That's a wrap on Crockett

We wrapped filming Crockett on last Sunday for the summer. We have one or two days to film in the fall with a small unit, probably up in Squamish or Whistler. 

I'm currently taking a "break" to work on some of my other projects and plan a wrap party for the cast and crew of Crockett. I also need to catch up at work as well. As my August isn't quite figured out yet I'm kind of scrambling to get things finished. It's also driving me nuts, I'm one of those people who have a plan well in advance, and I know this industry doesn't really follow that. But I guess that's what makes me organized. I like to plan at least two months ahead with wiggle room. I do have options right now but I'd like to figure which path to take. 

Here is a sneak peak of Ty Olsson in Crockett: The Legend Begins. 

That's a Wrap on ATLO?

This Canada Day long weekend I spent on the set of a short film, Are The Lights On? We had a small cast and crew work on this one. Sometimes I like doing these smaller projects because it's just about the fun of the project. We had three sets in total, one of them was a small build. Each day from prep to wrap was only 8hrs. And the best part was it was friends working together :)

Check out some pictures from set.

Nicole G. Leier and Laena Brown

David T. A. Warren, our sound guy

Director Janice Chow and DOP Ian Gustafson

Shooting at the home of Vagabond Players

Are The Lights On?

Are The Lights On? is a short film I am producing with a good friend from film school. Every few years her and I decide to make a short film. I enjoy making her stories come alive because they are usually quirky and metaphoric. The last film we made together was called The Cheese Container. Janice's films always stem from an object. A cheese container that symbolized the cheesiness of a couple's relationship struggle. And Are The Lights On? stems from the brain. It's a short about what happens when you zone out at school.

Almost everything is set to go to shoot the short June 29th and 30th. Casting is locked. The crew are all on board. Now we just need to find enough background people to fill a classroom.

Crockett: The Legend Begins

One of the projects I am currently working on is a concept film for a feature about the legend of Davy Crockett. This week I spent designing a website for our campaign to secure the last half of our funding. This is our biggest, most ambitious film to date, and we need your help to make it the best it can be. So far we have raised $5510 out of the $10,000 we need. 

Check out the website at: www.crockettmovie.com

Here you'll find a list of the many Perks that we offer as a thank you for donating.

1833 Radio

Over the past few months I have been designing a website for an online music hub showcasing indie and underground music. The goal of the site is to provide what FM radios don't and that is non stop music without any duplicate songs or commercials. Right now we've got about 10 hours of music.

The site will feature different genres of music, top 5 songs and albums of the month. Down the road we are hoping to also do interviews with bands.

We have also teamed up with ING Cafe to put on a concert each month where 1833 Radio will find the talent and ING provides the space. All the proceeds of each concert go to #SingItFwd which helps kids at the Saint James Music Academy. Each session will be filmed and uploaded to the website as well. The next show will be Thursday May 30th.

Please check it out and give me any feedback.

When it rains it pours

Well first off I know the above is true 'cause I live in Vancouver. But I'm talking about being given the opportunity to get my creative and multitasking sides going pretty hardcore. I was approached a week ago to come onboard as a producer of two projects a period piece and a superhero short. Which of course being me who can't say no I said yes. The period piece is in full swing. In under a week I pulled together some remaining crew and applied for a summer program that I hope will let us shoot a demo in May.  I've also begun prepping for another short as well. This is a contemporary short but with one set build, which I also hope to shoot at the end of May beginning of June. Aside from that my slate kind of looks something like this:


1 TV show in production
1 Concert series in production
1 Short film in prep
1 Demo video in prep
2-3 Feature films in development
3 Short films in development
1 Web series in development


Yes I know this looks scary but that's where timing and multitasking comes in.

Earth Hour

This year for Earth Hour I ended up filming a candlelit concert in a bank!

ING Direct Vancouver sponsored the space and the drinks for the show. 1833 Radio, found the talent. And I shot the show (on battery power of course).

We had the lovely Tamara Nile play an unplugged session on her guitar and banjo. It was the first of a series of concerts ING is doing in Vancouver to give back to the local music community.

It was funny mix of people from bank staff to a couple who came to use the bank's ATM and stayed for the session as it turned out it was their first date. And then some tourists who just arrived in Vancouver joined mid way through and couldn't believe that a bank in Canada would host a music performance and provide some drinks.

I would say my Earth Hour 2013 was a hit.

Find out more about Tamara's Band on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/tamaranile

Check out other local artists on www.1833radio.com

Follow ING Direct on Twitter for more info on upcoming shows @OrangeYVR

KMIA Season 2!

Season 2 of Kiss My Incoming Abs is back!

We have a new opening sequence for you all. Also please welcome our new nutritionalist Ainslie Grieg who will be hosting our product segments with Nicole. Don't worry we are definitely keeping the sexiness and the pink.

Take a look at the episode below on Youtube or tune in nightly on Novus at 11:30pm. Season 2 is going to be epic.

Day in the life of a Lifemaxer video

So lately I've been helping a friend with some videos for his work. The first one is A Day in the Life type video showing how he incorporates telling people about Mila for Lifemax in his daily life. This is for a contest at work. He has a pretty cool job rope access so we decided to film him hanging off a bridge and taking calls about Mila. I even repelled off the bridge!

As an extra curricular activity he would do after work we choose to go snowboarding up at Cypress. I think the final video incorporates being able to work for Lifemax on the go and still do what you love. The video was shot on the new GoPro Hero 3.

Here is the video and please LIKE it. =)

To check out more about Mila or to buy some go to www.dannymcphee.com

Crazy8s

This year my friend Brandon and I decided to register for Crazy8s. Crazy8s is a short film contest where you send in a video pitch your 10 minute film. It gets narrowed down to 40 projects and from those you pitch to a panel of judges, who narrow it down to 12. The 12 then get to work with story editors to help perfect your script. One more time the judges narrow down the script to a final 6 filmmakers. A few friends of ours have won in the past which gives us hope. I think we'll do well based on the info session we went to. Our story is character driven and pretty cute I just hope the theme this year that's what the judges are looking for.

Becoming Redwood

My friend Ryan and I met at Shu Raku on Granville to discuss finishing a feature doc he shot quite awhile ago. It's a coming of age story about a young man who goes on an annual canoe trip down the Fraser River. After dinner we were able to get in to the screening of Becoming Redwood at VIFF (the Vancouver International Film Festival). It's actually the first film I've seen at the festival this year (thanks Ryan) :)

Becoming Redwood it's a cute story about an 11 year-old boy in the 70s who's father has just been arrested and extradited from Vancouver back to California. Redwood moves in with his mom, hostile stepfather, two older stepbrothers and a "delusional" grandpa. Redwood's dream is to beat Jack Nicklaus' (the best golfer in the world) golf record and win the "magical green jacket"that will fix his troubles. Redwood learns a great life lesson that magic cant fix your problems but if you try you might get what you need. It's indie, there were some slow moments but it's worth it.

Research Grant

Did you know that there are research grants fro artists? I thought research was only for scientists. But it turns out that you can apply for grants to do research for your script or treatment and thats what we intend to do. Jessie and I are planning to do a documentary about the LGBTQ community's biggest party and non violent protest, World Pride in Toronto 2014!

We met this morning to go over our proposal which is due October 1st. We have written a one page about our goals, how we've planned it so far, what we are researching and so on. We have a budget on what the money would be used on. We also have a schedule with deadlines like when the first draft of the treatment is due and so on. Lastly we have to include two pieces of work to submit to the judges so they could see what we've done in the past.

We have a couple of things to fine tune and then it's off to the Canada Council.

Letter in the mail...

So I finally got my letter from the BC Arts Council in the mail regarding a grant I had applied for in May. Turns out the BC Government only had 82 applications and only 20 people were able to get funding. I unfortunately wasn't one of them. Suffice to say it was my first application and I now know how much work it takes to write one of their grants. I thought there would be more applicants than there was, so looking at the positive I am going to keep writing grants until I get one. I just wish I knew what exactly they were looking for or what I did wrong. If anyone out there knows of a good course on the matter please let me know.

Festival show prep

Met with co-director Jessie today to discuss plans / strategies on our development for a one show focusing on the pride festival. Our plan is to shoot the international pride festival in 2014 which will be held in Toronto. This is going to be the biggest production I have ever tried to put together so far. Jessie is actually taking some documentary classes to help get first hand experience on how we can approach this size of a project. I'm talking a multi cam shoot of a parade shot on an independent budget. We are currently in the process of writing grant letters to help raise funds. We will be needing a lot more in the form of in kind donations and such later.

Our plan is to showcase one of the funniest and historical parties of this century. We both have been to the Vancouver Pride Festival for the past 4 years and not only are we "Allies" in the community I know I want to support everyone. We not only want to showcase the big party but also the history behind the festival. Our grant is due on October 1st and I still need to make a budget and buff up my resume.Wish us luck.

KMIA season 2

Had a great meeting today with the Kiss My Incoming Abs team to discuss season 2! We've got a new approach to our workout segment that I think every one can enjoy ;)

We will be airing some short clips to keep you motivated until November when season 2 begins again on Novus TV and our YouTube channel.

Grant writing

My friend Jess and I have spent the last 2 days writing a grant for a documentary about the Vancouver Pride Community. We still have a long way to go with budgeting and writing about artistic merit towards the project. I find that every time I start writing a grant I need a dictionary to decipher what fluffy words the application asks for. With all our research done we now have to focus on writing our narrative for this documentary, which is the hardest part. How do you write something you don't think you can predict. But the truth is you can. About 75% of what's on screen in documentaries is written ahead of time. I mean we are still in pre production but we can at least break up our doc into points and begin there.

Since we are "co-directing" this doc it's been easier to bounce ideas off each other, from the visual look to the educational and historical facts. It also helps because we have different strengths which does not conflict on our priorities we can divide the tasks at hand. I'll be doing the budget and she will be focusing on the "detailed description". Then we'll meet up, give our input and finalize the rest. This grant is due in October so we don't have much time left.

Fundraising

You know the "indie filmmaker" nowadays fundraises for their project, myself included. It's hard to make the right campaign because you're never sure what people will want to invest in. Here is an article a guy from
Vancouver wrote about his failed attempt at crowd funding. He ends up talking to Lucas McNelly who runs Kickstarter and IndieGoGo campaigns for a living and gives some tips to campaigning. Check out the post here  www.savethecitizens.blogspot.com

KMIA episode 6

Just launched our last episode of the Season 1 for Kiss My Incoming Abs. This episode features Nicole running the Vancouver Sun Run and in the kitchen Nicole and guest host Channa Serenity check out some wheat grass. We will be starting up again in September so stay tuned. In the meanwhile you can help us out by spreading any and all of our videos! :) Also like us on Facebook here.

I'm back...

Hi to the few people out there that have read this blog in the past. I know I haven't updated in a long while. So I'll just give you he run down of what I've been up to which isn't much so here goes.

After the Leo Awards in 2010, I continued working at Brightlight Pictures. I was even able to get them to start paying me! In December, I switched offices and started working on the production side. I still read the occasional script. But now I was helping make budgets, doing assumption sheets, getting my boss' production binders ready, and being a personal assistant. I worked at Brightlight for about a year and during which I still produced a webseries called Beach Ball P.I. and a short film called The Cheese Container.

Beach Ball P.I. was written and directed by my friend Zia Marashi, it's a comedy about a private detective and his partner a beach ball. You can watch the 4 part series here. 

The Cheese Container was written and directed by my friend Janice Chow. This story illustrates a relationship that is about being there for one another rather than trying to change each other. You can watch it here.

After Brightlight I bummed around and PA'ed on a few shows around Vancouver. Then in August 2012, I worked on The Family Cookoff  for the Food Network and in September 2012 I worked on the Vancouver portion of Canada's Got Talent.  In the November 2012, I started work as a logger on Ice Pilots NWT for Omni Films. 

While working on Ice Pilots NWT  I started producing and directing a fitness show called Kiss My Incoming Abs which airs on NOVUS TV. Kiss My Incoming Abs is a transformational TV show that hopes to empower people to choose their best health and fitness lifestyle. We have just finished our first season and have been ordered for another season! You can watch the first season on Youtube. 

Lately I've been attending a writer's room here in Vancouver which has got new ideas flowing. Currently I am in post production on a documentary about a native youth group who canoe down the Fraser River with the RCMP called Pulling Together. I am also in the development stage on a documentary feature I plan to direct about a young woman who will walk Japan's oldest pilgrimage on foot around the entire island of Shikoku. As well I am developing a TV show about festivals around the world which I plan to produce, the first festival being Vancouver's own Pride Parade. 

Internship

Last week I got a call asking me if I was interested in an internship at Bright Light Pictures. Which is kind of ironic as last summer I was up for an inter position there but the specific spot was no longer there.  Naturally I was a bit upset but Bright Light is one of "the" production companies to work for in Vancouver. So I decided to interview for the internship. I started on Thursday April 14th.

It's been going great. I'm assisting the Exec. Assistant of one of the owners of the company. I'm also answering reception calls, logging all incoming scripts, reading scripts and writing coverage, and assisting head of development.

Turns out this will also count as the practicum course at CapilanoU if I decide to go back for the degree.