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!
