Director’s Statement

For me Paper Trail was a labour of love.

The very first project that I ever worked on was a one minute short film with a kid named Davin Tong. The film was about a guy who hides in the trunk of his neighbour’s car and waits for the neighbour to show up so he can fight him to the death with a lightsaber.

Thankfully this was never fully made as my next-door neighbour at the time told us we were too noisy, so we had to stop shooting. The following day Davin and I had both separately developed ideas to expand this concept. Taking the best of both elements we shot “Paper Trail” a fist fighting, lightsaber swinging tale about a neighbour who was caught stealing newspapers.
For not knowing what we were doing the film turned out pretty good and eventually caught the attention of the Vancouver Film School. The school liked the film and gave both Davin and I scholarships to attend.

After finishing film school I worked on various short films in one capacity or another. I was shocked at how boring and unoriginal most of them were. I was helping to create films that I myself wouldn’t watch.
I made a vow that when I was ready to shoot my first “real” short I would shoot something that would entertain people. When the time finally came to begin my own project I thought, “What better way to show what I’ve learned from attending film school and working on film shoots then to re-shoot “Paper Trail?”

I brought Davin back on board to help with the project since he had helped create the original. I took the basic concept of the first “Paper Trail”, removed the lightsabers, added a 3rd fighter and some explosions. I did all of this to test my capability, not only as a director, but as a producer, choreographer and fighter as well.

The goal of this film has always been to get you, the audience to relax and enjoy yourself. My philosophy about film, is that you should be able to have fun, forget your troubles go home and say, “WOW, that was cool.” I think I achieved that.

Travis Grant
Producer/Director