Metro
Flying out to Montreal tonight at 1:00am for the first ever metro party. I’m also going to check out the Concordia campus and just tour around town. See you all on Monday!
Month: March 2007
Victory!
Here it is, the final moment together with cast & crew. Amazing job everyone.
I find it strangely appropriate that I am the only person who appears totally oblivious to the camera. My brain had pretty much ceased functioning by this point after all.
“That’s a wrap!”
And thus came to a close my most ambitious, complicated yet (relatively) well organized shoot yet. Again I won’t delve into the seedy details lest you manage to contrive my designs, however I will say a few things. First of all more crew is better than less. I always used to run with the idea that smaller equals leaner and meaner, but it also means a hell of a lot more work. I had an AD, a DOP, a continuity girl (which for some reason is always a girl, some union thing I suspect) in addition to my stills photographer, actors and extras.
Wow. An AD is the best thing in the entire world. Whenever I got lost or flustered he stepped in and took care of it. He wrangled the extras, he took charge of the setup and cleanup. It was awesome. I didn’t even need to know what shot was coming up next, he was on it. That’s exactly how the director/AD relationship is supposed to work, he worries about the details, I worry about the creative vision.
Similarly continuity allowed us to just go without worrying about missing a shot or screwing something up like changing someone’s clothes or moving the wrong piece of furniture. Green as DOP brought all of his on set lighting experience and created just the atmosphere I wanted.
The actors and extras were great. The performances were pretty awesome and everyone looked great for their parts. I was worried we wouldn’t have enough extras, we lost our makeup girl/waitress but at the last minute a friend of Dr. SARS stepped in and performed wonderfully even if her role was small. I was amazed at the prep work that Snype and MisterV put in without even being asked.
Things were a bit rushed and stressful at the end because the bar closed down early on account of it being a really slow night, plus the cast and crew were starting to get tired. And yet when it came time to strike the set everyone pitched in tearing down gels and stands, moving furniture and humping stuff out to the car. I couldn’t believe it when everyone without exception thanked me for the opportunity and asked me to call them again. Wow.
I’m in this interesting state of being humbled by a bunch of awesome people who worked for nothing more than beer, pop and appetizers and on the other side I feel like a fucking demi-god for having pulled this whole shebang off. Honestly, it feels awesome.
In the past week life has gone from ok but not great to fan-fucking-phenomenal. More cool shit to come…
Rabbit Food
I’ve decided to go vegetarian for the month of April. Why? Well, because I put a lot of crap into my body and I thought vegetarianism was one way to more carefully monitor what I eat. That and its just an interesting experiment. I have no intention of going veggie full time, but I can pull off one month. I have no qualms with meat, but I do think I eat too much fat ‘n shit and not enough veggies. So its a health thing.
I’m getting a bit nervous about the Big Rock shoot tonight. We lost our makeup artist. I’m going to try and find another one, but its pretty short notice. No matter. These things always work out one way or another. I’ll just be glad to have another film under my belt.
Has it come to this?
I don’t really know what to say…
(parenthesis)
My eyes were THIS BIG
“Green has food poisoning. I need you and your camera for that shoot.”
Green has food poisoning, I’ve got alcohol poisoning. Who’s the bigger man? Well anyways Dr. SARS needed me to do a few shots for his Big Rock Eddie (I’m getting sick of linking that – Google it yourself). I didn’t feel like it, but I went. Christ… this fake name thing is turning into a total pain in the ass. Suffice it to say there were several people there whom I’d met before, a photographer friend of mine, some guys from a band I helped shoot a video for last fall. It was pretty cool. The shoot was quick and easy and daresay I – fun.
So then we went to Dr. SARS’ apartment, drank beer, ate nachos and talked. I forgot how awesome it is to just have conversation with intelligent, creative, artsy people. We talked about Greek theatre, movies, acoustics, architecture, puppet sex… Such a relief from the endless nerdversations I’ve grown so accustomed to through urban exploration.
So the photographer, oh fuck it, Zyphichore. He took off early but told us we should join him for Zombie Movie Night at the Castle Pub. Sounded fun so we made that our next destination.
I really wasn’t prepared for what was in store. The movie was a wild Spanish (I think it was Spanish) science fiction film that reminded me somewhat of Mad Max, but a million times more absurd. Actually it took me back to the Turkish Star Wars screening I went to a couple of years ago. Funny shit.
We screened our 48 Hour Horror Film Competition film since I had a copy that the Dr. had just given to me. Totally unauthorized, early bird special. It felt kind of scandalous. It went over huge. The audience roared. Its always such a mindfuck to watch your film with an audience for the first time. There’s this internal sigh of relief, like someone just cut the butcher’s twine around your heart.
Then things got crazy. The guy who runs the show put on the next film, an Italian exploitation flick from the 70’s, but it was all mixed up with other films, TV, even video games. It was an amazing video mash up and it was all done live on a video mixing board only a few hours earlier. Truly, it was amazing. I want to play with his toys and I’ll certainly become a regular at Zombie Movie Night.
Too Far
Remember my theme for 2007? “I don’t give a fuck!” Yeah well, I think I may have taken it a bit too far. I went for beers last night to celebrate a friend’s birthday and… I vaguely recall throwing up in the tub last night. I haven’t checked it yet. Hold on…
…yup. Some evidence of spew. Here I thought it was just a terrible dream. I only just now ventured into the bathroom. You see I woke up at eight this morning and realized that I was already an hour late for work. Ultimately I ended up two and a half hours late yet in a strangely kipper mood. Sure my stomach ached and I had that lightheaded buzz going, but overall I was pretty happy. Basking in the afterglow of an enjoyable night.
But yes. Being two and a half hours late for work is taking the “I don’t give a fuck!” attitude a bit too far. Or is it? I really didn’t care. I joked about it all day. It would seem “I don’t give a fuck!” is no longer a mantra, but a state of mind. I’m in the zone.
Even so I’m setting out a new standard for myself. Effective immediately I will abstain from drug and alcohol use for… here’s the tricky part. How long? Twelve hours is a nice sounding number, but too much. Eight? Perhaps. Nine? That’s nice. No, no let’s go with eight hours. I will not indulge in alcohol or drugs for the eight hour period prior to work commitments. The exception of course being things like gonzo video assignments in which case drinking on the job is to be encouraged.
Now if you’ll excuse me I need to take a nap before I go help Dr. SARS shoot a video this evening.
Jump, Shimmy & Slide
Well the weather is absolutely gorgeous now in Calgary. Fucking brilliant actually. All I want to do is run around outside and do some shitcool parkour. Sadly my normal parkour partner Spandex is off in India until April 10th. Sure I can free run on my own, but its so much more fun with an accomplice.
Last year we had the idea of trying to summit every piece of corporate art in the downtown core. We only managed a couple before the weather got too chilly. We’ll revive the mission this year, along with the goal of roofing as many buildings as we can. We may even break out the rappelling gear this time around to get into some really funky spots.
If there’s anyone else out there who wants to parkour, let me know. Buildering I’m good at, but parkour I’m a relative noob so it’ll be a lot of practice, practice, practice. We all start somewhere right?
Curious
Doing the laundry today I was faced with a bit of a dilemna upon entering the building’s tiny laundry room. Lying sad and prostrate in the middle of the linoleum floor under the harsh fluorescent light was a dark purple, frilly thong with flowers on it. Right in the middle of the floor. Dark purple against off white. No sign of socks, not even lint in the lint trap. Whoever did their laundry last was thorough, and yet, this offering.
Initially I worked around it, but the laundry room in my building is really just the cubby hole under the stairs, there’s not a lot of maneuvering room. I briefly contemplated taking a picture of them, afterall it is a poetic image the most private, sensual and personal laying there in the open in the most functional and mundane of spaces. But then, if anyone actually saw me taking the picture, particularly the owner… Sick. They would call me sick.
By the time I got to drying time the thong was still there, still alone and forgotten. I carefully picked it up and hung it on one of the taps on the wall. Being a man I couldn’t help but imagine where they came from. It was a nice thong, damn sexy. It’d be a pleasure to remove them I’m sure.
Suddenly that building party idea is sounding like an even better idea.
Oh and in a strange synchronistic vein, the protagonist’s underwear in Skinny Legs and All is personified. Yes that’s the book I just finished reading last week. If only these panties could talk…
Personal Mutations 