As part of an assignment for my graduate studies, I had to explore Ted.com,
and the infamous “TedTalks” and find a motivating speaker who added inspiration
to my entertainment industry career.
I was excited about a Canadian filmmaker named Martin
Villeneuve, whose experience and advice would be useful to any
creative person in this business, regardless of the medium.
“If you have some crazy ideas in your mind, and people tell you that it's
impossible, well, that's an even better reason to want to do it,” mused the
Montreal-based screenwriter, director and producer. “Because people have a
tendency to see the problems rather than the final result.”
Villeneuve’s final result was his award-winning debut feature film, "Mars
et Avril." The futuristic sci-fi flick is the kind that usually costs several million dollars, with first class special effects and innovative
visuals.
“When American producers see my film,” he continues. “They think that I had
a big budget to do it, like $23 million. But in fact I had 10 percent of that
budget. I did "Mars et Avril" for only $2.3 million.”
And just how did Mr. Villeneuve make his big budget feature on his limited
working budget?
He surmises that if you don’t have
the required funds, you need time and love to get the job done. “When you don't have money,” he admits, “you
must take time, and it took me seven years to do 'Mars et Avril.' The
second aspect is love. I got tons and tons of generosity from everyone
involved. Every department had to rely on our creativity and turn every problem
into an opportunity.”
And therein lies the secret of his success.
A living example of the adage, “necessity is the mother of invention,”
Villeneuve found imaginative ways to get what he needed, including giving
others the “opportunity” to work on his project.
He was able to convince his busy star, Robert Lepage, to commit to the
project by re-writing his character as a hologram, and allowing him to shoot
the dialogue for all of his scenes at one time. And the character was bigger and bolder than
he would have been, if shot conventionally.
Villeneuve had a vision of futuristic musical instruments inspired by women's
bodies that would be an integral part of the film. He had to find a way to turn his vision into
reality. “I woke up one morning with a pretty good idea. I said to myself,
‘What if I have somebody else pay for them?’ So I found my way to Guy Laliberté,
Cirque du Soleil's CEO, and I presented my crazy idea to him with sketches and
visual references, and something pretty amazing happened. Guy was interested … because
I came to him with a good idea in which everybody was happy.”“He took a leap of faith," Villeneuve continues. "And the artist, Dominique Engel, a brilliant guy, was happy too, because he had a dream project to work on for a year. And obviously I was happy because I got the instruments in my film for free, which was kind of what I tried to do.”
“If you don't have money to offer to people, you must strike their
imagination with something as nice as you can think of. So this is what happened on this movie, and
that's how it got made.”
A lesson for all of us with big dreams and small wallets.
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