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Heart for the Bike Park

June 20, 2008

To Whom it May Concern,

I was saddened and concerned to hear of the closing of Owen Sound’s bike park. Though I haven’t used the facilities myself, I know that it is an important part of many young people’s lives. Owen Sound is an area with a lot to offer, but it is difficult for young people to find their place in the city. There are many barriers such as feeling unwelcome and regarded with suspicion while shopping, being accused of loitering if hanging out outside, feeling out of place at events with mainly adult populations, and encountering the ‘same old’ if just hanging out at home. Some of these issues are societal, and some are simply part of growing up.

Places such as the bike park are an integral part of a community. They provide a healthy and constructive outlet for youth to exercise, form friendships, challenge themselves, and work to improve their skills. Sports such as this teach youth dedication, fair play, conflict resolution, and the development of a healthy lifestyle. A place such as the bike park gives youth somewhere they can call their own, a community in which to invest their time and energy.

Of particular concern to me is the fact that council is using the park’s appearance as an argument for closing it, especially after the city has reneged on its commitment to help maintain the bike park’s appearance. The fact that the park’s appearance is ostensibly part of the reason it should be closed disturbs me greatly for a number of reasons. The appearance could easily be improved with or without the righteous commitment of the city; it would not be difficult for a group of volunteers to help to maintain it. In fact, involving the youth in maintaining the bike park (not as a mandatory responsibility, but as a contribution to the community of the park) would only increase their commitment to it. If willing and able youth were to take on sprucing up the park, it would truly become theirs.

I would call into question the claim that the appearance of the park is an issue at all. There are many vacant properties in much more visible locations (such as perhaps the former Black Clawson Kennedy property right near the tourism office!). There are many buildings I find very visually unappealing, and I would be much happier if they were replaced with trees, or perhaps a meadow filled with what some might call weeds (such as those in the bike park) and others might call plants. However, I know that these buildings are of economic value to our community and that tearing them down and replacing them with natural beauty may not be in the best interest of our community.

Likewise, activities which are of value to our youth are of economic benefit to our community. Youth are a very valuable resource, and we only have one chance with them: they are only youth for a short period of time. In that time, we have a choice as a community: support them in learning and developing to be the best they can be, or do a great disservice to our future by not taking advantage of this opportunity to positively influence our youth. The real economic value in investing in youth is seen in a healthier, productive, and more successful community of tomorrow.
I am a young person living in this area and see first hand the many challenges facing today’s youth. It is my hope that my community respects and values its young people, because I know that in return my community will receive respect and positive contributions from the youth in return.

With heart,
Lauren Best

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Written by Lauren · Filed Under Guest Post 

Here we go…

May 30, 2008

Here we go… a guest post by Graeme Bachiu

I was about to pour myself a glass of orange juice at about quarter after eight in the morning…the Saturday morning Eric Van Allen and Paul Thompson were due to show up at my apartment at nine a.m…when the phone rang. I suspected it would be Nick, my camera guy, running a bit late and giving me a courtesy call. As a good producer is wont to do, I built in some extra time in our schedule which could allow us to be late if need be.

It turns out it was Paul on the phone, an hour early. I guess the orange juice could wait; we marched down to Horton’s for the harder stuff to kill some time.

Nick, luckily, showed up a bit early, too. And he came with two coffees in his hands; one for himself and one for me. Sheepishly, I looked down at my own two coffees and wondered what the odds were that we’d buy each other a coffee at the same time. Evidently those odds are pretty good.

What happened next was a whirlwind of fifteen or sixteen hours of shooting that took us from the wilds of Welland, Ontario and Niagara College to Ajax and Pickering and along the way we jump, dove and sometimes stumbled through our memories and experiences. Nick, he of the sore upper body at the end of the day, did a masterful job of shooting in a style that often leaves editors frustrated with a lack of quality material, something Nick deftly avoided. Eric and Paul were great, too…even picking up the guitars to play a couple of times through the course of the day.

To paraphrase Stephen Stills, now begins the task I have dreaded the coming of for so long. Well, not really. I’m actually ahead of the game in terms of conceptualizing the final product. The primary version of what I’m calling Ten Years Gone will be approximately 15 minutes long in order to comply with the restrictions for a short documentary festival I plan to enter it in. Of course, the due date for this is the 20th of June, which is fast approaching.

The first step in achieving this 15 minute cut is to log your tapes, which you do after a couple of days of recuperation after your long shoot. In the old days, this would involve a VTR, your tape, a pen and a pad of paper and about 2-3 hours per tape, logging timecode numbers for good interview clips, sound, shot sequences and so forth. This was traditionally called the paper edit because you’d begin to assemble your edit (a script, actually) in a theoretical sense before you had to pay for editing time.

Non linear editing has blurred the lines of the old production model in a lot of ways, and the paper edit is one of them. Non destructive editing allows me to be less organized and more creative by trying things in the editing process. I’m actually still rather organized; instead of logging all of my material on a pad of paper I do it directly into my Mac now (at work we call this the ingesting stage) and after a few hours of this I can begin to do rough edits. The downside is—and this is where the quote from Stills is pertinent—the process can get hopelessly stretched and extended when you’ve got a fluid deadline and millions of options available to you…which is the point at which I now find myself.

With June 20th fast approaching I quickly built a few sequences I thought were of interest, quickly amassing nine minutes of my total run time without touching on the last half of the raw material. So while I may be ahead of the game as far as the concept is concerned I’m behind the eight ball when it comes to brevity and squeezing the most out of every frame I can.

To illustrate my points, here I am as my video alter-ego explaining some of the other distractions present in day to day life and giving an example of one of the sequences likely—hopefully—to make the final cut of Ten Years Gone. As always, comments are appreciated at old.north.prod@gmail.com.

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Guest Post, Music, Video, theOwen 

A Queens Hotel Blues update and more

May 12, 2008

Editor’s Note: SO things around the office have been nothing less than slammed as of late. Many, many projects on the go that have be unfortunately diverting my attention from theOwen.com a bit. A few steps are being taken to rectify this …first off I am about to begin the process of seeking out some summer interns. Secondly, it is likely that I am looking to hire someone on the creative services side of the business and thirdly I am working on getting more good folks set up with publishing power here at theOwen.

An excellent case in point (both of the me being slammed for time and the setting good folks up with publishing power) is the fact that it has been weeks that I haven’t gotten around to publishing several updates relating to the Queens Hotel Blues documentary which was shot and produced locally under the guidance and direction of local filmmaker Graeme Bachiu. I have a couple of drafts detailing what has happened lately with this project that have yet to be published. To save myself the trouble I figured I would pass that task off to Graeme, who nicely summed things up in an email this past weekend…

It’s been a few months since our successful A Night at the Queen’s documentary premiere event. Thanks to the combined efforts of our MC, Ryan Wiseman, Paul Thompson and Eric Van Allen who handled the musical entertainment, David Adair who said a few words about the importance of documentary work, the staff at the Roxy along with my parents, my sister Kate, Adam and Jenn Olivero and of course, Mr. Steady himself, Ian Austin…well, we had a great night.

Then came Christmas and New Years’ and other complications and challenges to overcome. By the end of the winter the three of us were feeling kind of exhausted, I guess. But as the weather gets warmer and spring is in full swing I’m prepared to get to work again and set some new bearings for where our work will take us.

Thanks again to Ryan Wiseman and his website theowen.com we’re working on a better home for Queen’s Hotel Blues on the web. This has always been our plan and even though we’ve been a bit busy over the past few months we’re back in business. We’ve also got a few added goodies to whet your appetite, all available at www.theowen.com/go/queens-hotel-blues …

* An audio podcast entitled Toe Tappin’: A Musical Journey to the Queen’s Hotel Blues that features selections from my vast archive of Eric Van Allen and Paul Thompson recordings…narrated by myself
* A video podcast version of Queen’s Hotel Blues. Yes, take the Queen’s Hotel with you on your iPod!
* A gradual ‘making of’ documentary on our next project, done in the style of ongoing video blog type posts
* A sneak peek of our new documentary: Ten Years Gone

The last two items are perhaps the most exciting part of our new content! Weeks, once the snow started to melt and rebirth from winter seemed possible, I began thinking about what our next project would be. We have a number of interesting ideas on the go but for the most part I think we wanted to keep things brief and simple…or at least simpler than QHB had been. I’ve recently upgraded some of my equipment, as well, and I wanted to try something a bit different.

Another impetus for the direction we’re going with all of this is that I’ve been doing some web video work on the side and I feel strongly…well, all of us do…that video on the web is still just in its infancy. Sure, you can watch TV shows and endless Star Wars spoofs and Deep Purple concerts online but content specifically for the web is still somewhat of a niche thing. I also felt compelled to give something back to Ryan Wiseman, whose support through the final stages of Queen’s Hotel Blues was invaluable.

To get myself going, I started going through my tape archives, cleaning things up and rearchiving on DVD or other better formats. I found some funny stuff that I’ve done over the years and some video that Ian Austin and I shot almost 10 years ago now of Eric Van Allen and Paul Thompson. I was surprised that I’ve known these two guys for a decade (yikes, getting old) and the wheels in my mind started moving. Other content surfaced as time went on and I expanded my search. Eric and Paul both came up with old videotape and audio recordings that I didn’t have.

Getting a small crew plus Eric and Paul together with all of our busy schedules is a challenge but when we hang out I have a great time with these guys, and I’m going to bring you along for the ride. Due to the improvements in my own personal technology I’m going to make video podcast posts on theowen.com as we produce the documentary. We’ll give you some peeks behind the process and, hopefully, in the end you’ll be drawn into the process and the content in a way that is unconventional and compelling, as long as I’m a good storyteller!

During the production and post production of Queen’s Hotel Blues I sent out emails as an update on our process. This time—along with the video podcast segments—Ryan and I are planning to automate the process through theowen.com, freeing me up from writing long emails and adding context to the video podcast segments. In other words, check out theowen.com for more updates!

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Guest Post, theOwen Features, Features, Video, theOwen 

a songsational afternoon with david sereda, Lauren Best and the Renegade Company, and Tyler Wagler

April 2, 2008

April 6, 2008
2:00 pmto4:30 pm

Poster

Veteran songwriter david sereda and up-and-coming artist Lauren Best are teaming up to offer a special afternoon of music at Mudtown Pottery Studio on Sunday April 6th at 2 pm. Featuring Owen Sound native and bassist extraordinaire Tyler Wagler, the afternoon promises to generate some heat to melt away winter in this sugar shack of song. Keira McArthur will be joining The Renegade Company on cello and vocals. Tickets can be purchased in advance at The Downtown Bookstore; be sure to avoid disappointment and get yours today. For more information email renegadecompany@gmail.com or call 519 372 6431.

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Written by Lauren · Filed Under Concerts, The Arts, Youth, Owen Sound, Guest Post, Music, Community, Events, Get Out, Participation 

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