The vision

This is an exciting one! I’ve always loved short films made by students because you never know what you might find! Some of them can really be hidden gems and you never know, you could be working with the next Xavier Dolan. The students at l’Université de Montréal had a brilliant vision: a story about a dancer having a drug trip. This synopsis alone might not spark your interest, but the class exercise was to shoot using film, and this amazing team decided they would divide the film in two. The scenes where the main character was sober were shot digitally while the shots where she was high were shot using film. Such a creative way to do this exercise! This is what I love most about film school. You’re given restrictions and it forces you to use your imagination to make something interesting and out of the ordinary.

Becoming a dancer

The challenge with this film is that the main character was a dancer and she would be performing at some point in the story. I’m no dancer, but the synopsis had really peaked my interest so I decided to give it a go! I auditioned and the director had me do dance-like movements to see if I was comfortable and able to take directions. To my surprise, it went well and I ended up landing the role. We spent an entire day with a dance troupe rehearsing the choreography and to be completely honest, I wasn’t amazing. I taped the choreography so I could practice at home and make it perfect. Learning to dance and move using counts was a new concept to me and a difficult one to master at first, but I worked hard on it and when came time to shoot, I was prepared. The fact that the dance was shot using film gives it an even cooler look and I’m really happy with the results. All in all, I only have good things to say about this piece and everyone involved!