Not officially theatre-related

My apologies -- this post is not officially theatre related. However, I suspect that the majority of the people who might visit this blog are theatre-folk and might be interested in a similar-minded project.

So, yeah, I'm going to take advantage of that audience combined with my ability to post here. So here goes.

I'm trying to put together a crew to make a movie in the late summer / early fall. This will be a low-to-no budget flick, likely shot on video (digital video if I can find one, but it's not currently look good) and edited on a PC, eventually burned to a CD (or DVD if anyone's got a burner to spare).

I'd like to have the cast and crew in place somtime in July in order to shoot through August and September. It'll be a lengthy shooting schedule compared to what Hollywood usually goes through, but given that most people only have weekends and evenings available to them, and have silly day jobs, that does impose limitations on the schedule.

So here's the pitch -- I need help. Do you want to be involved in a movie? CONTACT ME! I need actors as well as a whole whack of people to help out behind the scenes. Doesn't matter what you think might be able to offer or not, if you're interested in helping out, CONTACT ME! E-MAIL ME! I'm sure this will be an entertaining and educational experience for everyone involved.

Okay, I suppose that's enough time taken up on the Studio Theatre blog with a non-theatre related post. Hope to hear from you all.

Oh, and in case I forgot, E-MAIL ME!

Thousands and thousands of words.

Okay, so I you all some pictures. I've been sitting on them for just about a week now, hoping to find the time to a cool kind of photo essay. As of yet, the time hasn't presented itself, so this'll have to do for the moment -- a whole bunch of cropped photos, just kind of stuck into the middle of the blog.

It's worth pointing out, though, that if a picture is worth a thousands words, I think this post will clock in at about 22,000 words or so. Plus captions. That's a decent evenings's work.

Anywho...on with the festivities. Please excuse the occasionally very-tongue-in-cheek humour. I don't seem to be able to help myself tonight.


It was raining on the way to Quesnel. Didn't bode well for transporting our set -- which was 99% newspaper, I think -- from the U-Haul to the the theatre. Thankfully the rain disappeared in time for the move.


Ever the director, Sheryl-Lynn helped get the U-Haul into position (Andrew Rook was behind the wheel)


It's no surprise that our set, chaotic on stage, was just as chaotic when crammed into the back of a U-Haul.


Also not surprising was just how much time it took to put together a set that was designed to look chaotic and messy. Somehow, we got it together in the four hours we had before showtime. Somehow everything got done. Somehow everything worked (except the stupid TVs, but we at least managed to get one of them functional, which, for my money, was better than none).

Then we put a show on, and had an hour to tear the set down. Just as the sweat from unpacking the thing was starting to dry.


Lord only knows who let the director get his hands on power tools. No worries -- it was promptly removed from his possession.


I'm not sure exactly who's idea it was to bring the fridge, but if it wasn't such a fantastic set piece, I'd be inclined to say it was terrible idea.


Still, I will say this: Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid fridge. Stupid fridge.


We had an hour to tear the set down. We were finished in 59 minutes. How we managed, I'll never know for sure, but I'm fairly certain it had almost nothing to do with the director using power tools.


Then we all went to Boston Pizza, and drank as much as we could before they told us we'd have to leave.


The next morning, it was off to our coffee critique, when the adjudictor would tell us everything we did wrong (hopefully in words not terribly harsh).


Not surprisingly, there was a certain amount of tension between the director and the actors. "Because he told us to," they repeated frequently during the two hour critique.


Having taken the full brunt of the blame, the director attempts to justify his terrible, terrible choices (Ed. Note: I think I'm inclined to talk with my hands even more than normal when I'm nervous...)


After the coffee critique, we all went and had lunch. Then we did a bunch of other stuff that doesn't really matter, because it was all killing time until Saturday night, and...


THE AWARDS! WOOO!


People kind of drifted in between 10:00 and 11:00, mixing and mingling. Everyone seemed to be having a really nice time.


Until the adjudicator arrived, to crush all our hopes and dreams. (Ed. Note: Actually, the adjudicator -- Garry Davey -- was incredibly nice, leaving me feeling super-enthused after both the coffee critique, as well as the awards. Thanks Garry!).


And then...what's this? No crushed hopes? No crushed dreams? No! We won an award! Yay for us!


And then...we won another!


And another!


And then yet another! And then we got a couple of honourable mentions, that they didn't have certificates made up for at the time.


And then we sat around, drunkenly gloating until we were once again told that we were going to have to go home. The next day we drove back to Williams Lake and returned to our sad, miserable little lives. But for those two short days, we were transported to another world. A world where nothing mattered except the show, and we put together a good one. And that's something we will carry with us forever. And when life brings us down, and we're feeling a little blue, we can look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "In May of 2004, I did something special, something wonderful. And that will live with me forever."

And then we'll say, "Why the heck am I talking to myself in the mirror."

Thank you! Goodnight!