on editors, again

oh, the terrible woes of cutting work down to fit...CBC's "As It Happens" played the audio of this Rowan Atkinson & Hugh Laurie sketch, in honour of Shakespeare's 445th birthday ("Shakey" was baptised on April 26th, 1564.)

tonight in Dawson City

the amazing, the astonishing, the first...One-Minute Film Festival, created by Scott Amos...being held tonight, for one night only, at KIAC Artist-in-Residence building, the Macaulay House Residence. i wish i could be there...since i have a 1-minute film being screened at the event, with music created by Rozalind MacPhail.

participating filmmakers include Elisabeth Belliveau, Terry Haines, Deco Dawson, Scott Amos, Dan Sokolowski, David H. Fraser, Rachel Wiegers, Jessie Currell, Rozalind MacPhail, Karen MacKay, Jen LaLiberté, The KIAC Staff, Lulu Keating, Veronica Verkley and Charles Stankievech. and me, in what i suppose is my filmmaking debut. !

urban home: Foundry Lofts, Toronto

the idea of home is constantly evolving in cities--we live in old buildings, new buildings, converted buildings, factories, houses, apartments... right now, i'm living in a house that has been subdivided into apartments (i'm in the former attic.) across the street, there's a church being turned into townhouses, which seems to be a tediously slow project...whenever the weather is lousy, the construction crew stays home.

this week i was lucky to visit Toronto's Foundry Lofts--a site which originally produced steel railway rails, fences, fire hydrants...and rather splendid decorative dragons. the foundry company dates back to the 1870s; these buildings were mostly built in 1903. now, this main warehouse has been repurposed as lofts, with a massive communal shared atrium running down the middle of the space.
several of the buildings on the former 60-acre site have been given Heritage status, and deservedly so--the smokestack, above, built at the beginning of the 20th century, was once the 2nd tallest structure in all of Canada. several of the lofts look right out at the smokestack--including this one.

more on the evolution of the Foundry, in my series on homes in Toronto, for blogTO.

one last post from the Yukon

...had the pleasure of recapping the Film Fest for the Whitehorse paper, The Yukon News...

get out there

so much more inspiring than "keep calm..." this is by moleiteau.
i found it at 43 Folders (really good ideas from Merlin Mann)
and you can download the image from flickr.

fest faves

so many good films at the Dawson Fest...there were nearly 150 movies being shown over the weekend. i didn't get to all of them but some of my favourites include:

Jeff Winch's Close & Low. a man, a dog, and a poetic leap through life--winner of this year's Lodestar Award.

Eva Weber's City of Cranes. who'd have thought crane operators in London would be such philosophical guys? and i don't know how she got such clear skies and luscious colours in grey London Town.

Anna McRoberts' The Windfisherman. this is such a funny fairytale, i want to believe that Gust Town actually exists somewhere in rural Alberta.

Daneil Janke's How People Got Fire. as told by elder Kitty Smith. the animation here is breath-taking, partly using painted live-action footage and partly sketched by artist Jay White. 1st place winner of the Yukon Energy Award.

Dustinn Craig's 4 Wheel War Pony. i never expected to love a film about skateboarding, but this is great--historic photos, Apache skateboarders, and smart split-screen effects.

Lulu Keating's Dog=God, made with Karen Hines. 2nd place winner of the Yukon Energy Award, with lush black & white footage Keating developed in a bucket, in her bathroom. (i love the idea & the word "bucket-development". must be the name of a production company somewhere...)

Duane Gastant' Aucoin's My Own Private Lower Post, which bravely explores his mother's experience in residential school, and its painful legacy in his own life.

drivin' back to whitehorse

...in a 1981 Dawson-ized Honda...

(okay, we took the caribou rack off for highway driving)

The Ampersand, part 3

last posting from Dawson for The National Post's Ampersand (some of the links are unembedded, alas)

(image: filmmaker Terry Haines clowns around with an old Super-8 camera, for Scott Amos' 1-minute-film project)