Catching up on paperwork with William

For the third day in a row William has had hours of homework to plow through. I took the tv-off-time to catch up on updating my cv (required for January every year, so I'm ahead of the game). I created a lot of new work this year but much of it doesn't fit into my existing categories. I did add 9 new titles to my filmmography for 2016. I managed to exhibit all but one of them, "The End of Another Day", which will realistically only make sense if shown in Regina, but I've not found a good opportunity to show it yet.

"The End of Another Day (a Wheat Soup story)"

Sylvie at the vet

Snowed today, probably will be the real beginning to winter as the weather doesn't suggest another melt right away. My cold isn't much better so Margaret dropped me at the office and ran all the errands on her own. She took Sylvie (our cat) to the vet. It seems that she has infections in her ear which require 3 different medications. 

struggling with a cold

Worked from home most of Monday, struggling with a cold. I wanted to start shooting a new film but my energy wasn't there. I needed to clear a bunch of regular work from my slate first and only made minor progress. 

Symphony featured dynamic conductor

We went to the symphony last night. The guest conductor, Tania Miller, was very energetic. She used both arms a lot so I really felt like we got our money's worth. I'm not sure I could sound like much more of a rube than that, but I guess it is my way of admitting that the subtlety of classical music is lost on me, but performance, especially when seen from the third row, is not. William and Margaret sat back in the middle somewhere. Gerri Ann and I went as "The Eisbrenners". 

Land of Rock and Gold

Last night we went to "The Land of Rock and Gold", the first feature drama by my ex-students Janine Windolph and Daniel Redenbach. Great crowd and very engaging film, all shot in northern Saskatchewan. William was noticing a detail that may have been a mistake or may have been a joke where the licence plate of the missing truck on was displace in the hunter's lodge. Perhaps they did him some harm...? They hosted an intensive question and answer session afterwards. Tonight (Saturday) they ware with it in Winnipeg and I'd recommend attending if you are there and able.

Animation exercise

I think my animation students have become gun-shy of volunteering to be in shots that I suggest in class. Invariably they look a bit foolish. The advantage of getting stuck in them myself is that I can post them on the internet without having to consult.  

Filmpool announces best films

Congratulations to Mark Wihak, Chrystene and Berny (above), and Ella Mikkola who walked away the winners of the SIFAs. 

Fantastic Beasts

Looking like the only open night this week, we went to the new Harry Potter universe movie. It satisfied. Paul joined us. It was in 3D. 

Combat Improv undersubscribed

Combat Improv this week was quite good, among their best, but the crowd was frighteningly thin with probably only 50 people there. We only knew about it because I was looking at the QC magazine (that free insert in the newspaper that even on the off-chance that you buy the newspaper, you likely would not read in detail). They need someone to help with publicity because this was quite disheartening. 

Piano at night

Having missed one lesson due to driver training, we managed to temporarily move William's piano lessons into the evening.
I met with Kallie today and we made some projection breakthroughs. 

Patient 62 premiere screening

Jason Truong and George Bessai

We attended the premiere of the new local action-sci-fi-thriller "Patient 62" at the Rainbow. They had a huge crowd, nearly filling two entire theatres for the simultaneous screening event. Margaret's brother George works with Jason Truong who was the stunt coordinator on the film. Others involved that I knew were Jaston Rister, Todd Irving, Layton Burton, and performer  Tyler W. Toppings. The event was a big success and everyone was quite excited. Congratulations to everyone.

Films at the RPL

I loved Mark's film "Vous Etes Ici" that he premiered at the RPL this weekend, a feature lengthed essay film on the troubling nature of tourism in Paris. Too bad it's only playing 2 days as I'd suggest that as many people as possible in Regina try to get out and see it. Crowd was decent.

Upstairs at the RPL, my film "Eyes of Sorrow Moon" continues to play. To my surprise, the QC section of the paper had a sizable colour photo of me today in connection with that film. They pulled the image from the photo shoot earlier this summer, so it came as a complete surprise to me this morning. Of course, it appears from the layout that I might be the new king of Wineworld (where everyone lives on cork boats since all the land overflowed with merlot). 

Caligari Project Articulate Ink print exchange reception

The 17 artists who contributed Expressionist-style prints to the exhibition at Articulate Ink were mostly in attendance this week for a mid-run reception of the work. Beautiful and diverse. I look forward to finding out how they will be selling or auctioning off the one set of extra prints the group held on to as a fundraiser. There are a few I have an eye one. 

Processing pumpkin pulp perfectly

We kept one large pumpkin since Halloween, primarily because we were just too tired of cutting them into jack-o-lanterns. This one was green but I put it inside until it ripened. The flesh was about 4 inches thick and I made four bags, each being at least four cups, of cooked and mashed pumpkin. It's all frozen now and ready for making soup (which I've never liked and don't expect to like in the future; but I'm too much of a miser to throw out this many pounds of artisan-processed organic product. 

Hawks

Some guy had two hawks at the university. No concerns nor any explanation sought, just though it was cool. 

Driver training

William started driver training. Margaret and I took this small window of time to go to Olivia Rozema's MFA opening - fabulous! William came home quite tired in both mind and body. I was also having a strange and frustrating day with SIFA announcements, some broken dishes, and the hair pulling that comes with trying to dub vhs tapes, so after supper we vegged out in front of Fellini's Satyricon. 

Gertrud's birthday

Happy birthday Gertrud. Lovely dinner. I forgot to take pictures of all the guests, but I did capture the card William created. We're hoping that he can come up with a good design for our family Christmas card this year. 

sharpee class finishes

Bought some new music for William from the music store on 13th that is shutting down this month. He went to his last drawing class with Aaron Clark. 

Remembrance Day

Quiet morning at home. Watched a gymnast squirrel leaping onto the bird feeder but never got a good photo. Ate supper at my parent's. 

Attended "Spring's Awakening"

We went to Spring's Awakening for the Thursday night performance at the University. Kenn had a lively Q&A with the entire cast and crew, including his writing collaborator just up from the States, afterwards. William usually dislikes these question sessions, primarily because people use them as a platform to express lengthy opinions rather than asking questions. Tonight was different with many questions and no soap boxing. William even asked three surprising ones including something about morality plays, something about the id and superego, and another about costuming (those crazy gloves are from the party store! Who'd have guessed?).

Sorrow Moon is Best Horror Film

I'm delighted to have received an award today for "Eyes of Sorrow Moon" which played last week at the Festigious International Film Festival. I love the way they worked the image of William as a watermark below the award. 

Spring's Awakening sneak preview

I watched the first half of "Spring's Awakening", directed by Kenn McLeod at the university. It's funny and beautiful. It will be on from Wednesday to Saturday this week. While it was written prior to expressionism, it lends itself well to the movement. Kenn's additional silent chorus are marvelous. Once I got home, the USA election results were coming in, ruining an otherwise pretty good day. 

Biscotti

After months with nothing substantial to dunk in my coffee, I've found some time to bake a new batch of triple chocolate biscotti. Actually, I only did the first baking and will need to do second and third baking tomorrow, but this was the main hurdle. Also shattered the rake trying to clean up the front of the house. That's some power-raking for you!

Great day off

I promised myself a day off and I took it! While I couldn't find it in myself to really sleep in, I did make waffles in the morning. We then worked a bit in the yard (by work, this isn't really work, this is doing stuff that I've been dying to do for two weeks) and put the lawn chairs away (hard to believe there has been no need to  put away lawn chairs until now). We then went to an afternoon show of "Dr. Strange" (enjoyed it) and after a quick sandwich I went to Kevin's for the rest of the evening. 

Caligari-New Dance Horrizons Lantern procession

Thanks to Margaret, we managed to race from the last Egoyan panel this afternoon, home to get my camera, then to the starting point of the Lantern procession for the Caligari Project. The Prairie Puppet Underground has been working with Das Schulhaus and New Dance Horizons to put this together. The horse that Chrystene Ells, Sylvia Ziemann, and Berny Hi built was amazing. We got really lucky with the weather; dray and way above seasonal temperatures. Didn't even need gloves after sunset in November. 

Steenbeckett

Gerald Saul, David Pike, Atom Egoyan

The last three panels of the Meet in the Middle conference was today. I had some great conversations with David Pike and Atom Egoyan. My new word for the day is "self-appropriation"(from Judith Wilkinson) aka "auto-citation" (from either Marie-Aude Baronian or Catherine Fowler). Tremendously exhilarating to get to sit back and listen to ideas all day without any pressure to present; such pleasure. 

Steenbeckett at the MacKenzie Art Gallery

Gerald Saul, Catherine Fowler, David Pike, Steenbeckett

Spoke on panel about Meet in the Middle then Egoyan with Richler

I have no pictures of me, but I spoke (too long - certainly ran over my 10 minutes allotted) on the artist panel with seven others about our connections and contributions with the Meet in the Middle project. Berny Hi was also speaking and he mentioned the work I submitted ot his project (the underwater creatures on the right side of the lower picture) Rachelle was in town and chaired the session.
In the evening, Atom Egoyan opened the Steenbeckett project at the MacKenzie. To a sold out crowd, he did an hour long conversation about the work with interviewer Noah Richler.

Egoyan introduces "The Color of Pomegranates"

Atom Egoyan selected and spoke about the amazing film "The Color of Pomegranates" at the RPL. The film was like a dream (literally) and I have to admit that often my mind wandered in the middle, but it never wandered far from where the film actually went. 

Meet in the Middle conference begins

Technically, the conference begins on Friday and the Wednesday/Thursday of this week is a station with the filmmakers from Armenia showing work, but for all intents and purposes, it blurs into one big event. The evening began with performances and speeches at Crave and moved on to experimental films at the RPL. I met the curator, Vahram Akimyan, and we talked about silent film and whether it is appropriate to add new music when none was used with it originally. I personally have no problem with it, citing that many theatres 100 years ago added not only random music but also sound effects (often mishandled) or narration. There is no pure version.