August 28, 2024- PERCY AND THE WHALE (AKA ROTTEN PENGUIN)
A very, very different kind of project of mine, and one I want to share here for now, but it’s still in the very early phases.
For the past year I’ve been prepping to take on my most ambitious project- trying to make a feature film. It’s a story about a penguin named Percy, who enters a strange land and searches for meaning while struggling for survival.
It’s a very strange film, closer to transcendental filmmaking and horror. I think Percy is a response to me wanting to learn Unreal Engine 5, and filming a rough movie on my own using the software while also getting comfortable. I also wanted to do a project where I couldn’t imagine someone greenlighting an idea like that. It’s slow, it’s brooding, it’s contemplative. It has not one word of dialogue, and can be deeply unsettling.
Right now, I’m in the phases of pre-production still. Locking down the artstyle, creating assets, and finishing the screenplay and storyboards for the film. It’s a ridiculous 3 hours and 40 minutes, so at the moment: I’m still thinking about this project. It’s been all I’ve been working on all summer, but I still want to be sure I’m setting myself up for… Something feasible.
Stay tuned!
January 11, 2022 - Dennis is Lonely
Well! It’s been a long time since I’ve made a film of my own. These past few years of me living in Montreal, as a filmmaker, has mainly been decided through my work that I’m doing for a company called Fire Without Smoke, filming video game trailers. In that time, my overall desire to pursue filmmaking outside of a full time job has… Diminished. Which is sad- I love to do it, but as this website might show, my hobbies have shifted to painting moreso than making films. Dennis was the exception to the case, a small headed prop that has been a very slow burn project. Started at the beginning of 2020 and ending at the start of 2022, Dennis took quite awhile. I won’t say too much here, the film is there if you’d like to see it- but I love Dennis. I loved working on it. It was a lovely creative outlet, in terms of looking for beautiful shots around Montreal to pose this bust around, but also a creative outlet, screaming out the thematic loneliness of my personal exploration of the subject in practice for feeling utterly lonely writing this script.
All around, it was great. I loved the shooting, editing was a blast, being able to work with musicians and come up with an original score was something I’ve never had the chance to do before. It’s weird. It’s depressing, it’s funny, and it’s beautiful, and I’d like to think this does a great job of being a calling card for people to see my personality shine through in a piece of work. Now that it’s over? I’m missing the process of filming, especially real life outside of video games. I hope to make a few more shorts over the span of this year, a few already kicking off.
May 13th, 2019 - Fam Aprix
This was another one I filmed similar to what I did last winter- heading out the door with a loose plan and a song in mind. It was a fun shoot, just hanging out with some friends who were eager to be on camera, and the idea that I don’t really understand french cinema and culture, but this would just be a fun montage around the idea of how I think it would feel. It’s not a complicated piece, I don’t have more to describe it other than I’m glad that we took the weekend and made the most of it.
November 19th, 2018 - DETTAGLI
Recently moved back to Montreal, and something about this city really reminds me of old Italian music. Me and my friend Robin, the one in red, walked around the city on Sunday with the goal of a “city walk montage”, with me trying to replicate some old 70’s style visuals. Whatever the message is supposed to be here I’m not sure, but I liked how it turned out.
May 3rd, 2018 - DEMOREEL
I've finally created myself a demo-reel! It's been too long I've put it off, but I'm glad that I did. It was fun to put together, having a project that's shamelessly over-edited. If this were a normal project, I know I wouldn't use as many flashy transitions between shots as I did here, but I think it was more of a chance to show what kind of things I can accomplish as an editor.
October 21st 2017- THE BOOK OF NORMAN
Very recently, a project of mine that I've been working on for three years has come to a close- The Book of Norman. It's an odd duck of a project. You can go to reddit.com/r/lifeofnorman to see it for yourself, but essentially, there's a community of people on that subreddit who write a collective series of short stories, all about a fictional man named Norman. There's nothing special about Norman- he's supposed to be uninteresting. He works in an office, he's middle-aged, overweight(but working on it), and lives by himself in an apartment, with his cat, who is also named Norman. Stories can be about any part of his life, so long as it's in the realm of plausibility. That's pretty much it for the rules- and because of that, there's a lot of freedom in the character of Norman, and why so many people are enamored by him.
I joined the subreddit when it was around 5,000 subscribers, and I loved the idea of Norman, despite not knowing how to write one myself. It only took a couple days before I thought, "I wish somebody would make a book about Norman."
Because of that, I thought- why not. Someone's gotta do it, and if I don't chances are no one will. I didn't think much of it- a few months work, collecting stories from the subreddit, pasting them together and making an ebook for people to download. Simple enough.
It's a strange project, but it's certainly the most proud I've felt about anything I've worked on in my life so far. The 300+ contributors agreed under the terms that, when the book is done, that 100% of the profits of the book go towards charity. Specifically, cat shelters. I decided that for quite a few reasons- one, the book won't make a lot of money(I know that for a fact now), so I wanted to keep it to something small. Norman's cat is often a source of happiness for Norman, and often it's his only companion. It made sense to try and raise money, and awareness, for depression through encouraging people to donate animals. I also decided that because of complications with payment- I didn't want to write 300+ paychecks for five cents every two months. It made it easier to lump who did what into the same bracket. It also makes it so that I don't think I'll ever feel that I've wasted my time with the project. It's only raised a few hundred dollars now, but that's alright. Whatever! That's a few cats, at the least.
You can check out the subreddit for yourself, and information on the book, at reddit.com/r/lifeofnorman.
July 18th 2017- DENNIS IS LONELY
This one here was a very odd duck. I don't know if I would consider a professional work of mine, since it was made in a few days without much preparation. However, I think I really liked how it turned out, for what it is. I just had my roommate move the dummy head for me, and the rest was just finding interesting angles to film the same human head over and over again.
A little bit about me
My name's Cameron Crane, and I'm a filmmaker based in Montreal, originally from the NWT, with a focus in writing and editing. When I was younger it was my dream to be personally adopted by Cormac McCarthy, thinking that if I somehow hitched down to Texas and showed up on his doorstep he would be obliged to take me in and teach me his ways.
Since then I've become much less delusional about the craft and learned to enjoy the little things; to become a filmmaker/writer just because it's what I love to do, regardless of whether or not I'm adopted by a Pulitzer prize winner.
I sell myself as an editor foremost, because believe that's my strongest talent that'll benefit you the most, if you were to bring me on your team. However, if you give me a shot, I'll do my best to knock your socks off in other regards. Check out my short films that I've created, the scripts that I've written, and the other projects I've been a part of.