A while back, Alex Southey, wrote a great review on the short film, Iridescence which takes on the topic of a young man dealing with an abusive father who doesn’t tolerate his decision in life. But at the same time, it shows why his father is against it, and exposes some deep dark secrets in everyone’s life. I got a chance to talk to Kent Donguines, the producer, and the director, Max Beauchamp about this stunning short film which delivers many messages in a way that has never been done before.
HNMAG: What was the whole experience like shooting the short film?
Kent: It was a crazy ride, definitely. The first time I got the idea, I thought it was a very challenging piece to pull off. There were too many elements that were really new, especially putting the element of dance in a film with zero dialogue is a completely different take.
Were there any other challenges on set?
Kent: Yeah, there was definitely some challenges on set. First of all, this was a student production, and we had to deal with some students on the crew that were more experienced than others. But mostly it went well. Some challenges that did come up on set were mostly time challenges because we only had a specific amount of time to our location and we had very ambitious writing set up and production design set up. But I remember our second day we had 4 scenes to shoot, so much set-up to do. We ended up pulling it off and we learned so much from doing all of it.
HNMAG: Where did you get such a powerful idea for such a creative way of telling a story?
Max: Well, half of the idea comes from exaggerated personal experiences, so they come from values and ideologies that I picked up and I just wanted to tell it. I didn’t want to use words because I notice myself as a director, it’s just more powerful when I show it instead of say it, so I have a background in performing arts and when I wrote the first draft of this script, it had lines and dialogue. I said “This script doesn’t need dialogue. Let’s just take it all out and show them pure emotion.”
HNMAG: Was choreography a big challenge? How did all of that go?
Max: It was definitely very tricky because it became the dialogue of the film. We were really happy to have an amazing choreographer Danielle Gardner, that was on So You Think You Can Dance, so she has lots of experience. She trained all around Vancouver. So we were very lucky to have her on, but the cast also helped a lot. Because something that was very important, is that the movement had to feel not like a rehearsed choreography but more like regular people moving. So we had a lot of rehearsals where we discussed the motivation and we discussed the movement and some of the choreography just came up naturally.
HNMAG: What would you say was the best thing about making this short film?
Kent: I think the best part was the very last day. We were doing the establishing shot on the steps and you can see how happy the people are. They’re very much satisfied with the outcome. Because usually it’s only the concern of the director or the DOP, but we made it very open to the talent to show how their hard work pays off. That was the best moment the production really had.
- Upon doing this interview, I learned a lot of amazing things from these two individuals and I wish them the best of luck in their future projects. In fact, Kent told me about something else he worked on. Stay tuned for my next interview with S.J. van Breda as she discusses her film, Sentience.
