“I think what we wanted was to be really smart and creative about what we did,” said Olson.
Most of the videos were made for launch events for the Olympics, but Olson said the videos were well received and ending up playing at venues during the Olympic Games.
She was “immensely proud” of what her and her team accomplished.
“We definitely felt the weight of the country on our shoulders and I think everybody that was part of that team felt that responsibility and wanted to do the country proud.”
The work she is most proud of was a behind-the-scenes documentary for the entire VANOC workforce, including the volunteers involved with working at the Games. The initial video was supposed to be a 20-minute short, but the team finished with a 90-minute documentary entitled “Behind the Moments.”
Olson has still kept her passion for movies. Among her favourite filmmakers are the late Anthony Minghella (“I felt that his stories were incredibly beautiful and epic and transported you to another place.”), Jane Campion (“A beautiful storyteller and director.”), Baz Luhrmann (“He must have Technicolor dreams through his brain!”) and Steven Soderbergh (“I love his work, it’s slick, it’s cool and entertaining.”).
She has made primarily short films beginning in film school, and has entered a competition and film festival in England called Straight 8.
“When you enter the festival, they send you a single spool of Super 8 film, and you have to shoot your film in sequence on the spool of film,” she said. “They develop it, and the first time you see it is at one of their screenings. Even you as the filmmaker haven’t seen the outcome of what you have filmed.”
SUBMITTED PHOTO Former Hatter Carla Olson has turned her life-long love of movies into a fulfi lling career. Olson has developed visual media for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, and is working on a short fi lm this year entitled "Bona Fide."
C CHARLES LEFEBVRE
arla Olson’s life-long love of movies has taken her from Medicine Hat to the Vancouver Olympics, and film festivals around the world.
Olson, who moved to Medicine Hat in 1986 at age 11 and still calls the city home, originally had aspirations of being a teacher and writer. She decided to combine her two loves of
storytelling and visual imagery and enrolled at Simon Fraser University, graduating with a bachelor of fine arts degree in film in 1998.
“I guess I was just drawn to movies and pop culture,” said Olson from her home in Vancouver. “I was really obsessed with music videos when they first started.”
After graduation, Olson worked in radio, producing a morning talk show for an AM radio station in Vancouver and through that, transitioned to a junior producer role for
20
“It’s nerve-wracking but the things that people end up creating are amazing, because you have one chance to get it.”
Olson has done three films for the Straight 8 competition and says since taking part she now sees ideas for the films in her everyday life.
an advertising company. Her early advertising work included commercials for the BC Lottery Corporation.
She now freelances with her organization Tuesday Film Company, whose recent work includes producing advertisements for Shaw Communications.
“It's great because it's the same as film, they're just like mini films, 30-second versions,” she said. “The thing I love about it is the team aspect to it. It takes so many fields of expertise to make any sort of motion picture happen.”
Olson works primarily on the agency side, hiring the production company and directors to help create the finished product.
During her time in Vancouver working in advertising, Olson headed up video production for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), working for the agency which helped with the bid for the Olympics. Among Olson’s work during the Olympics included the video which played in Prague when the Olympics were officially awarded to Vancouver. Olson produced video content which told the story of Vancouver 2010, from the torch relay to how the medals were made.
Most recently, she began production on her short film “Bona Fide,” a film in which she used crowdfunding website Kickstarter to raise the $57,000 production budget for the film.
“Looking for funding for films is a lot of work on its own, and it can become its own full-time job in a way,” she said. “Looking at other more traditional ways of funding the films, which in Canada is often the grant system, is a long process, and you are one of many putting your idea into the mix to be considered, and only a handful may get funding for their projects.
“With crowdfunding, you’re reaching out to people you know, people who love film, to people that think Kickstarter or Indiegogo or other crowdfunding ventures are interesting and they want to help out of the goodness of their heart. For me, it felt like a way to get me where I want to go quicker.”
“Bona Fide” concerns the end of a relationship for two lovers who come together for one last night. The three-day production was scheduled to start in March, and Olson is hoping to enter the completed film in festivals across Canada, including the Toronto International Film Festival. ■
2015 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA
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