Cowichan filmmaker, director and actress Angel Violet Hawes may be only 16 but she loves the movies.
She’s just won best young filmmaker at the 2016 Joey awards for her short film His First Time.
The Joeys celebrate young Canadian talent with a gala event, featuring a red carpet, glitzy setting and all the trimmings. It’s always a red-letter day for nominees.
Even though she’s being noticed this time for her filmmaking, Hawes doesn’t just sit around in a director’s chair: she wrote, acted in, directed, and edited the film herself.
With her two fellow actors, Danny Bristol and Melina Suelze, Hawes was also nominated for best short film ensemble and Bristol himself was nominated for, and won, best monologue. Hawes was also nominated for best actress in Larp and best monologue.
Multi-talented Hawes says crafting an award winning video involves more than just holding up your phone and pressing a little red onscreen button.
“It takes more than you’d think. There’s making the script, editing it, rehearsing it if you’re an actor, finding actors, if you need them, by audition. Then there’s the filming. This film is only seven to eight minutes long but it took a whole two days of filming. And there’s all the little things you have to think about, like props and stuff like that. And then there’s the editing.”
“It took months to edit.”
Although she’s a busy Grade 10 student at Cowichan Secondary School, Hawes has entered her films in festivals all around the world and is now reaping the rewards of reaching for the top.
She was also nominated for last year’s Joeys and has worked with other directors, like Nanaimo’s award-winning Brian Morelan. Hawes also acted in his Team Teenettes in 2016-17, which is still being cut, so watch for it next year.
She’s still working on another project with Morelan.
“He’s shooting a film, in February, I believe. I’m playing a cat-faced princess in a sci-fi kind of thriller,” she said.
Hawes is also passionate about singing and songwriting and has been seen onstage at the Cowichan Performing Arts Centre in highlights shows following the Cowichan Music Festival.
She is still interested in acting and filming but she’s devoting more time at the moment to her music.
“Right now, I’m sitting in front of my computer editing a music video, for my song called ‘Switzerland’,” she said. “I’m concentrating right now more on my music career than my film career. For this video I recorded it a couple of weeks ago and then I took advantage of the snow we’ve had and went and, even though I had a really bad cold, I shot the music video that day. Now, I’m really looking for places to perform live so I can develop that as well.”
So, music fans, be on the lookout for Angel Violet appearing as a singer/songwriter on stages near you as well.
