Jeff Macpherson was inspired to shoot his feature comedy, Come Together, after seeing Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 Dogme film The Celebration. A ‘flat broke’ Macpherson originally wrote the script as a Christmas present to his partner Laura Harris (who ended up playing a role in the movie and also produced it). ‘She thought it was beautiful,’ Macpherson says. Later on, he showed the script to a friend who persuaded him it was too good to shoot on video.

But Macpherson went one better for his debut. He shot on mini-DV, a consumer format. Ironically, mini-DV was the perfect tool: it’s often used for wedding videography and a wedding is at the centre of Macpherson’s film.

In Come Together, Ewan (Tygh Runyan) returns home for the wedding of Charlotte (Harris), his ex-girlfriend. While trying to come to terms with this end to his past, the 27-year-old Ewan encounters the 17-year-old Amy (Eryn Collins). A delicate friendship develops between the two. ‘He’s calling her in the middle of the night to go for a walk,’ Macpherson explains, ‘and an ambiguous relationship develops between them because of the age gap. I wanted to show that relationship without judgment, and the bond they share of loneliness and depression.

‘It’s about self-imposed loneliness really. When you have friends you can call and people you can rely on, but you sit there not doing that and then start feeling lonely.

‘Things change in life,’ he continues. ‘When we resist that change we create demons.’

Macpherson has been working in the B.C. film industry for several years and previously directed a documentary about a local sculptor entitled Tribute to the Forest. Part of his preparation work came as he attended the First Step Actors Workshop in Vancouver aimed at young actors. ‘It’s like the Actors Studio in New York,’ Macpherson says. ‘The actors have to get to the point where they are truthful with themselves and only then can they start working.’ He met one of his actors at the workshop.

The film was shot in Vancouver and Toronto and produced by Rocket Chicken Productions, the company Macpherson and Harris co-own. The connections he has made during his career proved fruitful, particularly in post-production when he received very low-cost help from Vancouver post-production houses. Shot on a small budget, Come Together was also financed independently with help from private investors, including an old friend of Macpherson’s, Michael Lyon.

After a 32-day shoot, Macpherson edited the film himself using Final Cut Pro. ‘I wanted to create it with my own resources,’ he says. ‘I’m really excited to be autonomous.’

If there was any drawback to the DIY approach, it was that Macpherson once got in the way of DOP Les Erskine. ‘I’m a technical guy, I love handling all the

equipment, I know all the departments. I was a grip once, a damn good grip too….But I got screamed at by the DOP when I tried to move the lights.’