ALBERTA FILMMAKERS HOPE 10-MINUTE PILOTS TAKE FLIGHT
The plot for the Calgary-based thriller Faultline is fairly complex.
It tells a dark tale spanning more than a decade about the Tennant siblings, three sisters struggling to come to terms with a tragedy that befell the family. Their mother was arrested for manslaughter and committed suicide upon entering prison. Fifteen years later, the now estranged sisters stumble across new information that might exonerate their mother, but also plunge them into world of deception and lies. Throw in Heartland’s Nathaniel Arcand as a ruthless lawyer, country star Corb Lund as a homicide detective and Vancouver director Matthew Clarke, best known for his funny YouTube web series, Convoswithmy2-Year- Old, and Faultline emerges as a fairly ambitious web series.
It’ s all the more impressive when you consider that all of this is somehow squeezed into a 10-minute pilot.
“It was actually an excellent exercise in writing: How to be clear, how to be concise,” says Kirsten Lankester, who stars as “wild child” Jesse Tennant and also wrote and co-produced the pilot. “We had to be so specific and clear where we were going with the story and how the characters were.”
Faultline is one of 15 Albertabased projects that made it to the finals of STORYHIVE, receiving a $10,000 grant to produce pilots of what the creators hope will be a full-blown web series. All 15 will be screened on Feb. 4 at the Plaza Theatre and made available both on the STORYHIVE website and on-demand on TELUS Optik TV. After that, the competition will be open to public voting. Eventually, two winners — one from Alberta and one from B.C. — will receive a $50,000 grant to turn the pilot into a series.
Lankester is relatively new to film and TV, having worked in the oil and gas industry until recently. Despite being only 10 minutes long, Faultline was shot at the Oak Tree Tavern in Kensington, Lankester’s sister’s house, Eighth Avenue Place and RS Energy’s office space.
The production has plenty of competition, with the 14 other Alberta pilots covering every imaginable tone and genre. There’ s also
With producing partner Stacie Harrison, who also plays perfectionist lawyer Paige Tennant, the production team aims to turn Faultline into the sort of dark, uncompromising thriller that can be found on HBO in this Golden Age of TV. Harrison, who taught Lankester in a master-class program in film and television at the Company of Rogues Actors’ Studio, recruited Lund for the role when both were working on a film in Los Angeles. some significant overlap between some of the projects. Calgary actor Patrick Creery, for instance, stars in Faultline as a manipulative lawyer, as does actress Naddine Madell, who plays the wonderfully named, pill-popping third sister, Celeste Buchanan.
But Creery is also the creator of another contender, a comedy called The Parent Council, which was directed by Madell.
“Calgary is such a big place, but it’s actually a pretty small world,” Lankester says. “And there is a lot of collaboration.”
The Alberta finalists include: It’s My Anxiety, by Chloe Sando Frick I Love Nature by Gordie Lucius
National by Michael Manus Pow Wow Emcee by Aretha Greatrix
Luchador by Mary Mercier The Parent Council by Patrick Creery
Snowshoe& MonsterbySiobhan Cooney
Western Steele by Ryan Mennie Home Party by Janie Fontaine Climax, SK by Evan Godfrey Timber by Nick Bellemore My Wife, My Boyfriend & I by David Oulton
Stump Kitchen: Cooking For the Heart by Andrea Beca
Highway Patrolman by Mitchell George
Faultline by Stacie Harrison