Robert-John
Farrow: I have had the idea for three years, it was just after graduating
from Vancouver Film School. At the graduation ceremony, one of my
teachers gave us a speech to send us off into the world and do all
these wonderful things and tell our stories….Our stories? I
was like, "our stories?" we’re supposed to tell our
stories? I didn’t realize that by going to film school I’d
end up telling my stories. I thought it was all pretend make-up,
fun. It was a whole brand new concept. I really had to think, "what
is my story?" It’s the story of the West End, rent, who
we are and how we are going to make it through the world.
MV: The majority of people who go to get into this industry choose
fields in television or film. Over the last decade the internet
has become a world-wide window for all different variation of media
and you’re creating a show along with other web shows, why
not more conventional media?
RJF: The very first time I ever got internet access at my house
was five years ago in Toronto. The very first thing I did was look
for something to watch, some video or anything visual. I couldn’t
find anything, nothing at all. After film school, I asked myself,
"Where will my work be seen or shows?" You can put them
in film festivals and like 200 people can see it that night in that
place but no one else in the world can see it. I later saw a short
video on the web in a style that was like a coffee-break for your
mind or something.
MV: So it’s like you’re capturing the essence of what
is happening in Vanouver’s gay Denman area and it’s being
seen all over the world!
RJF: That is an exciting thing for us. To us we are living it but
to someone in, say, Zimbabwe or the Ivory Coast or whatever, Vancouver
is very far away and exotic. Oddly enough, our show is seen in more
non-English [speaking] countries. Plus we live on the West Coast
of Canada, being such a liberal country but also like America. A
lot of the places where our show is seen you can be killed for being
gay.
The characters are all compositions of the people living in the
West End. Brandon the new boy to Vancouver, is here to find himself
and find out what boys are all about. Tyler is the type of person
that we all know who have lived here too long and crashed at everybody’s
couch and has fucked everybody over. So all the characters are compositions
of everybody I know in different capacities. So I am also Brandon,
Tyler and can even be Amy.
MV: So you’re saying you are a lesbian?
RJF: (giggling) I am a lesbian!
MV: Okay so, West of Denman is the first and main show on you site
but you have other shows on it as well. Where do you want to take
the station/site?
RJF: At this particular point, West of Denman is our main concern.
There is literally no one else in the world doing what we are doing.
There are a few other shorts I made right after film school on there
and quite a few projects on the go. We are currently working on
getting advertising space [filled]. We have shot the first 10 episodes
for WOD but the stories in the West End really never stop. In North
America everybody concentrates on doing television series like Cheers
or….
MV: Or Facts of Life?
RJF: Or Friends.
MV: Not Friends!
RJF: Anyway, they concentrate on doing this format for years, not
a season or two seasons but they’ll try for 10 seasons. They
do this for syndications [sic] deals, which I understand. The way
the BBC works is as a collective focussing on one show’s idea,
so all the creative teams work together and create a solid eight
episodes. This is the way I’d like to take it. Go with whatever
is on our mind at the time, when Halloween comes around it would
be wonderful to do "Tranny Vampires."
