Interview-Mike Cameron

Photo By Adam A. Donaldson

Director Mike Cameron throws out the rules (and the script) with ‘QUARTER LIFE’

Written By Jeremy Hatt

Writers. Who needs them? Plot, storyboards? No place here.

Making a feature-length film without such basic components - not to mention a tight budget - may seem implausible, but this is exactly the challenge that director Mike Cameron undertook: a fully-improvised picture filmed in less than two days.

The movie, Weekenders presents Quarter Life, produced and distributed by his own company, Spirit Guide Productions, will be available to purchase on DVD through the web. Getting his start in independent shorts, this is Cameron’s first feature length film and he hopes that it will lead to an ongoing series of improv films in the future.

Being a completely improvised film, Cameron had to set one major rule of his own while directing: absolutely nothing gets written down. Beyond that, there basically were no rules.

The film begins with the skeletal structure of four friends in their mid-20s renting a house for a weekend, leading to discussions of love, work, sex, and the trials and tribulations accompanying the quarter life crisis. Some scenes were set up as simply as the director giving the actors a topic to discuss and then trusting them to perform.

Indeed, crucial to the film’s success were the four main actors. Cameron admits that the biggest challenge in the process was casting.

“The thing with an improv movie,” Cameron says, “is that, without a script, without writers, you really need people that can think on their feet, people that have a natural charisma. Luckily, we found an incredible cast that had more talent than Billy Idol in the 80’s.”

The main players are Mike Scholl and Trevor Stevenson, who both attended Conestoga College for broadcasting; Dan Cronkite, an undiscovered talent working in theatre and improvisation; and Karen Caren, a talented method actor establishing her career in Canada. The job required tremendous aptitude from the actors, who had to stay true to character while continuing to make the scenes fresh and compelling.

A second challenge was keeping the story fluid. “All we started with was the actors, the location, and a concept,” Cameron says. “It was something that was interesting to all of us; the transition from young adult to just adult. It is something that a lot of people have difficulty with. So to tell an effective story about that concept, we all had to dig deep and figure out ‘how does it is feel to be part of that transition’ and of course ‘how do you make it out in one piece.’”

In keeping with the premise, even the film’s score was entirely improvised. The crew reached out to online groups and social networks to come up with fake song titles to include in the film. Titles were chosen randomly and the crew employed local musicians to write songs for these fabricated titles, which eventually made up the soundtrack that complemented the story progressing on screen.

One might wonder what Cameron is trying to achieve artistically with such an experimental film. Cameron says he “really wants the audience to feel something genuine and real with this picture.”

He also advises to expect the unexpected. “It doesn’t always follow the rules of typical storytelling, so it is sometimes ridiculous, sometimes touching, sometimes heart-wrenching.”

He believes that each viewer will take something very different from the film depending on how they relate to it. He wanted to make a unique product that really connects with viewers rather than another by-the-numbers, big budget, special effects piece. “People will definitely have a lot of fun watching it,” he predicts, then adding, “like, dangerous amounts. At least a 6.2 on the fun scale.”

On the status of the local film scene, Cameron is very optimistic. “I think it is an exciting place to be right now,” he says. “Spirit Guide Productions is just developing as a force in the tri-city indie film community, and we’ve met some wonderful and hugely talented people thus far. Collectively, with a little innovation, and a lot of hard work, I believe we can make a real name for Ontario in the larger world-wide film industry.”

In describing the overall experience to date, he finishes, “Hey, you’ll never find a more beautiful city to shoot in than a tri-city. Except possibly a magical octo-city. If such a thing could exist.”

To get more info on other upcoming Spirit Guide Production projects, check out www.spiritguideproductions.ca.