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August 27, 2010
Partners in motion, indeed
Josh Epstein and Kyle Rideout have started a production company.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Filming for Wait for Rain starts next week, but it’s just one of several projects that Motion 58 has on the go. The production company, run by Josh Epstein and Kyle Rideout, has Rideout’s first short film ready for the festival circuit, they have a feature film script written and a TV pilot that’s recently undergone a read-through – and the company is less than a year old.
Both award-winning actors, Epstein and Rideout have their own reasons for starting Motion 58.
“I was passionate about filmmaking before I went into acting – I went to Studio 58 – and I think it’s the visual arts that influenced it somewhat,” said Rideout about his decision. “I was always trying to decide between whether to become a visual artist or an actor, and I feel like it’s a marriage of the two, directing, being able to storyboard all the film and ... living each and every character that I’m directing, so that’s kind of the journey.”
About his motivations, Epstein explained that he did a commerce degree at the University of British Columbia, then went to Studio 58 and has been acting since. “I’ve always had both bugs working in my head ... [and] the last few years, I’ve been thinking, how can I use my business degree more, because I’ve wanted to use that side of my head and not just act. I’ve always done writing as well,” said Epstein, noting that he has written some film material with Josh Ramsay of the band Marianas Trench, as well as some other collaborative work. “And then, when Kyle and I went on tour together [with Electric Company Theatre’s Studies in Motion] and I saw Kyle’s short film, which is called Hop the Twig, it just blew me away that Kyle just went and made this film, with nothing. He just said, ‘I’m going to make a film,’ and he made a film. We show it to people and they cannot believe that he made it for as little as he made it for, and the quality that it is.”
The fact that Epstein and Rideout both attended Studio 58 and toured with Studies in Motion is how the name of their company, Motion 58, came about. As well, said Epstein, “We really respect both those places. We feel like they’re partly responsible for us being able to be collaborative and working on original projects, because Studio is very encouraging of writing your own material and Electric Company is actually a company that came out of Studio and their work is just completely original.”
Rideout finished Hop the Twig in February and the nine-minute, 46-second film about the death of a houseplant that causes a young girl to worry about her own mother’s mortality will be hitting the film festival circuit within a couple of months, if things go as planned, said Rideout.
Self-taught as a filmmaker, Hop the Twig was Rideout’s schooling, so to speak. He worked on it part-time for almost a year, and Epstein witnessed some of this and said that the Motion 58 partnership started with the writing aspect.
“We decided we made a good match writing together,” said Epstein, adding that he thinks the key is “to have someone who’s even more motivated than you are, and Kyle was just like a firecracker. Usually, I’ve been the one pushing to get things going and, so, having Kyle pushing me as well was just a fantastic experience. We started writing stuff very productively and then we wrote the short film [Wait for Rain] and we sent it off to the National Screen Institute ... just because we thought that would get our package together. We never thought we would get it, and we got it, and it was our first application.”
The NSI Drama Prize that Epstein and Rideout won is a training program for emerging filmmakers and winners receive $10,000 in cash and $30,000 in services to produce a short film under the guidance of senior industry professionals. Epstein and Rideout couldn’t say enough about NSI and what it has offered them (and other winners) in terms of education and support. As a mentor for their project, NSI lined up Gary Harvey, said Rideout. Harvey is a Langley-based producer/director who has been in the Canadian film and television industry for more than 15 years and sits on various film-related boards.
Of course, Rideout and Epstein, with their combined experience in the acting world, have their share of connections. For example, Rideout has worked with Alessandro Juliano, who played Lt. Felix Gaeta on Battlestar Gallactica but is also an award-winning musician who will create an original score for Wait for Rain; Ramsay, with whom Epstein has worked, will compose an original song for the opening and closing credits. For behind the scenes, Motion 58 has secured director of photography Shaun Lawless, who has specialized primarily in commercials and videos but has worked on films, and concept artist Rodrigo Segovia, whose movies include Twilight and Night at the Museum. In front of the camera will be Blu Mankuma, a B.C. Hall of Famer with more than 200 film and television credits; Lara Gilchrist, who just finished filming a movie directed by Jason Priestly, in which she stars opposite Luke Perry; and Haig Sutherland, who is on SGU Stargate Universe and was nominated this year for a Jessie Richardson Award.
Rideout and Epstein assured the Independent that their new endeavor does not mean they’re giving up acting. On the contrary, said Rideout, Motion 58 is about “fuelling both at the same time.”
In addition to the NSI award, the business partners applied for two other grants, garnering one from the National Film Board Filmmaker Assistance Program, as well as a Bravo!FACT Award, which includes a screening of their short on Bravo!
Both Epstein and Rideout attribute some of the success of Wait for Rain to the help they’ve received from many people. As but two examples, they mentioned a reference letter from Tony Wosk, executive in charge of production at CBC Television, which they included in their NSI application, and a donation of plants from Art Knapp’s, which will be used in Wait for Rain, as the film takes place in a future where water is scarce and plants are as valuable as – and worn by everyone as – jewelry. Anyone else wishing to contribute to the film can do so through indiegogo.com/Wait-for-Rain, where as little as $10 gets the donor a thank you in the short’s credits and blog and a $1,000 donor receives an associate producer credit, film-related swag and an invitation to Motion 58’s next feature film.
After Wait for Rain, the pair will go back to their feature script, which is on its second draft and for which they have an interested producer; they have optioned a script for a play, which they plan to adapt into a film; and they hope to begin shooting episodes of their TV pilot soon.
Epstein said that he and Rideout would like to always have something in development. “Ideally,” he explained, “our plan is we take these shorts and they get us introduced to people and they say, ‘What else do you have?’ ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we have this film, we have this film,’ and that’s going to be the process.”
“That’s our goal,” agreed Rideout.
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