Jan 27 Feature Film – The Intouchables

The second film in this season’s GPLT Movie Series is The Intouchables, an irreverent, uplifting French comedy (English subtitles) about the friendship between Philippe, a quadriplegic millionaire, and Driss, a young offender of Senegalese descent who is hired as Philippe’s live-in caregiver. Based on a true story and propelled by Omar Sy’s charismatic performance as…

Movie Watch – Top Ten Films

A friend asked me to blog about my top ten films because he wanted to watch them. I didn’t think people would have time to watch that many in a row, but here they are – my top ten picks from the last six festivals that are free to watch online: 1 from Canada, 3…

News on the Shoot for Reel Film

Exciting news! Our Shoot for Reel film has a title – The Horizon Project. After months in editing, the film has been locked and sent off to sound, music and visual effects experts by Director/Editor Scott Belyea who then turned his attention to the creation of a website and a Facebook page (check out all…

Movie Watch – Das Tub

Das Tub is a delightful 4-minute short film from New Zealand that screened in the junior high package at our last fest. Director James Cunningham is the instructor of the Advanced 3D Productions course at Media Design School in Auckland and his students created 35 visual effects for this film. For a look at how they…

Sneak Preview

FREE SCREENING! Saturday, Sept. 29 at 1:30 pm Grande Prairie Live Theatre Tour the world in 70 minutes with this package of 7 great films from Canada, the US, France, Germany, Israel, Australia and New Zealand. These docs, comedies, and dramas are suitable for school children aged 10+ and adults. Check them out now before…

Call for Entries for 7th fest

Our Call for Entries opened on September 15 and will close at 4:30 pm on Monday, December 17. Guidelines and submission form can be found on our Submit page. We don’t charge a submission fee and we pay screening fees for selected films. For our 2012 fest, we received 250 submissions from 34 countries and…

Shoot for Reel – wrap up

The interns spent Thursday and Friday (Days 10 and 11) in the GPRC Mac lab editing footage from the first two days of shooting. Director Scott Belyea demonstrates his editing techniques to Chris Beauchamp (left) and Mike Bourree (right). The screen in the background shows what’s on his monitor. In the meantime, I took 7…

Shoot for Reel – Day 9

Tuesday – the last day of shooting. We start at noon because we’ll be staying late to get the night shots. Cyril Cook (Soldier) stands in the long grass ready to approach the bus in the first scene of the day. Director Scott Belyea talks to the Soldiers about the next shot. By late afternoon,…

Shoot for Reel – Day 8

Monday – the start of Week 2 of Shoot for Reel and Day 5 of shooting. Amazingly, all the actors came back for more scenes in a black bus on a hot summer day. Their dedication astounds me. I know they’re looking forward to seeing the bus get bloodied up in its second transformation. From…

Shoot for Reel – Day 7

Sunday was overcast with rain showers moving through the area – not good for the aerial shots from the helicopter that Scott and Scooter want to get today. While Scooter and Ryan take the 5-ton Whites truck to the farm where the helicopter is stored so they can get the camera set up, Scott phones…

Shoot for Reel – Day 6

Saturday, July 14 (Day 6 of Shoot for Reel; Day 4 of shooting) starts at 9 am at the “circus”, the farmer’s field we’re using as base camp for the remainder of shooting. There were lots of cow patties so a person had to watch where they were walking. Sunburns were a common sight after…

Shoot for Reel – Day 5

The entrance of the transformed bus in its first big scene. Travis Fowler plays the Bus Driver. Everyone had masks on and the camera was wrapped in plastic for the shots with the bus entering the depot because of all the movie dust blown around by giant fans. Director Scott Belyea, in a rare quiet…

Shoot for Reel – Day 4

In addition to other scenes, most of the opening sequence was shot today. A lot of the actors were involved so the old adage of “hurry up and wait” applied as they waited for the dolly shot to be set up. Tennyson D’Onofrio (Son) had a tennis ball to toss around. He participated in the…

Shoot for Reel – Day 3

Day 1 of shooting!  The Art Department headed by Joelle Lawton arrived at our depot location at 7:00 am, the crew and some of the actors arrived at 8:00 am, and all but a few of the remaining actors arrived at 9:00 am.  We wrapped up shooting at 10:30 pm – a long first day,…

Shoot for Reel – Day 2

Since a bus plays a critical role in our short film, it was almost the first thing that Scott (director) and Dave (producer) lined up when they arrived in Grande Prairie on June 25th. Not only did they find one that we’d be able to use for the week of shooting, but it wasn’t going…

Shoot for Reel – Day 1

Day 1 was all about expecting the unexpected. The schedule had shown Day 1 would be spent in a second-floor classroom learning camera and gear. Then the guys decided it made more sense to take the interns out to the gear than haul the gear up to the classroom. While dressed for an air-conditioned classroom,…

Shoot for Reel starts tomorrow

Director Scott Belyea and Producer Dave Rice from Vancouver have been here for 2 weeks prepping for it.  Michael Bourree has been working with them finding locations. The other guys from Vancouver – Scooter Corkle, Blair Dykes, Matt Reed, and Ryan Skeete – arrived today along with a 5-ton truck full of gear. We have a fantastic…

Training on the Red One camera

Shoot for Reel

Shoot for Reel is a 2-week filmmaking internship training program that we’re offering July 9-20 in collaboration with Grande Prairie Regional College. Ten interns will assist in the shooting and editing of a short film under the direction of award-winning Vancouver filmmaker Scott Belyea who grew up in Grande Prairie. The interns will learn how…

Browse the Trailers

The best way to get a sense of what a film is like is by watching the trailer.  While almost all feature films have a trailer, most short films don’t, but the following shorts in our program do, so here they are in alphabetical order.  As can be seen, there is a wide variety in…

Films Fossils & Fun

New to this year’s fest – our $40 Films, Fossils & Fun package for families.  Contact the GPLT Box Office to purchase this great package deal! It includes 4 ticket vouchers (2 adults and 2 students) to a film package of your choice (value $30) as well as a family day pass to the Eastlink…

Screenwriting Workshops

Los Angeles filmmaker and screenwriting consultant Michelle Steffes will teach 2 screenwriting workshops during the festival – a 2-day feature screenwriting workshop called Clubbing Inspiration ($125)  on Thursday and Friday, May 3-4 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, and a 2-hour workshop called Writing Your Short Film ($25) at 2:00 pm on Saturday, May 5th. …

Sunday’s Feature Film – Monsieur Lazhar

GPLT’s Movie Series, the winter series of feature films affiliated with the Reel Shorts Film Festival, has saved the best for last as this year’s season ends on Sunday with the Oscar-nominated Canadian drama Monsieur Lazhar. In addition to winning accolades internationally, this heartwarming French-language (English subtitled) PG-rated film won 6 Genie Awards for Best Film,…

2012 Tag Line and Poster

“We love short shorts.”  It was fest team member Adrian Tanasichuk who came up with this catchy theme for our 2012 festival.  And it was fest team member, photographer and designer Chris Beauchamp of Beauchamp Creative who came up with the visual concept and poster design.  Assisted on the photo shoot by fest team member…

Sunday’s Feature Film – Le Havre

Next up in the GPLT Movie Series, the winter series of feature films affiliated with the Reel Shorts Film Festival, is Le Havre, a PG-rated French-language film (with English subtitles) that blends deadpan, ironic humour with social commentary.  Marcel Marx (André Wilms) is an aging bohemian artist who works as a shoeshiner in the French…

Sunday’s Feature Film – The Whistleblower

Next up in the GPLT Movie Series, the winter series of feature films affiliated with the Reel Shorts Film Festival, is The Whistleblower, a 14A-rated political thriller starring Rachel Weisz as Kathy Bolkovac.  Based on the true story of Bolkovac’s experiences as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia, she discovers that her United Nations colleagues are…

Favorite Festival Film

With Christmas less than a week away, I’d like to share my favorite film from the 289 we’ve screened over the first 5 years of the fest.  It’s from Belgium, 14 minutes long, and it was the first Oscar-nominated film that we had as an Official Selection.  It was 2008, and the film is Tanghi…

Starbuck image

Starbuck is a crowd-pleasing comedy from Quebec

Next up in the GPLT Movie Series, a winter series of feature films affiliated with the Reel Shorts Film Festival, is Starbuck, a heartwarming comedy from Quebec (French with English subtitles).  Screening at 7:00 pm on Sunday, Nov 27 at Second Street Theatre (tickets $10; students $5), it’s a “sparkling crowd-pleaser” (Chris Knight, National Post)…

Transmedia – Workshop & Video Presentation

Traditional storytelling using one particular medium may soon be overtaken by transmedia storytelling which Henry Jenkins defines as “a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding…

May the Farce Be With You

With Halloween over, Christmas is right around the corner.  For Star Wars fans, what could be better than the Blu-ray set Star Wars: The Complete Saga?  Some changes have been made to the original movies which has infuriated die-hard fans, but the special features (deleted scenes, featurettes, spoofs and docs) have made it a huge…

Call for Entries

I’m excited to announce that submissions are now being accepted for the 6th Reel Shorts Film Festival.  The submission deadline is 4:30 pm on Thursday, December 15.  Details can be found on our Submit page. What can filmmakers expect from our festival?  It is to be expected that programmers are a little biased about their…