By Jeremy Brubacher
When speaking to Ty Giffin, I find him experienced, passionate, and heartfelt about his film career. There is much to glean from him in terms of the art of filmmaking, and I believe the things that he has to say will resonate with many.
Like many who fall in love with film and filmmaking, for Ty, it all started when he was a child. He enjoyed watching films and was fascinated by the 'making of' featurettes and documentaries included on most DVDs. Ty's movie-watching spurred him to make silly videos with his friends, homemade Star Wars films, and skate videos here and there. However, the film Goodfellas in 1990, directed by Martin Scorsese, took his deep curiosity and turned it into an unbridled passion for filmmaking.
That passion grew as Ty sought out Martin Scorsese's filmography, firmly planting the seeds of his desire to make filmmaking a path in his life. Next, Ty looked for film schools, and that search ultimately landed him at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, where he completed an honours in Media Arts and Culture with a minor in Film Production. He was also introduced to the filmmaking community in New Brunswick through the NB Film Co-op, and he has been working on member's projects ever since. Some of the film roles Ty has taken on film projects are script supervisor and assistant camera or grip, but he feels fortunate to have had the chance to be director of photography on several projects.
Director of photography is a creative role well suited for Ty as any moving images he produces have a strong artistic flair and mood. The cinematographers who inspire his visual style and taste include some greats like; Roger Deakins, Sven Nykvist, Robby Müller, Sean Bobbitt, Robert Yeoman, Steven Soderbergh, and Gordon Willis. Some of the creative techniques that Ty loves in cinematography are deep shadows, high contrast, rich colours, dark blue evenings, and the quality of sodium vapor lights.
A recent film project that Ty had the privilege to work on was Ryan O'Toole's feature film Further Than The Eye Can See. While he was not the director of photography on Ryan's project, he did take on the crucial role of script supervisor. Ty formed strong bonds and friendships with many of the crew as being script supervisor put him in a position where he was in direct contact with all departments on the project. He also was the colourist, working closely with Ryan to create a look that Ty describes as, unlike anything he and Ryan have seen before.
Ryan O'Toole is known for films that have been described as having an experimental quality that often seems to reach the metaphysical realm. This magic, combined with Ty's colour grading skills, should make Further Than The Eye Can See something exceptional.
Speaking of Ty's colour grading, he has gone through training to strengthen his skills. This involved him taking two intermediate courses, which certified him as an end-user for Da Vinci Resolve, a professional-grade film editor and colour grade software used on Hollywood films. Some recent films are Dune, The Green Knight, Godzilla vs Kong, and Black Widow. With these skills, Ty has created his own company for colour grading called Bison ColourWorks, where he has had the opportunity to grade music videos, short films, documentaries, and Ryan's feature film. In conjunction with Bison ColourWorks, Ty also created his production company called Bison FilmWorks. Hopefully, you will see his production company logo on many more film projects, as Ty will be producing all future film projects under this company banner.
Ty is a very talented up-and-coming director and writer. With a good number of short films under his belt. One short that caught my attention is his film Roles which he produced in 2017. The film displays his ability to create atmosphere and mood. And then, there is his other film, and even though the budget was tiny, the film was not. Ty made a Neo-Western called Sister's Dirge in 2018. It is an extremely intimate short film with a surprising scope that deals with loss, vengeance, and the deep bond between sisters. The story centers around the dark and relevant topic of the kidnapping and murder of indigenous women. Ty found the film challenging to research, and he was often in tears during the process. However, even with the difficult subject matter, he gathered many collaborators for the project professionally that he still keeps in contact with today. The film went on to win a major award at the New Brunswick Silver Wave Film Festival. An important lesson that Ty learned on this film project is that is you have to be careful how many hats you wear on a project as the art can suffer in the end, but at the same time, because of doing many of the roles himself, he was able to learn so much more. Ultimately, the project was immensely gratifying for him.
The lessons learned on Sister's Dirge are ones he took to heart and applied to his next short film Cicerone, which is currently nearing the end of the post-production phase. Ty gives special mention to his producers, script supervisor, and 1st AD as invaluable, highlighting the advantage of not taking on too much and having a good support network to help see things through. Without them, he could not have done it.
Cicerone went through many script rewrites; in fact, the film initially started as a mockumentary, but by the end of the writing process had turned into a dramatic narrative short film. The film ended up with a much higher budget, as Ty was awarded the Short Film Venture Grant and an artsnb grant. Thanks to the additional funding, he was able to make a film that his younger self could only have dreamed of making. Ty describes Cicerone as a meta-text of writing and the gangster genre, bringing things full circle to the kinds of films that inspired him to make them in the first place. Though the film was his dream to make, it was not necessarily a cakewalk to produce.
The initial shooting schedule in spring 2020 to make the film was postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic, and then when they finally were shooting the film in September 2021, he and his cast and crew narrowly missed another lockdown due to the pandemic. Ty also had setups and plans fall apart on set, but that is part of the process and can happen. These experiences showed him that you must adapt and be creative. A couple of scenes required re-shoots, which can occur sometimes. The film is now in a place that Ty is happy with, and he is looking forward to submitting it to festivals soon. He also told me to keep my eyes peeled as a trailer for the film will be released soon.
I will leave you with Ty's philosophy for the filmmaking process, "filmmaking is a collaborative medium, and you are only as good as your collaborators."
If you want to see Ty's previous work, including Roles and Sister's Dirge, you can check out his Vimeo page: vimeo.com/tygiffin.
If you would like to reach out to Ty for advice or to collaborate with him, you can reach out to him on Facebook, Instagram, and Instagram for Bison FilmWorks and Bison ColourWorks.
Ty Giffin
Ty Giffin