Booking. Thunder. Casting. Lightning.

August is upon us. Insert typical comment on how time flies here.

I have been in Alberta for five weeks already... my time with the Banff Centre has almost expired... already! As I juggle preproduction and a job that requires a larger amount of creative input than I'm used to, I'm finding myself relatively exhausted. Though, the mountains are a strange source of energy, and of inspiration. Going for tea at the Centre every morning usually comes with the unique pleasure of coming within arms distance of an elk or deer in the crisp grass. Walking through the streets and watching as a thundering storm comes down the valley (there have been a lot of these this year). Whether or not I am able to see things more clearly is up for debate, but I am seeing things differently.

The film is going through various stages of really stressing me out, but I suppose that's the litmus test for learning new things. We had a very decent turn out for auditions - I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm brought into the audition studio by people who had travelled a fair distance to get to me.  We had people from Cochrane, Calgary, Canmore, even Brooks. Some great ideas, thoughts, and criticisms came out of these sessions - I'd say it was a phenomenal first attempt at casting in Alberta. We received interest from CKUA, and a very cool lady named Meagan Clark came out and did a quick interview with me Monday morning. This was very, very cool. Talking about my project to people who want to hear it just gets me going, and forms these lovely creative ebbs that just carry me along through my lengthy preproduction days.

And of course, I will begin thanking people now - even though my thank-yous will continue until this film reaches the eyes of an audience and beyond... much thanks to old film camp friend, Amanda, for being my reader and casting assistant, plus keeping me company for like... twenty hours. And much thanks as well to Sandra, for use of her very nostalgic and fantastic dance studio.

It was great being able to hear my script being read for the first time, and some people brought some really interesting things to their characters. It's a feeling you really remember. The film has never felt more real, more exciting, and now we're really in the deep end.

The entire filmmaking process seems a series of financial and emotional ups and downs, this film providing the biggest yet. I feel a teensy bit bipolar when an e-mail favouring or stomping on my pre-production arrives on my phone and I proceed to act accordingly. If it's good news, yes - I'm awake, I'm ready, let's do this - let's go send more e-mails! If the news is bad - it's the apocalypse, the world is abysmal. In a single thought, it's exhausting. It's a delicate balance I'm not that great at keeping up. As anyone who has probably had to stand a conversation with me for more than 5 minutes in the past month knows.

New Logos are happening while I should
probably be doing other things

As my brain boils in my skull, I've been soothing my soul with Luciano Pavarotti, Tchaikovsky, Shubert... plus, soothing my 12 year old self with Spongebob Squarepants and Adventure Time therapy treatments every day or two. In the past year, I think I've started to understand how to handle myself under stress. (Finally) after five years of post-secondary... stress doesn't mean the whole system grinds to a halt any more. And that is super!

I've assembled a handy little crew, made of a unique blend of SFU film students, SAIT alumni, plus some extras. A bit of good news, or a budget reduction goes a long way. There's a lot of work to be done, as there will be through until the production phase of 'My Old Flame' is complete.

The more time I spend away from Vancouver, the more of this weird relief I feel. It's going to be a busy last year, but I will graduate in the spring, pack up, and move to a new city.

Cheers,

Things to check out:

Please, please, please - check out this TEDtalk by Colin Stokes - "How movies teach manhood"

Shakey Films have a new thing going on - check out the trailer(s) for JIMBO.

The first annual Moonrise Film Fesitival - TONS of SFU content in this one!

I'll probably be Tweeting/Instagraming the crap out of my production - follow Agriotherium Films on the Twitter

Oh bother.

“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.” 

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Smaller, more feeble brainstorms

Fall's here. There are large spiders amassing some sort of army in my back yard. There is a single pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. There are large scale brainstorms taped to my bedroom wall. And we go to picture in three weeks! It's this extreme combo of explosive excitement and withering fear. It's a tremendous rush, this challenge. I know there are going to be many that are similar in nature to it, but never twice the same. 

I'm so excited to have other people excited about my project. It's like... extrapolated excitedness. I've gotten a pile of submissions for auditions, and I just feel grateful Vancouver has such a large, strong and many-tiered acting community. Casting is something I've never done on my own before, and it's a combination of waiting, scheduling, papers (flying everywhere), but ultimately, I'm finding the experience quite rewarding. A few friends have really helped me out in getting my 'casting legs' and I really owe them a great deal. Especially when I text them with panicked, insignificant questions at all hours; 'SO WHAT IF THIS HAPPENS', 'DO I NEED TO DO THIS?', 'WHAT IF EVERYONE HATES ME?!' etc.

The beginnings of much, much larger brainstorms

I'm doing all of these new things like casting and prop renting and gear renting and doing a bunch of copyright research (oh god). It's hurdle after hurdle, but everything is quite attainable. Often through the  help of other souls' wisdom and Google, that is. There are so many ways to go about getting things done in pre-production. Although, I know it would be tons easier with a production manager, I see great value in stepping through the process a few times alone, seeing how I fare - taking the time to recognize how long some of these processes take and the hoops you've got to jump through sometimes to get an answer. I don't know, I'm pretty stoked on it.

It seems every week has a bit of a 'themed worry', i.e. last week I flipped about gear shortages combo money shortages and having to deal with rental houes. This week, the theme seems to be casting jitters (large LARGE casting tremors). Next week, whooo knooows. Probably props. Let's just call next week, 'The week Laurel freaks about props'. By the time we go to picture, everything will come full circle. We'll finish shooting, I'll go into short term hibernation (also called torpor, hummingbirds do it - science!), disappear for a few days, then come back relatively right as rain. By then I can stress about editing until the end of tiiiime. Hopefully, I can budget my time (ha) to accomodate some tiny, but rich, stop motion animated scenes into my film (which also might have a sort of working title now) - I got pretty amped on stop motion again after seeing ParaNorman.

I bought a new tea pot, I am pleased

It's pretty great to be writing again. The screenwriting class I have semester has been a lot of work so far, but it just sort of opened up some doors that haven't been opened for some time. The class demands fairly large assignments each week, but they're very open. The more I get to writing, the easier it comes to me, the more I enjoy it. Whether I am improving or not is to be seen, but it's becoming less of a chore.

Anyways.

Sorry the photos are so boring this week. I'm waiting for some 35mm film scans to come back from the lovely humans at CustomColor and Beau Photo. Then there will be so many photos!

It's inching towards sweater weather people, break out 'dem long sleeves!

Feast your brain upon:

I definitely got stuck in a YouTube loop with Vsauce 2 the other day. Just a short, periodically released video about cool mechanics and tech. Plus! There's links to anything, so you can do some learnin'.

An awesome article on this nutburgers sabre-toothed herbivore that once roamed the Earth.

Check out the fundraiser for the City of Vancouver Archives! Old photographs! Huzzah!

The event of the year, second only, maybe, to Christmas - VIFF kicked off today! Pick up a catalogue and pick out some new, wild things to see! Also come visit! I'm volunteering at the wonderful, wonderful Vancity Theater.

Super-congratulations to Sophie Jarvis, a recent film graduate of SFU, who landed her short grad film 'Worst Day Ever' at VIFF (amongst a bunch of other festivals) make sure you catch it in the short program Break Even!