2007 So Far - Part 3 (August and September)
I went into August with moving plans and work
looming.
I was supposed to have started a series with my dad
towards the end of the summer (we quite often split the series we do), but after
tying up all legal and immigration loose-ends and knowing there was work afoot,
my wife and I decided it was time to get a place and move out of her parents'.
But a move involves tearing down my studio, moving it, and setting it up again;
there's a period of two or three weeks when I can't work ('cause my studio's in
bits). My dad agreed to cover the first four or five episodes for me while we
relocated.
When we started looking, though, we were horrified: Rent in the entire area had risen so much that we'd be paying nearly as much as we had a half a block from the beach in gorgeous, sunny Ventura, California. I'm sure I've already mentioned the economic boom in Alberta but, in brief, Alberta's like Texas: Cattle and oil. With the price of oil being so high, people involved in the oil industry have more money than they know what to do with... and there are a LOT of people involved in the oil industry up here, if not directly, then in allied fields. In fact, I can think of five people right off the top of my head that I know who work in the oil business. So anyway, that's driven the price of everything up. To make matters worse, there's a huge housing shortage in Alberta. I've heard, in fact, that the government of Alberta is running ads in Newfoundland about the problem. Nearly a third of all Newfies (someone from Newfoundland), you see, live and work in Alberta because their own provincial economy was mainly based on fishing, they over-fished, everything went to hell, there's massive unemployment, etc... so they move out to Alberta where there's a labour shortage. In fact, I can think of five people right off the top of my head that I know who are Newfies. Anyway, the ad basically says that if you've got a job lined up in Alberta but haven't found housing yet, DON'T COME OUT! That's how bad the housing shortage is.
... and landlords know it! Talk about sticking it to you. I couldn't believe some of the shoddy, crappy little places we saw with outrageously high rents. There was one woman who told us that she'd had around 100 calls about her place, that she'd narrowed it down to 10 people to call back and, based on those 10 calls, she'd let five look at the house. We were one of the lucky five! It was a horrible little house, and it had been rented before we even got there. (We took a look around, anyway, just to see what 1,100 square feet looked like for $1,700 a month, and that's how I know just how horrible it was.) There was another place we went to look at where the landlord didn't even bother to show up.
So we decided to stay put for the time being.
Through all of this, though, my dad had still been covering episodes for me. We decided that he might as well do the first eight, and I'd do the second eight. (A total of 16 episodes in the series for the mathematically challenged.) By this time, there was discussion of the second show which, as it happened, was coming out of Vancouver. To cut a potentially long story short, my dad and I decided that he might as well finish out the first show, and that I should do the second show myself (for tax and immigration reasons--if they use Canadians or legal residents of Canada, the production company gets great tax breaks). That show was supposed to start at the end of July. I'm writing this at the beginning of October and still haven't started. The last couple of months have been great, though.
August started out, as August always does, with my sister's birthday. She would've been 38. I had mixed feelings this year because, as much as I miss her, her death isn't dominating my life anymore. After she died, I made a point of getting on with things but allowing myself some self-indulgent self-pity between her birthday on August 7th and the day she died which was September 8th--an annual month of mourning. That didn't happen this year. The only significance September 8th had was its insignificance; in fact, I didn't realise it had passed until the following day... and that's as it should be: My focus is on her life and who she was, not on her death.
But I had founded Powell Factory Films with her, and as it happened, it was around her birthday that the incorporation was completed. It was a strange time. I know that, really, it's not that important, but somehow, having a legally registered company makes it feel so much more real. My California corporation is called "The Baku Baku Trading Company" which is based on lyrics from a song I wrote in the early '90's. (If anyone's interested in hearing it, let me know and I'll send you an mp3.) But that company feels like the past already. Powell Factory Films is here and now. It's current. It's forward-looking. As I've mentioned a few times in this blog, I feel that I'm on the verge of a career change, and although I incorporated Powell Factory Films as an umbrella company to allow me to freelance as a composer up here, I don't plan on it staying that way. When Joanne and I started Powell Factory Films, it was in name only (we didn't even bother with a DBA). Now, four years after her death, it's an actual, legitimate company, and my mixed feelings of significance, melancholy, and optimism took me completely by surprise. She was always so encouraging and had so much faith in my abilities that I grew accustomed to leaning heavily on her for support and motivation. I feel that now, to put Powell Factory Films properly on the map, all I need is the confidence that I can do it without her. For the first time since she died, I have that.
So...
I integrated the development I'd done on "Alberta Beach" into the original series idea, "Due North", I wrote up a treatment, and I pitched it to a production company in L.A. that I have close ties with. They're producing the series I'm starting at the end of October (which, incidentally, is called "Interns"), and the show just went into production. As a result, they've been absolutely swamped and haven't had the time to read my treatment. No problem, and no worries; all things in good time. In the meantime, I've decided what sort of video podcasts to make: 3 to 4 minute conversations between the two main characters. Originally, the "series" was to be called "Postcards from Alberta Beach". I might still stick with that title even though the title "Alberta Beach" reverted back to "Due North".
A huge step for me was to design a logo for Powell Factory Films. With my sister being an artist and graphic designer, I would always defer to her when it came to design or even design concept. She was working on a logo for The Baku Baku Trading Company, actually, when she died, and she was having a terrible time with it because whenever she asked me what I wanted, my answer was, "haven't a clue. Whatever you think is cool." To this day, The Baku Baku Trading Company still doesn't have a logo. Anyway, this was the logo for Powell Factory Films I came up with:
I think it's the first graphic I've ever done that I'm completely satisified with so, inspired by my success with the logo (which, of course, is mainly just the cog from the Powell Factory Films opening logo animation created by my brother six years ago), I decided to try to make something completely from scratch in Photoshop. This is something I'd never even thought about attempting before. The result was a "teaser" poster for "Postcards from Alberta Beach" or the "Due North" web shorts (whatever I end up calling it). You can see the teaser poster here.
Following that, I wrote a few scripts for "Postcards" until my wife mentioned that, with my new resolve and direction (and permanent resident status!), I should think about applying for a government filmmaking grant. After hunting around online, I discovered that, because I'm "an established professional in an allied field who has had works publicly exhibited for seven years or longer", I qualify. Having already written a novel and having had so much positive feedback about my blog, I was actually going to go after a writing grant. No good. It turns out that it's only the "media arts" that allow these crossover qualifications. I found this out in the middle of August, and the submission deadline wasn't until November 1st. Plenty of time.
The next day, I decided I'd re-read the qualifications just to make sure that I really did qualify before I started wasting time trying to come up with an idea for a feature film that would satisfy the Canada Council's content requirements but would still be interesting to me. While I was hunting around, I discovered two things:
1. Yes, I qualified.
2. The deadline wasn't November 1st but October 1st, only 10 days from then!
... and then the strangest thing happened.
I don't know whether it's this newly discovered confidence in my creativity or just fear and panic, but I had a really solid idea within half an hour. I wasn't even thinking about it; it just popped into my head. I mentioned it to a few people just to get some feedback, and the reaction was unanimously good. Well, that decided it: I had to write the grant.
So that was 10 days gone. In the end, the grant was 3,000 words long which isn't that much writing (this three-part blog entry is over twice that), but it wasn't a writing style I was that familiar with and there was a fair bit of research involved. You see, you have to explain clearly what you're going to use the money for. Most of my grant will be used for travel up around Northern Québec (Québec City and Inukjuak) and Nunavut (Iqaluit and Resolute Bay which is the staging post for most Arctic expeditions--it's up there!) and travel that far north is extremely expensive and very, very hard to organise (I discovered). Anyway, on Monday, I submitted a grant proposal asking for $20,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts. Fingers crossed.
Remember earlier I mentioned that one-third of all Newfoundlanders (Newfies) live and work in Alberta? Well I've got a series idea about that, too. The working title is "Newfies", and I'll be writing a treatment for that over the coming weeks before "Interns" finally hits and makes me busy for awhile. Also, last week, an old college friend contacted me through e-mail. We haven't seen each other in 18 years, and he hunted me down over the internet. (What a crazy world.) He's producing his first feature film and wants to talk to me about it. Lots of irons in lots of fires.
Well, what a blog entry! If you read all the way to the end, thank you. Drop me an e-mail to let me know, and I'll try to think of some sort of prize to send you. A few last thoughts before I go, though.
It was strange writing this entry, and almost a little embarrassing because in the last entry, "... and so it begins... again!", I talked about my drive and enthusiasm coming into 2007, how 2007 was going to be a turning point, and how I was going to get my career back on track. On the surface, pretty much "eff-all" has happened. Still, I feel confident that at least some of the things I've developed, will be developing, or have already pitched will pay off in 2008. It's just a matter of time before something gets picked up, and in the meantime, I've ordered an HD (high-definition) camera that emulates film (shoots 24 progressive frames a second and records a natively theatre-wide image) and brought my editing software up to the current version (costing me $800--it was five years behind). Unfortunately, I have to wait for a new laptop until I can start all of this: the new software won't run on my old one and the old software that's on it now won't support the HD footage I'll be shooting. As soon as that happens, though, look for "Postcards from Alberta Beach" coming to a website near you along with a slew of short films.
So that's what's been going on in the last eight months. As always, thank you for reading... and up in Canada, it's Thanksgiving this weekend... so Happy Thanksgiving, eh!
When we started looking, though, we were horrified: Rent in the entire area had risen so much that we'd be paying nearly as much as we had a half a block from the beach in gorgeous, sunny Ventura, California. I'm sure I've already mentioned the economic boom in Alberta but, in brief, Alberta's like Texas: Cattle and oil. With the price of oil being so high, people involved in the oil industry have more money than they know what to do with... and there are a LOT of people involved in the oil industry up here, if not directly, then in allied fields. In fact, I can think of five people right off the top of my head that I know who work in the oil business. So anyway, that's driven the price of everything up. To make matters worse, there's a huge housing shortage in Alberta. I've heard, in fact, that the government of Alberta is running ads in Newfoundland about the problem. Nearly a third of all Newfies (someone from Newfoundland), you see, live and work in Alberta because their own provincial economy was mainly based on fishing, they over-fished, everything went to hell, there's massive unemployment, etc... so they move out to Alberta where there's a labour shortage. In fact, I can think of five people right off the top of my head that I know who are Newfies. Anyway, the ad basically says that if you've got a job lined up in Alberta but haven't found housing yet, DON'T COME OUT! That's how bad the housing shortage is.
... and landlords know it! Talk about sticking it to you. I couldn't believe some of the shoddy, crappy little places we saw with outrageously high rents. There was one woman who told us that she'd had around 100 calls about her place, that she'd narrowed it down to 10 people to call back and, based on those 10 calls, she'd let five look at the house. We were one of the lucky five! It was a horrible little house, and it had been rented before we even got there. (We took a look around, anyway, just to see what 1,100 square feet looked like for $1,700 a month, and that's how I know just how horrible it was.) There was another place we went to look at where the landlord didn't even bother to show up.
So we decided to stay put for the time being.
Through all of this, though, my dad had still been covering episodes for me. We decided that he might as well do the first eight, and I'd do the second eight. (A total of 16 episodes in the series for the mathematically challenged.) By this time, there was discussion of the second show which, as it happened, was coming out of Vancouver. To cut a potentially long story short, my dad and I decided that he might as well finish out the first show, and that I should do the second show myself (for tax and immigration reasons--if they use Canadians or legal residents of Canada, the production company gets great tax breaks). That show was supposed to start at the end of July. I'm writing this at the beginning of October and still haven't started. The last couple of months have been great, though.
August started out, as August always does, with my sister's birthday. She would've been 38. I had mixed feelings this year because, as much as I miss her, her death isn't dominating my life anymore. After she died, I made a point of getting on with things but allowing myself some self-indulgent self-pity between her birthday on August 7th and the day she died which was September 8th--an annual month of mourning. That didn't happen this year. The only significance September 8th had was its insignificance; in fact, I didn't realise it had passed until the following day... and that's as it should be: My focus is on her life and who she was, not on her death.
But I had founded Powell Factory Films with her, and as it happened, it was around her birthday that the incorporation was completed. It was a strange time. I know that, really, it's not that important, but somehow, having a legally registered company makes it feel so much more real. My California corporation is called "The Baku Baku Trading Company" which is based on lyrics from a song I wrote in the early '90's. (If anyone's interested in hearing it, let me know and I'll send you an mp3.) But that company feels like the past already. Powell Factory Films is here and now. It's current. It's forward-looking. As I've mentioned a few times in this blog, I feel that I'm on the verge of a career change, and although I incorporated Powell Factory Films as an umbrella company to allow me to freelance as a composer up here, I don't plan on it staying that way. When Joanne and I started Powell Factory Films, it was in name only (we didn't even bother with a DBA). Now, four years after her death, it's an actual, legitimate company, and my mixed feelings of significance, melancholy, and optimism took me completely by surprise. She was always so encouraging and had so much faith in my abilities that I grew accustomed to leaning heavily on her for support and motivation. I feel that now, to put Powell Factory Films properly on the map, all I need is the confidence that I can do it without her. For the first time since she died, I have that.
So...
I integrated the development I'd done on "Alberta Beach" into the original series idea, "Due North", I wrote up a treatment, and I pitched it to a production company in L.A. that I have close ties with. They're producing the series I'm starting at the end of October (which, incidentally, is called "Interns"), and the show just went into production. As a result, they've been absolutely swamped and haven't had the time to read my treatment. No problem, and no worries; all things in good time. In the meantime, I've decided what sort of video podcasts to make: 3 to 4 minute conversations between the two main characters. Originally, the "series" was to be called "Postcards from Alberta Beach". I might still stick with that title even though the title "Alberta Beach" reverted back to "Due North".
A huge step for me was to design a logo for Powell Factory Films. With my sister being an artist and graphic designer, I would always defer to her when it came to design or even design concept. She was working on a logo for The Baku Baku Trading Company, actually, when she died, and she was having a terrible time with it because whenever she asked me what I wanted, my answer was, "haven't a clue. Whatever you think is cool." To this day, The Baku Baku Trading Company still doesn't have a logo. Anyway, this was the logo for Powell Factory Films I came up with:
I think it's the first graphic I've ever done that I'm completely satisified with so, inspired by my success with the logo (which, of course, is mainly just the cog from the Powell Factory Films opening logo animation created by my brother six years ago), I decided to try to make something completely from scratch in Photoshop. This is something I'd never even thought about attempting before. The result was a "teaser" poster for "Postcards from Alberta Beach" or the "Due North" web shorts (whatever I end up calling it). You can see the teaser poster here.
Following that, I wrote a few scripts for "Postcards" until my wife mentioned that, with my new resolve and direction (and permanent resident status!), I should think about applying for a government filmmaking grant. After hunting around online, I discovered that, because I'm "an established professional in an allied field who has had works publicly exhibited for seven years or longer", I qualify. Having already written a novel and having had so much positive feedback about my blog, I was actually going to go after a writing grant. No good. It turns out that it's only the "media arts" that allow these crossover qualifications. I found this out in the middle of August, and the submission deadline wasn't until November 1st. Plenty of time.
The next day, I decided I'd re-read the qualifications just to make sure that I really did qualify before I started wasting time trying to come up with an idea for a feature film that would satisfy the Canada Council's content requirements but would still be interesting to me. While I was hunting around, I discovered two things:
1. Yes, I qualified.
2. The deadline wasn't November 1st but October 1st, only 10 days from then!
... and then the strangest thing happened.
I don't know whether it's this newly discovered confidence in my creativity or just fear and panic, but I had a really solid idea within half an hour. I wasn't even thinking about it; it just popped into my head. I mentioned it to a few people just to get some feedback, and the reaction was unanimously good. Well, that decided it: I had to write the grant.
So that was 10 days gone. In the end, the grant was 3,000 words long which isn't that much writing (this three-part blog entry is over twice that), but it wasn't a writing style I was that familiar with and there was a fair bit of research involved. You see, you have to explain clearly what you're going to use the money for. Most of my grant will be used for travel up around Northern Québec (Québec City and Inukjuak) and Nunavut (Iqaluit and Resolute Bay which is the staging post for most Arctic expeditions--it's up there!) and travel that far north is extremely expensive and very, very hard to organise (I discovered). Anyway, on Monday, I submitted a grant proposal asking for $20,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts. Fingers crossed.
Remember earlier I mentioned that one-third of all Newfoundlanders (Newfies) live and work in Alberta? Well I've got a series idea about that, too. The working title is "Newfies", and I'll be writing a treatment for that over the coming weeks before "Interns" finally hits and makes me busy for awhile. Also, last week, an old college friend contacted me through e-mail. We haven't seen each other in 18 years, and he hunted me down over the internet. (What a crazy world.) He's producing his first feature film and wants to talk to me about it. Lots of irons in lots of fires.
Well, what a blog entry! If you read all the way to the end, thank you. Drop me an e-mail to let me know, and I'll try to think of some sort of prize to send you. A few last thoughts before I go, though.
It was strange writing this entry, and almost a little embarrassing because in the last entry, "... and so it begins... again!", I talked about my drive and enthusiasm coming into 2007, how 2007 was going to be a turning point, and how I was going to get my career back on track. On the surface, pretty much "eff-all" has happened. Still, I feel confident that at least some of the things I've developed, will be developing, or have already pitched will pay off in 2008. It's just a matter of time before something gets picked up, and in the meantime, I've ordered an HD (high-definition) camera that emulates film (shoots 24 progressive frames a second and records a natively theatre-wide image) and brought my editing software up to the current version (costing me $800--it was five years behind). Unfortunately, I have to wait for a new laptop until I can start all of this: the new software won't run on my old one and the old software that's on it now won't support the HD footage I'll be shooting. As soon as that happens, though, look for "Postcards from Alberta Beach" coming to a website near you along with a slew of short films.
So that's what's been going on in the last eight months. As always, thank you for reading... and up in Canada, it's Thanksgiving this weekend... so Happy Thanksgiving, eh!
Posted: Mon - October 8, 2007 at 02:22 PM
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Published On: Oct 08, 2007 04:31 PM
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Published On: Oct 08, 2007 04:31 PM