Tail end of trials.

Oh hey!

So much is going on in my brain right now. I'm slowly making progress through infinite projects - so things are okay. On the other hand, I've got infinite papers to write in the next seven days and that makes me sort of sad - but the light at the end of the tunnel is so close, it's just a matter of getting there eventually.

Large steps are being made in slow-motion with my short film. And on top of that, I would like to announce it's screening on May 17th! Along with the premier of my newest, shiniest short film, I am assembling a super-team of projects from other filmmakers in the city. It will be full of awesome short films, super rad music videos, trailers for upcoming features, and webseries previews! It's going to be super great, and the program gets more exciting with each passing day. If you follow my film Tumblr (here) there will be filmmaker bios, printable posters, and lots of other fun stuff. The Facebook event is also up!

The past three months have been tedious. It's an exhaustion associated with school, it's like the itch I can't scratch because I'm paying not to itch it or something. It's weird. I'll be very pleased to leave University for good. I'm sure a more lengthy retrospective on the topic will be at hand upon completion.

Needless to say, I can't wait to fall in love with film again this summer.

SO MANY THINGS TO CHECK OUT

First Year Screening is THIS WEDNESDAY!

SFU Student Composers in Concert is THIS THURSDAY!

Second Year Screening is NEXT WEEK!

Third Year Screening is on the 22nd!

Fourth Year Screening kicks off the month of May!

My Screening! Plan your May long weekend with some cinema!

Vote for spectacular singer/songwriter Alea Rae in CBC's Spotlight competition!

Some SFU graduates have a voteable project up on Storyhive!

Some more SFU graduates also have a project up on Storyhive!

Sometimes you just need a building orchestral score and clips of things to inspire you again

Stirring it up

 Well here it is! Happy ten days into the new year. And though I'm aware the year is rather an arbitrary number, and really, any day is just like the next, the budding of a 'new year' instills in the hearts of the Western world, something nice for a while. Something intrinsically hopeful. Though I wish these feelings would sweep over the nation more than once every cycle around the sun, I'll take what I can get.

Graduation is nigh! It's been a long time coming, but the light at the end of the tunnel! I can see it! I am convinced it will be the spiritual equivalent of the new years of my twenties, if that makes any sense. After my first week of classes this semester, I am acutely aware that this last semester, unfortunately, will not be easy on me. But everything's so close to the end, I'm a little hard-pressed to care.

Coming back to the city after Canmore is always a little disappointing. It's a loud and busy place, where there are more people to ignore you - then you realize it takes an hour and a half by bus to really 'get outside' in the traditional sense. I definitely don't ever want to forget what living in a small town is like.

Something I tried really hard to do this past Christmas was shop for local things in Vancouver (I also tried to say 'happy holidays' to someone instead of 'merry Christmas' and got an overreaction that I was not impressed by - I'm wishing you well for your holidays, whatever they are - I don't have to, you know - I can say, 'thanks for your purchase, don't get your damn knickers in a twist', but please, continue to make mountains out of mole-hills). This ended up being a slightly more expensive, and time-consuming venture - but the return was quite rewarding. At numerous locally-built and maintained shops, people are willing to chat (about literally anything), help you make decisions. I had a nice chat for almost an hour with a woman in a shop on Granville Island who was selling a local designer's clothes. Talked distilleries with a couple of the new ones in town - I think my favourite has to be Odd Society Spirits - I love their labels and I sort of put Cremé de Cassis in everything over the holidays. It made shopping a little more of an adventure. I remember my first year I lived here I did most of my shopping at Metrotown. I do not go there any more. For anything. Ever.

This, in conjunction with a recent brain-bubble, has made me very interested in consumerism as a power, and a choice. And this includes all form of consumerism - what you're eating, watching, buying, and buying into. I was listening to the CBC recently and they were talking about the Weather Channel (a private company) and their website, explaining the sensationalized storms they choose to name  (similar to naming hurricanes) outside of the NOAA's classification system, the cat videos they fill their page view quotas with when there aren't any extreme weather phenomenon to report on or spin into a wild news craze. I consider this akin to those awful morning talk shows (and many other things) I re-experienced while having access to satellite over the holidays. I sit and look at it and think, 'who is putting money into this? Who keeps watching this? How does this crap continue existing?' I am always at a distinct, mind-boggling loss for answers. How does this mindless generation of sub-par, fear mongering, and ultimately ignorant content keep getting bigger, angrier, and more profitable? It's like the overstimulation olympics - who can cram as many little white lies, useless information, and out-of-context sound bites as possible into a news segment about a cat fashion show.

It's extremely easy to make misinformed, or uninformed decisions in a time where everyone is out to get your attention and your dollar. It's exhausting to think of the implications I am purchasing into when I buy a brand of clothing or food. Who or what am I exploiting by buying this product? The lists are usually long and very depressing.

I think maybe it's something we don't think of often enough; consumerism as a power. I've always felt that my own voice in the world wouldn't ever do much - how do you say anything to the people who run the world. It seems the best mode for any exchange of ideas (much to my chagrin) is through the mysterious channels of money. As much as I like consuming fish, I'm well aware of the debacle around wild and farmed fish stocks. I make a decision not to purchase fish products or eat fish, even though it is highly accessible and I like it. It seems a very 'first world' sacrifice - that's because it is. I think because the first world has such vast access to things, people think they have the right to a vast access of things. Maybe 'right' is the wrong word. But ultimately just because you can doesn't mean you should. It's an incredible responsibility, and in a marketplace in which you alone are what determines what is and is not consumed, it takes willpower. And to be honest, I think we all can use a little more of that.

I am in the middle of a disheartening work of non-fiction by Farley Mowat called Sea of Slaughter. He systematically goes through species that have been ruthlessly decimated not out of need but out of greed in North America. I read about a once bountiful ocean, the one that existed some 300 years ago, and I look at what's left. The hollow shell left behind by an over-excited industrial complex. The sense that seems common to me would be to use a natural resource with enough knowledge and foresight to allow it to replenish, and ultimately, live so that the next generation of Homo sapien can also benefit from it. But what seems to happen, again and again (and again) is a resource (in this case, any plant or animal ever to be determined to attract capital) is tapped, hunted until it becomes a valuable commodity, then it is beaten to extinction while being marketed to a higher class of people without a whole lot of forethought. It's all for the dollar. It was just this step-by-step syphoning of every resource into the pockets of tycoons. It still happens - and it will continue to happen because people seem to be able to remove themselves from the global situation if they have enough money. It's just very frustrating. Well not just just. It's huge, hairy, and rather frightening.

Anyways, I could talk myself in circles about this stuff forever. I have a bunch of global identity thoughts I've been mulling about as well. But I'll save those for another time. It's a hard thing to put into coherent sentences because I am aware of all of the things I don't know (which are plenty), and all of the misinformation I have probably consumed about these things. And what's worse is I feel really cheesy talking about it - preaching the helicopter parenting of the 24-hour news cycle, and that we need to save the planet. But come on. The writing has been on the wall for decades. When I talk about these sorts of things, tag lines from Hollywood films always come to mind. Everything has already been said. A thousand times over.

Ultimately, always consume with a conscious. Whether it be the blogs you read, the olives you put in your martini, the illin' kicks you bought online, or the cat videos you endlessly scroll through - it all exists inside your sphere of influence.

Anyways, anyways.

There aren't really any resolutions for me this year. Because I've known for a while what I've got to get done in 2014. The list is long.

I'm revamping my Etsy site this weekend (so keep an eye out) - with some new things! Recent findings have found me to be as broke as ever, and I can't seem to get a job even bagging groceries - so I guess I will just make things out of other things. Want a monster made of felt? Or possibly any other material? I am your lady.

Oh - and all of you in Vancouver - Save the Date: May 17th, 2014 - I am hosting and programming an afternoon of film and video projects (plus the premier of my most recent short film), complete with opportunities to eat, drink, network, and be merry! It's at the infinitely lovely Vancity Theatre, and it will be full of great people and wonderful things. So make sure you're around!

I decided to list some of my favourite things that I can remember discovering in 2013, that you can also absorb into your body of consciousness - I am astounded by what I currently cannot remember, surely there were more things than this - links below!

Things to listen to:

Sword & Sworcery soundtrack 'Ballad of the Space Babies' by Jim Guthrie

Things to read:

The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripp by George Saunders

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

An Astronaut's Guide to Life On Earth by Chris Hadfield

Things to view:

Rheanna Toy's short film, NINA, was accepted into the National Screen Institute's online film festival!

Learn about the BEE PROBLEM

Upstream Color

Orange is the New Black

Hannibal

Everything will probably be fine.

Well, we did it. With the generous help of some superb individuals, principal photography on 'My Old Flame' is complete! This week has been a whirl of things that are the opposite of vacationing, but I guess I can vacation when I am dead. After wrapping last Sunday, seeing my Vancouver and Edmonton crew off, and dropping gear back to Calgary on Monday - I shot a series of promotional videos in Canmore for three businesses, took my drivers test (passed, having only had an inking of how to parallel park for about 12 hours), and got home Saturday morning to a city that feels vacant, and yet, is absolutely brimming with noise.

We had a great cast - composed of Rachelle Tomm, Joe Morris, Chelsea Restall, and Joanne Hope.  All wonderful to work with, able to look beyond their lines and right into their character. Plus, our dynamite crew - Daniel Jeffery (assistant director), Christian Lai (gaffer), Nataliya Fedulova (production designer), Justin Madsen (sound), Lauren Tamke (camera assistant), and Amy Diedrich (hair and make-up). We also had some help from Robert - and for our overnight shoot at Café Books - we had the generous super-help of Joy Mclean, Jocey Asnong, and Jasmin Nadeau.

Plus, support from Amanda Suhan, Sandra Wheeler, Sue Girard, Rheanna Toy, Joel Salaysay - and of course, mom and dad - who housed and catered the entire affair, much to their collective horrors. Numerous thanks as well to Panavision, William F Whites, Clairmont Camera, and FAVA.

It's really hard communicating the size of  film set when you're about to move into a location. The people and the gear are always more than they expect. It was even a surprise for my parents, who were slightly overwhelmed by the number of things in their kitchen. Thankfully, we weren't in any space too long, and we had people with decent amount of patience on your side. I made sure we were fully insured, I laid out everything clearly to all of the locations involved. My typical 65% organized was up at about 90%, and that's nice when that happens. I do think it was a success. We got everything done with ample time, everyone was happy (I think), and it's always nice dealing with film. We had only one unloading issue, and one camera trouble shooting issue - which was promptly solved by me throwing batteries around. We cool.

Things I have (re)learned:

1. For the love of god, always ask questions, questions do not hurt

2. Get a crew you like, and who can get a long with each other, especially when the project is on your dime - that one person who's not on the ball can drag the whole thing around

3. It's tough, but you've got to lead a stress example, the moment you become stressed is the moment everyone else becomes stressed and things get messy
4. If your film spaghettis in the change bag, don't panic, even if it turns in a horrible, knotted monster - somewhere there is a beginning of that roll, and an end
5. If you can, get more gear than you need - I supplied my crew with tons of most things, why? Because on a lot of sets I've worked on, there is a lack of one thing that makes everything slog along - whether it's something as inconsequential as tape, clothespins, sandbags - or things like food, drink, and dry socks
6. Stick to your guns - if your vision butts up against an obstacle on set, push right on through - that vision is what will keep this thing together in the end
7. Repeat the mantra: everything will probably be fine

Thank you, everyone - for your ongoing support, your hard work, and your standard of excellence that helped push this production forward!

In this lull that is pre-post-production, and after my relocation to Vancouver - it hardly feels it happened it all. The only telling factor is a stack of 14 rolls of film sitting in my house that wasn't there previously, and a duffel bag in the middle of the kitchen that I am too lazy to unpack. The sooner I can get that film developed, the sooner I can feel like something was accomplished (I mean, something other than a fun shoot). The next steps for me concern a stop motion character who I wrote in (and shot very... unorthodox plates for). The research phase will be a little longer, as he will be a fully articulate figure. I'll be sure to post updates as those arise. 

After an evening of Whistler grapefruit ale on Saturday, and a morning brunch at Thyme to Indulge on Sunday, yesterday was my half day of holiday before getting back into the thick of things. School starts today - it will be an intrepid year of strange things. It feels like there's a bit of a storm on the horizon, but it isn't very clear. There are tons of shoots, and I'm very pleased to be crewing on many of them.

After such a strange, stress-saturated summer, I'm feeling ready, these days, for the cool, sweater-weather of fall. Though, with some bitterness, as I felt I have squandered these summer months in editing suites and not doing anything outdoorsy at all. I picked up some spicy Camino hot chocolate today, so when that damp chilly snap comes, warming beverage and alpaca hair sweaters are in arms reach.

Great news! My fall 2012 film, My Favourite Things, has been selected for the second annual Canadian Young Actors Film Festival! Tickets are $10 for the Gala and Awards on September 21st! More information here! This is the first of my films to be accepted into a festival - I'm super proud of my cast - Eliana, Tytan, and Dawson - pleased as pie! Thank you, as well, to my crew, classmates, and supporters!

Things to look at!

Human Town! A webseries I key gripped on for a few days, produced, in part, by a bunch of SFU grads - it's dark and wonderful, check it out, throw them some support!

Check out SFU grad, Graeme Achurch's film, The Rat on the Contender's Magazine blog!

Chelsea, who played the role of Teddy in 'My Old Flame' also has a blog! Check her out - notes about acting, writing, and life in general

Pop culture ice cream.

One of my favorite Tumblr, second only to Gene Kelly's Butt.

A reminder: Astronaut's advice

Moving Forward: Reflections on three years of film school (sort of)

Well, another screening has come and gone. Another year of university has done the same. Relieved and incredibly nervous that this time next year I'll be headed out of my post-secondary career and out into the deep end.

The SFU 3rd Year Screening: Free was two Thursdays ago, and it was tremendous - thank you to everyone who came out to see our films. 'A Spoonful of Sugar' was pleasantly received. It was great to show something in the theater again, I always forget what that rush is like. My classmates' films were absolutely top-notch, and I've got to say it's our best screening yet. I can't wait to see what everyone pulls off next year.

Multiple-front pre-eminent disaster.

Well, now that I've rung in my twenty-second year on this planet - I've got to say, it feels like the past year has been this set-up to make this year one of change, opportunity, and brain-building. It sort of feels like I'm stepping off of a high wall into something uncertain, but good. But I have a feeling I've probably said something to that effect before. Who can say.

There's a deep foreboding hedgehog that's sitting in the pit of my stomach concerning this spring. Summer will be a time of busy-ness and celebration - but between now and then, I'm not so sure. It's either a bad bit of deja-vu or some new fangled thing, but something's not quite right. We'll cross that dubious bridge when we come to it.

I'm just beginning to cut my film for this semester. I'm battling through my dislike of the post-production process, syncing sound is slow - the assembly cut is slow. But it's all coming together. I've got some great, hand-drawn titling I'm doing - the film now officially being called "A Spoonful of Sugar" (thanks, Joel). After spending the most pretentious hour of my life surfing the 'typography' tag on Tumblr, I got some super ideas of lines, patterns and fonts to doodle around with. I'm looking forward to seeing the final product.

I set up a new set of challenges going into production for this film, and I think I'll come out the other side better for it (as we often do). I had a great little cast and crew working with me - and save the date: our screening is going to be on April 18th at the David Mowafaghian Cinema at Simon Fraser University Woodwards at Hastings and Abbot. It's free! And there's nothing better than filled seats to us filmmakers.

Now that we're into March, the preproduction process concerning my grad film is fumbling along. Having made the first half of my film stock purchase from Fujifilm, I now open my fridge every day to stare at six rolls in square cans patiently waiting for their time to come. My current trepidation is breaking my script back down to the essentials and building something that is worthy to be shot on the last little bit of super 16mm in manufacture. No pressure or anything, brain. I'm really hoping to externalize some very internal feelings with my last student short. It's something I'm dreadful at, but I think taking a step back and looking at how I tend to internalize things could help me create something wonderful and bold - an adventure in self-discovery through collaboration and filmmaking. (So exciting!)

I'm looking forward to building a crew and a plan to get everyone out to Alberta late August. As much as I don't enjoy pre-production, having it all come together on that first shoot day is just a fantastic feeling. I'm looking forward to the adventure. My most ambitious shoot to date.


I had a dream recently (yeah, I'm going to talk about my dreams), my first with having to do with a long-lasting, subconscious need to forgive. After reading Looking for Alaska by John Green, I had a weird mental suturing occur between feelings I had been having regarding the loss of a friend, and my reluctance to relinquish those feelings that stuck around after. I think about it often, and the dreams I have had regarding the loss have been numerous - but this one was different, it's not closure by any means - but perhaps something working towards it. It's refreshing to find a piece of fiction that affected me so thoughtfully and positively. And sometimes a revisit to young adult fiction is just what my heart needs.

On the other end of that story, I also recently had, what I'm going to call, my first 'rage' dream. From which I woke up thinking I had yelled all my issues with everything at everyone and it felt pretty good. My brain's sending signals.

I've got a very bizarre inkling to write again. Write novels. And I'm having a hard time separating it from the weird-things-I-do-when-I-procrastinate feeling or something very genuine and real. Who knows! We'll see what's left when summer settles.

Twenty-thirteen has already been moulded into a collection of cliché war-room abstractions: rising to the occasion; riding out there and meeting the challenge head on. A less neutral body has more enemies, but closer friends. To stir the pot... and so on.

I feel somewhat courageous, like I woke up one day and put my sassy pants on... and they haven't really come off.

Spring's on it's way. I know because my eyes are super itchy all the time. I can't wait to get out in the garden once this rain lets up. I can't wait for sunshine and heat and freckles.



Things you should probably check out:

I finally got to go to the Rain City Chronicles - hop on that train because it's great.
A reminder that The Featured Creature exists.
Never been to the Stormcrow? Go to there.
Check out this double feature at the Vancity theater this month!
Want a home page?
Shout out to a film project! Resonance by David Kelso and Russell Hirsch - they're shooting this fall!

Tail End of April

A wordy, picture-less post, this post-midnight mind-purge. With lots of hyphens, apparently.

Currently experiencing the charming, end-of-semester alienation I always seem to get stuck with. With each passing semester, the bitterness just gets thicker. I get sick frequently (or really sick every so often, like getting a super fever for one day and being convinced it'll be the thing that kills me), am always exhausted, always out of laundry, eating poorly. The end of semester is a wonderful, fantastical time of year that never feels good. Maybe one of these years, I'll have a good semester's end. Until then... well.

An opportunity for a unique, out of province summer came and went (plus a day of moping with a loop of Noah and the Whale songs), and although I was hoping to spend my summer back home in Alberta, it seems Vancouver's got some other, interesting plans for me. Regardless, I'd like my summer to be filled with adventures, books, new movies, filmmaking and new acquaintances. I am forming a list of things to do, things to accomplish as the days grow longer. Old habits will die hard, but I am prepared for a great deal of change in my future.

The past two semesters have been rather revealing in more ways than one. As the culmination of this time spent comes and goes on Tuesday, it's more a time of reflection for me, rather than a time of celebration. There's more reflection upon this to come, I am sure. But for now, let me say, that although my time spent amidst the frustrating pit that was this whole venture - the experience that this time has afforded me will become invaluable. Regardless of the outcome. And what an outcome it is turning out to be.

I've been thinking a lot lately about experience and perception, values that people will put on individuals depending on their employment, education, gender and ability to represent themselves.  I guess this train of thought has come by because of my long-winded battle with the Vancouver job market. But it seems, from struggles comes logical thought, enlightenment and growing patience. Realizing that being satisfied in any job that is outside of filmmaking isn't necessary.  Realizing that I need a lot more than a resume and diligence to get anywhere at any speed. I'm in this for the long haul, and I guess I've finally realized it's going to be a hell of a long haul.

Each person seems to lead their own lives of bizarre happenings. I hope everyone's doing alright with theirs.

Things you need to know about:

GLITTER AND DOOM: SFU's 2nd year film screening
Yes, it has come to an end. COME AND SEE THE RESULT.

Trailer:


Here's the event on FACEBOOK.

Tickets & Screening Info.


HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU: SFU's Grad film screening

Trailer:


Here's the event on FACEBOOK.

Tickets & Screening Info.

Check out our ad in this week's Georgia Straight!


NARRATED BY MORGAN FREEMAN

Something dreadful happened, yet another harddrive crash. As a result, a few film kids are going on an adventure, to make up for lost time. Spread the word and follow the journey on twitter and facebook.

Check out their Indiegogo page.


To see the outcome of this Morgan Freeman business, plus tons of other excellent Grad films, be sure to come to the Grad screening!

All of the screenings are taking place at the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema at the Goldcorp Center for the Arts (SFU Woodwards) in Vancouver, British Columbia. Tell your friends! We love a grand audience just as much as we love putting on a show!

March. March. March.

 Ooh, and it's March already. I've got a pile of things on the ol' "TO DO" list this month - most of that pile are things I'd like to get over with sooner rather than later.

Asides from discovering a voracious affinity for avocado spread on toast (so heavenly - go try it), not a whole lot is new. I'm currently searching high and low for a shiny new job to acquaint myself with. I'm convinced that a new job is my answer to everything. Money woes, boredom woes, getting out and meeting new people woes, all of those woes that haven't let up since sometime mid-2011. I'd really like to get back into the business of books. Bookstores are the most zen place in the world for me, and I would like nothing better than to just be immersed in those paperback labyrinths - dealing with other humans who also enjoy finding those literary gems in the stacks. Girl's gotta dream.

I made peace with the university library recently, and now I have a gigantic stack of film books I'm chugging through. I'm really getting a kick out of these interview-type books on filmmaking. I finished Principal Photography the other day, which is a series of interviews with fifteen cinematographers. It's fascinating the methods of the greats - many things are so similar, yet stylistically and biographically, there are these wonderful differences that are responsible for the immense spread of cinematography methods we see in film today. Two interviews that I found particularly enlightening were those of Gordon Willis (The Godfather, Manhattan) and Allen Daviau (E.T, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun). The interviews contained some technical jargon, but a lot of what they had to say was concerned with how people work on set together, the responsibilities of their post before, during and after production, and some good mantras to remember as a student (and I'm sure, as a professional as well). It also had a great interview with Garret Brown, who developed the Steadicam, "...the moving camera lets you break into the medium itself- the screen stops being a wall and becomes a space you can play in." Next on my list are a large stack of 'director on director' books, more interview-type things. I'm looking forward to exploring some Tarkovsky films in the near future, so I can read his books. I was also just lent two 35mm still photography books (and cameras!) from my friend, Aerlan - which I am pretty jazzed to get my paws on.

I started sewing again yesterday, having freshly cleaned and organized my perpetually filthy desk. Here's a sneak peak of a purple beast I'm about half done. I have a feeling his jowls are subconsciously inspired by dear old Jake from one of my all time favorite cartoons, Adventure Time. Which is a show I think everyone should watch. Everyone. Ever.

I'm finding with my feltie designs in the past two years, although the faces are changing - becoming more complex and expressive - the body shapes are not. In fact, many are just the same base shape. I think once I finish this purple fella, I'm going to try and branch out shape-wise and see what can happen. I'm looking forward to, what I hope is, a long trend of super-felt beasties!

Not too much else to say today! Just make sure you all have MAY 2nd booked on your calendar for the Simon Fraser University 2nd year film screenings! It'll be an evening comprised of a mixed-bag of adventure and super 16mm! Who could ask for more?! I sure couldn't. I would also highly recommend checking out the SFU 3rd year screenings on April 12th AND the SFU Grad screenings on May 3rd, 4th and 5th. All of these are being shown at the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema at SFU Woodwards!

Things to look at!

     Cool kiddie crafts over at Kids Craft!

     Check out 2011's National Geographic Photo Contest!

     Watch a jewel wasp zombify a cockroach! Science!

     Plus, I was super thrilled to find this documentary on YouTube. After reading a book about all of George Roy Hill's films, I got relatively stoked about finding out how Hill works. This 1970 documentary on the making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is so superb. I love it. So much. Watch it. As soon as humanly possible.

     People of a Feather

I saw People of a Feather this past year at VIFF and was impressed by the fact that it was an environmental film that did not preach that the sky was falling. It was able to explain, in simple terms, one specific problem that was causing deaths in the Eider ducks in Canada. What was even better is it's ability to introduce ideas to solve this problem, all while giving a unique historical comparison to the natives of that area, hundreds of years ago to the present.

Please check it out if you have the opportunity! It won best Environmental film at VIFF and was made by three SFU graduate students, two of which stemmed from the film production program.

VANCOUVER DATES:
March 2nd-5th, Vancity Theater
March 6th-9th, Denman Cinema
March 10th-13th, RIO Theater * Cancelled due to BCLC restrictions

     And, thanks to my roommate, I have spent an unreasonable amount of time watching these two brothers be adorable, intelligent and awesome back and forth over YouTube. EXAMPLE:

     Community is back NEXT WEEK.

I hope everyone is having a peachy start to the month. It's going to fly by, I am sure of it.

     If you're not too tired hearing about this Kony business... READ ON.

Joone. Looking past July.

Yeah what. I rainbow'd the felt box.

  Things have been rather stagnant this summer semester, punctuated by these incredibly tumultuous moments that sort of shake around the brain a little. A lot of evaluation and reevaluation has been occurring. Lots of attempts at backpedaling and not a ton of success at it. Summer's become something to just 'get over with', which is all sorts of wrong in my book. Waiting to see if I made the cut into the 2nd year of the program is just driving me up the wall. I'd just like to know if I'm a failure sooner rather than later please and thank you, SFU. All the things I've planned to do this summer have sort of fizzled. I was going to sew and sell tons of felties and make tons of movies and take tons of photos and learn tons of new things and go to the beach and garden and read lots. Let's just say I have done very few of those things. When work slows down in a couple weeks, I'm hoping I can get to the point where I can get up and just do something wonderful with my day, every day. There are two months left to make up for two months of nothing. Because why have a lame summer, when you can have a pretty alright one?

  I lost an awesomely dear friend recently, I talk about it on my video blog a little. It's here, if you'd like to see it. I get a little weepy, but I sort of just needed to talk about him a little. I still get weepy every few days, his loss is one that'll always be with me. But it's getting better, and I look back on the good times that we all had while he was here with us. I didn't make the trip home to attend the funeral, which, depending on the day, is a decision that I am somewhat glad or incredibly saddened I made. One thing that sort of shuffled out of the ashes, however, was a feeling of community that sort of reached out to me from the eastward province. The feeling has since dispersed, but it was very comforting to know that in times of grief, sadness and need, we could come together and make sure that everyone's doing alright. A lot of people were proud to call him a friend, as he was someone who was kind and friendly and always made a point of making other people laugh. Canmore gave him a good send-off. It's hard not being able to talk to or hug someone who meant so much to me and who was in my life for such a long time. I miss him a lot.

  In other, much, much more frabjous news, I've moved away from the basement and into the top floor of an old house. Some attributes I enjoy about my new residence: it has lovely, huge windows everywhere, the bathroom is orange, the kitchen is gigantic, we turned our two futons into a sectional, room to garden and we have our own doorbell! Some attributes I do not enjoy about my new residence: the fridge screams in agony every day or so, we think it is dying, my room is this nuclear blue that is unlike any colour I have ever seen, but I lack the funds and the pure strength of will to paint it and I have a fear of falling out of my bedroom window because it is sort of falling apart. But all in all, it's a pretty swell set up. My parents came out for two days and the move went super smoothly thanks to some burly film chums and Mickie! Thanks to the quick move, I got to spend some more time with my parents, which was nice. It wasn't near enough time, of course, but it was nice to see a familiar face from Canmore after John passed away. We took a trip to Granville Island and gave a toast to his memory and all-around awesomeness. He and I went to Granville Island and had a super time in 2009. He was here for his 19th birthday, so I made him Bender out of felt, because we both enjoyed watching Futurama to an extreme degree.

  Moving out of my old place was super surreal. Between losing John and packing up all of my belongings in the same week, it was a strange and empty feeling. Now I look back on it and it feels like I never really lived there at all. I was there for 11 whole months! I'm quite glad I'm here now. I've got a room mate who I can talk with when I get home instead of stewing in misery by myself. Currently, it's a little bit like Tetris trying to find places for everything. I have an extreme number of books, DVDs and film equipment and downsizing to a room probably half the size of my last one has been a bit of a 'where to put all of this shit I own' sort of challenge. My books are all in disarray and it is driving me all up the wall. Due to my large amount of film equipment, most of my closet is dedicated to my camera rack. Who needs clothes anyways.

  We've also got some new additions to the fish family. We went to buy a couple of tetras to make my green fire tetra, Miles, company. He's been all by his lonesome since around November and he needed some chums to school with. So we picked up an orange glowlight tetra and a silver tip tetra, whom we named Herp and Derp, respectively. It was tremendous to see Miles trying to school with Herp and Derp while they were still acclimatizing to the water temperature in a plastic bags. Now they seem to be best of friends. Yes, I'm a big fan of aquarium fish. Deeeeal with it! We also picked up a couple of new aquarium plants, as the tank now gets a fair amount of sunlight.

  I'm rather excited for August. Once my exams are all wrapped up and I (hopefully) never con myself into taking summer courses again as long as I live, I'm going to take a jaunt over to Vancouver Island to pay my Gran a visit for a week  or maybe a little less. Then I'm heading home to Canmore for a week or so! I'm so excited! I've been missing home a lot this past year and didn't think I could quite last til next Christmas to see those mountains out the front window, my puppydog Finnegan and my folks back home. My original plan was to start shooting some sort of documentary about my family this summer, but I just haven't developed a solid enough plan for it quite yet. I'm so excited to just have two weeks of no school and no work. Simply visiting and chatting and watching movies. It's been a while since I've had a bit of a break like that. So that's something to look forward to, film school or no!

  I've been trying to hash out a couple of film ideas, but I can't seem to form any of them into much of anything. Pages and pages of rather self-indulgent monologue, but that's about it. I apparently am a big fan of using voice overs, or perhaps I'm just a terrible dialogue writer and proceed to just lean on monologues to get the point across. Who knows! I guess I'll just keep writing and see what develops. I'd be looking forward to screenwriting classes come fall, but I don't want to get my heart set on anything (thanks again SFU!)

  The past few weeks, I've just been haunted by this feeling that I'm never going to get anywhere in life. Currently wondering how so many seem to work past that. And sort of just... persist. It's just hard to see past the end of my own nose, currently.

  Hope the end of June is most excellent for everyone and happy summer! Go frolic on the beaches and drink delicious slushed adult beverages and cook things over fire pits and stargaze and go on long walks in the wilderness and read in the sun and bask in the lovely, lovely heat.

Stay classy.

Some shout outs! I shall link them, and you shall go to them.

Next week, look for a post where I re-visit Choch! Brendan's put the whole damn thing online for two weeks for you to watch for free! Please take an evening and watch it, think about it, maybe discuss it with a friend or two. Then, perhaps you'd like to kindly donate to the cause - helping the film get distributed out to film festivals and into your own homes!

The Long Road Home also needs your help! They only have 8 days left to raise the remainder of their production costs!

Joel's 30 days of film - what a challenge! He's done nine so far! Just think, he's got another twenty one to go! In this one, number eight, get up close and personal with Joel's big toes.

Support independent film! Because it is oh-so-awesome.

Check out my exorbitant amount of other blogs:

Kingfisher Says - Video blogging because I'm horrible at speaking intellegently

Soup is for Winners - Indulging in GIFs and fandom beyond reason

Groove Nugget - Film and video Tumblr where I post all sorts of film and video I fancy

The Rest of May

 May's finally coming to a close. I've been working border line full time, which makes for boring days and exhausted nights - but with this first month of summer almost past, I feel much better about the stretch of time that lies between now and August.

I haven't had much inspiration to sew, and even less to write films. I made myself a handy checklist at the end of April detailing all of the film exploits I wanted to complete by the time September rolled around. Three short films and a stop motion short. So far, we're at a smooth zero count. I have an idea or two rolling around up top, but nothing concrete seems to be able to make it's way out onto a page. I'm desperately hoping that June will bring a little more creative ebb and flow. I think once I move and assemble myself in my new (!) place of residence, new things will begin.

After two years of rather stagnant not-really adventures, I finally got out to Lighthouse Park up in West Vancouver. My first mistake was trying to get there on the precipice of the long weekend. The bus was packed and the traffic was horrendous. But eventually, I did get there. I spent the afternoon and was rather disappointed to find that Lighthouse Park is more the Stanely Park of North Vancouver, than anything. I could hear lawn mowers and screaming children no matter where I was in the park. Needless to say, my next adventure will have to be a little farther removed from the city. The only birds I saw were robins and black-capped chickadees. The flowers were few. It was nice to get out with my camera, but for my five hours there I only shot about 15 minutes and compiled the video below.

The end of May has come with this piqued sense of homesickness. Hauling out old DVDs of home movies to bring some warmth back into this basement. I watched this one I did for my Grandparents Christmas 2007 the other day, and thought I'd share the last 15 minutes or so. I hope you enjoy. Just a bit of self indulgence.

Thankfully, I might get to go home to Canmore for a week at the end of the summer. I'm really, really looking forward to it. It is rare I see my parents, rarer still to actually go home to them. I've been trying to come up with some sort of basis for a documentary about my family that I can start that week. I know I want to do it, but don't know what grounds to build the premise on. Laaaame!!

In other (good) news, I finally have a new place to live! As of yesterday, this adorable top floor of an old house that my friend and I had been after was granted to us. Our move in date is June 1st, but I will be moving shortly after (June 10th) with the aid of my parents who are coming out for four or five days to lend a hand.

Some things you need to check out!

My video blog, Kingfisher Says!

Choch on IndieGogo

The Long Road Home on IndieGogo

Dinner with Elvis on IndieGogo

Choch!

I've got to say, getting to know Brendan Prost over the past 8 months has been inspiring. He was making feature films before he even set foot in the film program at Simon Fraser University. Generation Why, Prost's second feature,  premiered in Calgary last summer and I nabbed a DVD of it this past fall. I was blown away by the fact that a fellow student had already achieved such a standing in the film community, with numerous screenings and DVD sales, not to mention the fact that it took home the Rising Star Award at the Canada International Film Festival. The drive and determination needed to complete a feature are two things I have yet to muster as a filmmaker - but seeing is believing, and with Prost's feature-per-summer game plan, it's quite the motivation to get off your keester and make some films of your own! It is possible, ladies and gentlemen, you've just got to have the drive and ambition to do it!

Screening this month in Calgary Prost's next feature, Choch, gives us some mulling over to do about that image in the mirror we preen and obsess over every day.

Via Brendan Prost's Flickr Photostream

I was lucky enough to see Choch at it's premier in Vancouver on April 15th (such a late review, I'm such a horrible person, apologies). Choch is a conversation in identity and the trials we put ourselves through to fit into a clique or a culture. Tyler is a choch, stoked on Jagerbombs, decked in Ed Hardy, and surrounded by friends who are rowdy and obtuse. We've all seen these stereotypical 20-somethings wandering the malls and prowling the clubs with popped collars. Our protagonist Tyler, we discover, isn't this insensitive, chauvinistic husk of a young adult we have come to expect from that caricature. He finds himself conflicted - unable to feel quite right in his social group. Putting up this tough exterior has become commonplace, but Tyler develops an acute, conscientious doubt concerning his identity. The things he has said and done start to disgust him and he begins to reevaluate this persona he has created. He can drop the charade, become an outcast to that social circle and have to look for new companionship, or keep it up - maintaining that group of "friends", perpetuating that stereotype, but retaining that safety net/comfort zone.

Not only was the identity of youth under scrutiny, but the masquerades that parents put on were also on trial. Choch presents the facades that adults find themselves putting up to impress, say, a date with a new woman - case in point: Tyler's father. The remoulding of one's interests to cater to that of another, in this case an internet date and a sudden interest in jazz, becomes just another face to put on in the morning to maintain that relationship, however strained and uncomfortable.

I felt Choch added a sort of middle ground to these stereotypical conflicts we are so familiar with - these social groups that seem so black and white. The Greasers and the Socs, the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies, the territorial lunchroom tables in high school. Culture cliques whose elitist dispositions always end in naive misunderstandings. In Choch we see Tyler strive to maintain an awkward friendship with an old friend, whose own social qualms manifest themselves in skinny jeans and obscure bands you've never heard of. Both characters are limited by the identities they have spun around themselves and the safety they feel they have in their cliques.

Choch was leaps and bounds ahead of Generation Why both technically and from a storytelling perspective. Prost coaxed some amazing performances out of his leading man, Zach White, and used a considerable amount of ad-libbed dialogue that provided smooth and believable conversations. Shot on a couple of Sony HDR FX-1000s on a shoestring budget, Choch develops a distinct visual style via handheld camerawork, black and white footage and tight, rapid cuts. Prost's filmmaking abilities improve astronomically with every picture - the sky's the limit. Keep your eye on this one!

Become a Facebook fan!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - independent films rely on word of mouth and shout outs to get their names out there. Become a fan, invite your friends to an event, write a review - anything and everything helps! Support truly independent film - spread the word!

A trailer! For you!

Choch - Trailer from Brendan Prost on Vimeo.

A personal invite! To you!

Choch - Screening Series Invitation from Brendan Prost on Vimeo.

Also, check out the films review at The Independent Critic!

I'm sort of really horrible at writing reviews/critiques. I accept this. Go see Choch.