EDL and was ready to edit.

My next major setback was that I had no one and nowhere to edit this puppy. I ended up shelving the project, again, as life got in the way and I was not able to devote quality time to it. A few years went by and I decided to shoot another short film that my brother and I wrote together, Ode To My Brethren. After that production was shot I started editing it with the incredibly talented Noah Wohl. During that very long process of editing part-time over many months I learned a lot about editing and had decided that I would edit Black & Proud on my own with some software my brother had purchased.

I worked on it for a few weeks and realized how limited the software was. I had just finished working on Ode with Noah using Final Cut Pro. The differences were incredible - like driving someone else’s Benz and then buying your very own Lada. It took some time, but I finished it and was happy that it was over. The final product I uploaded to Google Video that same night. I was happy to call Sweet Daddy and give him the good news. Finally, he would have something to see for all the hard work he put in.

I'm Black And I'm Proud - Part 5 - Director's Notes

First things first - In no way am I content with the final product, I am happy with it, but it does not satisfy me. I have no delusions about it. I know exactly what I set out to do and I was not able to accomplish that. Knowing that has already helped me become a better filmmaker. It's also part of the purpose for writing all of this.

The one thing that makes me very happy about this production is that it is complete. I am happy that I saw this project through to completion, which is so rare and hard to do in the independent side of this industry. I have a sense of closure, which is nice.

I am really pleased with a lot of my camera work. I was able to pull off some nifty camera movements. In particular I liked using the Dutch Angle in the tunnel as Sweet Daddy walks down the stairs, then straightening out and turning with him passing the camera as he bumps into Donnie and Jared. I'm happy with the edit that went with that as well. I was also pleased with the camera pan at the bar when Sweet Daddy is chatting up Rockwell and is bumped by the big guy. Panning from Rockwell in the right of the frame as Sweet Daddy turns, putting him in the right, and revealing the big guy in the left, then panning back as Sweet Daddy turns back to Rockwell, revealing she has gone.

Speaking of Sweet Daddy and Rockwell - exceptional. They had lines that they rehearsed and learned. I worked with them on listening to each other. Then, because of my sound issues, I told them to forget the lines and act without them. They looked at each other, their body language communicated, they said a lot without words. I was so incredibly pleased with their work. I wish the film could do them more justice, I wish I could have shot more of them. All of the actors were wonderful. They really stepped up.

Thinking of all the setbacks I encountered I asked myself a million times over, "what have I learned from all of this?" I learned that I need to schedule more time for every shot and a lot more travel and set-up time. A one day shoot is not a lot of time, especially for 15 pages. More time means being better prepared for setbacks. Testing equipment before hand and making sure you are happy with how it works is very important. I can't imagine how different the production would have been if we had the sound equipment an extra day and were able to run tests and hear how it recorded. I learned a lot about directing. Roger Cardinal had told us that you will get thousands of questions from the cast and crew and you have to answer each one or they will lose faith in the production. He was so right, but it took me being in that situation to realize it. You have a lot of hats to wear as a director on a small film like this, you are the head of each department and have to weigh out everything and make every decision. You have to delegate to others and have faith in their decisions. In the face of everything going to shit, you've got to put up the front, smile and see everyone through the mess. I learned that you can't always depend on people, especially if they are not getting paid. If they are not intimately involved in the project the only way to keep them focused is to pay them. In general everyone works better if they are paid (but don't let me get into my thoughts about technician unions) and well fed. Feeding is easier, keep everyone well fed, but paying them is ideal. The problem is, it's damn expensive if everyone gets paid and where does the money come from. Money, now that's the real issue. If I had a proper budget it would not have to have been a one day shoot; I could have rented better equipment and more of it; all the actors and crew could have got paid for their time; locations could have been more easily secured; I could have had more crew and thus delegated a lot of tasks to them; and I could have edited the piece a few years earlier! Who will fund such a thing? Money is no where to be found. Money came from me and I didn't have a lot to put toward it. In the future I will have to find funding. Guinness and I are talking about a short film we plan on co-directing in two different cities, him in Vancouver and me in Montreal, and that is the first issue he brought up. He's bloody well right. Without it we can dream about how it will look and how easy it will be and how wonderful life is, but fuck all will ever happen without a proper budget. I am sure there is a lot more I can write on the subject, but I will leave that to future posts.