Homework, taxes and turkey

I cooked a turkey yesterday, about 20 pounds, and took some to mom today. Lori was over doing taxes with them and so of course I realized the urgency of getting on to mine. They won't be tough this year as there are no strange expenditures or incomes but for the usual things. I cracked the whip on William to get him though his homework on English, science, math,,and art. Lucky only four subjects. Only took one break, about 90 minute coffee break with Geremy, but even that may have stymied William's ability to progress on his Pud project (unless he is downstairs doing it now???).

The BIG Hole

We went to the big hole that has been dug for the Capital Pointe building. As everyone in Regina knows, this hole was dug years ago and no progress has been made. It's a ridiculous inconvenience and eye sore. A group all posed by it this Saturday and said "Wow". 

Fourth year film student screening

Congratulations to all the film students and their very successful screening of the work they created this year. The whole event on Friday night was great fun. A few things stood out of course. I've been looking forward to Matt Ripplinger's film for some time as he has been working away on the 16mm elements for it over the past few months in the darkroom. It was more sentimental than I expected, a nice surprise. Haley Klassen had two short animated films which, as seems to be her method, she reveals a lot about herself within them. Joel Campbell's film about a relationship involving long term pain and religion screened. However, instead of the script being presented as written, "Line: the movie that was never made" was a film about the (failed) film process emerged - a project that spoke to me much more deeply about the human condition than the intended story would have. A phoenix of a project. Beta Test by Kenton Evenson and Joel Makar was also quite sophisticated - a sort of black mirror sort of thing but had me really hungry for virtual pie. 

John Desnoyers-Stewart

Really interesting virtual reality exhibition in the Fifth Parallel on campus this week. John Desnoyers-Stewart has a set up where your body is tracked and images of it appear as a figure made of light on the walls. More interestingly, when you put on the goggles, you can see virtual versions of things, rain made of light, a "mirror wall" that you are reflected in, and you can play on the keyboard and make it control the rain and other features. Very fun.
This evening I took my first painting class with Lori. It's taught by Donovan at the Balkwill. 

third year film student screening

Huge congratulations to the third year film students and their impressive collection of new work they screened on campus this evening. They had a great crowd and an interesting range of material to watch. From historical drama to poetic experimentation to zombie farce, there was something for everyone. 

Stories with Allan

Allan came over this evening. I'd not managed to finish storyboarding the comic page ideas we had developed last week, but after we went to "Ready Player One", I jumped back into the last four while William and Allan put their visual heads together to figure out the five pages where the characters wander the dream world. The 30 pages are now planned. I need to finalize the text, but William can now start to draw. 

Journalism students

William and I attended a screening of three films made by journalism students at the university. One of the films was made by a group which included Kyle who was in my grad course on Fridays this term. His supervisor is Trevor Grant who I've not run into since he graduated a few years ago, even though he's been working just a couple of buildings away. We made plans to connect later in the summer. The films were strong but sort of frightening by the end. One was about schizophrenia, the next was about ex-cons and their frustrations over not being able to find a new place in society, and the one Kyle was a part of was about a guy with a multiple personality disorder. While he generally seemed funny and nice, he had some manic moments that felt on the verge of violent and also often appeared to be making very bad day-to-day decisions with things like electrical cords.