I’d had these freeze-pops in the freezer for ages with no intention of eating them and an empty frame, which I’d been intending for ages to try to make a random, melting painting. With one week to go before moving from Kamloops, I finally got it together to put it all together. At first, some promising patterns and colors started to develop, but the syrupy colored liquid was quickly absorbed into the cardboard, and the final piece ended up looking like lightly-stained paper.
I derived many of the sounds in the soundtrack by playing the free “bees” sound-pack, put out by Tonehammer, and available at: www.tonehammer.com
Category Archives: canada
Soul Patch Live at Vaughn 4.0
Soul Patch – live excerpt from DoAn Forest on Vimeo.
This is footage from the birthday party of Vaughn Warren, a Kamloops-area artist, who organized the warehouse parties (amongst tonnes of other stuff) which I VJed at a few years back. He gave me the call to VJ again. Soul Patch, a legendary Kamloops live act, played a reunion show. I love it when I have the chance to VJ for a live act. My VJ booth was located conveniently above the stage, and I pointed my camera at the stage, while effecting it and other footage through my VJ mixer and setup. I loved how it came together at times. I took a few excerpts and taped them together to make this video. In all the multitasking I was doing, I didn’t get around to changing the tape in the camera, so no other footage from the night.
It was an awesome party. Happy birthday, Vaughn!
Check out the flyer, too:
I dreamed a bear
About two weeks before I filmed this, I had a dream of a black bear. In the dream, myself and the bear were in pretty near identical positions. The bear was on the edge of a clearing, upslope from me. I think I was walking near a stream. Suddenly, I saw the bear and for a moment I felt terrified, but quickly calmed down as I realized the bear seemed totally satisfied doing its own thing.
I’ve looked online to see if any particular meaning is attributed to a dream of a black bear. I read a few things, but nothing seemed to relate. I think it may be as simple as the fact that I’d been thinking about living in the Yukon lately.
But, this film is not from the dream. Here we are, on the side of a highway, with lots of cars badly (and dangerously) parked on the side of the highway between Squamish and Whistler. The bear seems to pay no mind, except when it hears a car honk. The funny thing is we drove to Whistler, ate lunch there, walked around, and drove back 3 hours later, and the bear was still there in the same spot, eating. Must have been it’s first meal in a few months.
Paralympics Opening Ceremonies
A month before, I watched the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremony, and was awestruck by some of the projections, such as the whale swimming along the stadium floor with actual water coming from its blowhole. For a bargain price of $30, I was able to get a seat for the Paralympics Opening Ceremony – I made the mistake of assuming I wouldn’t be able to bring in a camera – I could have get a lot of good footage, but instead all I got was this low-quality iPhone film. There were a lot of awesome projections, some of which I show in the brief clip above. Particularly impressive were these balloon/spheres that drifted across the stadium floor with images being projected onto them.
Using a 3D design program (Kinemac), I wanted to see if I could achieve something similar. This is just a practice test, but the results aren’t bad – five ascending spheres with looping images on them:
Roots and Routes
This narrative documentary follows my Grandpa and I on a journey across America. Against the backdrop of 19th and 21st century meta-history and North American geography, it places the life and travels of my Grandpa, a man of his times, in a bigger context. The trip takes us on a journey from my Grandpa’s ranching community in south Saskatchewan, Canada, across the border to Montana, and then on Amtrak trains through Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and finally back to Canada.
As editor and fellow traveler, I’ve done my best to make the film relevant for both my family and for a public audience. I hope the film might have some appeal to everyone from rail enthusiasts to grade school Social Studies teachers.
The film is 30 minutes long.
It was filmed with a Canon HV-20 camera. Various archival footage was taken from archive.org and youtube. The film was edited using Final Cut Studio.
Inspiring Expiring
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Tempest Party at the Warehouse
This video presents some excerpts from the Tempest party at the warehouse – March 1st, 2008. I just taped together a bunch of 10-15 second clips in an attempt to leave behind a document from the night. It was freezing cold that night. In the last minute of this clip, I added in the footage of a guy named Ryan doing some wicked fire spinning outside. In the background, you might be able to see the white glow of Mount Paul.
The set-up was great again. There were four big screens – two showing my visuals, and two showing automatic visualizer content. Also, take note of the awesome mandala behind the stage.
Thanks to Vinny Franchesco for the chance to VJ, Graham (How Sound) for the sound, Kyle for the lights, and all the DJs (as listed on the flyer: Danger Dan, Dope Tito, Myshell, Sean Gunn, Smurf Logic, and Wandalicious).
By the way, since this party had a Tempest theme, I tried to track down a bunch of stormy visuals: lots of lightning, flooded streets, blizzard scenes, and trees being blown over.
Again, I used the Arkaos VJ software, in conjunction with the Korg Krossfour mixer and the Kaoss Entrancer video effector.
Here’s the flyer from the party:
Also, here’s a youtube clip recorded by Sean (DJ Herbal Vegas) of DJ MyShell’s setup, which captures the party in all its wicked energy. Some of my visuals appear in this clip, but I want to mention that some of the visuals seen in the background of this particular sequence come from some automatically generated visualization software that the lights guy Kyle set up that night – I found myself switching back and forth to that, just cause my own stuff is not as timed with the music and a bit thin at this point to make it through 6-7 hours straight.
Same Moon
Just came back to Kamloops. I stepped out into my backyard and saw the same moon I saw days previous in Tokyo, but now further along in its cycle. If it’s a full moon in Kamloops, would it also be a full moon in Tokyo?
Kamloops Arrival
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I made this in late February 2007, three weeks after beginning life in Kamloops, BC, Canada. The video has been submitted into a video contest at the Kamloops Art Gallery with the theme, “The Place Where I Live.”
UPDATE: Happily, I ended up winning the contest that I submitted this video to (Mar. 18th, 2007). I also met some really good people at the event, including a few fine arts professors at the local university and various art gallery staff. A very good experience. Perhaps, it’s the first thing I’ve ever won since I won a drawing contest at a Cornwall seaside hotel resort when I was eight years old. I love the handmade, one-of-a-kind wall-plaque I got as a prize.
Vancouver Slow Chase
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This was filmed in 1999 and edited in the early 2000s. I’d written a film script for a movie to take place in Vancouver. A lot of the abandoned material of the script made it into this. The film is basically location shooting from bus windows, train windows, apartment balconies, etc … with a commentary that drifts between jilted lover and detached urban critic.
I’d still like to do a shorter version (this one is 16 minutes), but not sure when/if I’ll ever get around to it.