Category Archives: short films

Sep 02 2014
Billy Crystal Fills the Silence, Film Screenings, short films

Billy Crystal made the Filminute Top 25 Shortlist!

filminute - header_info_2014Billy Crystal Fills the Silence has been selected as part of Filminute’s Top 25 Shortlist. It is in fact the only Canadian film on the roster, and there are films up from all over the world. Pretty cool. I didn’t realize the reach the festival had!

FILMINUTE is the international one-minute film festival that challenges filmmakers, writers, animators, artists, designers, and creative producers to develop and submit the world’s best one-minute films.

Watch the film HERE, and rate it, and share it if you so choose. There are some awards to be won, and one even has $2500 attached!

FILMINUTE AWARD CATEGORIES include:–An A-list international jury from the film, arts and communication industries selects ‘Best Filminute’ as well as 5 Jury Commendations. The public select the ‘People’s Choice’ and ‘Top Rated’ Awards.

www.filminute.com
www.facebook.com/filminute
www.twitter.com/filminute

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Aug 27 2014
Billy Crystal Fills the Silence, Film Screenings, short films

Billy Crystal in your Vancouver Backyard

Billy Crystal Fills the Silence, will be playing on the big screen in Vancouver, BC September 6th as part of the Backyard Film Festival run by Beth Freeman. Don’t be surprised if you see another B. Nord-Stewart film while you are there!

THE RAILWAY MAN

TIME: September 6, 2014 – 7:00 pm     PLACE: Backyard, 107 West 17th Avenue

What to bring: a friend, dark sunglasses, fancy wig, something to drink and a glass, a chair/cushion/blanket
THE ByFFies ARE WEATHER DEPENDENT AND MAY BE POSTPONED DUE TO RAIN

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Aug 12 2014
Awards, beat around the bush, short films

And the money finally rolls in (fingers crossed)

Not wanting to jinx my current good fortune, I have refrained from posting too much about anything about what has been going on. However, the news is public now (5 days ago actually but I was busy work/playing at the Squamish Music Festival – yes, I did see Eminem!), so I can at least mention a couple of well-timed events.

#1 – In January and March I attended two different segments of the Women in the Director’s Chair (WIDC) program run by Creative Women Workshops. Both workshops really kicked off 2014 in high gear and had me really focussing on WHAT’S NEXT  for me as a director. The new news you ask? The BC Arts Council came through with a Professional Development Grant in the sum of just over $5,000. Which covers tuition, flights, boarding, per diems, honorariums for mentors to well…continue mentoring me.

#2 – While having a lunch with two of my grade 8 teachers* a couple weeks back, I found out that I was going to receive the Harold Greenberg Fund’s Short-to-Features Award which includes a $32,000 production grant for Beat the Bush, (formerly titled, Cougars Cruising), and an additional $7,500 towards the development of a feature film of the same concept. So you can expect a new saucy short from me in 2014, which will tour the festival circuit in 2015 (fingers crossed).

#3 – Harold Greenberg Fund requires and experienced Executive Producer to oversee their funded projects. Thanks to an introduction by a venerable actor who participated at the WIDC workshop in January, Shawn Williamson, President of Brightlight Pictures, has enthusiastically come on board. SNAP!!

There are a few more opportunities that have been thrown my way, but I will post about them once they actually happen as for the three above awesome things, there have been a half dozen or more that didn’t quite line up. But there will be a half dozen more awesome to report in the coming month(s) I’m sure.

I am so stoked. Yes. I. Am.

*This is an important detail because they taught classes in Dance and Video which are two things I actively do everyday.

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May 26 2014
Film Screenings, short films, the provider

“The Provider” at Female Eye Film Festival

offical_selection jpeg
My short film, “The Provider”, co-written and produced with Andy Thompson, has been selected to play at the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto in the Late Night Horror section right before Vancouver fellow filmmaker Karen Lam’s feature, “Evangeline“.

The screening takes place at 11:00 PM till 1:00AM on Saturday June 21st, 2014.

ALL Film screenings will take place at the Royal Cinema, 608 College Street, Toronto. Tickets will be available at the door.femaleeyeprogram2014

May 09 2014
Billy Crystal Fills the Silence, Film Screenings, hannah epperson, Music, shadowless, short films, Uncategorized

Shadows and Ghosts

On this very Friday afternoon, I am exporting a one minute film that, a week ago I didn’t know I was going to make.

Billy Crystal Fills the Silence

“Billy Crystal Fills the Silence”, 1 min 14 sec, 2014

I was asked by a University classmate of mine to make a no-budget film inspired by a piece of “un-illuminated news” –  something I thought should be more represented – from spring 2014, for the Denmark based film collective, The Current. They asked nine filmmakers from around the world to make a film based on this premise:

The Current is 9 attempts at alternative journalistic modes of communication, and 9 never before seen explorations of the news media this spring, 2014…Based on the idea that our world view originates from our often abstract emotional life, rather than from our rational thoughts, it is our mission to add to news media an extra dimension across the spoken and written word – doing so via creative and artistic cinematic solutions. 

My film, “Billy Crystal Fills the Silence”, was a culmination of many experiences and resources. It is much more serious in topic that all of my films, yet there is still humour and a question of the human experience.

“Billy Crystal Fills the Silence”, will be released on May 14, 2014 and will be available for free online. Check The Current’s FACEBOOK page for more information and to find more films.

In June, Hannah Epperson’s debut music video, “Shadowless“, directed by yours truly, will also be released online. But for now, you can enjoy 1 of 3 behind the scenes teasers – a taste of what it took to get the video made.

Have a great weekend!

Mar 30 2014
beat around the bush, FARGO, Film Screenings, hannah epperson, Jayne Avaunt, Music, short films, television

Music videos, Women in the Director’s Chair, and FARGO

A lot has happened in the last month.

I returned to Vancouver from a week of meetings in Toronto, to shoot a music video within a few days of arriving, to then prep for and take a 10 day workshop as one of 8 directors in the Women in the Director’s Chair (WIDC) Story Incubation module 2.0 (where I workshopped a feature I am slated to direct), only to fly out to Calgary the day the workshop finished to begin my first ever job on a union TV show (FARGO) as none other than the flashiest of jobs…The Camera Trainee.

The music video:

Amy Belling (DOP), Hannah Epperson (Musician), Brianne Nord-Stewart

Amy Belling (DOP), Hannah Epperson (Musician), Brianne Nord-Stewart

Was a success. It is in the editing room right now. Being left to percolate as I make not very good money running batteries and cable while Calgary is determined to stay in Winter. It is a blizzard outside.

WIDC:

I didn’t really take any pictures except for this one.

The view from our farewell brunch at WIDC 2014

The view from our farewell brunch at WIDC 2014

I learned a lot. So much my mind was overflowing with information and ideas and some…feelings. Hence the needed brain break which made winter in Calgary sound very appealing. I am glad I am here though.

I do have a couple of cool bosses.

2nd Unit all the way.

Schane (1st AC) and Mark (2nd AC) - Camera Department

Schane (1st AC) and Mark (2nd AC) – Camera Department

And then on top of that, I just used my day off to whip together a video pitch and application package for my short COUGARS CRUISING, to finally get made. Here’s hoping Optik TV’s Story Hive grants are stoked on the idea of COUGARS CRUISING, an adventure dramedy that follows Una, who when diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, will stop at nothing to find her orgasm for the very first time!

Screen Shot 2014-03-30 at 2.50.32 PM

"Living Sculptures" as they were called on the set of the "Drowning in You" music video.

AND THEN…A music video I directed in Fall 2013 was released. Read all about that HERE.

Feb 11 2014
1 Comment
Film Screenings, short films, Trolls

The comedic short, “Trolls” Finally available for streaming online!

TROLLS at NSI ONLINE

Well it has been a long time waiting.  My short film “Trolls”, a comedy about two young kids trying to navigate and define was “doing it” really means, is available online at the National Screen Institute Online Film Festival. Released to film festival audiences around the world in 2009, then distributed for TV and VOD broadcast ever since, “Trolls” is a film that launched me into the world as a comedic writer/director/producer/editor. I am still doing all of those things, and I am still making comedy.

The NSI Online Film Festival offers three awards to the film programmes quarterly: Best Film, Best Comedy, and the Fearless Female Director Award. “Trolls” is eligible to win all three. These are cash awards with the smallest being $500, and the largest at $2500.

Thanks to everyone who watched then, and to those who will share it now.

Head to the NSI site HERE, and watch the film for FREE! Leave a comment at the bottom of that page too!

Trolls (2009) 7 min.

Trolls (2009) 7 min.

Aug 22 2013
Film Screenings, short films, with cold tongues

Components of “With Cold Tongues” to show at Helen Belkin Satellite Gallery for SWARM

Swarm-Logo2-300x65Components of my short film in progress, With Cold Tongues, an adaptation of a Richard Van Camp short story, will be exhibited at Satellite Gallery in downtown Vancouver, as part of the exhibition, Ten Thousand Suns, curated by UBC Curatorial Studies Candidate, Jeremy Jaud.

Please mark in your calendars the SWARM opening event: September 12, 5:30-9pm!
Exhibition dates: September 13-October 26, 2013

Ten Thousand Suns is “a new group exhibition that features works in sculpture, audio, video and performance by Rebecca Belmore, Tanya Tagaq, Luke Parnell, Guadalupe Martinez, Abbas Akhavan, Jamie Look, Ali Ahadi, Erin Siddall, Carlos Colín and Brianne Nord-Stewart. These artists investigate our past and present relationships to resource extraction, the body and land.

“The exhibition brings together contemporary artists from British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Argentina, Iran and Mexico.  Exploring effacement, memory and remembering this exhibition will consider the layered interconnections of policy with respect to resource-based development projects in Canada and globally, modern technology and artistic practice.”

www.satellitegallery.ca

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