Two-and-a-Half Days in the Vortex
August 31, 2004
First, let me apologize for dropping the ball on the production journal front. I promised Brad a piece for last week, and failed to deliver, thought not for lack of effort. After my third aborted attempt, I decided it just wasn’t gonna happen. Partly this is due to the fact that, with preliminary discussions underway, I had mentally moved away from Dead End Days and started the gears turning on future projects. But the primary reason was that despite several potential journal topics, none was substantial nor inspirational enough to provoke the transition from brain to page.
I didn’t have it in me.
Which is not to say that my trip to Toronto, and working, at long last, close and personally with the DED cast and crew, has not been flush with interesting experiences, conversations, tourist activities, and excessive drinking. I’ve been to the Toronto, Zoo, The Art Museum of Ontario, Paramount Canada’s Wonderland (and a big thumbs down to the newly installed television screens and cranked speakers blasting creepy advertisements for tween clothing and accessories. As though waiting forty-five minutes in line for a thirty-second ride in mid-afternoon drizzle wasn’t fun enough already. (Though I have to admire the relentless corporate moxie that devises ever more intrusive ways of advertising to people who, for all intents and purposes, spent fifty bucks to spend the day inside one big commercial)), as well as several excellent films including Garden State, Collateral, and The Bourne Supremacy. As discussed earlier on these pages, I also had the opportunity to see The Control Room, an indispensable perspective on the inner-working of Al Jazeera, the largest Arab cable news channel on the planet. And as though I wasn’t culturally developed enough, I’ve thrilled to the post-modern pop-infused Urinetown, witnessed the most embarrassing, dismal, sub-high-school quality production of Macbeth on Stratford’s mainstage, and had my love of theatre resuscitated by Blackpiggy Under, one of Nightwood Theatre’s annual Groundswell staged readings.
But the most life-altering event, precipitated by my first ever Dead End Days shoot, is my re-addiction to that most beloved North American narcotic: GLORIOUS CAFFEINE!
I’m happy to report that after four long, dreary, dazed years, I have been reacquainted with my good friend coffee. Me and coffee had a falling out over infrequent bouts of insomnia, anxiety, and a subversive desire to buck a trendier arm of social conformity - Vancouver’s Starbucks culture - that is ubiquitous in every sense of the word. Many of you have heard tale of Starbucks on opposing corners, facing off against each other, catering to unique though overlapping demographics. “One Starbucks for the Hell’s Angels, One Starbucks for the Hip Urbanites!” Well I’m here to tell you, it’s all true. These places exist. And I took a stand. I stuck it to the man. I started drinking tea. Exclusively. But I’m back on the wagon. Or am I off the wagon? I could never keep that clich
Rue Morgue Festival of Beer, I mean, Fear
August 28, 2004
I guess I could have mentioned this earlier, but for any of our audience in the Toronto area, many of the “Days” team are going to be at the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear, this weekend. This is the first year of the event, which is now part of the “Canadian National Expo” uber comic-book, anime, sci-fi, and now horror convention. The fine folks at Rue Morgue magazine were kind enough to provide us with some guest passes so cast and crew will be in and out for all three days of the event.
Keep an eye out for the haggard group of DED-regulars wearing DED t-shirts warily eyeing the anime-cosplayers. That’d be us. Smack us on the back to say hi and demand free post-cards and/or stickers!
Look upon our works ye mighty!
August 27, 2004
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822
I’m not what you would call a poetry “fan”, but somedayss you just need to give a shout out to Ozymandais, ya know?
Hello to new readers who have stuck around from our brief flirtation with the Megatokyo newsbox! Our server logs indicate some of you have found something of interest hereabouts. We can’t draw, speak Japanese, or ‘understand j00’, but I own the complete (excellent) Right Stuff localization of Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou, and get all giddy over Angelic Layer - that has to count for something right?
It’s been a busy week on ‘teh intarweb’, but little has triggered the righteous indignation that normally fuels these Friday vents. The good guys in the various law suits I tend to rant about had a winning week. Hollywood is potentially getting an inkling that domestically releasing great foreign films might not be such a bad idea, and J-Ro just brought me a tasty Hostess Cream Filled snack cake. Now I’m both content and ready to battle evil.
So I think instead of sounding off, you all can have free time to go explore the web on your own. It’s ‘Independent Study Friday’ here at the Daze. Enjoy the remainder of summer while you can and whatnot.
That looks good on paper, but then again so do tiny do-it-yourself transformers.
Besides, it’s what Ozymandias would have wanted.
See you in seven true believers!
From each according to their abilities…
August 20, 2004
Go ahead and check out the new episode, I don’t mind waiting until you get back.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but DEDHQ is moving at the end of the month and preparations for the relocation, mixed in with our usual time devouring schedules has left very little downtime. However for the past couple of days when we’ve needed a ten minute distraction to coincide with a sandwich or curry break (Firefox’s culinary talents have improved tenfold since my schedule at work cranked up leaving even less “cooking” time than I had before) we, like all red-blooded men switch on the sports.
Well, the Olympics to be specific.
Well… women’s gymnastics to be precise.
Now before you brand us all dirty perverts, or sissy girly-men, you clearly have not seen the fervor with which we have started to watch women’s gymnastics. While the freakishly lengthy Russian Svetlana Khorkina has become a DEDHQ favourite (we just want to feed her, she looks so hungry) we cheer all competitors from all countries equally. Why? Because those girls are freaking amazing.
Let’s compare as we dare:
Gymnasts: Execute triple back flips with twists from a standstill and not break a sweat.
DED Staff: Get winded if we have to climb more than a couple flights of stairs.
Gymnasts: Fly gracefully through the air while maintaining control of all appendages, position, and trajectory
DED Staff: Consider it a personal victory if we can stand up from a seated position without falling on our face.
Gymnasts: Maintain their cool while being watched by thousands and millions more on television.
DED Staff: Were never cool, and finding the recent influx of traffic from MegaTokyo is going to their heads.
Gymnasts: Can still look cool in a skin tight leotard that would make a super-hero blush.
DED Staff: Three of us accidentally wore the same t-shirt this evening, and it looked equally awkward on us all.
Gymnasts: Have dedicated their entire lives to athletic excellence through honing their own bodies natural abilities.
DED Staff: Do really amusing impressions of “Bald Bull” from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out for the original Nintendo.
So as you can see it’s a good thing that they are competing in the Olympics, and we’re safely ensconced on the Internet, where no one is going to ask us to vault anything, or try to tread a four foot beam anytime soon.
It’s pretty easy to forget just how amazing the athletes at the Olympics are, when you’re watching a group of athletes in their prime compete in events where only the smallest fraction of error separates first and last place. I suggest that to maintain some perspective the broadcasters should choose random couch-potatos from their audience to participate in each event to put their accomplishments of the atheletes into context. I know, for one, that if I was flipping upside-down, my head between my ass and my legs pointed in opposition to gravity, the absolutely last thing I’d be asking myself is “I better stick this landing so I don’t lose a tenth of a point”.
MegaTokyo = MegaTraffic
August 18, 2004
Howdy! A hearty zombie hello to the literal hoarde of rabid MegaTokyo fans who have decended upon our server like… frankly it reminds me a lot of the latest MT story arc. When we had some money donated to plug the site, I thought a couple of days in the newsbox would be a chance for a very minor ‘thank you’ to Fred and Sarah for many years of happy reading…
little did I realize the house party I’d be throwing in our quiet neck of the Internet.
For the many of you new to these parts I highly recommend the First Time Here? section which has a nice selection of the type of thing we’re about (we’ll be the first to admit it took us a couple of episodes to warm up at the beginning). After that you can check out the Story So Far to jump right into the Deadiverse, or wade through some back episodes.
To celebrate the fact that Ash (our hardworking server) has not yet completely melted under your considerable group mass, I have just this minute decided to try and clear out some of our back t-shirt stock with a special sale specifically for MegaTokyo fans. Head over to the store and enter the name of my personal favourite 1337 N1NJ4 into the “discount code” box during check out and you’ll save an additional 10% off an entire order from our selecton of “Northern Bounty”.
Thanks for visiting, now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to look up Rent-a-zilla rates…
Deja Vu
August 13, 2004
Words do not express the pain in the ass it has been to bring this new episode to you - hope you guys dig it.
I vaguely recall a conversation I had with my father many moons ago about the Internet and youth culture. I can only vaguely remember what sparked it but the gist was that “the problem with youth” was that we were too inclined to ironically celebrate failure or eccentricity and not provide any attention to seeking out excellence, hard, work, dedication.
I think I probably argued at the time there were probably some rose coloured glasses being worn. Even in the warm softened nostalgia hues of the past the “bad-boy-rebel” was always the revered one while the future business leaders and information visionaries of the day were getting sand kicked in their face.
Nowadays however, I’m not so certain as I was. I’m starting to critically recognize the (frequent) times I rabidly revel in reams of pop-culture that actually has no touchstone for the time period in which I grew up (my knowledge base of television, breakfast cereals, and toy brands both well before and well after my formidable years is kind of disturbing). Ironic detachment has started layering to the point where there are films I no longer know if I like because they’re good, or awful, or cheesy, or stylish… because all four seem to intersect on a spherical Cartesian plane of cool. If something is bad enough it become awesome. I (like many of my contemporaries) pooh-pooh the latest 70s retro revival with derision while embracing a technosexual culture that’s going to date even worse than bell bottoms, or break dancing in 20 years. And yet, like Merlin, well aware of the impending doom of having to explain to future generations (who will be laughing hysterically) why I possibly thought it was important to pay a premium price for a “got root” t-shirt, which is funny (at it’s height of relevance) to a very small portion of society - I still have a fervent need to have techie stuff that is bigger, smaller, glowing with blue lights, and full of juice respectively.
But I’m digressing from my main focus, which is the celebration of eccentricity.
What I guess it comes down to is that culture always gets very interesting at the fringes. There’s always that very fine line where insanity and inspiration meet and dance on the head of a pin. Fall one way and people are driven to excel, to innovate, to craft fine works, fall the other and you’re a ranting street preacher who is completely incomprehensible to anyone who is not wearing a tin foil decoder hat.
Previous generations have often had some kind of physical challenge for those individuals driven to eschew the traditional and force themselves to conquer abstract goals. They fought predators, invented tools, climbed mountains, discovered countries, painted great vistas and the like. But what frontiers still exist for a culture when an off the shelf GPS can show you map of the world with your location pinpointed to within three meters?
Welcome to the 21st century where noble exploration and perverse obsession collide; Where an almost textbook heroic quest and multi-national corporation meet in a coffee shop to take some photos. The Internet has accelerated culture into a strange blend of unchecked independence and consumerist gusto… and it’s only been around in it’s populist form for ten years at most I can only imagine where we’re going to be in the next ten… probably a Starbucks.
Congratulations, you made it to the end. Here is a fun game involving corralling balloons.
DED: Behind the Music
August 10, 2004
Hello dedicated Dead end Days audience members, Matt here. I was all set to start this weeks production journal off with an in depth review of “The Battle of Shaker Heights” when I was suddenly derailed. Last night I had the good fortune to bare witness to a performance from one of the most influential bands in rock history… the Cure. Man oh Man, what a great show. While standing at the show, with the lights and the melodies swirling all around me, I started to think about how much of a musical person I am. I thought about my need to use music throughout my creative process and more specifically how I have used music to enhance (and sometimes save) scenes from this crazy on going adventure that you are currently visiting. I feel I should shine the spotlight, this week, on an area of the Dead End Days production that has not yet been discussed. I want to tell you all briefly about how we came to have such a wide variety of kick ass tunes in our little series.
It all starts in my home town in the mid to late 90’s. I was a young lad like any other you would find in a Calgary highschool at the time: a flannel shirt wearing, long hair sporting, walkman carrying drama geek who had fallen in love with the music of our time… grunge. The “Seattle sound” bowled over our generation like a PA caught between Brando and a buffet. It was a great time to be into music. After the early years that were dominated by the fairly straightforward Nirvana’s and Pearl Jam’s radio stations started to promote the idea of “alternative” music. Suddenly the door was open for us youngsters to experience artists that were breaking the rules and were really doing things differently. It was the time of Beck, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. Upon discovering these bands and falling in love with them the natural thing to do was to discover their influences. This is how I discovered bands like the Cure, the Smiths and Depeche Mode. Bands whose influence stretched so deeply into the music of my generation.
It was about this time that a monumental event in my life occurred. My 18th birthday. Being 18 in Alberta meant you could drink. Being able to drink meant you could go to the clubs. I was too cheap to justify spending a pants load on drinks just for the hell of it so I would disguise this process to myself by paying pants loads for drinks only at venues with live music. This
desire to be part of the know when it came to live music lead me to a bar
called the Republic [sic]. [Editors Note: Come on man, it was the "Republik" and I only saw a fraction of the shows there that you did. Personal favourite moment - The drunk guy at the Toad the Wet Sprocket gig who kept screaming out "SANDMAN!" to the confusion of the band, who didn't have the foggiest idea if he didn't know the proper name of a song (they had nothing in their rep that had anything to do with a "Sandman"), if he had them confused with another band, or if the guy just really liked the Neil Gaiman comic] It no longer exists, but at its peak it was the centre of a local musical scene so strong, critics were predicting a movement as large of that in Seattle. It was the pop scene. But not pop as it is known now (britney etc.) but pop as in bands whose sound seemed to grow directly out of the alternative pop music of the 80’s. Bands who, like me, had discovered the likes of the Smiths, the Cure, U2, Crowded House, etc., were playing music thatwas pin point right for the time of experimentation and nostalgia that the international music scene had become.
At the heart of the sound was a young band named Red Autumn Fall. They were making a very different type of rock music. Rock music that made you want to wear a suit. They were hailed by Canadian music critics as the net big thing and due to the exposure were asked to open for high profile international acts such as Oasis. Every year RAF would host a festival of independent music called Panacea where like minded musicians would gather. Being in the middle of it made you feel like you were witnessing something special.
But as quickly as it arrived, it disappeared. RAF made the decision after 3 albums and hundreds of shows in Cowtown to move to Toronto. They released their CD, shot a video, appeared on Canadian talk shows… and then disappeared. We out west don’t really know what the hell happened. The evidence of their Toronto days still exists. On Queen Street West there is a vintage clothing shop called the black market and above the door you can still see a very old, very weather beaten Red Autumn Fall poster.
Before the demise of the Calgary scene, the major players got together and each recorded two songs for a collection of Calgary pop entitled “Ooh I’m So Pretty“. It remains for me one of the most played CD’s in my collection.
Throughout my growth as a filmmaker there has always been a goal for me to include this little heard music in my work. When we started posting Days I knew that I needed a lot of music over the course of the year. I also knew I wanted it to sound like… well the Cure. So I did what I could to include the great music from my past. Not having any money to pay for music, Brad and I ( along with the help of my good friend Ed) hunted down and contacted many of the members of the ooh I’m so pretty bands. Many of them agreed to let us use their music, including Red Autumn Fall, for free! I couldn’t believe it.
On top of that, Ed did a great job of sourcing out new Calgary bands that are doing great things and also agreed to let us use them. With the exception of one (insanely talented) young composer by the name of Kevin Dworak, all of the musical acts heard on Days are from [ Or were originally from - Ed] Calgary Alberta. Here now is a brief rundown of the acts:
Red Autumn Fall: Now broken up, but lead singer Simeon Ross and drummer Gail
Thompson have a new band, Charmer with a CD due in the fall. Simeon also has two great solo albums and has just finished a walk across Canada.
Glider: Amazing Smiths-esque sound featured in episode 6. Found on “Ooh I’m So Pretty”, but the band broke up the week the compilation was released.
The Lotus Galaxy: Jazzy and quiet. I have no idea what they are up to. [ Link is way out of date, from a couple of phone calls I had with them, I believe they've been broken up for a while - Ed]
Urban Divide: Calgary Funk, go figure. [That's newfunksoul, thank you very much - Ed] They are a new band responsible for “Daylight”, the great song played during the episode 17 date montage and many others.
Bliss Frequency: One of Jay’s oldest friends, Ethan Cole. Great guy, great musician.
The Livers: The name refers to those who live. Originally half of Calgary’s Interstellar Root Cellar, this cowtown reggae act can be heard in episodes 9 and episosde 29.
Kevin Dworak: Local Celt rocker turned exclusive Dead End Days composer. Creator of Sam and Bridgets theme and is currently brewing up more magic for day 4.
Well there you go. A nice history and run down of some more of the amazingly talented people we have contributing to this little show of ours. All of these artists have work for sale, so if you like what you hear, I encourage you to follow the links and purchase some really great music. You won’t be disappointed.
Peace,
Matt
[ I couldn't shoehorn this link it into Matt's post but Canoe Jam! wrote an intesting article on the rise and fall of the 90s Calgary music scene for their "Decade in Review" features in 1999. Interesting reading for anyone who is interested. - Ed]
New Ep… Breaking News Flash!
August 5, 2004
We go now live to DED HQ for a very special announcement
(You might want to check out the press conference feed prior to continuing… )
Well, this just sucks.
For what it’s worth - we all took an immense measure of pride in our unbroken string of episode deadlines met (undaunted by holidays, weather, “Gigli“, vacations and/or minor slip-ups along the way) and all parties involved were clinically bummed with the immediate realization that there was nothing to be done, but start over from the ground floor.
Anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with the “personal computer” (especially in the days before auto-save) knows the concept of having to re-do something that you had completed and then accidentally erased. The school essay that had to be started over. The Mp3s that vanished. The novel that lost a chapter. I honestly don’t know many feelings more disheartening than the vague notion you would have been better off if you had done absolutely nothing in the first place. Multiply that by a half-dozen people and several days of work and you get some semblance of the group dynamic at DED HQ last night.
The plain fact that there was no conceivable way (short of violating the laws of time and space) that the work could be re-done and the schedule remained intact helped somewhat. Feeling like there was a faint hope that the mistake could be corrected would just have made it worse. Adding to the no-brainer of the decision was the fact that the next couple of episodes are some of the most important plot-wise in the whole story, and to rush them now after nine months of slow roasting, would just have been unconcionable.
I can’t even say the experience will change the way we do anything. We back up regularly. We’re nice to the Editing Machine 3000 (The Editing Machine of the Future) - heck it was a carefully tweaked well meaning “Auto-Save” feature that lead to countless hours of Mike’s work being over-written in the blink of an eye. It was a simple order of operations misstep, and there’s really nothing else that can be learned from it..
But far be it from us to mope on misfortune. We’ll dust ourselves off and head back to the drawing board for next week. Who knows? Perhaps Episode 36 mk II will be even bigger and badder than it’s predecessor (although it’s predecessor was pretty sweet). Our painstakingly-scheduled final episode won’t line up quite as nicely with the real-world calendar as we had hoped, and I can no longer mentally rip at my favorite tardy web cartoonists with quite the same misplaced sense of superiority as before - but at the end of the day I’ll offer you the same promise we did before: We’ve always done everything in our power to provide you the best episode we can every Friday, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
See you next week… the episode really is worth the wait! (Hey in the meantime head over to Homestar Runner and play “Peasants Quest”, an absolute five star, must-see internet stop for anyone who owned a computer in the late 80s or early 90s).
Zombies: Eat Flesh.
August 3, 2004
[Shaner wins the 'trooper' award for last minute fill in production journal making this an unheard of two weeks in a row. For this he is deserving of the 'mad props'. Word. - Ed]
Imagine, if you will, a Subway sandwich shop like any other. Soothing fluorescent light, vats of semi-fresh vegetables, an underpaid and thus apathetic ’sandwich artistan’. A nice quiet place to eat your supper and imagine yourself making commercials with Jared. The only thing that could ruin it was, of course, a group of independent filmmakers.
Not for shooting this time, but because we didn’t feel much like cooking. We also have a rather disturbing inability to leave behind our work. And thus, we found ourselves sitting around a tiny table, arguing loudly over the ending of Dead End Days. We are either workaholics, or we have the best job in the world. Or, more likely, both.
It’s an interesting experience, and one I’d encourage you all to experience at some point. Not necessarily in your local deli, but sitting around a table, talking with people about something you all believe in so much, that even when you agree, you feel the need to shout. I’m sure everyone who entered that restaurant hated us (and most likely thought we were insane, as we spent a great deal of time discussing the undead’s natural hunger for brains, and the motivation behind it) but for the moment, that didn’t matter. There were more ideas than there were words to express them around the table, and whether publicly or privately, they had to vent themselves. We just hope the stubbly guy sitting behind us wasn’t a screenwriter.
The fact is, we all saw different potentials. As much as we agree generally, we are all very different in our approach to storytelling. And coming from several different points of view as we do, whatever comes out is not going to perfectly match the image in our heads. It most likely won’t match any of our images exactly. But I think the fact that each of us cares so much about it that our personal version must be voiced, regardless of the circumstance, bodes well for how it ends.
This whole project has been almost like an extended version of that same process. It took some sinking into for me, as there were already roles and boundaries set when I became involved. But Dead End Days has been something of a gestation, ideas combining, dying out, better ones continuing onward. Not just in terms of working with each other, forming a cohesive whole in Rocket Ace Productions either, but personally, discovering how I work on my own. I don’t remember it often anymore, but this whole process is new to me. I’ve written and acted for quite a while, but this is the first film I’ve really had any significant hand in developing. I had ideas, but no proof that any of them would work.
And maybe that’s why this group seemed to gel so easily. Because we were all at that stage, doing something which seemed far beyond us, and knowing we could fail horribly, but wanting to go ahead regardless. And now here we are, workshoping the denoument.
Given a different time, I would tell you all about the ideas that bounced around the table. But you’ll have to wait a little longer than that. Let’s just say you’re in for something pretty incredible. Even if I don’t know what it is yet. But at this point, I can say pretty confidently that it will work, and work well.
