Official Selection FESTIVAL DE CINE INTERNACIONAL DE BARCELONA 2010
2010 CHICAGO SHORT FILM FESTIVAL FESTIVAL DU FILM DE STRASBOURG 2010 9e FESTIVAL DU CINÉMA DE PARIS
Director: George Maynard Producer: George Maynard Writer: George Maynard Genre: Fictional Drama Country: Canada Duration: 12 min. 23 sec. Original Format: HDCAM Leading Actress: Janique Kearns Leading Actor: Tom Rack Photography: Pawel Pogorzelski Art Direction: Pierre-Bruno Houle Editing: George Maynard
Synopsis of the Film: MORAL PITCH: Alas, covetousness beyond its mean, the greedy fool counts his chickens before they hatch, lo and behold, a bird of paradise, her goodness gleams virtuousness within its kind, the young innocent lass counts her blessings from the pleasure of the "chicken that sees."
SHORT SYNOPSIS: In keeping up with the Joneses, a much too ambitious son improperly schedules a meeting with a loan officer, and surreptitiously creates an unwinding helter-skelter that spooks his mother and hastens her death. In the aftermath, he makes a phone call to the notary, only to find out that he has been left out of her will, for circumstances has it that, against old-time tradition, her richest legacy goes to his goodhearted and gentile sibling, a deaf mute sister.
MEDIUM SYNOPSIS: A distress mother finds out too late that her eldest son plotted against the business interests of her family, for he scheduled an impromptu meeting with a lender from an outside agency, which upsets her plans for negotiations at a local bank. A "big shot" before his time, he believes that rapid technological progress is the answer to their poor earnings and to secure a loan, he promises the lender control of the quarry's accounts, if contractual obligations are not met. Even after defensive spending measures were established and made clear to him by his father, the power hungry son still conspired to take control of the company. He throws cautious aside and decides to gamble on his mother's good will to help him become "top dog" in the industry. His ambitious endeavors have forced his distraught mother to act in haste and to keep up with social appearances. Frenzied, the desperate house wife rushes to the quarry to get her husband, for she needs help to plaster the walls of their unfinished house and save the facade of its collateral value, before next week's visit from the bank. Unfortunately, she falls into the pit, aggravates her weak heart and dies. Yet, the property matriarch still saves the family from any embarrassment, for she goes against tradition and wills the property to her deaf mute daughter, whom, as an innocent child, always played with the wooden rooster atop her Papa's bureau; what folks called the "chicken that sees."
LONG SYNOPSIS: A distress mother finds out too late that her eldest son plotted against the business interests of her family, for he has already scheduled an impromptu meeting with a lender from an outside agency. His devious actions upset her proper and thoughtful plans, for future negotiations with one of the local bank near their home.
A "big shot" before his time, he believes that rapid technological progress is the answer to their poor quarterly earnings and to securing a renovation loan, he promises the unscrupulous lender full collateral with his family's property, as well as complete control through the power of attorney, concerning the newly formed accounts tied to this loan, if contractual obligations are not met. Indeed, it is already to later because he has already begun negotiations for the rapid release of large sums of cash, doing so without the permission of his parents.
Even after an emergency meeting with all the corporate board officers, to discuss the legitimate concerns about the continued financing of their company, when cautionary decisions were made to stabilize its negative cash flow, from which defensive spending measures were established and made clear to him by his father, the power hungry son still conspired to take control of the company.
First, he ignored his father's most direct warning: "Not to renovate their mining facilities at the quarry, at least not during a time of high interest loans." Then, fully disregarding his old man's wisdom about rushing into deals with total strangers, even less, his parents' conservative views that it is bad to get indebted to any bank, the greedy son throws cautious aside and decides to gamble on his mother's good heart and her willingness to help him reach his goal, which is to become the "top dog" in the mining industry.
Cunningly, the son's sudden takeover of the family company destabilizes his mother's honest dealings with her community bank. His ambitious endeavors have forced his distraught mother to act in haste, as she tries to keep up with social appearances. Frenzied into a state of helter-skelter, the desperate house wife rushes to the quarry to get her husband, for she needs help to plaster the walls of their unfinished house and save the social face of her family's good standing within the community, as well as their house's high collateral value as it regards the bank, before next week's visit by the loan officer. Unfortunately, as fate has it, she falls into the pit, aggravates her weak heart and dies.
Yet, the property matriarch still saves the family from any embarrassment, foreseeing the deadly sin of avarice that, like a cancer, grows and spreads its evil roots, deeper and deeper into the heart of her shameful son, the good mother aptly goes against tradition and wills the whole property to her deaf mute daughter whom, as an innocent young child, always wanted to play with the old worn out, wooden rooster atop her Papa's bureau, what the good folks called the "chicken that sees."
Bio-filmography of the Director: David George Menard, a.k.a. film director George Maynard, holds a 1985 master's degree in laser physics from the University of Tennessee. He worked as an optoelectronics engineer for the Aerospace Conglomerate, Lockheed Martin, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, after which he returned to pursue his doctorate in quantum physics at U.T. Knoxville. However, in 1996, the death of his stepfather caused him to suspend his doctoral pursuits and return to Canada to be with his family. In 1998, he joined the computer engineering department at the University of Vermont, where he pursued a master's in material sciences, learning to design CMOS microprocessors and MOEM electro-optics used in advanced digital cameras. There, he published a S.B.I.R. research paper on the development of reconfigurable, adaptive optics for a neural network, cinematographic cameras. After his groundbreaking work, he pursued an advanced film production degree at Concordia University in Montreal. There, he earned a B.F.A. in film production with minors in film studies and photography. Thereafter, he continued his graduate studies in film production after being accepted to the M.F.A. program in 2005. Recently, he has been using his diverse expertise in helping cineaste, Louise Lamarre, to demonstrate the movie making feasibility of an internationally patented projection system, a holo editorial layering process (H.E.L.P.), which allows filmmakers to composite digital images in-camera, during any kind of studio production. Now, in his last year of graduate school, he has fully used H.E.L.P. to produce his thesis film, a fictional, Kierkegaardian moral narrative, with strong Ibsenian dramatics set within scenic backdrop intralays, all of which helped set the story in contemporary southern Quebec. His graduate thesis film, entitled "Mama's Will," was shot in mid-summer 2009, with a post-production period lasting eight months, just in time for the beginning of the 2010 Film Festival Circuit.
Annual Program Without Frontiers - Mama's Will
