Early birthday lunch

 Lori made me a cheesecake and we all converged on mom's this morning for a short lunch and snacks. This afternoon we went to The Day The Earth Exploded, which was good fun. 

Elaine Pain

Elaine Pain with Margaret Bessai in 2009

Elaine Pain passed away this afternoon. I first met her when I took an animation course around 1983 or 1984. I continued working along side her throughout the 80s and early 90s on the Board at the Filmpool. She was president of the Filmpool during the ill fated Brenda Owens period when the Board needed to do all the work of the organization for a year to keep it afloat. In 1999 when I was hired on at the university full time, we were colleagues and taught together until she retired in 2010. During her years of teaching, students could always find her at the loading bay having a smoke. Those years caught up to her with a vengeance as she was diagnosed a few weeks ago with stage 4 cancer. 

Elaine Pain in palliative care

I visited Elaine Pain this morning. Sandra had just arrived. Elaine was sleeping and apparently  had been medicated due to having a very bad night. I held her hand, spoke loudly, gave her an occasional shake of the arm, but she didn't wake up enough to talk, so I eventually went to work. Margaret had visited yesterday and had ordered flowers which arrived this morning. 

In class film 2

Other class shot their 3 pigs story today. Bigger class so I also had a sub group do a behind scenes mockumentary. Very different tone. They took much longer to get momentum, but they really got into the spirit of it. 
 

painted without auxiliary flash

Painted this one wrong. Had other things to do so I didn't really put the polish on it that I would/should have. 

 

In class film 1

 I cobbled together a line from each of the students' midterms (a 3 pigs story) into a surreal little skit and they shot it in class today. I went home and edited it afterwards.