Written, produced, and directed by Hrachya Tokmajyan, The Children of Ar is a character-driven fantasy short film that portrays a character named Harut (played by Christopher Duthie) and his journey in both physical and abstract. The short was shot across southern Alberta, from the CSIF (Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers) studio in Calgary to a ranch in Longview, Alberta. Lensed by his colleague, James McCarthy, Tokmajyan talks about his process and transforming his script into the screens.
Initially, Tokmajyan wrote The Children of Ar as a feature length film. He wanted to test the waters by making a shorter compressed version of the feature film as a proof of concept and as an application to Telefilm Canada. “It’s a proof of concept for the feature I’ve written beforehand. What I did was wrote the feature first, it was around a hundred-ish pages and adapted it into short form. The script for that was around eighteen pages,” Tokmajyan explains. “I got funding from the Calgary Arts Development and then I made the film. Now I’m using it to my application to the Telefilm ‘Talent to Watch Program’ for first-time emerging directors as my proof of concept,” he adds.
With his written feature film length script as a reference, Tokmajyan had to condense most of the details in a shorter amount of runtime, akin to short films. “I kind of had a discussion with myself about this before I even adapted it into a short, back when it was a first draft. I was either going to make this a short film, 10 to 15 minutes long, but I didn’t because my feature script style and narrative are so interlinked,” he says. “I realized I couldn’t do that or if I did, my heart wouldn’t have been in it, so I chose to go with something that is a bit longer than 25 minutes, which isn’t ideal for short films especially if you want to send it to festivals,” he says.
“It’s something that I wanted. It was more personal. I wanted to showcase the world that I would actually be exploring,” Tokmajyan exclaims. “It’s a short film but realistically, it was a feature length film condensed into 25 minutes.”
Realizing the inspiration for the film traces back to Tokmajyan’s Armenian heritage with its culture, traditions, fairy tales and customs as reference for the overall story. “One thing I really enjoyed in making The Children of Ar is that it was very unique to my identity as a Canadian and an Armenian touching on a lot of various cyclical trends and tragedies throughout Armenian history and throughout the history of the most world in general,” says Tokmajyan. “So, I think that’s why I was inspired to make this short and the upcoming feature because I know it has relevance. I know that it’s unique to myself and myself alone. That’s what drove me perhaps even more than the scale of the production because I knew it had legs as a story of its own.”
Principal photography took place in various locations in southern Alberta which lasted five days. Locations such as the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers’ studio in Sunalta, Calgary to the remote places in Longview, Alberta were used for the short film. “It was a lot of hurdles as is for any production of this calibre because we’re not exactly shooting interiors only which would have been less headaches and a million times easier”, he says. “But I think that’s what kind of drew me to this project because I’m like ‘I don’t know if I can make this, but I’m sure as hell going to try.’”
Apart from interior shots of Harut’s house and a cave, The Children of Ar was primarily shot outdoors in which Tokmajyan was most proud of. “It was fairly guerrilla the way we made the film considering the film was ninety per cent exteriors, which is awesome because that’s what I want to do and that’s one of the main things I’m proud of in this film is the fact that we bent nature to our will,” he says. “The funniest thing about all of that throughout the entire week was the weather. The second it hit June 2nd, because we wrapped in the night of June 1st, for twenty days straight the weather was gloomy, rainy, and miserable,” as Tokmajyan laughs.
“The film gods want us to make this film. If they didn’t, they would have rained on us. The film gods giveth and the film gods taketh away,” Tokmajyan exclaims. “It was a special time. For James, it was a huge undertaking because we were shooting a lot of exteriors. We can’t really predict the weather.”
Besides the weather, there were also some unexpected visitors in the vicinity during shooting outdoors. “We literally just wrapped everything that we needed to shoot from the top of hill overlooking the mountains. We were all wrapping up, making sure nobody left anything because we weren’t going back there ever again. We were ready and our producer got a call from circus and reported a bear nearby their vicinity,” says Tokmajyan. “I wasn’t worried because we had bear spray and there was a lot of people at circus. Everyone was prepared…roughly.”
On the approach to camera work, McCarthy and Tokmajyan settled on the Blackmagic URSA Mini outfitted with Rokinon Cine DS lenses. “It was a great camera; everything was awesome about it. There were no issues of transferring to post and editing it. It was all peachy,” he says adding credit to the camera crew.
Tokmajyan's camera crew, led by Cinematographer James McCarthy, supported by Camera Operator Corey Gomez and Camera Assistants Patricia Tolentino and Sydney Ashlin-Mayo, captured several hours of footage. “I talk about James, and I praise him a lot, but his camera team was amazing. Patricia was also my first Assistant Camera, and she is extremely talented. She’s an absolute soldier. It’s amazing what they can do together. An amazing camera team especially with Corey and Sydney as well. It was a well-oiled machine.”
With talking about the camera crew and them being SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) graduates, Tokmajyan talks more about his peers and the friendships he has formed. “Having SAIT grads who were also my friends was pivotal in making the film be put into the realm of reality. These are the people I went through hell with,” Tokmajyan says as he laughs. “We went through fire and back and all that stuff. I’m going to send them back to hell again with the next film.”
The next step for Tokmajyan after filming and screening the short is to make a feature length version of The Children of Ar. Currently, the feature is in the early development stages with returning crew on board. “Corey Gomez and I will be producing the feature. We’ve already applied to other institutions for the shorts,” he says. “We’re getting lots of support through our communities of filmmakers and organizations that support artists, specifically minority and BIPOC artists as well. We are very eager to apply to Telefilm Canada.”
“I’m very hopeful but I trust only in the strength of my application, and I’ll leave the trust up to the film gods” as Tokmajyan laughs.
For more information about the short film release of The Children of Ar, please click here. The feature-film version is currently in development.