Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Picturing: Steel Drummer in TTC Tunnel



When I use the TTC's "Spadina" tunnel to travel to my coffee destination, often there are musicians entertaining the system's patrons. Early this afternoon this gent was playing his steel drum... which reverberated nicely in that transit space.

Friday, December 27, 2024

Picturing: Shelley, Chris, and Linda at School



There were just those cool and fun kids back in Art & Design school. My God, looking at this picture now reminds me that I went to school with some pretty people — I'm guessing that's why I'm the one taking the photo.


Postscript: Sharp-eyed observers will be able to peg this pic as being taken in the mid-1980s.

Thursday, December 26, 2024

Picturing: Me with Canon by the Lakeshore



A young me in the 1980s with my Canon AE-1 and a 28mm lens. That camera paid itself off many times over, courtesy of public relations and hospital photography. I loved that camera, and still do. Perhaps I should buy a roll or two of 35mm film and fire it off again....

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

LP: Bob & Doug McKenzie — Great White North


Bob & Doug McKenzie
 Great White North 

Rick Moranis & Dave Thomas

Anthem Records
1981


***

For those readers here who weren't around in the early 1980s, this LP (Long Playing) disc of vinyl sold many copies here in Canada, and a few beyond our borders. 

Bob & Doug McKenzie — Great White North was released in November of 1981, which is exactly when I snapped it up from the Sam's record bin, and it was a "Christmas album", especially so given its takeoff on the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Like many fans of Bob and Doug and their SCTV segments, I played Bob & Doug McKenzie many times. The first spin was all many of us needed to be convinced just how good it was as a piece of comedy gold all its own.

So, take off, eh? Pass me a stubby!


Postscript: At the time I was working at Molson Breweries, specifically the (now gone) bottling plant just off of Highway 400, in Barrie, Ontario. I was "Maintenance", and part of my job was to keep the fridges in the staff restaurant and executive lounge stocked with beer. So the record album really resonated with me, eh?

Bob: My brother Doug doesn't even know what 'resonated' means, eh?
Doug: I do too, eh?! Take off! Hoser!
Bob: Yeah, it's what happens to you when you inhale too much beer... in one gulp.
Doug: Geez. I know that feelin', eh?

Monday, December 23, 2024

Picturing: A Slushy Winter's Day in Toronto



Toronto today is relatively mild, certainly compared to yesterday's -10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit), with the current temperature hovering around 0 (32°F) — allowing for much more comfortable errands.

The above photo, taken at the intersection of Bloor and Spadina, and looking south, does capture a busy scene, but not the sound of slush.


Postscript: The CN Tower, in the distance, is indicating that the cloud ceiling is at about 1,200 feet.

A Forever Question: The Price of Admission

“Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question."

Sir. Why do the Toronto Maple Leafs even exist?



Sunday, December 22, 2024

Picturing: Marble Steps at TTC Spadina Station



Just kidding, of course. Those are stone tiles covered in salt... salt-covered for obvious reasons, if one knows that Toronto is getting some winter weather. City streets are bare of snow, at least they are here in the "Annex" neighbourhood, but city and TTC crews have been throwing-down salt. It's -11 degrees Celsius (12 Fahrenheit) right now.

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Picturing: TTC Finch West Subway Stn Southbound



Late afternoon on the 'southbound' Finch West subway platform: I'm still having fun testing my new Canon RF50mm lens. It's nice and fast: F-1.8 ... almost as fast as a TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) train when it's moving and up to speed. Which begs the question: Does the TTC's subway system have F-stops?

There be Leafs fans in this car!

Friday, December 20, 2024

Picturing: Spadina Subway Station North Entrance



While approaching the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) "Spadina" station's north entrance, I popped out my Canon mirrorless to test its new RF 50mm F1.8 STM lens. After getting home and doing some viewing and appraisal on the images I took, I was decidedly impressed.

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Picturing: Two Canada Post Vehicles to the Rescue



A warm welcome to returning Canada Post workers... especially so given that they were ordered back to work during a legal strike. Two trucks came in the name of customer service!

Sunday, December 15, 2024

Picturing: A TTC Subway Train Enters Bay Station



Lately I've been getting into street photography mode; a mode which often finds me shooting below the streets of this great city, Toronto.

Late this morning while doing an errand I popped through "Bay" station, as it was very close to my destination — I could just have easily walked there, actually. As one can see from the pic, this subway station doesn't have the most chromatic of tiling. By the way, there's a ghost station of a sort right below this: it's a training and marshalling platform, and one often rented by producers for their television and film productions, with the feature film Mimic (1997) being one (which helps explain director Guillermo del Toro's love for Toronto).

Click.

Saturday, December 14, 2024

Picturing: A Bloor/Spadina Toronto Saturday Evening



At about 6:30 this evening I cracked off a couple dozen nighttime pics to test my new Canon 24mm 2.8 lens. By the way, that's the CN Tower in the distance at the extreme right side of the frame. I'm looking south-southeast. Bloor & Spadina is one busy intersection this time of the week. I love this city, especially "The Annex", my neighbourhood since the 1980s.

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Picturing: Graveyard Shift Contact Sheet



Reopening my 'Graveyard Shift' files sent me back to the 1985, as I reviewed photos, memos, call sheets, and sketches related to that film's production. Affixed above is a partial contact sheet of photographs I took right before commencement of the 'graveyard set' shoot.

I was hired to design and build a... graveyard set. The studio was on George Street here in Toronto. (I also painted designs on 'flats' for a party scene.)

Graveyard Shift was released in the States as Central Park Drifter.

The bottom right photograph is of the late Tim Mogg, the talented special-makeup artist who went on to enjoy a prolific career.

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Exploring: AMT USS Enterprise Spaceship Model Kit



Yesterday, while rummaging through my closet in search of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture tie-in novelization for my series on that picture's 45th anniversary release date, I uncovered an unopened plastic model kit indirectly related to the book I was looking for.

The price sticker, as I had already guessed without looking closely, was from "Leisure World". This would have been the store in downtown Toronto, as that (now gone) location was where I picked up a few things hobby related.

AMT's "U.S.S. Enterprise Space Ship Model Kit" was a popular item. Released a couple of months after Star Trek premiered in September of 1966, it went on to sell over 100,000 units in the show's first season alone. I came along a few years later and built more than one before I exited my teens.

What other morsels of goodness await me as I journey through some unexplored space?

Saturday, December 7, 2024

Star Trek Motion Picture Day: The Tie-in Novelization



Star Trek: The Motion Picture
 A Novel 

by
Gene Roddenberry

Pocket Books
December 1979

***

I never did finish reading this book, which I bought at Coles before Star Trek: The Motion Picture opened later that same week. Why did I not read past the first few pages, pages I could not resist sampling before seeing the flick itself? I saw the movie.

Star Trek Motion Picture Day: 45 Years Ago Today

This morning I learned that it was forty-five years ago today that the first Star Trek movie was released. In March of 1978 I was listening to Toronto radio station CKFM when a news bit announced: "Paramount Pictures will spend fifteen million dollars on a Star Trek movie . . . It will be released in December next year."

On Friday, December 7, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture finally hit movie theatres after much anticipation and fanfare, and on that very day I stood in line with friends for some movie that ended up disappointing many people ― even though it went on to make a lot of money ― but became the favourite film 'in the series' for some.

Picture a dozen teenagers meeting at the big picture house to see one of the most anticipated pictures ever. Try and imagine our disappointment when the end credits rolled: not that we wanted the show to go on, but more a case of "that was it?"; or as friend Mike said after he turned to me from the seat to my left: "I thought it would be better than that."

(The next morning I shuffled to the living room, where siblings were watching the Star Trek episode "Wink of an Eye". Is this some sort of joke? An editorial on what I saw last night? You thought this episode was bad? Last night's event flick made "Wink of an Eye" look like a masterpiece?)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was, and still is, a polarizing piece of celluloid. "We get it, you hate this movie." (The dirty little secret is a lot of fans do not like ST: TMP for the simple reason that there are virtually no "starship battles". Boo. Hoo. Trekkies!)

One thing's for sure, it is still the biggest budget Trek of the bunch, the only one given "A-picture" status by Paramount Pictures ― not that it means anything outside of trivia circles. However, the studio was not entirely happy with the box office results; even though the film brought in the bucks it was not highly "profitable", which is proportion of money made compared to money put in. While touted as soaking up 42 million production dollars, its real cost was about 28 million. (In its zeal to promote TMP as being epic in cash outlays, Paramount included the costs of the aborted Treks: the motion picture of a planned 1976 release, and a return to television scheduled for 1977.)

More importantly, that great cast was back, even if their magical chemistry was seemingly put on hold for 132 minutes. One hundred and thirty-two minutes.

What do I think of the picture now? Well, the last time I saw TMP, years ago, I liked it... more.

Perhaps I should watch it again. Tonight I will see if I like it even more.


Star Trek Motion Picture Day: Into Box Office Orbit



The above is a little and archival newspaper clipping from the Toronto Sun regarding the week following the December 7th, 1979, opening of the very first Star Trek movie; titled, simply enough, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

I remember reading at the time — in another newspaper piece — that the film took the classic dip after its opening week but regained some of its traction with the movie-going public immediately afterward. It ended its run having made a lot of money, but not as much as Paramount had hoped for considering the investment.

The last time I saw the featured film was about twenty years ago: I like it more "now".

Did I see Star Trek Into Darkness, or any of the "Next Gen" features? No. No interest whatsoever.

Star Trek Motion Picture Day: The Music Score



If one is really into film scores, he or she probably knows Jerry Goldsmith's brilliant music for 1979's science fiction epic, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

The production itself was fraught with problems, the primary and underlying one being that the original script was to be the blueprint for a 2-hour telefilm ― actual running time, about 95 minutes. Instead, the core idea stretched out unnaturally to a 142 minute theatrical length. Even with the new extended running time, there did not seem to be enough time for great character scenes and bits, which were the major identifying marks of the original television series; a series with a few outstanding markings, including superb and memorable music scoring. ("Tunes, man! Tunes!")

As much as I'm into the art and craft of film scoring, I appreciate film music most when it's played with the movie (picture and sound) it was designed to accompany. However, some scores do work very well as standalone works ― Goldsmith's stellar work for ST:TMP is one of them.

In January of 1980, one month after the flick's release, the original soundtrack album LP hit store shelves in my town. And I hit Records on Wheels. But just before I did, a fellow teenaged geek invited me over to premiere his unit of that particular piece of vinyl. His audio system was high-end, and when the music kicked up, at a beefy volume, I felt as though I was listening to something cosmically beautiful. That beautiful.

In 2012, La La Land Records released an "all-in" 3-CD set. I never acquired that boxed set, but I understand that all its versions, variations, and alternate cues, worked well ― certainly for completists.

In February of 2022, La La Land released a new-new boxed set, this one of 2 CDs.


Some sonic samples....

The "overture" (beautiful piece)

Meet V'Ger (the composer gave an all-but inanimate object some dimension and personality)

A Good Start (the Enterprise flies off) (If you heard this on its own you could be forgiven for thinking you just missed a good movie ― you did not.)


Final note: In the "Meet V'Ger" sample piece one can really hear a pipe organ. The instrument heard here is housed at the 20th Century Fox Studios Scoring Stage (now the "Newman Scoring Stage"). Composer Goldsmith wanted to utilize this special instrument, so he recorded his score at Fox, even though ST:TMP was a Paramount picture. The subsequent original-batch Trekkie feature films all had their respective scores recorded at Paramount's "Stage M", a music stage with a history in that most of the original Star Trek television series' music was recorded there. (Stage M was closed in 2006.)

I've not bought the 2-CD set. I'm just too cheap, I guess.

Star Trek Motion Picture Day: Douglas Trumbull VFX



In mid-1979 the late great visual effects master Douglas Trumbull was hired along with his contemporary, John Dykstra, in order to facilitate Star Trek: The Motion Picture's need for completed special visual effects, of which there were hundreds, for a fast-approaching release date: Friday, December 7, 1979. The masters' work, and its met completion date, was outstanding, especially so given that a lot of optical composites were of the "first pass through the printer" type. Meaning: No recomposites to improve or perfect the matte fits. "It'll have to do, there's not enough time to redo it" was something many technicians had to live with on this picture.

Douglas Trumbull's big widescreen break came when he was cast as a major contributor to, what would become, groundbreaking VFX for the great 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He was just 23 years of age when director Stanley Kubrick hired him in 1965. "The Big Four", my own name for the space epic's "Special Effects Supervisor" team, consisted of Trumbull, Con Pederson, Wally Veevers, and Tom Howard. The visual success of 2001 shot the then very young Trumbull to the top shelf of experienced visual effects artists.

He was also a director: Silent Running, which I saw and enjoyed when it was first released in 1972, was packaged as another space film; but one with an on-its-sleeve heart, brought to life through a very fine performance by Bruce Dern — guided by someone considered an 'effects' man. The ecological message inherent in Silent Running would have been newsworthy in the early seventies, but for some reason even this propellant did not make the relatively low-budgeted film earn its money back.

Mr Trumbull later directed Brainstorm, but unfortunately, the death of actress Natalie Wood before principle photography had been competed put a thorn into the side of the intended story. The director had to rewrite the script somewhat to account for his loss. Trumbull's insistence on completing the film did not go over well with MGM, which was willing to cut its losses then and there, and the director's name was then entered on a blacklist of sorts. The flick was released in 1983 and it tanked, unfortunately for the talented director helmsman. (I saw Brainstorm projected in 70mm at the Ontario Place Cinesphere, but its superior imagery and imaging was not enough for me. "There's an interesting idea in there, somewhere.")

Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Yes. The great Douglas Trumbull was convinced to take the visual effects helm on that one; a troubled production that, it could be argued, had access to way too much money and faith from Paramount Pictures (holders of "The Seven-Nine Jewels"). He explains the production's complications and successes, here in the very fine TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) video short embedded above: Douglas Trumbull - Lighting the Starship Enterprise


Postscript: As a teen, I was aware of the man genius who had worked behind the scenes on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This lead to me, ultimately, working in visual effects as an 'optical camera/printer operator'. (Compositing.)

Star Trek Motion Picture Day: AMT Klingon Cruiser



Walter "Matt" Jefferies was the man who designed the brilliant fictional starship, U.S.S. Enterprise. For Star Trek he also produced another brilliant space vessel, the Klingon Battle Cruiser.

Two years ago a friend of mine gave me the above AMT-ERTL plastic model kit: "Star Trek: The Motion Picture Klingon Cruiser", the souped-up movie version from 1979. He's been going on a buying spree, of a sort, grabbing old AMT Star Trek kits. He's managed to find the "Romulan Bird of Prey" (designed by the great Wah Chang) and an early "U.S.S. Enterprise" kit. "Early", meaning it is an example produced within the first few years of, essentially, a decades-long manufacturing run by AMT ― and later, AMT-ERTL.

My collecting friend was able to get the 1984 pressing of the "Star Trek: The Motion Picture Klingon Cruiser", not the 1979 version. Sans "Battle", but many thanks!


Postscript: Geeks

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Picturing: TTC Subway Train at Spadina Station


As I dropped down the steps to "Spadina" station's southbound platform, I caught a train idling, allowing me enough time to fire off half a dozen snaps. Seconds later it continued on its journey to Toronto's downtown core.