Trevor Morris’s short film Butterfly On A Wheel screened as part of the industry showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival. The screening was not open to the public, but the movie, which focuses on a troubled music student at The Glenn Gould School, is set to make the round of film festivals over the next several months.
In the fictional story, Jacen Davis is studying jazz at the Toronto music school. He starts each day by counting obsessively, and reordering the containers in his fridge. He has to try the door several times before he can open it. On the counter is a row of prescription bottles.
In short, he’s dealing with OCD and other anxiety issues.
His dream is to perform his music on stage, but he focuses on composition because he just… can’t. His chronic stage fright is amplified by recurring dreams that see him, as a child, take the stage to play the piano only to freeze in front of the audience.
One day, Jacen meets a girl who’s sympathetic, and things seem to be on an upswing — but his anxieties can’t be quelled so easily.
How can he learn to live with his condition, and learn how to express himself in performance?
“What makes you different is your superpower.”
Curran Walters plays Jacen with a quiet, yet convincing intensity. The city of Toronto plays a role, in particular, the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Koerner Hall. In a scene where Jacen sits in it alone, first simply staring at the piano on stage from one of the seats, it’s like an otherworldly realm.
Trevor Morris
Trevor Morris is a writer, director, and composer for film and TV, and he’s won two Emmy Awards for his trouble, and been nominated for three more. He’s contributed to more than 30 films and 700 hours of TV, and makes his directorial debut with Butterfly On A Wheel.
Born in London, Ontario, he studied violin and choir at an arts school as a child. He got his first commission to write music at the age of 13 when he was asked by his school to compose a piece for his class to perform in honour of the Pope’s visit to Canada. He attended Fanshawe College and studied Music Industry Arts.
On graduating, he moved to Toronto, where he worked in music production before making the transition to composing full-time for TV commercials. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue his craft, and has worked on films and series like The Tudors, and the Tony and Ridley Scott produced mini-series The Pillars of the Earth.
While he lives with his family and works in Los Angeles, he maintains a production company in Toronto with his business partners.
Trevor Morris: The Interview
“Butterfly started off as a journal entry in my own life,” Morris says.
He was going through a difficult time during the immediate post-COVID period. He began to pull himself out of it with a thought.
“What’s your first really good memory?” he wondered.
He immediately thought of the many times he’d sit in his grandmother’s lap as a child while she played the piano. It’s a scene that made its way into the film as one of Jacen’s key memories.
“He’s searching for his authentic voice as a person,” Morris says of his protagonist.
The scene of him in the stunning concert hall has an impact in the story.
“It’s something he cannot touch.” Jacen’s crippling anxieties keep him from taking the stage. As Morris points out, the crisis sends him on a healing journey to embrace who he really is.
“It’s my mini metaphor for the human condition,” Trevor says. “It’s kind of an old analog analogy for what we’re going through in the digital age.”
As he points out, everyone is now pressured to create a digital profile, to digitize their lives and experiences.
“We’ve never been more connected, and we’ve never been more alone.”
We’re simply not hardwired for the kind of constant exposure that’s been normalized in our society. The pressures faced by a music student crystallize those anxieties outside the digital realm.
“It’s the ultimate version of if you fail, what will people think of me?”
Koerner Hall As A Character
As a film maker, the visual dimensions of Koerner Hall appealed to him. “A piano and a wooden stage — it’s organic.”
Music students will be familiar with the scenario, but it’s an emotion most people can relate to. “It’s a nerve being touched by everybody right now,” he says. “It was an ambitious location for a short film,” he acknowledges. “To me, Jascen viewed that like the Sistine Chapel.”
Morris looked at different concert halls to use for the film, but Koerner Hall’s aesthetics are unique. “I got it in my head, and wouldn’t give up until we got it,” he says. “It was not an easy location to secure; it totally paid off.”
While many people have visited Koerner Hall, few have seen it completely on their own, the way the film portrays. It’s like a cathedral with its arched ceiling and rows of seats. It’s part of the Toronto quotient in the film. “It’s quite a moment to be there,” he says.
It’s like a non-speaking character in the film. “If you set a movie in New York City, New York City is a character.”
Music At The Heart Of The Story
“I grew up loving classical music and going to the symphony,” Morris says. When it came to music, including composing, conducting, and arranging, he didn’t rely on formal lessons. “I’m self taught,” he says.
Likewise, when he wanted to turn to film making, he spent a couple of years educating himself online and reading.
“The 10-dollar word is auto-didact,” he says.
The music he’s composed for his own film is orchestral and neoclassical in nature, and was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in the UK.
For Butterfly, other than composing the music, he was making a debut. “Everything was a first.” That includes writing the screenplay.
Finding actor Curran Walters was paramount to making the story work. “It’s the most important factor,” Trevor says. “You’re putting your main character in the hands of someone else.
Finding Jacen was qutie difficult.”
He’d assumed he would have to find a suitable actor, and then teach them how to fake playing the music. An actor who could convey emotions with few words was also crucial. He eventually came across Walters via a friend. It turns out Walters (perhaps best known for playing Jason Todd in the DC Comics television series Titans) also has a mild case of OCD, so the script wasn’t as much of a stretch for him. He was the right age for a university student, and learned enough piano to make the scenes of him at the piano convincing.
“He knocked it out of the ball park.”
The film will screen in a few more film festivals coming up, including the Catalina Film Festival later this month. Morris is hoping the universal nature of the film’s message is heard.
“The hope was, and I’ve got this feeling from some people who’ve viewed it, it’s not a movie for musicians who have OCD. These are metaphors for all of us,” he says.
Jacen’s journey is really a human journey towards self acceptance, through the story of a musician.
“It takes tremendous courage to express yourself through music in front of people,” he says. “That reflects partly on my life.” Morris describes himself as a shy Canadian kid who moved to Hollywood. For his first film, he wanted to leave audiences with a positive message.
“Not that everything is great and tied up an a bow,” he says. It’s about taking those first steps.
“Real change only happens when the pain of staying the same gets bad enough.
” It’s a line from the film, and one that Morris says he stole from a therapist.
- You can keep up with upcoming screenings on the film website [HERE].
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