Heather Latter
Two former residents are proving themselves as film-makers after their latest project—a 32-minute short film entitled “Where’s Barry?”—recently was chosen for two film festivals.
“We’ve exceed our goal [with the film] at this point,” enthused Roy Tighe, who created the comedy with Graeme Morgan, as well as their friend, Adam Files, who is from Markham, Ont. but now lives in Australia.
Tighe currently lives in Los Angles while Morgan resides in Winnipeg.
They’re thrilled that their film will debut at the Capital City Film Festival in Lansing, Mich. from April 9-12.
“Where’s Barry?” also won a Royal Reel Award for the Canadian Film Competition at the Canadian Independent Film Festival in Vancouver.
“It’s tough to get into a festival,” Tighe noted. “You’re competing with the world now.
“I was so excited to get into Capital City.
“We have a lot not working in our favour with this film because we are submitting as a short film,” he admitted.
“But coming in at 32 minutes, for us to get picked, they are saying ‘no’ to possibly two other short films to say ‘yes’ to ours because of the time,” Tighe added, noting short films tend to be 10-15 minutes long.
“We must have really impressed them.
“And on top of it, our movie is different,” he remarked.
“It’s very heavily Canadian, it’s got this weird storyline, and it’s nothing like you will typically see.”
“Where’s Barry?” is about a former five-pin child bowling prodigy who hasn’t rolled a game in years since dethroning the champ.
But when his old buddies get in over their heads with a local hustler, he’s got to face his demons and get back on the lanes to save them.
The characters are fictional but they are parodies of the three friends.
“Adam is actually an Ontario provincial bowling champion,” said Tighe.
“That storyline is real but the characters for the film are highly-exaggerated.”
The characters played by Tighe and Morgan have a “Laurel and Hardy” dynamic who introduce the audience to the other ones.
“They are the windows into the ‘Where’s Barry?’ world,” Files explained, noting the movie opens with their characters.
“They are buddies from a small town in Canada with big hopes and dreams, moving to the big city of Vancouver to get jobs in construction,” said Tighe.
“That’s the characters’ mindset and that’s what is going on in Fort Frances,” he noted, citing people who are heading west for jobs.
“Mine and Graeme’s characters can’t accomplish that because they are too ridiculous,” Tighe added.
“The whole movie gets sidetracked when they meet Adam.”
While they play some of the main characters, there are a number of other characters, including a few other Fort Frances natives.
However, it’s Tighe, Morgan, and Files who made it all happen.
The initial idea got started back in 2011.
“Graeme came to visit me in L.A.—I had just moved there,” Tighe recalled. “We were sitting on the couch . . . and we came up with a sketch.
“Then we spent that night shooting it.”
“We started throwing ideas around and then said, ‘Let’s just shoot this,’” noted Morgan, adding this original film was called “A Fresh Pack of Smokes.”
“That’s basically where that whole world started,” he remarked.
“We just were making something that we thought was funny,” Tighe indicated.
“We posted it online and a bunch of people really thought it was unique and funny.”
Morgan and Files then began to shoot some scenes together and when Tighe saw them, he was impressed.
“Graeme showed me a piece and it was of Adam bowling,” he remembered.
“He put a really great song under it and I was immediately inspired.”
At that point, they each became inspired about their characters in this “world” and wanted to do some more shooting.
So they landed a painting job that they could do together in order to help pay for it.
“But we still didn’t have a script,” Tighe noted. “That’s when we sat down and we wrote it in two days.
“It just poured out of us.”
Then they shot the film in 15 days in the summer of 2012.
“It was an intense shoot but it was a lot of fun,” Tighe remarked.
“We already had a collection of these random scenes that didn’t make any sense and then we just started plugging in the holes,” he explained.
“It was all based off of this footage that Graeme originally shot with Adam, which actually became the end of the movie.
“It’s a comedy but it’s this deep moment and that’s our climax to the movie,” he added.
Some of the “random” scenes were shot in Fort Frances, such as on a outdoor hockey rink and near Plaza Lanes, along with shots of the mill and logging trucks.
Others were shot in L.A. and Vancouver.
“We were taking advantage of any opportunities to increase the visual palette,” Morgan reasoned.
“It’s kind of shot all over the place.”
“When we were shooting, we didn’t have a grand thing in mind,” Tighe admitted.
“When we wrote it, we were writing it as episodes,” he noted. “We wrote nine episodes.
“The process constantly evolved for us,” Tighe added. “It was a decision made during the editing process to make it into a movie.
“But it didn’t start out like that.”
Morgan said they all worked together really well, each taking a role.
While Morgan did a lot of the shooting, Files assisted with the audio.
Tighe, meanwhile, secured locations and actors, then eventually took care of the editing.
They may not have followed a conventional process in creating the film, but felt they got a lot of interesting elements out of it as a result.
“We had a linear storyline but there was a lot of room,” Morgan explained.
“What we all learned through this process is we don’t work when we are constrained,” echoed Tighe.
“It has to be completely open.
“The way we put together the film, it’s not that it was sloppy,” he stressed. “It just wasn’t a traditional way to put it together.
“We allow the moment to happen and we go with what feels right.”
Tighe indicated “Where’s Barry?” had a life of its own.
“[It] has always been it’s own thing and we are just servicing it,” he remarked.
“It sounds weird but it’s the honest truth.”
They really lucked out when Tighe, who was working in a computer shop in L.A., met Academy Award-nominated editor Bud Smith, known for “Flashdance,” “The Exorcist,” and “The Karate Kid.”
“If you want to make it in this industry, he’s the guy,” Tighe said.
“One day, he came into the shop and asked if I was done the cut on the film.
“I said, ‘I’m close,’” Tighe recalled. “And he said, ‘When it’s done, I want to see it.’
“So I immediately ran home and tried to finish it was fast as I could,” he remembered.
“I called him at the end of the weekend and he told me to come down to his studio.
“I ran to the studio and plugged it in, and I ran [the film] for him.
“We talked about it,” Tighe added. “It was way too long and bulky, it was a rough cut.
“Bud offered to help [me] finish the movie and gave [me] a key to the studio,” he noted. “And I’ve been there ever since.
“He’s been mentoring me through this process.”
“For the project, it’s been huge having Bud on board,” Morgan enthused.
“He’s been a fantastic asset. He’s really our first fan.
The editing process went on for about a year, taking the film from 76 minutes down to 32.
“A movie is truly crafted in the editing room,” Tighe explained. “And that’s what I think took ‘Where’s Barry?’ over the top, with his help.
“There was a lot of confidence for me built as an editor.”
The trio, meanwhile, want as many people as possible to see “Where’s Barry?”
And they’d really like to turn it into a series.
“At 33 minutes, it’s strength is really as a pilot into the ‘Where’s Barry?’ world,” noted Files.
“It stands alone as a short film, but we could make such a good TV or Netflix series out of it.”
“If we could do it as a series, we already have the first two seasons beaten out,” Tighe said, adding they’d love to film it in Fort Frances.
“I’d love to shoot the first two seasons in Fort Frances to show the world this town,” he remarked.
“Fort Frances is hilarious in my opinion.”
“Fort Frances is different than the rest of Canada,” Morgan suggested.
“Northwestern Ontario is on its own. We just have our own humour.
“I think there are a lot of really interesting people that come out of Fort Frances, and I think a lot of it has to do with the community itself,” he added.
Besides, Smith was impressed with the shots they had of Fort Frances in both the summer and winter.
But for the next year, the trio will be focusing on film festivals.
“This is all our first time doing any film festivals at this level,” Tighe noted, adding to see the film, people will have to check it out at a film festival at this point.
“There’s always a chance you could be approached by a distributor who wants to the buy the movie,” Morgan explained.
“But if you’ve already put it on the Internet for free, they are not going to be very interested.”
“Doing the film festival route, we’re playing that game where we are submitting to festivals and hopefully we get into more,” Tighe said.
“I’m hoping it will play at a film festival that people from Fort Frances can come and see.”
But he assures Fort Frances residents will have a chance to see “Where’s Barry?”
“We just don’t know yet how that will happen,” Morgan admitted. “Maybe a distributor will pick it up or maybe we will just put it online.
“We don’t know yet.”
They already have heard back from about 10 film festivals—and still are awaiting word from another 15.
Plus they have about 20 more submissions planned.
“We’re definitely looking forward to sharing this film with people in Fort Frances,” Morgan reiterated, noting they really appreciate the support of Fort Frances.
“The support really goes a long way,” agreed Tighe. “People might not know that but it does mean something.
“It’s part of the inspiration why ‘Where’s Barry?’ was made.
“Most of the people that loved that sketch we first made [were] people from Fort Frances—and that’s what inspired us to move it forward,” he added.
“Fort Frances is a huge factor in what we are and what we create,” echoed Morgan, adding he’s really proud of their film.
“This is a huge accomplishment for us,” he stressed. “It’s not an easy thing.
“You have to work for it and we’re seeing that hard work pay off now.
“It’s taken a long time,” Morgan conceded. “But nothing is better than that feeling when it’s done and you’ve nailed it.
“The icing on the cake is getting into these festivals.”
Check out the movie trailer at www.wheresbarry.com
