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I got a message from Adam Budd today, he's a young filmmaker and performance artist as well as being the co-star of Mark Wihak's "River". He's out in Montreal now, trying to find his path I imagine. He's brave and bold, more than I was at his age or even now, so I'm certain he'll make his name known soon enough.
I spent time at the university today, preparing the edit for the End of Life screening/meeting/discussion on Wednesday. John delivered a tape of smoke (sans mirrors) to help give some style to the otherwise talking head piece. While the machines were doing their thing, I almost caught up with my filing. I have so many papers on my desk and in boxes on my office floor that I can hardly stand going there. It's taken me 8 months to file, and I'm not even generating any new paper there. I also spent more time trying to find the Golem of Socks doll/puppet. I know it is somewhere safe, but cannot find it to save my life. I search the house and decide it must be at the office, then search the office and decide I must have it at home. Grrrrr.
Margaret and I finished watching episode 9 of Torchwood season 2 tonight, dying to see more.
Based on something Paul told me about search engines only looking at sites that are updated, I've taken to going into my old blogs and adding new material. It's like a treasure hunt: I added a new piece of video to a previous blog this evening.

110 Riddell

This evening I went to see the Regina premier of "River" a digital feature by UofR colleague Mark Wihak. It was very strong, I was captivated. One interesting thing was the cast which consisted primarily of Adam Budd and Maya Batten-Young who are not only the lead characters but also co-writers (much of the film came out of improvisation and lengthy rehearsals) of this basically two person cast (there were others people, but few with more than two lines). What made this cast interesting to me was the fact that they are both film graduates, I taught both of them, and I got to know both of them (at least a little bit) outside of class. Adam has served on the Filmpool Board and we have met numerous times, debating many aspects of film and art. Maya worked for me as my darkroom assistant in 2006, which means that we spent hours in the dark stirring film and talking. As the characters were developed through workshops with Mark, there is a lot of their real personality in their characters. As as sort of privileged viewer, I was constantly struggling with who I think these people on screen are, and who their characters are. Certainly there is more about them than I know, but I also could not accept every part of the fiction as real. The blurring was certainly a large part of the excitement. Disappointingly, neither Maya nor Adam were in town to attend and discuss this. Separating myself for this dilemma, the characters were solid and believable. I think it was Herzog who said that good character comes from inconsistencies. For example, Adam's character seems like a dreamer, obsessed with intellectual thought and art, but often blurts out blunt, pragmatic observations. My head was spinning. The other aspect of the film (yes, it was hd video, but it looked so damn good I have to call it a film) was how beautiful Regina became. I am convinced that this film could convince any filmmaker, anywhere in the world, to come and shoot a film here. It was like Mark shot every scene at magic hour. It is on for another three days, catch it if you can. RPL in downtown Regina, 9pm Friday and Sunday, 7pm on Friday.

My Alex McKenzie article is now on Alex's website.

summer of love

I am finally ramping up my shooting of my film, especially now that I've figured out the "ghost" motif that of the four "Grain" films will revolve around. However, I'll need to return the camera in a few days and have a few non-film commitments before then, so I'm worried that this small amount of momentum will be lost. Today I shot construction workers on the condos near our house as well as others building the new bus depot.
It was a gallery hopping evening, September is quite the season for that. We started off with a talk at the north branch of the Dunlop with Darlene Wight from Winnipeg contextualizing Inuit art. It was rather condensed but she brought some humour and life to the images. It's great to hear from a scholar who really seems to love and care about the art work. This is apparently the first Inuit show EVER for the Dunlop!

Next we went to Mysteria where a group show opened. Lots of familiar faces including Misty Wensel with her new baby. Misty is a dancer and has a studio where William took a few classes. She and William performed in a garden together years ago, he loves her (but didn't really love taking classes). The show included works from Chad Jacklin, Marlo V, Lynn Cecil, Brad Kreutzer, Theresa Kutarna, and Melonie Rose. I liked Marlo's internal organs made out of felt, but wished she'd done the colon - always my favorite.

Third was the MacKenzie Art Gallery and a show of work by Ron Bloore. My mind was rather full of art by that time so I have to admit that I didn't really spend much time looking at these large paintings but instead talked about Flintstones and Birdman with Mark Wihak who is fresh back from Montreal where he premiered his new film "River".