Proud to present our new spot we did for Harmony Milk called “Secretly Replaced” written by Craig Cooper. This was a great experience as we had an amazing crew and fun was had by all.
This is a copy of our boards, drawn by Jay Harasym
As you can see we pretty much executed exactly what we set out to achieve. Special thanks again to Henry Sansom for his amazing cinematography.
The car "set" at Mann Casting
You can have the best writers, the best cinematographers, the best director on any shoot – but if your actors suck then so does your project.
Because I am in the infancy stages of my commercial directing career, I am doing many low budget commercials (but they dont look that way) and as the clients can’t afford it, I can’t go union. Finding non union actors is very difficult because a some of the times, they are in the union for a purpose – because they can really act.
But there are amazing actors out there who have yet to get in the union and some have decided that there is more work for them not being in the union. But regardless of all that, you need to find those actors.
Casting Director Steven Mann
This was my first casting session as a director (I have been there countless of times as an actor) and was given first class treatment. Its amazing to have such a good friend who backs me with everything he has achieved in life and use what pull he has to support my career ambitions.
I was blown away by the amount of amazing talent he had pulled and i was a bit overwhelmed.
Toby Proctor
This is Toby, he usually is the guy who directs me as an actor during the auditions and was now the camera guy directing the actors for my commercial. It was a surreal moment. I hope to have more of them.
The Triplets
One rule in making something low budget: No dogs and no children. Well I took the dog out of the script. (kidding there was no dog) But kids are hard to find and not only did Steven pull them but he found us triplets. These guys were amazing.
Paul and Ashley's Audition
Whats funny is that our main actors Paul and Ashley were the first to audition. Way to nail it Steven!
You are a good friend and a great help and that is why so many people love you so.
In the light of it costing me almost 80 bucks to fill up yesterday, i thought this would be a good time to release this little film I did.
Late summer, Peter Holmes, an advertising hero of mine and many others, founder of Reason Partners approaches me for a campaign he has for one of his clients. We talk over beers at Betty’s in the middle of the summer complaining about the rising Gas Prices. peter, an incredibally intelligent man with great insight (I”m luck y to have himn as an advisor in my business) lays out what he think is happening with Oil companies and what we can do about it. He has an idea for a pitch that he wants to deliver to his clients and sends me out on the road to do some investigating on the topic.
In this business, some campaigns take off and some don’t see the light of the day. They are ideas from ad men and women that come from the invisible imaginary world and we earth them into the physical one. This campaign didnt go but we sure had a fun time putting it together.
The talented and lovely, commincator, freelance writer and copywriter (and blogger), Lauren Shirreffs joined me on this outing so we could get in to some trouble together. I look forward to more one day 
No one reads a blog, I know. Everyone wants to Blog. Yet I write in hopes that people care.
Does this sound familiar? Maybe you are Neurotic. Like me. Freud would say that we are all neurotics just some of us are more and some are less.
Imagin8r and our non profit sister, ARC Institute have joined forces to start a guide for Neurotics. Its only for fun for now but its become a great provokation to create some art and energy into the subject.
here is the first one.
Jay Harashym from Animania has been conspiring with me late nights to flush out these two characters that will take us through the saga of two people that love eachother…but dont really get along. The episode will be about how neurotics have a hard time avoiding drama and no matter who they break up with, the patterns repeat. Its a look into how two people can take the proper steps to get along. It will be a guide to quarelling adults on how to follow a few (but difficult) steps to get through a conflict without causing further pain.
Now who wouldn’t want to learn about that?
Other issues in further episodes that will be addressed are:
I hope great things happen with these ideas. I look forward to seeing them come into fruition. I hope you do too. Stay tuned for an exhibit where I broadcast online 24 hours a day, taped sessions of my therapy for the past year. Boy will that be interesting! 
First Commercial SPOT with Industry Films Completed
This fall I started being repped by Industry Films. Childhood friend and forever supporter Ryan Wagman, Creative Director at Leo Burnett (watch his portfolio - very cool stuff) suggested me to Industry’s Executive Producer Marni Luftspring who took me under her wing and is helping me with the direction of my commercial directing career. My first task and the first commercial to go on my reel for Industry was to direct a commercial for Craig Cooper www.craigcooper.com.
In previous blog posts you can see the storyboards Jeff Tran did for the spot. You can compare them if you want to learn a thing or too.
It takes a lot of amazing talented people to make a spot of this calibre. The writing is where it all starts. Craig Cooper wrote a very subtle and unexpected comedy and entrusted me to pull it off. Bring in the eye and experience of Art Director Briony Wilson. It was a complete honour to work with these two my first time up to bat with Industry.
The imagin8r crew was agreat help. Daisy, Mikela, Alannah and the rest of the team were awesome. All the poeple that came out to support me, I cant thank you enough. Its a very challenging and competitive field and you cant do anything without their help. The spot was shot by Henry Sansom on the RED. It was coloured at REDLAB Digital and thanks to Emily Buller for putting that together.
Post production was done at Rooster by Jason Grebski. An amazing editor who was so gracious and talented. he is the one who showed me what I could have done better and even did some unnoticeable effects on some shots to cover up for my mistakes.
Then some amazing music with the help from Ted Rosnick at RMW Music Toronto.
Lots to learn.
Now all I have to do is choose wether to use the 30 second or 60 second one.
This is the 30 second one…
This is the 60 second one…
What would you do?
Ignore That Facebook Request – It Wasn’t From Me.
As you probably know, I am very serious about my facebook. I’m also very serious about the way we use facebook and that we are, just like in real life, following a social code and agreement of conduct. Those that break that code, get kicked of my facebook, just like in real life. Simple rules really that start with kindness and respect all the way down to a zero tolerance for spamming. Spamming is a think line easily crossed and its something I am always sensitive about – both receiving and giving. Thank God Zuckerberg (The Facebook God) made it possible to limit what you see and who you see it from or I would be deleting people left right and center and they would be deleting me too.
Building Your Social Network
Last year, as you may have noticed, I decided to try and build my social network on facebook in a positive and constructive manner. This was a new years resolution of mine. I went from 700 friends to almost 2500 in one year. I increased my use by 500% and really gave it my all. Some of you love it (thank you for that) and some of you (more than I am willing to realize) hate it. But you guys can go join hatebook or erase me or make it so I dont show up in your newsfeed. Many of you were added by me and some of you even added me. What I promised to myself and to some of you, that being facebook friends with me would be anything but boring. Maybe at times a little over self indulgent (my favourite part of school was show and tell) but I would use this connection I had with you to share insight into my world and to share information that we all I need to talk about. Most of all I want Facebook to be a place for discussion, possible change, and to promote innovation. I have built many good friends through this medium and along the way met many haters (they wont be reading this because of my long list of blocked people – always growing, I might add). The best thing about facebook is you choose how and who you want to interact with.
With that “friendship” there is a trust that is built based on our mutual credibility of what we talk about and what we recommend. Today I was provoked to write this blog post. I saw that someone liked something on a site. Just so I won’t get unneccessarily sued and to save face, I’ll leave the name of the company out. So lets call the site “Shite” for now. Within minutes of signing up, they messaged all my friends on Facebook who were affiliated with this Shite before hand. Now before you sign up to be my friend on Shite (I have since deleted my account) – please read what I have to say. First of all, I had no idea what Shite was and this was the first I had ever seen anything about it. What I wanted to see, I learned you can only see through signing up.
The Value and Problem with Facebook Connect
Now with Facebook connect, you can sign up immediately and skip the whole “fill out the form process”. Good right? Except that dubious “accept” you have to do when it says they can access your Facebook. A Necessary evil in being social media lazy. I hate filling out forms so I Facebook connect everything I can. If its cool, I’ll keep it, if it aint, I will let it go – just like my Facebook friends (and some of my real ones too but that’s another post on a more personal blog that I have yet to start – no one reads blogs anyway – yet another post)
So I sign up, I accept that I let them access my facebook and away I go, right? I figure it cant be that bad. They aren’t going to message my ex girlfriend or anything, right? Well first of all – I didn’t even get a minute to look at this site because the reason I originally signed up was dubious anyway. I thought I could watch something but all I could really do was like it? Sounded stupid. The point is: I didn’t even have time to look when I realized that my entire friends (all 2500 of them) were messaged on my behalf “inviting them to join this Shite”.
I was furious. No one talks to my friends except me. I dont even like when people promote their stuff on my wall without asking me. And especially when the people at Shite were making it like I was doing this. I never invited anyone. I was just looking at the site. They basically impersonated me, used my credibility to push their garbage.
When I click “accept” on facebook connect I am hoping that they respect my privacy and my trust I place in them when giving them access to my facebook. Well “Shite” don’t think so, so I immediately erased any association with them and with this blog I apologize to all my friends who trust me and who I hope to have credibility with.
I wrote them this letter:
I thought your site was interesting but because you decided as part of the function – to email all my Facebook friends – its a total lack of respect for my personal network and shows me that you don’t really get social media
its against everything I believe
too bad – I have a great network filled with great people and would have taken the time to explore what your Shite was about and the gladly share with them but you break some serious social behavior codes by using that as your first interaction.
You could have just made a post on my wall that I signed up. I should choose who to email and notify.
Maybe you will take that into consideration. I’m gonna write about you guys in the meantime. would love to hear your feedback on why you choose to overlook the trust of the consumer by posing as them when reaching further marketing efforts. sure you may get some people to sign up that way but there is no way it sticks. pun intended.
Good luck.”
Beware of Social Climbers
It wasn’t enough that I signed up for Shite and was generally interested. They were more interested in my social network then they were in me. They broke my trust without establishing any relationship with me and went over my head straight to my friends.
This is social climbing and I know enough of those people in real life. I get rid of those people as soon as I realize that so I certainly wont tolerate it online
Blocked.
I recieved a frantic call from Rebecca Eckler. She was worried about an assignment she had for Chatelaine about Karma. She thought that even writing about Karma was bad for her Karma. I explained to her (with my unlimited knowledge of Karma) that the only thing bad about Karma is doing bad things. As long as you are raising awareness around karma, thats all good Karma. Its not like a jinx or black magic to discuss it: unless you are wishing bad karma on someone else – its pointless because thats just bad karma in doing so. Trust me, I’ve tried it and I’m still paying it off…
Rebecca Just finished writing and releasing her book: “How to Raise a Boyfriend” which I bought and am reading for a couple reasons: 1. to me more desireable to an impending girlfriend and 2. Just in case that impending girlfriend has read it, I wont be bothered by the seemingly controlling tactics she learns in Rebecca’s book. (No wonder she is worried about her Karma ) All men should read this book and arm themselves like I did. Maybe you might pick up some useful tips in the process. Infact, buying this book for your woman is a double bonus: 1. you bought her something and 2. you are saying a lot by buying this particular book – you dont need to credit me on this – you can say it was your own idea.
You can read the article Rebecca wrote about Karma for yourself but the most important point I believe in is that if you are doing bad things, you will pay the consequences. Karma is our self regulating system that keeps people in line and if you are not paying attention than watch out. Doing good things is important, and to do it with no expectations is equally important. Karma is the universe making sure we are properly rewarded.
Its nice to recieve phonecalls where people are seeking such advice from me. usually its seeking advice on video work or how to use a certain function on facebook. I was pleased to have some of my words and insights appear in such a publication as Chatelaine. must mean I am doing something right 
I look forward to further discussion with her in the future.
And if you would like to recieve further insight on how to raise your man, then go here and sign up for Rebecca’s newsletters. I know she has lots to offer on the subject.
I began Artists Raising Consciousness with one main goal in mind: to bring artists together to address issues and utilize our skills to bring understanding to the world. ARC became a non profit this year to allow ourselves to work outside of the business model of needing clients to do projects. This way we can work independantly on something important to us, without having to compromise our artistic integrity to serve a clients motives. Its much more rewarding to address an issue from our own hearts, especially one as important as Empathy. Empathy is a topic that we are all stakeholders in and no one has the sole responsibility to bring such a message so we are doing our part as well. As there are so many worthy organizations and people focused on the topic, we want to gift them with a powerful film that will help them advocate this message. Words and websites are great, but a video can be so much more powerful in getting out the message.
Send in the artists. Adam Nathan, Gram Schmalz, Jen Grant, Alanna Fricker, Jay Harasym all came together to help explain what empathy is to them. We have since put together a couple grant applications and have heard back from Toronto Arts Council and recieved a $4,000 grant that at least gets us started.
Whats really exciting about this to me is that currently on the web, there is only one noteable film about Empathy so ARC is fulfilling a huge mandate and role in providing needed insight into such an important word. Its a great feeling to meet with these amazing artists and have such an important mission as explaining and teaching Empathy. Gives us great feeling of purpose that we are self initiated into such a task. A wise man, Tom Zara once told me that doing good things creates seratonin in your brain. Well at this rate I expect to be happy for a long time
What is challenging is explaining this word in a way that people can walk away from watching it with the understanding to practice Empathy themselves. Lots of pressure but worth it. In light of this mission I invite you along the journey to help. If you have some ideas or want to support then give me a shout. We could use all the support we can get.
I dedicate this post to Jeff Tran. If you need a good storyboard artist, this is your guy. We have made a number of spots together and I love both the process of working with him and the final result. if you flip through past posts you can see the progress of the boards for this spot I am doing for Craig Cooper and Industry Films. Pretty excited to shoot. Now we just need to cast the right actors. casting session tomorrow with the amazing casting director and funny man, Steve Mann at Mann Casting.
Here are the final Boards:
Pretty excited to shoot this commercial on the 17th for Industry Films and Craig Cooper. Storyboard artist, jeff Tran and I have been working these boards all week and are getting closer to the vision. Boards will help relate what we are doing for all involved as well as help organize the shooting order. Hopefully I will have time to post some camera maps showing how a shoot is organized to try and achieve all the shots (16!) in the most efficiently possible way.
There will probably be a one minute version of this.
Possible client is a lottery, hopefully (if they bite) a certain well known charitable one. Its for the “imagine this happening to you” type of message.
