Jag Hollywood

Jessica Rivers demands respect. Not only is she from Edmonton, but I shot a short with her on Saturday night that involved her standing in her underwear in front of four dorky guys, putting up with me as director who promised that a shoot beginning at 7pm would be over ‘in a couple of hours’ and then didn’t leave her place until 2 in the morning and we also rearranged her entire apartment to make it look like a junkie’s and she didn’t complain once. And did at all for free and even gave me a beer afterwards. Her parents did a bang-up job.

Today was our second filmic project for school. Yes, I am amazing, and my script was once again the one from my group chosen to be produced, it was really fucking hard to give my story I care a lot about to another person to interpret, but it was a good learning experience. Sadly, the crew (who you don’t get to pick) consisted of a couple of real fucking inbred Cocksuckers. I had to baby-sit these fucking retarded puppies the entire time and was running around like crazy making sure all the loose ends were tied. I know this sounds boastful, like I’m some type of fucking hero, but really I busted my ass to make this the best flick I could and it’s hard when people are just sitting around making snide remarks and acting like they don’t give a fuck. I don’t know if, before today, I really yelled at someone who wasn’t a) in my family b) a student of mine or c) a girlfriend of mine. It was weird.

But whatever, it’s over now, and hopefully it edits together well and will make a worthwhile short for drunk people to accidentally stumble upon on You tube and then turn off immediately with a scoff and a “what is this faggy arty shit? Yeah! Fucking Delta Epsilon Rules!” remark.

Let's agree to be secretly in love and never speak to each other again.

These are getting more and more spaced out I know. The tsunami of the last half of the semester is approaching soon. We’re shooting Mini project 2 on Monday. I have a feeling (call me cocky if you will) that my script will be selected again to be made. Sadly, since I directed the first project I’m not permitted to direct this one. I would like to be editor for our group, because it’s something I feel I still struggle with and want to improve upon but I seem to be one of the more organized members of the team so I think I might be relegated to locations manager and administrative dude.

The weekend was amazing. A wonderful person with cool glasses and soft skin from my past breezed into Vancouver and I met her at Granville Island for drinks and a recap of The Hold Steady concert the previous night.

We had forthright conversations all night and ended up walking away from a lesbian bar early to grab pizza by the slice and warmth on a couch in a money house.

At the bar two actresses from The L Word were there and had a gaggle of women with terrible haircuts all around them. One lesbian/thespian, Leisha Hailey, was in this great, overlooked movie called All Over Me that I love a lot. I wanted to talk to her about it, but they looked swarmed and I don’t want to be one of those people…you know, gushy assholes.

The worst kind of assholes…

Speaking of which, Peter Mackay and his entire party are terrible, terrible people and I want them to go away very soon. However, after watching the Liberal leadership debates I have no damn idea who the fuck to replace them with. I miss the idea of Pierre Trudeau.

The way some people make you feel, at times, can alter you far more profoundly than even their actions. Sometimes all you want are sentiments. Sometimes the follow-through is merely overkill. You had me at hello…so stop fucking talking.

God bless all the atheists too afraid to dream.

THE HOLE WEEK, THE WHOLE WEAK....

Justin’s married now. I sprung up the regal stairs to the Hotel MacDonald in chilly downtown Edmonton, with the lovely Jen by my side, and witnessed this joyous event. As best man, I fulfilled my two duties satisfactorily: I didn’t lose the rings and my speech was offensive-remark-free and generally well received.

There’s something about getting dressed up and socializing in posh surroundings – it feels like a movie to me. Like I’m a newly successful 1940’s New York playwright. There was dinner and dancing and photographs, a harpist with a Buck 65 pin that gave me a light head and pounding heart and an open bar. One of the best Saturday nights in a long time.

The rest of the long weekend was spent socializing with good people and eating good food. A lot of good food. I prided myself on my ability to eat six meals a day during those three days, and still have room for alcohol. Many thanks to Jen’s family for having me over for dinner on Sunday and aiding me in my quest to gain back the somewhat alarming 15 pounds I have lost since moving to Vancouver at the end of July.

Oh yeah – I also caught the garter…so if anyone out there is looking for a husband I’m available at public.mound@gmail.com.

The past week of school was mostly spent fine-tuning my 15-minute short script (hopefully to be shot over x-mas break) and finishing the editing on our first commercial project for school. It looks good; we’re burning it onto a DVD today so I will show y’all my directorial debut soon. Promise.

On Thursday we played the 3rd years in an annual tackle football match. It was a fucking blast. The bruises on my body ain’t too cool, but everyone was super friendly and the game was a ton o’ fun. I think we’re having a rematch this Thursday.

Besides the drinking and the copious amounts of dating I’m doing there’s not too much to report. Well, other than the fact that film school must be undertaken with a specific attitude. Davis, Dylan and I had a great conversation about how it seems like discouragement is built into the curriculum here. Often guest speakers and your instructors will hammer home the point of how difficult it is to make it in this business. Or how you should only expect to work the most menial on-set job after graduation and hope to work your way up to the point of actually directing a straight-to-video Eric Roberts vehicle by the time you’re 50 or so. It can wear you down. But all of us know we’re too stubborn to allow that to happen. Just being on set is not good enough. As Zack De La Rocha so perfectly put it: “Fuck tha G ride, I want the machines that are makin’ ‘em”

That’s why I value our ‘off the grid’ weekend shoots so much. They will be my calling card, what separates me. I act like I’m a filmmaker already. I try to talk like one, behave like one – treat myself as one. I know it’s pretentious as hell, but it’s all I got. All I ever wanted to do. And I can’t fuck it up.

The rain is falling and I most likely won’t see the sun again until May. So to warm my heart and, perhaps, yours as well – here’s my sweet-ass team I got this year for the Cap Film School Hockey Pool. I’m going to fucking dominate:

Joe Thornton
Petr Sykora
Ales Hemsky
Mathieu Schneider
Shane Doan
Bryan McCabe
Andy McDonald
Pavel Datsyuk
Marc Savard
Sheldon Souray
Jason Spezza
Tomas Kaberle
Vaclav Prospal
Martin Gerber
Fernando Pisani
Sergei Zubov

Sykora Scores! My Movie! With Rainbows! What?

Let's see. I badly need a nap and to prepare for my sojourn back to Edmonton for Rousseau's wedding on Saturday. It's going to be funky and a little surreal to be at one of my oldest friends' marriage. It promises to be quite the boondoggle fuck show. Man, I should get on that speech writing I suppose.

This week was the likely one of the busiest of the whole semester. We shot our first film project for marks, a one minute commercial. In our group, my script was selected for production (that's right. I rule.) So I was also the director. It was a blast to pretend to be big shots and audition and cast actors (mad props to Katelyn Wallace and David Millar for making my little opus seem professional) and also scout locations and make storyboards and shooting schedules and everything.

Tuesday was shoot day. We had crew call at 11am and Dylan and I didn't leave the editing room until 12:30 that night. That was a long ass day. But they say it's only work if you'd rather be doing something else. It's sweetly astonishing and warming to be busy and having fun. These are blessed times.

Made much more so by the Oilers totally beating Calgary in the season opener. I have impure thoughts about Petr Sykora.

Anyways to get back on more germane subjects: the commercial is for a TV and looking at other people's edit, I think my group is sitting pretty. Jared, Dylan, Brendan and Gillian all worked their bags -or what have you - off and no real kafuffles erupted. So, yeah, puppy dogs and blow jobs all around.

I attempted to write a 5 page script for some free-time shooting with the boys last weekend and it ballooned into a fourteen page script. It needs some tinkering, but I'm really happy with it. I'm giving it to Seanna to look over. Seanna, by the way, is our Motion Picture Production instructor and the best teacher I've ever had and just a wholly rad and interesting woman. I want to be her friend. If we can find some time to shoot it or give it to a more experienced student to direct it we're going to look into submitting it to festivals. This is all VERY preliminary, but most people I've let read it seem to like and think it's got some potential.

Okay, my fucking babies. Live long and perspire. I'll regale you with Albertan tales of inter-species erotica and short bus tipping next week. Goilers! And Marriage!