By Mikhail Saavedra
We speak to one of our more promising local filmmaker to get a sense of his creative process and what makes his style unique:
Who is Sean Carley?
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Sean Carley wrote for episodic television, including shows like “Degrassi the Next Generation,” “MTV’s Undressed” and the surreal sci-fi series “Charlie Jade” before he picked up a video camera and shot his debut short “Bed Bugs,” which had its world premiere at the acclaimed Fantastic Fest (2006) in Austin, Texas. He has since gone on to direct several more short films, including a series of short films for the National Film Board of Canada. He’s currently in development on his first feature.
Can you tell us what inspired you to come up with the idea for “Doppelganger: Episode 1”?
About five years ago, I wrote a treatment for a feature film that actually came shockingly close to being greenlit for production (yes, based on the treatment–Canada is a crazy place). When that didn’t happen, it went into a drawer along with a gazillion other unrealized ideas. And then a few years later, after my metamorphosis from screenwriter to writer-director, I dusted off the old treatment and pitched it as a short film series to Rogers Wireless, which was commissioning short films as mobile content. I shot the on the very small budget we were offered, and Doppelganger was born. Rogers Wireless loved the results but doesn’t seem to be doing any more mobile content right now, but I got the chance to play in this fantasy world and I want to keep playing there.
Where do you see this series heading into?
What I’ve completed so far is more like a taste–a teaser for what’s to come. It introduces a couple of characters, but the world is much richer and more complex than is suggested by this first episode. When you only have a few minutes to tell your story, you have to pick where you want to focus your energy–whether it’s atmosphere, character or story. You don’t really have time to do it all in such a compressed timeframe. But I hope to let each episode stand on its own as an enjoyable experience. Whether that episode is only about character. Or only about a story or scares. Future episodes will present small glimpses of the bigger world, allowing the audience to begin piecing the mysteries together, unlike a typical television narrative that takes 45-minutes to tell a single story.
What does the future hold for Sean Carley?
I just finished editing a short film that I shot in Mexico with local actors. It’s perhaps my most surreal short film yet–an arty horror film, I suppose. It’s just being sent out to some festivals, so we’ll see what happens. And I shot yet another short on the Red Camera in March, but I haven’t even begun post on it because it will involve some fairly labour-intensive effects work. Ultimately, a feature is the Holy Grail for every filmmaker, and I’m currently writing the second draft of a supernatural thriller which was invited into the screenwriting lab with Sienna Films and Mongrel Media. It’s a film I will shoot somehow, some way…but hopefully with a real budget for once. If anyone’s curious to find out what’s happening with any of my projects, I have a website at www.seancarley.com
