By: Kate Ellis
Second-year students in the television broadcasting program were given 60 days to film documentaries revolving around a “union” for this year’s Digi60 Film Festival.
“It’s hard to sum up a big topic in only five to eight minutes,” said Nick Tessier, 19.
The only criteria given was that documentaries had to revolve around a union, and applicants were given only 60 days to complete their project.
“Our union is the family coming together,” said Caroline Marchand, 19.
Marchand and Tessier were the producers and along with their team, they worked together to make their documentary about an adopted boy searching for his biological parents.
“It goes through his personal struggles – does he even want to find them in the end?” said Michelle Aseltine, 21.
The adoption process involves a lot of paperwork, some which can take up to four years to obtain. During their research, Parent Finder told the team that the best time to start looking is now.
“Once you get the information, you don’t have to do anything with it,” said Tessier. “You just have it.”
The group’s film ends with the search stopping, saying their lead wasn’t emotionally ready to meet them.
Nick Losacco, 19, was the producer and along with his team, they put together a flash mob for their documentary.
“Our original idea was to organize a flash mob and then document the process,” said Losacco.
“We had our whole plan and we tried to get people, called everyone, made a Facebook event (and) put out flyers to publicize it.”
The flash mob did not go as planned.
“We were kind of confident that people would show up, but then (we) thought, ‘what if no one shows up,’” said Losacco.
Since no one showed up for the flash mob, their solution was Kummel’s panda suit. The ending of their documentary took a turn to show Kummel interacting with people in the suit.
“We (thought we) could probably get something in the panda suit, and we did,” said Losacco. “The ending is probably better because no one showed up (compared to) if people actually did show up. The documentary wasn’t hinging on the ending. It was more about the process.”
John Petti, 25, producer, and his team made their documentary about radar technician veterans from World War II.
The story follows veterans trying to obtain information panel space at the Canadian War Museum. In the old museum, there were 26 panels, while in the new one they only have a small space dedicated to the technicians.
One veteran interviewed in their documentary mentions that atomic bombs may have ended the war, but radar won it.
“(Radar was) crucial in winning the war to help the bombers know where to attack,” said Laura Tomkins, 24, referring to information from her documentary.
Aiden Mackean, 21, producer, and his team made their documentary on paranormal activity and the process of the investigation.
The team followed the Ottawa Valley Paranormal Phenomena Investigations team for four hours. They went to an old trailer home, where it was believed that an entity was present on the grounds.
“The doc really focuses around the founder and why he started the team,” said Mackean.
After filming for the night, the team had lost three-quarters of their footage, which they have no explanation for.
The films will be shown at Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts in the Market on Dec. 7. For more information, visit www.digi60.org/.