WWSFF 2009: Time – 100 Years Of Toronto In Four Minutes
Posted June 18, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Watching a city change is sort of like watching someone close to you gain weight over the years. If it’s gradual enough, you may not even notice. But then one day you look at an old photo, and it’s all too apparent that something drastic has taken place.
But what if you could see 100 years of a city’s history compressed into just a few minutes? Through the use of archival images and sped-up animations, Toronto filmmaker Kwan Ho Tse has made that possible, and the results are an eye-opening look at the merits and consequences of progress.
The four minute production highlights decades of transformation, and we see how simpler times have evolved into the fast-paced society of today.
Putting the film together was a time-consuming, challenging project that relied on considerable technology, ambition and vision from Tse.
“It actually took me a few years to figure out how to do it,” he admits. “When I first conceived of the idea, I thought I would know how to do it, but once I started I realized the techniques I had in mind wouldn’t work at all, so I had to develop the technique over the years.”
So how does Tse feel about how the city he calls home has evolved over the years?
“A lot of things have changed, sometimes for the worse, but if you look closely enough you realize that a lot of old historical buildings have been preserved, although they are sometimes hidden among the modern buildings and people tend not to notice them because of that.”
“Hopefully things will continue to change, for the better. We would like to see more transit, fewer highways and cars, because cars and roads tend to destroy neighbourhoods. I would like to see more friendly neighbourhoods and neighbourhoods that tend to draw people together rather than break them apart.”
If anything becomes obvious watching a century pass by in four minutes, it’s that at some point, we’ll have to slow down.
“Maybe we have to scale certain things back,” he admits. “People are always talking about growth but it’s obvious that you cannot sustain growth indefinitely, so in some ways we have to scale things back in terms of consumption. We have to at some point say this is all we need to consume and we don’t have to consume any more than this.”
The CFC WorldWide Short Film Festival runs from June 16-21. To purchase tickets or learn more about the fest, click here.
