Rae Roy's Blog, page 40

Theatrical Tuesday – Chin Up

This post is very helpful right now.

If you are the praying type, please pray for those who feel the need to hurt others to find their way to healing the damaged parts of themselves.

R~

Make-It Monday – Holding Back

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This week’s theme is holding back.

I suppose there are some things I need to hold back on in order to make it to the finish line. My last class is on April 26th.

I need to bite my tongue. There are so many things I would like to say to someone, because they have some things extremely wrong, but sometimes we must never speak to someone again. And sometimes there are people one spends months trying to work with only to be repeatedly disrespected at every juncture.

I hate drama and b.s.

Otherwise, I’m trying to get as much done as possible while dealing with fire testing in my building. I’ve been cleaning. A lot.

Oh, I had a wonderful coffee date recently! It was so comfortable and the conversation was great. I’m looking forward to seeing him again

Frisky Fraturday – Entropy, Sex, and Music

[image error]So… I forgot to post yesterday. Sorry for that. I haven’t been sleeping well, or eating well, and there’s tons of homework to get done in these last two weeks. There has been some extra stress in my life recently that I’m not going to get into. Suffice it to say someone wasn’t who I thought they were. And someone else was exactly who I feared they were.

I also have the extra stress of rapidly house cleaning before Monday because they’re doing fire inspections. Why they can’t wait until May, so people don’t have to put their tax papers away only to dig them out again to finish their taxes, I don’t know.

But as my home gets cleaner and as I get an assignment done, I feel a little better.

Entropy and sex. Well, I could go down the rabbit hole of ejaculate breaking apart into individual sperms only to come together again in an egg and create life. That could be seen as entropy, I suppose.

I think it works better as a dating analogy though. Sometimes something busts apart and it can feel like everything is awful, but then it puts you in the position to meet someone that gets you. Someone you actually feel comfortable talking to. And maybe something new and good will be created from it.

Entropy and music? Hmmm, well, we largely learned songs in pieces, put them together, and broke them apart again at troublesome points to get better. I wish I could say I was diligent at learning songs that way today, but playing is more of a soulful stress-relieving thing rather than a thing I see myself doing for a living. It also helps me through writer’s block. Writing songs though? Yeah, I plan to do that.

But I realized tonight that half the songs my last guitar teacher gave us are not my kind of music and I think that’s why I rarely play more than about five of the ones in my book. I should remedy that soon. I love hearing others play things like House of the Rising Sun, but I don’t enjoy trying to play it. Give me some Evanescence, Of Monsters and Men, Blink 182, and maybe some Nine Inch Nails or Manson and I’ll probably be more excited about it.

Anyway, off for food, more cleaning, maybe more homework or work for a client. I have some new plans for my feature film, so I may put some TV on for research purposes.

R~

 

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Thoughtful Thursday – Cleaning

[image error]I don’t know about you, but my home is a place where one can see entropy in action. Things seem to migrate all over. I’m not sure if it’s slightly worse for me because I’m the daughter of a hoarder and I’ve rarely witnessed my mom cleaning anything. It’s definitely the thing I struggle with the most.

I think it’s also partly my current position as a student swamped in homework assignments combined with about 3 hours lost daily to commuting.

Somehow, though, it’s easier to push to get a lot cleaned up in a short time when there’s someone holding a metaphorical gun on me. My condo corp is doing fire testing next week and needs access to my unit. As it’s been in quite the state between travel, a hectic schedule, commuting, homework, and the odd social event, I’m trying to get it as clean as possible before Monday.

The downside is that I have a lot of other things I could be doing, like the final assignments I need to be done in order to graduate.

The upside? My place will be clean, which is something I’ve been wanting.

This will reset my home, so entropy can start all over again.

R~

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Warrior Wednesday – Beginner’s Mind

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Image created using Bitmoji

One of the concepts we bandy about at martial arts is The Beginner’s Mind. Basically, the idea is to approach something as if you are a white belt and know nothing.

I use it often. At school or while in some other learning environment like a seminar, even if I have learned much of the content before, I clear my mind and pretend I know very little. By doing this, I can listen and absorb things because I don’t dismiss anything. Now, I don’t completely ignore what I’ve learned before. I use that previous knowledge to help me fill in a gap. For example, we were discussing how to get a play script sold and the way the teacher was explaining things seemed a bit convoluted to me. That’s when I used what I knew from film and TV classes to figure out that while in TV and film you need to find a willing producer, with plays, you need to be the producer. To be a producer in TV and film, you need to go to film school. Not so for plays.

I also use this technique when going out on a date because I’d rather assume I know nothing about someone than that I know everything. I may not remember everything discussed, but I’ll know far more than I would otherwise.

It’s helpful with a new martial art because while you’ll know some aspects due to the body only having a limited amount of ways that it can move, the devil can be in the details. Coming to jodo after karate was difficult before I knew about beginner’s mind because I spent so much time in karate trying to square up my stances only to find I need to have an angled stance in jodo. Iaido is more square, but not low, wide, and deep like karate. I actually had to stop doing jodo altogether for awhile because I couldn’t leave my learning from karate behind to allow myself to take on something new.

Beginner’s mind is something I also use to connect with people who are in a different lifestyle or stage of life than I am. It lets me avoid assuming things about people in my classes like their ability to be successful is really only limited by their will to persevere and has nothing at all to do with their age or current level of writing ability.

Now, I only recently came to this last bit about those younger than me. I have been rather stupid lately in regards to things like the Tide Pod epidemic. I’m sorry for that and I’m going to continue to try and be a better person.

One of the things that has made me realize that was the recent trip to Toronto to pitch our projects. At the home of Orphan Black, the woman we met with had us each say a bit about ourselves. I really enjoyed learning more about my younger classmates as many of them have had such a variety of life experiences. Many have traveled more than I have. Many have lived through things like the loss of a parent. I thankfully have not had that experience though I’ve lost many people in my life. The point is that age is mostly just a number. I do think there is a balance between assuming someone younger is inferior in any way and in giving them free reign to change national policies, but that’s not to say they have nothing valuable to contribute to a discussion. It’s more that they don’t know what they don’t know yet.

I haven’t been able to do this yet with music, but maybe someday. Language learning is another area this may help with, but I’m not there with that either.

I feel that The Beginner’s Mind fits quite well with entropy as one must basically blow up all they know and rearrange the pieces to either expand what was already known or to capture what one knew little about previously.

R~

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Theatrical Tuesday – Entropy

[image error]I first learned about entropy from either Blue Planet or Planet Earth. The concept fascinated me immediately.

The idea that things break apart in order to create something better with the pieces later is highly relevant in my life right now.

I think that writers often have to be willing to blow up our work and reassemble it differently.

This is challenging. Probably one of the most challenging things we do. I think this is pretty much how to take draft one and make draft two. You need to be willing to rearrange something so differently that it barely resembles what it was before.

I don’t know where it’s all heading yet, but it’s definitely an interesting time.

R~

Make-It Monday – My Murky Yet Hopeful Future

[image error]What an experience visiting and pitching to places was! We went to ten places that are key in media in all of Canada. When we first got there, I felt like I definitely knew what my path was going to be. I was planning on getting a job near my house and then write during the hours I wasn’t working. While there, I felt I really wanted to be part of this thing that is media in Canada. I was a little down discovering that I didn’t get that job because it makes me stressed out about money again, but I think it’s ultimately a good thing for my future.

One of the things I learned is how useful I could be as someone with a background in project management. I think that is the right path for me to take. I could end up an Assistant Director or someone who manages programming schedules or nearly anything because time management and getting talent to deliver things on time is one of the areas that is a constant struggle.

But my work life is a little like sand right now. A strong wind can blow a structure apart only to reform elsewhere. Entropy is this week’s theme and it’s quite a fitting one given that I’ve quite a bit to figure out.

I sent in a short film script to the broadcast students, sent a short script to a new contact, did script coverage for a local film maker, and learned my feature could really get made if I can find a producer that would be interested in it. Good things are happening though the future isn’t clear yet.

I’ve also made progress on editing my novel. I’m going to be changing some things based on what I learned about TV. I may even get in touch with one of the companies I really liked and could see my stories being told through. I have some further questions about something they said.

So I’m going to keep working hard and making contacts that could help me get somewhere that makes sense for me in the industry.

And that’s how life’s river flows today.

R~

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Canadians in Mourning

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I don’t usually post on Sundays, but some things can’t wait.

The Canadian hockey world is in mourning this week and will be for awhile.

On Wednesday evening, Jonathan Pitre lost his battle with EB (Epidermolysis Bullosa).

Jonathan was well known to the Ottawa community as The Butterfly Boy. He was especially known to Senators fans. Jonathan suffered from a disease that made his skin as fragile as a butterfly’s wings. This included the skin inside his body like his mouth and throat. Faced with a life of excruciating pain and knowing that he would likely only live to about 20 years old, Jonathan devoted his life to trying to make people aware of his affliction. He was a huge hockey fan and a special member of the Senators family. He had such a positive outlook despite struggling to do the most basic things like swallow liquids. He was also an A student. He often refused opiods as he preferred the pain to having his mind dulled.

But Jonathan’s death isn’t the only reason hockey fans are mourning.

On Friday, tragedy struck in Saskatchewan when a bus carrying a Junior A hockey team aged 16-21 collided with a semi. Fourteen young people are dead and 14 are injured. There is a gofundme set up to help The Broncos team and their families through this difficult time.

And if you happen to be someone who prays, please pray for all the people and families we’ve lost this week.

R~

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Symphonic Saturday – Music and My Trip

[image error]What an incredible week I’ve had! I have so many pages of notes from our Toronto pitching trip. Some things didn’t go so great. Something got overlooked and my first film pitch was to a woman who was upset by the content, but gave great feedback on it anyway. I’m now thinking of it being a mix of live action and animation because that would reduce costs and be different. It would also make use of local talent given how many high quality animation studios exist in Ottawa. At my other film pitch, I was told there is a problem with one of the story elements, so I’ve reached out to a medical science organization in the north to see if they can help me find the information I need to fix that piece. He also said that he could see my film being made! Given he works for a distributor that works with a lot of horror films, I’m super stoked! I got up this morning fired up to get the pieces together to fix some parts and make a plan for the next version.

Last night, we used the bus DVD system to watch a couple of movies that my classmate brought. The first was Kubo and the Two Strings. Knowing my love of music and sword based martial arts, you can guess why I picked it. Also, many in my class love animation, so I thought it would be a good pick. I think most really enjoyed it.

After that, we watched Jurassic World. It’s another with a fantastic soundtrack. It always takes me back to high school because we used to play the theme song in music class. It was a wonderful cap to the week as I feel like my life is finally on the right path and it’s the one I started in grade 9 when I joined drama club in high school.

I may have been lost for a while, but I found my way back. This year has been a fantastic journey. I have so many new ideas, twists for old ones, and more! I learned so very much about the industry and what I can bring to it. I saw places like Temple Street Productions where I felt my kind of stories could definitely fit. They gave the world Orphan Black and have received a ton of awards for it. I have to check out The Killjoys as I heard about that one repeatedly. That’s one of theirs too.

One of the things that came out of this was that many love if there is a source material like a novel to draw from in order to make a TV show. TV is way bigger in Canada than movies are, though we do well with horror and the odd other movie like Maudie. When I started this journey, I was partly thinking that screenplays are faster to write than novels are. Now I’m seeing that it’s not one or the other for me, but both. It means that nearly all of my projects will take longer. I have to figure the book piece out for my other stories. I shouldn’t set things in Ottawa if I hope for them to do well. A fictional place is better or an American city because it’s more portable and appeals to a global audience.

Over the course of 3 days, we met with First Generation Films, Bell Media (CTV, Comedy, Space, HBO), DHX Media, OMDC, The Saint Agency, CBC (Comedy, Drama, and Digital), EOne (TV), Temple Street Productions, Mongrel Media, and Corus (Global/Shaw, Showcase, History, and more). My TV show was pitched to CTV and CBC. My film was pitched to The Saint Agency and Mongrel Media.

I met the Teletubbies at DHX.

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I have a gazillion notes to type up, a guitar story to write, and a guitar I haven’t played in several days, so I’m off.

R~

Make-It Monday/Theatrical Tuesday – Coping with Stress

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I meant to post yesterday.

This is an insane week for me, so posting will be sparse and brief. Actually, maybe even non-existent as television and movie companies don’t allow electronic devices thanks to apps like Facebook listening.

Yesterday was Easter Monday in Canada. To some, it meant a holiday. To others, it was a Monday with sale chocolate.

Classes were running. I felt a bit dizzy and I decided the best thing for me to do was to take some time to prepare for the week ahead. I don’t usually miss, but there is a lot of stress right now and sometimes one needs to practice some self-care.

So I hemmed my jeans and did some folding. I did laundry and planned my outfits for the pitching trip. I also practiced my feature film pitch.

With the hectic week ahead, I didn’t travel home to see my family. I’m hoping to soon as I haven’t seen them since Christmas. I’m going to teach them Skype.

Since it was April Fool’s on Sunday, I tried to have my dad tell my mom that I was flunking everything, I was going to starve, but I found a job dancing, and Bruno says I’m talented. He relayed most of it and judging by his laugh, mom made a good face.

On Monday, I also completed the next stage of a job application. It was an online assessment. I hope I did well! I’m happy to have made it this far.

I didn’t sleep well last night as I was freaking out about thoughts of the transit system not getting me to the school on time for the pitch trip. My local bus is one of the worst in the city for suddenly not existing. And especially so when there is bad weather. We’re expecting freezing rain tonight and maybe some snow. I decided that the sensible thing would be to Uber or Lyft to school early, so I can ensure I won’t miss the bus. It won’t be cheap, but if I order it early enough, I won’t have anything to worry about.

I still have to rewrite my feature film’s cue cards. I’m so happy I got blue cards from my teacher!

Well, I’m off to finish packing. You might not hear from me until Friday or Saturday.

And that’s how life’s river flows today.

R~

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