CALGARY FILMMAKER HEADS BACK TO CLASS
Debut work explores ‘banality’ of sports, little dramas of high school life
In the abandoned hallways outside the gymnasium of Calgary’s Queen Elizabeth High School, there are motivational quotes stencilled onto the rafters. “Sometimes the right path is not the easiest path,” reads one. “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them,” says another.
These inspirational nuggets would probably prove handy to the Middleview Ducks, the losing team at the heart of an indie comedy that is currently being shot at the northwest school.
On this particular morning, the Ducks are in the middle of another humiliating defeat and could probably use a bit of the pep-talk guidance provided by those hallway messages.
But Events Transpiring Before, During and After a High School Basketball Game is not really that type of sports movie. Those inspirational slogans do not make an appearance. This morning’s scene, for instance, is unfolding in one long, uncut take and involves members of the Ducks listlessly running the court. Meanwhile, one of our protagonists — a philosophical, Matrix-adoring third-string point guard named Joel (played by Calgary actor Benjamin James Arthurs) — is busy apologizing to the coach for his earlier recommendation that the team forfeit the game rather than prolong the humiliation. This is no TSN highlight reel. There will be no quick cuts, no sweaty close-ups and no slow-motion slam-dunks.
“I really wanted to play on the banality of what sports and, in a way, high school life is like,” says writer-director Ted Stenson. “Especially with sports: it’s not always that exciting. Often, it’s a quarter-full gym and the game is not that exciting and not that wellplayed. My intention of shooting this way is to emphasize the banality. I didn’t want it to feel exciting where it’s high-pressure and high stakes. I wanted to really emphasize the mundane reality of this world.”
Set in Calgary circa 1999, Events Transpiring is a deadpan comedy inspired by Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and the starker work of European directors such as Ruben Östlund and Michael Haneke. The low-budget feature, which is Stenson’s debut, was the only Alberta project selected for the 2018 Telefilm Talent to Watch program. He has a playwriting degree from the University of Calgary’s MFA theatre program and is the son of renowned Alberta novelist Fred Stenson.
But he was also a high school athlete who played basketball at Queen Elizabeth High School. In fact, producer Nicola Waugh is keen to point out Stenson’s somewhat geeky class of 2001 grad picture that is on display down the hall. All 15 days of the summer shoot will be done on location at the school. Queen Elizabeth has been rechristened Middleview for the film, but beyond that apparently did not require much in the way of movie-set alteration to believably become a high school from 20 years ago.
“I have fond memories of going here,” says Stenson. “I based the script off of the school and it hasn’t really changed since I’ve been here. I feel it’s very serendipitous that we wound up here.”
Not unlike Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, Events Transpiring involves multiple characters enduring multiple little dramas, whether it be the bitter referee forced to take care of his ex-wife’s shih tzu, the theatre students planning to protest the administration’s ban of their “post-colonial” King Lear or Joel’s attempts to school his teammates on the existential complexities of the 1999 sci-fi mind-bender, The Matrix.
It makes for a film that is both heavy in dialogue and requiring a naturalistic acting style, which could have been a daunting prospect given that the ensemble cast is largely unseasoned. Waugh says producers put out calls to schools and drama groups in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and received more than 100 submissions to be in the film.
The movie’s star power comes from Calgary native Andrew Phung, the now Toronto-based comedian and actor whose career has been on a steady rise since landing the role of Kimchee on CBC’S Kim’s Convenience in 2016, which has won him two Canadian Screen Awards so far.
Phung plays the Ducks’ assistant coach, a kind-hearted educator who is obsessed with the triangle offence of the Chicago Bulls’ Phil Jackson.
“It’s an awkward comedy and I love it,” says Phung. “I think we are in this era where we see teen comedies as all raunchy comedies. Superbad started it all. They have all been these big, over-thetop things. But I was watching a scene the other day in this movie and it was two teenagers in drama club and one kid asks out the other one and gets rejected. It’s not mean. But it hurts. There was something about watching that and giggling. Because I think we’ve all been there. No matter how cool you were in high school, we were all awkward.”
So the relatively unschooled thespians who make up much of the cast are a perfect fit, he says. Who better to play awkward teens than awkward teens? Phung says he recognized a number of his young co-stars from his pre-toronto days teaching improv workshops in schools and through Calgary’s Loose Moose Theatre.
Meanwhile, the only awkward part for the 34-year-old actor came when he revealed he is old enough to have watched The Matrix during its first theatrical run back in 1999.
“These kids are like: ‘What?! You saw the Matrix in the theatre?!’” Phung says with a laugh. “I’m like: ‘I’m not that old! I just saw the Matrix in the theatre!’ But on the way here, I put on my 1999 playlist and Blink-182’s What’s My Age Again? came on. I thought: This is just perfect.”