The second-year students in the FMTV program spent the entire fall semester creating documentaries on various topics, including grief and the story of a local superstar and they will be showcasing them at the "Assembly Hall" in Toronto at 6 p.m. Jan. 23.
One featured documentary is "Lane Switch," directed and written by second-year film student Dion Mackay, and produced by Shane Fitzgerald.
Lane Switch is a documentary about a dancer named Tristan who was injured in an accident and had to switch careers.
Mackay discussed how he met Tristan and the inspiration behind the documentary.
“He handed me a card and he’s, like, 'Hey, man, I like your braids. But you can also use a lineup."'And I took no offence, but I was like, 'Okay, cool,' and I took the card. Ever since then, we've been friends,” he said.
“He's an artist and he's also a dancer and since that time I realized that we had a lot in common since I also like to make music and I love to make content and I realized he had a story to tell," he said.
Mackay said the most exciting part of the production process was working with the dancing community and the networking he was able to do.
“The most exciting part was just meeting people I haven't met before, dancers, artists, collaborators content creators.,” he said.
“We had probably around 30, 40 people throughout the two days to three days we shot only. They all came out to shoot for a story about Tristan and a story about their own lives and community,” Mackay said.
He spoke highly of his producer Fitzgerald, thinking he was the best candidate for the role.
“He helped me through a lot of budgeting, especially through working on the financial side of things,” he said.
During the final days of filming, he took over as co-director because Mackay had lost his voice.
Sawyer Hagen a classmate of Fitzgerald was proud of his producer role and intrigued by the story pitch from Mackay.
“I'm happy that Shane got to step up because he was the producer on that one and was able to step up and do that role,” he said.
“I could tell that he (Dion) was very knowledgeable because it's one of his closer friends so it was very good to see how tall it was and such and all about his friend,” he said.
Dion Mackay aims for audiences to "feel" something while watching his documentary.
“I want them to know and just have an emotion that they can take away from the film, which is happiness, joy, and prosperity,” he said.
You can find tickets at: https://www.fmcaproductionhub.
