On June 7 at Toronto’s Varsity cinemas, the Canadian Film Centre held its annual screening of the five shorts from its Universal Studios Short Dramatic Film Programme, produced by its most recent crop of student residents. Playback spoke with the directors of photography who lensed the five shorts.

The Porcelain Pussy – Derek Rogers

Toronto cinematographer Derek Rogers calls The Porcelain Pussy the perfect ‘alternate reality’ film. The period film noir throws gender roles on their heads: the hard-boiled detective is played by a woman (Shauna MacDonald from Trailer Park Boys) and the submissive femme fatale character is a man (Frank Chiesurin).

Rogers, whose feature film credits include Vincenzo Natali’s Cube (for which he won a 1999 CSC Award) and Nothing, as well as Foolproof, says he’s personally lensed 33 shorts, but The Porcelain Pussy, written by Andrew Kelm, was the best short film script he’d ever read.

‘This film lets us look at [film noir] in a different, almost critical way, while still paying homage to it,’ Rogers notes. He says director Denise Blinn was obsessive about staying true to the film noir tradition.

‘We referenced the Coen brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There, but felt that they used a lot of soft light,’ the cameraman explains. ‘Denise wanted this to be an exact genre film, so I used no diffusion and no fill light in order to create hard light and harsh shadows, while employing harder frames with a camera that did not move a lot.’

Rogers says he was teaching at the CFC for a few days when producer Trish Neufeld tracked him down to lens the short. ‘I loved the script, and Denise is a serious filmmaker who loves and understands film history, and to me that’s really important.’

Peep – Micha Dahan

Micha Dahan says he did not want to pass up the opportunity to work on the CFC short Peep.

‘The Film Centre projects are very important for Canada,’ says the Toronto lenser. ‘Many foreign productions [shooting here] bring the creative teams, and we become a great service industry with amazing crews, but for Canada to be able to show its creative talent is crucial.’ Dahan, who teamed up with director/writer Naomi Jaye to craft Peep, recalls being approached about the project by a mutual producer friend, and decided to pass on another gig to do it.

Peep tells the story of a lonely, solitary man who values his privacy (Sugith Varughese), but at the same time, longs to break out of the monotony of his sheltered life and join the outside world.

‘His dreams are manifested in this little diorama he’s working on as a hobby, and within a somewhat dull bedroom, it becomes a symbol of hope,’ explains Dahan.

As a result, director and DOP discussed conveying a sense of loneliness within the room, but at the same time illustrating a sense of hope with the diorama through a more vibrant color scheme.

‘We went with a muted palette to give the room a lifeless, sad look, but also to make it timeless,’ says Dahan. ‘We referenced cinematographer Darius Khondji’s work on Delicatessen as a starting point.’

Dahan, who calls collaborating with Jaye ‘a tremendous pleasure,’ credits the director’s sense of color and visual style from her background in theater costume design and wardrobe.

White Out – Gregory Middleton

Busy Vancouver DOP Gregory Middleton admits that knowing this year’s CFC shorts were to be posted using Toybox’s Cinema DI process helped attract him to lens White Out.

‘I wanted to become familiar with the state of the technology today, and since there are so many types of processes I hadn’t tried first-hand, this was a good opportunity to do so,’ recalls Middleton, whose feature credits include Falling Angels and Between Strangers.

Working with rookie director Matt Sinclair-Foreman, from a script by him and Abigail Kinch, proved a good experience that benefited from the fact the DOP and director are longtime friends. ‘I’ve worked with a lot of first-time directors in my career, so this wasn’t new to me,’ Middleton says. In fact, lensing White Out in Toronto suited Middleton’s schedule, since he had to be in the city to prep the feature film Cake.

White Out is the story of a high school senior (Tyler Kyte) who, consumed by grief over the death of a friend (Ephraim Ellis), receives an unusual visit from a ghostly caller.

Director and DOP wanted to keep bright colors out of the film, opting for a more monochromatic tone. ‘We did try to control the saturation overall, to keep it from looking too happy or colorful,’ says Middleton.

The crew also shot a makeup test in the beginning to determine how blue the frozen apparition of the ghost should be.

‘We digitally timed and output the test to film to evaluate what the right hue should be – if he was too blue or not,’ explains Middleton. ‘If he was too blue he tended to look too cartoony, so we had to find the right balance by placing the other character next to him to compare skin tones.’

The Sadness of Johnson Joe Jangles – Jonathan Bensimon

Young DOP Jonathan Bensimon says he was very simpatico with director/writer Jeffrey St. Jules as they shot the wacky gay-themed western fantasy The Sadness of Johnson Joe Jangles.

‘We met through the CFC and had worked on other video shorts together,’ explains the Toronto-based Bensimon. ‘Jeff is always two steps ahead from what he just told you, but luckily I understood that about him and we were on the same page continuously.’

Bensimon says Johnson has undertones of a spaghetti western, as the dream of a better life in a brave, phantasmagorical new world for a young male couple (Zachary Bennett and Gregory White) is threatened by various sinful temptations.

Preparation for the five-day shoot consisted of visiting locations with a stills camera, discussing shots and brainstorming later in the day.

The DOP turned to the 17th century Italian painter Caravaggio for visual inspiration, chiefly in terms of the color yellow featuring prominently. The photos of edgy contemporary pop artist David LaChapelle were also an influence.

‘[They] served as a reference because of their grittiness in terms of treatment,’ Bensimon explains.

The DOP found himself pushing visual references on St. Jules. ‘Jeff is very much about the story and likes the visual input, so every suggestion I made was welcome,’ he says.

Milo 55160 – Jordan Lynn

Cinematographer Jordan Lynn, based out of Toronto, says that along with lensing a Bravo!FACT music video and shooting a promo for The Eleventh Hour, working on Milo 55160 was one of the biggest opportunities to come his way.

‘I had worked with director [and writer] David Ostry before on some video shorts for the CFC director’s program, so we formed a good rapport,’ Lynn explains. ‘But I know I wasn’t the overwhelming choice at first for Milo, since other cinematographers were interviewed.’

Lynn, who had never shot on 35mm before, says it was an honor to be entrusted with lensing duties on Milo, a fantasy about a bureaucrat (Patrick McKenna of The Red Green Show and Traders) finding salvation in his career in the afterlife, where he is confronted with having to officially process the death of a young boy.

The DOP says they opted for a high-key, slightly artificial, deep-focus look for the short. ‘We wanted to emphasize that this is purgatory, that there is something unnatural about the setting, so that the audience isn’t sure initially where they are,’ says Lynn. ‘I used very broad, soft sources of light, and camera movements were minimalist and very controlled.’

The DOP says Ostry is very savvy as to what is required to make a scene work because of his background as a professional editor.

‘It was a smooth, collaborative effort, because we had a good understanding of each other and of what was needed on set,’ says Lynn.