Closing of The Carlton

I love films and hey, I’m trying to make a living at making them, so it was especially sad to see The Carlton movie theatre close down this week.  It’s always sad to see old establishments in Toronto close down, but especially movie theatres.  These places hold special meaning for me; the excitement of seeing of film, the feeling it leaves with you afterwards, discussion around it, the ability to escape for an hour or so to another place, time…a theatre is the home for all of this and more.

I didn’t even really get to say my proper goodbyes, but it’s okay because I have a lot of great memories from my many visits there.  A special thanks must go out to the awesome staff, a few of them friends and former classmates of mine, who hosted the weekly Monday Midnight Movie Madness nights that I especially loved.  Seeing Back to the Future in a movie theatre was pretty awesome, and hilarious since  screenings were normally accompanied by non-stop jokes from the audience members.

With The Carleton’s closing this week, it has been nice to see the surrounding community reflect on this event.  Special mention of one staff member and friend Doug Benn, who’s Facebook page for the past little while has been riddled with photos and videos reflecting on his time at the theatre.

The Carlton Dies, photo by Doug Benn

While the above photo is a little shocking, it’s a reminder of what we’ve lost.  It also creates an urgency to keep alive the things that smaller venues like The Carlton represent, such as support for independent filmmakers.  Without that support, we stand to lose much more than a space.  We will lose important components that make up Toronto’s artistic and cultural tapestry.

The Facts

I found another interesting blog post on the Toronto Star Photo Blog, this time….actually, two posts, specifically from Richard Lautens, a staff photographer.

The first was a post on an H1N1 vaccine photo op at Toronto General Hospital, but noted that the vaccine contained, “in fact”, a placebo.  Lautens ended the post with “Shame on you TGH.”  The second post was to clear up that the vaccine given to the people in the photo op was not a placebo, but also not the H1N1 vaccine–but most importantly, that it was not a placebo.

“The fact remains that all too often there are official photo-ops and gatherings where certain events are fed to the media inappropriately and then the media is blamed for the lack of truth in journalism.  I think we all should try to do better–media included.”

The final two sentences struck me, and it was actually something I had been thinking about in the back of my mind for the past little while.  The expectation of the media, as a source of news and information, to be infallible; to be correct 100% of the time.  Although that is not the reality, of course.  Of course there is an expectation of being responsible for your error.  But what happens if you’ve been fed the wrong information, like Lautens pointed out.

It makes me think about when I’m interviewing subjects for a documentary.  It’s a good reminder that I can’t just take what they’re saying at face value and slap it in a sequence for public consumption.  I should be responsible, and fact check.

This goes the same for archives, particularly my family archives.  I need to double check things and ensure that I’m delivering the correct information to the viewers of my final thesis film.

For example, my parents believed that my cousins and I were the 7th generation of Mackeys.  After reading the Mackey Family History book, I realized we were only the 6th generation and corrected my parents.  They seemed slightly amused by this.

Websites…*sigh*

Twisted Alliance logo

I’m trying to create a website for myself, especially to post films, photos, etc.. but to also advertise myself as a person (yay!), videographer (sorta), and MFA student.

I’ve only created website using, first in 2000, Homestead.  They had a great sitebuilder, but decided to charge people for their sites.  I moved to Geocities in 2001, and created Twisted Alliance, a site for my friends.  It’s a great little time capsule, as the site is still running as of July 2009, but Geocities has warned people that it is closing accounts in September.

As my friends and I parted ways to achieve academic careers (aka University/College), I had less time to manage the site and it kinda stopped being updated.

Now, as I’m entering (hopefully) the career world with only one year left of my MFA program, I thought it might be prudent to advertise myself and my services/art/films/thoughts on the web like many others.  I purchased the Adobe Master Collection at the beginning of the 2008 school year, and am just now discovering Dreamweaver for reals.  It’s such a complicated program right now!  I found a tutorial online and created a crappy website, so hopefully I’ll keep learning and create something really cool.  Does anyone have any tips?

What I find really confusing, since I know nothing about code, is the html/CSS thing.  This leads into that, and connects over there, but you can’t do that, unless you do this….and so forth.  Well, there are less than two months of summer left.  My goal is to have a functioning site by the end of it, and know a little something more about Dreamweaver. Wish me luck!

Very cool!  I love the muted colours.  Dull (the colours), but it reminds me of the 80’s somehow.

“Curious” From Yaelfran

Monster!

Came across this awesome drawing on “Bump in the Night”’s blog “Misadventures and Mishaps“.  Just awesome.  And there are more posted on the blog!  I love her use of colour, and the sense that the construction of the piece doesn’t look complex but jumps out at you in its brief black pen (?) strokes and bold use of colouring markers.

Consumer Cravings

Just this past year I discovered my love for paper. By paper, I mean paper designs and designs made with paper, or even just designs on paper….uh, yeah!

I stumbled across this blog a few months ago and love the paper ideas they post.  It gives me so much inspiration, but alas my low funds stop me from purchasing any of the products.  Which is probably a good thing.

I’ve discovered many awesome design blogs of late and, as incredible as they are and the products they feature, I realize that I can’t get carried away with the urge to buy buy buy consume consume consume, which inevitably happens.

This intense urge to buy was deemed by my professor in the “A History of Material Cultures” course I took undergrad as a lust for a product or consumer item.  He challenged us to put off buying any product that incites this lust at first glance for about two weeks time and then see if we’re still infatuated or not.  He said most often than not after two weeks we’d probably either forget about the object or be far less enthusiastic about buying it.

I always like keeping this in mind when I have that incredible impulse to buy…and it actually helps….in some cases.  Why does the world have to have so many awesome products in it?!?!

The pic below is of The Paper Apartment’s note collection, as posted on Paper Crave’s blog.

Twitterin’ Kat

I’m trying to get back into the Twitter thing.  It’s amazing how many people are joining in now.  It was such a new thing to me back in July, and I kind of left it alone after awhile.  However, it seems much more fun now, and despite that some of their links still lead to dead ends, the cute dead end page images make up for that.

Follow me on Twitter, if you so dare!!!

I’ve got hurt feelings…

Nothing much to post about, but I haven’t posted in awhile so I figured it was time to post something.

I am crazily excited for the Flight of the Conchords’ show in Toronto this coming April!  Interestingly, I tried to get tickets for my sister and her friends after the presale (I got mine during the presale…lucky!) and they were sold out…but tickets were available on Ticketmaster’s “TicketsNow” site.  To me this site is just, as others have deemed it, legal scalping.  My tickets were $49.50 a piece…why are the same tickets more than double the face value?

TicketsNow’s answer is that once a ticket goes onsale and is being resold, its market value increases.  Okay, I get that…but come on!  What’s the point on selling them at the face value price at all when people will just buy them all up and sell them on the sister site to make themselves and Ticketmaster a nice profit?

I say boo.  To cheer myself up, I’ve become infatuated with Flight of the Conchord’s “Hurt Feelings”.

Sprinkles!

And so it begins…

…a new semester!

I don’t feel too bogged down yet, but the workload has definitely been amped up.  I find in grad school you get all your assignments, er, assigned right away and are forced to get workin’.  Whereas in undergrad, I remember it more being like the first week as a whirlwind and the weekend served as a breather before jumping into things.

Is it a surprise that I’m already behind?  Or at least I feel like I am.  Gotta get crackin’!  New semester, hopefully new habits, and good ones.