thank you
I made a film that was impossible to
make but I didn't know it was impossible
and that's how I was able to do it
Marcia Avril is a science fiction film
it's set in Montreal some 50 years in
the future
no one had done that kind of movies in
Quebec before because it's expensive
it's set you know in the future and it's
got tons of visual effects and it shot
on green screen yet this is the kind of
movies I wanted to make ever since I was
a kid really back when I was reading
some comic books and dreaming about what
the future might be
when American Producers see my film they
think that I have I had a bit big budget
to do it like uh
23 million but in fact I had 10 percent
of that budget I did Maxi Avril for only
2.3 million so you might wonder what's
the deal here how did I do this
well it's two things first it's time you
know when you don't have money you must
take time and it took me seven years to
do martial
the second aspect is uh love I got tons
and tons of generosity from everyone
involved you know and it seems like
every Department had nothing so they had
to rely on our on our creativity and
turn every problem into an opportunity
and that brings me to the point of my
talk actually how constraints big
creative constraints can boost
creativity but let me go back in time a
bit
um in my early 20s I did some graphic
novels but they weren't your usual
graphic novels they were books telling a
science fiction story through images and
text and most of the actors who are now
starring in the movie adaptation they
were already involved in these uh in
these books portraying character into uh
sort of experimental theatrical
simplistic way
and one of these actors is uh the great
stage director and actor Robert and I
just love this guy you know I I've been
in love with this guy since I was a a
kid you know his uh career I admire a
lot and I wanted this guy to be involved
in my crazy project and he was kind
enough to lend his image to the
character of ujjain's pack who's a
cosmologist and artist who seeks
relation in between time space love
music and women
and um you know he was a perfect fit for
for the part and radar is actually the
one who gave me my first chance you know
he was the the one who uh believed in me
and encouraged me to uh to do an
adaptation of my books into a into a
film and to write direct and and produce
the film myself
and Robert is actually the very first
example of how constraint can boost
creativity because this guy is the
busiest man on the planet I mean his
agenda is booked until 2042 and you know
it's really hard to uh to to get and I
wanted him to be in in the movie to
reprise his role in the movie
but the thing is you know had I waited
for for him until 2042 my film wouldn't
be a futuristic film anymore so I just
couldn't do that right but that's kind
of a big problem how do you get somebody
who's too busy to start in a movie
well I said as a joke in a production
meeting and this is a True Story by the
way I said why don't we turn this guy
into a hologram because you know he's
everywhere and nowhere on the planet at
the same time and he's an eliminated
being in my mind and he's um you know in
between reality and virtuality so it
would make perfect sense to turn this
guy into a hologram everybody around the
table laughed but the joke was kind of a
good solution so that's what we ended up
doing here's how we did it we shot with
six cameras he was dressed in green and
he was like in a green aquarium each
camera was covering 60 degrees of his
head so that in post-production we could
use pretty much any angle we needed and
we shot only his head six months later
there was a guy on set a mime portraying
the body the vehicle for the head and he
was wearing a green Hood so that we
could erase the green Hood in
post-production and replace it with the
rebellope as his head so he became like
a renaissance man and here's what it
looks like in the movie
foreign
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Music]
musical instruments that you see in this
excerpt they're my second example of how
constraint can boost creativity because
I desperately needed these objects in my
movie there are objects of Desire they
are imaginary musical instruments and
they carry a nice story with them
actually I I knew what these things
would look like in my mind for for many
many years but my problem was I I didn't
have the money to to pay for them I
couldn't afford them so that's kind of a
big problem too you know how do you get
something that you can't afford
and um you know I woke up one morning
with a pretty good idea I I said
um what if I have somebody else pay for
them
you know and but who on Earth would be
interested by seven not yet built
musical instruments inspired by women's
bodies you know
in Montreal because
who better to understand the kind of
crazy poetry that I wanted to put on
screen so I find my way to gide
CEO and I presented my crazy idea to him
with with sketches like this and and
visual references and something pretty
amazing happened ghee was interested by
this idea not because I was asking for
his money but because I I came to him
with a good idea
in which everybody was happy you know it
was kind of a perfect triangle in which
the the art buyer was happy because he
got the instruments at a cheaper price
because they weren't even made he took a
leap of faith and the artist Dominican
girl brilliant guy he was happy too
because he had a dream project to work
on for a year and obviously I was happy
because I got the instruments in my film
for free which was kind of what I tried
to do
so here they are and my last example of
how constraints can boost creativity
comes from
the green because this is a a weird
color you know a crazy color and you
need to replace the the green screens
eventually and you must figure that out
sooner than later and I I had again
pretty much you know ideas in my mind as
what the the world would be but
then again I turned to my childhood you
know imagination and went to the the
work of Belgian comic book master
Francois K10 in Belgium
and this guy is another guy I admire a
lot and I wanted him to be involved in
the movie as a production designer but
people told me you know it's impossible
the guy is too busy and he will say no
well I said you know what instead of me
making a style I might as well call the
real guy and ask him and I sent him my
books and he answered that he was
interested in working on the film with
me because it could be a big fish into a
small aquarium in other words there was
a space for him to dream with me so here
I was with one of my childhood Heroes
you know drawing every single frame
that's in the film
to turn that into Montreal in the future
and it was an amazing collaboration to
work with this great artist who my
admirer but then you know eventually you
have to turn all these drawings into
reality so again my solution was to aim
for the best possible artist that I
could think of and there's this guy in
in Montreal another quebecois called
Carlos manzan and he's a very good VFX
artist this guy had been a lead
compositor on such film as Avatar and
Star Trek and Transformers and other
unknown projects like this and I knew he
was a perfect fit for the job and I had
to convince him and
instead of working on the Nick
Spielberg's movie he accepted to work on
mine why because I offered him a space
to dream so if you don't have money to
offer to people you must strike their
imagination with something as as nice as
you can think of so this is what
happened on on this movie and that's how
it got made and we went to this very
nice post-production company in Montreal
called Vizio glabal and they landed
their 60 artists to work full-time for
six months to do this crazy film
so I want to tell you that if you have
some you know crazy ideas in your mind
and that people tell you that it's
impossible to make well that's an even
better reason to want to do it because
people have a tendency to see the
problems rather than the final result
whereas if you start to deal with
problems as being your allies rather
than your opponents life will start to
dance with you in the most amazing way I
have experienced it and you might end up
doing some crazy projects and who knows
you might even end up going
to Mars thank you
[Music]
