By Peter Sawka

August 20th, 2011

 

I wrote DIVINE ENMITY at the age of 21 while attending film school. Originally it was meant to be a short film. At 22 pages it was going to be a long short film, but a short film nevertheless. The goal was to have it selected for production at the end of the final term where only one out of eight students would have their project produced. When I presented my pitch to the judges they were impressed with my thoroughness, organization, and above all, script. However, they ultimately decided that the project was too complex for a group of students to do in three days. Now, as disappointed as I was, with hindsight at my disposal, I can say that they were in fact right. Funny enough, I did have another script called NOTHING PERSONAL that I was considering pitching that would have been very doable over three days. The reason for choosing Divine Enmity was simple: I was overambitious and wanted to make two films. The plan was to make Nothing Personal on the side. If you read "Third Time's The Charm" you’ll see that I ended up making neither. Of course, alluding to hindsight once again, this turned out to be a blessing.

 

After school was finished I was without work or the prospect of work. My roommate at the time, Icrus Murphy, had read Divine Enmity and came across a grant opportunity for first time producers in the short film format. He had asked me if I’d be willing to offer up Divine Enmity to him. I seriously considered his offer for several days and finally decided that if I wanted to get my foot in the door that this was an excellent opportunity.

 

So Ike put the wheels in motion and called a director friend of his. The director absolutely loved the script and within a week had brought on an editor and a production designer who were also very eager. Wow, I thought. Is my script really that good? But things in this industry have a funny way of crumbling in an instant. 

 

At the first full production meeting (which I was not a part of by the way) Ike and the other three gentlemen were making plans when suddenly the production designer, in a moment of unbridled excitement, blurted out to the director, “You’re the best producer I know!” Ike looked up at the production designer, then at the director, and there was silence for a long while. See, Ike realized at that moment that he was not being taken seriously as a producer and that the director was taking over his job. Having entrusted Ike with my finest piece of work to date, I am so glad that he had the balls to get up and say, “Sorry guys, this isn’t going to work,” and leave the meeting.

 

The next day Ike came to me and explained what had happened. It had dawned on him that perhaps he was not ready to produce a film. Not from a capabilities standpoint, but from a resource standpoint. Obviously I was disappointed. I really thought this was going to help kick-start a career for both of us. But it didn’t. I was 22 when this happened.

 

By the following summer I had started working in the film industry. By the age of 25, I had co-produced and directed my first short film, Nothing Personal. It was well received by those who saw it, and it did win several awards, including a Special Jury Remi at WorldFest, but unfortunately it had little success in the overall festival circuit or commercial world. Apparently it was too long, and the subject matter was not appetizing to most organizers. That’s fine. I’ve learned that as a director, or more so an artist, you must be prepared to take criticism and rejection. It can be difficult and frustrating, but in a subjective industry it’s tricky to argue with those in charge. What Nothing Personal did do, however, was it gave us a reputation amongst our colleagues that we were serious about making films. This, in the end, is what made Nothing Personal worth making.

 

A year after Nothing Personal was completed I was getting an itch that would soon need to be scratched. I was 28 now and the desire to make another film was strong. However, because I had funded Nothing Personal I was not overly enthusiastic to finance another film, but as things would have it, a perfect storm was forming.

 

Now, I realized early on that if I were to make another film I would have to "raise my game" so to say. The project would have to be bigger, more profound, and more mature. It had to have creative weight and show that I had grown as a filmmaker. On top of that, I would need a larger sum of money than my previous project had required.

 

Hmmm, well I have been saving for three years… I do fundamentally believe that you should put your money where your mouth is. I guess the motorcycle can wait.

 

I got together with my producer, Ike, and we blew the dust off of Divine Enmity. It had been sitting on my hard drive for six years, untouched. The first thing that Ike told me was that as good as the script was, it didn’t have enough story. Extend the plot I thought? Why not? After all I wanted to make it bigger than Nothing Personal. We decided that we would aim for a 45-minute script and look to shoot it some time in the winter.

 

That fall I was still under contract with an art department gig so time was not exactly abundantly available. Luckily, as I said earlier, my colleagues knew that I was serious about filmmaking so I slowly began to spread the word that a new project was in the works. I was fortunate to have immediate support and in some cases was even offered help. This made assembling a crew mostly stress free.

 

Over the next three months I expanded the script to 44 pages. Rewrite after rewrite, I searched for the perfect combination of words until I had them. Finally, my contract ended in late December and I was a free agent. Pre-production began the next day, baby!

 

For the most part everything in pre-production went smoothly. There was some drama when I approached the Catholic Church in hopes of using one of their cathedrals for a location. If you’re not aware, there is a screening process that the Catholic archdiocese does for every potential project that wishes to use a Catholic cathedral. Long story short, the Catholic Church representative that I dealt with was so offended by my script that she suggested I seek counseling! Then I was blacklisted, labeled a deeply disturbed individual! We’re talking about making a film here! Fortunately, I did manage to find a Christian Denomination shortly afterwards that was willing to let me use their cathedral. God bless the United Church.

 

It was now mid January and we were scheduled to go to camera at the end of February. Everything was lining up perfectly when a casual meeting I had with a local festival organizer shook up my pre-production plans. Over beers we discussed the parameters that festivals and distributors had set, and I learned that unless my film had a running time of 25 minutes or less, or 70 minutes or more, that it fell into no-man’s land and would be overlooked by mere technicality alone! A 70-minute film constitutes a feature length film. Not 69 minutes!

 

This news was devastating to me. For nearly six months we had planned to make a 50-minute film, but now, unless we reached 70 minutes, there was almost no point to commence filming. So what choice did we have? We restructured the shoot so that the film would hopefully reach feature length. For those of you who don’t know, there is a rule of thumb when interpreting the estimated screen length of a script. The formula is simple: 1 page equals 1 minute. Based of this equation, it was going to be tough to obtain our goal. I had a 44-page script and it had to end up being 70 minutes. As uneasy as I felt about the whole situation, I was utterly pumped at the idea of making a feature. I never thought I would get a chance like this so quickly.

 

In late February production began. We shot Divine Enmity over the course of five days. The commitment and professionalism that my cast and crew demonstrated was remarkable. They followed direction and executed with incredible efficiency and quality. The mood on set was always jovial, and looking back, I can say that it was not only the best five days of my life, but the entire experience helped me grow as a person. I will never forget those five days. I love my cast and crew for what they did.

 

Several months later, when I finished editing the film, to my delight, the final running time, with credits, was 90 minutes. (Two years later the film would be cut down to 72 minutes.)

 

Mission accomplished.