High Noon

Busy day, taught my first Film 400 class of the term, had a Filmpool meeting to discuss Felipe's resignation as he is moving to Ottawa, and then sorted receipts in front of High Noon, which I'd assumed I'd seen at some point but found that I hadn't. It was great.

tired

Feeling very cold and worried I'm getting sick, so going to bed early. Maybe will watch some John Ford before sleeping. One should always fall back on John Ford.
I've posted more photos and videos under William's Lego blog.

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.

too many projects

I met with Chrystene today as I have hired her to help me on a project or two over the next month or three. Once I laid out the six or seven projects I have on the go, we quickly realized that if she gets beyond helping on the first one, it would be a miracle. I guess I am just waking up to the fact that I cannot possibly do everything I dream of doing, even in a Gerald-Saul-esque slipshod way. Oh well, at least she'll help me get one thing done right. Of course instead of working on my projects tonight, I hung around with William reading books. He finished his 180 page Anamorphs book and regaled me with questions about how it all worked. I hope he never finds out it was a tv show, else I'll need to hunt it down for him.

little hut on the prairie

Remember 10 weeks ago I said I bought a grain bin on Margaret's dad's farm? Well today it was finally moved to the scenic new resting place so I can get to work renovating it into our "cottage". Here is a video William shot:

The video is even more chaotic than expected from William (or me for that matter) because I mistakenly left the camera in telephoto when I handed it to him.

Good art day

Two great show today, one was a one day event, the other is up for a while.
Along Lorne Avenue by the downtown library, the block was taken over by the collective who did the garage art show last year. They did stuff in the parking spots and called the shot "In Stalled". They had a nicely printed pass book that looked like parking tickets so you could get each station's mark on your book from the artist. The other show I went to was a new set of twisted miniatures by Chad Jacklin and Sylvia Ziemann at the Mysteria Gallery on 13th Ave. William and I loved it. There was an old area heater re-fit to have a bunch of little people being roasted in hell. William literally cackled over that one for 10 minutes, seemingly taking satin as his new role model. There was also an old radio that was refit to be a workplace for small stuffed bunnies. A must see!

working at home

I worked on my SSHRC grant application most of the day. It's a difficult one, but I'm able to borrow heavily from my last application, so that helps. I suppose I should worry that the last application was unsuccessful, so should I really be quoting heavily from it? Unfortunately, my ideas of what I want to do have not changed too much. I think some of my support material will be better, since I've been putting my theories into practice this past year.
Margaret's brother George came to town today, helping with the harvest.

soda pop

So the tests are in: since cutting out pop (or 90 per cent of it) in April, my triglycerides have dropped from 3.20 to 1.6. It is supposed to be below 1.7, so now it is just a matter of finding out how it affects my liver.
It's Paul's birthday today. I gave him gummy bacon strips (do not fry), an old hard drive and a screwdriver and I baked him a Terry's Chocolate Orange cheesecake that turned out quite well.

more meetings

Met with Chrystene this morning and we watched the current cut of Sisu from start to finish (Finnish). It's getting really good. It probably needs a new set of eyes soon as I've become pretty familiar with it and thus stop being able to see potential changes. It's good to have a few people look at a film along the way, but to be confident enough to only take the advice that helps the project (seems obvious but it isn't as it's happening).
Other meetings about department issues this afternoon. I'm now the chair of our production committee for a year, will have a lot of work to do on the revision of the lengthy production pedagogy document to do.
Yesterday I sent a package containing the three Youtube projects (each packaged into singular videos) to Winnipeg for distribution. I'm curious, and hopeful, about what will happen with them.

first class

Tonight I taught my first undergrad class since returning from sabbatical. Now I am starting to question what to say in this blog. Classes and students are going to take up a lot of my time and thought, but I am hesitant to talk about them here. For example, I am happy with how class went this evening. However, I also have to admit that approached the class a bit oddly, going over past histories, discussing my own history with the course, and rambling more than occasionally. By saying this was a good class, am I saying this is the best I can do? I really don't want to open up discussions about how I conduct my lectures within this blog or facebook or whatever.
So... what else did I do today. I got ready for class and I had conversations that I also cannot write about. Good to be done teaching for the day, with no more lectures this week (due to university celebration on Thursday) I can finally get back to reading Girl Genius.

a day off...

I spent the morning sorting my notes for tomorrow's class and Margaret wanted us to go do something in the afternoon so we drove to Lumsden, missed the duck derby but saw a bit of the craft show, then drove the opposite way to Indian Head where they have redressed the town to be the set for Little Mosque on the Prairie. Got some pictures. William isn't trying to be rude here, he is trying to catch raindrops on his tongue.
I posted a new Professor Delusia video.

late night working

I've been tired but not sleeping well the last couple of nights, so I've been watching a few films that I might refer to in my class next week. Margaret's cousin Carl sent me his zombie feature "Severed" so I watched it last night. Mostly my eyes are to the acting styles, it partially supports my thoughts about a specific style of acting for horror, although it has scenes that deviate from it. May have to rethink. I've been sitting at the computer tinkering on "Bonnie's Indescribable Predicament", making a pseudo-colour version that looks keen. Eric re-transferred it to video the other day and it looks much sharper. I think I'll include both the black and white as well as this colour version on the dvd.

Last day for assistants

Today Eric and I spent the morning searching for prints of Jean Oser films at the Filmpool for a screening I'm curating this fall in Winnipeg. They have not been well labeled so some of the prints have found their way into odd nooks and crannies around the space. I found all but one of the important films, but I didn't get around to searching the storage room downstairs. This was Eric's last day being paid by me, although I'm certain we'll still work together in the future.
It was also the last day that Trudy is working on the End of Life series, although she says she'll be coming in next week to finish a couple of details.
I'll be missing working with them both.

William goes to school

William started grade 2 today with a new teacher to the school. He enjoyed his day.
I shot a few hundred feet of grasshoppers with a macro lens on the way to work then Eric and I solarized the footage, although much of it messed up. This is done by turning on some light mid way through the processing stage of the film. The last roll I did, I covered the wet will film grains of wheat before flashing it. I think this had some interesting affects. I've not watched any of it yet since I had to rush to a meeting as soon as the film was dry, then home to see how William's school day was.
I posted a new Delusia video, although admittedly this one was much better in colour.

the true sign of the end of summer

Department meeting today.

finished teaching ... for the week

Summer term is over, so now I've got one week to prepare for the next semester. Two of my three AVI files would not open in the Avid at work, so I couldn't get my web videos onto broadcast quality videotape for distribution. Another set back.

lots of nothing

I think I worked really hard at twiddling my thumbs today. I sat at my computer making 60 dvd copies for distribution and deleted emails, answering occasional ones, and reading a couple of Hellboy comics. This evening we watched Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay, which wasn't bad as I did laugh a bunch of times and it shows that America is beginning to be able to make fun of itself again, and even the president can be a sympathetic character.

relaxing a bit

Finally we relaxed a bit today, hung out at home and read. We still had lots of dishes to wash and stuff to put away from the party yesterday, and of course lots of Lego to build. On the way home last night I promised William he could do Lego tomorrow, which begins at midnight. William read until 11:57 came into our room to tell us how his book ended, waking Margaret up of course. I didn't tell him it was midnight since I'd already let him play Lego before bed, so getting up to do more seemed ridiculous. The moment he woke up this morning he called out "Why didn't you wake me up at midnight", at which point I told him that he was awake at midnight. This evening Kevin, Nicole, and Paul came over so we played 6 person Carcassonne for the first time. William won.

last day of William's birthweek

Saturday, today we had the big kids party for William, went to the park, had a bug hunt, played, had cupcakes that I baked yesterday and Margaret decorated this morning, broke the wasp-shaped pinata that Margaret made over the past couple of days (the secret is to make it out of tissue paper, not newspaper, so it is possible for a kid to break). Supper at my parents house, then attending "The Extras" theatrical performance from Curtain Razors in front of city hall, then home to make the people and sharks with frickin' laser beans on their heads out of Lego. Oof. I need a day of just going to work, the social calendar is killing me.

boy and dad day

William and I spent the day together while Margaret had a morning at work and an afternoon meeting. The quite and solitude was good and inadvertent as it seems I left the phone off the hook all day so no one could reach us, including Margaret wanting a ride home. William and I watched some Batman, finished building the new Lego castle, read a bit of a Bionicle book, and baked cupcakes. This evening the quiet ended as our families came over to celebrate William's birthday (I baked a lemon cheesecake after last night's guests departed) and my niece Nicole came to town for the weekend.

too many rooms

Worked with Eric most of the day, we kinescoped some material and tried to do ray-o-gram titles for my film (one inch out of 50 feet worked out, which is not enough to brag about), and we processed a few rolls of black and white film. It occurred to me that I have stuff spread over five rooms in the department that I need to clean up, so I got my stuff out of the optical printing room, the large classroom with the green wall, and the equipment room. That leaves me a couple more for next week.
We had a few people over this evening, including Jason and Marla Childs who are friends of friend June. Jason is with the economics department. We had a fire and some super-8 in the back yard.

William's birthday

Today is William's 7th birthday. I took the day off to do stuff with him. We took him and his cousin Quinn and friends Daniel and Rowan to the noon show of "Star Wars: Clone Wars" animated feature. I've been trying to figure out my opinion of it all day. It's not the sort of film I'm interested in seeing multiple times, but it generally worked on a couple of levels. It introduces a new apprentice for Annikan Skywalker (takes place between movies 2 and 3) and she gives some freshness to the old debates about responsibility and rash behavior. I heard that it is a set up to a new series for this fall, don't know if that is true, but the essential problem of the next film remains. There is only limited growth that the characters can have since we know what happens next. If George Lucas and the filmmakers were brave, they would have made a series that takes place after the 6th chapter with new characters and an open future. Then they might have a chance at developing new legends. Now they are just trapped. Also, I had been hoping for some new insights into Jabba the Hut. I looked at the opening page of the novel of this movie and it contained a conversation between Jabba and his son. However, not only is that scene this not in the movie, but the son is too young to even talk and he does not appear to communicate with his father at all. Conclusion, it was exciting to the kids, inoffensive yet forgettable to me as an adult, and ultimately lacking in bravery.

summer courses

Summer courses are almost done. I met with both of my grad students today, fantastic progress leaves me inspired to get back to full time teaching this fall, just wish fall was further away than two weeks. William raided his piggy bank and went halfers on the biggest Lego castle set with his Ommi today - William gets the recycling money when he helps so he easily coughed up the sixty beans. His birthday is hours away.

got some sleep and developed some film

Felt pretty good today, got a whole 8 hours sleep last night somehow (not all in a row of course) and we developed a 100'roll of 35mm film using new colour developer and new colour bleach/fix, it turned out okay although not very colourful. The other colour rolls I did looked generally dim and brown, but I made up for it with 3 rolls of perfect black and white. I had a Filmpool planning session at 5:30 so we cut out early. Planning was good. William and finished his Ferrari Lego when we got home, I'll be posting a video on his blog later tonight.

movies

We like to celebrate birthdays for an entire week, so William's birthweek started today. We watched "George and the Dragon" in bed, then played some Lego. I slipped away to the Bay and found him a gift I was told I could find there, then home for pancakes and some Batman. It was hot so this evening I went to "Hellboy II" while Margaret took William to "Prince Caspian". I'm back to putting together my list of English language words for "snow". How many do you think there are?

in a pickle

We canned apple sauce and pickled pickles all day today, even though it was really hot out and the process required the stove being on for about six hours. I have my years worth of apple sauce and Margaret has her pickles (I don't know if she has enough or not). The sunset here in Regina was great, and probably will be for the next few nights, for those of you looking out for such things.

less inspired today

I think all week I've been feeling uninspired. I've met with Eric three times and we've not done anything, I just think up reasons that we cannot proceed on a project and we go for coffee and talk about less practical things like a new superhero film. Perhaps I do need a vacation, but I've got too many things to do and only two weeks left. Getting stressed.
I wonder if it shows. Today, for the second day in a row, the cashier at Safeway has asked me if I need help taking my groceries to the car. Today I had two bags that I effortlessly carried with one arm. Why would they ask this?
George left town today. Before they left, the girls were over watersliding in our back yard. We then bar-be-qued some bison and Margaret's parent's house, took George and the girls to the airport, then went for second supper with my parents, who found William two new Bionicles at a garage sale that are older and no longer available. William also got to swim in their next door neighbor's pool.
I put up a new Professor Delusia video.
Margaret got stung by a wasp and her leg is all swollen, she's lounging and I should join her.

Apples and pie but not apple pie.

Day began with the George's girls waking up and me jumping out of bed to feed them, but not myself. I zoomed off to get some blood work done to test my tri-glycerides again (remember my liver tests six months ago). I've kept with my near-pop-free diet for 4.5 months so we'll see how that worked. My new hard drive finished formatting at about 8 am, about 10 hours. At work I met with Janine (who couldn't make it Tuesday). Gave her a copy of Marian McMahon's article "Nursing History" which may be important to Janine's thesis project which involves studying her family history using photographs as her guide. Email was down all day at the university, making it a calmer environment. Met with Eric for a while and primarily talked about a superhero idea we initiated yesterday. It's based on an idea he pitched years ago to Incredible Story Studio and was accepted but then never made for reasons unknown. Of course our version will be a bit more twisted, but he's been doing the most work on it. Went home early, stopping at Safeway. Why do people try to back up into diagonal parking spots? They constrict the lane as they do it, then when they leave (supposedly easier) they are facing the wrong way down the row so are idiots twice with that one action. Is it that hard to back out of a spot? At home I moved all the dvds into my new shelf. Finally back in order (alphabetized by director except box sets and animation/superhero). I picked all the apples from our tree in time for my parents, Margaret's parents, George and the girls back from the farm, and Paul and Mike to arrive for desert. Margaret made pies. After everyone left, I processed all the apples and made apple sauce.

living roommadness

The new shelf/entertainment unit arrived at 8 am this morning. We needed to move almost every piece of furniture we owned to get it in. Later, when Margaret's brother arrived, we moved the old 7 foot long shelving unit up the stairs to William's room, narrowly missing destroying out chandelier in the staircase. I met with Eric for a while, we went to the library where it was a literal whose who of the art community, then watched a bunch of Wrik Mead shorts and called it a day. All evening I've continued to put the house together. George's two daughters are spending the night, so while they watch tv, I cannot do any more work down there. I'm formatting the terabyte drive I bought the other day (will 2 terabytes be enough for my home computer?).

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.

New Professor Delusia the Nocturnalist

New Professor Delusia.
Posted that this morning and spent the rest of the morning working on a rather frustrating, although easy, on-line cv for a grant application (finally got my part done, on time but two weeks later than requested). This afternoon Eric came by with the equipment from the screening (he attended an after-after-party until 8am, so much for quitting early). He recruited one of the professional musicians to play piano so he got to play host, it was often packed although there wasn't as much traffic in the side rooms on night three. We recorded the music he'd been playing so the dvd can be updated. Then home for some Jackie Chan (the Tuxedo).

Party on farm

Today Margaret's brother came to town to help celebrate their mother's 50th anniversary of her coming to Canada. We had a big party on the farm, so I spent all day preparing and helping and attending and talking and all that. The rain threatened all day and finally started coming down about 30 minutes before sundown. The sky to the west was clear and so when the sun was setting, we got these amazing rainbows.You can't really see from the photo, but there was even a second rainbow outside of the first.
I just spoke to Eric, he's preparing to do the film screenings again at midnight, but might not go as late as the other nights (3:00 am).

kids party

Spent today getting stuff ready for a party tomorrow for Margaret's mom and attending a kid's party with William. I had some great conversations about art and the desire to never take a break, I wish I had the strength to create all day long and actually catch up with all the thoughts running through my head. Tired. Didn't go to the afterparty, hope Eric did well without me (we agreed that he could claim all the credit while I'm not there).

Eric rocks 'em

After a somewhat fruitless day of going to work but forgetting just enough details to prevent me from finishing anything, I came home and was asked where the propane I bought this morning was and I realized I'd bought it and forgot to take it with me from the gas station. Anyway, they still had it so I did some bar-be-que and at midnight went to the Folk Festival after party where Eric played piano 10 times to the film we made, "Bonnie's Indescribable Predicament". We only had 8 chairs but played to a full house every time. Some screenings we crammed 20 people into our booth. Eric's fingers were bleeding. Tanya and Carle both made it, hope that Rob Bos comes tomorrow or Sunday.

a thursday

View from Ferris wheel on the weekend.
I always seem to have too much to do on Thursdays. I'm finding that working during William's camp to be too confining as 3.5 hours just leaves me rushing. I got some film developed using the seven step reversal process, which is even more painful than it sounds, and I don't even know if it worked out well. I left Eric to dry it and I'll spool through it tomorrow.

summer arts school

William started summer arts camp at the university yesterday. It was very last minute, he agreed to it in the morning and we registered him at 1:00 for the 1:00 session. Today was his second day, saw Kevin's older daughter there but he won't be in her group (not sure if he is in the younger daughter's group, she's a year younger than William). They used to play together at the east end play centre, but the kids out grow those places pretty quick. Did I mention that William finished all of the "Magic Tree House" books a few days ago. He read book 6 up to book 39 all by himself. I sure wasn't reading that much at his age (or 2 or 3 years later either). Today he started a new series; "MAXimum Boy", a super hero sort of thing. He got pretty excited about some plot to flush Manhattan into the ocean like a toilet (Max saved the day by breaking the propeller into two and then it stopped working).
Eric and I processed the kinescope of the film from yesterday. It will show on Friday at midnight at the Folk Festival after party.
I also posted a fifth Professor Delusia this morning.

Summer end in sight

Meeting with students puts a lot of perspective on my week. They go off and do things that are not the same things I am doing so when I see them, time has passed. It often seems like I am running on the spot, always making things but never getting in sight of the finish line. I just posted a new Professor Delusia to youtube. Eric and I also connected and did the kinescope of Bonnie's Indescribable Predicament, which we'll need to process tomorrow and screen at midnight on Friday.

I must be wicked

I can't every feel rested. I'm barely able to hold my eyes open as I wait for this dvd of the Guy Maddin-esque video that Eric and I made over the past week to burn so I can spend my lunch hour tomorrow with Eric kinescoping, in between my classes with my two grad students. I felt pretty alert while driving home the other day from Prince Albert, I credit the three espressos I had that day, and almost no food. I'm noticing that food makes me very tired.
So last week we went to Prince Albert. Paul came with us, so the car was full. In Saskatoon we had a Fudruckers burger and I got the new Douglas Copeland book, the Gum Thief, from the McNally and Robinson book store on 8th. We visited with Judy McNaughton and Michel Boutan in PA, seeing their studios and so on. There was a parade that was rained on by the bucket but we were able to hide out in the art centre. Day two was really William's day. We spent some time in downtown PA, in a used book store I found "The President Vanishes" by Rex Stout, one of the few of his books we don't have yet. We got some Lego on sale at the Zellers, went to the water slide for a few hours, then A&W for supper and back on the road to Waskasiu. William and Margaret went into the rooftop hot tub while I tried to shoot some film. The sunset on the pier was incredible. The next morning we discovered that the bakery nearby was pretty good and quite cheap, so we survived on pastry half the time. William got to start his Lego and we started each morning with Adam West Batman episodes on the laptop. The battery belt stopped working and wouldn't charge, so I couldn't shoot time exposures. I shot a lot of other footage instead, mostly beach stuff, and I sat down in the lobby for two hours and wrote out the soundtrack to one of the four Grain films, I'm pretty happy about that. I dropped my still camera and now the lens doesn't retract and it doesn't take pictures. I replaced it yesterday. I just discovered that the videos the new one shoots are not recognized by After Effects, grrrr. The next day was our last. We went on a hike and I shot more film, 16mm, super-8, and video (with a video camera rather than my still camera). Unlike the way up, I did all the driving back. Felt very in the moment most of the way. Not bad trip, everyone had fun. Best of all, no one insisted that I should wear shorts the entire trip!

new camera

With new Lego as a bribe, we dragged William around the east end today, shopping for all the crap the box stores offer. I purchased a replacement camera, another 7 megapixal Canon, to replace the one I broke the other day. I didn't go for the more expensive ones, even though they weren't that much more, as I would rather put that money into a digital slr when the time is right.

work work work

I know I promised to fill you in on my trip up north today but I'm a bit tired and would rather spend the30 minutes I have left reading Gum Thief by Douglas Copeland. I bought it in Saskatoon and am really enjoying it. It's mostly about some people working in a Staples store whose lives have stalled and they lack the courage to change themselves. Lots of funny stuff. My niece Michelle is in town until tomorrow so we went to see Get Smart at the Paradise Theatre. I liked it all right, not profound or anything, and William liked it although I was concerned about how much swearing was in it. I moved my teaching from Tuesday to today, had some good conversations.

Home from Waskasiu

We got home a few minutes ago from a trip to Prince Albert and Waskasiu. I shot a fair amount of film, both super-8 and 16mm, as well as video and stills. The battery belt doesn't seem to be working so I couldn't do any time laps and time exposures I'd wanted to do, but I did sit quietly in the lobby for an hour or two and finally figure out what this film is about and draft a voice over for part of it (I want to work mostly without words for two of the films, and with words for the other two, so this is a big step). I'll call this film "Grain: you can't see the forest through the dreams". The other technical glitch was that I dropped and broke my still camera, very depressed about that. Fortunately the price of them has plummeted so it'll be easier to just buy a new one rather than get it fixed. More details tomorrow.

Prince Albert arts centre

We got caught in a huge rain storm when we arrived at the parade in Prince Albert. We managed to get some refuge in the Arts Centre where Judy McNaughton and Michel Boutin work and show work. Judy is doing some cool work in two dimensions, photo colage of pones and fur with layers of paint and wax on top. We have a ceramic piece of hers above our couch in the tv room.

fantastic last minute shoot

The Guy Maddin-style film Eric and I have been discussing got shot today. It required over 100 shots and I filled the cast at the last minute with some great folks, Carle Steel, Tanya Dahms, and Rob Bos. We shot it all in 3 hours and I just completed a first cut (no effects or sound) in another three hours. It's funny, but the whole cast has been mentioned, and labeled, in previous postings I've done.
Very tired now.

rushing and napping

This morning I lounged around doing nothing until 11 am when I was struck with the urgency to get my film developed so I could get all of the Professor Delusia films in to a surrealist film festival in Calgary, so I got Eric to meet me at the university (today is Saturday) and we quickly developed 400 feet of colour film as black and white, dried in no time flat in the heat of the the noon sun, and loaded it up and transfered it to video and were out of there by 1:30. Margaret needed the car for an Artist Trading Cards session in Lumsden so we went as a family. The place was to capacity (about 20) so I sat outside of the main creative tables and ended up dozing in the chair. Then we went to Regina Beach, at fish at the Blue Bird (which recently changed hands but seems the same) and hung on the beach. The beach was nice because it had started clouding over so I kept my pants on and just lay around, getting yet another nap.

scanner working

With some degree of unusual difficulty, I got the scanner to work again (now convinced it is a Vista problem, I downloaded a patch). Here is my portrait by William.

portrait of me

Had some meetings and ran some errands today, then spent much of the afternoon lounging by the pool working on the storyboards for the film I wanted to make with Eric tomorrow, but still don't know if it will happen. There was an opening at the Dunlop, William spent the whole time doing pretty cool drawings of people. When we got home, we watched the first two episodes of the Adam West Batman series which are still not available on dvd. Holy Downloading! Computers are great except when they don't work, such as when the scanner won't work and you can't get the drawing your son drew of you into your blog.

fast paced creativity

In the course of three hours I worked on, hmm, I think about 3 or four projects. First thing this morning (or about 10-10:30am) Eric and I shot footage in the studio to create homages to four different Norman McLaren films. I then set up the microphone for a recording with Elder Betty for the End of Life project and, while it was set up anyway, recorded an all new "Mr. Saul" soundtrack. After the recording with Elder Betty, I created and copied to transparencies, the title sequence for the 35mm ray-o-gram style film I've been making. All this while almost dizzy with exhaustion since William woke me up at 5 (I went to sleep at 1:30) and was dehydrated from the physical activity of the shoot (lots of physical movement).
Here is a silent first cut of a video we shot today in reference to McLaren's 1956 "Blur Test".

waxing on

My top priority for today was to get film developed for Professor Delusia to submit it to a festival in a few days. However, the floors were just waxed in the darkroom, without warning, so I couldn't use it today, and perhaps not tomorrow. Eric got back from Montana but all we could do was some planning for some shooting we'd like to do tomorrow.

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.

Indiana Jones

Today I guess I got a bit lazy, hung around the house and watched the kids play, did a bit a stuff on the computer that was of little consequence, hung around with Ang for a bit as he's going back to Toronto tomorrow (he dropped me off a bag of old metal 100' daylight spools in the round metal cans that Kodak stopped making around 1990). It was really hot so we decided to go to a movie and to our surprise, Indiana Jones has left the main theatres. The only place it is at is the Paradise Theatre which is in the back of an indoor mini-golf course beside the Sherwood Mall. It was surprisingly nice. The seats and screen and layout of the theatre are nice, holds about 200 (that would leave 197 empty seats plus the three of us). The projection was good (35mm and the lens seemed fin) but there is no staff so the projector just runs unattended so I have heard of numerous errors. Today the framer was off a little bit, leaving a bit of the top of the frame lodged onto the bottom of the frame. Last week William and I watched both Raiders of the Lost Arc and Last Crusade and he handled them very well. There was one death that shocked him today, and the creepy stuff in the old tombs with old skulls was spookier on the big screen than it is on tv, but he really liked it. I think it was fairly good. The 1950s stuff was interesting, the adventure itself was a bit of a rehash.

Batman

Did some secret gardens this afternoon then went to Dark Knight this evening. It was good. Sorry for the thin blunt post, but the movie was enjoyable enough that I would prefer not to talk about it with people who haven't seen it rather than writing yet another review of it (there were three in yesterday's paper but I didn't read any of them), so now going to watch some Veronica Mars.

Saturday laziness

Margaret had to work all day at the Dunlop at Sherwood where they had an opening of work by Vic Cicanski, Donna Kreikle, and i-Ann Siwek, as well as some garden events and dancing by New Dance Horizons. William and I watched Johnny English this morning then went to the opening. I'm really tired from staying up way to late watching Veronica Mars season 3, which I've been waiting four months for through the library (I was about 25th on the list, but luckily there were 3 copies). I also read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, an amazing book which was mostly drawings, all set in1931 about clocks and cinema. Check out the sample first pages on the website. I had a nap and am ready to watch Veronica Mars again until morning.

New videos

Two new videos for you today, one Professor Delusia, which was the first one that we shot and was all done in camera like Melies would have done them, and one video I've been playing with for a week on William's Lego blog. William's friend Rowan was over today and I shot material for another video, at their insistence, but have not done anything with it yet. New Dance Horizons' Secret Garden Tour began this evening, William and I went to a couple of them and Margaret is volunteering at one.

supper with Ang

Angelos Hatzitolios and his family came over this evening. After dark we watched 16mm films in the back yard. Ang found a reel of interesting shots he'd compiled for a demo reel 25 years ago and we threaded it up. Some great stuff. The funniest moment was when Ang, appearing in his own film clip, sits down on a bed and pulls his socks off and throws them aside. His kids ask about it and his wife, Christine, announces that he still does that.

computer give and take

I took my old "evergreen" computer that I purchased from work back to work today as it has been acting rather funky since the virus I got in it last year. It is primarily William's computer now, and even he is getting frustrated with it. They reformatted the c drive and reinstalled windows but somehow in the process, or perhaps in the moving the computer from home to there, the second hard drive won't work. He couldn't figure it out but did suggest that the power supply may have failed. On the up side, he felt that the 256mb ram wasn't enough and found some more sitting around and doubled it. Works well now, so far as I can see.
Eric and I developed some black and white film, including the 35mm I exposed with wheat ray-o-grams last week. I am using a system of laying that film on top of the colour film and exposing it in different orientations with different coloured lights. I think it will be very effective but am uncertain if I'm getting it all right. The cost of my film colour film is about $160 per 100 foot roll, which is what I exposed today, so I'm nervous about how well this basically untested system will work.
Mike came down from Saskatoon today. He has a new car (for him) that William has named "Greyster". He also has a new office with a window, a reduced teaching load for the next year because he's doing work on the on-line courses, and he's moving to a new apartment. That's a lot of news for anyone, especially Mike.

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

really working at home

Last night I got a call from Ed asking if Rowan could come over today, perhaps all day. Rowan and William play Lego together and I agreed, initially just for the morning but later for the day. Ang brought his kids over at about 3, making it quite a party. However, before that, I got my nose to the grindstone and got both of my syllabuses done for the fall term. I made a huge mistake about what day the classes were on, and that cost me an hour of my evening correcting it, but they are emailed in and so I feel the term is half done (planning what to teach is sometimes the biggest effort, once that is done you at least know what books to open and what film clips to find - it's almost easy). Anyway, the kids played together so well that I had very few distractions.

Angelos visists

We spent half the day trying to accomplish something, anything. We've been a bit fragmented as of late and it was getting to us. While I did re-cover an old kitchen chair last night with thick padding and red vinyl, William described it as a waist of time this morning. It took three trips to the hardware store but I did finally manage to rewire an old standing lamp Margaret found for me a couple of months ago - the wiring wasn't hard but the new socket has it's switch in a different place so I needed specific washers to jiggle it all to the right spot. Margaret is cleaning the deck so it can get stained, just a few years overdue: it was built when William was just turning two and he'll be seven soon. Then Angelos Hatzitolios called, he and his family are in town for the first time in years. Even though I was expecting them, I wasn't. It's written down but I've not been living by the calendar for so long that I never consult it. We got together for a while, he's here for a week.
I posted my new Professor Delusia video.

fermented honey

Leslea and Leif had their annual bar-be-que today. Leif brought out his home made mead, two varieties, to sample. Odd but very nice. He added more honey at a later time for some secondary fermentation which translates into bubbles.
William and I watched the third Indiana Jones movie today (skipping the second one) and he liked it, it was never really too scary for him except for the guy who aged really fast and turned to dust. I stopped a couple of times to explain bits of history or the bible to him, but if we see the new one I won't be able to do that, so during his shower this evening I explained the cold war to him. "the Americans built one bomb so the Soviets built two bombs to make sure the Americans wouldn't use their one bomb, so the Americans built three bombs so the Soviets would be afraid to use their two bombs, so the Soviets built four bombs..." He's pretty good with figuring out this sort of pattern, and he has secret agent Lego, so the notion of spies and so on was also an easy sell. He's more informed than I was when I was his age.

sort of holiday

I hadn't really meant to take the day off but I ended up not really doing any work. We dropped William off on a play date in the morning but then ran out to the Re-Store to look for old windows for the bin I have on the farm. They have found that artists are buying these windows and the ones with multiple panes are worth more so they sell them based upon number of panes in the window. So a 2x3' window would be $5, but if it were to have a division in it making it a 2x3 window with 3 panes to it, the cost would be 3 x $3 = $9. Some of them are not large but are in 9 or 16 parts. These purchases are suddenly impracticable, but I guess so long as a few artists don't accidentally make a profit, I guess that's all right. This afternoon I took William swimming and didn't get home until mid afternoon and just didn't get focused on my work, but sometimes that is what Fridays are for.

full day at work

I got a ride in to work with Paul today and was able to put in a solid 9-5. Eric, who seems to have the same level of exhaustion that I'm experiencing, slept in but eventually we got set up to shoot photograms. It took me about one hour to create 100 feet of this work, laying 8 feet at a time down on the slots I have and laying objects on top of it such as kernels of wheat. These images are of course the cornerstone of the "Grain" film project, playing on the idea of film grain and grain grain through the direct physical contact of the two and the drawing of the audiences' attention to the film surface. We switched to using a larger flash for exposing the film for these and bounced the light off of the ceiling. This allowed us to work on either side of the table and not have to be standing or walking at all during the process. I didn't do much developing of film (other than the first 8 foot test) because maintenance is waxing the floor in the student lounge and they moved all their furniture into the darkroom. We also did more kinescoping, redoing a bunch of the later episodes of Professor Delusia.

Sweeny Todd

Busy day, morning filled with shooting (and some re-shooting) kinescopes with Eric, and in the afternoon I had an End of Life research group meeting. Margaret worked until nine up a Sherwood so William and I packed supper and took it up there and we had a picnic. I didn't sleep well last night so by seven I was wrecked and needed a nap while William played Lego. Later while William was reading another of his Magic Tree House books (I think he's on #23) I finished volume 1 of my Popeye comic collection (1928-1930) which is amazing for the long strange story it told (20 months on the same story). After William was in bed I finally watched Sweeny Todd (which I bought the day it came out but didn't open until today.) Amazing Burton as always, I'm surprised at how daringly conservative he was with his camera, it is often locked down and doesn't move a hair (I've become highly annoyed at the constant adjusting of the frame most films have, cinematographers do it out of habit now).

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.

Monday break ins

Someone broke into our car this morning or last night. I guess it wasn't a real break in, as the car seems to have been unlocked, and it wasn't really a theft, as nothing appears to be missing. This morning, the door was slightly ajar and the ash tray was pulled out (I don't think we kept anything in there as far as I recall) and the cds were pulled out, but they obviously didn't know good music since the best of Dean Martin was not taken, nor any of the other treasures.
Eric and I developed a few hundred feet of film today. I mixed up some paper developer and we did some film with it. I also developed the roll I shot on Saturday, it looks great. I should probably get back to black and white high contrast film, it always turns out for me now.
I posted the first video from my new Professor Delusia the Nocturnalist series.

Sunday at the movies

Yesterday, as I mentioned, we went to the farm. This is me in front of the bin I purchased (photo by William). It's 12x16 feet inside and not many holes in it. We decided to have it moved to a very scenic spot where the original farm house had been. As soon as I have a free afternoon, I'm going to the re-store to see if I can find some old windows for it.
It wasn't too hot out today, but it was supposed to be so we planned to go to the movies to beat the heat again. Saw Kung Fu Panda, very good, stayed to the end of the credits for extra bits.
I posted some new videos on William's site.

Saturday relaxation

We went out to the farm for a while this afternoon. I shot a bit of film but as I left the battery belt at the university, I couldn't use the animation controller and thus could not expose using the pin hole "lens", so it was just a single roll shot the usual way. This evening we watched the last 3 episodes of the new season of Dr. Who (freshly downloaded from Britain). Great as usual, the final 2 parter has tons of guest stars and handled well with lots of emotion and humor.

darkroom frustration

Spent the afternoon with Eric in the darkroom to develop some of the colour reversal I shot in black and white chemistry. This generally works, but today I looked at the bucket of ID-11 and it looked quite green. I decided, wisely, to test it before committing. Sure enough, it had oxydized and was no longer useful as a developer. I had another box so I mixed it up and began to develop. As it mixes hot, the development time is short, but I am confident of the charts I've made. However, everything ended up dark. The second test was also dark. I theorized that the temperature might have greater impact on the colour film than it does on black and white, so I emersed a container of cold water into it to cool it (like a big ice cube) but the next test was also very dark. I had assumed that this was all the result of overdeveloping, but then it occurred to me that the original film, being a 20+ year old roll of 7239 reversal, might be the problem. I will likely need to re-shoot. I accomplished nothing today.

returning to the students

Busy today, but not stressful. William slept in and I managed to finish my compilation video with spinning hand transitions for How to be an experimental filmmaker (a silhouetted hand spins from the distance, at once obliterating the image as well and transitioning into the new image, in between each of the 13 chapters, now without titles). I took William downtown for lunch at the SGI building and it's great view, then picked up Margaret and they dropped me off at work then went on to buy more Lego, on sale at the Bay, while I met with both Janine and Chrystene to discuss the courses I'm doing with them this summer, starting on Tuesday. Eric and I developed 5 rolls of colour film. The two rolls of reversal, which I did last, appear to be overexposed or overdevoped, perhaps a nature of the film, perhaps a nature of the exposure. Came home with Paul then worked on Lego and some baking until now, which is time for Dr. Who.

actually going to work

Today was the first day I'm back at work and not on a holiday. It really wasn't much different that last week except that I was prompter about answering my email. I went to the university and did some kinescoping (alone) until my battery died. I had to pack up and get home at lunch time so that Margaret could use the car - she's training someone this week so has put in a few extra hours. I worked on putting a compilation of "How to be an experimental filmmaker" together - removing titles and creating a graphic transition between each section. Carving the titles off brings the set of 13 down to below 9 minutes. William had two play dates over, Daniel and Rowan, and they played fairly well, although right now he is pouting because I've told him he has to have a bath instead of watching more cartoons (we finished the Justice League series after supper). Gavin DeLint dropped in with discs I lent him and to pick up discs he lent me. I was going to drop in on him after the cartoons but decided that William would expect to watch whatever we borrowed right away, and that wouldn't work out well. (William got over his grouchy time after 30 minutes and is now reading a Magic Tree House book in bed).
A couple of days ago a stack of discs arrived from Deric Olsen with, what the two of believe to be, a video that Fazail created with me based upon a 3D scan of my face. However, the disc won't play in either his nor my computers. It was my last hope for finding this lost video. Now I'll have to find my notes on how the 3D scanner works and start from scratch (of course the entire thing probably took 4 hours to make and I've spent 20 trying to find the files).

Canada Day, back to work

My sabbatical is over, it's back to work, although today is a national holiday so I won't be dong that. Off to the beach then! It's too hot to sleep in. I just checked my Youtube numbers, I have a grand total of 12,938 hits on my videos, all but one of which were posted in the past 6 months and all of which were posted during my sabbatical.

365

Today is the last day of my sabbatical. The title of today's blog is 365, which is an error, as there were 366 days this year owing to the leap year. About three months ago I made a numbering mistake (278), but I'm not inclined to make all the changes. No one would notice if I were not pointing it out right now.
It's going to be a scorcher today, probably 34 degrees, so I got onto my computer first thing to get some work done. While the university is open, I gave Eric the day off with tomorrow (Tuesday) being Canada day. He'll be beaching it for sure. Margaret is working all day so I'll hang with William. He's working on his Lego and I've posted a new video on his blog demonstrating a new dwarf war machine he built yesterday. I'm also posting the last chapter of my How To Be an Experimental Filmmaker series on YouTube. Today is week 26 and I've got 26 videos this year (two series' of 13). We're off to Nim's Island this afternoon to beat the heat.
Have I completed everything I set out to do this year? No. There are a couple of more things I will finish in the next month, but some stuff I've abandoned. Other stuff (example the Youtube videos) were not on the initial list. I think I did okay. I don't feel rested however.

364

William and I went to Wall-E today, very good film. Of course, William was full of questions and a bit nervous about the situation, so needed to voice them constantly throughout the first third such as "where are all the people", "are they all dead", that sort of thing, of which I did not know the answer (they aren't dead).
Weather is hot, I put a second coat of paint on shed door and planted another grape vine (now have four). I bought a six dvd set of NASA documentaries at London Drugs on my way for coffee with Kevin. Nice thing about NASA is that all their space footage is public domain, so expect to see some of it re-purposed in my future videos.

363

Saturday, didn't do any real work, watched some Justice League with William. Had to run off and get more photos for a collage frame for my parents, those ones with a bunch of odd shaped holes to fit pictures into but get them to fit is really time consuming. Ran back and forth to the store twice and never did remember to mail my medial reimbursement letter in (a number of months of stuff for the whole family).
My friend/colleague/ filmmaker Dianne Ouellette had a backyard pool party today. Kathy Toth wore a grass skirt.
This evening we went for a family supper to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary. I had a photo album book made through the Costco on line photo lab. The interface was terrible but the product was good.

362

Last night Margaret rented Golden Compass (which we all watched together, it's not bad) and Savages by Merchant/Ivory, which we didn't have time for and I watched this afternoon. Wow, very fun. At its best, it is akin to works of Bunuel, inexplicable events reshaping reality unapologetically in a bold, but non-didactic commentary on we as people. At it's worst, it seemed occasionally to be like a window into an actor's workshop as improvisation is taken to a nauseating level. However, most of the time it remains cinematic, with directing taking control of the scenes and taking the audience into the surreal.
I completed last of the 13 video series featuring Professor Delusia the Nocturnalist, burned to dvd and ready for kinescoping. Next they will go to film, be hand processed, transfered back to video and have the music (by Eric) matched to them. I've decided that they will be my next web video series since my Sock-vile set will probably take me a month or more to get the first episode done.
I bought one of Margaret's dad's old grain bins today for $100. I'm going to do something with it, although not yet certain what.

361

Stayed home most of the day editing new videos for my Professor Delusia series. I put together five of them last week. Between yesterday and today I've edited six more and have footage for another two.

360

Eric and I started a city symphony style film today, which is a traditional of weaving together images of a city into a visual study to be played with music. I had us focus on alleyways in the Cathedral area of Regina, shot from a high vantage point with a wide lens in reference to Wilf Perreault. We shot at least 50 shots, I've not reviewed the tape yet.
It was the last day of school for William today. His report card is good. I bought him the Spiderwick Chronicals dvd and we watched it before summer. It seems the ending is changed from the books and if anyone has seen it, can they explain to me how the family won't get arrested for the disappearance of their great aunt at the end of the story?

359

I just found The Incredibles soundtrack at the library. I'd meant to order in on line a couple of years ago, having never been able to find it on the shelf, but I rarely get around to that sort of thing. Then on a whim I glanced through soundtracks at the library while waiting for Margaret to get coffee for her break and there it was. It's great in the car, classic 60s style, but po-mo, so that always makes it better.
Eric and I did some more film copying with the flatbed, this time copying film that have optical soundtracks on them to see how well those copy. We probably won't develop them for a week, so I'll have to wait to find out (unless I slip in and do the black and white one...?).
We were supposed to have our first Filmpool Board meeting of the new year this evening but didn't get quorum. Eric is a newcomer to the Board so we talked for a while about things that we didn't need to make decisions about and to bring him up to speed on what the Board does (which I can't reveal here, or else I'll have to kill you).

358

Through some miscommunication, Eric and I didn't connect up until close to noon and I spent my morning close to comatose, cleaning my office and having it (relatively) clutter free for the first time ever. We eased into our work schedule, gathering stuff slowly and making our way to the classroom to go some more Ray-o-gram tests, on 35mm colour film this time. I exposed about 33 feet (perhaps 25 seconds) and have plans to do a large portion of the project once I have these tests developed. It will be about five minutes in total, featuring a lot of grain laid on top of raw film stock. Once this test was done, we shot more video footage of the Melies influenced "Professor Delusia the Nocturnalist", which should allow me to complete a 13 part cycle of them. Eric had an idea for music and we recorded it on the grand piano in the recording studio. I might run those as my next set of Youtube videos instead of the Golem of Socks story, "Sock-vile". Speaking of Sock-vlle, I finished typing up the script for it today. I'd written it a few weeks ago but had been carrying it around hand written since then, constantly afraid of losing it as there was no back up anywhere. I always like to have a back up, although somehow I gave Deric Olsen the only copy of a video Fazail made for me based around a 3D scan of my face. Deric moved on Montana a year ago and is now in the middle of moving to Lethbridge again and has just found a disc which might be the one in question. Therefore, I might have that animation again: my hope was to use it as an intro to some of my dvds with a loud noise.

357

This evening we watched some Sherlock Holmes with Jeromy Brett, certainly the best adaptations ever. It gets me all excited about the character again, especially after some of the other versions I've watched this year. I put a coat of paint on the shed door and painted out some graffiti on the garbage bins in the alley.

356

I posted my new video, the 12th of a 13 part series.
Most of day spent with William on a play date then shopping for clothes and Lego, then to Terry's for another play date and hanging out until 11pm. We borrowed the 3 Bionicle movies from her since the library's copies are very scratched and I can never find them in the store.

355

I was up way too late working on my videos last night, so today when I had committed to kinescope all morning then process film all afternoon, I almost died. Eric did some very cool video feed back with the kinescope chain. We shot onto really old Kodak 7239 colour reversal stock, probably early 1980s. We developed it as black and white negative. There is a murkiness to it, so the whites aren't clean, but otherwise looks pretty good.
Today was solstice. We had a fire and popped corn over it in the backyard.

354

and this is one of those days where I am just so busy I cannot really find the time to blog. I've been at the computer all day, but for a run to the bank and the photo place at the drug store, banging away on this machine to create five (count em, 5) videos based upon the Melies films. I perform in them as Professor Delusia, the Nocturnalist, who performs magic tricks. We shot one using in camera tricks and then some follow ups using green screen. I think I can make one or two more out of the stuff we shot, each of them is about a minute. They are silent films. I might post them in the future, but my current concern is for getting them ready to kinescope tomorrow morning. Bedtime now.

353 - a year in review

This is my 366th posting of a daily blog as I began this on the 19th of June, 2007 and it was a leap year. For those of you thinking of starting one, it was very easy. I had intended to begin on the first of July but felt I might need a few days to figure it out. I began logging on and setting it up while William was in the bathroom (some big business) and by the time he was done, I was typing my first post. Now it is getting hard to remember a time when I was not typing every day, although about once per week I almost forget to post, just because my thoughts are elsewhere. I think this has been a good tool for me to keep track of some of the things I've been doing as well as to communicate with some of you on a regular basis. I'm also increasingly wary about what I write, this blog is public and my identity is far from secret. I envy some bloggers who maintain anonymity and can therefore complain about everyone and everything around them. Part of being human is to react against things that bother us, but blogs give us a soap box that is potentially a bit too high. In the end, it is for the best that I am forced to self censor. It requires me to find more diplomatic ways of expressing myself.
Today I recorded a forty minute interview with Ed Knopf about agriculture and technology for my "Grain" project. He has a lot of interesting observations about complimentary technologies, where one invention leads to some other change or advancement. I talk about this sort of thing in film history such as the invention of plastics that allowed for the creation of flexible film, and therefore cinema. Lots of cool ideas from him. William and his sone Rowan played Lego.
I posted my new video to Youtube.

352

Eric was late coming in this morning, assumably because he was up late last night frustrated with the optical printer eating my film, which also happened for me when I reloaded it so it wasn't just a simple error, but it did not eat the dummy roll I added later, nor the next roll I put on, so I will have him finish with an alternate roll instead of my 40th birthday roll I wanted him to explore as a random time study, running forward for a few seconds then pausing for a couple of seconds, suggesting that our memory of moments is more random than we want to believe. I won't know if it was effective until we develop it later in the week. The original rolls were shot by Lisa Rae Vineberg while she was a student here. Anyway, Eric and I worked on more surrealism and in particular on the Melies style films, but this time in front of a green screen on video rather than traditionally in the studio on film with black screen. I've still not edited that, but hope to do so tomorrow.

351

Eric and I went out shooting pin hole cinema- tography again today. Actually, by using the higher speed colour negative, we were able to shoot fairly quickly, one tenth of a second, which is quicker than the animation controller will go. Thus we over exposed a bit. That will be fine. We shot a hundred feet of a train crossing (three trains came) and another 100 of the refinery.

350

Father's Day today. William brought me breakfast (or Margaret did actually) in bed and we all hung out and read and relaxed for a while. Margaret went to work in the afternoon so William took me to "Forbidden Kingdom" with Jackie Chan and Jet Li, we enjoyed it. Not a perfect movie, some pacing problems, but overall fun and well made. I love the Monkey King, I read a story about him recently so those parts were particularly appreciated. This evening we bar-b-qued then went for a walk for ice cream. My back is sore so I've not been tempted to do any work today, but feeling guilty about it so it doesn't feel like a break. I did post a new video for William on his blog though.

349

Saturday: Margaret went to work and left William and I to watch Justice League cartoons all morning. We went to the children's festival in Victoria park for a while; I changed some sidewalk chalk writing that said "EAT PUSSY" to "GREAT BUGGY" and put some wheels below the drawing of the cat. I posted my new video chapter of How To Be An Experimental Filmmaker to Youtube, and also updated William's blog with the Sphinx he built to go along with his pyramid.

348

I'm trying to maximize my day and feeling both good and bad about it. I have some frivilous reading I'd like to do, and some tv to watch, but haven't because I've been working or on the computer or with William all day. Met with John and Trudy to get a game plan for the next few weeks for the End of Life videos. John and I discovered a shortcut for making dvds out of the Avid. I made a new video for William's blog. I started typing up my script for the next series of web videos I'm making, a 13 part serial called "Sock-vile". I did laundry. I drove Margaret to work at the Sherwood library and back again later. I picked up the new issue of the Buffy comic which I've been looking forward to for weeks, but haven't cracked open yet. I designed a spinning hand wipe transition effect that I think I'll use to combine all of the How to be an Experimental Filmmaker videos together once they are done. I shot material for the new one but have not created the video yet. I started working on a secret gift for my parents, although I still have no idea what to get dad for father's day. I watched some cartoons will William after school. I still feel so far behind.

347: my Toronto vacation

We got back last night from Toronto where we were visiting Margaret's brother and family for a week. Of course, it is Toronto so we naturally were overly busy and did too many things. We made a rule when we lived there that we would only plan one thing per day. If we accomplished more than that, it was gravy, but it should never be expected.

The flight to Toronto was without incident. We stayed with Margaret's brother George and his family (wife Ivana and girls Katherine and Kristin, who are aged one older and one younger than William). Ivana picked us up then we dropped her back at work then we took her car on a long scenic route back to their house which is in Markham, which is basically a city adjoined to the north end of Toronto (if you don't know the clues, you cannot possibly know that you are passing between cities when you cross Steels Avenue). We made a stop at our favorite bakery, Nina D'versa on Keele. George and I picked up a mattress for William but could not fit the accompanying box spring down the narrow stairway. William, still on Regina time, stayed up two hours past when his cousins did, even though he was excited about the idea of sleeping in Uncle George's basement.

On the second day, Thursday, we went to the Village of St. Jacob where there was a Lego outlet store. For more information on it, see the photos and video I posted today on William's blog. On Thursday evening, George and I pulled apart his cappuccino machine, removing the pump and immersing it and other parts in vinegar to try to get it working again. More surprising than our success was the fact that George got it back together again at the end.

Friday we decided should be a calmer day. It was very hot again (and muggy) so we drove the 1/2 mile into the old main street of Markham and went to the shops there, including a pretty good used book store and a chocolate shop which sold both Belgium as well as French chocolate. (The Mug and Truffle) I think the French stuff was more bitter and balanced by a sweeter filling, nice but I prefer the Belgium. William had a Sprite out of a glass bottle. When Margaret was talking to the proprietor of the chocolate shop about art, he suggested we visit the church down the block where a painter is working. We did so. It is an eastern orthodox church where a painter from Macedonia, Georgi Danevski. He was painting the entire inside of this church, he was close to being done after two years work, perhaps only a year remaining. He was really nice, he climbed down from his scaffold and made us coffee. William was initially quite shy but warmed up after they began drawing for each other. He likes to draw horses and drew one for William beside the one William drew. William gave him a picture of Mary and baby Jesus onto which Georgi added the halo. Georgi wanted William to call him Uncle Georgi and said he'd draw William's portrait if we came back the next week. Unfortunately, we did not manage to. Back at the house, William built his new (old stock) Bionicle. It's not on his blog yet but will be soon. We took a short tv break and watched the first scene or two of High School Musical. Even William lost interest. How obvious and formulaic can you get!!? It could get a cult following for its absurdity, but I can't understand how it has an earnest following of kids, I don't care how naive they might be.

William with George Bessai

Saturday, as planned, we went to Christian Island where Ivana's parents have a really nice cottage. Margaret, Ivana, and the kids went out first while George and I mowed the watered the lawn (after 10 years in the house, Ivana is extremely pleased to have a back yard lawn for the first time as of this month). George took William on an ATV, the girls are already driving them on their own. Of course, George took him around with the little one so he ended up tipping and George took a good scrape to the knee. Supper was grand, lots of ribs. Discussion of the mineral content of the water on the island led me to discover that a similar issue exists in Markham. My poor sleep since ariving might be the result of the water, which I'm still trying to drink more of instead of pop and other sugary liquids. Whoa is me.

Sunday, Ivana's dad is building a new, permanent dock. He was doing some arc welding and got a sun burn on his arms from it (no sleeves). George took William on a two hour ATV ride, taking in all the sights and trails (and many places that weren't trails) of the island. We drove home without mishap.

Monday morning we drove downtown and went to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). I thought we'd have a quiet day there, but there were hundreds of kids there on school trips, so it was a madhouse. They've put on a huge addition, the crystal, that is quite odd. In a few places such as the dinosaur area where skeletons hang from the ceiling, it works. Most places it is just obtuse. However, the old areas are very old fashioned; rectangular rooms with old wood and a sombre mood, so a shake up was needed. William was most excited about the Egyptian exhibits, that he would see a real mummy! See photo. After that we went to the Danforth area and the Big Carrot organic food store and adjoining cool book store. William got the Stink books he didn't have, including the new fourth one. As we fed the pigeons, just as he had done four years ago, there was a downpour and we ran for the car. My old friend Angelos Hatzitolios lives in that area and we got to his place, watermelon in hand, for supper. William had been getting grumpy but fortunately he was able to play with their son's Lego and it eventually became a bonding experience. After I mentioned the slides I had been posting (automatic postings that I set up before I left Regina) on my blog, he put me on to a website where someone buys photos and does something similar on a regular basis called Bighappyfunhouse. It's pretty cool, check it out. It rained a lot on the way home, but we still made fair time on the Don Valley Parkway. We watched National Treasure until late, kind of fun, wish I'd watched it with William as it is quite innocent and he'd have liked it. I'll put it on my list.

Tuesday I was tired so I had a nap while Margaret took William shopping for gifts for his cousins. They were taken with the Bionicle he built so we bought some for them. Later, we picked up the girls from their school, the Somerset Academy in Markham Ontario, where parents care a lot about their kids education, although not enough about their safety not to park their environmentally unfriendly SUVs all along the fire lane in front of the school. We took them to Margaret's cousin Tom's house, near downtown. His house is amazing as he has been renovating it into a modernist dream. Architect. Tom's brother John and John's wife Joan also came, so it was a crazy Bessai party. I met David Wellington (director of "I Love a Man In Uniform") there, seems to be a friend of John and Tom. I'd heard his name but not until I looked him up did I realize the Man in Uniform connection. That movie poster was up in the seminar room at York and I used to stare at it every day. Now we have a copy of it up in our office hallway. Anyway, since Tom is an architect has three boys it goes without saying that he has lots of Lego (not as much as we do though) so you can guess what William spent his time doing. Actually he did get involved with their water fight, although that has mishaps. Driving home did not. George's dogs (two ten year old German shepherds) had torn open our zip lock bags of Lego when we got back to the house, so I had to assemble until I was certain they'd not eaten any. They hadn't.

Wednesday was yesterday, our last day in Toronto. Our flight home was for 6:00 pm. We swapped cars around, taking Ivana's Lexus which, even with 300,000 km on it, drove very nicely. We went for lunch and ice cream at Nina D'versas then headed downtown. We showed William a few sights, mostly through drive-bys, such as Casa Loma. We ended up in Chinatown. Ran into Rory McDonald (sculpture prof at UofR) in Kensington Market. Got some nice new plates and bowls at our favorite store. It was hot again and we were getting worried that William was getting heat stroke, but he held up well. At three o'clock we started on our way to the airport where we were to park the Lexus for Ivana to pick up when she returns from her flight she was also going on that day and would be returning the following day. We drove past the new renovations at the AGO (not open yet) then headed to the Gardener Expressway. Suddenly, nothing. The car died. There was no electrical power. The car would not start and the windows wouldn't go up or down. We called CAA and explained, they guaranteed that we'd have a truck there by 3:29. The police arrived at 3:25 and told us to move it, they gave us 10 minutes. THOUSANDS of cars were being affected. William and I went looking for a phone since the cel phone battery died, and had a closer look at the CN tower before we eventually found one at 3:50. CAA told us they'd have one in 10-15 minutes. At 4:05 a truck arrived but not a CAA one. Here is where our luck turns; HE WAS A COURTEOUS, HONEST, HELPFUL TORONTO TOW TRUCK DRIVER!!!! Most people who have driven in Toronto will swear they don't exist, but my hat comes off to this amazing tow truck driver, a hero, D. Birko (sp?) of Laidlaw Towing. He hooked us up, let us drive with him, lent us his phone, explained how we can get CAA to agree to pay the bill, and drove us to the mechanic. At 4:40 we got to a Canadian Tire and he then boosted us enough so we could get the windows up in case of rain and he negotiated with the Becks cab for a flat fee for us to the airport. The miracles continued as the cab managed to get us to the airport by 5:30 through rush hour traffic (mostly on the QEW). The airline people doubted that our luggage would make it there, but we could board and they would try (you are no longer allowed to say you won't fly with your luggage, but if it's their choice/fault, that's okay). The flight was fine (a bit rough) and Sarah Abbott got on our plane at Winnipeg. I didn't realize until we were going to bed that we'd had nothing but bits and bites for supper. Miracle #3, the luggage made it! Paul was waiting with all of William's castle Lego assembled and the Hogwarts Castle restored. We were very tired and went to bed at 11.

Today I'm starting to get back to work (even though I seem to do nothing but write this blog) since I really did just vacation while away and didn't use the laptop I brought and only shot a bit of video for use in my web videos (got an interesting strobing one out the cab window of these intermittent dividers between left and right lanes, but I'll save that for another day). I met with Eric just to discuss future plans since my hope to shoot was crushed by todays rain.

346: slide restoration 8

In the interest of science, Rudy has continued to eat every meal in the same way, from the same bowl, since 1972. Rudy also continues to be single.

345: slide restoration 7

During the big child care strike of '63, the professional stroller pushers chose not to walk out.

344: slide restoration 6

Maya never did know why her father cursed and spat whenever the price of Fantastic Four #48 increased. It had always been his dream to send his daughter up to be the first surfer in space.

343: slide restoration 5

Having eaten the keys to the station wagon, the tortoise made a valiant run for it.

342: slide restoration 4

Sinclair, in the red shirt, age four, discovered the meaning of life in the mouth of a scorpion. His family, in search of a power centre that would give them the best possible prices on straw hats and clogs, declared this spot to be simply "too warm". Sinclair forgot the scorpion until he was sixteen, as the 1970s was coming to a close, and created an underground cult that seeks, to this day, to find this fateful hotspot.

341: slide restoration 3

Not only did they all mysteriously survive the crash when no adults did, but they flourished... that is, until the gloves came off and little Trudy revealed the birthmark that proved her to be the rightful queen of Latvia.

340: slide restoration 2

See posting 339 for further information about my new slide restoration project.

No one was as surprised as Agnes.

339: slide restoration 1

The other day I bought a couple of hundred slides from a garage/house sale. They were not well labeled, so in the interest of history, I will present a selection of them here with facts that should be self evident. If anyone has additional information about these images, it would be a great boon to mankind if you came forth to further clarify the origin of the images.


Kal-El's ship was not a rocket but a space craft powered by a combination of a solar sail and pedaling by an in-house cabana boy.

338

I posted a new video on William's site. The road crew came an hour later and finally started progressing on my road again. Met with Eric for just a short time, gave him a bunch more optical printing to do, the super-8 blow up to 16mm has been working really well and so I'll be using a fair amount of that in the "Grain" film project. I commissioned a new (mysterious) satchel from Nikki Henderson and it was ready today. It has a walrus on it....

337

Eric and I shot 100 feet of film in a Melies style today, it was tremendously exciting. I played the magician making strange things happen to a vase of oats. I've wanted to do this sort of thing for a long time. I requires working in front of a black screen and superimposing things in-camera. It was so 19th century.
I posted a new video today.

336

The last month of the sabbatical begins. Dread.
Mom gave me two grape vines today, I planted them against the new fence with the southern exposure. I didn't read up about them first, might have to dig them out later and do it right, but how else can I achieve perfection but for unnecessary practice.
Kevin and I saw "Iron Man" at the theatre today. Enjoyed it. In particular, I liked that it was basically a Tony Stark movie. The guise of Iron Man was basically like watching Transformers, which is fine for what it is but doesn't sustain interest long. I've been enjoying talking with other dads such as Tyler or Gavin, about superheros. I can draw shamelessly upon my thousands of comic books in my attic as well as the graphic novels Margaret brings home from the library for my small talk.