Salute Your Shorts 2019 – Little Grey Bubbles
Kim and Marlon were best friends, despite the fact they’d never actually met. The unlikely pair, her a young woman thriving in New York City and him an older married man in a small town in Canada, communicated exclusively online. Just before he died, he sent her a message that said he had something really important to tell her. He never got the chance. In an effort to find out what it was, and to get a deeper sense of the friend she lost, she travels to his small-town home to attend his funeral.
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Charles Wahl
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
I've always been fascinated by online relationships. It's been interesting to see how they've evolved over the years from only being able to chat on your computer, to the constant access you can have with someone, thanks to smartphones, anywhere in the world at any time.
Over the last few years, I started to notice that some friends of mine had developed really deep and intense friendships with people who lived in different parts of the world with whom they never actually interacted with in person. Some with members of the opposite sex as well. I began to wonder how real can a friendship be if it's with a person you never see in person? Also, if it's with a member of the opposite sex, how would that impact things with your partner?
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Little Grey Bubbles is a pretty unique story about a situation I hadn't seen on screen before. In the film, we have a young attractive woman whose best friend, whom she had never actually met in person before, dies and she decides to fly to a different country to attend his funeral. That friend also happens to be an older married man, and this is where she meets his family and friends for the first time; all of whom, are extremely suspicious of this stranger.
I don't think most people would put themselves in that type of position, and it's a pretty intense experience as a viewer to go through it with Kim.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Even though I haven't had a relationship like the one depicted in the film, Little Grey Bubbles is deeply personal. There are aspects of me, and my own relationships strung through all of it. Human connection is the most important thing to all of us. It's what we inherently strive for from the moment we're aware of other people.
Little Grey Bubbles is about a man and a woman who had a very unconventional connection, but a very deep one that was suddenly taken away.
Because of how ambiguous messages can be, Kim, the main character, spends the film not only trying to get some closure from her friend's sudden death but also second-guessing how real the relationship was.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The beginning and end of the film were the first things I wrote, and they stayed the same all the way to the final master. The rest, on the other hand, went through many changes in the writing process.
As I kept visualizing the film, the more I realized that elements needed to be stripped back. It was overwritten with things being a little over-explained initially. As the film developed it became a process of always cutting things to their essentials. The film is from Kim's point of view, and anything that strayed from would change the tone for viewers.
Even in editing, we removed elements that made things too obvious to allow room for the audience to interpret things on their own and discover things as Kim does.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The feedback so far has been really great. People seem to really connect with the story, and feel the tension that Kim goes through while attending the funeral.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
I have to be careful not to spoil anything here, but one thing that surprised me is what some viewers think is the true nature of the main characters' friendship depicted in the film.
I definitely have my own opinion about it, and I think it's pretty clear, but in spite of how it's presented, some viewers have had a very different one which I find very interesting. It has shown me that there definitely is a polarity between how people view platonic friendships between men and women.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I'm hoping to expose the film to as many people as possible.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
I'm always happy to meet with every type of person in the business. I'd love to develop new relationships to help get the film in front of more people and hopefully, meet to collaborators for upcoming projects.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I'd love people to watch this film and look at the nature of relationships a little differently. They are all different, important, and the only people who know the true nature of them, are the ones in the middle of it.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
How real can a relationship be, with a person you've only ever met online?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I'm getting set to make another short film, and I have a couple of feature films in development as well.
Interview: August 2019
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Little Grey Bubbles
Kim and Marlon were best friends, despite the fact they’d never actually met. The unlikely pair, her a young woman thriving in New York City and him an older married man in a small town in Canada, communicated exclusively online. Just before he died, he sent her a message that said he had something really important to tell her. He never got the chance. In an effort to find out what it was, and to get a deeper sense of the friend she lost, she travels to his small-town home to attend his funeral.
Length: 14:00
Director: Charles Wahl
Producer: Charles Wahl
Writer: Charles Wahl
About the writer, director and producer:
Born in London, England, and raised in Toronto, Canada, CHARLES WAHL started making short films in high school and hasn’t let go of the camera since. An award-winning filmmaker, Charles has written and directed work that has been presented internationally at film festivals, broadcast on television and gone viral on the web. His recent short video project, A Short Portrait: Brent, was chosen as the closing film of the TIFF x Instagram Shorts Festival in conjunction with the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. His latest short film, Little Grey Bubbles, had the honour of screening at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival, 2019 Aspen ShortsFest, 2019 Palm Springs International ShortFest, 2019 Seattle International Film Festival, 2019 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and was selected to be part of the 2019 Telefilm Canada Not Short on Talent showcase in Cannes. As a commercial director Charles has directed work for clients including BMW/MINI, KIA, TD Bank, Mazda, McDonald’s, Nissan, Toyota, Quaker, Captain Morgan, Campbell’s and BMO. Charles currently splits his time between Toronto, Ontario and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia with his wife, two young boys and their dog Bitey.
Key cast: Kaelen Ohm (Kim), Josh MacDonald (Cory), Francine Deschepper (Annie)
Looking for: producers, film festival directors, journalists
Instagram: @littlegreybubbles; @chazwahl
Hashtags used: #littlegreybubbles
Website: www.charleswahl.com
Funders: Self-funded
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, and a few others I can't mention yet! Check out the Instagram page for updates.