greetings, all 5 of you who are reading this, having a costume party saturday evening, 8ish...all are welcome to come...should be quite fun, interested in sort of pushing into a communal jam, so those of you who play instruments are welcome to come party with us...my neighbours are gone, by coincidence 3 of the 4 townhouses in my building are empty, leaving us to be as loud as we want all night...

i shall have drums and a p.a., but if thou has an amp or guitar they'd like to bring, bring it and a cord, and i'm sure we can make it work...or just come to drink and watch scary movies...

there are already at least 2 cars coming up from weyburn, and should be enough lodging to go around, so don't let distance get in the way...

any questions, email me: rob.hillstead@sasktel.net
BYOB

Guess I haven't posted in a few days, I could be nice and bring y'all back up to date. I guess I'll start at the top. Worked rigging on Smallville on Wednesday and Thursday, and then main unit shooting on Da Vinci: City Hall on Friday. Smallville was cool, but Da Vinci was cooler because I was on set, setting up lights. Our first location on Da Vinci was in Gas Town, downtown Vancouver. A very nice looking neighborhood...architecturally, not really in the social sense. It was deep in the heart of crack town. The place I mentioned I drove by last week, well, that's where I was for about 4 hours. Between set and the lighting truck, one had to walk down a dark and dismal alley surrounded on both sides by addicts, drunks, poor, and crazy people. As I unloaded gear from the truck, I glanced over about 15 feet away and saw one man being courteous enough to another man by holding the lighter as he inhaled on his thin glass pipe.

Once one got over the initial reaction, of "omigod, I'm tiny and I'll be killed", you realize that these people barely have motor function, or presence of mind enough to move, let alone try and attack you. In fact they were friendly. That's when the empathy hits. These are not bad people, these are doomed people. Maybe some of them lived a life that wound them up on the street by their own hubris, but i know for a fact that this is more likely a case of circumstance. I wish I could have taken pictures to show others, but out of respect for them, I made the conscious decision to leave them what's left of their dignity, and not take pictures. But I can assure you that it breaks my heart to see it, to see kids there, to see adults with no hope at all left in their eyes. I am a lucky man, and I recognize that.

Went and visited my uncle today in Richmond. Had some fears that I might find him in such a state, fortunately, the drug and alcohol days are behind him, and he's living clean and working. And fishing I might add, the one thing that will always bring joy to that man will be fishing in the Fraser River. Checked out a river boat with a casino built inside, quite cool, as well, I saw a giant Buddhist temple, with some monks raking a rock garden.

So, what now? I don't know...chill, see what's happening, finish up some video shooting, apply for some grants, see if i can get some of my own shit moving...wish me luck, i suspect i'm in for some adjustment no matter which way I go...

Checked out Stanley Park the other day, fucking cool. Lots of gigantic trees that must be hundreds of years old. Ferns, mushrooms, and green moss cover most of the floor and tree trunks. Black squirrels that have become so tame they don't fear you scamper about the path looking food. Though they call them squirrels, they look more like a cross between a rat and a squirrel. Or rat with a fluffy tail. I liked it so much I'm gonna go back today. I think I should live in the forest. Leave this place and hide away. The only thing is that even deep in the 5km square thicket, you can still here the traffic no matter where you are, giving the whole view a sort of superficial quality that makes me crave northern saskatchewan even more.

To all those interested, I have picked up some books on BC, and it has a great river and lake system. Mountains, forest, lakes, salmon runs, you name it. Would make for a beautiful canoe trip. Bowen lake I think one name is. I'm reading a book that puts canoeing rivers parallel with living life to the fullest, let me type an excerpt:

"We unfold our map for the trip. It's not new. It is tattered with cracks in the folds and obscured worn areas at its corners. Yet it all looks new to us, alive. The blue is the key. Fingers trace out a route of blue--of water--and do a subconcious hop at overland green intrusions. Details are examined with wide eyes. Then the eye looks still further outward. There are not many linear patterns--roads, settlements. It all looks sort of the same, green and blue, with occasional pencil lines and adjacent notes such as "watch for trail to the left at the marsh, do not go straight into marsh, must be winter route." There are some lakes with no names. We like that. It's both unsettling and exciting. We're in the bush and can travel in many directions. The bush is still largely a new map with unknown indentations.

The real adventure here is, can we belong? The unknown indentations are both geographical and cultural. Technically it has all been discovered, but discovery remains. The question is, what is that we seek? Is it to be over or against or with or of? What is to be "of" a place?"

Don't know many outdoorsy types, but those I have met or read all are extremely protective. There's something about the wilderness that drags that primal instinct out. How can you not be pumping adrenaline when canoeing through rapids? I hope next year's canoe trip is bigger, I'd love to share it's experience with everyone.

Well, 2nd unit came and went and in the meantime, lots of cars were smashed up. Gandalf parted the sea w/ his army of mutants, to rip up a section of the golden gate bridge and fly it away. To give you guys a grasp of how big this set was: three separate sides of the 200 foot long chunk of relatively "to-scale" size bridge, each green screen in excess of three stories tall and 200 feet long. The amount of lights we had set up was incredible. 150-8tube flourescents lighting the greenscreens, 900 par cans (small spotlights), 5 condor lifts each carrying 5000w balloons, 5 scissor lifts holding 20 9bank spotlights. They smashed up 50 cars using cables which would smash the cars against the side of the bridge via gandalf's (or should i say gandalf's stunt double's) magical magnetic powers, two at a time as he walked along. Flanked on one side by Juggernaut, and on the other by (drum roll please) Phoenix! Any of you versed in xmen plotline should figure out what that means!

The only thing that sucked about work was the fact i had only 6 hours sleep in nearly three days, and we were shooting nights. My roommates were noisy whilst i tried to nap, but because i'm sleeping on the living room floor, privacy is a minimum. I asked one guy to be quieter, and he freaked out on me, so i bought some earplugs and have solved my problem. But a lack of sleep and a large amount of rain soaking you makes for one exhausted rob, i slept solidly with out twitching for 9 hours last night, so i'm back to my normal sleep cycle and self.

Went downtown to the Granville club circuit, not being told that's where i was going, i ended up there not by choice, but by chance, so i wasn't exactly dressed for it. A grubby prairie boy standing amongst the plastic and uber-chic club girls, and cokehead commercial boys. I have to stay i felt a little uncomfortable in those dance clubs. The sight is something to see, the street all alight and crowded with the young 18-30 crowd all looking to get smashed and laid. One club, the Stone Temple, looked kinda cool, so we went in there. Conceptually, it could be cool, there were three levels and about a dozen smaller rooms, some with chairs and tables, others that were dance floors. The music wasn't too bad either. A house dj who knew what he was doing, and it wasn't britney spears, but more like fast techno. If i could dance, I'm sure i woulda had more fun, but i can't, so i sorta stood there. I also was the only one who wasn't out there to pick up chicks, so i quickly sorta got edged out of the way. I ducked out early and took a cab home. A glimpse of the flashy life, but not something i think i'd like to live. Very cool to see though.

day three, trying to nap, preparing for nights, not working though, a little nervous, i'm kinda doing some sneaky union dodging by getting on this set, but it won't be me that gets shit because of it, i still hope not to have to deal with it. Big setup, hundreds of thousands spent for this scene. I get to work on set, I'm pumped, as though I'm working B-unit, we get to do all the action and effects shots. Principal actors are still involved. This scene involves, i believe, at least magneto and juggernaut, if not the entire cast. We've built a model of the golden gate bridge, with green screen surrounding on all sides, so that when the movie does come out, you won't be able to tell it's a set...much. should be fun, massive battle scene, hopefully lots of explosions and cars being thrown around. 'Tis going to be cool.

Apart from that, I'm staying next to commercial drive, which is, despite it's title, the least commercial area of the city, filled with small shops lining either side of the street. The odd starbucks penetrating the market, but mostly small independently owned shops ranging from magazine shops to italian coffee shops. Every time i walk by this bakery, there's a dozen asian guys in the corner throwing around small money and cards, all grinning and shouting. A never ending game of cards.

I hope that I get another day off, but at the same time, i need to make back the money it cost me to come, so if i end up working from this point on, I won't complain. I'm pretty sure i have thanksgiving day off anyhow, so if it's not raining that day, then i think i'll go to stanley park with a fistful of fungi. maybe even if it is raining, because despite the fact that it rains a lot here, it's not cold. And there are seemingly no puddles. Explain that.

Checked out Hastings and Main the other night...sad and scary. You can see from your car, people dealing drugs, and shooting up. The alleys were lined with people, places boarded up, homeless lying along the buildings, bundled up in rags and sleeping in boxes. I'm not gonna try and trivialize the crystal meth problem in regina, but it's a big deal now because regina has never seen this sort of addiction on the same scale. It's invading the smaller centres, and that's the first us sheltered folk from the prairies truly start to realize how easy it is to slip. But it's been here for years, and it sobers a person to not just know about it, but to see it with one's own eyes.

I'll tell you right now, it trivializes any and all problems i have.

to the north: skyscrapers, towers and other signs of flourishing capitalism are dwarfed by the gigantic mountains that rise above the landscape. to the south: commercial drive, comparitive to the cathedral area of regina, or osbourne village in winnpeg stretches 10 blocks one way and 20 the other. Each shop different than the last. Entire shops devoted to wicca, or if that's not your flavour, porno.

In town for two hours, ended up at a fucking strip club...surreal, a very depressed-looking girl dancing to mars volta's the widow...moved on to the railway club to meet the gaffer of xmen3, discovered that i'm going to be on set for four days...

fucking a

went to granville island today, like the forks, but bigger and vaster, going to see the ocean tonite, i'm excited...

Holy CRAP!!! I got a phone call earlier today from Stuart Hagerty, the gaffer on Just Friends. He's working on X-Men 3. He wants me to move out to Vancouver and work for him...don't know if i'm anywhere near ready for that, but he offered me five days work next week on xmen, and apparently i'll be able to work for another five days on smallville...

holy CRAP!!! so i'm booking my flight in the morning and heading out as soon as monday night...
good chance the next you hear from me will be in vancouver...

wish me luck

yours in excitement and terror,
rob

I added two more sets to my shutterfly account, including an ever-growing linger retrospective picture gallery, and a photoshoot i did for def3 for your personal viewing pleasure, as well as added about 12 additional, never-before-seen, black and white canoe trip pictures. Mr. Bangsund would punish me for that one...ROS

Coming Soon:

Souris Valley Retrospective
Spruce Woods/Spirit Sands
Wild Mushroom Pictures (not psychotropic)

For the Souris Valley set, I'd love to go beyond just my pics, so this is an open call for pictures, send me pictures of souris valley and grounds, doesn't have to be fancy.

Cornergas has expired, here's to my unemployment. Never fear, possibilities are endless, as many prospects are on the horizon. Hands are pulling me to Vancouver, I received a phone call from a gaffer i worked with on Just Friends to come work with him on X-men 3 for a couple of weeks...Tempting, tempting, tempting...Def3 video shoot is coming up soon, trying to prepare for that, and working on print portfolio, I'll keep you updated, check out the pics, new sets being added all the time...