Making art on a tiny, subtropical island like Bermuda isn't impossible, but it takes a special kind of resourcefulness.

That was what Bermudian film student Bayard Outerbridge discovered while working on a short documentary about the life of Bermudian artist Trevor Todd.

Mr. Outerbridge, 26, will be making his filmmaking debut at the upcoming Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) with 'Face of the Rock' (2009).

He made the film as a class project at Concordia University in New York he is a student at Concordia's Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema.

"Bringing all of the equipment down to Bermuda was quite an ordeal," said Mr. Outerbridge. "I had envisioned some tracking shots I wanted to do. In order to do that I constructed a dolly out of L brackets and skateboard wheels." He had a welder in a local hardware store weld his creation together.

"There is a lack of resources in Bermuda, and sometimes you have to make up for it with creativity and ingenuity," he said.

But one thing he said Bermuda does have is a growing filmmaking community.

Reece Furbert, of RF Communications, and another Bermudian filmmaker, Lucy Spurling, rented Mr. Outerbridge some of their equipment, and he in turn plans to rent out his dolly creation when he returns to Bermuda.

His assistant cameraman was Andrew Kirkpatrick, and helped him co-ordinate production on-island, while Mr. Outerbridge was in New York.

Music was provided by local violinist David France, and hand-drummer Davide Swarup and the film was shot mostly on a spring-wound 16mm Bolex camera.

He partly credited BIFF with the growing filmmaking community in Bermuda. "No doubt they are helping to spark more interest in filmmaking on the island," he said. "Whatever it is there is definitely an explosion of filmmakers on the island which is great. Great to see there are a lot of potential collaborators."

He was also assisted by the Bermuda Arts Council, which funded part of his film.

'Face of the Rock' is an eight-minute documentary that explores local multi-media artist Trevor Todd's journey towards artistic expression.

Using a poem written by the artist and selections from a three-hour interview, Mr. Outerbridge pieced together a voice-over narration that allowed the audience a glimpse into the realities of Mr. Todd's life.

The film's stylised visuals were intended to give the audience an arresting spectacle while reminding them that they are being confronted with a constructed reality.

Mr. Outerbridge and Mr. Todd have been friends for some time. "We knew each other from community events from around the island but we remet in 2006 after I took a filmmaking course in England," said Mr. Outerbridge. "He suggested we work together on something."

At that time, Mr. Outerbridge wrote down in his notebook an idea for doing a film about Mr. Todd. Later, in a film class at Concordia he brought the notebook out again.

"My class loved the idea, and encouraged me to pursue it," said Mr. Outerbridge.

Mr. Outerbridge's class assignment had some challenges. He was only allowed to use one camera, the 16 mm Bolex, a type of camera that has been in use since the 1930s and did not allow for sound to be recorded at the same time, so it had to be recorded separately.

Although the film explores Mr. Todd's work, influenced by Australian aboriginal art, and his spiritual philosophies, a lot of filming took place in the stone quarry where Mr. Todd earned a living as a stonemason.

"Showing him working in the quarry yard brings about this idea of this consciousness of geological history," said Mr. Outerbridge.

"It is about the focus on something greater than ourselves. I think that coincides with his understanding of cosmic consciousness and mediating on that the greater cosmos and something greater than yourself."

Mr. Outerbridge said he normally veers more towards fiction, so it was interesting to work in the documentary form and said he was partly inspired by another film called 'I am Cuba' directed by Mikhail Kalatozov.

"I was inspired by the camera movement that they used and the stylised cinematography infrared film that they used. I was looking at that and moving towards more of a restricted camera movement at the beginning and they moving towards a hand held freer sort of movement at the end."

This will be his first entry in BIFF. "BIFF has been very supportive of the fact that I am a Bermudian filmmaker," he said. "It is a film by a Bermudian about a Bermudian.

"We are starting to get more portrayals of our own identity as Bermudians that aren't linked to commercial views of Bermudians."

He is currently in his last year of university. After university, he hopes to work for a local movie production company for a while and then eventually work in movie production in Los Angeles, California.

The film will be screened on March 20 at 10.15 a.m at Speciality Cinema along with Bermudian Vance Chapman's 'Bike' and again on March 22, at 6.30 p.m. in the same location.

For more information about the film go to www.faceoftherock.com

Tickets for BIFF are on sale at www.biff.bm, at www.bdatix.com and at the festival box office at 15 Front Street, Hamilton.

BIFF is on from March 19 to 25. For more information go to their website at http://www.biff.bm/.