Oslo

Andrea, Fiona, Kamilla

Well technically not Oslo - I’ve been staying with Andrea’s wonderful family who live on the other side of the fjord in a beautiful house with a beautiful view of the fjord and the air smells so wonderful.

First off: summer weather. Finally was able to break out the sandals for sandal-appropriate weather. It’s nice. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t wear socks between May and September. But living in Canada and travelling/studying in Northern Europe won’t allow that. And maybe sunny weather makes every city look nicer, but I was really digging Oslo.

Andrea, Fiona, and I had some lovely walks around the city, Andrea pointing out all the important spots - very nice. There are a lot of nice parks and streets with trees lining the sidewalks; I always like it when nature and city collide. Oslo has some beautiful splashes of green in the concrete jungle. My friend Kamilla, who I met up with for a walk says that Trondheim is prettier, but that’ll have to wait for another trip.

Other cool thing - Syttende Mai (17th of May). That’s the big national day in Norway, which is what I experienced for my first impression of Oslo. I’ve never been in another country for their national holiday, so it was cool to be in one where they put up a nice celebration - children parading with their schools, the royal family constantly waving, people packing the streets... it was really cool to see. And then at the end, Andrea and I found ourselves at her cousin’s place having a lovely dinner while dancing and laughing with her cousins, sister, brother-in-law, and their friends.

Andrea has such an awesome family. Her parents are so nice, her sister is really cool, and her brother-in-law is such a hoot. It’s always so nice, so special, when I get to spend times like these with people’s loving families. My first dinner at her house when I arrived, her dad proudly showing me his office, her mom sharing delicious cookies with us and always asking about how our day was, talking about film with her sister and brother-in-law, everything. It’s so... warming. Frankly, I don’t want to leave. But Amsterdam will also be awesome. So I guess, on to that.

And besides... I’ll see Andrea and Fiona again. Next year. And several times after that. I know it.

"We're Artists!"

In Production Management class, we watched the obligatory Hearts of Darkness behind-the-scenes doc about the crazy-ass shit that went down on the set of Apocalypse Now. And Catrine made the comment that she thought it was kind of cool that everything/everyone went crazy because out of that craziness can come something brilliant. And then Kristian Bjerre and I laughed and looked at each other saying “I’d prefer to make something brilliant without going crazy.”

Which I think is fully completely 100% possible.

I always hear the tales of the “tortured artistic genius” or the brilliant musicians/writers who were on acid, coke, or weed when they wrote their masterpieces. Which I think is bullshit. I’ve tried weed and it only made me more incoherent and I’ve been through the whole depressed/tortured soul thing and it only made my mind blank. I personally am most creative and random when I have clarity of mind and in a thoughtful, reflective mood.

Take my roommate - Jacob Møller. His 10-minute is ridiculous artsy-fartsy, symbolic, metaphysical, random, creative crap. I love it (he showed me his rough cut). And was he on drugs when he did it? No. Is he a “tortured soul” like Lars von Trier or all those “method actor” types? No. Is he weird? Maybe. But not really. He just thinks about stuff. And then writes it down and proclaims, “It’s brilliant!” Because after all, “We’re artists! Let’s just experiment and shit.”

He says that a lot, too.

Don't Be Afraid To Do Something Crazy...

That seems to be my theme for this weekend. For two reasons. First, I'll start with the "lighter" thing.

I've decided that I'm going to sleep for two nights in a small cramped film set of an underground nuclear bunker to get into character for a film this weekend. It'll be uncomfortable, it'll be weird and creepy, I probably won't like it, but it may be just what I need to give a good enough performance. Cuz it's a crazy role and I'd never done something this challenging before. And I'm going to listen to the film's soundtrack over and over again so it'll be ingrained in my brain and only have the script with me and a laptop (sans internet) to write notes on my personal script I'm working on (in case I get ideas) and The Hynek UFO Report for reading. I'll emerge to eat food, discuss things with people, but I want to spend the bulk of my time inside the set, get the feel, get the craziness into me of this trapped helpless man, and try a new approach to acting.

My friend Anna told me I shouldn't be afraid to try something crazy. And to go all the way with it cuz in the end... why not? It might work, it might not. So should I even bring a mattress? Or if I do, just a simple, thin one, with a pillow. It shouldn't be comfortable, that'll defeat the purpose, right? Is this crazy? Probably. But will it work? Something tells me yes.

My friend Michelle also gave me some really good advice that is going to help me make a really big decision, much bigger than spending a crazy weekend in a fake bomb shelter. Because it is something that I thought might also be crazy or irrational... but it might be that this one instance in my life will be my only chance to try this crazy possibly irrational approach. Even if it means pulling myself away from the people and country I love.

I mentioned to some of the staff (and some of my fellow students) that I'm considering applying to be a College Assistant and stay another year in little Ebeltoft, Denmark. This could be stupid. It really could. But it also could lead to something amazing, something wonderful, something really beautiful that I've never before experienced. Maybe one of the crazy magical possibilities that have been swimming around in my head will actually happen and come true. And if I don't try something crazy now, while I am fortunate enough to be in a free position in my life to try something "out there"... then why not take the chance before I get into a routine in life that I cannot break from. I know I'll really miss my friends and family but... I won't be away from them forever. The people I really care about, I mean who truly have a deep significance in my life... we'll stay connected. And same with the people who truly care about me and consider me to be an important part of them.

Plus, I'll be giving them a good excuse to visit Denmark or a new part of the world. ;)

So I'm gonna think carefully over the next month before I submit my application. If I get the job, I'd be able to stay here and make more film projects using free equipment, work with the same great staff, take courses I didn't get the chance to take, have free room and board, make new connections and strengthen the ones I already have, and have a really good time. I know I'd enjoy myself. And I'd have my own room with my own space and a kitchen this time around, so I'd be able to make my own delicious meals when I'm sick of cafeteria food. And I know the other people who are applying for the same job, and they'd be good people to be around. Especially one person in specific, I would really like to spend more time with because they're a really amazing person I've gotten pretty close to this year. And those kinds of friendships/bonds are really important to me. And my roommate Jacob could visit every now and then... And... ah, fuck it, I dunno. Soul-searching and serious-thinking this next coming month.

And to have just ONE of the crazy magical possibilities I've imagined to happen to me in my life... wouldn't that be so cool?

Internet, eh?

This is an article I wrote for my German friend Christoph's documentary project on the internet:

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People often complain about the internet reducing the amount of intimate interaction we have in life. For example, instead of calling someone to hear their voice, people send an email or chat on MSN or Facebook. And I think this does happen, to an extent. But for me, in my situation, the internet has increased my ability to communicate with the people I love and care about.

I am big on travelling. I have been studying in Denmark for over five months now. About a year ago, I travelled around South America for two and a half months. Before that, I spent four years at a university that was 2000 kilometres away from home. If it wasn’t for the internet, I wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with my loved ones back in Canada - they would have to rely on postcards and snail mail, which means they would hear from me, maybe, every few months. With the internet I can get in touch with them pretty much whenever I want.

I also have endless options. I send an email. I can call home from my computer. I can use Skype for a free live video chat (cheaper than a non-visual phone call). I can chat with them on an instant messaging program. And I can blog. The latter is my primary way of keeping the masses of my friends and family informed of my whereabouts and goings-on. I give them the link, they read it, and then respond by email. When I want to talk to my family or my really close friends, I arrange a Skype date.

I remember when I’d be on the computer back home and my dad would often say to me, “You’re spending far too much time on the computer, go do something else, grumble grumble!” And I would say, at times, he was definitely right. There are times when I just waste the day away watching TV shows online or surfing random, pointless, unnecessary, stupid web sites. But without the internet I wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with my friends from South America, Europe, the States, Canada, or anywhere else. 

I can make friends all over the world and keep them. And I think that’s pretty cool.

Det godt!

That means "It's good!" It might not even be perfect Dansk grammar. But regardless, I just wanted to make a short post telling everyone that things are pretty fuckin' sweet for me right now. I'm editing a friend's personal film project (a short film about 3-4 minutes long), doing sound operating and sound design for another longer one, will be editing a friend's 7-minute documentary project, and doing some co-editing for a short TV series project (4 episodes of 4 minutes). And in between all that, I hope to get some writing done, as we won't have any classes for the next 3 weeks and the great thing about post-production is that you can make your own hours! ;)

Hope all's well with y'all! Lemme know! Send me an email! Write me a facebook message! Comment here! I'd like to know what's up. And tell other people who you know I know who might not read this.

:D

Keeping In Touch

Having been someone who has spent most of the last 6 years living away from "home" (i.e. my parents' house in Mississauga), I have found it tough sometimes to maintain contact with what's going on. I spent most of 4 years living in Halifax, followed by a year where I spent 2 and a half months on another continent. And now here I am again, spending (pretty much) a whole year in a far off country, where I won't be able to see my friends and family, the people I grew up with, who supported me throughout all my triumphs (school plays, athletic championships, birthdays) and my setbacks (rejections, deaths, surgeries). 

There have often been times when I have felt as though the people back home could do without me. My family tells me they all miss me, which of course is the most important, and I know they mean it, so it's very comforting to know that I always have that. Them, rather. But every now and then the paranoid thought enters my head that "hey, if I were to just stay here and never come back... would that really terribly affect anyone?" All my friends back home seem to be getting along fine without me. I keep in touch with the important ones, but often a lot of them are doing really important things, are really busy, or just don't really use their email, Facebook, or Skype (my 3 means of communication with back home). So I feel as though I easily drift away.

That said, last time I returned, I was able to pretty quickly get back into "chillin" mode. Maybe this was because I came home in time for New Year's and, thus, I was home in time for parties, fun, and excitement. But maybe it's that, even though I spend so much time away and that there might one day come a time when I will permanently be living away from "home", these connections I've established with these people who I consider "home" are so strong that whenever we are together things will be like I never left. And in the meantime we just continue to update each other.

But it's tough. I have friends from back home who have never seen me interact in certain relationships outside of home that meant a lot to me - my friends back home will probably never meet the people I establish close relationships with here in Denmark. They didn't meet any of the friends I made in South America. And none of them made it out to Halifax when I was in university there, so they maybe only met briefly a couple of the friends I made there, and then only because those people are from Mississauga's suburb Toronto.

And I guess... I'm not yet sure what to make of that. Does it matter?

Pay You Back

This holiday I have had a lot of someone saying to me "I've got this" and me reaching into my wallet saying "Oh, you sure" and them saying "Of course!" Or something to that effect. A lot of people doing nice things for me and then saying "Don't mention it", "Of course", or (in Danish) "It was only so little". I started to feel like I've been building up a lot of "karma debt" and it was worrying me. But not because I was going to be attacked by "bad karma" to balance it off. Just that I feel uncomfortable when I'm indebted so much to so many people.

Last night, in a cab ride home from a pub, I offered my cousin Leanne some money to pay for a little bit of it and she reluctantly accepted, explaining to me "But you're the visitor," which started to put things in perspective for me.

I will pay people back. In some form, some day, somehow. Right now, I don't have the means. I have yet to work a proper long-term, full-time job to accumulate enough money that I don't have to hoard it for personal expenses. I have yet to become a rich successful filmmaker, and at the moment I don't really have anything grand to offer except for my presence and my time.

So in the meantime, those who have given me so much - my friend Elliott and his family, my friend Anna and her family, my English cousins in Brighton/Hove and Titchfield, my friend Paul from travelling, and my friend Vilhelm and his family - will all have to wait. I can give little things - little presents I found, maybe buy a drink or two, or give something I've owned for a while that I don't need anymore but might be nice for them to have. In a way, it's all a motivator for me to make a lot of money or have a nice home - so I will have something to share when the time comes.

So I will not forget! When you come to visit me in Canada, or wherever I may be, I will return the favour (either personally myself or with my lovely family). And when I get a good solid long-term full-time with benefits sort of job... 

I will buy the drinks and pick up the cheques.

House-Hopping In Europe

I love it. And as a result, I have promised several families that they are welcome to stay at my home (rather, my parents' home) when they come to Canada. Right now I am staying with my friend Anna's family in Borum, a village just outside of Aarhus, the second major city in Denmark (it's sort of the "university town"). This is the second Danish family I have lived with since arriving in Denmark. And they're certainly not the last family I'll be staying with while I'm in Europe, or even before the end of the holidays.

On Monday morning, I will be taking good ole reliable cheap RyanAir to Stansted Airport in England to stay with my relatives (on me pa's side) for the week surrounding Christmas! After that, I ship off to Stockholm to be picked up in the middle of the night by my friend Vilhelm to stay with his fam for the week surrounding New Year's. And it looks like he'll have at least one other film school friend joining us.

When it comes down to it, there are two main reasons why house-hopping is the best. One of them is logistical: it saves money. If I stay in a hotel in Aarhus, Brighton, (I will be in a hotel for my few days in London but that's still being with family), and Stockholm, it'll be mega-expensive. But if I stay with families, then my rent and food expenses are drastically reduced (or eliminated!). It means I have money to spend on touristy things, like visiting the Gamle By (historic town) in Aarhus! I can spend my money on these things.

Secondly, staying with a family is way more fun than staying in a dumb ole hotel (exception: if you are staying in that hotel with said family). You get to have family dinners, go to family outings (e.g. family birthday parties, holiday celebrations like St. Morten's Day), and talk to the families about cultural/family things ("Oh you do that here, too!", "Interesting! In our country we do things this way," etc.). It's harder to get those interactions in hotels or hostels. You have to work for them.

So this holiday, I will be a loving member of... three families. I plan to join many more before heading back to Canada in the summer.

Feeling Like A Filmmaker

Up until now, I’ve felt only like a film student. I have studied different aspects of film, tried some things out with my personal 10-minute project, and done exercises in editing, sound, and directing.

However, this past project, the 5-minute short story adaptation, has felt different. The music video was the first project where I felt everyone in the crew put in at least 100% effort, but this project is where I felt everyone became, or at least aimed to be, 100% professional. Dev and I discussed the logistics of his script and really worked hard to make it the best it could be. Merissa toiled endlessly to make sure we could shoot in the locations I wanted and that we had everything needed to make our film the best it could be. Vicky and I worked together to make sure we had good storyboards and a clear idea of how the film should look, then she and Anna set up the lights to make sure we had an actual professional-looking film. Anna set up radio mics and placed the boom strategically to make sure we had great sound. Simon then spliced the best bits together to make each cut flow smoothly, pace the film appropriately, and develop the emotion within the story.

And me... I looked at the monitor and yelled “Action!” and “Cut!”

This, of course, isn’t all that everyone did. We had a very small crew, so some had to fill in for extra job roles, of course. But it really felt like everyone worked hard to make a proper film and that, in the end, that’s what we got.

And so now, at least for me, I feel the bar has been raised. Sure, we might not be able to get this level in our course exercises, but those are for learning. The film projects are for applying what we learned. So my goal for my future projects: to be at least as good as our 5-minute. Of course, maybe I’m hyping up our specific film too much and people will be disappointed.

...But I don’t think so...

Letter To Home

Hej Beloved Family!

I am here at my friend Elliott's house in Copenhagen. It is our "homegoing week" and we are not allowed to stay on campus, so a a lot of the foreign students are staying in Copenhagen with various families of our fellow Danish students. Elliott's family is really nice. He is half-American - his dad is a Danish actor (was in Lars von Trier's "The Idiots") and his mom is from Cincinnati, Ohio. I will be staying here for the week and meeting up with various events that this guy Anton planned for EFC students to do together. And there is also the Copenhagen Dox festival going on now, so I want to find a documentary I'd be interested in seeing this week.

I am being taken care of very well here, so not to worry. I am being well-fed and Elliott is a great guy. On Friday, Elliott met me at the Osterport train station in Copenhagen and brought me across the street to play indoor soccer with some of his friends. Yesterday, Elliott gave me a bike tour around his area of Copenhagen (the bike paths are less scary and usually wider than the ones in Amsterdam) and then I went to a birthday party at the Copenhagen University pub for two friends of his. His friends were very nice, especially the ones I had played soccer with, and I even got to show off some of my skills at the foosball table (;D). Today we're going to take it easy (we got home around 5:30 last night) and watch Elliott's soccer team play on TV, then later meet up with some of the Greek students who are here for the weekend before they head off to Amsterdam with some others. But I'm mainly going to take this week off to take it easy and relax.

NB: I was able to fund my bus ticket to Copenhagen with the combo of a student discount and picking up empty beer/pop bottles and beer cases after parties and from friends' rooms. It's a way that students can make some extra money - I'm planning on using it to help fund my Europe-tripping next spring/summer.

As for why I have not been responding much lately, these past couple of weeks have been very busy. I don't think I have ever worked as consistently hard as I have in the last 2 weeks, even when I was doing plays and school at the same time. Two weekends ago, I filmed my personal short film project I wrote and directed, which my roommate Jacob will be editing when we return from holiday. The week leading up to that was very busy because I had to prepare storyboards, do character work with 2 actors, get some pre-production stuff ready (because my Production Manager kind of slacked off in that department), and also work on my Sound course assignments. On the Friday of that weekend, we were filming in an apartment room from 5:30-11:30, on the Saturday, filming at a lake/forest from 9am-9:30pm, and then on Sunday for a few hours more.

After that was done, we began pre-production on our music video assignment. Luckily, I was the editor and actor, so I did not have to do a lot of pre-production stuff, although they still needed me to help out in setting things up so I did some of that. For the actual filming, we spent last Friday filming and setup from 9-6 for outdoor scenes, then took a break until 10:30 when we setup and filmed until 7:15am and finished cleaning up by 8. Then I left for filming at 11am to act in another music video, which finished filming at 4am (and luckily had some nap breaks in between). There is a great video the Production Manager of that crew made of me and this guy Martin wrapped up in a blanket sleeping in a forest during break while eating an entire cracker-cookie solely with our mouths (because our arms were curled up in our delightfully warm blankets). And then this past week, I spent an average of about 8 hours per day in my editing suite from Monday to Wednesday, and then a few more hours on Thursday, to make sure I had everything done juuuuuust right. :)

For our music video project, there were 14 groups doing videos for 4 or 5 songs by this up-and-coming Danish singer RebekkaMaria (who sings in English). She even came and acted in half of the videos. If she and her "image team" particularly likes a video, she will use it as her official music video. We did not get to have her in our music video, so instead I played a guy who walks around with a life-size cardboard cutout of her, thinking she's my girlfriend. We had scenes of me walking down the street with her under my arm, of us walking in the park, sitting on a bench holding hands, and having a delightful dinner together. And then halfway through the song, I get frustrated with her lack of response to my affection, so I start making creepy sexual advances on her. I also start arguing with her over things like not eating my food, not showing me any love, and being suspicious of her checking out other guys. In one argument I go overboard and knock her head off. The song ends with me freaking out and burying her in a field, crying. I intercut the story with scenes of me dancing in front of a wall while being showered with balloons. It was a comedy, and I think it works quite well.

So that's what I've been up to. So far, I have had Editing and Sound as my two courses, and after the break I will be taking the Directing course (with my roommate, too!, who is probably my best friend here at the film college). I am especially enjoying editing film, so it is something I would like to look into when I return to Canada. Editing is a more solid job than director, writer, or actor, and in Denmark it pays more than director (because studios get rid of directors after production, so they can save money). And there's still a lot of fun and creativity involved in that job.

Well I think that about catches you up. I'm going to take off now, do some reading, and maybe some writing later too. Hope all's well and glad to hear you enjoyed your own vacation adventure, Mom'n'Dad! Keep up the good work at Humber, bro! :)

Jeg elsker dig, (I love you,)

:Dan