Docs North film workshop ‘awesome’ experience

The people’s choice award winner at this year’s Bay Street Film Festival picked up more knowledge at the Docs North video production workshop Oct. 2-6 in Thunder Bay.
“It was really awesome – I learnt a lot,” said Kayleb Magiskan, a Thunder Bay filmmaker whose family is originally from Aroland.
Magiskan’s film, Gas Through the Glass, focused on substance abuse, with interviews with people who were going through the healing process at a treatment centre.
“It was a pretty visual documentary,” Magiskan said. “It touched close to home.”
The film picked up the people’s choice award during the Bay Street Film Festival Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. Visiting filmmakers who had films shown at the Bay Street Film Festival also filled the role of mentors during the Docs North workshop. They also prepared the learning filmmakers for a five-minute filmmaking project during the workshop.
“We met filmmakers from all around the world, Germany and Europe, and that was really awesome,” Magiskan said.
The workshop was organized by Kelly Saxberg and Cal Kenny through the Flash Frame Film and Video Network, in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada, Keewaytinook Okimakanak Research Institute and ReSDA.
Magiskan, Jason Hunter, Nadine Arpin and Michelle Latimer focused their film on the Cree legend about Pakaakskokan, a bone that gets stuck in trees.
“You have to kind of decide if you want to save it or set if free,” Magiskan said.
Magiskan and his team shot the film near his home in Westfort Oct. 5 until it got too dark to film any more.
“We have about eight hours to edit,” Magiskan said on the last day of the workshop. “To me, editing is the best part. You can play around with everything, clean it up. We’re using Final Cut Pro on the Mac. I’m a big perfectionist so it takes me weeks of editing.”
After working on his own on Gas Through the Glass, Magiskan said it was good to work as part of a team at Docs North.
“When I worked with Nadine and Jason, I kind of got the feel of how the film industry really is,” Magiskan said. “You have to work with people, right, so that was a new experience for me.”
Magiskan also enjoyed learning from the mentor assigned to his team, Damien Gilbert, a Confederation College film production graduate who has worked in California and Morocco as well as in Thunder Bay.
“They seemed very skilled in their work,” Gilbert said about Magiskan’s team. “I almost didn’t have to do too much.”
Two other teams also produced films during the workshop, which were screened on the evening of the last day.
Gilbert said the different mentors provided the learning filmmakers with a range of knowledge from the perspective of producer, writer or editor.
“It’s interesting to see everyone’s perspective on film,” Gilbert said. “Bringing in their experiences, you kind of pick up on that and learn from it as well.”
The workshop included sessions on approaching the story, the director at work, the producer’s job, camera and lighting, sound work, editing and shooting a micro documentary.