Meet the Montreal contestants in the International 24 Hour Film Race

How much can you accomplish in a mere 24-hours? As part of the annual 24 Hour Film Race, filmmakers around the world are tasked with delivering a fully executed short film within 24 hours, based on a set of 3 prompts. This year, one team from Montreal has made it into the top 24 finals, with the film Who Lives There?

We spoke with actress Leigh Ann Taylor by e-mail to discuss how the film came together, and the challenges of putting together a film in just one day. Until August 6, votes can be cast for the competition’s Audience Award via the film’s official site.  The awards will be presented August 23 in Brooklyn, New York.

How did Who Lives There? come together?

The New York City headquarters for the 24-hour film racing contest sent all film teams three obstacles to overcome within the 24 hour period that was provided for us to shoot.The theme of the story had to be an “ultimatum,” we needed to include a “broom” in the film and finally, we had to have an action of “biting into something”. Over 400 film-making teams from all over the world received these same rules at exactly the same time, at 10pm on May 31st. As soon as we received that email from NYC, the competition was officially launched, and we started brainstorming ideas based on the technical team, the set we had, and our team of actors.

The director (Luc Sirois) came up with a story that involved two people visiting unique and weird homes once a year on May 31st (Which also coincides with the date of the film race). Their intention? To find out “Who Lives There?”.

With the help of the entire team present, the actors started improvising and our camera technicians discussed what was and what wasn’t possible. We tried multiple dialogue conversations, different tones, timing, etc .and finally came up with what we felt was a strong story with a good flow, while including the 3 rules given to us by NYC.

Has the production team worked together previously?

Adam Reid, who plays my husband in the film, had worked with the director, Luc Sirois, once before on the live coverage of the inaugural flight of the “C-Series Plane” by Bombardier. Luc is someone who’s well recognized in the French industry but did not have many connections on the English side. So Adam used his connections to help with casting and called me to be part of this film, as well as his friend, Tamir Kapelian. We had known each other through friends of friends but never actually worked together before. And Nathalie Neising (actress/singer) is the director’s cousin, so she was cast directly by him. The director was also able to invite many of his “technical” colleagues/friends to join in, and he just so happens to be married to musician/composer Nathalie Bonin, so she created the original musical score for our film as we went.

The second we got onto set, it was instant chemistry, quite special to see how all of us bonded quickly and were absolutely invested in doing our best together to create a film we’d be proud of in such a compressed period of time. I was amazed by how professional the whole team was, no egos or meltdowns on set, only hard work & team spirit. That truly impressed me, given how little time we had & how little sleep we had. Adam had also previously mentioned that he was looking for a series of “versatile” actors able to adapt to any curveball sent their way, so we went in ready to expect the unexpected. Being selected as one of the actors was a great honour for me and working with such a talented group was extremely fun and inspiring.

What were the biggest constraints in filming the movie in just 24 hrs?

The biggest constraints were really all about making everything work in only 24 hours! For example, as actors, we’d normally have time to study and memorize a script and to create our characters and relationships. Often, on set, a scene will be filmed over and over until it is perfect. But because of the extremely limited time, we just had to dive in, improvise, and go for it! We had to suffice with only 1 or 2 takes per scene and move on to the next. On a technical level, we had to work super efficiently. We were filming in Casselman, Ontario (at the director’s aunt’s exquisite home & ranch) and while we continued filming, a team member drove back to Montreal with video cards of the footage of what we had already filmed, so that the editing & graphic designing could get underway ASAP. Similarly, clips of scenes were sent back to Montreal via internet, so that the musical scoring could begin, as we continued to work. I have to say that our director, Luc, was so well organized and had recruited the best of the best technical team, so luckily, things went as smoothly as possible. A full list of all our great crew is included at the end of our film. A funny anecdote to add is that we had thought that Adam, my actor “husband” would do the film’s intro voice-over at the end of our shoot but after a very intense screaming scene, Adam lost his voice. So, instead of Adam, I ended up doing it, impromptu style. As I love doing voice-work too, I’ll admit this was a guilty pleasure for me. Sorry Adam!

How long was the total filming process? Were any of you up for the full 24 hours?

23 hours and 59 minutes! This is how long it took us to deliver the final product! Believe it or not, we submitted our film with 1 minute remaining due to “rendering issues” because of the HD quality of our film. Luc was up for 24 hours, I was up for 24 hours, Adam Reid was up for 24 hours and we didn’t dare sleep until the final product was submitted and accepted by New York!

What are the future plans for the production team?

With Who Lives There? being a Top 24 finalist, our production team has been invited to attend the Film Racing Gala Screening and Awards Ceremony in Brooklyn, NYC on August 23rd. Top prizes for numerous categories (ex. script, cinematography, special effects, acting, etc.) will be awarded by a jury of industry professionals and of course, we are hopeful to return to Montreal as prizewinning film-makers! Also, until August 6th, the public can help us win the ‘Audience Choice’ award by voting for Who Lives There? via the Film Racing site. We are the only team to represent Montreal, as well as Quebec, so a vote for us, is a vote for Montreal, Quebec and Canada too!