Mecha-Canister film shoot

Big shooting day in the studio, the last with this team of students. I was mostly Mecha-Canister, a giant robotic version of Canister the Robot, which has been built to protect the city from a series of invading monsters. No plot of dialog scenes, just effects scenes. Threw out a lot of stuff at the end of the day. Cast and crew were Dani Fink, Rebekah Illingworth, Nicte Recinos-Lane, Robert Stevenson, Aiden San Andres, and Katya Shyshenina along with Geremy Lague and William. Nicte brought a mouse costume. Katya played a couple roles. Geremy's daughter was stressed by the possibility of there being too many strangers on the crew so opted out. 

Photos here are mostly shot by Robert. 

Story meeting

William, Geremy, and I met about William's project today at Geremy's house. William wants to do a complete re-write - more of a comedy. Geremy dropped a few ideas his way. 
 

Install complete

 

Geremy arrived at one. William was just finishing the furnace room and we were figuring out what order the boxes would go in. Geremy knew how to put up the vinyl letters, so that was a life saver. We put the boxes in one at a time. They needed to be put through the small doorway in the glass case, then rotated 90 degrees, then situated and the lights placed in the holes at the top, and the repeated. One stack at a time, with lights between each of the four stacks. There are seven stacks. We got them in place by five. 

Radio play

 The radio play that William, Geremy, and I produced, "The True Meaning of Chrismas", aired this evening on CJTR. It has some flaws that I'll fix, but not too many considering that I never had time to actually listen to it beginning to end before submitting it. As I feel certain that no one at the station listened to it either, then it was heard for the first time by everyone all at once as it aired. 

Big green screen shoot

Shot for a few hours today with characters played by me, Geremy, Rory, and William. All in 4k with a total of over 300 Gb of footage. 
 

More Nuit Blanche planning

 Loving Nuit Blanche. It gives us lots of reasons to go out for lunch to "plan". 

Sleeping Beauty?

 Geremy's back yard contains thistles that remind me of the sort that would strangle Sleeping Beauty's castle. They have been professionally sprayed but they stand defiant. 

Nuit Blanche team meeting at Dad's Diner

 Tried out Dad's Diner today. Schnitzel is their thing, so if it isn't yours, don't go. But if it is, the portions are good and the service (Emma's brother Andrew) was great. We talked about the Nuit Blanche project that Geremy secured for us for the end of August. 

Dance class

 William's car is in the shop. He is going to do a bird people project with NDH and Robyn has suggested he take the dance class they are doing with body and objects this weekend. I dropped him off. Later, since we were out and about in this super cold day anyway, we ran around and picked up some comfort foods including Chinese pastries. Later I painted the camera I got from Geremy yesterday. 

Coffee and a camera

Another quick coffee session with Geremy. Lent me his new little Polaroid. Here is the photo he took with it (no flash - I assume it would be better with a flash). 
 

Geremy on radio

Jeff fell through as the opening of William's season four. Fortunately, Geremy came through. I bribed him with chocolate cake. 

Coffee with Geremy

Very short coffee session with Geremy. Talked mostly about William's new job that he's not really worked at (for pay) yet. 
 

Game from Geremy

 

Geremy gave us a few sets of "One Card Maze" which are really interesting. I think I'll stop blogging and go play one. We went over to his house later in the afternoon and ate some treats and did a bunch of nothing for a while. 

Birthday

William's 23rd birthday today. Gifts included all of the stuff from Gales yesterday, as well as a special order shirt with Allan's beholder drawing on it. Got ice cream and cheese cake. Geremy and Allan came over for cake and to discuss William's ideas for his fall drawing class. 

 

Geremy, too much in the sun

Playing a game on Sunday afternoon at Geremy's house. We needed to be out of the room for some secret set up to take place so sat on Geremy's deck for a while. Not much shade in the neighbourhood yet, being a pretty new build. Saw a rabbit. 
 

Unauthorized biography

 William is drawing his second (now a series) of "unauthorized biographies" of people we know. Lifetimes condensed to four drawings. This one is for Geremy Lague. The date on the strip will correspond to Geremy's birthday a couple weeks ago, but the need for the strip meeting high standards had delayed its creation for quite a while. It is the last one needed for William to finally catch back up on his daily drawings. 

Geremy's birthday

 William created a card for Geremy featuring his robots and mine. We stopped by Country Corner and got him a fresh Saskatoon berry donut and then arrived just as his "Robots in Popular Culture" course was ending and sang to him loudly in the middle of the Research Innovation Centre (with Zoe who had also come out of class). 

Happy at 22

First thing this morning, William's 22nd birthday, we turned on his radio show (9:00 am) and listened to to air. I'm the only one to hear it in advance (I suppose the radio station could have listened, but I don't think they have that much time on their hands).  This was a special episode where Geremy hosted and Margaret and I were primary guests on site, and remote recordings were added from Gavin DeLint, Erik Sirke, Victora Beahm, and Allan Dotson. William grinned uncontrollably for the whole 41 minutes as everyone talked about William's daily drawings instead of the newspaper comics. Later in the morning we visited the grandparents then came home to play video games (Geremy and Rory joined us and had loads of fun) and then Emma came and we played a few hours (didn't conclude) of Carcassonne. 

 

Gumshoe day 6

I arrived a couple hours early for the final day of shooting and created finger puppet versions of the four goons (Silky Ray, Fleece, Clog, and Turf Dog). We shot for 5 hours in the afternoon then took a supper break and returned for a big push in the evening. Kyzen is back and Geremy came in the evening.

With a big pot of coffee, we'd likely have been able to finish but I released everyone at midnight. I ended the evening with a surprise death scene that I'd prepared almost forgotten about. 

Gumshoe day 3

This is another class day, so for at least three hours the entire team was together. Made some progress in that time but also had last minute builds happening. Team thinned out after class. William joined us but after class and did some puppeteering, but then he broke the watch that was very dear to him (the one that was lost and found again at the Tokyo airport) and I needed to send him home. I started working on the project alone and his a low myself until Geremy arrived with some observers from his robot course. Combined with Kyzen, the three of us shot many pages in just two hours including a vomiting scene which will certainly become legendary.