The student life is over

Tonight, Grad marked the end of my being a student in an educational facility. Tonight, I recieved the esteemed, "Editor of the Year" award from the Television Broadcasting program at Algonquin College, and it was quite the accomplishment. Along with the plaque, $500 bucks will help me with rent for the next month, then i'm moving to downtown Ottawa.

Not really any job prospects yet, but i'm going to be starting my search. Some day, I wouldn't mind being a major say in a production company with a solid mandate for big, and great things. Things that will help make our World a better place, and I have a few great contacts to start.

Tonight also marks the near of drinking for a while for me. I may go out drinking friday, possibly saturday, but after this weekend, I am done drinking for a few months. As I look forward to changing things in my life, I will change that for a while as well too.

I am glad that I have a lot of friends who will be there, as I will for them.

This is only the beginning of a more professional, interesting, controversial and creative business, where nothing is really guaranteed and everything could happen. The next 20 years of television is going to be interesting. We are going to see quite a change and hopefully I will have some part of making that change so that it all becomes better for everyone watching tv.

cheers

Vegas and shit

Vegas rocked and everyone will only hear 25% of what actually happened. I guess that's what really happens when you go to Vegas because everything is accessible and most people go for it. Graciously, I didn't go for it all. Just the booze and the parties. Losing people and walking home alone happened too and was accompanied by business cards of hookers which got me thinking. Some hooker has business cards and me, as a tv guy and filmmaker wannabe doesn't have anything close to that.

Vegas was started by a gangster, I made my first short drama about Gangsters this year. That Gangster made that start in Las Vegas, I made my first international air-trip to Las Vegas. And i was drunk every day. Best part was the experience, and that's nothing that Crappy Ass pictures can capture with an Olympic $60 buck camera can capture.

In all, best trip ever, and I can't go back to Vegas any time soon expecting it to be any better than it was with the people that I went with. They all ROCKED.

I got warned by a bartender to stop talking about Poltics. direct Quote, "stop talking about politics." Good thing, it sparked a conversation with a girl from the University of Las Vegas about politics, whom I talked to for half an hour and never met another person in Las Vegas who knew as much about politics. rock on!

well, i'm drunk now and don't walk to write more until i am sober.

cheers.

Signing Off

In an attempt to greaten his understanding of the business and growing hopes of making it early in the biggest film industry in the world, Jamie went to Las Vegas for the NAB Convention. Only thing was, this would be his last NAB convention. It would be his last anything ever. He would get to the city ok but it would be in that city that he would meet his demise because while at the convention, he would become a victim of a terrorist attack. He would pass away into the shadows and fade away from memory of all who knew him up until 100 years later when people would uncover something magnificent. It would be something that Jamie had hidden and hidden well for a hundred years. After the one hundred years and having the uncovering of his secret, Jamie would achieve what he always wanted. To be remembered. And what he created in that which was found one hundred years after his death would be something that would last forever. Something that would change the course of human nature and the human condition. It was all in one book. It was blue with a leather case and golden edging on the paper. So now on this night, almost exactly one hundred years before the discovery, Jamie is writing the finishing touches of his masterpiece work.

Blood, Broads and Brain Matter

In Sin City everything is black and white except for Blood, Broads and Brain Matter scattered over broken windshields. Everyone’s a bad guy and we all talk like we’re detectives from the fifties.

You could see pretty much the same thing on Spike TV last night, except for the black and white. Didn’t see any brain matter either, but I’m sure their brains were rattling around in their heads. It only took twenty-two shots to the head for a ref to pull a kid off of Shamrock early in the first. You’d think his feet were sliding on ice because last night, he didn’t have it.

I saw Fight Club not too long ago and that was the motivation for some of the guys to start their own slap-fest competition on last Thursday night. Sure, I took some part, but didn’t go near to or as far as some of the others.

The commentators said that a lot of the guys that come to the UFC to compete are really smart guys. Teachers, university students coming out to find courage and determination in the rawest form they can conjure. I watched the first fight and thought it was brutal, but that if I trained up, I could go for something like that. Then I saw the second fight and thought…. shit, I don’t have that great a desire to get to the top. I’d rather keep some sense about myself and do something a little more productive than cutting up some other guy’s face or knock him out to get my arm raised in a fight which would only last all but a few seconds before you have to do it again to get that same rush.

Started filming some serious stuff for The Service today. If I can get the extention for it, my group will be able to make a wicked drama that we can all be proud to show people and put on our demo reels. For now, six hours of sleep will tide me over until my next few hours sleep. This is going to be a long week. Hopefully I’ll get at least one good night of sleep before I head out to Vegas on Saturday morning at 4am.

The Greatest Story just needs to be told

From my Blue Book Archives

The greatest story ever told involves the death of the greatest man who ever lived. In his lifetime he will have had accomplished great feats so that people around him would grow to love him. He would have flaws, as does the normal man, but he will have talents that would far exceed any flaw. He would come from small beginningsand have many who would oppose him. But in defeat he would triumph.
His death would come in one of three ways. He would either die unexpectantly in a freak accident or a sudden health issue would take his life. The other option, he would die an old man ready to go into the afterlife. Though, the greatest story ever told about the greatest man who ever lived must include his death. That is the only way to make the golden transition from man to legend.

CBC Montreal

The CBC building in Montreal was the hugest TV station building I've ever seen. An hour tour only guided us through a fraction of what that place has. We saw these huge microphones that looked like the end of a tuba. It would seem humorous now to see someone speaking into one of those.

CBC's set collection is amazing. They call it all their heritage, so they can't get rid of any of it, they keep it. The vast majority is stored underground but they stash a lot of it at the Molson building next door and in some other building too.

After the tour we had the viewing for our National Film Board mini-documentaries. There were 25 in total and there were some pretty impresive ones. They played them all in a row and mine was 24th. After the viewing we went over all of them again, this time being critiqued by the students, mostly from around Montreal, but maybe a half dozen projects coming out of Ottawa, ours one of them. When the constructive critizism came our way, the first of the comments were wonderful. They loved the editing, some saying they've never seen something like that on tv. A few, including one of the National Film Board reps asked how one of the effects was done. Needless to say, I was quite excited.

This was the rough cut, and the final is due on April 29th. We've got a few things to fix, but they are pretty minor. I'm looking forward to the final viewing which will take place sometime in mid May. Hopefully I will be able to get down to that too. It was awesome to take a daytrip to Montreal and I wish I could have stayed the night, or a few days. Montreal is an amazing city and I would love to live there.

Back in Ottawa now and back to regular schoolwork. I had 5 messages waiting for me when I got in reminding me about projects due soon. At least i'll get 6 hours sleep tonight!