‘It’s a Generation x comedy – it’s the story of a slacker taking the first steps to the rest of his life,’ says Kari Skogland of her fresh new feature film, The Size of Watermelons. This is also a first step for Skogland into feature film directing after eight years in commercials (she has also directed music videos and in the last few years a couple of tv series).

Skogland feels that commercial directors bring an experimental, exploratory and daring sensibility to a film which feature-only directors do not necessarily have.

‘We have no fear of breaking rules,’ says Skogland. ‘In lensing, lighting, editing and even wardrobe, hair and makeup, commercial directors are expected to push the envelope and try new things, so when you come to a feature you are more comfortable with the process because you have tried and failed a few times.’

In her own commercial work, Skogland often defies traditional approaches to editing and continuity and she felt comfortable experimenting on her feature. ‘I let really interesting framing help the tension of the scene, using really deep foreground and background, layering scenes and backgrounds, stylistically stacking things.’

Working on top-end equipment on commercial projects also worked to her advantage in directing the film. ‘In features, everyone is releasing on film so they are not as familiar with the latest in the special effects world,’ says Skogland. ‘But commercial directors are more hip to the latest tools because we release on video and have the budgets to work on high-level equipment like the Flame, Henry, the Inferno, the latest wave that comes onto the marketplace.’

For example, she wanted the end title sequence for The Size of Watermelons to continue the story and grab the audience’s attention. ‘I quoted around, and of course what I could do the traditional way on film was very expensive in comparison to what I could do using the Inferno and then coming out on film,’ explains Skogland. So she up-rezzed and manipulated stock footage on D1 and created an antique film effect, hand-drew the title work, integrated a stylized approach to the titles and married the two at Toronto’s Spin Productions, outputting via cinebyte to film.

‘We could not have achieved what we did on film nor could we have done it in the time frame,’ says an enthusiastic Skogland. ‘This is where my experience and comfort with the technology saved money and did something that would otherwise be impossible. It gave me huge options.’

Skogland says members of her crew and her distributor, Norstar, were also impressed. ‘They didn’t know what the Inferno could do and they were interested, realizing that even on a limited budget you can do interesting title sequences and get more bang for your buck.’

On the creative side, Skogland feels story-driven dramas often use boring means of conveying time transitions and information-heavy expository elements. This is another area where she says her commercial training gave her an edge.

‘I can tell a 10-minute story inside a minute and people will get the information they need,’ she says. ‘That’s what I brought to my feature – a sensibility of compression and non-traditional ways of approaching traditional storytelling.’

Skogland produced The Size of Watermelons independently through Skogland Films, which she opened five years ago as a commercial company. The commercial side of Skogland Films is now a subsidiary of Partners’, allowing her to concentrate on feature production.

‘I could not possibly have produced this film without having been an owner of a commercial production company,’ she admits with its training in putting deals together with crews, designers, lawyers, and making scheduling and budget decisions.

‘I was familiar with the whole process of film production because commercials are mini, high-budget movies.’

Skogland plans to continue to direct commercials but would like to work on dramatic dialogue spots.

Ironically, she says the advertising community has been more hesitant to view her as a drama director than the film community. ‘It is taking them a little time to see me as the kind of person who does drama because they are used to me doing a different kind of work – race cars, high-impact stuff. But I’d like to combine the two.’