Brownstein: The Montreal director has all the time in the world for a Jurassic trip

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Aristomenis (Meni) Tsirbas’s lower body may be somewhat still as he temporarily sits in the Quartier des Spectacle’s Café Parvis, but you can be sure the Montreal filmmaker’s mind is drifting away to other galaxies and dimensions far away. He can’t help it.

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“I love letting my mind wander and telling sci-fi stories, so I thought I might as well try to make a living out of that,” jokes Tsirbas.

And it has been very adept at doing just that for the past 25 years.

A graduate of Concordia’s prestigious film production program, Tsirbas paid dues under director James Cameron on the set of Titanic before becoming a visual effects supervisor on such otherworldly cinematic adventures as A Wrinkle in Time, My Favorite Martian and the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He followed up with a series of short cartoons and the animated feature film Battle for Terra, all of which he wrote and directed.

In between these forays were national commercials for Nike, Coca-Cola and 7UP and a couple of music videos, including Tears for Fears’ Closest Thing to Heaven.

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All of these experiences have been brought together in Tsirbas’s first live-action film, Timescape. It’s a fast-paced odyssey that takes two kids on a time-traveling escapade to prehistoric times, where they encounter creatures big, small and creepy, not to mention a fast-charging asteroid. This is the real deal, with CGI special effects to rival the best in the business, but at a fraction of the price of most blockbusters in the genre.

Having marked its world premiere at last month’s Fantasia festival, Timescape opens in Quebec in English and French on Friday. Although it focuses on its youthful and curious leads (Sofian Oleniuck as Jason and Lola Rossignol-Arts as Lara), the film should suit all age demographics, meaning those who gobble up sci-fi shows with all the tech bells and whistles. and whistles

As a bonus for Quebecers, Timescape has to be the first sci-fi adventure to be filmed in the lush forests surrounding the Laurentian community of Rawdon. Less prehistoric footage was also filmed in Montreal.

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“As far as I know, there have been no reports of aliens, flying saucers and dinosaurs showing up in Rawdon,” says Tsirbas before quickly adding, “In a movie, that is. Of course, I can’t say that these situations haven’t really happened there.”

Tsirbas lavishes much praise on his Montreal film crews and technicians for bringing this prehistoric world back to life.

“Everyone went above and beyond to make the movie feel so big and epic, and with the skills I’ve gained over the years, we were able to pull this together as well as I could have ever hoped.”

Tsirbas attributes his overactive imagination and fascination with the far reaches of the cosmos to capturing Star Wars: Episode IV, which was actually the first in the series to be released, in 1977 when he was a child.

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“I was 10 years old at the time, and that gave me all the focus I needed to pursue this as a career. I have always sought to relive that experience. That passion has stayed with me ever since,” says Tsirbas, who has several sci-fi projects planned, including a couple that he hopes to shoot in and around Montreal.

Tsirbas credits no-nonsense Canadian director Cameron for pushing him to another level when he worked on Titanic.

“My plan when I went to the US in 1996 was to work with people who were much, much better than me,” he says. “Then I was really thrown into a den of lions with Jim Cameron in Titanic. He was very inspiring. He is so goal oriented, with a huge chest of skills. He is usually better than anyone in the room at all of his jobs. It was just a fantastic and very eye-opening learning experience. There was a lot to get out of it.”

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Initially, visual effects had been his great passion and that set the stage, creatively and financially, for him to move on to a directing career.

“CGI effects have changed the game. They are constantly evolving, allowing for example the dinosaurs in Timescape to look more organic and hopefully age well. But the beauty of it is that the high-tech hardware and software that goes into it is more accessible and has democratized cinema. It has allowed smaller productions to feel much bigger than they really are.”

Like Timescape.

“Let’s just say that the budget for Timescape was considerably less than the last Jurassic Park movie in the series.”

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