While I would have liked to relay some play-by-play during the process, it's a little late for that, but I do have some great news: IT'S DONE! As in done, done. Narration, sound mix in 5.1, color-grading and online 4:4:4 finishing (both done by yours truly) are all locked and loaded. Only the final step of mastering to HDSR remains. And who shall master our precious gem? None other than Matrix Professional Video, who has been truly remarkable throughout the whole making of this film. I've always enjoyed the personability that comes with their high-end professional services, but now even moreso. They recently expanded from merely sales and rentals to offering many post-production services, including digitizing, conversions, and mastering, as well as in-house Apple Color suites. But I digress.

Journey of a Dream is kind of very much nothing like Inception, but an equally awesome dream... in a very different indie doc sort of way, which is to say, far more real! Check out the new website, and spread the word. As I said in my previous blog post *cough, when I first started working on it in February, cough* this is a story that crosses several genres, which means it has mass appeal (RIP Guru).

Check out the Teaser (early promo) and more info at JourneyofaDreamMovie.com.

Journey of a Dream, Feature Documentary

More free-time this past summer meant I got to polish up my After Effects skills, which are now sharp and ready for action. They had gotten a little rusty from series work, which of course focuses primarily on the art of storytelling (and the art of fixing mistakes); the motion graphics and compositing needs are sent out to specialists, who can afford to take hours on a single shot or short sequence. But as a freelance editor, I find that a lot of clients expect an editor to possess motion graphics skills as well, and I am pleased to say that now more than ever I bring that to the table, the EDITING TABLE! Actually it's more of a desk than a table, but you get the idea.

A couple years ago I blew over $800 on a fancy 32" High-Def TV, and quickly realized it was a total waste of money. I returned the idiot box a few days later, and exchanged it for something far more useful and beneficial to my quest to suck the marrow out of life- my first DSLR. It awakened something in me, like the old man in Amélie who is anonymously returned a tin box he had accidentally left behind in the house he grew up in. My heart pounding with excitement, I stumbled out of the cave like a bear from hibernation and bought the cheapest tripod I could find! I hit the road for a little solo voyage and rediscovered the joy of slowing life to a single moment frozen in time.

Building on inspiration, I have decided to take my hobby a bit more seriously, and offer my photographic skill set as a service. I don't know if this move will lead me to become a photojournalist for the New York Times, or merely to make people look cool and contemporary, but what is certain is my ambition to aim for the highest vantage point, and shoot.

Since then, many projects have come through these hands:

• Viral video coinciding with an international grassroots campaign urging China to open a diplomatic dialogue with Tibet, leading up to the 2008 Summer Olympics in China
• 6-minute demo for a documentary being produced by the National Film Board of Canada
• Promotional video for the city of Powell River, BC
• Feature documentary, shot on Super 16mm, telling 'the legend of the dolphins' in an original, poetic narrative form
• Story-driven music video for the artist RUMI, shot on the RED One
• Short Biopic on visual artist David Pirrie
• Teaching at Tony Papa's film school in Powell River

This may seem like a lot of work, but I've had more down-time than usual, due of course to the recession. 2009 is definitely looking up though, and I'm getting excited about a number of projects on the horizon.

As any montage reel, it can only go so far to show my storytelling abilities, so I encourage anyone interested, to contact me for a DVD version which has entire scenes and more examples of work.

Special thanks to David Weicht of Switchstance Recordings (Germany) for providing the music.

In April I took temporary leave from editing a tv series to teach a 6-week course on video editing. As my first experience developing a curriculum on post-production, let alone teaching in large numbers, I was a "little" nervous. But as I've learned from this job, even when overwhelmed by seemingly impossible tasks, one has to keep cool and work steadily toward the goal. In this case my goal was to provide a comprehensive understanding of the tv/film industry from an editor's point of view, focusing on practical knowledge and technical competence (a lot more fun than it sounds). Long story short, it was a successful course, and the students and I had a great time.

During which I was in a relatively remote part of BC, where I had ample free time and relished in the strange concept of part-time work. Now back in Vancouver, I'm finishing the series, working on a short video on Tibet and the Olympics, updating my reel, looking for another job, and trying to find time to get out there and enjoy the sun!

The Question, produced by Jason James, is an Omni Film production for CTV.