Weekend

It got cold this weekend and we didn't do any of the stuff we planned like shooting a new movie with William or doing some yard stuff. Instead I got my taxes done (late) and built more Lego. My mom found a classic 1999 Star Wars x-wing fighter Lego set and William was very pumped to assemble it. Luke Skywalker has classic yellow Lego skin rather than the skin toned Lego they make for trademark characters now. He is always very excited to handle older Lego; there are subtle differences that really make his day.

almost a day off

While it is true that I was in at work at 8 am and spent most of the AM touring a group of Saskatoon high school students our department (they have a great media program up there and the teachers are very supportive of our program) and then met with Erik Sirke whom I just hired to help with some of my research projects over the next two months, and I did spent two hours this afternoon authoring a dvd of class projects, and I did work with my dad discussing taxes and the renovation rebate, I feel like my vacation has begun!!! William and I built Lego for much of the later afternoon and part of the evening (the part where we weren't watching Gilliam's Baron Munchhausen) restoring some of his Indiana Jones Lego. Ah, the pleasure of it all (actually I really need a back rub and my eyes are aching from trying to find specific black pieces from a cubic foot of random black pieces). Summer.

Gunless

I got my grades all in. Margaret got free passes to Gunless, a pretty funny Canadian western starring Paul Gross. William took the afternoon off school to make paper with Margaret and Gerda.

Get your head examined

William broke the number one rule of our household: "Don't fall on your head". Three x-rays, four stitches, a missed performance of William's Globe Theatre acting class later he is going to be completely fine.
I eventually got to the fourth year film screening. It was packed with people up and down the stairways at the Imax theatre. Even at midnight when it was all over, there were at least 100 seats filled. The projection was dim but otherwise it was a solid show.

Student Films

All day typing notes about student films, all evening watching more. I did take a break during a film I'd seen before to write out some ideas for a new project I'm calling "Rerun". More on that in a week or two. Had some conversations with Chrystene Ells, Berny Hi, and Don List.

progress

My horoscope today said not to make commitments. I managed to avoid most of them and actually got some work done on my grading. Nearly done.
I went to a screening of 3rd year film student films tonight. It brings back a lot of memories of being in third year - of being very young.

Week in review

This is the biggest gap in my blog in three years. I've been here but tired and cranky with nothing nice to say about anything. I'm still feeling somewhat ornery and need to reserve my positive spin words for my student comments that I'm not even close to being finished. There are a lot of distractions and I'm frustrated that my grading isn't done. Who can I blame? Try as I may, I can't find anyone but myself and I know I can't be at fault. Perhaps there are mystical forces at play? The university continues to be busy and I've not managed to stay home a single day since the term ended because of meetings and meetings and meetings. I acted in two student films this week, one by Riley Webster and the other by Gabe Boyko. In both cases I played a tall, long haired film professor at the University of Regina with students who are not listening to my sage like advice. I got to use my well practiced "look of disappointment" in both projects.
On Wednesday I showed my newest film "Grain: Summer - I Can't See the Forest Through My Dreams" at the Filmpool premiere screening. It went well, people said nice things as they are apt to do at such events. The high point of the event was a 15 minute compilation of a few of Ron Mein's drawings from "Jerry's Journal". Ron was a student of mine a year back, doing a bit of animiation. However, these non-animated films are better for their crudity of both content and form. Check out one of them. I am happy enough with my own film, although I would make more changes now. That is always the case and I resist muddling with the past. I've got to start thinking about the future, planning my summer which is upon me. I posted a job offering for student research assistants and will be hiring in a couple of days. The agenda for them will be be help me finish my projects I've started (Modern and Grain) and help me make something new. I have an idea for a new Professor Delusia series, but perhaps it will morph into something else.
Over the past three days we have been getting ants in the house. Annoying.
William and I are going to try to make a Dr. Who project together with William playing the Doctor of course. Earlier in the week I told him to start planning so he took a notebook to school and drew the Doctor's wardrobe (see above). This turned into his real wardrobe, see below. We hoped to start shooting it this weekend but he ended up being a bit sick yesterday so it's not happened yet. I get to play the Dalek (see William's Lego Dalek on his blog). My main concern is trying to figure out the tardis. What I ultimately need is a portable William-sized door with a frame but light enough to move to different locations, allowing him to exit wherever the tardis lands. Once I have that door, I could map it onto an object and try to create an animation of the flying tardis. The rest is just acting.

water

William invited his friends over today for the first water fight of the year.

Saturday

Spent much of day dubbing tapes into computer and making dvds for BFA portfolios.

now hiring

I posted a job for a student research assistant for the next couple of months, one day per week. In actuality, I'm not really sure what I'll have this person (or persons) do but am hoping to finish my two big film projects as well as make some new creative work in collaboration like Eric Hill and I did. That was pretty fun, although it did have numerous pitfalls. That can be said for anything though. I'm (slowly) reading a book about human evolution and it talks about our large and complex voice boxes and how they do things no other mammals voices can but also make us the only mammals who cannot breathe and swallow at the same time so are prone to choking. I hope I don't choke on my assistant.

classes end

Just ending a very long day which began with me arriving at 9:25 and almost being late for my last class of the term. I'm very happy that all of my Film 200 students go their work done and handed in, no late material is forthcoming. This is particularly important since I need to package the videos together for their assessment into the BFA program. The rest of the day was filled with meetings lasting until 6:30.

my lists

I have a list of things to do beside my bed. It's not even on its own pad but is just scrolled down the side of a document I was proofreading on the weekend. I wake up in the middle of the night remembering things I was supposed to do or need to do right away. I had meant to complete the list on Sunday but it was impossible, there were just too many things and it kept growing. A few minutes ago I almost finished it, all but one item (entering a festival that was pointed out to me, but the deadline is still 10 days away) so I am now free to watch a bit of tv (but for the fact that I teach my last class of the term tomorrow morning). I might just make it through after all.

time

Not much time left to the end of term, but so much to do all the time. I worked at home this morning but had an afternoon meeting. For unknown reasons, I went by my written calendar, which is never up to date, instead of my electronic one so was an hour early for it (the time was changed last week). I got an entire hour's work done since I had no distractions and just got to sit in a quiet board room the whole time. Still am not caught up though.

Parents, children, reproduction

My parents and Margaret's parents came over this morning to eat scones and celebrate my birthday. This afternoon William and I went to Rona and got potting soil and used it to re-pot my grapefruit tree that was guaranteed to produce fruit within two years (in 1996).

loss for words.

I can never think of what to blog about on Saturday. Here is what was happening four years ago.

One down...

Animation class concluded today. Some projects are late including the usually keen group who where doing a complex multi-part Mario Brothers satire but faced a power outage at 1am and headed to the university to create an all night alternate project (apparently I told them at the beginning of the term that their project should either be good, or be 4000 frames long, and when they realized they couldn't satisfy the first, they tried for the second). End result was that I don't have much grading to do until next week. Really windy today; I heard that SGI sent everyone home because the wind was rattling the windows and they aren't rated for wind speeds as high as they were today (although I never heard how fast it was). I made a double batch of waffles using all the extra egg whites from the gelato for supper. They cost about7 or 8 cents each for the materials, so we freeze them and don't need to buy Egos.

One week remaining

Today marked the one week from the end of term point. I had my first year class in the classroom with the Avid station where I ran into multiple problems and basically let them talk amongst themselves for 3 hours. Must have been the worst class ever, although no one seemed to complain. Maybe they needed a low pressure class about now.

My Birthday

I started off the day light: a quick cappuccino and a biscotti then out the door to meet to discuss avant garde film with Brett at the new Mercury Diner on 13th Ave. It was the perfect place to discuss nostalgia, which was central to out discussion today. The Mercury opened last week and is owned by the same guys that run the Novia. They've fixed it up really nice with red vinyl benches and lots of retro stuff.Since I'd worked late last night getting a draft of the curriculum report done (a week ahead of schedule), and had no meetings this afternoon, I blew off the rest of the day. Margaret had to work (owing to her forgetting a shift yesterday) so William and I went to "Clash of the Titans" in 3D. He was amazed at the new glasses style, having not seen a 3D movie since "Shark Boy and Lava Girl" with the two colour glasses. It was fun and not as intense as the previews had led me to believe.This evening we dropped in to Paul's place and watched the new episode of Dr. Who on our way to going swimming. In the end we decided not to swim (just as well, I have had a leg cramp for the past three hours) and came home where William and Paul played Lego (William got a Prince of Persia Lego set the other day - see above) and I made vanilla gelato.
Margaret is home now; we can now eat some of the amaretto cheesecake I made yesterday.

short class

For the first time this year I cut class significantly short. We were to look at works in progress today but apparently everyone has other deadlines so I had less than half the students there and none of them had work to show. We looked at the rough cut I did of the sit com, had a talk with Mark Montague who came by for a while, and took the rest of the time to continue getting caught up on stuff. Margaret and William went out looking for crocuses; this is the first time I've missed doing that in years.

easter dinner

Last night I was desperate for sleep but still didn't get a wink of it until after 11 and was awake before 8 this morning with an hour in the middle of the night were I arose and did mindless junk on the internet. This evening we had dinner at Richard and Gerda's house, a traditional late Easter dinner. I expected we would be talking about SCN all evening but surprisingly we did not (at least not ALL evening). I brought a cheesecake that I managed to bake after my admissions and studies meeting miraculously ended 45 minutes earlier than planned.

easter

I guess it was too much to ask for, but I really wanted to get at least enough sleep to be functional today. Margaret and I watched Hot Fuzz, or something like that last night and William woke us up at 6:15 to search for eggs. Certain proof that the Easter Bunny exists came in the form of a plastic egg containing a chrome Lego mini-fig storm trooper, unavailable for sale anywhere I've ever seen. Brunched at the Regina Inn with my parents. Came home with intent to nap but played Warlords Call to Arms with William instead (we won).

dell hell

I'm completely frustrated with my Dell computer today. I trying to edit the class shoot we did a few days ago. Everything was fine this afternoon but then I took a break and when I came back, it is being all sluggish. It doesn't respond to basic commands, it runs video for up to 20 seconds after I press the pause, and takes forever to do anything. I rebooted a couple of times and now think I should have spent the weekend at the office and got this done properly on the avids.

good friday

No classes today for the Good Friday holiday. We had a crowd in the house colouring eggs. A good bash. William was very excited from the start of the day, which began with him waking me up at 7:45 am. No sleep for the wicked. I baked some basic chocolate chip cookies that turned out very well. We were out of vanilla so I threw in some amaretto.

Three Filmmakers Gruff

Had a fun class today. After I used the creative storytelling exercise that Kevin MacKenzie told me about last night, I had the class go on to adapt, storyboard, and shoot a version of Three Billygoats Gruff, set on a pathway with the troll being a homeless buy begging change and the three goats being a film student, an actor, and a producer. One of the students posted a longer description with pictures.

SCN

Today was the last day for some of the staff at SCN. Margaret helped arrange an impromptu gathering of about 250-300 people to converge on the office at noon. It got lots of press. Margaret and William are pictured on the "SCN Matters" website, second image down. I don't know what went on the air though. I caught a clip on one station. William missed about a half hour of school but got back so that he could have a bit of an Easter party. He is off school for the next 11 days. Regretfully I am quite busy still, only getting Friday off but having to work late tomorrow.

I Robot

We had a lot of fun in class today. I'd had my doubts about it, as I think most of the class did, but we shot our sitcom pilot in the studio.

stumper

William asked me a hypothetical question. What if Bob and Jane married and then go divorced and then Jane married Mike. What do we call Mike's relationship to Bob?

the weekend

Wow, spring has come and made me forget to write in this blog! The weekend was busy. I took William and his cousins to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" on Saturday. They liked it. It had some moments but I found the bits of stick man drawings a bit of a cop out. They were used as seques but actually I think they were used to cover up gaps in the story and resulted in making me lose track of various plot elements (such as they were). Most characters had no depth at all. On Sunday I found out that Kevin sold his house with only one day on the market. That's stellar. Instead of working yesterday, I wrote a page review on "Dungeon Crawl", the shoveled some of the melting ice off the street in front of my house. Results: I threw out my back - the nail in my coffin: I was already feeling apathetic, and now I've got pain to use as an excuse for not working. However, I've got a stack of grading to do and must be a robot tomorrow in class.

watching

Today I got to watch my class, or more precisely I assigned Janine to teach the class as part of her term work so I just had to be a student and listen and learn. Always a nice change, although not necessarily as easy as I think it is. She did well, made them make talking sticks and to think about things differently.
After class, George brought William and his girls to the university. I showed them around and scanned their faces with the 3D scanner.
This evening I went to John Johnstone's new/first feature film "Dungeon Crawl". He asked me to mc the event. The crowd was big, almost a sell out (close to 250 people). Better yet, the film actually turned out! I laughed many times. The timing was good, the characters were good, the drama was good. It was a mockumentary about dungeons and dragons game players. While it did have some of the cheap shots at geekness that I expected, it also had a lot or real motivation and real life. We don't end up pitying or envying the characters for their game playing lifestyles, we just accept them as people doing what they are doing, and being friends.

want a date?

After class today, in a discussion with Joe about how people can't read calendars anymore, I realized that I have an extra class in Film 200 that I'd not planned for, that my term ends one day later than anticipated. I confirmed with the secretary and emailed all my students to extend their projects a week. That covers the last week, now I just have to devise material for the week before the last week when I had been expecting to look at their final project. Perhaps some rock-paper-scissors will pass the time...?

the cat came back

8:12 am: suddenly the cat came trotting up the front steps!!! No collar but no injuries or obvious mishap. Hungry but full of purrs.

Cat still missing

Our cat has been missing since Tuesday afternoon. SCN being shut down by the budget. Everyone in house is sick and exhausted.

bad day

William had a bad night again last night, up until the stroke of midnight coughing. I got him to school in the morning (a bit late) but mid-afternoon Margaret got the call and came to pick him up. He just can't function when he's that sick and tired. I forced him to bed at 8:30 tonight, read a bit of "Hat Full of Sky" then turned everything off and lay with him until he fell asleep at an astonishing early time of 10:15! I hope that's enough.
The cat went out at 4:30 this afternoon and hasn't come home yet. She's never spent the night out or gotten lost before. It's still zero, but it'll be down to -6 later. Worried.

girls, girls, girls

Margaret's brother arrived with his two daughters today. William and they played for hours, including some good fresh air in the park. However, it was still only 5 degrees outside and they abandoned their jackets, so now William is coughing too much to get to sleep.
I heard "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" on the radio today for the first time in about 20 years. They even played the proper, uncensored version with "I told you once you son of a bitch..." rather then "son of a gun".

weekend break?

William has been sick for a week now, as well as being awake until 11 or 12 each night. The only time I've been getting any work done is between 6 and 8 am, but it leaves me tired the rest of the day. I can't keep up. He's getting better but now Margaret is getting sick. We spent the majority of the day cleaning house because Margaret's brother and nieces are coming tomorrow. Not to stay with us, but will be here and might have a sleep over later in the week. We cleared about 6 boxes of old toys out of the attic; stuff that William never plays with. Much of it was just junk, although there are a few good things. All of it to my mom's garage sale later in the spring but right now it fills the back porch. I baked some cookies today for the visitors and to celebrate Sylvie's first birthday (see image above). William gave her a colourful toy that looks like a rainbow cat's tail. Not that she needs more toys either since I found ten more of her toys under the buffet in the dining room while looking for Lego (I re-assembled all the mini-figs again, but for three). I can't believe it's Monday again so soon, I can't catch up. I keep thinking I'm getting sick, which would explain why I'm feeling so negative about everything, but I just never get symptoms. Curse this lack-of-a-cold!!!

animation

Due to a strange schedule and a holiday, I now have two more animation classes to teach this term, three more Film 200 classes, and four more Film 401 classes. In animation today we did some optical printing and discussed rear screens and their use in Jason and the Argonauts. Check out what we have been doing HERE.
William went to school after lunch today but came home at recess. He brought his report card which is generally quite good.

too early

I went to bed too early last night. It was late for William but he was sick and came to our bed and I read to him for a while. Then around 11 we all fell asleep and now I am away, crowded out of my bed and surfing around on facebook for the last hour. I guess I should just make coffee and do some real work, but the funny thing is, facebook use has no guilt at 5 am. Usually I am overly conscious of the time wasting nature of it, but not this early. It is like FREE TIME.
Yesterday I took William to the doctor. He was complaining of ears hurting and his cough is bad and said his chest hurt. The doctor says he doesn't appear to have anything beyond a cold. She suggested a shower to help clear his sinuses. I don't know what to think of a doctor (not our regular one) who gives advice that we are already doing. Common sense is just too unscientific.

clinging to life

William was sick all day today. His cough is bad enough that even my cynical mind doesn't suspect him of faking it. Lots of stuff going around; a number of students sick too. He watched "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Howl's Moving Castle" today and now is starting "Ponyo" for the fourth time since Friday. Yesterday he watched "Kiki's Delivery Service". It's a Miyazaki festival at our house (I own all ten of his features).

sick day

William was home sick today. Luckily Margaret is on show change so there's no work for the next few days because he seems worse now than he did this morning, coughing all the time. I met with Brett today because he couldn't meet Wednesday and he didn't tell me it was his birthday. We only met for an hour so didn't even get into anything adventurous or unique.

spring fever

William rode his bike and played outside most of the afternoon today.
The weather has been warm enough that over the past two days I chipped away the snow so that he could bike down most of our block on clear pavement.
This evening he has a nasty cough and spent all his time in the shower, but still didn't fall asleep until I got home at 11pm.
Here he is at 11:20.

clear the deck

I got most of the snow off of my deck and barbequing is much easier now. We did some simple hot dogs today. I also hacked most of the snow and ice off our front walk. Dry cement is the only true sign of spring.

March 12

March 12 is a special day that Margaret and I celebrate in some modest ways every year. We talk and draw and hang out. Today also had two art openings; one of photographs at the faculty club and the other being the big BFA show at the MacKenzie. William had the day off so Margaret took him tobogganing and to the bookstore.

money

I was walking down the hallway at the university today, on my way to class and for a while actually feeling awake, and I heard someone ask someone else "If you had all the money in the world, what would you do with it?" and I thought to myself; if someone had all the money in the world, then no one else would have any money at all. Doesn't money work only if there is a mutual understanding and value of money and if no one, except one person, had money, wouldn't it loose all of its value?

cat tales

I've got a loudly purring cat on my lap and she is drowning out all my thoughts of the day. Her tail is better, it must have been bitten or something about 5 days ago and was hanging mostly limp all weekend. She didn't seem to be in pain though, and it wasn't bleeding, so we held off on going to the vet. Here she is playing with "big grey", the cat from across the street. They play a bit rough but never hiss or get angry.

soft serve

Before supper today, William and I built some snowmen in the back yard. The snow is melting and getting very sticky and heavy. They mold together very easily, but are so heavy that unless they freeze hard tonight, they will fall over. This one has a "hand of doom" and weird candy teeth.

movie night

Internet is really slow this weekend, putting me out of the mood to do things like this blog. I can't believe computers are getting slower every year, perhaps someone should write a book about that.
Academy Awards were tonight. I won a nice pot of cash at the party that Margaret went to while I stayed home with William. They say I'm not allowed to win next year if I don't attend, but I'm pretty certain they said that last year. Margaret went dressed as Julia Child. William and I watched Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks". I think he was a bit freaked out a few times but stuck with it. He is starting to appreciate the thrill of getting scared. Yesterday his friend T., whom we invited for a couple of long play dates due to her sister needing surgery on her broken leg, directed William to a site called scary maze game that concludes with a big shock (you've got to have the sound on your computer turned up loud for full effect) and now the difference between fear and shock is foremost in his mind. We've taught him that the most scary things in a movie are created in your imagination, not on the screen. This was really the case in Mars Attacks. The scariest part was the alien disguised as a beautiful human woman but you don't know when or how it is going to attack.

3D`

I started coming back up to speed with the New Media Lab's 3D scanner today. I also brought my animation class in to look and test it. We scanned everyone's face, but only from one angle since we just couldn't weave the multiple angles together in any expedient way.

Better

Had a better day, was generally lucid in class. Barbequed some bison burgers for supper then went to the advertising awards at the library. In prepping for animation tomorrow and hoping to make the 3D scanner work, I pulled out a tape I shot of the process from 6 years ago. Unfortunately, I discovered that the camera had been set wrong and I had no audio. However, I also found a bunch of home movies after the media lab footage including a long take I did of William eating that I'm certain I wanted to include on my compilation that featured three videos of me eating my lunch (they are never screened anywhere). Here is a clip of today's find.

not well

Woke up with a twinge of pneumonia this morning. Dragged myself to work and met with Brett for a few hours, discussed work of Alex MacKenzie. Worked at home with a hot water bottle at my side the rest of day, getting ready for class and so on. Had a nap. Now it's back to bed.

wood

The new furniture arrived for our bedrooms today. I was getting very worried based upon the measurements that everything would seem too big and crowded, but it's basically just right. William has a new dresser and we have a new wardrobe. I also picked up some flats from the Theatre Department that are now our department's property so we can paint them and so on. Our studio will come alive.

shipping overseas

So I shipped my videos to Romania today. I went to the post office and found out that Romania isn't included in their express routes of Europe (which would have cost $51 for one week delivery) but could be sent Express via FedEx for about $61. I figured I was already buying into the $51 idea, so what's another ten? However, the only address I had was a post box and they won't send FedEx to a post box. Therefore I mailed it for $9 and just crossed my fingers.

end of tiring weekend

Today Margaret and the collective she's working with put up a show of their collage art at the Flatland studio. I got the four poetry videos done and will need to ship them tomorrow (the ones on PAL). William had a couple of play dates with Rowan this weekend as well as one with Xander today. Overall, everyone is pretty tired.

What is happening not at work

I've been working on a series of videos that respond to some specific poems for a European festival. I ran across the call for entries in a some random searches for experimental film last week. They are short and I've got some ideas so each of them shouldn't take long to make. I've made two so far (over past three days) and hope to make two more. I had the text read in French by one of my ex-students from Quebec to ensure a distinctive Canadian sound. He voice sounds great when recorded with the good dialogue microphone in the super-quiet recording studio. When I listen, I find myself whisked away into some inexplicable Godard film opening. The problem will certainly be in making sure that I get the right materials to them in time. Not only do I have only 10 days from today to get the discs over seas, but the requirement is specifically "PAL DVD". I shot raw footage for them with my still camera set to HD PAL mode (see still from film above), and have been editing in PAL. I'm certain that the DVD authoring software will let me work in PAL. However, I will have no idea if the disc I make will actually run when it gets there! I guess I'll create some quicktime back-ups for them on another disc.
William had the day off so he and Margaret ran errands. They cashed in the recycling for $13.50 and bought $3000 worth of furniture and appliances (a new juicer, a new dresser for William, and a wardrobe for our room: appliances to be delivered next week).

Chris Birch

Earlier this week I got a Facebook invite from one of my oldest friends, Chris Birch. I've not seen him in over 20 years. We met in grade 3, at the same age that William is now. He invited everyone to his birthday party and I couldn't come because of some conflict (lessons or something) but my mom thought I should got for a play date (before the invention of that term) the next day. Mom pulled a gift out of the closet, a stapler shaped like a cannon; why it was there in the closet I will never know. We had a great afternoon and were great friends for years, bowling, playing pinball, climbing on rooftops, cutting classes, stealing booze, and all the other stuff grade school boys do. My parents didn't like him for some reason. Today we caught up a bit over Facebook chat, although the information transfer was rather slow. I'd say we had a ten minute conversation that took an hour. Fun though. Lots of memories coming back.

Walmart

I went to the new Walmart mega-store that just opened up on the south end of the Lewvan here in Regina. Huge place. Huge. I went for the brand new Lego movie (it was better than most movies produced by Lego) and also left with four chocolate oranges I impulse purchased because they were 75% off ($1.11 each!).

vintage photo

How old is vintage? I don't really think any digital images are "vintage", but this one is from four years ago, so is "vintage William".

downhill

Went tobogganing with William for a while beside the store that isn't Walmart anymore.

I've discovered that my computer port for SD cards doesn't like the new 4 gig card I bought. It can read the information if I patch the usb cable into the camera, but it gets hung up on the port if I put the card into it. I wonder if it is the card size or the brand?

life, death, and everything in between

William's drawing on recent napkin. Must save everything in safety deposit box.

food for thought

I graded all of my Film 200 midterms today. Paul took the week off so we all went to the Novia for lunch since William and Margaret had eye exams this afternoon so William wasn't going back to school.

shopping

So far on this spring break I have done something significant each day, mostly work that I'm catching up on, but all without going anywere near the office. Feels pretty good, I've been a bit burned out this past month. Today I finally did some shopping in the east end, something I don't like to do when the whether is really bad. Paul and I did a furious race from place to place for two hours, starting with picking up my Kitchenade mixer that has been in the shop for two weeks. We also got to Futureshop where I got a 4Gb SD card for my camera and some fresh dvd-r discs. To Winners where I found some Sony headphones for William and a new red bowl. To JYSK where I found an egg cutter for my mom that she wanted. Then finally to Canadian Tire where I found a German-made carrot peeler and a new air pop popcorn maker. Why don't stores have air poppers anymore? They are really hard to find. Does everyone just microwave it now? That's just wrong. Anyway, after all that I got home and Margaret asks where the bowl is for the mixer, it was taken in with the machine to get it aligned. I had to go back but the woman there couldn't find it and the repair guy was gone and unreachable. She took my number and found it an hour later and delivered it. Excellent service. I made peanut butter cookies and biscotti after supper. I've never made peanut butter cookies before, they turned out well. I discovered too late that I was nearly out of chocolate chips so half the biscotti are made with busted up white Belgium chocolate instead.

super 8 running late?

I dubbed my super-8 film "Memories of Uncle's House" off of the recently printed One Take Super 8 Film dvd. It is odd because these films are each the exact same length, 3:30, and mine is 35 seconds longer on the dvd for no apparent reason. The soundtrack I created is the same length it used to be, so it ends the the remainder of the film runs in silence. I cracked it to my computer today and trimmed out bits that I didn't like until it fit the soundtrack. I figured that as it wasn't a pure film anymore, I might as well go further and I altered the colour a bit, turning it from black and white to more sepia.
William's acting class resumed today. I checked out HMV but nothing tickled my fancy. Maybe next week.

Road Trip

We pulled William from school today and drove up to Saskatoon. The forecast was for today to be the nicest day of the week. About five minutes out of town we hit fog that was incredibly dense and stayed with us until five minutes outside of Saskatoon where it miraculously parted.
Our main mission was to see the Mendal Art Gallery show. One show that required dust free shoe protectors was Marie Lannoo who works with reflective surfaces and light reflection. Here is William (a little bit unwilling since he really wanted to read the new Animorphs book we found an hour earlier at 8th Street Books) within her large central sculpture.

The big show as an amazing paper cut installation by Ed Pien. The security was tight so I didn't get many pictures (I don't think they like the idea of eight year olds running rampant in these complete patterns of paper hanging by stick pins, but in fact Margaret posed the greater hazard with her huge purse. One seven foot cylinder of paper featured holes through which you could look and see magical little tunnels.
Here is a tunnel and an image I snuck from above which shows the way they are constructed. We met up with an old friend Jamie and met her cats who would dwarf most normal cats. They were each at least triple the size of our cat. Before leaving town we had supper with Mike. The road was completely clear as we got gas at the Esso by the Teepee five minutes south of Saskatoon. We left the gas station three minutes later as the sun approached the horizon and collided with a fog bank denser than the one we faced this morning.
It was a white knuckle journey all the way home.

weary

It is family day today as well as the first day of reading week, so I wasn't at work. I've slept seven hours a night the past two nights, perhaps even more. That's the most sleep I've had in a row for months but I'm still wrecked. I just want to watch tv but can't really even do that because the moment I do, William is on my lap wanting to watch Penguins of Madagascar and he's already watched more tv than Margaret wants him to, so we are basically both cut off. I'm going to try to watch a bit of something on the portable with earphones under the radar. I did manage to watch "Waiting for Guffman", Christopher Guest's first film over the past couple days and found it disappointing. He doesn't take things as far as his later films like "Best in Show" or "Mighty Wind".
Old photos are nice to look at though. It always seems like an extravagance to leaf through old images. This one is from over four years ago. That was a great jacket on William and I think that I feel like the snowman looks.

Valentine's Day

We don't make a big thing out of Valentine's Day, but Margaret found some great flowers and chocolate and I made some shrimp in butter/garlic without overcooking them for once. William finished the fifth and final Percy Jackson/Lightning Thief book last night so this afternoon I took him tobogganing and Chapters shopping and he found a new series (The Warrior's Heir and the two sequels in a box set). This evening we watched one of the later (and very slapstick heavy) Pink Panther movies and tried to get to sleep early, although I'm certain William stayed up later than usual.

pre-Valentine's supper

William started his new weekly chore of making supper today. I guess I helped out as we bar-be-qued a whole chicken, but he decided on the menu, made the wild rice, washed carrots, set the table, and made a valentine. It was nice.

a "classic"?

We went to see "Lightning Thief" today (opening day) at the theatre. William started the first book of the set of five last Wednesday and I told him that we could go to the movie if he could finish the first one (350 pages) by today. William is currently reading book five! That's about 150 pages per day. The movie was fairly good. Margaret (who also read the book) says the movie lacks the subtlety of the book. I'm certain that anyone studying classics is appalled (I'm already seeing banter over the internet) but whatever. It's just a kid's movie about Greek gods.

weather or knot

As the weather turns, so does mine as I am under it. Ug. Went home sick after working in darkroom with Brett, missed faculty meeting where fireworks were certain, and instead of resting I worked on the midterm I've giving to my Film 200 students tomorrow (no clues here) and on the revisions to the pedagogy document that I have oodles of notes on but can never prioritize until now that there is pressure to move on it. Ug again. Feeling just bad enough to slow me down and make everything an effort, but not bad enough to put me to bed.

is it a fool moon?

There is guy, Geoff A, who Margaret was asking me about last week because he came to the art gallery and was ranting on about his million dollar company frozen due to his divorce and that he is producing films now. I talked to Mark Bradley at the MacKenzie opening a few days later and he'd had a run in with Geoff as well but had recognized the madness and not let him through the office door. It ends up that the film this guy was claiming to produce was for one of my students and now Geoff has disappeared in the middle of day two, leaving many things hanging including the unfinished acting role he was doing. I am a notorious crazy magnet so I can't figure out how I ducked him darkening my door, but too close for comfort.

Math

William says "Daniel is coming over in 30 to 45 minutes! That's just 15 minutes away!" Grade three math isn't what it used to be.

Time Bandits

We watched Gilliam's "Time Bandits" this evening. I have the great Criterion copy of it but haven't watched in in years. I tried to start it with William a year or so ago but the opening scene was to tense for him so we stopped it. This time he was totally into it. The few moments that were disquieting or confusing I reminded him that it was Terry Gilliam so he had to expect things to go wrong, and this satisfied him (recall that he has been loving the Gilliam animation from Monty Python for the past few months). We were delighted to find that the castle of ultimate darkness set at the end of the film was made of giant Lego, a detail I'd forgotten.

Daphne Odjig

This evening we went to a really amazing retrospective show of paintings by Daphne Odjig at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. A good crowd but a lot of regular art people were missing. Strange for such an important show. William was full of energy so I didn't spend as much time with the art as I'd have liked. Besides that, I had a very exhausting day at work with many details to take care of to cover three or four different approaches to rotoscoping animation (scratch directly into film, class frame by frame tracing to paper, After Effects, and Flash).

holey job!

I'm acting department head the rest of the week and just discovered that one of the darkroom sinks has a hole in it. On the up side, I was without meetings this afternoon and managed to figure out how to rotoscope using Flash, a system my students were using last year and found good success with.

picking up the pieces

This morning I rendered the videos for my student's animation site all over again, this time making them mpeg4 files rather than flash videos. They worked for a while but now appear to no longer work. Highly annoying.
This evening we went shopping for books and groceries. William started "The Lightning Thief this morning and read 200 pages of it already (over half) so I wanted to pick him up the sequels. Mostly we went for groceries so when we got home and were putting stuff away, Margaret dislodged something from atop our wonky cabinet that is sitting on top of an old table in the corner of the kitchen. Trying to get the item that had fallen behind it all resulted in the legs of the table collapsing and the whole thing coming to rest on top of a smaller shelf that we tucked beneath the table. To fix it we needed to quickly remove every item from the cabinet (and I don't even want to tell you the number of things we squirrel away in that warren) and screw the whole thing back together. Time for chocolate.

award

I'd like to congratulate Tatiana Maslany, who was on the winning team with me at the Saskatchewan Filmpool's first annual 48 Hour Filmmaking Frenzy six years ago. This weekend she received the special jury prize at Sundance this weekend. I know I can't take ALL the credit but...

growth

They grow up so fast.

tasty party

Tonight we went to the Cathedral Festival "Taste of Cathedral" fundraiser. We all got dressed up with ties and so on. William spent most of the evening dancing. There were two girls about his age there and they kept seeking him out whenever he took a break, even chasing him back to the dance floor when he chose to return. I've not had girls chase me like that since my purse snatching days.

Professor William

Last night I told William that I was teaching Lego as part of my animation class. He asked if he could come. Since he had the day off from school, I suddenly couldn't think of a good reason why not. I was intending on taking a couple of bins of his toys with me, so why not him as well? Margaret ushered him around, doing stuff while I did my class prep, and he came in for an hour and helped guide a workshop on building then animating with Lego. It was amusing to observed that while my students never interrupt me while I'm talking, he does not hesitate to do so.

June's tough day

Today June and I had arranged that I would speak to her class in St. John over MSN or instant messaging or whatever. We'd done it before but of course we re-tested it the other day (had a great chat) but of course when the class starts today we were unable to make it work. Personally I suspect her university server (I was at home) because often streaming video is difficult at our university, especially in the middle of a teaching day. In the end she showed some of my films and I answered some questions by typing as fast I could into the text message thing. A tough birthday for June.

snow

There was a lot of snow today. The university canceled classes. I dug a path all the way down the block for William to get to school, only 7 out of about 20 in his class made it in. They had a good morning and he was allowed to bring videos in the afternoon. However, he phoned at 1:15 to say that they'd voted on watching "Up" again in the gym and wondered if he could come home. My Grad Studies meeting was definitely not canceled (we barely had quorum so no one was allowed to leave) but Margaret was home so William took the afternoon off and finished the second book in the Nicholas Flamel books (book 2, the Magician, 460 pages). I ache from the amount of digging I did.

snow day

William and I stayed home all day, partially due to lack of health but equally due to excess of snow. Wow, there is a lot of it out there. I am almost finished my annual report to the university; just a couple last details and my cv to update and I can submit it. I also got a couple of student scripts read, so am finally almost on top of things. Margaret went to a collage collective session all weekend and created a nice new piece that combines paper onto wood with paint. Luckily she drove there with Gerri Ann from across the street who has a 4 wheel drive, else she'd have probably not made it there first thing this morning.

Blood and bugs

I just watched Blood Tea and Red String, a stop motion feature film without words that came out a few years ago. I always love to see these very small films made by a single individual over a decade. They don't come around every day, for obvious reasons.

MSN

I guess MSN isn't called that anymore. I don't think it even was when I used it for the first time a couple or three years ago. June and I had to hook back up with it this evening as a test for a repeat of the lecture I did for her class in '08. I'll be talking to student in St. John on Wednesday. We took quite a while to get the sound working. It ended up fixing itself after she rebooted, so it looks like we're in the clear.

Avatar

Paul and I went to Avatar in 3D tonight. I don't think there is much to say about it that hasn't been said. It was very entertaining, although a large portion of that entertainment was certainly the 3D. I don't think there is enough story to engage me to watch it again in 2D without good reason, such as perhaps taking William to it. He hasn't seen Pocahontas, so it will still offer some surprises for him.
I have someone auditing my Film 200 class, which is a first. I didn't actually think we allowed that, but if we don't I'm sure it will get caught up somewhere. He didn't know that we started the course two weeks ago so he's missed 2/13th of the term. At least now there is someone older than me in the room.
Margaret has a demo Valentine card as part of Dunlop workshop thing for teenagers in the current promo material for the gallery. It is based on one of my ideas (uncredited of course).
I also finally started posting the student's test animation for my class: take a look.

why does a normal work day seem so abnormal?

Margaret has her mom's car today so we took the opportunity to get our car into the shop for a few minor things, a burned out headlight, an oil change, a couple of worn out belts, and fortunately for a slow leak in a tire we'd not noticed. It was a bit of a rush to get it in since I had multiple meetings including a presentation to Weyburn high school students I'd not planned for until earlier this week. Margaret swapped a shift with someone to accommodate my extended meeting schedule (to be home for William's lunch). William, through a misunderstanding of the teacher, left school 10 minutes early and came home. The school called, but it was really all fine. He apparently had a great morning since they concentrated on art and science. Too tired already and my prep for tomorrow's class is not quite done.

humor

I've had a headache for the past two days. Last night I just couldn't face blogging, although I didn't got to bed like I should have and opted to watch Chuck instead. Yesterday Chrystene dropped by my office and we talked about the graphic novel drawing class she is teaching. Conversation turned to small strips, three or even one panel, as a useful exercise and challenge. I always believe that looking at bad work is as useful as studying the good. Of course this leads me to complain once again to the Chuckle Brothers. In some sort of masochistic daily routine, I read Chuckle Brothers first when I open the newspaper every morning. They consistently always disappoint. I think that THIS might lead to a daily strip of theirs since their web site does not see to work.Today I started a project with my class that will lead to us developing a sit com to shoot in class that will hopefully be ridiculously funny. The Chuckle Brothers will be our compass.

Is Book of Eli based on Wheat Soup?

Kevin and I went to "The Book of Eli" tonight. We didn't expect much and so it was a bit better than we expected. I was reminded of "Wheat Soup" at least a handful of times throughout it, not only the basic story (which was not highly original in either case: a lone traveler in a wasteland, guided by the principles in a book he carries) but more so by the lens choices, it being shot in telephoto with significant heat waves, long takes, and even a 500 mm sunset shot at the very end. Subtle but amusing corresponding elements kept me quite amused throughout.

who nose

My nose is sore, as if I bumped it although I didn't. I think it has an infection in it, this happened to me a couple of years ago and I finally went to my doctor. Today, even though it was Saturday, I decided to chance a drop in on my doctor's office. Not only were they not open but his name is no longer listed on the door! I looked him up in the phone book and on line and he is still listed as being there but their answering machine also does not list him.

Friday class

I was pleased to find competent and helpful people at the university today. I had my animation class in the "fishbowl" media lab where I have never actually taught before and the tech showed up later than we'd planned, but still half hour before class. He had already got the information about my log in. He then stuck around to make sure the students could log on. They couldn't, so he gave us an alternative plan that allowed us to work without delay.

Holmes

This evening Paul consented to stay with William (watching every short Madagascar video we have on the dvr) while Margaret and I finally got out to Sherlock Holmes. Liked it a lot. I particularly liked how they depicted the ways he fought, showing in slow time how quickly his mind will come up with solutions and act upon them. There is a pattern in films that if a character reveals a plan, such as with a heist film, then the plan is doomed to fail. However, Holmes succeeds in these mini-plans, demonstrating his advanced intelligence. He would really look foolish if he believed he could defeat someone using some random blow to a knee but then fails; that would discredit him and be contrary to the entire character. It just worked very well.
There was a buzz in the bass in the sound system that could rarely be heard during the movie since there were no quiet scenes, but was likely hiding beneath the sound somewhere (Southland Mall).

Brett session one

Today I started a course with Brett Bell on experimental filmmaking. I've known Brett for over 20 years so this initially seemed a bit obtuse for me to be teaching him anything, but we all have our own little specializations so it seems that I can find a few things to share with him. It's also the first time in a few years that I've actually had a one on one conversation with him that didn't take place in a university hallway or at a film function buffet table. It's interesting to talk about the 80s with someone who knew most of the same people. It is also great to talk to someone about filmmaking who does not need to have iso or fps or linear video explained to them before diving into something deeper. I look forward to more of these sessions.

warm snow

The weather has finally turned warm enough for snow to stick together. I had work late but William, Margaret, and Sylvie got busy with the snow goons.

book report

William did his oral book report on the first Cirque de Freak book at school today; wish I could have seen it. I was a bit worried since he is likely still a bit sick and often gets grumpy when he's sick. In fact at lunch time when I talked to him on the phone he was quite upset that they'd not done the presentations in the morning. He practiced a bit yesterday, staring down at his page and mumbling through it. I told him that he should look up now and then and not be afraid of breaking from his script. He says he took my advice. He volunteered to go first, addressed the group with things like "Who wants to hear about the characters?" and says that everyone told him it was a good presentation.

weekend

Last night I just couldn't blog. While Saturday morning was certainly a dad/son dream as William and I lounged on the couch in our pajamas and watched "Fist Full of Dollars", the afternoon turned more challenging as we ventured into the freezing air to see the "Ice and Fire" festival. Returning home, we had Steve from across the street over for supper. He brought smoked ribs and port roast and we consumed it in large portions with even larger portions of wine, sipping and talking until one AM. William didn't eat much and went to bed feeling sick (not from the supper, it started earlier, but some sort of stomach thing). Today was a bit more casual as William's stomach was more upset that ours (we were the ones to consume five bottles the night before, not him) so the day was spent at home. I built my Darth Vader tie fighter Lego set that William bought be for Christmas. This evening Kevin and I saw Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" which I thought was amazing. We didn't get much of a chance to talk afterward (he has painting prep waiting for him) but we talked briefly about the Devil character, cleverly played by Tom Waits and who, contrary to all of the hype around the Heath Ledger and his replacements, was really the show stealer.

Dog Named Christmas

William and I watched "Dog Named Christmas" this evening. It was shot in Saskatchewan last summer so I recorded it. It was highly cliche and predictable (telegraphed so loudly that even William wasn't surprised by any turns of events) but you need to remember that it WAS a Hallmark (the greeting card company) Christmas special, so that need to be taken into account. For what it was, it was very nicely done.

Getting ready

I spent the day getting ready for the first day of the Film 200 class tomorrow. Even though I've taught this course many times over the past 11 years, I never feel ready. Even as I write this, with the class starting in 13 hours, it occurs to me that I have not prepared enough clips to show. The big change is that the lab is separate so I will have 45 minutes more time each week to teach. I've put a bunch of content back in that I had in my early notes but have removed over the years. I'll also be able to show more example of films and perhaps get a camera our and do mock up shoots more often (did I book a camera for tomorrow??? gasp!!!).

sitting on my backside

I got William up early again today, he might actually be able to survive school tomorrow! He's relaxing and reading in bed after a rigorous day of watching movies. I was able to take the afternoon off and take him to Astro Boy. The line up was hideously slow with numerous people buying multiple tickets for themselves to watch multiple movies through the day so we missed the first five minutes but it was quite enjoyable. This evening we watched the new double episode of Dr. Who. William wanted to and I warned him that I would stop it if it got too scary but it was a good action episode so we all enjoyed it.

catching up

Last night I was at Kevin's house and he'd been trying to get his daughters back onto school schedule; they'd been staying up until 10. He was starting to get them up early so they would get back into the right schedule. Of course when I got home, close to 11, William was still awake even though he was exhausted all day. Taking a page from Kevin's book, I woke William before eight this morning. He's still up as I write the (nearly 10:30).
I thought I was going to go to the office today but decided to send out an email or two before I left, just a couple of things that could be done from home that I said I'd do before classes start. The day evaporated under a barrage of "little things". I suppose it didn't help that William watched the same scene from "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" off Youtube over and over again on the computer beside me for two hours -- more than a bit distracting.
I shipped off my film "Cake" to The 8 Fest in Toronto; it will be screened there at the end of this month. They are only screening original film so of course I shipped off the super-8 roll.

comfort and computing

Last week I finally rearranged the computer room so that the two computers are side by side instead of back to back. While I think my first layout was clever, the room was about a foot too small to make it work so we were constantly knocking into the walls, rolling the table, and using one computer more than the other (mine of course). So now they are a bit crowded but functioning. However, the floor, being a bit crooked, has the chairs rolling to one side so this afternoon we bought a nice rug for under the chairs and it feels quite cozy.

Gerald mention on Wikipedia

There is a Wikipedia entry for the late great Regina artist Roger Ing. A film clip that I uploaded to the film archives and have declared to be public domain (as part of a project I wanted all the students to do last year) is liked to the Wikipedia site.
Today was very cold but William and I went swimming anyway. I thought I would die but then we spent 15 minutes in the sauna and now I feel warm at last. I bought a new Carcassonne set with 72 more tiles. The map will be huge now.

New Years Day, new Lego

Today we went for our annual traditional brunch at Gertrud's house: crepes and berries and whip cream. It was -50 with the wind chill factor so our car, not being plugged it, wasn't going to start. Paul drove us and we went back to his place afterwards. He had ordered some amazing Lego for himself, the hotel and the cafe, and had also ordered the super cool medieval village for us! William put half of it together after we got home. I sorted pieces for him (it is a 1600 piece set, the largest I've ever done) and William did all the building. Check out his blog for more images. See Margaret and I in the mirror in this image (click to see enlarged image).