Picturing: Shooting with an Arriflex 35 IIC

... with "Camera Operators' Face".

Picturing: Two Books Ordered — What Have I Done?

Imagine the look on my face when I opened the Amazon package and saw the two books above side by side. Such a simultaneous ordering was not planned, neither was my voluminous laugh out loud before I asked myself: "What have I done?"

Early this past week I learned that Michael Coren published a new book: Diary of a Low-Born Cleric - A Year in the Priesthood

Mid-week, while sorting and reorganizing my physical media (CDs/DVDs/BDs), I rewatched Llik Your Idols, a 2007 documentary on "The Cinema of Transgression"; not exactly "Cinema" right up my alley, but fascinating and appealing to my "Kick-Ass Cinema" side. It was time I ordered Deathtripping - The Extreme Underground, Jack Sargeant's definitive book on that school. He's one of the interviewees in Llik, no surprise, as is Nick Zedd, coiner of "Cinema of Transgression". 

The Reverend Michael Coren is an excellent writer. The Rebel Christ (2021) I reviewed here. Last summer I engaged with Heaping Coals - From Media Firebrand to Anglican Priest (2024), another terrific and enlightening read — and one often moving, to boot.

Last summer I relaxed with, what would prove to be, the perfect companion piece, a Carona beer, and enjoyed Nick Zedd's Totem of the Depraved (1997). I often laughed out loud.

What the books' respective endorsements have to say....

Deathtripping - The Extreme Underground

 "There will be blood, shame, pain and ecstasy, the likes of which no one has yet imagined."

 —  Nick Zedd

Diary of a Low-Born Cleric - A Year in the Priesthood

 "This godless heathen was enchanted, amused, and wholly engaged by Michael Coren's delightful   book. He could almost make me a believer."

 —  Stephen Fry

No doubt I will agree... in both cases.

Picturing: English Channel Ferry at the Port of Calais

At the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto

Late this morning I made a trip over to the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) to make a financial donation. While there I got into a discussion with Chris Kennedy, who was manning the front desk, about my history with the group: in the 1990s I donated a set of rewinds and a few 'split-reels', and in 2008 I taught a course on "Optical Printing". Formerly a Film Effects, Toronto machine, one I operated while employed there, before jumping ship to Film Opticals of Canada, Ltd., our reintroduction would prove to be a moving moment for me — film movement.

Chris asked me if I would like to say hi to my old flame; my emotions ran deep, and given my rubbery legs, I could only come up with a "I'd love to". On the way to the "Oxberry 1700" optical printer room, my guide took me to the equipment room and introduced me to Robin and Noah. The three of us got into a spirited discussion: parts technology, art, and reminiscence. They also showed me LIFT's "JK" optical printer, and the animation stands — more flashbacks to my days in "opticals". The only thing missing was Film Effects' old upright-Moviola editing machine.

Before venturing off to LIFT today, I was not anticipating such immersion.

Special thanks must go to Chris, Robin, and Noah for being such wonderful and charming hosts.

* * *

Postscript: some flicks I did titles and composites for utilizing the "1700": Only You, Dance Me Outside, M. Butterfly, Ghost Mom (originally titled "Bury Me in Niagara"), and Darkman III. By the way, the travelling split-screens for David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers were composited on this printer, but that was before my time at Film Effects. In the photo above, the film magazine (Mickey Mouse Ears) is mounted on a contact-printer in the background, another donated FE machine.

Athot for the Day: They Are Very Special

Along with women, cats are the most beautiful beings on this planet.

Quote: Irwin Panofsky on Art Types

"While it is true that commercial art is always in danger of ending up as a prostitute, it is equally true that noncommercial art is always in danger of ending up as an old maid."

Something for artists, and art buyers, to ponder.

Sunday Fun: That Buzz!

Years ago, a coffee-date conversation with an old friend made us both realize something....

* No work at all: Stress

* Some work: Stress

* Gainfully employed: Stress

The coffee, however, is always fine.

Fun note: I prepared to take a pic for this post and realized I'm out of coffee! Pardon the instant!

Blog Post: Too Much Physical Media (a Sampling)

You know how it is, ladies and gentlemen: we claim to not indulge too much in any one thing, but the truth is, when we take a step back, we realize that we do indulge too much, or at least a little more than claimed, in that "any one thing".

While undertaking some reorganizing here at home this morning, I pulled out my physical media: CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays.

The best way to get that global perspective in this case, is to spread those discs out on the floor. "I'm not a big collector of physical media" is one of my biggest lies; just a few notches behind, "When I was a teen, I tried out for the Toronto Maple Leafs but was cut in the final round. Someone told me I was too good to be wasting my talents".

Yes, in the bottom right-hand corner, is the Blu-ray of that great Canadian feature film, Face-Off... starring Art Hindle, Trudy Young, and, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

What a mess....

Quote: Me on Pierre "PP" Poilievre

Pierre Poilievre walks, whines, slimes, through insentience and self-inflicted deprivation. A clump of peat moss has heuristic abilities superior to those of PP. At the risk of sounding like an armchair clinician, I'm guessing the poor guy is a maelstrom of psychoneuroses.

It's a Question I Don't Ask Myself Often Enough

"Where am I, besides Planet Earth?"

Liberal Party of Canada Wins a Majority

I read the news: a "sweep" in all three byelections, just as I had imagined.

Terrebonne (Quebec)

Scarborough Southwest (Toronto, Ontario)

University-Rosedale (Toronto)

Congratulations, Prime Minister Mark Carney!

(Pierre Poilievre has been sent to the disassembly line.)

Picturing: TTC Spadina Station - West Entrance

After grabbing my Tim Hortons coffee this morning I decided to put my cuppa down for a moment. I think this photograph backs up that claim, quip, made years ago by a local journalist, from the now-gone Eye Magazine, if I remember correctly: "[The oldest TTC subway stations] look like a large latrine with no relief."

The Toronto Transit Commission has been making progress on 'reskinning' the oldest stations' walls. "Honey, those tiles have to go."

When Toronto's first subway lines were built, they went for the utilitarian look; the newest TTC subway stations are beautiful to look at.

A Story: Discovering Film & Television Music Scores

When I work on projects at home, I'll listen to music, or, if my task requires little concentration, discussions, spoken-word, or narrated pieces. While looking for audio material to download from the wonderful BBC radio podcast site, a few years ago, I had noticed that British film reviewer/writer Mark Kermode had recorded a four-part series titled "The Soundtrack of My Life".

 
Titled, simply enough, "Soundtrack Albums", the piece involved Kermode's memories of discovering film scores and soundtracks. He recounted how he began his love of film music. After these reminiscences, he went on to interview several filmmakers and composers.

I remember my first soundtrack album. It was from a film I had seen just months before, in 1975, at the Terra Theatre in CFB Borden: Rollerball.

Later, as I perused the LP record bin at Borden's PX (Post Exchange), I happened across the Rollerball soundtrack and learned then that there was a tie-in record. I bought it on the spot. This LP was not an original soundtrack in the traditional sense, but a compilation of music: a mix of Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Bach, and two contemporary pieces by Andre Previn composed specifically for the film. One of the finds for me was Tomaso Albinoni's "Adagio"; I remembered that it was used quite effectively in the Space:1999 television series episode "Dragon's Domain", which I had also seen just a few months earlier. Now that I think about it, I played the Rollerball record a lot. It was not my introduction to recorded classical music — my parents had a good selection from that domain — but the choices, no doubt by the film's director, Norman Jewison, seemed to be a perfect blend for this then young listener.

My next album was the music to Space:1999, which I was a little disappointed in, and a couple of years after that was Battlestar Galactica. (What's with all the sci-fi TV crap? Oh yeah, I was young.) A side note to the latter score: When I listened to it again, many years later, I couldn't help but notice the William Walton influence. This really comes through on one piece in particular.

No, I did not get the soundtrack to Star Wars in 1977. What turned me off buying it, no doubt, was my honest and raw reaction after a friend lent me the two-LP set a few weeks before we saw the movie. (The album was actually available before the movie's release in some markets.) As I had discovered Miklos Rosza's Ben-Hur score the summer before, courtesy of my dad's original 1959 "Stereophonic" pressing of that album, the Star Wars music on its own sounded rather lame. When I returned the album, I mentioned that I found the music to be "watery" and didn't even bother spinning "Side 2". (He, too, was not impressed. After all, this was the guy who got me into the German band, Kraftwerk.) Of course, the music plays wonderfully well with the film and is a classic film score. Film scores, as composer Gerald Fried noted in an interview years ago, generally don't stand on their own as music. This is not a failing, of course, since they are designed, quite designed in fact, to play with picture and other audio elements. Those audio tracks can get quite crowded. Some scores do work on their own; it doesn't mean they are better, just that they can stand alone. I've since acquired the Star Wars CD, and I like the background music much better now as a standalone — the few times I've given it a spin. Oh, I bought the LP version in 1982.

The first 'original music' film score soundtrack LP that I remember getting was for Alien (1979). I was very impressed, even though I had not yet seen the film. Speaking of Jerry Goldsmith, for that's who I was speaking of in that case, later that same year, the stellar film composer would produce his brilliant music accompaniment for Star Trek - The Motion Picture. (It's the best part of that slightly underrated film. The theme tune, in particular, is one of the greatest of movie anthems.)

What's with all the sci-fi movie scores? Well, for starters, and to correct the whole notion that it's all about the space stuff here, there's the LP to the 1970 biopic, Patton.

I'm a fan of the late composer Jerry Goldsmith. His effect was best summed up recently by producer/writer Seth MacFarlane on a BBC radio show: "(Goldsmith) was an insanely talented guy."

There are others whose work I admire: (the great) Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, Max Steiner, Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, David Shire, John Barry, Ennio Morricone, Ron Goodwin....

(Sorry, Han Zimmer's a B-rate film composer.)

Decades ago, I stopped collecting film scores. The odd one would trickle down onto my shelf. I enjoy film scores best when they are with the actual film — with picture. Also, scoring today, 'the state of', is pretty pathetic. I'm speaking more of the Hollywood product. While smaller films are getting some fine work in that area, most "tent pole" pictures are tracked with overwrought orchestral parts of nothing (but noise). They're more rhythm-based. It's been this way for years. It's hardly a requirement that a film theme should consist of a memorable 'song', it really depends on the show, but, as film director Edgar Wright states so eloquently in the Mark Kermode programme: "What's the most recent film score that you can really hum?"

Good luck.

Ahh... ahh... ahh.....

Mr Wright wasn't whistling Dixie!

Okay, I'll cheat and hum the theme tune from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). That just might be the soundtrack of most of our lives.

Humour: A Dad's Honest Question

"Simon, is that ring around the collar you have there, or are you just down a quart?"

Athot for the Day: Alternating Cs

A/C needs A/C... unless it's D/C.

Blog Post: To Cast a By-election Ballot in Toronto

I just voted in the advance polling for the riding of University-Rosedale.

Danielle Martin... X marked the spot!

To be able to cast a vote in such a free country is awesome.

Postscript: Here in Canada, three by-elections will be held on Monday, April 13th. The three ridings up for grabs are: Terrebonne (Quebec); Scarborough Southwest (Toronto, Ontario); and, of course, University-Rosedale (Toronto).

Paramount Pictures "Stage M" & Elmer Bernstein Too

In a piece I wrote on December 7, 2024, I mentioned a 'famous' film studio's music recording stage: Paramount Pictures' Stage M.  Many scores were recorded there, including those for: Sunset Boulevard; Psycho; Breakfast at Tiffany's; Out of Africa; The Hunt for Red October; Goodwill Hunting; Road to Perdition; The Bourne Identity; 2 Fast 2 Furious; The Island; Nacho Libre; and WALL-E. Music for Paramount television shows was recorded there, too, including episode background cues for now-classic programmes such as Mission: Impossible and Star Trek.

Recordings were not limited to instrumental parts. "White Christmas", "Mona Lisa", "Que Sera, Sera", and "Moon River" are some famous motion picture songs laid down at Stage M, by artists such as Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Doris Day.

That storied recording studio is now gone, having been closed in 2006, but through all the men and women who followed the batons of music men such as Victor Young, Bernard Herrmann, Henry Mancini, John Barry, and Jerry Goldsmith, its acoustical memories live on.

___

The late great film composer Elmer Bernstein recorded his classic score for The Ten Commandments at "M". (He replaced Victor Young when the veteran composer fell ill.) The film itself doesn't deserve, but needs, this brilliant work.

Happy Easter!

Elmer Bernstein conducts a cue for The Ten Commandments (1956).

Photos reproduced with permission by The Bernstein Family Trust

Flatscreen Tonight: Annie Hall (1977)

What a wonderful film.

I saw Annie Hall when it was first released. While I was young at the time, just sixteen, for the most part I got the flick's main theme... even if I didn't know at the time who Marshall McLuhan was. (His moment got a big laugh from the audience that night.) Tonight's viewing reminded me why this film turned out to be my favourite of 1977. For me, Annie Hall is one of Woody Allen's best pictures.

Picturing: To the Polls! (University-Rosedale)

While grabbing my Tim Hortons coffee this morning I was reminded that advance polls opened today for three important byelections here in Canada. As a citizen of this beautiful and free country, I have a job to do... besides taking the above advance picture.

My riding of "University-Rosedale" is a Liberal fortress. Danielle Martin is new — replacing Chrystia Freeland — but she is expected to win. From Tony Ianno to Chrystia Freeland to....

Monday, April 13th will be a big day.

Picturing: On the Ferry from England to France

Looking down the stern into English Channel waters churning.