Jean Still Surfed

i really can't wait

2008-03-19T03:07:00.002-03:00

to finish school.

I have 1 assignment due this month, but I'm really busy with lots of other things!
Here's what I've been up to. So last week I presented my "no photos please" assignment in class, we were asked to present something that had a tie to photography, but was not simply a printed photo. Some people made collages, one of my classmates made a dress with prints on it. I chose to make two videos, the first was an extension of the "lonely part" I made this fall, the other video I made is a short video containing all of the photobooth pictures I've taken. I'll put them both up at the end of this post.

Other things going on in my life include a Film Festival I am organizing, this is a student event, in its 8th year. This year, Jeff Parker and I are at the helm, and the festival is going to be on March 29th at 7PM at the Vogue Theatre (yup, we booked the theatre, that's how cool we are). The Film Festival is actually held at the Vogue every year, and if you are reading blog as an outsider to Sackville, then I suppose I should tell you about the Vogue. Sackville has one movie theatre, that plays current movies, it has one screen and the place is awesome. The building is rather old, and there is a unique charm to viewing a film there. Seeing as I'm advertising, I might as well tell you about Film Society; every Thursday during the school year, an independent film is shown (these are major films that do not circulate your average movie theatre, but are show in film festivals around the world). Film society is great, as the films really bring something to Sackville that we wouldn't have if it weren't for the organisers.

So yeah, the Film Festival I help organise, we show films made by the handful of student film makers who happen to go to school here (Mount Allison does not have any form of a film program(although we have equipment to make them)). I'm excited about this years stuff, although a bit stressed, as I haven't finished everything I'm going to submit.

In other video related news, I had a presentation for the Beatles course I'm taking (wait, I don't think I ever told you I was taking a class on the Beatles, well I am, it's rad) and I made a video analysis of Revolution 9. The song is intense, but I'm not 100% satisfied with my analysis, so I think I'll hold off showing it to you until I am. But the people in my class seemed to like it.

Alright, so I should update you guys on some stats!

Before I graduate I have

• Four papers
• One photo assignment
• One take home exam (which will essentially be another essay)
• A final photo portfolio
• Two exams
• A presentation

To do. All this in under 6 weeks. I'm not looking forward to it at all.

So, I shot a lot of film last semester, and somehow, even though I felt like I had nothing to shoot this semester, I've managed to shoot more. I'm rather confused I must say. As of last week I had shot 44 rolls of black and white, but since then I think I've shot around 6, although I'm not so sure. Colour numbers in at 14 or so.

Jeez.

Anyway, that's all for today, my two no photos please videos are posted below.

Enjoy,

View My Video lonely v2 on videos.skateperception.com

oops

2008-03-07T22:52:00.003-04:00

well that was fun,

Ha, so I wrote a blog at the beginning of reading week, but one thing lead to another and I'm posting it now.

Jeez, here it is:

So I haven't written since two Sundays ago. This is because, well, I'm sure you can guess. SCHOOL. Yup, it's bizarre too because my last two weeks weren't even that bad. Well, actually I think I told you what I had to do academically in my last post, so what shall we discuss now?

So I've thought about my last two weeks, and nothing out of the ordinary happened, I went home last weekend, hung out with my family, and went on a short photo adventure with my brother who was also home visiting. The adventure was short because it was cold, and as I mention my brother, I think it's funny to share with you that I hadn't seen him since Christmas 2006, but there are two things to say about this. First, this is about as frequently as I see him, and second, it's amazing how we pick up right where we left off. Siblings are amazing for that reason.

To continue on the discussion of photography, I'm going to share some pictures with you. First, a few weeks ago I went to Amherst with Peter on a photo excursion, I just got those rolls back today, so I'll post a few pictures and talk a bit about them. Second, I scanned part of my portrait assignment for my photo class, so I'll post those and discuss them as well!

So here are my favorite pictures from Amherst, these are from the colour rolls I shot, and the black and white stuff I took I did develop this past week, but I doubt I'll ever scan them :(

To view a larger version of any of these pictures click em and it will load a new page.

So here we have a picture of my partner in crime for this photo adventure, meet Peter!

Peter took a picture of me with my camera as he wanted to see what it was like.

We parked on one of Amherst's main streets and proceeded to walk down an ally, this is it.

Here is a window in said ally

Upon emerging from the ally we were attracted to this steam duct, it fascinated us, and I have some rather amusing pictures of Peter posing alongside it, either way,

this is my favourite picture I took of the steam and the building.

Nearby we say this building that had a roof with some intense melting action.

As we were leaving Peter showed me this ally that was again nearby and I ended up with this photo.

So towards the end of our adventure, we're standing in this doorway, and we here a cat meowing, REALLY LOUD. We follow the sound, and find this cat chilling outside of a convenience store.

Maybe he was looking at this building in the last picture?

Naw, he wasn't, as that building isn't in eyesight of where the cat was.

It's fun to dream though.

As for my portrait assignment,

I had two works, one of which I scanned and will show here.

They are three photos depicting individual experiences with old age.

Grandchild

Companion

Solitude

So that's all for this week.

I'll be back next week with another post catching you up on my life!

yay!

 As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

wow

2008-02-11T00:50:00.000-04:00

Here I am posting one week after the last time I posted. We'll see how long I can keep up with this. This past week has been pretty interesting for me, because I really didn't get all that much school work done. On Monday I had my second last radio show and then somehow managed to lose the rest of the day. Tuesday night was spent helping Jonathan Clark finalize a music video for Mike Allison (http://mikeallison.ca/mikea/) and then Wednesday I did the same thing, as well as film the Wilford B. Jonah Lecture, given by Richard Florida. Thursday I believe I finally got some work done, and then Friday night was spent working on some videos (as well as getting a haircut). I have a lot due coming up, and I suddenly am a lot busier than I thought I would be.

Before reading week I have to:

• Write 2 papers
• Write 2 midterms
• Finish the next photo assignment (portraits)
• Document the "Sweetest Little Thing" at the Owens.
• Work on several videos for the www.mymta.ca site.
• Acquire music rights for songs I would like to use in the Film Festival
• Most likely I have other things to do I've forgotten.

So from that list I posted the first three are fairly self explanatory. The "Sweetest Little Thing" is something I don't know a whole lot about, because for whatever reason I have yet to attend this annual event in the 3 full years I have spent at this school. SO, instead of telling you what I think I know about it, I'll wait until I've gone, and then tell you what it was like! Maybe I'll even post a video in the weeks following.

So hmmmmm, I've got a ton of video content for this blog, but in the interests of only posting one thing a week you guys will have to wait on some of the stuff. I'm excited about the videos I'm going to be making for the mymta site, and hopefully they turn out well and end up both here, and on the site.

So about my radio show. It got to the point where making a show every week wasn't a fun synthesis of all the new music I was listening too, instead I was having trouble figuring out what I wanted to play, and so I decided that I should end on a high note. So after tomorrow, I will no longer be hosting a radio show. It's kind of bittersweet, but all in all, it will be nice to have a bit more free time on Monday's. That having been said, I'm SO glad I finally made myself have a radio show. It's something I wanted to do since I came here, but just never committed to, because when I do things, I like to be able to commit to it 100%, or not do it at all. So yeah, lets do some more list work.

• I've hosted 13 radio shows, tomorrow, my 14th will be my last
• This is my 13th blog
• I actually have lost track of black and white film shot. But I know I've shot something like 4 or so rolls in the past week.
• I processed 6 on Saturday night

So yeah my radio show last week, looked like this:

And well, I shall depart now. Here is that music video I helped edit. Hopefully you guys like it:

 As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

School, school

2008-02-03T22:08:00.000-04:00

So this past week I had some epic fun writing two assignments that were among the hardest I've had to do in a while. They were both completed on time though, so that's nice. Either way, I'm not behind on the reading for all of my classes and will have a fun time trying to catch up (and likely failing) for the rest of the semester (failing that is, in catching up on my readings, not school). A few weeks ago we had to present our self portraits for my photo class, and I was proud enough about them that I scanned them! Unreal isn't it!

I'll post those... um. But first! how about a list?

• Number of colour rolls shot since I last counted - 8
• Number of black and white rolls shot since I last counted - 22
• Number of black and whites rolls I developed on Saturday - 17
• Number of rolls I shot today (on an adventure with Pete to Amherst) - 6
• Number of assignments passed in this past month - 3
• Number of papers/take homes till I graduate - 7
• Number of assignments/final portfolios till I graduate - 6
• Number of months left in school 3
• Number of trips I am going on this summer - 4 major ones many small ones
• Possibility of me having a full time job this summer - 0%
• My feelings about that - SO STOKED.

So yeah - self portraits!

(click the images to view larger versions)

This one is taken with a 28 mm lens looking at another camera, the reflection appears in the filter at the front of the lens.

This one is taken looking into a mirror, the camera is positioned in such a fashion that the light from the window is caught as a reflection in the filter at the front of the lens.

Zero photoshop involved here, just good old reflections.

I'm kind of feeling a bit stuffed because I went to Amy's family's house for supper tonight and ate a ton, so I think I'm just going to lie down and leave you with what I've written (as well as the requisite closing video).

So yeah - here's the mantage (obviously not made by me):

 As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

my tummy hurts

2008-01-24T21:59:00.000-04:00

So today all of the bloggers (except for 2.... or 3? it's all a blur) got together and ate supper at meal hall. I ate a lot, and was stuffed when I left, I then went to see "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" at film society, that movie, is really a downer, and it didn't help the food settle. So hence the name of my post.

Well I promised that I'd talk about my courses this semester this week, but I'm mad at all of them right now, even though only two are really causing me grief (read: grief in that something is due, and is not at all unreasonable for them to have things to pass in, I just simply don't want to do them). So maybe later I'll tell you about my classes. Maybe.

Instead, enjoy this story

Throughout last semester, me, Alicia and Mike (and sometimes others) would go on little photo adventures. Towards the end of November, we decided to go on "one more adventure." We met at the photo lab at 1:30 ish and then proceeded to walk towards my house, with the purpose of making our way towards the train station. We were immediately struck by the fact that it was really warm out. We we arrived to the end of campus by York Street, Mike and Alicia decided to climb a tree. I took pictures.

We then wandered down Landsdowne and eventually ended up at my house, where we elected to leave our winter coats, as it was much too warm for them. Instead of doing the normal act of using roads to make our way to the train station, following Mike's lead we walked across a field, and then ended up in this rather cool spot, where I had fun taking pictures of a sewer exit thingy. As I was changing film in my cameras and taking pictures, Mike and Alicia wandered off and ended up laying about in the tall grass. I took some pictures here, and once you see them I'm sure you'll wish you were laying about on a warm late November day in some tall grass in Sackville.

After that we went over to the train station, and sat in the grass yard of in the sketchy abandoned house next to George's Fabulous Roadhouse. Once we started to get cold (as it was about 4 or so) we walked back home.

It was indeed, a fabulous adventure,

Here is my radio show for the past week:

So while looking for a video to post on my blog I went to www.youtube.com and the top featured video was by Two Hours Traffic. My reaction went like this: "woah"

Here it is.

PS they are a maritime band and play in Sackville 2 or times a year.

Well that's all for this week, thanks for reading and see you next week!
 As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

Sup

2008-01-13T14:06:00.000-04:00

Holiday! (is over )

Before I go on, any picture I post here, you can click on to see a larger version.

So last time I posted I did a recap of my classes, I thought it was a good idea, and in fact a few people let me know that it was. Neat. I had intentions of writing a blog over break, but I was so busy doing hardly anything productive that in fact I just couldn't seem to get around to it. So lets see, what can I talk about in this blog?

How about I

• Tell you about my holidays
• Talk to you about some music
• Show you some pictures I've taken
• Show you some pictures that will make you laugh
• Talk to you about my upcoming semester

So my holidays hmmmm? I went home to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. I finished exams on the 18th, and was initially supposed to go home on the 19th, but instead ended up going home on the 20th at night. Here's why, Amy was coming home with me to visit for a few days, but she and Rory were working on a project together and needed to present it prior to leaving, due to this delay, Rory offered to drive us back to New Glasgow (as my dad was supposed to get me on the 19th). The drive back was fun, as Mary came along with us (she works at the Owens art gallery) as she was going home to Pictou county as well. The ride home was fun, and the few days Amy and I spent together were filled with sleeping, watching The Office, playing Scrabble (only once though) and eating food. After Amy left, my sister Gaby arrived, and she was in New Glasgow for the duration of my time home. On January 1st I left home and came back to New Glasgow, then I caught a train to Caraquet (that's in Northern New Brunswick) and hung out with Sylvain and Tia for a few days. The main point to this trip to Caraquet was to get a bunch of work done on the Wub Tour DVD. You see this past summer 7 of us went on a road trip around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to skateboard, although initially I had no intention of making a video out of it, my mind changed. That video is on Google video, and it's LONG so I won't post it here, because I doubt very many of you will want to watch a horrible compressed 40 minute skate video. Tangent aside Sylvain and I got a whole bunch done in those few days I was in Caraquet (1st to 5th). On the 5th we drove up to Riverview to skate at the indoor skatepark. After a long day of physical activity, I got back to Sackville and literally went to sleep as soon as I got in the door, 11:00, and got out of bed at 1PM on Sunday, I guess I was tired!

So music, hmmmm, while on the train, to Caraquet I decided to take up the daunting task of sorting through my music library and figuring out stuff I don't need to have in iTunes and on my iPod, the plan is, once I figure out what I want gone, I'll put it on my external hard drive, so if for some reason I need it, I can get at it, but essentially I will clear up a huge amount of space. In other music related news, I had my first radio show of the new year on Monday and it had an "electronica" influence. I use quotation marks because the music wasn't outright electronica, as it still had ties to the alternative/indie stuff I play on my show.

Show 10

OH YEAH!

Some time in the last two months I got the idea (from a webforum I frequent) to try to see if I could make a playlist out of 18 songs that I would feel happy listening to for the rest of my life. Although the task was daunting I managed, and I am really happy with the result, as I listen to that playlist a lot now.

On to photos!

Hart Hall on a wonderful sunny day after a heavy snowfall.

The post office

Hanna at the cafe

JJ's shoulder... the first in a series?

The standard way I look at and photograph trees

Snow angel

Here are a few funny internet pictures.

Contrary to the list I posted at the beginning of my blog, I will NOT talk about my upcoming semester, instead, I'll do that next week!

yah!

Closing video for this post - Charlie Bit Me.

Long time no see

2007-12-07T18:06:00.000-04:00

Almost a month since I last posted. Not so hot.

It's not even like I was too busy either, but I guess I just haven't felt I wanted to put the time into making a post.

My last couple weeks have been similar to other Mount Allison students, writing final papers and wrapping up each course. The last two weeks of class are pretty hard for me because I get tired of going to class, and just want to skip them all and work on my papers etc. I chalk this up to the fact that I don't miss many classes throughout the semester?

So I wanted to write a bit of a recap on my semester by writing a detailed "review" of each class I took (of course I won't be able to talk about the exams as I haven't written any yet). So I talked briefly in my last post about how this semester has been my best and least stressful semester of my entire university career. It has a lot to do with the courses I took, but the best part is that the last paper I had to pass in was due on November 26th. Now you know why I'm a bad person for not posting a blog here. I've had nothing due... for OVER A WEEK. So you might be saying to yourself well he has to start studying for exams. Well, yeah... sorta except my first exam is on the 12th, then 17th then 18th. So not only do I only have 3 exams, but they aren't for a while.

So what am I spending my time on these days? Thanks for asking! I'm working on my final photo portfolio, where I have to have 12 prints passed in sometime around the 13th. So I'm working towards having that done this weekend, leaving me time to study for my exams! Sweet. This past weekend, due to the fact that I didn't really have anything specific to do, I went home, and white I was home I dropped off all the rolls of colour film I shot this semester to get developed at SuperStore (that's where I get my film processed) and because they have the machines in house I had them back before I came back to school on Monday morning. Of course this means I have new stuff to post here, and am certainly going to do so:

After looking at those pictures, you might want to see a short list that sums up my semester in academics:

• 8 Papers written
• 10688 words written for papers
• 20 slides passed in
• 7 prints passed in (so far, another 12 to pass in)
• 40 rolls of black and white shot
• 12 rolls of colour shot
• 2 rolls of slide film shot
• 5 pop quizzes written (read: failed)
• 2 mid term tests written
• 5 adventures to take photos
• Hours upon hours wasted not doing school work

Once the semester is done, I will be able to add:

• 3 exams written
• 12 prints passed in as a final portfolio for my photo class

My last two radio shows were fairly interesting, they both had "themes."

Two weeks ago, I really didn't feel like making a show, so I decided to go through all the playlists for my previous shows, and pick out the best Canadian songs and make a show of that, thus fulfilling the CRCT Canadian content requirement for my show. This past week we were asked by the station to emphasize femcon (female content) in honor of the Montreal Massacre so I decided to make a show entirely out of femcon. Now I was slightly lazy in making this show and didn't verify that each song I chose in fact qualified as femcon, but the idea was there, and the show certainly had a different feel.

So here are my last two shows:

and

So on to my detailed "review" of my classes:

History 1651: Native American Voices
Dr. Naylor

This class is a survey course that spans the history of pre contact Native Americans through to 60s and 70s reform period. The material was interesting and enabled me to possess a greater opinion of Native American history. The course is comprised of two papers, weekly discussion groups, and an exam, and lectures of course. Each paper was designed as an exercise in learned to read a journal article closely and the discussion groups had the purpose of getting the students comfortable with reading primary sources. This was an excellent course (although it could be viewed as challenging for a first year course).

Religion 1661: Religion and Popular Culture
Dr. Wilson

This class had the aim of analysing how Christianity and North American popular culture interplay. The entire course readings were provided online which means there was no expensive book (or coursepack in this case) and the readings were divided into subjects that each lecture (or serious of several lectures) would discuss. What I liked the most about this course was how clear the course outline was in relation to the topics. On the courses WebCT page each topic was listed (along with a nice picture) and within each section the appropriate readings or material were posted. The course had two papers, one short analysis paper, and one longer research based paper. I enjoyed writing these papers, especially the research paper, where the student is given the opportunity of finding an example of religion in a pop culture context, discussing it, and describing where this religious symbol fits into the religious context, as well as the contemporary society. Each lecture was supplemented with relevant media (videos, pictures, websites, songs), and made the long 1:30 Monday Wednesday lectures a little bit easier to sit through. The reason I say these classes were long has to do with how Mount Allison usually schedules classes; Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes are an hour long, and Tuesday, Thursday classes are an hour and a half long. For some reason (due to scheduling conflicts?) the university decided to add a 1:30 timeslot on Monday and Wednesday afternoons at 2:30. A class in this timeslot is really annoying for me because the time between 3:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon is when I am least attentive, and crave sleep the most. Of course the nice thing about this time slot was that I got Friday afternoons off!

English 3621: Reading Films
Dr. Blagrave

This class and Photography share the spot of being my favourite classes of the semester. Due to my obvious (well I hope it's obvious after reading my blog) interest in video and film this class was quite fun to take. The course followed several topics; composition and cinematography, editing, sound, and more bookish subjects like: narrative, adaptation, cognitive film theory, semiotics and film, ideology and film, psychoanalytic theory, and feminist film. Every week on Tuesday afternoon the class met in the Wu Centre (one of Mount Allison's large auditoriums) and watched a film, each film was helpful as an example of the subject we were covering. Reading Films was one of my busier courses this semester, which 2 short papers, a mid term, a long paper and an exam. Even though I had to write more assignments, they were among the most enjoyable papers I've written since I came to school here. The two short papers were; a shot analysis, and an editing analysis of a scene. What was awesome is that we got to pick what film to use for each paper, and so generally people ended up picking a movie they liked a considerable amount.

Fine Arts 2501: Photography I
Thaddeus Holownia

Along with Reading Films my favourite class of the semester, and overall, I'd say this has been my favourite class I've taken in university. This course is the first photography class offered here and so the basics of operating a 35mm film camera, developing film (yup we do it ourselves), and making prints is covered. The first assignment is to shoot 2 rolls of slide film (36 exposures each) and present 20 of them in the first week of October. In case you don't know what slide film is, it's a positive film (colour in this instance) so instead of having a negative with all the colours inverted, your 35mm piece of emulsion is exactly like the picture you took. At the end of October, 6 black and white prints were due, and then the final portfolio is due on the 13th of December. The most exciting part of this course (other than of course having to take photos for a university course) was being surrounded by other people interested in the same creative subject as me. With video, and editing, there are so few people around me, that asking questions is generally out of the question, so I fumble around and learn mostly on my own through trial and error. With this photo class, if I had a question, I asked it, and Karen (the technician for the class), Thaddeus, or anyone who was around always answered the question. Not only did they answer questions, but the number of stupid questions I asked, that I could have figured out had I sat and thought about it for a few minutes and received kind and non condescending answers to was heartwarming. It's really amazing how nice everyone is in that environment.

I should be reviewing 5 classes, but one of them is a full year course, so I'll opt to review it at the end of the year.... IF I decide to do this again.

Due to the length of this blog, I think I will choose to end here, and post photo and video stuff as well as a bit more about current events in my life next week.

This video is absolutely hilarious, enjoy:

Thanks for reading,

As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

2007-11-14T09:14:00.000-04:00

Alright. Lets do this.

Since my last post I have been taking it easy. The only super interesting thing I did was actually recently.

So how about we do a bit of list kinda thing, and then get on to my interesting weekend.

Honestly, I've lost track of how much film I've been shooting. But it's a lot. So far I have

• 22 rolls of black and white film developed
• 7 rolls of colour waiting for me to go home to have them developed
• 2 rolls of black and white waiting to be developed

In terms of the rest of my semester I have:

• 3 more papers to write
• My final photo assignment to pass in
• 3 exams
• .... that's it?

I really lucked out this semester, as it has been by far the best one of my university career. At this time last year, I really wasn't excited about school, and in fact first semester last year was probably the worst semester I've had. It wasn't really about anything other than the fact that I didn't want to come back to school after the summer, so I wasn't motivated to do my school work, which backfired on me and ended up making my November really unpleasant. I had the final papers for 4 of my 5 classes due on either side of a weekend (Thursday, Friday, Monday). Thankfully, with the help of some extensions, I managed to get through that. SO. After that short little personal bit. How about some more list work.

Upcoming exciting events for me:

Near future:

• Final Fantasy (a band click the link to learn more about him) is playing in Sackville tomorrow night. At the Vogue Cinema.
• My friend is coming to visit, and then we are going to Moncton the next day to skateboard

More distant future:

• I'm going home in two weeks. Freaking excited about that.

Right, so, this past weekend I was part of a 48 hour project, which I organised as well. This is part of the film festival I co-organise and what it is, if you aren't familiar with a 48 film is this (in the way we made it which isn't quite how they usually are when done as part of a competition): A group of people get together, come up with an idea for a short film, flesh it out, and script it, then shoot and edit it... all in 48 hours.

The entire process was really fun and the final project will be shown at the Film Festival in March. yay!

The rest of my week is going to be spent trying to get two papers which are due on Friday done, although I might have to pass one in on Monday as my time management skills are essentially nonexistent and so I manage to over waste time even when I don't have a lot of stuff to do.

Oops!

So because I'm going to see Final Fantasy tonight I figured you could watch a video of him playing a song live to get an idea of what he's like.

Thanks for reading,  As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

2007-11-03T20:13:00.000-03:00

Hooray for breaks!

Due to my insane week, most of this blog was actually written on Monday the 29th. Keep that in mind.

So this past week and a few days (I didn't get around to writing my blog on Friday's as I usually do) has been both fun, long, and interesting (although not necessarily in that order). My weekend previous to this past one was composed of mostly studying for a mid term on Monday, but there was a degree of social activity as well, primarily focussed around Saturday night, when I attended both a barbeque, as well as a house party. Both were fun events, and I'd like to thank the members of both households for so generously hosting a good time.

As mentioned in my to do list for two weeks ago. I finally got around to making some prints for my photo class. I had to have 6 done by Thursday, when we displayed them in class and talked about them. The process of learning this was fun, although making a print takes me about an hour, so it's rather time consuming. Of course this class doesn't have essays or required readings, so the work you do for the class is all hands on, like taking photos, developing your film, and making prints. Due to the fact that I've been taking quite a few pictures, I had a lot of choice in what I wanted to print, and I was very happy with the 6 I ended up choosing.

Another event that happened this past week was the 12th annual Symposium of Art. As I mentioned last week I had to do some filming for the Art Gallery, and it was so they would have documentation of this week long event. The symposium celebrates performance art, and that was the bulk of what I had to film. On Monday, Jason Fitzpatrick perform "Bite and Burn" at the Struts Gallery, where he enclosed himself, and two other people (a tattoo artist, and printmaker) into a makeshift room that was only viewable through a small window. For the next three hours, he was subject to a tattoo that run the entire length of his spine, and had the printmaker transfer this we ink onto long sheets of paper, and posted on the wall of the room. It's hard to describe, but hopefully by the end of the week I can have some footage to show you.

Sym Corrigan was the next person I had to film to document her piece "in on, at, by", where, throughout the week she was mapping Sackville vocally over CHMA. She would go to various locations, and talk into a microphone. I filmed her at the intersection on Main Street and it was interesting to see her examine the intricacies of this space. On Friday I filmed the keynote address, given by Jayne Walk and then Saturday was a double header, I documented "Breathing Under Water" an opening and reception, as well as performance piece. The installation is really something you should check out if you can. In the high wall gallery (the gallery at the Owens with really high walls) there are giant spheres hanging from the ceiling. This installation works with resonance and sound, and is simply something that you need to check out. The performance piece consisted of a group of people bandaging the people attending the opening. This is again something that is better experienced than described so check out the little clip I threw together that highlights these three events (with some fireworks from the Cherrybomb cabaret thrown in for good measure).

 

As you can probably see, I was really busy this week, although I only had the photo assignment to present on Thursday (after writing my mid term on Monday) I really felt like I had gone through an entire week by Wednesday. In fact, I kind of made Thursday and Friday into a weekend, as I made an effort to catch up on sleep, and just generally relax a bit. On Saturday night, my good friend came to town to spend the night and hang out. Then on Sunday we drove to Moncton to skateboard the newly redesigned indoor skatepark in Riverview. Afterwards, he and his friends left for Northern New Brunswick, and I stayed the night with another friend who commutes to Sackville from Moncton for class. We hung out and played the new Guitar Hero, as well as play EA's skate, this is a game I was slightly skeptical about, but having played it, I am really impressed with it. So as you can see, my Sunday was spent entirely away from academics, or anything other than fun.

Now since my week has been so busy, I in fact wasn't able to post this blog on Monday as I had hoped. This is due largely to the fact that I wasn't able to get the Symposium footage uploaded!

My radio show this past week went really well, here's what I played:

So, in the last few weeks I have:

• Shot 12 rolls of film
• Developed 6 rolls of film
• Gone to an awesome pancake breakfast as part of a Parkinson's fundraiser
• Had all too few naps
• Bought groceries - this is worth noting as I really was running out of everything
• Worked 12 hours for the Owens
• Done absolutely no school work in the past week (except for photo, but that is fun, not work)
• Been so busy that simple things like updating a blog or my website had to be put off by many, many days
• Gone to see Bella at George's Roadhouse
• Filmed (but also enjoyed) the most spectacular artist talk I've seen at the Owen's since I started working there

Of note for this week is my Wednesday Other than going to class, which was as normal as usual, I had to film an artist talk at the Owens and shoot some Halloween photos. June Leaf presented the talk, and it really was the most incredible talk I've seen, instead of showcasing her art, she showcased herself, she whizzed through the slides she brought of her work, and instead was much more interested in fielding questions and simply interacting with the audience. After that I went home, grabbed my camera and went to the Trick or Eat reception at the president's house to take some pictures of costumes. You see my photo teacher wants us to have a print from Halloween so I figured I would go there to take some pictures. I ended up hanging out with the people there (a fellow blogger was even present) and got a bunch of candy and cookies to take home. This is the ironic part of the night is that Trick or Eat was a door to door food drive to help collect food for the food bank, and yet food was wasted at the reception. Of course finger pointing could ensue but really, to discuss to wasted food fairly would require an entire post, and would likely belittle the fact that I did have a lot of fun talking to the people at the reception. So of course, I would love to thank Dr. Campbell and Dr. Verduyn for graciously hosting the event, and of course the students who participated in Trick or Eat.

Right, well I've got another video for you. I filmed some stuff while in Moncton/Riverview and threw it together in a short little montage. The filming isn't as good as I would have liked due to the fact that I haven't been filming much skateboarding lately, so I'm slightly out of practice.

Enjoy,

 

Thanks for reading,

As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

2007-10-21T18:03:00.000-03:00

Alright, another week over. Sweet.

So before you read any further, I wrote this blog on Friday, but had to upload a video to YouTube, and then wasn't home very much/forgot to get around to posting this! oops. So go on, read Friday's post, a few days late.

This week wasn't nearly as stressful as last week, but I still had a lot to do.

Before I talk about that stuff, something I wanted to talk about last week but forgot about/ran out of time is the new Radiohead album. If you don't know about it, it's called "In Rainbows" and it was released as a digital download last Wednesday. What is so cool about this album is that as Radiohead fulfilled their 6 album contract with EMI they had the freedom to distribute their album however they wanted. So, they decided to do a two tiered system. You can preorder the box set, which comes with a plethora of stuff. The box set ships in December and has a set price. If you buy the box set you get the download as part of it. BUT, if you just want the download, you can pay anything you want. Literally anything, including nothing. Pretty cool. The album itself is awesome! So I suggest you check it out if you like their other stuff.

So, in the last week I have:

• Gone to a potluck
• Gone home
• Shot two rolls of colour film
• Shot four rolls of black and white
• Written one essay
• Written one midterm
• Developed 8 rolls of film

Well as you know if you read this, I have a radio show. If you want to listen, you can! Head on over to the CHMA and click to listen. You will need Real Player to listen. My show is from 5:00 to 6:00 PM on Mondays. I'm going to start posting my set lists for each week here so you can have an idea of some of the stuff I play and like. So here it is:

Yesterday my photo class when on a field trip to Fort Beauséjour as well as Amherst it was a lot of fun and I shot a lot of pictures. One of the primary reasons we went on this trip was due to how freaking nice it was yesterday.

In the week coming up I have to:

• Write a mid term
• Do some filming for the Owens Art Gallery
• Start making some prints for my photo class
• Develop more film (this doesn't seem to end)

Alright, well this week I've got a video I made of me cleaning up my room when I first moved back to school this year. So not only do you get to see my room, but you get to see it both messy, AND clean. The video has two sections, the first is speed up a lot, and the second isn't sped up quite so much.

Enjoy,

Thanks for reading,

As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

Wow.

2007-10-11T22:46:00.001-03:00

Wow.

So I could have written a blog about my weekend, which was rather exciting and eventful on Monday, but some assignments snuck up on me and so I wasn't able to sit down to write anything until now.

So in the past week I have:

• Passed two assignments in
• Got an assignment back (A+ yay!)
• Shot 4 rolls of film
• Had 3 turkey dinners
• Bought two pairs of pants and a sweater
• Hosted another radio show (every Monday at 5!!)
• Watched 4 movies
• And wasted countless hours on the internet

I suppose I should begin where I left off? hmmm. Well on Thursday I stayed on campus all day. I was home for a total of 30 minutes between 8:15 AM and 11:30 PM. The reason I stayed on campus all day was to work on an essay that was due today (and yes, I finished it on time). The half hour I was home was spent eating supper as quickly as possible before going to film society to see Black Book. The movie was really awesome, with a considerable amount of twists that kept me guessing the entire film. I recommend seeing this film. After the movie I dashed of the Struts Gallery to see two art openings. Although I didn't stick around to mingle, the artwork itself was really awesome. After the art opening I made my way over to the library to do a bit more reading, but prior to that, I took some pictures. I'm not exactly sure how they will turn out, as I have been lagging a bit and haven't developed any film for a while. After the library I went to Amy's house for a cup of tea and then went home. It's really incredible how much you can do in one day when you don't sit around wasting time on the computer (something I do all the time).

My weekend was awesome, I saw "Forest Gump" for the first time, went shopping in Moncton and picked up some new clothing, and had three turkey dinners in a row. The first at a potluck, the next night I went to a friend from Sackville's house, and finally Amy's family's house on Monday. Out of all the stuff I did on the weekend, the potluck was clearly the highlight. Potlucks are quite awsome, because you make/buy/bring something that is generally not hard for you to do. The payoff is that everyone brings yummy food.

So after the weekend ended, I really had to buckle down to finish the two assignments I had due. I'll tell you about today, because, for the most part, it's the most interesting.

But before that I'll make another list:

• 3279 word written
• 4 cups of French vanilla instant coffee
• 3:30 - the approximate time I went to sleep on Tuesday and Wednesday
• 7:30 - the approximate time I woke up on Wednesday and Thursday
• 2 one hour naps
• 10 hours of sleep between 10:00 AM Tuesday and 11:30 AM Thursday

All to write two papers.

Today was the final part of my two days of busy busy work. I woke up at 7:45 AM to work on the last leg of my paper, and worked straight until 11:23 AM when I emailed it to my professor. I then went back to bed. I didn't set my alarm clock, or really make any intention of waking up at any time. I ended up sleeping until 3:30. Then I did various menial things such as laundry, eating, and cleaning up my room (which was a disaster) and then went to Film Society. Looking back on my day, the most interesting thing about it was that it was like two days. Especially considering 4 hours sleep is what I had for the last two days.

So you know how you randomly find funny stuff on the internet, whether it's YouTube, or just random images? Usually you might hear about it from a friend, or get it in an email. Well I have a friend who spends a lot of time on the internet, and especially forums. He links me to a ton of stuff, and I'm going to share a bit of that with you.

I should first tell you that he has recently started going to 4chan (Wikipedia definition) and since then, has been linking me to hilarious stuff. So here they are.

Then someone made the same one with pictures of real sharks.

So due to how studious I was this week, I figure I should show you an old video I made of me doing some homework.

Thanks for reading

As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca 

2007-10-03T01:19:00.001-03:00

Another week slips by and so much has happened. Even though I am in my fourth year of university, I am still amazed regularly on how it seems like each week is so long, in terms of how much happens, yet so short, in terms of how quickly it goes by. Since my last post, I have:

• Finished my CHMA training
• Passed in an assignment
• Gone to a party for CHMA
• Filmed a lonely part
• Filmed another short
• Shot 1 roll of film (only :( )
• Developed 1 roll of black and white in the lab, and got two rolls of colour back
• Hosted my first radio show
• Presented my first photography assignment (projecting 20 slides)
and of course tons more.

In terms of the photos I just got back (colour) I can share some with you because I had them developed to CD so here are a few of my pictures:

That's the MTA library!

and then that tree reflected in a lens

The assignment I passed in was actually one of the most enjoyable assignments I've had to write since I came to school. It was a shot analysis for "Reading Films." So I had to choose one single shot from a movie (that means one single take from the camera, so no switching angles, or cuts of any sort), and analyse the shot for it's technical and creative elements.

On Saturday night Amy, Steve, Marianne and I ventured over to George's Fabulous Roadhouse for the annual (??) CHMA party. This party was quite a success as there were several of the major elements that are necessary for a fun party:

• Cheese
• Chips, and various salted bite size snack things (bugles!)
• Fruit and veggies with dip
• Pizza
• Music
• Guitar Hero (a game I had played once prior to Saturday)
• Karaoke
• Trivia
• Prizes

The food is self explanatory, except a shout out goes to whoever bought Bugles, cause they rule. Mark Brownlee (music director at CHMA) provided the music, and it was awesome, I was especially excited about Mark playing the new National CD, as I hadn't heard if yet. So yeah, Guitar Hero, I'm sure you are sick of hearing about it, but I had a lot of fun playing it for a wee bit, although I can see how the game might get repetitive eventually. Oh yeah! prizes! I won a sweet t-shirt for answering the trivia question "was Bambi a boy or a girl?"

In other CHMA related stuff, I hosted my first radio show which went rather well and was quite fun, but something I am currently more excited about is the volunteer work I am going to be doing for CHMA, in the form of reviewing new CDs for explicit content, and good tracks. This of course means I get to hear a bunch of new stuff, which is always great!

On the subject of new music, some music I've been pretty excited about in the last few weeks includes:

Pinback - Autumn of the Seraphs
Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By
Kill The Lights - Buffalo Love
I'm From Barcelona - Let Me Introduce My Friends
and
Au Revior Simone - The Bird of Music

Finally, I will leave you with the lonely part I filmed. Generally skateboard filming involves two people, the subject and the filmer. Generally I'm the filmer, and so when I want to film tricks of myself I have to hope there is a filmer nearby, this is not usually the case. So because of this I decided to try filming myself using a tripod, it turned out really well. So check it out!

Click the image to watch the video in a new window.

As always, if you have any questions, email me at:
jzstrsf@mta.ca

First!

2007-09-23T13:43:00.000-03:00

Another September on campus! By far one of my favourite months of the year, lots of sunshine, warm weather, seeing friends again, and best of all, making new ones! This is my last year at Mt. A and I know around this time next year I’ll be reminiscing about the 4 Septembers I spent here, and how each was so exciting and new. So far I’ve been a busy guy in the past few weeks. Between coordinating Mount Allison’s Student film festival, finally getting a radio show, and taking 5 classes (including photography!) I’ve had my plate full. Of course there have also been a ton of great concerts (including all ages ones) to attend.

At this point, perhaps I should introduce myself: My name is Julien Strasfeld, I'm a 4th year History major (with Classics and Philosophy as my minors), I'm a skateboarder and very interested in film and photography. I also love listening to music, and wasting time on the internet. With that brief introduction, read on to hear a bit about my first few weeks at school.

Joel Plaskett played the frosh concert this year, and he was a blast. I’ve seen him twice now, and each performance was slightly different, most strikingly in the venues, but of course, both were fantastic. The energy he performs with is wonderful, and the variety in his show makes for one that is most definitely not boring. The other concert that really sticks out that I saw last week was Maxime Morin AKA DJ Champion. This guy was brilliant as he is a DJ, but he also conducts five string players as he DJs. When I was told this, I thought it was totally worth checking out, but what surprised me was how these “string players” were actually electric guitar and bass players. Really, freaking, cool.

My big thing for this year is going to be making short films, as well as trying to get as many people excited about making short films as possible. The student film festival is something I’ve been involved with since first year and it’s incredible watching it grow and mature over the years!

I developed my first roll of film for photo class, but I messed it up, by doing something wrong. BUT! I know how to do it now so I won’t mess up next time. Thankfully the roll I ruined was a test roll so it didn’t have anything I was particularly excited about.

This past weekend, two rather large events happened, Homecoming, and the Sackville Fall Fair. As a part of the Fall Fair there was a skateboard demonstration at the Sackville skate park to promote awareness of how lacking it is. My friends from Moncton including the owner of the skateboard company I ride for came up and we put on a demo. This was the first time I wasn’t on the sidelines watching at a demo and it was a really cool feeling. After the demo a whole gang (14 people) went skating through the streets and all over town.

Lists (things form the last week):
• Rolls of film shot – 4
• Minutes of tape filmed – 60 give or take
• Assignments passed in – 1 (my first one of the year!)
• I saw a bunch of graduated friends on Saturday night at the Pub
• Song listened to – 375
• Spontaneous road trips – 1 (to see METRIC!!!)
• Held a general info meeting for the film fest

Things coming up in the next week:
• Pass an assignment in
• Develop another roll of film and make a contact sheet of it contact sheet

• Shoot more film
• Film a "lonely part" (you'll have to check in later to see what I mean)
• Finish the training for CHMA
...and much much more.

As you saw at the top of this post I posted a picture I took, I'll be doing that for as long as I remember, and at the end of each post, you'll get a video, either something I've made, or something I feel you need to see. This week you can watch my make supper (a video I made last year)

If you have any questions, email me at:
jzstrsf@mta.ca

See you next week!