10 years of blogging!

Ten years ago today I began this blog. I began because Chrystene Ells, who was a grad student at the time, suggested I should. I figured it would be a lot of trouble and be very complicated, but one evening while William (5 years old at the time) was having a bath and was old enough to no longer need my help so I thought I'd see what I could do. I looked up "blogger", followed its instructions, and within 5 minutes I'd posted my blog. It was really that easy. My initial intent was to talk about my filmmaking as I was just about to begin a sabbatical. However, most work, even creative work, is the same routine every day. I could't maintain daily posts about my work, so I started talking about family and friends and anything that I wanted. That's still what I do.
Today I worked on a film I'm producing with Erik, Geremy, Matt, Luke, Stephen, and James. It's called "Mighty Morphin Orphan Stories". I'm also an actor in it, although I didn't perform today. We were in front of the green screen for 13 hours and will be back at it tomorrow. I posted to Instagram a few times. Here are some more pictures.

Chrystene and Berny at Art For Lunch

After having a goodbye coffee with William's cousins before they head home, I fought through the snow to get back to work and attend a very entertaining and energized presentation by Chrystene and Berny about the Filmpool, the puppet workshops, and the forthcoming IPUFF festival of puppet films. Well attended lecture with great reactions.

KaleidoCycle and a blow torch

This evening we attended Chrystene Ells' KaleidoCycle performance at the Globe Theatre. It is based upon her experiences which began a couple of years ago where something misfired in her brain. It simultaneously considers it as altered perception and as a medical problem, coming to no conclusion by the end. I particularly liked the pantomime aspects of the show when the characters wear masks and are seemingly cogs in the machine of society or when an overhead projector, some carts, and bodies double as an MRI machine. Great energy.

 At a garage sale, I found William this vintage brass blow torch. I also found an authentic cactus rain stick for only $4 and some 1970s romance comics (can never have enough of those).

small head

Years ago when I was in film school, I was told that putting a lens onto a camera backwards could create a macro focus. It seemed like an odd and potentially damaging idea so I've never tried it. Last year Erik Sirke turned in some amazing photos using this technique and explained the simplicity of it. Again, I didn't try it, until today. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks as I'd like to use this approach for my puppet film which would use matches as the puppets. While you have very limited ability to focus on anything but one plane, that plane is very close. Above is a match head puppet I've built as a trial (uncropped image, I get get back any further than this). .My video today also uses this technique.

This Big World 3D begins

This evening was the first session of the 3D puppet workshop/seminar for This Big World, led by Chrystene Ells. I'm participating in this over the next four months. Not sure what I'm doing yet. I got thinking about very small puppets. I'll need to hit the library and look through the Prairie History room books for ideas (they are also part of the process). It looks like this will all lead up to an event one year from now.

Filmpool premiere screening 2

Last day of Film 412 today. This evening was a Filmpool screening and Christmas party. Attendance a bit low but had some good chats with Eric Hill, Chrystene Ells, Berny Hi, Adrian Dean, Janine Windolph, and others.

Delivery Day

This morning the chip repair guy came and fixed the two chips we got in our new tub during renovations  around it at $75 per chip. The light fixtures for the bathroom also finally arrived. Luminesque gave us a discount for the inconveniences of the three delays. They aren't installed yet, I'll post pictures when they are. My video card also arrived. I just opened it up and was very intimidated; I think it needs its own licence plate. This thing is massive; it takes two slots and must have five times the mass of my old card. It requires its own power. I was a bit freaked out putting it in but finally got it and now it working really well. I imported photos from my camera and it just immediately sees all the photos and displays the thumbnails; no delays at all.

 

This evening I presented the Fragile Harvest film screening at the Filmpool. The crowd was nice. Everyone stuck around afterwards and talked. (there were about twenty people. quite a few more than are in this photo).

Filmpool Premiere Screening

This evening was the first of two Filmpool premiere screening events, held at the Artesian. I'd seen a few of the films before but there were a number of great surprises. Jason Britski's film "Witchcraft" was excellent, featuring x-rays, very old home movies, and the sound of an optical printer. Ian Campbell presented a video called "Warm Iced Tea" which was short in a very fluid fashion, partially through a drinking glass, with every frame being a bold and dynamic compositional masterpiece.  The Art of Fire Showcase by Rob White laugh out loud funny. I had lengthy conversations with Rob Miller, Jason Shabatoski, Stephen Onda, Rob Hillstead, Janine Windolph, Chrystene Ells, and Jason Britski. I went alone, Margaret having a commitment at OSAC and this show being severely inappropriate for William who stayed home to watch the three hour Terry Pratchett film "Going Postal" for a third time this week.

cyborg puppets

Today in class we got verrrry busy. Chrystene Ells came for the first half hour and gave us an amazingly useful workshop on puppeteering, I wish I could be that concise when I teach something. Everyone agreed that it was useful and for once, I think they were telling the truth. We also went to the recording studio and put some of the final voices (but for one) to tape. These included the crowds, the single line random puppets, the giant chicken, and the glove monster. Additionally, Rob Hillstead came to class and did a workshop for the camera team on lighting a green screen. Most of the puppets are complete now and I think the final few will be ready by the end of the weekend.

coming together

I spent the morning working with Erik assembling the footage for my 35mm Grain film "Seeds". I've been creating this footage for three years and I finally have enough. Next thing is to trim it down a bit then do the a/b roll cut (I'm working with my original negatives).
This afternoon I lunched/coffeed with Chrystene Ells, finally catching up with her on all of the changes in her life.

Dreamworks

William watched Monsters vs Aliens again today; he's totally loving it (Chrystene: check it out for the destruction and mayhem in San Fransisco). William then got out some paper and wrote a letter to Dreamworks telling them to make a sequel. I found an address for them and we'll mail it in the morning.
I also found a message in my no-longer-used email account from Steve Wolfson. We worked together on an comedy show years ago. He posted some of the work on Youtube including this one featuring Jeff Looysen.

Sisu

Chrystene screened her film Sisu at the Paradise Theatre this evening for cast, crew, and invited guests. June and I went. It was really good. Some pacing issues we'd discussed last week did not seem to be an issue when it was so big on the screen. I had a nice conversation with Don Wood, the star as well as Don List, a filmmaker I've known for 25 years. Don talked about the actor who'd played Tom in the NFB short film, an ex-Roughrider football player. I introduced the Dons to each other. Photo: Don Wood with co-star Brian Dueck.

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.

big storm and murder

Yesterday there was a murder three blocks from my house. The police had the whole block roped off all day. I've not read about it in the paper yet since I had to race off first thing in the morning, as
Tuesday is my teaching day, which means I meet with Chrystene in the morning (great progress on the editing, she's cut about 1/3 or more of the Sisu project) and Janine in the afternoon. However, Janine was away today so I was supposed to meet with Eric but he got delayed at the Christian hard core concert in Montana, so I was on my own. We went as a family to shoot some pin-hole images but the clouds had started forming and I needed six seconds per frame. I got 150 before deciding it was not a good use of time so we drove back in. The storm, of major proportions, followed us. I had a Filmpool meeting and just after I arrived, the wind and rain and hail just crushed everything. We watched chairs from the patio below on Scarth street get blown down the block. Amazing.

Mandy Cmoc

In a whirlwind of emails yesterday, it was arranged that Mandy Cmoc, who is a film student and whom I taught a couple of years ago and is working at the UofR recruitment office this summer, would come to the two sessions I had with grad students today to videotape for a recruitment video to be shown in China and India. When I contacted Chrystene to ensure she was willing to be a part of it, I also asked her about the availability of "rip-o-matics", video trailers made of found footage, and Chrystene told me she was happy to be in the video and that, without me having mentioned her name, Mandy Cmoc had made a very good one for a class Chrystene taught last term. Of course these things always come with a snag as it seems Mandy may have lost her video due to loss of a hard drive this spring, so I'm waiting to see if she can find a disc with it.
I was looking for a lost roll of 16mm film and found one labeled "sepia stoma". It would be a great title if this film didn't contain exactly what I labeled on it.
This evening we went to the RCMP sunset ceremony, lots of marching, nice evening.Publish Post

teaching

I began the two courses I'm teaching with two graduate students today. Chrystene will be working on the post production and animation for her feature film Sisu, and Janine will be working on photography in many forms. It seems that the Flipbook animation program doesn't work with an HD camera, so it may require an upgrade for the footage shot with it to match Chrystene's project. After work we did lots of shopping including the purchase of hooks and stuff to hang the hammock we bought in Mexico, some stacks of DVD-R on sale for $3.97/25 stack, some chocolate to paint the biscotti I baked last night, and the bionicle Toa Ignika for William.

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Today I sat down with Chrystene and we watched her "Sisu" film all the way through in its rough cut form from beginning to end. Most scenes are working quite well already. I thought it would be easier to see what areas needed to be fixed more easily, but perhaps the interruptions between scenes disrupted my ability to figure that out (or perhaps I just can't see them). It's running a bit over 2 hours now, so there is lots of room for editing. Digesting it for a few hours, I've been thinking more and more about the main character, Tom, and his relationship with his mother and his wife. This might be developed a bit more to help create a thread to follow his delusions and passions. Does he call to his mama when he hears the gunshot by the river as a child? Could he then whisper "mama" when noticing the changing seasons and freezing rivers? These small details may help ground him as someone striving his whole life to satisfy his childhood dreams (I won't get more Freudian than that).

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Met with Chrystene this morning and took a look at more scenes from Sisu. I am hoping to sit down and watch the first rough cut all the way through around the end of next week. Looking great.
Went to Speed Racer with William this afternoon. Lots of movement, I got a kick out of it, especially the barbarians who threw bee hives into the other drivers cars.
This evening there was an opening at the Dunlop with a projection performance. Really good. My niece Michelle is in town and came with us.
My Youtube videos total number of hits reached 10,000 last night.
Tired. Good night.

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This morning Chrystene Ells did her crit presentation for the committee. It was very strong, I don't know where she'll be better suited to end up, as a teacher or as a filmmaker. She will certainly excel at either.
This afternoon I worked on my new web videos, but am still an hour from getting the first one finished. I'm a bit drained and will do it tomorrow. Margaret is waiting for me to watch Slings and Arrows with her, she is probably mixing drinks so I'd better go.