The Hub City Cinema Society: An Interrogation

My resubmergence into Nanaimo's artistic waters leads me down the China steps and around the corner to the bright blue facade of The Hub City Cinema Society, where film buffs of Nanaimo supposedly unite. I spoke to director and poster-boy Zachary Tannar about what REALLY goes on behind this wholesome exterior.

Interview with Zachary Tannar:

Explain to me what this operation is all about:

The Hub City Cinema Society is a non-profit organization and we support local [Vancouver Island] filmmakers. The main purpose is we’re trying to foster and nurture and facilitate the creation of local films.

And how do you do that?

We provide the three things you need to make movies: the resources; so the equipment and studio space, and you also need people to make movies with, so we have events every week where you come and can meet other filmmakers, people who are interested in making movies.

Cool! So you’re like a one-stop shop then. Are there more filmmakers looking for crew, or more crew looking for filmmakers? I think what we’re looking for more now is people who are focused on a particular aspect of filmmaking such as sound or lighting. A lot of us are jack-of-all-trade filmmakers out of necessity, so we’ll will write, direct, light, shoot, record sound, edit, etc, and we can help each other out where needed, but to have someone who solely focuses on sound recording (or something else) and brings a level of expertise to that aspect of filmmaking would be a very popular person.

Wait, what’s the third thing you need? The resources, the people… The third thing is knowledge about filmmaking to increase the quality of our projects. For that we bring in professional filmmakers to do talks and workshops about all the various aspects of filmmaking: producing, cinematography, lighting, sound, etc.

How long has this been going on for?

We started in 2013. Our fifth birthday is in May.

Wow, quite a while. So how did it all come about, in a nutshell? We started off just meeting up in coffee shops. Just filmmakers who wanted to get together and meet each other, talk about movies and making ideas. At first it was just us four: me, Tom, Michael, and Linley. Then we had a filmmaker, Greg Jeffs - he lives and works in the film industry in Toronto now, but he grew up in Nanaimo. So he came in 2012, found out about us, and we sort of advertised, promoted that we had this industry filmmaker coming and he’s talking, so now instead of four of us there was 14 of us who came out to the event. Then that got us excited and thinking what else we could do. Well, we’d love to get equipment, we’d love to get studio space, so what do we need to do to get that? The answer was to become an official, non-profit organization.

What are the benefits of being a non-profit?

The benefit is that you can apply for grants, which gives you the money to have a space and operate.

So what kind of grants have you gotten and for what?

So far we’ve got the Nanaimo City Cultural Grant for organizations. We got $6,500 this year. We also have the event grant from B.C. Arts Council that helps us do our annual film festival.

Oh yeah, I interviewed the VISFF and about how people were upset that it wasn’t more local and they said you guys stepped up and– yeah, you read it. And so is that how it went? You stepped up in the wake of that outrage?

Not exactly. We’ve been doing screenings of local films, shorts and features since 2013 for all five years it’s been around, but they’ve always been just one-night events. Then last year we kind of realized we have enough content to do two days, and also to be officially properly categorized as a festival you have to be two days or more. So that’s why we thought, “Okay, let’s step it up.”

Ah, step IT up. Well, this is great. You guys are, like, a real thing. I’ve been away the last few years so I have no idea what is going on here. I guess a lot of the people reading this won’t know either. I was surprised there were so few people who came to movie night last night. Movie nights are quiet, yeah. I think a lot of people just don’t know how good a setup we have.

Truly. It’s pretty nice.

If they knew we have this big nice screen and these couches, I feel like maybe they’d come out more.

Do you have a most perfect, well-thought out movie you'd like to put on record? I do. That's why I ask.

Most recently I’d say Get Out and Arrival. The two movies that I’ve found the most appreciation for after multiple viewings is Christopher Nolan’s Inception and The Dark Knight.

My two, I bought the autographed scripts to both of them, are Gattaca and American Beauty.

Oh yeah. I don’t know if I’ve seen Gattaca.

WHAT?You should probably screen it, especially if you like science fiction. NASA voted it as the most plausible sci-fi movie ever made....as of 2011.

Cool, okay. I’ll put that on my list.

Please do. So what other things go on here?

We do script reading events, we do social potluck events…

What are these "script reading events"?

Writers bring their scripts and we project it on the wall so everyone can read the scripts, and then [we workshop it]. Anyone can submit. We do suggest that before you submit one you come to one event at least, just to see how the format works. I really feel like the script sessions are our bread and butter event, meaning it’s our most important event because it’s the start of actually making a movie. We have it every single month.

How many of those scripts end up materializing into films?

That is a good question, one we’ve been talking about recently. Yeah, we want to see more of those scripts become films. It’s probably maybe 20% right now.

Why so few? We have a lot of writers, directors, actors, crew people. What we lack in our community is producers: the people who can organize all the pieces together to make a production happen. The HCCS makes all the pieces easy to find, but it still takes a producer to see a script, say, "Let’s make this happen," and then put the pieces together.

Do you think people give their honest feedback?

Yeah, and I work on that. One of the books I really like is called Creativity Inc., and it’s a book written by the CEO of Pixar. He wrote a chapter about giving good feedback, so one of our sessions I brought that book up and said this is the kind of feedback we’re looking for.

Nice - teach people how to give feedback before they give it. Brilliant. So when are the workshops?

Script Sessions are typically every first week of the month.

And how often are these movie nights?

Weekly. Every Sunday at 7pm.

And what ones are coming up?

Movies we’ve discussed watching at upcoming movie nights include The Florida Project, Howl’s Moving Castle, Zodiac, Magnolia and What We Do In The Shadows.

Those are are all awesome films. Almost as great as Gattaca. *Watches trailer* Definitely looks interesting. It’s on my personal list now and will see about making it a movie night movie.

Well then my work here is done. Thanks for talking! I’m really so excited you guys exist in an organized fashion. By the way, what are the perks of becoming a member?

Anyone is welcome to attend events, but if you become a member you will get discounts for certain events, discounts on studio rental, access to equipment rental, inclusion on our email newsletter list, and inclusion in our cast and crew database which can be found on our website.

Sounds legit. Anything you want to say to or see from potential filmmakers of Nanaimo?

The filmmaking community has grown a lot in Nanaimo and Vancouver Island in the past five years, and we still have a lot of developments to look forward to. If you’re interested in filmmaking, there’s no better time to start getting involved than now as we start seeing real progress in the infrastructure of the local film scene and increase of skill and talent on the island. So come out to an upcoming event to get involved!

#movies #hubcitycinemasociety #film #filmmaking