getting hot

Summer is finally here. 31 degrees today (I can't find the circular degree sign in most word processors and blog fonts are even more difficult/limited). I helped out with William's class trip to the pool this morning then spent the afternoon and evening getting ready for class tomorrow. The painters are almost done. I started writing a new "Grain" script but I'm not sure if it should be in my voice or someone elses. I will be hiring some voice people very soon to run some lines from my version of "A Midsummer Nights Dream" since I want to shoot a test scene before the colour of fall is gone. I've been working on that script again, alternating between creating more difficult to read hand notes in the margins of the book and typing those same notes into a screenplay program to format it. If I ever catch up with the computer, and since I've just begun typing act 5 I just might, I will dispense with the paper book (which I've been using since 2000!) and work directly in the computer - something I was much less comfortable doing ten years ago). I am starting to feel like I'm finishing things, even if they aren't big things. The lab in Vancouver say they struck a test print of my new film and so that will be coming soon. I finished reading the third Popeye comic strip collection, which took my months because the image and text size is so small I can only read it for a few minutes a day. I also finished two of the Mike Hoolboom books I ordered in: "Everybody Loves Nothing", a catalogue of work by Steve Reinke, and "Projecting Questions?", a really fantastic catalogue about Hoolboom's gallery work from a couple of years ago. He has some very strong and critical viewpoints about gallery video that I found pleasing; everything he says is profoundly obvious, at least once he says it. A must read (except for the rather obtuse academic gymnastics in the chapter on "the invisible man blog" which just tries too hard to be smart that it says nothing much at all).

Lazy Sunday

I was the first to get dressed in our household at 2:30pm when I went to visit Donovan's film set as he shoots his Film 400 project. William put on pants when we were required to go to Margaret's parents house at 6pm, after the sun was down. I baked biscotti and worked on my Midsummer Nights Dream screen adaptation."The smallest biscotti".

twisted teaching

Due to the odd twist of the schedule, I taught my second Film 411 class this evening but still have not taught my first Film 400 class of the term.
Margaret finished the puppets for my Sock-vlle video series today. There were four characters that never had puppets previously. Otherwise, I'm re-using the others from 1994. I still haven't recorded the voices and I still need the buildings made or drawn, and then all the animation and stuff, but still I feel good about there being progress. Now it's time to dig into old photos to give Chrystene some ideas for what the characters in my version of A Midsummer Nights Dream should look like. I thought it might be fun to have some of them modeled after people I know, but now I'm wondering if that is only going to taint my perception of those characters? Oh well, I'll certainly be happier than if I just had them all look the same.

more storage

This morning I woke up early in William's bed because he was in mine and I couldn't sleep so I got up at 5 and made a few espressos to begin my day. I worked my way to the end of act 4 of A Midsummer Nights Dream, then at 8 started feeling very tired again. I met with Chrystene later this morning, her animation is looking great. She's been working on Kalevala sequences - Finish folklore - that are interspersed throughout her film "Sisu". Janine had to postpone this afternoon so I went Saskatoon berry picking then went to the store and bought a terabyte external drive for $160 (the two 500gb drives that I have in my 8 month old Dell computer are almost full and $160 seems cheaper than taking the time to thin out what I no longer need on them). That's 16 cents per gig, like Kool-ade - pennies a glass.

309

I had a nice day working at home, partially on A Midsummer Nights Dream, and a bit on other things like a dvd for "She Said...". I posted my new How to be and experimental filmmaker video, which finally brings me back on schedule. I read William the first book in the Bionicle Legends series (it looks pretty dire at the end, a real pot boiler) and while Margaret was out, we watched "the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad", although he needed clarification a number of times why people were doing things such as the prisoners hired onto the ship who then mutiny and the magician who betrays them in the course of the adventure. Great movie, great Harryhousen, great experience.

290

I submitted my taxes today, will get a little bit back, but not as much as I spent today. I placed an order for over $4000 worth of film stock for my Grain and Modern projects. This order included a 1000 foot roll of 35mm colour reversal. That stuff costs about $2.50 per second. I bakes some mini-cheesecakes, gluten free, chocolate. I have to remember the timing for these mini-ones as I have no cheesecake recipe, so here is as good a place as any: one batch of batter makes 72 mini-cakes, bake for 20 minutes. I finished act 1 of my screenplay version of A Midsummer Nights Dream. I need to finish a draft in the next month or so.