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?
I've been getting my astronomy on lately via the world of books. I finished reading The First Light by Richard Preston last week. It sort of amped up the 6 year old child that lived in my brain and brought back the wonder that comes with stars. The First Light is about the history and construction of the tremendous Hale Telescope. While on this binge, I watched Apollo 13 the other day (while in a neocitran/soup/tylenol daze) and am reading Out of Orbit: The Incredible True Story of Three Astronauts Who Were Hundreds of Miles Above Earth When They Lost Their Ride Home by Chris Jones. The book is tremendous. It has put space in perspective (I think we so often lose perspective of what is outside our atmosphere) once again for me. The amount of work that goes into sending people to space and maintaining them there is astronomical (ha.) and absolutely incredible. The idea of being in space, of surviving in zero gravity and in an environment so few people have touched. Absolutely amazing.
Another thing that has existed for a while, but I just discovered it's awesomeness? Dangerous Days, the Blade Runner documentary. I've been a huge fan of Blade Runner for a long time, but this just blew my mind. One of the last, great science fiction films made without computer effects. That's right. No CGI. All effects are in camera, hand made wonders. The number of highly skilled artists all working manually - with film, with paint, Plexiglas, wood - it actually blew my mind. Most of the time I was wondering why modern day Hollywood sci fi flicks cost so much when everything is done on computers. Dangerous Days made Blade Runner even more incredible to me. If you haven't seen Blade Runner? See it. Probably see some sort of directors cut that doesn't have a narration. If you haven't seen Dangerous Days? Please, please see it. The amount of craftsmanship that went into the film puts everything that has come out in the last 30 years to shame (well, with some exceptions). It makes me sad that I will never have the opportunity to make such an incredible work without the aid of computers. *sigh*
October is coming in like a lamb, but will be a firecracker of excitement by the start of November..
I've completed my pattern planning for my long-planned giraffe I'm making for a friend's two year old cousin. I'm really excited about it! It's probably the largest scale thing I've done. I special ordered this delicious giraffe print minky fabric from the states - it's so, so soft! It's also going to have cream and brown felt embellishments. Should be fun! I just finished building a paper model of this giraffe. I like having it SUPER planned out before I start cutting fabric, especially when it's nice fabric. I think the legs and neck are going to be a little shorter and the head a little smaller, but it will look rather similar to this. I'm actually quite fond of this paper fellow that I have constructed. He sort of has a personality, don't you think?
I have talked to my film instructor about the film I proposed on paper on Monday. I was so nervous about this (the cappuccino I had right before I went in didn't help the anxiety so much). But it turns out, she liked the idea and said I was quite clear with my description. She gave me some great pointers on how to focus the purpose of the film a little more. It is going to be absolutely amazing! The shot list is due next week, I may post some 'teaser' storyboard panels if I feel like it. I've come up short on finding a kind of paint that adheres to film without flaking or being too opaque. It seems ink is my only option. I'll see what I can do with that! I shoot my film start of November. Then I get to show it to the first audience I've had since high school. Should be.... nerve wracking. 
On Wednesday, I had the most super day! I started at the Vancouver Aquarium - where I volunteer! I got to pick up a tortoise, which was all kinds of amazing! I sort of made up excuses to pick them up; like 'Oh, you're standing on a piece of lettuce I need to take out - I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO PICK YOU UP NOW!'. I also saw red tree frog eggs, which, turns out, are the most bizarre colour of seafoam green. I can't wait until they hatch and wee tadpoles emerge! Then I went to spend time in Victory Park downtown before class - soaking up the sun! I had a shifty fellow come up to me and ask me, 'got any weed, darlin'?' which makes me laugh because I look like the biggest square in town. I also had to shift my position every little while, because jerks kept sitting upwind from me and lighting up cigars or doobies. But generally, it was a magnificent couple of hours spent sitting on the grass. THEN I went to my film lab, which is always tremendous. The mysteries of 16mm film, exposure meters and the nature of all things film production are slowly unraveling before me! Anyways, on this particular lab day we were paired up and sent out into the city with a Bolex and a 100 foot roll of 16mm film to shoot whatever we please! We're always told that it's awesome we're shooting on such old cameras - in a digital age it's always a topic of conversation. We also had a weird lady come up to us and give us contraceptives - which was awkward, but Hastings has a weird sort of local colour that I love despite everything.
Breaking Bad and Star Trek: Next Generation. I can't seem to stop watching either of them. Breaking Bad just breaks my heart. It's such a good show - so emotionally devastating! I feel like I need to either scream or cry into a pillow after watching a couple of episodes. I highly recommend it, two whom in particular, I don't know... but it's about a high school chemistry teacher who turns to cooking meth with a former student to make money so his family can sustain itself after he dies of terminal lung cancer. Yeah, it's an emotional well. Seeing Bryan Cranston NOT being the weird, whimsical dad on Malcom in the Middle is bizarre. I don't like it. But then again, I totally do. Just watch the show.
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.
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.
Hello everyone! Behold my first significant felt creation for quite some time! I've been fiddling with the pattern for about a week and in the past couple days the assembly began. Lots of things did not go to plan, but I think he turned out pretty swell!
