Halifax, Nova Scotia 2006

23.50 min.

Produced & directed by Ann Verrall

Co-producers: Jay Ferguson, 
Aram Kouyoumdjian

Script written by Ann Verrall and developed through a 3-year workshop process with Angela Clarke, Josh Hatt, Simon Howell, Leah MacDonald, Nathan MacIntosh, Seamus Morrison, Melissa Murphy and Grace Smith

High school is over, summer is ending, and Jake must say goodbye to his best friend Sarah but can’t. Instead, he confesses his true love and his desire to go with her. When Sarah rejects him, Jake seeks out escape by any means necessary: random sex, violence, going crazy, even buying into Charles’ deluded dream of driving to Toronto to become a stand up comic.  But Jake’s real escape route leads not along the open road.  It leads in the direction of a crazed dancing stranger. The Wait captures a moment in life where there is profundity in plain cheese pizza, ordinariness in freaking out and where loosing yourself can lead you home.

Cinematographer: Jay Ferguson

Editor: Thorben Bieger

With music by: Controller.Controller, The Weakerthans, Raising the Fawn, Matt Mays & El Torpedo, Simply Saucer,
The Unicorns, Universal Soul,
The Vees

The Elusive Search for the Story: a 3-year script development process with the cast

Leah MacDonald (Sarah) “We knew these characters like the back of our hands because we grew up with them.”

Nathan MacIntosh (Charles) Early in the process Nathan joked with me about only staying for 5 years. “It’s past the point of no return – no turning back. I’ll be 38 and still coming to Ann’s backyard, bringing my kids”

Simon Howell (Tom) “It was pretty clear from the beginning that I was going to have an outsider role.”

Seamus Morrison (Jake) “When I was taping myself up I wasn’t into it at all at first… and then I just started using it and…I just went so crazy. I just snapped….But that’s what’s great because those really hard moments are the best things ever you can do as an actor”

Ann Verrall (writer/director) The most special thing for me in the process was seeing them grow up, seeing how art and life mixed. I was writing their characters older then they actually were. So I was writing about things that they had never experienced, like being in love, breaking up, having sex, leaving home. Months later we would get back together and inevitably there would be someone who had had a new experience. Suddenly they knew about what their character was doing. They would be excited and more open to taking risks.

Linda Joy Media Arts Society