Tom Belding caused quite the stir online when a TikTok video parodying the Granville Street bridge chandelier got people all worked up.
In the video Belding poses as an official pledging to put up chandeliers under every bridge, overpass, and archway in Vancouver with clips of different ornate lighting fixtures hanging superimposed from the Chinatown arches, the Lions Gate Bridge, and the Granville Island entrance.
Not everyone got the joke.
"I was surprised at how many people took some of this stuff quite seriously," he tells V.I.A over the phone. "I was surprised how many people actually thought the city was going to spend millions of dollars putting up chandeliers."
Belding saw a lot of political debates unfold in his comment section and quickly learned that the internet has mixed feelings about satire. But Vancouver-specific satire is his specialty.
His most recent TikTok satirizes tourism videos and the stereotype that our neighbours to the south don't have a frame of reference for Canadian life. His must-see things to see in Vancouver included icebergs, igloos and the CN tower.
"That one, I think people got the joke. I think people played along with that," says Belding. He describes himself as a "video magician," warping images and creating optical illusions in video.
TikTok fame isn't the goal, Belding's day job is as a filmmaker and full-time producer for brands across Canada. He started creating TikToks to push his creativity and learn new visual effects skills. "Even when I was doing photography work for many years, I was trying to incorporate some kind of twist into my photography," he explains of his process. "For me, it's just incorporating some visual effects into my filmmaking work and taking something that maybe people haven't seen before and showing that off."
Belding chose to poke fun at Vancouver because he says, as a city, we have a reputation for taking ourselves too seriously (see the chandelier debacle). "It's fun to turn some heads with that and make some jokes about the city," he says, which is a nice change of pace from creating for other brands who may not allow him to use humour or who may have strict rules about what's considered funny.
Belding is also wary of TikTok as an artist. He doesn't want to get sucked into trends or try to keep up with what's relevant. "That's not something I'm very good at," he says. "I think anytime I try and do something that's trending, it will always fail because it's just not truthful to me."
He also thinks that relying on views can make you question the integrity of your work which is "a killer as an artist."
Not to worry, though, Belding promises he's going to keep making films and learning new skills. "If some of that sort of rubs off into social media, great."
