Term 4

The months are flying by and I can't believe I'm almost done with another term. Here we are in December and I'm trying to update the blog for an October update! I should be talking about Christmas but instead I'll upload the pics I have from the Dunbar Haunted House experience I had over Halloween.

I found out about the DHH from my roommate who is in the Foundations course at VFS. It turns one of his instructors puts on a huge event every Halloween. It a beautiful house in a great neighborhood and things stay pretty average throughout the year. But once June/July hits the owners of the house start transforming the dwelling into a Halloween spectacle that rivals even the best amusement park haunted houses.

The best thing about it is it's free and every dollar contributed goes to charity. The amount of work that goes into this is exhausting but the people that I met through the experience are truly unforgettable. There are about 70+ volunteers that make it possible and I was lucky enough to be brought on board to help out. Usually you have to put your time in to make it through the ranks but since they needed a hand in the sound department, I was a shoe in. In years past they've produced some video documentaries to show how the whole event is made possible and this time they wanted to bring up the production quality for this year's video.

During the day, the haunt is open to anyone who wants to walk through. This is usually when the kids go through because there are no live "spookers" in place. To get the full experience you had to go through after 6:30pm Monday-Thursday and it ran until 9:00pm, Friday-Saturday I think it ran until midnight. On with the pics!

First off, this is where everyone gets suited up. This reminded me of what your standard wardrobe department should look like on a film set, and this is all top of the line stuff.



And here's the walk through the haunt...
Mummies:


Romans:


Monks:


Hell:



Knights:


Witches:


Pirates:


Asylum:


London/Jack the Ripper:


Apocalypse/Planet of the Apes:


and the line up begins:


So this went on from October 15th-31st rain or shine. I eventually got shifted from the sound crew to help with crowd control and even got to spook a couple of nights. At the end of every night, we would gather everyone together and give the count of how many people walked through the haunt. During the week we averaged 700-800 people and on Halloween Night we broke the record having 1500+ people walk through! They had also broke another record and donated close to $69,000 dollars to charity!

OK, so one of the coolest parts of the haunt was when Bruce Greenwood stopped by. He knew the owners of the house and he brought his nephew in to spook for a night. Turns out some of his actor friends are in town shooting a film and he asked them if they wanted to stop by too. So Bruce convinced Chris Pine to stop by! Yeah Kirk from the new Star Trek. Now that was cool, just kickin it with Kirk with no one getting all star struck and cameras going off. That was one of the stipulations- no photos, no autographs, just there to have fun. They both should be in the video of course. There was a rumor floating around that Reese Witherspoon might show since they're filming their new movie in the area...but alas, no Reese.

It really was an awesome experience and even though some nights seemed like it would never end it was all definitely worth it. I can't wait to see the final video and see everyone again at the wrap party. I'll keep you posted.

All for now, now time to work on my December update!

Term 3 Recap

Sorry for the lack of updates, Term 3 was pretty hectic especially when being displaced for a week during the chemical leak. The projects were a bit harder and more intense. We got a chance to work with both the Film campus and also work with the Foundations students on their final Term 6 projects.

For the Film campus collaboration we were split up into teams where our group was the sound crew on the set. No new territory for me here, I've boomed for almost all of the 19W films but it was great to be back on a working movie set. Of course it never ran as smoothly as the GDE set, but it was ok. We shot at a number of locations throughout Vancouver but the one I found most interesting was at Storyeum. It didn't look like much from the outside but inside it seemed like a huge Hollywood soundstage!







So it was great to be back on a set, but working with an ever changing schedule and trying to balance my own projects was pretty stressful. During the Film collaboration, we were asked to "mentor" Foundation students in their final projects. We were not ultimately responsible for the final sound design for their projects although for some us, it ended up that way. All we were asked to do was to guide them into what would make their pieces sound better overall. But again, for some of us... (ahem), we did everything from running an ADR session because the production audio was unusable, doing a music edit, and doing a mix of all the elements. I think I might have spent more time on their projects than I did on mine. Oh, and I had 2 of those to deal with, not just 1. After all was said and done, I wasn't too upset when I saw the screening in the theater and noticed everything I did for the sound design was pretty much blanketed by all the music that was on top of it. This is usually what happens anyway so I need to get used to it.

One highlight of Term 3 was a field trip to EA. Yeah that EA! It was HUGE! Unfortunately, I was not allowed to bring any recording devices and no pictures... sorry. It was unbelievable to see in person. We were even lucky enough to go into one of the sound studios to see what one of the audio engineers was working on for a FIFA title and a Need for Speed title. It was definitely an eye opening experience to see what goes on at a game company.

Over the break I did a bit of volunteering at the Dunbar Haunted House. My roommate got involved because one of his instructors runs the event and told me they were shooting a documentary on it. I asked if they needed any help in the sound department and that's how I got in. At first, I took care of sound for some of the footage shot but as the days went by, they needed help running the show. That's what it felt like, you're literally putting on a show every night and you have to make sure everything is going smoothly. I'm still helping out and I can't wait to post the pics. But if you click on the link above you can see what I'm talking about.

That's all for now, Term 4 starts tomorrow...

Evacuation

So around 6:00pm on Friday afternoon I was making dinner and I heard a sound in the apartment I've never heard before. It was coming from a central speaker in the middle of the living room. I then thought, "is that the fire alarm?"... indeed it was. I turned off the stove, went to my room and was trying to grab all my recording gear and my camera. I then heard people yelling down the hallway to evacuate the building so at that point I dropped everything and grabbed my cell phone and my wallet.

Taking the stairs down 16 floors wasn't too bad but as I got down to about the 3rd floor I could smell something wasn't right. As we exited the building we saw white smoke coming up through the vents and walked out through the lobby down the steps in the picture above. Firetrucks were on the scene within minutes and everyone was pouring out into the streets. I waited for a bit to see what was going on but obviously with all the commotion no one had any answers. I didn't want to wait around so I walked back to school to wait it out.

I returned back to the building at around 11:30pm and security said it was ok to go back in. There was a distinct chemical odor but I never felt sick or nauseous. My room mate came in shortly after and everything seemed fine. About an hour later we heard the alarm go off again but then it quickly went off. We were wondering if we should get out but we didn't hear anyone leaving the building so we turn on the TV to the front entrance camera and saw no one exiting and that people were actually coming back in.

We thought everything was back to normal and called it a night.

So Saturday morning I wake up and go to school (as usual), but then I run into my room mate in the hallway and he says they had to evacuate the building again! We got in touch with our landlord and found out they were having a meeting about the situation at the Sheraton adjacent to our building. We walked over to our place and it looked like a scene straight out of I Am Legend or Cloverfield. There were even more firefighters, Haz Mat trucks, TV crews, and anyone closer to the building was wearing a gas mask. Uhh, not good. At least they were grouping us floor by floor so the firefighters could go into our apartments to grab "any essentials". At least they were nice enough to grab my laptop.

So for right now, I'm staying with a classmate who lives 2 blocks away. Hopefully they'll clear everything and we'll be able to go back in tomorrow. At this point I have no idea. I'll keep you all posted. For now, I'm ok so don't worry.

Here are some articles on what happened:
CBC News link
Vancouver Sun

Quick Break

So I'm just about to end week 3 of Term 3. The assignments and projects are nonstop and things are only getting tougher. In a couple weeks I need to come up with an idea for what will end up being my final project for the course. We will need to pick an short film or animation in which we to the entire Sound Design for.

In this term we get to collaborate with some of the Term 6 Foundation students to essentially be Sound "mentor" for their final projects. I'm helping a student with a movie trailer so hopefully I'll be able to get the final piece and show you guys what I've been up to all this time. Then we will be working with some of the Film Production students where we'll be doing production recording for their projects also.

We're also getting more exposure to sound in Video Games. I never realized how much goes into designing sound to make a game seem flawless. That's what they keep drilling into us here at school, "If you do your job right, no one will notice". It's a thankless job but someone's gotta do it.

So I was lucky enough to catch up with some of you over the few days I had back in DC. It was great to see everybody but the visit was too short. I have another 5 days off in October and the next long break will be the last 2 weeks of December. As you can see it's hard to find free time to keep taking pics and keep things updated, but I'll try so you know how things are going up here.

I was so excited to meet Dylan for the first time! I'm sure he's grown already since this picture.


it was great seeing you :)


see ya when I see ya! btw, who's coming out to Vancouver, eh?

updating soon...

Yep, jumped right into term 3 without skipping a beat. At least I was able to fly back home to DC over the short break to see family and friends. I'll try to update asap!

Where did July go?

I can't believe how fast this term is flying by. We just got through a rough week of 9am-8pm classes, on top of that trying to fit in time for all of our editing projects due at the end of the month. At least next week we'll have a bit of a breather. They slammed us with classes this week so they've adjusted next week's schedule to be a lot lighter, only 4 out of the usual 10 classes (whew). That should give us time to catch up... I hope.

I'll try to keep up with the blog, I really haven't had time to take any pics... I've been in touch with the 19W crew and wish continued success with everything so far, way to go GDE! Ghosts Don't Exist available on DVD September 7th (order your copy now at Amazon). hehehe

Best news of all though, Congrats again to A&E! and shout out to my new Godson Dylan!!! Maybe mommy and daddy can fly me home for the baptism :) Seriously though, I wish I could be there I can't wait to see him! I miss all of you guys.

I'll try to update soon with some new pics.

The Food so far...

So aside from making instant noodles, pasta, and brown rice every other day, rest assured I do get out every now and then to eat real food. A while ago a really good friend of mine was nice enough to take me to the Summer Night Market in Richmond, BC. It was great to get out of the Downtown area, I can't believe I'm used to city life but it is nice to get out every now and then. Richmond reminded me of California because it's all flat and all you see are mountains in the background minus the palm trees.


So the Night Market is a big event where vendors come out and sell everything from clothes to iPhone accessories, just what you'd expect at an Asian market. The main thing is the food though, too much to choose from and it's all cheap! We had some pork dumplings, some weird shrimp and seafood batter covered things, fish balls in curry sauce, grilled squid, and of course bubble tea. There were so many people that by the time you finished one thing you better be in line for the next thing because it took 15-20 minutes to get it. I hope to get back there before it ends.


So did I mention the sushi? Man, there is so much sushi here it's not even funny.


One of my classmates from Seattle knows all the best Japanese joints to go to up here so one night we went to a place called Zakkushi. A small hole in the wall place but really, aren't those the best places? It's a Japanese tappas bar with Sapporo beer on tap. Yeah needless to say we drank more than we ate but it was a great time and the food was delicious!


On another day a couple of us went to a place called Benkei Ramen. Now when I think ramen, I think the little packet of instant noodles that you get for like 3 for a dollar. But this place was amazing. I usually don't eat soup on a hot day, but this hit the spot. And for $8, you can't beat it! I'm sure we'll be back!


Last but not least I finally made my way back to Granville Market to get that funky pasta. It's great because they make it fresh and it's a quick meal. The yellow and pink ones are filled with butternut squash and the green and pink ones are spinach and portobello? Mmmm...mmm...good.


All for now, hope everyone back home has a fun and safe 4th of July!