Farmers Markets and Film School

So, oh my goodness - Vancouver Farmers Markets are the bees knees. I had neglected to go, mostly because I'm lazy - and went the first week of September and again this past week.

The first week I went, it was a nice sunshiny day - I bought a couple of buttons to start. Then I perused the fantastic assortment of goodness! I bought corn from Chiliwack, carrots, green beans, all kinds of plums, all kinds of tomatoes, pork sausages, bread and THE BEST PEACHES EVER.

On another note, I've discovered the kind of people who shop at these markets seem the finer kind. I dropped $15 dollars, and after scouring the ground for a few minutes, I mentioned to the info desk that maybe perhaps if anyone might turn some in, that it would be great if it could be returned to me. Needless to say, I was positive I would never see that $15 again. This thought was quite depressing, as I fully intended to spend it on delicious vegetables. Whilst I was deciding which tomatoes looked the most exotic, the kind woman from the info desk came to find me - saying someone had found and returned my $15! I was sooo very happy, not to mention grateful!

This past week I picked up more tomatoes (more different kinds), peaches (so, so good), corn, bell peppers and carrots. This was after a trip to T&T to pick up some steamed buns, which I just can't get enough of apparently.

So, this week was my first week in the SFU film program. I downed a cappuccino (yes, I've finally broken into coffee) and approached the Woodwards building downtown. I walked into that classroom and it felt like my heart had dropped into my stomach. I've been waiting for this for a long time, and it was almost surreal being there. It was both gratifying and nerve wracking, glorious and humbling.  At last surrounded by people who share the same passions, yet who come from so many different backgrounds. There's a fellow from Germany, a fellow from the Czech Republic, folks from Alberta, from BC, from Africa! All with different aspirations and ideas!

My lab time was incredible! We were given black and clear film leader, exacto knives and sharpies to draw, colour and carve into this film... Learned how to splice properly, which was fantastic. And the sheer differential in ideas between 6 people given the same media in the span of 3 hours. I'm excited to see the rest of the class' work next week!

I've found out I'm in the last shoot group in the semester, so I'll be shooting my first semester film the beginning of November. It seems a long ways away, but I have lots of time to formulate my plan. We're each given basic equipment and two one hundred foot rolls of 16mm film, and we can do whatever we want. We can work alone, we can work in groups. Next week we start getting into the nitty gritty with the Bolex's. It'll be interesting to see how I'm actually supposed to use one, instead of just sort of guessing.

In book news, I highly, highly recommend David Mamet's Bambi vs Godzilla. If you have any interest in the film business, screenwriting, film history... it's a fantastic book chalk-full of Mamet's extremely intelligent insights on many of the strange discrepancies in Hollywood and it's politics. I'd say it's one of the better books on film I've read! I've just started to read Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought and am so far finding it goes in one ear the out the other, but hopefully I'll find a foothold in this psychology mind-brain mumbo jumbo.

In film news, I've been trying to watch more new films these days. I have a list about 43 miles long filled with films I have yet to see, everything from Citizen Cane to the Godfather Part II to Dirty Harry. I caught up on films like Se7en, Man on the Moon and Juno earlier in the week. Se7en was mentioned about a half dozen times in my first film lecture and lab, so it was bumped to the top of my watch list. Juno was alright. I've heard from lots of people that it's horrible and lame, while others hailed it as brilliant. I'm just going to say it was pretty darn adorable, and that's that.

I watched Fantastic Mr Fox, whose level of detail truly blew me away. Although Wes Anderson irks me a bit (although he does produce superb and unique films), Fantastic Mr Fox is a real piece of work. The detail in each and every character - yet the small reminders of the imperfections of the artist, the shifting of the fur during stop motion, some fingerprints in clay. The styling is just genius. The tall, lanky, awkward foxes; the thin, devlish rats; the bizarre enigma that is the opossum. Wes Anderson and Rauld Dahl might be a good combination after all!

Another film I just watched was John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. And although this seems a rather typical 80's kung fu action flick, I've got to say that it was a lot of fun to watch. Kurt Russel's character of the 'hysterical American' just cracked me up. I was also a big fan of his all-American mullet and 'wife-beater'. I may need to invest more time in John Carpenter's films. I believe the only other of his I've sort of seen is Escape from New York, which I may or may not have fallen asleep in.

If you want some amazing classic film fun, I'd recommend checking out this YouTube video, in which classic movie scenes are dubbed over by Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick Starr, Squidward Tentacles and Sandy Cheeks. So, so great.

Anyways, I hope everyone's having a great September/start of their fall semesters. I'm trying to get my hands on another part time job to fill up my weekends, but that search isn't going so well.

Ps everyone, Rainbow Owl is still on sale! He's gotten a tremendous amount of views, but no takers just yet! He's sitting here on my Wii feeling quite lost without a home. Anyone? Bueler?

Via Sponginess Gifs!