Producer/director/writer: Blaine Thurier * Diary by: Louise Leger

Vancouver filmmaker Blaine Thurier never expected his ultra-low-budget film to make it to tiff. In fact, Thurier didn’t even send it to the festival, thinking the event was ‘too big’ for his little film. Fortunately, film fest programmers heard a buzz about the filmmaker’s first project and flew out to Vancouver to have a look. The rest is history.

Low Self Esteem Girl, shot on digital video for under $10,000, is a comedy/drama about a young woman who has such low self-worth she is seemingly easy prey for exploitative men who are after her body and a zealous born-again Christian group who are after her soul.

March 1998: Blaine Thurier is working as a retail clerk by day and a serial comic strip artist and musician by night. After the phrase ‘Low Self Esteem Girl’ suddenly pops into his head, he begins writing a new comic strip based on such a character. The strip is called ‘Grief’ and it runs in a Vancouver underground newspaper.

July 1998: Thurier feels stifled by the limits of cartoon-making and decides he wants to make a live-action film about the main character – a.k.a. Lois – whom he describes as ‘a woman who doesn’t realize her own worth and is looking everywhere for approval.’

He stops drawing the comic strip and gets ‘a real job,’ shelving books at the Vancouver Public Library, to finance the film. ‘I didn’t think of getting public financing then,’ he says. ‘My idea of financing a film was to get a better job.’

Thurier ‘has conversations’ with potential actors and casts the main parts, including the Lois character, to be played by Corrina Hammond, who is an artist and a musician with the band Maow. The cast agrees to work for free.

August 1998: Thurier begins the process of writing and rewriting the script. He researches different kinds of cameras and buys a Canon Optura one-chip digital camera on credit for $3,300.

‘To get the most candid performances, I wanted to be able to just let the camera roll and to get as much possible footage – so film stock was out of the question.’

January 1999: Thurier has rewritten the script three times and filming begins, with Thurier on camera.

February 1999: Since Thurier and the actors have other jobs – some touring with musical groups and on the road for long stretches – the filming process is slow.

‘When people were away, we couldn’t shoot with that character and I wanted to shoot in sequence so the film could develop organically. It took a long time.’

October 1999: After 15 film cassettes (at $20 each) and 15 hours of footage, shooting is complete.

November 1999: It’s time to edit the footage, and Thurier borrows money and buys a Mac and a computer program called Final Cut Pro (Total $5,400), which, he says, is able to accomplish ‘almost everything a high-end editing system can do.’

Feb. 16, 2000: The edit is finished.

Feb. 17, 2000: Low Self Esteem Girl debuts on vhs at Vancouver’s Blinding Light Cinema, a membership-only cinema that shows alternative films. Audience reaction is positive and the film is sold out on the second, third and fourth nights. Extra chairs are added to the theatre on the fourth and final night.

March 2000: Thurier starts to send his film off to different festivals, but is hampered by lack of funds. ‘I thought of sending it to Toronto, but I thought the festival was too big.’

Spring 2000: The filmmaker gets a small completion grant from Telefilm Canada to blow up the film for theatrical release and to help with marketing.

Blinding Light curator Alex McKenzie travels to a Toronto festival, where he leaves a copy of the Blinding Light program featuring Low Self Esteem Girl, which is then picked up by Stacey Donen, tiff Perspective Canada programmer. He calls McKenzie and decides to fly out to Vancouver with co-programmer Liz Czach to screen the film for potential admission to tiff.

Early June 2000: Czach and Donen screen the film.

July 20, 2000: Thurier hears from Donen that Low Self Esteem Girl is in the festival. Getting the call is ‘indescribably, unbearably exhilarating.’

August 2000: Thurier, taking a leave from the library, starts ‘a crash course’ in the business side of filmmaking, working on a potential payment plan for the yet-to-be-paid actors, and ‘fielding interested calls’ from potential distributors. ‘No one thought the film would go this far,’ he says.

September 2000: Low Self Esteem Girl debuts at tiff. *