CC: The Horse and His Elf

“Show me the meaning of haste!” I whispered into the ear of my mighty steed, clasping his reigns, prepared for a wild ride. I mustn’t have been speaking clearly though – he seemed far more intent on showing me the meaning of his indifference toward anything I wanted him to do.


My elven training had lead me to “The Ranch” in Oakville. For who could call himself an elf who could not ride a horse? Though I had a girl doing a radio documentary as well as my loyal producer there with me, Voshart was nowhere to be seen. He had decided to ignore the fact that we’d been trying to set up these lessons for weeks and go visit New York instead. That’s ok. When Peter Jackson needs to cast someone for the horseback scene we know who he’ll choose.

Trying to jump onto the horse

The lesson lasted only an hour, but we didn’t waste a minute. The first order of business was to teach me to get onto a horse. But not in the usual way. Being an aspiring elf, my instructor decided that it might be more appropriate that I learn how to grab onto the horse’s main and swing myself onto its back. She was also of the opinion that elves would be beyond saddles, so I got to learn to ride bareback on my first lesson. It was a crash course on learning how to work with horses designed to teach me as much as possible in as little time as we could. Needless to say, my comfort or the idea of easing me into it were completely irrelevant.


Nonetheless, I emerged from my adventure more confident, and able to direct my horse to take me where I need to go. I even made it through a driver’s test style series of pylons. Although I only made it to riding at a jog and not quite a full gallop, I can’t wait to show Dan up the next time we both make it out next time for more lessons.

DV: The Quantum of Ciosk

The "Chris is a Failure Party" has passed like a kidney stone.


With almost 30 attendees Chris reached his goal of finishing his film by November 13th and managed to screen something that was "watchable".

Quantum of Solaceme on the other hand was unanimously panned by everyone who migrated from the party to see this midnight screening. I heard from multiple sources that this year's Bond film was "worse than Chris' film"

How is it possible that man with the intellect of a dead penguin could out-do a bond film?

#1 The most likely scenario:
Bond was so disparagingly awful that guests were thankful for Chris's straight-to DVD release.

#2 My theory:
The Director of 007 spent all his spare time cleaning his kitchen.
Chis however, neglected his duties as a member of society and focused only on finishing his film.

CC: The Final Push

Just now as I've been killing time while my video renders, I read that Baz Luhrmann (one of my favourite directors) is now in his final 24 hours of production on Australia, a film that he's been working on for the last four years of his life and is now scrambling to finish on the last possible day, less than a week before its premiere. It looks as though we both have something in common. Although with only two years on mine, I'll concede that it may only be half as good as Baz's.

Meanwhile, on this side of the equator I'm currently expending my last reserve of energy to try to get Adventurer finished before Vosh's 'Chris is a Failure' party. Only difference is Baz doesn't have a DVD to author too. Lazy. I'm gonna need every ounce of processing power on this computer to get this DVD finished by the deadline. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. I wonder if Dan is going to have a trailer for our documentary ready for me to put on the DVD like he said that he planned to on our facebook group. That would be embarassing if the tables were turned tomorrow night.

So if you find yourself free of any sort of plans this Thursday, come by our place for a 'Chris is a _____ (soon to be determined) party'. Drinks! Adventurer screening! Midnight Quantum of Solace! What more could anyone ask for?

The menu is ready, but will Dan deliver his half of the content?

CC: We Have a Runner!

Tonight at Milestones I found myself working at the service bar next to the kitchen. Every minute or so the expediter in the kitchen would yell “Can we have a runner?” (to run food out to a table) which basically became the key element in my night’s soundtrack. As time went on and I got increasingly tired, I started to feel like I was back in the trenches again, waiting for my cue – “We have a runner!” – for me to pull out my rifle and run the length of the trench.

It was one of my first ever experiences being an extra, and also probably the most uncomfortable. Dressed in a Canadian outfit from the First World War, I spent the majority of my days huddled for warmth with the other soldiers in our flooded trench, waiting for our brief moment of action. I know the actual soldiers we were portraying had to live in those conditions for ages and deal with the stench of death, but putting in a twenty hour day in a genuine uniform in a genuine replica trench was more than enough to convince me that if I ever find myself reincarnated in the 1910’s, there may be one particular historical event that I want to steer clear of.

On the other hand, singing and dancing in a forest glade might be an entirely different experience when I’m an elf. Unless I’m fighting orcs in the Battle of Five Armies!

You'll never see a shot this clear of me in Geoff Webster's Beyond the Line.

CC: What a little moonlight can do...

According to legend, elves came into being before the earth had a sun. Basking in the bright light of the stars and the moon, they would play music through the everlasting night.

I’ve unfortunately found myself in a situation similar to those early elves. I now spend most of my time sitting at my computer underneath Dan Voshart’s giant Chinese moon lantern. Its function: to make the night seem as bright as the day and keep me awake through the (seemingly) endless night as I struggle to keep up with my editing schedule. I underestimated how long the inserts would take me and have fallen horribly behind. Thoughts of the upcoming Chris is a failure party haunt me as I race toward the deadline.

I have pulled out my old electric guitar though, and spend my break time trying to learn to play properly for once. I’m not sure how an electric guitar would sit with the elves, but I feel closer to them already, filling my rest time indulging in their foremost passion of music.

Full Moon Fever

DV: Degrassi Knoll

Chris entered my room this morning, scratched MY head in the most pedophelic way, and said " "You should post about Degrassi"

I didn't want to post until we got the images from Degrassi but I also don't want him touching me again. I digress.

Being an extra is boring, and depressing. During a 3 hour wait in the holding area some dude closed the only window we had. Not only is being an extra the most depressing job in the world apparently it attracts vampires.

On set I was nothing more than a meat puppet and it sucks hard. My 5 second appearance on Degrassi will be the worst television experience since the JFK assassination. I try not to think about why I'm planning 18 months in advance to be one in The Hobbit. This flight of fantasy is much too real.

Degrassi lost 164 dollars to Apartment 705 today

CC: Past the Point of No Return?

Last week on my way to the set of Degrassi, I figured I might as well pick up a book to read since I'd probably have lots of down time. So I headed up to Elliot's Bookstore, just north of Wellesley, to pick up a copy of The Hobbit, which I am ashamed to say I haven't read in years. When we got to the Tolkien section though, there wasn't a copy in sight. There was something else though that did catch my eye: a copy of The Simarillion, Tolkien's legendarily boring book about ancient middle earth containing all of the stories and legends that are referred to in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Apparently it's almost exclusively about elves and chronicles their long history. The sort of thing only a die hard Tolkien nerd would ever read, and has been hailed by The New York Review as "an empty and pompous bore". But really how bad could it be? All the bad press has to be exaggerated. Right?


From the minute I saw it, I knew that I had to read it, no matter how painful it may be. How could I claim to be the perfect person to play an elf if I hadn't learned all of their long back story. The man at the counter confirmed my suspicions that I was entering seriously nerdy waters. "It's like reading stereo instructions," he told me when he saw what I was buying. "It gets better once you get into it though. The language stuff is pretty cool, but everything else is really dorky." Hmmm... dorkier than a make believe fully grammatically functional language created for fictional characters in a fantasy book. I was baffled. We told him about our plan to be elves to explain the purchase. "Did you lose a bet or something?" he replied. "You're seriously starting to enter 'dying a virgin territory'". This is coming from a man who's working in a used book store and has read The Simarillion on his own accord for fun of it. I'm starting to wonder what I've gotten myself into. On set I managed to read the first twenty pages, a creation story of middle earth that reads like the book of Genesis. I'm about to give it another go right now, since my computer is being fixed and I can't work on Adventurer tonight. Wish me luck.