So Jack did a rough edit for me today! I was able to get some movie stills for your viewing pleasure. Oh, FYI, the film isn't colour corrected yet, so keep in mind that it will look a lot better when it is cut. Click to enlarge the photos below:
This is my second film in a row starring Steve Boleantu and Miguel Rivas.
Wonderful guys to work with – they helped breathe life into my script…
This song was sorta under the radar. It was a huge indie callaboration for a Halloween song. It has the following artists:
Arcade Fire's Win & Regine, Redd Kross' Steve McDonald, Beck, R.E.M.'s Joey Waronker,Buck 65, Rilo Kiley's Jenny & Black, David Cross, Roky Erickson, Devendra Banhart, Sloan's Chris Murphy, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Smoosh's Asya & Chloe, Feist, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, Gino Washington, Sparks' Russel Mael, Les Savy Fav's Syd Butler, Subtitle, Islands' J'aime, Sum 41's Stevo, Malcolm Mclaren, Tagaq, Peaches, That Dog's Anna Waronker, Postal Service's Jimmy Tamborello, Wolf Parade's Dan & Spencer, and Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O.
Well Mom and I were up until 1AM last night finishing my No-Face costume last night. I have to say it looks quite amazing! The costume towers over 7 feet tall. The mask looks dead-on (mind the Halloween pun). I'm going to my friend Leanda's Halloween party on Maitland Street. It's in an old and huge white house; such a perfect setting for ol' Hallows Eve. I've also picked up golden wrapped Halloween candy to hand out to people and saying “ah…ah” as No Face so humbly does. I think I am just going to stand beside random people or stare at them from across the room. It's going to be a fun time.
I'm feeling great lately. Things seems to be leaning my way in many aspects. Jess is a huge reason why as well. She's great with June, she inspires me and gives me a whole new creative and healthy outlook on life. She's got me back into reading which is cool. Currently reading “Cat's Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and I'm absolutely loving it. We're also both into Astronomy (she being the one with all the knowledge) and I like talking about things to her. I do a lot of driving to see her (were talking driving from Toronto to St. Catharine's 3 times a week) but it's worth every minute. Once I am in Toronto, things will be so much easier. I love the area I'm moving into; the trails, stores, THAI FOOD, and most importantly, the shopkeeps are always smiling. It's a good area for me being close to friends like Kevin Dowse and the Frenzy crew (who live in my old house on Oakwood coincidentally) and Dan Warth (who will be directing a show for CTV!) I've also asked Carl if I can begin representing Dan as a client, hoping to hear back soon from him.
At the same time, is agenting for me? I'm blessed to have the choice to explore other career opportunities don't get me wrong, however, I am beginning to enjoy making short films again and if the passion grows even stronger, I may just lean once again towards writing and directing films as a career. Anyway, if you would like to keep updated with my films via Facebook, join my group “Films By Ryan Mills”. An update on “Feline Bad” folks, we've switched editors. Jack Lee will be editing, colour correcting, and then passing it on to Phil Berg who will be doing the score. Word on the street is not only does the footage look spectacular, but behind the scenes photos are coming soon – where you will get to see yours truly in action! Side note: I can't get over how amazing Wolf Parade's new album is. Especially the song “Kissing The Beehive”. Never had a song pump me up so much.
I'm eying buying a digital SLR. The quality is so sharp compared to my Sony Cybershot. I saw one at Future Shop for $400. I just need a basic one. It's not about quality of camera, it's your subject. That brings me back to Jess, I had a post earlier about how amazing her photos are (without photoshop). She shot those with an out of date digital camera. They're mind blowing. She's got so much talent I don't know why she isn't out there making it a living. I suppose it's just a hobby for her, but wow. She inspires me to get back into photography. Being in Toronto, I'm bombarded with inspiration and interesting people and subjects.
To conclude this random jargon, I am very happy with where my life is and is going right now.
left; my favourite picture I took of Jess. middle; my No Face mask. Right; Glam shot Jess took of me…
“It reeks for weeks”?? How the fuck is anyone supposed to take THAT seriously?!
Friends, hello,
With the plethora of posts I make mainly about June, I noticed that I haven't really updated everyone about what's really happening or what's going to happen in my life as of late. However, I still will mention June because she is growing faster than…a tree?
Moving Back To Toronto
So once again, I will be moving back to Toronto. I've lived in Oshawa since July and it's got to the point where the drive to work and back is just wearing me out; I'm evening developing some road rage. I won't go as far as giving the finger, but I will ride someone's ass to 'show' them that I mean business here and to speed the heck up! This isn't cool Ryan! I will also take my hands off the wheel, steer with my knees just to clap for a driver who has made a stupid decision…the irony being that I am making a stupid decision by recklessly taking my hands off the wheel, which could cause a lot of harm to other drivers. Sigh. Oh well, back to the house! I am moving in with my friend/ex co-worker Dan Mayberry. We are moving to Ossington & Davenport on a quiet little street called Alberta Street. The house is nice, it has two floors. It's very close AND resembles my old house when I lived with Mike and Julie. My room is actually the living room, but has cool pocket doors to close it off. I am moving next Saturday and I am very excited about it. I love Toronto and I love being closer to friends now.
Jess
Jess came out of nowhere really. After feeling quite depressed and helpless after a string of failed relationships, bad dates, and so on, I joined a dating site called Plenty Of Fish. Also experienced quite a bit of problems finding that RIGHT person. I was about to just cancel the account and hope that I would just meet someone one day, but I came across this cute, smart, and engaging gal. If you haven't guess, this was Jess. I added her as a “favourite” but I was a bit shy to send her an email. She beat me to it and emailed me. We began talking on MSN at first and all seemed quite normal, until one night I got those butterflies in my stomach that were so absent from my life since maybe the beginning of my last relationship. I realized how much I liked this girl and I decided to call her. Testing out my friend Remi's Iphone, I called Jess is a drunken fiasco, luckily I didn't say anything for her to think I was a big dork.
I began getting that anticipation, that anxious feeling to see her. Simultaneously, she was feeling the same thing. We said “Eff it, let's meet this weekend”. So We did, we sat and talked and I was quite blown away with how confident and smart she was. Also how incredibly gorgeous she was. Amazing eyes, lips, and smile. We hit off as cliche as that sounds and we haven't looked back since..only grown stronger. Our biggest conflict is the distance though. She lives in St. Catherine's but I just don't care. We see each other as often as we can, and as of right now, it's working and we continue to fall in love. Even before Jess and I met, she knew of me through my ex/friend Kayla Hillier. Jess would check out my livejournal (yes this very one!) and my Facebook page and be intrigued by me. The fact that I added her as this “Favourite” just shows how magical and random life can be at times. I seriously thought there was none left.
It's refreshing. I've never had someone who has inspired me so much; who has brought out so much good in me, and introduced me to new things. I never thought I would enjoy organic coffee! We have a similar taste in music, but an even stronger appreciation to it. So, we have been able to play each other songs that we both enjoy. She has shown me a lot of classical and scores (one example is soundtrack for The Fountain – in which I adore!!). Her only flaw is liking John Mayer. 
.
Anyway, I could go on about Jess, but you'd all just be rolling your eyes. Love you Jess.
June
Speaking of gals I love, my little girl is growing even more. It's becoming quite difficult to film her now a days – mainly because everything she doesn't just blows me away. June has to be one of the most social, happy, and beautiful little girls on Earth. She's saying plenty now:
Updates on June:
- If you ask her “Where's the kitty”, she will reply with “There he is!” (of course it sounds like “Dey he is”).
- June began sleeping in her “Big Girl” bed a couple weeks ago and absolutely loves it.
- If she doesn't want to do something she says “No way! No Way!”
- When asking her “What does Molson do?” she will stick her tongue out and make a panting noise and when you ask what Astro does, she replies with “meeeooowww” (she also says Astro's name…but it sounds like Asshole)
- When she sees me she always says “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”. If I walk upstairs, she crawls up them to come see me. Also, if I pretend I am sleeping she will come over to me and tap me on the head, then I say BOO and she laughs and hugs me. However, my favourite is saying “Daddy's sad”. She will go “Aw, Dad-dee, Dad-dee” and hug me.
- If you say “Sorry” to her, she will say in a sad voice “I'm sorry” (but it sounds like “Ah sowwy”).
- June also sings. Her favourite songs are “It's raining, it's pouring”, “Ring Around The Rosey” (nothing is more cute then her saying “Hush-a, Hush-a, fall down!”. She will also sing the Iggle Piggle song from that show In The Midnight Garden.
- Our all time favourite though is her calling Dora The Explorer “Dee Dee”, Diego “Go”, Boots “Bees”, Map “Mah”, and Backpack “Pack-Pack”.
She's stolen my heart and I'm entering cheesy Dad stage. Please don't mind me.
Work
Work is going great. Still learning a lot from Carl and the industry in general. This year has been one of the slowest in History when it comes to filmmaking in Canada so it's been hard to learn and get my feet wet with contract work, booking clients on shows, etc. I blame the dollar. Since the dollar is now around 80 cents, the industry has picked up drastically! So, Carl is getting me to call places to sell clients, he has me revise contracts and help negotiate. It's really cool. I was supposed to go to the upcoming Directors Guild of Canada Awards to meet some producers – to take the next big step he says, however, all the damn tickets were sold out! What gives! Oh well, I am still learning and I plan to be an agent by 2010!
Film Making
I've completed principal photography on my last film “Feline Bad”. We had an excellent shoot and it's now in post production. I'm bless to be working with great actors and a great filming team who's passion drives them. I have a few ideas for films coming up. One is a short film parodying a 1950's sci-fi film, one is a music video with Lindsay Lewis called “One Question: Can I Have Sex With Your Wife”, and finally going to be doing small 5 minute webisodes of my old script “Four Year Plan” – it's about Josef Stalin going back to High School in present day after cryogenically freezing himself in order to bring communism to a higher technical age. Fun!
Anyway, talked my ass off. I'll leave you with this:
June & I playing with Photobooth on Mac while Jess takes our picture…
I know most of my posts have been June related this year, but I simply can't help how happy this little girl makes me and how fast she is growing even at almost 2 years old! Below is an email I received this morning from June's Mom Sarah. Not only is June saying more word's now, she is recognizing and remembering things a lot clearly. She knows Astro and even pointed to Tom Cruise and said “Daddy”…I'm flattered June, very flattered.
Hey Guys,
I just had to let you know this because it was just so cute, or maybe it was something you had to be there for…
Anyways she Loves the Dora dress up box you gave her, and is constantly putting the skirts and shirts on, usually both are worn like skirts, and usually they stay around her neck( so she has to be watched when playing with it) and whenever she puts them on i go” Oh June, your So Pretty!” or something along those lines.
Well yesterday morning the first thing she does is goes to the dress up box and puts two of the skirts on then walks up to me and goes” I'm PEE-SHE”
“PEE-SHE Mummy PEE-SHE”, it took me a second to realize what she was saying but, she was saying I'm Pretty! Pretty mummy pretty! it was SO cute!!!!
the other thing that I thought was kind of funny and wanted to share was, the other day she was in her high chair and the t.v was on and it was a commercial for Iams cat food and i was busy doing something with Owen and all of a sudden i hear her go “Asshole” and he was so excited when she said it so i stopped what I was doing and turned and looked at June and she was pointing at the t.v repeating herself, and that's when i realized she thought the cat on t.v was Astro.
it was cute and i laughed and thought you might get a chuckle out of it too!
- Sarah
Another tid-bit about June, when you pick her up she screams “Hi!! Hi!!” and says “Where we going?”.
Me: So what're going to do until I'm off work?
Jess: I'm going for coffee with my friend Joe.
Me: Oh I see…say, is this Joe named 'Java Joe'??
Jess: …I'm just going to leave, I'm not even going to kiss you goodbye for that pun!
My new favourite picture of her. Captures her personality to a TEE!
I consider “No Cities Left” by The Dears to be my favourite album of all time. Yet, it doesn't contain any of my favourite songs in my personal top 5. What I like however, is the structure, tone, and flow of the album. It's beautiful and five years later the album doesn't tire on me. After that album, they took a break and released their follow up, “Gang Of Losers”; a stripped down, live-band type of sound. Very linear and standard compared to the vast depth of “No Cities Left”. I felt a bit let down because of the expectations their better album created.
I've been complaining of a musical drought lately, but discovered that the Dears have a new album “Missiles” and it's coming out October 21st. I heard two songs right away “Meltdown In A Major” and “Money Babies”. Both sounding reminicient of No Cities but more radio-friendly you can say. My point is, they're back to a more complex sound which is amazing. “Money Babies” reminds me a lot of “Heartless Romantic” – which happens to be one of my favourite songs by them and if you talk to any Dears fan, that is one of their favourites as well. Anyway, thanks to the band for releasing what sounds like could be a decent, decent effort.
video for “Money Babies”. Note that the band doesn't appear in the video – this is because everyone but two members left the band shortly after the album was completed…
You are currently browsing the Ryan Owns The Sky blog archives for October, 2008.
|
 | Valerie on A Wonderful Day, Yes |
 | Will on Hipsters |
 | Krista on Hipsters |
 | Michael Elworthy on Open Letter To Bigots |
 | Kayla Hillier… on My Favourite Movie |
