Three Slates from Hyper-Reality

Here are some slates from my in-progress short film, Hyper-Reality. These pictures are actually frame-grabs from a Betacam SP videotape. Originally, the 35mm film (Eastman Kodak emulsions 5245, 5247, and 5248) was processed and then transferred to tape, bypassing a more expensive positive film print. Unfortunately, especially in today's digital world, the analogue Betacam SP format does not provide for high quality grabs. (More to come, soon. And sans exciting slates!)

The first two pics are from scenes shot in "Corman's Bar", a set I designed in the tradition of a television series' "standing set"; in this case a hangout for Hyper-Reality's main characters. The bottom photo is from a scene shot in the Alien Lair. Someday I will supply a "TV Guide description" of the film's plot.

Toronto City Garbage Striking Images 2009

Back in the summer of 2009 we Torontonians, fiercely proud denizens of the mighty Republic of Toronto, were subjected to a city workers' strike; one which affected garbage removal (the domain of "outside" workers). I'm all for workers' rights, fair wages, etc., but it's funny how overflowing garbage, mixed with the heat of the season, makes one forget about certain issues.

I snapped the pictures above, in front of the TTC's "Spadina" subway station, when the strike was in its infancy. It got a lot worse. (For some reason I took no more photographs of the event. I guess I was afraid to approach mounds of waste.)

On Friday a tentative deal was struck for outside workers, which means the city may be spared a repeat of 2009.. Ongoing negotiations with "inside" workers hopefully will resolve positively before the deadline of 12:01 a.m., Monday.

Directing in the Alien Lair of Hyper-Reality

In anticipation of the completion of my 35mm short film Hyper-Reality, here is another behind-the-scenes photograph. It features a (slightly) younger me directing a scene in the film's "Alien Lair" set.

Tending to the Arriflex BL III camera are Dennis Pike and Gary Blakeley; in the background grip/gaffer Jeff Stern adjusts a light; the ectomorphic thing on the right is asking "craft services" if the coffee is still hot. ("What? You're out of doughnuts already? Oh. Yeah, it was me.")

I had a super crew for that two-day shoot at "23FPS" studios here in Toronto.

(Photo: Jill Cooper)

What Can You Do? Read This....

"Fill out a repair request form."

Anyone who has rented a house or apartment, especially one owned by a large, faceless corporation, knows what a rocky road it can be to get the simplest, and necessary, repair done. Personally speaking I've had good experiences in that area, but the moment friends of mine started to live on their own I began to hear the stories; the stories of toolbox inactivity.

A writer friend of mine penned a short story that will hit home for a lot of readers. I thought I would spread the words: "What Can You Do" is more than simply a tale of a leaky faucet needing fixing. It is about people, and a dead body, which explains why James Guthrie uses more than the ten to twenty words usually required to describe a faulty bit of plumbing.


As published in Volume 5, Issue 1 of "Pithead Chapel - an online journal of gutsy narratives": read here

A Cosmonaut's Special View

Space travellers, Astronauts and Cosmonauts, posses a special appreciation for Planet Earth and all its inhabitants. Having a global view, literally, helps one come up with something like the following profound observation:

"When we look into the sky it seems to us to be endless. We breathe without thinking about it, as is natural... and then you sit aboard a spacecraft, you tear away from Earth, and within ten minutes you have been carried straight through the layer of air, and beyond there is nothing! The 'boundless' blue sky, the ocean which gives us breath and protects us from endless black and death, is but an infinitesimally thin film. How dangerous it is to threaten even the smallest part of this gossamer covering, this conserver of life."

- Cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov
(Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, Soyuz 10)

An Admission 46 Years Later (Emotional Football)

Something has been bugging me lately: I've been prone to tossing and turning at two or three o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep, because I did a certain "bad" almost forty-six years ago.

In June of 1970 my family and I were visiting relatives in Bristol, UK; that month the 1970 FIFA World Cup was being played, or rather, resolved, in Mexico. On the 14th of June, England matched with West Germany as part of the quarter-finals round and I watched this contest on television, live and in colour, with my British cousins. (This was just the year after the Beeb switched to colour broadcasting). All is fine in my admissions thus far.

The problems start now: I was rooting for West Germany. Needless to say, appreciating the Brits' pride for their national football team, I kept my cheers a private matter. Even at such a young age I was hyper-aware that in the interest of self preservation it would be prudent of me to keep any elation to myself: I was contained in a room with British supporters; off-side behaviour of any colour could be bloody dangerous!

West Germany went on to win the match by a score of 3-2 and I was a happy young man.

Shortly after returning to West Germany, a German might have asked me: "Schadenfreude?"

"Me? No. For a reason of which I am not aware, known only to the recesses of my still-developing brain, I chose to support the Germans."

"Du bist ein guter Deutscher."

Perhaps.

Knowing the English football fans' predilection for being unwilling or unable to let certain histories "go", and having more than a few British relatives of my own, I decided to withhold this sensitive bit from my past. Only now am I able to come to terms with my Yellow Card.

I doubt – hope – they'll ever stumble upon this posting.

"It's Cold Outside. Really Cold"

The newsreader on 680 News (CFTR, Toronto) just wrote my headline for me. Yes, it is cold out there, indeed. The base temperature -- sans "wind chill" -- right now is minus 23 degrees Celsius. That is cold, all right.

When I was a young one, and would complain about how cold it was outside, my father would say: "You think that's cold... you haven't been to Alert."

The "Alert" he was referring to was the Alert Wireless Station (known as Canadian Forces Station Alert, after unification in 1968). Built in 1957 as part of the Distant Early Warning Line, the so-called "Dew line', the facility is located in Alert, Nunavut – way, way up at the top end of Ellesmere Island.

Back in the late 1950s, servicemen would have been transported to and from the base on a Canadair North Star. When aircraft park up there, shrouds are thrown over the engines and heaters supply warm air through ducts to the four idle blocks of metal -- otherwise, your ride home isn't going to happen.

I have not been to Alert but my feeling is Toronto, this day, is a reasonable approximation.

Post Script: Alert popped into the news back in November of 1991 after a CC-130E "Hercules" crashed while on approach to the base's landing strip. A year later film cameras started rolling on Ordeal in the Arctic, a made-for-television flick recounting the story. While the completed telefilm was entertaining enough, two things read as odd to me:

* Richard Chamberlain, as fine an actor as he is, was too old to be playing the pilot, John Couch. "Herc Drivers" are much younger.

* For the Herc interior, the film's sound effects guys chose to mix in the drone of piston engines. (My guess is they got their audio track from an old sound effects LP record.) During flight the "cabin" of a Hercules is loud; especially on takeoff. As Douglas Adams might have said: "It is loud. Really loud. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly loud it is. I mean, you may think it's noisy riding in a Volkswagen Beetle, but that's just peanuts to a Hercules."  In Ordeal the actors are chatting to one another as though they are sitting in a coffee shop.

Those Allison turboprops are magnificent: a future blog posting....

It's Called "Imminent Peril"

Hot off the press:

"It is an incontrovertible truth that the civil institutions of the United States of America have been seriously affected, and that they now stand in imminent peril from the rapid and enormous increase of the body of residents of foreign birth, imbued with foreign feelings, and of an ignorant and immoral character, who receive, under the present lax and unreasonable laws of naturalization, the elective franchise and the right of eligibility to political office."


When was the above written? It was part of a speech given in Philadelphia at the first national convention of the Native American Party; the event was held in the year 1845.

While the quote may give one the impression it comes from the pen of Donald Trump, it reads as a little bit too articulate for The Donald.

Alien Action on the Hyper-Reality Set

Further to my posting from a couple of days ago (here) about my uncompleted short film, Hyper-Reality, here below is another picture taken on the set. This one shows an alien (S.L. Guthrie) being photographed in the "alien lair", a Lost in Space-style set complete with a black limbo background. (Lost in Space was a horrible television series which ran from 1965 to 1968, and entertained a generation of space-race kiddies; like me. It was the kind of show that one quickly grew out of, I hope, but gets revisited when making a certain kind of film.)

As I mentioned in that previous posting, I designed the sets, props, and costumes. The red platform on the bottom right of the photo below is a "stasis pad", a device which showers upwards a beam of energy (done as an "optical" in post production), confining one of the film's stars. The stasis pad's shape, an octagon, and a red-coloured one at that, was an attempt by me to strike a visual gag.  A stop sign. Get it?

Production Assistant Sonia Molina slates a shot for Hyper-Reality.

The Aliens of Hyper-Reality

While I was organizing some files on my computer, recently, I came across some folders for my uncompleted -- don't ask -- magnum opus 35mm short film, Hyper-Reality.

Attached below are two photographs that were taken on the set at the former "23 FPS" studios here in Toronto. Soon I will follow up with more material from the project which often elicited the question, "Simon, how is Hyper-Reality coming along?"

I had a lot of fun designing the costumes and the sets. Maybe I should try "crowdfunding" to complete the film; not that a truck load of money would be needed....

Yours truly sets up a shot for Hyper-Reality. The film's co-producer and co-writer, Tim A. Cook, and I decided to cast women as bulbous-headed aliens -- we took our cue from "The Cage", the first pilot from Star Trek. (Photo: Jill Cooper)

Two trouble-making aliens have a laugh before they snap into character for the camera. (Photo: S. St. Laurent)

Tim Hortons' Coffee Standard

Tim Hortons coffee. I don't get it; its popularity: "I have to have my Timmy's coffee."

I find that special blend not only to be bland but inconsistently bland. I want my bland, if I want it at all, to be regular in its presentation.

I worked for years as a television 'tech'. Our analogue broadcast standard here in Canada is "NTSC", which stands for "National Television System Committee". People in the 'biz' insisted that NTSC means "Never Twice the Same Colour", due to certain technical issues with that television system.

In regards to Tim Hortons' stellar coffee standard, I am now appropriating the NTSC acronym for this:

"Never Twice the Same Coffee"

As I write this I'm sitting in my local Second Cup store, enjoying an Irish Cream coffee -- now this is real coffee!

There's a Tim Hortons store right across the street; I can see it from my window seat. Nice view.

Stephen Harper's Blueprint for Success

Here in Canada we are having a Federal Election tomorrow (Monday, October 19th). My politics are laid out in the attached graphic: My personal choice for Prime Minister is not....

Notes from a Dependent Brat: CF-104 "Starfighter"

Writing my recent piece (here) on the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) Canadair CC-106 "Yukon" transport aircraft stirred up more memories regarding my "brat" past: Memories about RCAF Station/CFB Baden-Soellingen (4 Wing).

Back in those days, the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s, the RCAF's main front-line jet fighter/interceptor was the CF-104 "Starfighter". Built under license (from Lockheed) by Canadair at its Cartierville Airport plant in the Montreal suburb of Saint-Laurent, the "one-o-four" went on to enjoy a long life with Canada's Finest Service; eventually being replaced by the CF-18.

With such a high-performance aircraft, especially one originally designed for high-altitude interception but re-geared for a low-level strike and reconnaissance role, there were bound to be more than a few accidents. During the years I lived in Iffezheim, West Germany, 'we' lost several 104s from 4 Wing. The most memorable incident happened in July of 1969 when two collided over the countryside. I remember vividly my father darting off for two weeks as part of the recovery/investigation team and, upon his returning, with redundant bags of sugar and other such foodstuffs, him recounting the commotion at the crash scene when they arrived: "It (a farmer's field) was crawling with Polizei". Apparently the two jets "locked wings" which sealed their fate; one pilot managed to eject while the other went down with his machine -- some of what my dad described about the impact site was pretty gruesome.

There was another: Soon after I got to school one morning my teacher told the class that a Starfighter had crashed not long after we had been bused in. (My family and I lived off-base, and not in the local "PMQs" [Private Married Quarters]. I have long been thankful that my parents wanted to live with the Germans, and not in a semi-sheltered environment called "Kleinkanada". There were lots of Canadian kids in my neighbourhood -- offspring of other smart parents.) If I remember correctly, that pilot managed to eject safely from his aircraft, despite the fact that he was in "take-off" mode.

Perhaps my fondest memory regarding the CF-104 Starfighter is of the machine's sound; that sound. One would hear the roar of jets in formation, and look up to see whether they were Canadian or German -- the Luftwaffe, too, operated the Starfighter. One beautifully sunny day my Grade 2 school teacher walked us out to the airfield; why exactly I did not know -- I'm sure Mrs. Gunnery said something, but I could not have been paying attention (surprise?). Upon taking position at our stations my school mates and I looked off over the flatness of the strip to the horizon. Suddenly there were several descending trails of black smoke which, of course, I was familiar with; moments later I noticed a series of landing lights seemingly suspended over the field. Suffice to say the 104s were flying very low, just over the deck, as they raced past us: What a noise! I love jets, and the racket they make, but really!

Ah, yes. The blessedly interesting life of a brat....

Stay tuned, Brat Fans, for my next blog posting. Same Brat Time; same Brat Channel!

I, Young Canadian Non Voter? Not I

Last night I saw a story on the CBC National News regarding the problem of getting young people of voting-age engaged in electoral issues. For example: There's an upcoming Federal election here in Canada.

I don't understand why a newly-minted-eighteen-year-old has no interest in casting his or her ballot. "All politicians are crooks" or "It won't make a difference, anyway" are old and too easily dispensed. ("Somebody replied to my comment on Facebook!") Not long after I turned eighteen there was a nice, important election to test my newly-acquired super powers. And I was all too willing to give it a go. I voted for my local Liberal Party of Canada candidate, Ray Ramsay, father of Mike, a school chum of mine, but at the time it was seemingly all for nothing once the final results tallied up. Of course it wasn't all for nothing, and I never thought so then. As I've been prone to say on occasion, "they all add up"; meaning that one vote gets stacked on top of another. The candidate with the highest pile, if you'll pardon the expression, wins.

Progressive Conservative Party of Canada leader Joe Clark won, albeit with a "minority" government, the Federal election that spring of 1979. His reign as Canada's Prime Minister was short lived -- something about a non-confidence motion -- but Mr. Clark's ultimate positioning was engineered by people who got off their opinionated and whiny arses and voted. ("Bloody transit!") For some odd reason there's a polling station conveniently placed near you. We'll run for heart-stopping junk food anytime, and all the time, but we won't walk just once in a while to check off some boxes on a piece of paper. ("Where's the TV remote?! My show's starting!")

The joke here in regards to the paucity of the "young vote" today, of course, is that these chicks have a longer path to travel than do their parents or grandparents. A young man or woman protesting by not voting is nothing but upside-down logic. Forget "protest": Going through life, certainly in this blessed country of ours, in a daze and with almost total political disconnection, is unconscionable given the general state of affairs in the world today. I just look at what's happening with the current "refugee crisis" to appreciate this stable platform called Canada; for some bizarre and unexplainable reason I suddenly become, and stay, inspired and appreciative.

("I'm Dick Smyth.")

Interview with RCAF "Yukon" pilot Larry Byrne

Canadair CC-106 "Yukon" transport aircraft of the RCAF.

As I've mentioned on this blog before, my father was a career serviceman in the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) and, from 1968, after "Unification" had taken place, the Canadian Armed Forces. As a "dependent", or "brat", I was whisked about when I was growing up: RCAF Station St. Hubert, Quebec; RCAF Station Greenwood, Nova Scotia; RCAF Station (called "Canadian Forces Base", after 1968) Baden-Soellingen, West Germany; and finally, CFB Borden, Ontario.

In the summer of 1966, which I remember very well, too well, my next door neighbour, and best friend, told me with great enthusiasm, "we're going to Winnipeg!". He was bloody excited! I remember feeling a little down, partially because I'd be losing a good friend. I needn't have worried; days or weeks later my dad came home from work with the news that we were going to West Germany. That was exciting news for me. Bloody exciting! Not long after that, in October, I boarded a "Yukon" (or "Yuke") at RCAF Station Trenton for what would be a thirteen hour flight to RCAF Station Lahr, West Germany -- which is where 437 Transport Squadron flew to in order to deliver service people and their families.

(I should note that not all former 'brats' have fond memories of being the offspring of a military father -- and/or mother -- who was frequently "posted" to another location. In my time this would happen every four years or so. It has been said that it's stressful to move around constantly in your childhood, but I never had a problem with that; it was an exciting time. After all, being a 'brat' was the only life I knew. Also, you tended to follow each other around. One guy I remember, Mike White, I knew in West Germany and was eventually re-teamed with him back in Ontario.)

Let's time travel forward to the summer of 2005: While enjoying a beer on a patio here in Toronto I was sideswiped by a flood of memories, helped no doubt by the alcohol, of the Canadair CC-106 "Yukon". To make a long story short here I ended up researching and writing a piece on the "Yuke" and its crews. (I will post something in the near future on the issue.)

One person I interviewed, in this case via telephone, was former "Yukon" pilot Larry Byrne. He was very pleasant and generous in recounting his memories of his time flying with the RCAF, and with American Airlines.

Here is Part One. I will follow up soon with the remainder of the interview:


Simon St. Laurent: When did you join the (RCAF) and when did you start flying Yukons in particular?

Larry Byrne: I joined the service in the summer of '52 and I commenced flying Yukons on January the 4^th, of ’62. It was ten years later.

SS: Were you a captain?

LB: Well, everyone starts out as a first officer… so when I started flying the Yukon, of course, I went to the OTU (Operational Training Unit). As I remember, I think we were Course 1 on the Yukon. There were other people who had gone to the company and got, had their training and those were the guys who instructed us. You used to go through the OTU and then you’d fly as a first officer until your turn comes up for captain. And then you’d go back to the school again and go through with the tests, etc., and a check ride… and you’re flying as captain.

SS: Did you like flying the aircraft? Was it a pleasure to fly or was it a handful?

LB: Oh no, I enjoyed the airplane very much. It was a unique airplane at the time and I certainly enjoyed it. I can’t speak for other people but I liked the airplane a lot.

SS: Based on the Bristol Britannia, of course… new engines…

LB: We used to start out… it was interesting because, when we fly across the Atlantic at that time, about the only aircraft flying across the Atlantic were mostly pistons… and they were at lower altitude. We’d start out of Trenton at about 17 to 18 thousand feet, something like that, and then we could get a cruise climb that... there was so little traffic we could actually get… you couldn’t do it today. But we used to get a cruise climb and we’d wind up over Europe at, you know, 31/32 thousand feet.

SS: The Britannia was a revolutionary aircraft in that way having turbines but it was just a little late as they say because the jets were right around the corner.

LB: That’s right, the same thing, of course, applied to the Yukon. The jets were coming and then… but at the time it was a very unique airplane.

SS: How did you feel about Canada adopting the Yukon and not going with the (Boeing) 707, which was actually the transport version, was actually coming out on the market or had been. Did you feel that was a good decision or you don’t really care? You just...

LB: Ah, frankly, no, I don’t care. I mean I flew the 707 when I got with American Airlines… fine airplane… several different models of it and, like I said, it was a fine airplane but at the time I never thought about Canada even considering buying the jet instead of the Yukon. After all, the Yukon was Canadian built too, you know…

SS: Yeah, it was built apparently, as I found out, because it was a bit of a work program because there was lack of work (at Canadair), and the government thought, 'okay, well we’ll just make an aircraft'. So that’s how the Yukon came to be and, of course, the commercial version; the CL-44. Of course, that’s not a concern of yours…

LB: Like I said, from my viewpoint that would have something to do with whether what airplane we should buy. If you got an airplane that'll do the job and it's built in Canada then I would say that’s the one were gonna buy.

SS: One concern that I know that David Adamson had... he was responsible because he was the squadron commander, wasn’t he? He was concerned about just the compatibility, because he said the problem with the Yukon, for instance, if it flew to some weird destination (and there was a need for a new or replacement part) there was not a commonality in parts…

LB: No, that is true. You were kinda stuck in a way because there just weren’t any around. I had an incident in Cyprus one time when we blew a couple of tires, and we wound up… they flew us in from an airbase on the south end, side of the island. They actually flew us in a couple of Britannia tires, which were too light for our airplane, but we put ’em on and they said that they would be good for a couple of landings. And all we had to do is get back to (RCAF Station) Marville (France), where we had tires of our own. As an instance, you know it was a problem if you got stuck some place in the boonies... you were stuck.

SS: Exactly, where obviously with the jets there was a little more commonality because more and more…

LB: You see there weren’t a lot of jets flying around at that time… I mean… the airplane was a little ahead of that… at least if my memory serves me right, the jets didn’t come along till after… or later. Let me put it another way… later on.

SS: We’ll talk in more positive terms, one thing I understand is pilots I’ve talked to are just amazed at the almost squeaky clean record the machine had for just serviceability and everything and, of course, no lives being lost and…

LB: No, and it was amazingly reliable. If I had anything that I didn’t like about the airplane was the fact that we had a heater in the tail and there was something that bothered me all the time about lighting a fire back in your tail (laughs)…

SS: Was it an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) or something?

LB: No it was a heater for deicing the empennage (tail) at the back… and like I said it always made me kinda nervous (laughs)…

SS: But so you’re the same you never had any scares at 20/30 thousand feet or anything?

LB: No… no, I had nothing. I’ll tell you, Simon, I’ve been blessed in all my flying… all my 40 odd years I never had anything… really… serious.

SS: That’s great to hear.

LB: Some of my friends, my best friends and they’re very, very good pilots… geez every time they turn around it seemed to me they were losing an engine (laughs)… or something was going wrong (laughs), but I was just very well, I was just absolutely blessed.

SS: So let me understand, Larry, when you left the RCAF, and as you said in an e-mail, they were polishing a desk for you…

LB: Yeah, that’s what was gonna happen…

SS: At what phase was that where you… you were finished your tour with Yukons, or…

LB: Well I had already finished my tour on the squadron, I was then transferred to the OTU and I was instructing on the Yukon… and I guess I could look and get you the exact dates if that’s necessary but I… as I remember I spent around a year, maybe a year and a half, at the OTU and then my transfer was coming through. They told me that I was going to Ottawa to 'Personnel'… and I just didn’t want to do it.

SS: You know if I flew myself, no way…

LB: Well, you know, if I thought that I was going to become a general or a staff officer or something… of some importance it would have been different, but I was a flight lieutenant and I was obviously, to my mind, was not going anywhere. And so some personal things entered into it and I... I decided I was going to kick over the traces as it were and I applied to several of the airlines and American called me and said 'come on down'… and it was a good move for me.

SS: Now, of course, if you had have stayed with the (RCAF) at that point… the conversion over to 707s… that actually hadn’t happened with you. So when you went to American Airlines, they trained you on 707s?

LB: Oh, yeah. Well I started out on the Electra…

SS: The Lockheed Electra?

LB: Yeah, everybody starts at the bottom… and so you go in and I went to school and I became an engineer on the Electra. And I flew that for six or eight months and then I went to first officer school on the BAC111, and flew the BAC, and then I flew the 727, and then I flew the 707, and I flew the 747, and the DC-10…

SS: What did you think about the DC-10?

LB: Oh I loved the DC-10, it was a nice airplane.

SS: I’m old enough to remember the big accidents there.

LB: Oh yeah… well you know, in fact the aircraft... the first officer on that trip in Chicago when the engine came off… he was a classmate of mine. So and when I finished the DC-10 I flew a long time as a first officer. At the airlines you move with a very strict seniority system, and when I finished the DC-10 I went to captains' school on the 727. And then I flew out of the left seat in the 727, and then the 767, and then I wound up on the (Airbus) A300 – 600 model, the two man airplane… and that’s what I retired on.

SS: So when did you retire, Larry?

LB: Let’s see, in ah, July. I left a little bit early because the stock market was up, so July ’92... thirteen years. With the airlines, of course, you might well know that when you’re sixty they throw you out and that’s it. But I didn’t have to go until October, till my birthday, but , you know, circumstances in the stock market, and my retirement was based on some of it... was based on the stock market. So I decided to jump out ahead of time, and you’d take a small penalty but that’s all. And that’s when I left. And then I bought myself a Cessna 310 and I flew it for four or five years and I finally sold it a few years ago.

SS: So, do you fly recreationally at all?

LB: Yeah, that’s my… my wife and I flew the 310 back and forth across the country (the USA) a couple of times, if guess. It was kinda fun flying around.

To be continued....

My First "Toronto Chicken Save" Vigil

"You should come out to a vigil."

Back on July 23rd, I attended my first Toronto Chicken Save vigil. A friend of mine is a dedicated member of the city's three Saves (Pig, Cow, and Chicken) and for close to eighteen months I said that I should make an appearance at a respective event. The reason for my non appearance, I would claim, is because I'm not a Vegan nor a Vegetarian. Call it insecurity; call it a case of me wanting to walk-the-walk. I eat little red meat, and absolutely no chicken (thank you!, Maple Lodge Farms), but even so, the idea of attending a vigil seems inauthentic to me.

Well, weeks ago I broke my self-imposed spell; I took my video and still cameras and captured some action at the front gates of Maple Leaf Foods. (Soon I will upload an edit of some moving footage.)

The thing that struck me most about the affair -- I've seen "Save" bits on Youtube -- is how committed and passionate these people are. They are really into the cause. Lovely people. There is a fire and feistiness which has to be commended -- man's seeming disregard for non humans is nothing to be commended. No....It's not just a cat; it's a living thing. Same goes for a pig, a cow, and a chicken. They have every right to be here as much as we hu-mans. (Can your hearts stand the shocking facts?!)

What really bothers me is the brutal, oversized slaughtering of animals to fill our fat, and ever distending, bellies. In this version of the industrialized mass killing process, the only thing missing is Zyklon B.

"The Barrie Allandale Show": A Blog Posting

The Barrie Allandale Show, a vid-series project first seeded as an off-shoot of a concept developed with Greg Woods, is now in pre-production.

The project's website is here: http://thebarrieallandaleshow.blogspot.ca/

Graveyard Shift - Contact Sheet

I reopened my Graveyard Shift files recently and was sent back to 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.

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

Avro Lancaster Flyovers - Four Merlins In Sync

Next to the symphony orchestra, mankind's most beautiful creation, to me, is the aeroplane. Music to my ears, in addition to a great flying machine: The Avro Lancaster bomber and its four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in synchronization.

An Operational Record Book (Partial)

The postings on this blog with some of the biggest hit counts are those regarding RAF Bomber Command No. 626 Squadron, with which my father flew during the war.  I thought it time to add a little more information regarding his operational record.

Here is a partial list -- culled from material provided to me by Dave Stapleton of The 626 Squadron Research Project -- of "ops" flown by Flying Officer A.R. Screen and crew:

Date - Target - Notes

12 March 1945 - Dortmund

13 March 1945 - Herne - The target was a Benzol Plant

23 March 1945 - Bremen Bridge

14 April 1945 - Potsdam

22 April 1945 - Bremen - Mission abandoned on Master Bomber’s orders.

25 April 1945 - Berchtesgaden - Hitler’s Eagles Nest in Bavaria (specifically, the SS Barracks)

With the Allied forces now advancing well into Germany, Bomber Command now turned its attention to humanitarian sorties and 626 Squadron was similarly tasked. (The Squadron’s Lancasters were converted to carry sacks of food in the bomb bays. Each aircraft carried 284 sacks; these were dropped from 500ft.) The crew flew two of these sorties:

30 April 1945 - Rotterdam - Operation Manna

2 May 1945 - Rotterdam - Operation Manna

Special thanks to:

Dave Stapleton

The 626 Squadron Research Project

Copyright 2010 ©

Post script:

A few weeks ago I was telling a friend how young these guys were who flew in RAF Bomber Command. My dad was nineteen; his crewmates would have been that age or a year or two older. I joked with my buddy that if this particular aircrew was known for doing something special during the war, and a movie were made about their experiences, the guy in the role of my dad would probably be an actor in his late twenties or early thirties. And Flying Officer Screen would no doubt be played by someone like Johnny Depp.

Film producers, who aren't known for being a bright lot to begin with, often miss on details like the above.