Comedy,
7:00 minutes,
English,
ON,
2009
Synopsis
When a CBC TV employee is downsized, he decides to invest his severance pay in a friend's bizarre theatre production: The silent story of one man's love for his kitchen chair.
But when a beautiful choreographer comes between the two men, the production begins to unravel. A mockumentary about love, desire, friends and furniture.
Creative team
Writer/director/producer: Brian G. Smith
Writer: Ken Hall
Personal statement
Filmmaker Brian G. Smith says:
"This film came about principally because of the location. The entire 2nd floor of the building where my office is located in downtown Toronto has been vacant since the eco-crisis. The space is so beautiful; every time I walked past it, I wondered “what film could I make that would work in there?”
Then I went to see 2 man No-Show; a sketch comedy production at the Toronto Fringe Festival this past summer. One sketch in particular stood out to me - Ken Hall’s clown ‘concept piece’ about a man falling in love with a chair.
When Darryl’s annual Hard Liquor and Porn Film Festival came around this past fall, I decided to enter the 69 Hour Film Challenge. As is often the case, there were several criteria we had to include as part of the film challenge: i) a pie ii) a robot and iii) a specific line of dialogue (about ‘doing it’ on all fours).
Recently, I had decided to start acting again and wanted to cast myself in a film. So I asked Ken to deconstruct his chair piece with me in a mockumentary about the development of the theatrical concept.
I added the character of ‘Lydia’ to the film to create a central conflict around which the relationship between theatre director and actor could fall apart. There was, as is usual in my films, a lot of improv involved; Ken was a student of mine at The Second City.
We shot the whole thing in 5 hours and cut it together that night. It was Nuit Blanch in Toronto that Saturday, so there was a lot of energy around for our all-nighter. But the beautiful old warehouse location is for me, the 5th Beatle in this little film."