Technology has changed filmmaking techniques: Filmmaking is now taught at on-line universities while Buitenhuis’ work might be a trend towards more focus on the message and less on the form.
With red pistols embroidered on the pockets of her black dress, the cosmopolitan filmmaker is here to talk about shooting, A Wake, this year feature film at the Women in Film Festival in Vancouver.
The Career of a Filmmaker who Does not Wait Around
Buitenhuis studied film history at UBC and made her first experimental films in Paris. Later, she attended SFU film program and completed four shorts. She spent the next ten years in Paris and Berlin making underground films in super 8-16 mm, a respected art form in Europe. After being noticed at the Berlin Film Festival for her documentary on the Berlin Wall (Llaw), German television commissioned her first commercial feature.
Since then, she has been a prolific and sometimes controversial writer and director of documentaries, features, and series. She still makes short films in-between projects because, “With digital media you can make your own films cheaply,” she recently told the Vancouver Sun. Buitenhuis believes that aspiring filmmakers must make shorts to gain experience and credibility before applying for film financing. A no-nonsense character in her own life, the industry knows her for what she preaches: She is fast and she is thrifty.
The Screening of Penelope Buitenhuis' Film A Wake
A wake follows the death of a theatre director (Nicholas Campbell). His secret wish was to have the estranged members of his last and ill-fated production of Hamlet meet again. When the director’s son (Kristopher Turner) insists that they tell the truth, each member’s confession wildly rocks the emotions of the group. The widow (Tara Nicodemo) suggests that the evening be filmed as a tribute to her late husband. A camera is placed in the powder-room to record intimate monologues with the defunct. When morning comes, foggy minds leave the country-estate, yet the wake is not quite a wrap.
How to Shoot a Movie in Ten Days
After the screening, Buitenhuis talks about her filmmaking techniques. She explains that her Telefilm-funded feature was shot in one location in ten days and edited on an avid for four months. It was filmed in HD on a Sony 900 with two cameras at once.
The script was kept to up to four lines to let intuition flow through the impromptu exchanges. “Regular scripts pull away from life and therefore from the truth,” she says. Truth is important to Peneolope Buitenhuis whose father passed away shortly before she started filming. “Only the truth remains,” she states.
Buitenhuis prefers to spend time talking with the actors about their characters rather than imposing the control of a linear script. The Gemini-award winner for Tokyo Girls and Leo-nominated director of Dangerous Attractions likes short-time shoots; since actors don’t have time to wind down, neither does the emotional momentum. Instead, she filmed A Wake with 8-10 takes per scene.
The central dinner-scene was rehearsed for two days. But, the rape disclosure was impromptu in order to let the actor (Sarain Boylan) travel through her own spectrum of emotions. A similar approach was used for the scenes in the powder-room; all were improvised, to the anecdotal point that one actor dug so deep, he forgot he was in character.
The casting was done through multi-tasking. The actor who played the neighbour (Paul Braunstein) did the reading for auditions.
Buitenhuis jokes that Danielle (Sarain Boylan), the wildest among the film characters, was hard to handle at times, but she was the right casting for the unrestrained hysterical scenes she created.
Trailer for A Wake
Marie-Claude Arnott - Marie-Claude Arnott writes about topics that interest her, from experience and with passion.
