Posts in category "Video"

collab

I’m very pleased to say that I’m now work­ing with Five Stripe Studios, a tal­ent­ed bou­tique music com­po­si­tion stu­dio, to score my films. Music is one of the most impor­tant parts of any film, and the right music can make great footage look even bet­ter.

Choosing the right music also hap­pens to be one of the most dif­fi­cult parts of the sto­ry­telling process. For one wed­ding, I spent a week look­ing for the per­fect song. When I dis­cov­ered it had an inap­pro­pri­ate line (noth­ing vul­gar, just very unfit­ting for a wed­ding), I spent anoth­er week try­ing to find a replace­ment, but even­tu­al­ly went with my orig­i­nal choice, using audio soft­ware to take the line out.

Kyden’s First was a small project we worked on to make sure we were able to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly at dif­fer­ent stages of the scor­ing process.

It made sense to find a more capa­ble per­son to han­dle this respon­si­bil­i­ty, and I just hap­pened to come in con­tact with the right per­son at the right time. Adrian is the cre­ative direc­tor of Five Stripe Studios, and not only does he write the music, he sings, plays, and records it as well. I met him in Australia when we were much younger1, and he con­tact­ed me after com­ing across my work many years lat­er.

This not only gives me total con­trol over the music, allow­ing me to choose the right instru­ments, tone, pace, and mood, but I have more options with the footage as well, as I some­times found myself leav­ing out a great scene out to match anoth­er scene with a cer­tain part of a song. Adrian is also a very dynam­ic com­pos­er, and can give me wide­ly vary­ing styles and gen­res; exact­ly what I need when work­ing with all the dif­fer­ent things I film.

  1. I still remem­ber us play­ing NHL Hockey on the NES, which would have meant I was in my ear­ly teens. [↩]

for the sake of momentum

This week­end I have two back-to-back wed­dings. Knowing it’s going to be 14+ hours each day means my brain will be on autopi­lot, tak­ing it one event at a time as a way of pac­ing myself through­out the day. These are the last two of the sea­son; I’ll soon get to focus on edit­ing, which is always my favourite part of mak­ing films cause it’s the most sig­nif­i­cant part of the sto­ry­telling aspect.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been feel­ing more like an observ­er than a cre­ator. There haven’t been much in my own life I need to doc­u­ment.

I’ve been ask­ing peo­ple to play Larissa so I can get a record of what she sounds like with dif­fer­ent fin­gers and tech­niques.

Seth is on my elec­tric strings here. No one would be lying if they said they had a crush on this man.

I’ve had a revolv­ing door of friends and guests over late­ly, and com­bined with the fact that Bryon tends to jump on the kitchen coun­ters when he smells food up above, means I’ve been keep­ing the house con­sis­tent­ly clean, instead of going through my cycle of spot­less to dirty to spot­less again. I haven’t done any big gath­er­ings, pre­fer­ring the small­er hang­outs instead. I keep want­i­ng to invite Lisa and Tiana over togeth­er for ses­sions, or Trolley and Steph and Aaron for Magic, but the time I get alone with each is too pre­cious to give up.

That’s why time feels like it’s pass­ing so quick­ly, and also why I don’t write much any­more. I have the right peo­ple to talk to, so I don’t need to write things out to sort out my thoughts. And some­times it’s just eas­i­er to pick up a gui­tar when a surge of inspi­ra­tion strikes. Otherwise, I’m burn­ing my lips on glass­ware, look­ing for the right moments to keep myself going.

is this it

I learned that the mea­sure of a man is his abil­i­ty to stir-fry bok choi hearts.

That High Fidelity is the new (500) Days of Summer.

That it’s nice to be need­ed.

That I still won­der if I’m for­got­ten.

That it’s not so much that I don’t have any­thing to write about, but noth­ing ever seems impor­tant enough to put down on paper nowa­days.

That I say oh my god a lot.

That food poi­son­ing is like a lax­a­tive for both ends.

That I’m allowed to miss her.

That it’s okay to think oth­ers are cute too.

That I’m doing the whole Swingers thing with Lisa, where she’s try­ing to con­vince me I’m a big fuck­ing bear.

That I can’t read sig­nals.

That it does­n’t mat­ter whether or not you’re invit­ed, as long as you’re hap­py where you are.

perpetual eve

This day is the same every year. The streets are dead and filled with slush, the stores all closed. No mat­ter where I am, it seems peo­ple are look­ing for a chan­nel on TV to watch a cor­po­rate-spon­sored count­down, and I always feel alone even though I’m sur­round­ed by friends.

If it’s the same every year, it’s strange that my mem­o­ries of New Year’s Eve are so mixed. Jocks harass­ing me on the bus. Bundling up in big coats to share petit coro­nas out­side. Panic attacks. Blonds and red­heads. Rich foods and too much drink. And some­how the peo­ple I love and the peo­ple I hate end up at the same par­ties.

Sometimes it reminds me too much of my child­hood. My fam­i­ly host­ed the same count­down par­ty every year that became the only real time we spent with oth­er peo­ple, and the only time we ever caught up with our “friends”. Numbers would be shout­ed in uni­son, cham­pagne would be toast­ed, noth­ing would change. An emp­ty rit­u­al for emp­ty peo­ple. Maybe that’s why I nev­er feel like I belong any­where on this day. It’s like I’m wait­ing to feel what every­one else around me is feel­ing when the ball drops.

Anne + Haran — Wedding Day

Anne and Haran had a Vietnamese-Pakistani wed­ding, which was a delight­ful blend of two cul­tures with their own tra­di­tions and cos­tumes. Included in this day were three tea cer­e­monies, four dress changes for the bride, and one giant roast­ed pig.

When Haran first told me the fun­ny sto­ry of how he asked Anne’s par­ents for per­mis­sion to mar­ry her, he was sure to include the detail that Anne’s father was ex-mil­i­tary. This fact made him very hard to read, and Haran did­n’t know how he was tak­ing the news until Anne’s mom start­ed firm­ly rub­bing his shoul­ders, and this iron-grip mas­sage ulti­mate­ly lead to him giv­ing the approval. After hear­ing this, I thought it may be a chal­lenge to cap­ture emo­tion from Anne’s father, but now I know a daugh­ter’s wed­ding can bring out the emo­tions in any man, and he wore many ten­der looks that day.