Like any storyteller, Natalie North and Meghan Bell want to know how their story will end.
For that to happen, they are looking for more directors to take a number of completed scripts from the page to the big screen.
The graduates of the University of Victoria’s writing department are the visionaries behind One to 11, a project they developed in 2010 to bring together established directors and emerging writers to create short films. The works will one day be merged into one feature-length work.
The catch is that the stories are different; the only common threads linking the short films are shared locations, characters and actors.
“I think it’s fun to give people set criteria and see how they play within it,” North said.
She and Bell gave their project a name that captures its enormous creative scope.
“Meghan and I figured it was going to be so intense, it would need to be measured on a scale of one to 11,” said North, a Saanich News reporter.
For guidance, they went to Jim Knox, president of the CineVic Society of Independent Filmmakers, and prominent filmmaker and UVic associate professor Maureen Bradley.
North and Bell then approached 11 writers, who developed 13 characters that could be featured in the films.
“Ì thought it was a really interesting challenge to come up with a character … and give them enough goals and depth and back story to be able to take them somewhere with anybody else’s character,” said filmmaker Daniel Hogg, who wrote a script for One to 11 that now needs a director.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a project like this before,” Hogg said.
To date, 10 scripts have been written, three films have been completed, another is being edited and a fifth is being filmed. A director is also needed for a script written by UVic sessional writing instructor Michael Giampa.
Longtime filmmaker Michael Korican was one of the first to sign on to the project, and chose to direct Graham Butler’s script.
“Typically, I shoot my own work so it was great working with someone else’s (script),” Korican said.
It was also a coup for Butler, who was able to see one of his scripts transformed into a film for the first time. The 16-minute short Seeing is Feeling premiered at the Victoria Short Circuit Film Festival in April.
From the start, One to 11 intrigued Korican.
“It’s all about relationships,” he said. “Individually they stand on their own, but collectively this project has a lot of potential.”
Though there is still a ways to go before the shorts become a feature-length film, North said the success of the project won’t necessarily be measured by the final product.
“Our goal is to have new connections be made and new people working together, and so far that’s happened,” she said.
Five completed scripts are now in need of directors. To become involved in One to 11, write to victoriacreativefilm@gmail.com.
