It is, "A Dog's Life"

In one of the final projects for Broadcast Production, CreComm students have to complete a video montage set to a song of our choice before semester's end. I finished this project last night allowing me to enter our media award competition, the CCMA's.

This assignment was a joy to make even though it meant locking myself in a video edit suite at the college for many hours in order to piece all the clips together. I am pleased with the results. Many of my classmates are busily preparing their own montages (and maybe some are completed as well) and I wish them the best of luck and I hope they have as much fun as I did creating my short little video.

Below is one of the clips that didn't make the cut. All told, I logged and captured 348 clips to fit into a song that was a little over two and a half minutes long. I had plenty to choose from, but much of the footage was never used. I probably have enough clips to create two more videos without duplication. In making this video, I realize even more how much I enjoy the love of these two little dogs and how much I in turn love them. The cat too of course...

I'll upload the entire video to YouTube in about three weeks once the video has been marked by my instructor Dean Cooper, judged by the CCMA panel, and viewed by my peers.

Prepare to be tikkled

Mission Statement

Tikkle. For those who think young. Many people think that just because you grow up, you have to grow out of your toys. We disagree. There is always room for fun in your life.

This is the spirit in which tikkle. magazine was created. Myself and three other classmates were given the opportunity to create an original magazine complete with original advertising and articles of our choosing. We agreed very early in the process that a magazine about toys would be fun and interesting to produce. It's been a long process and this project has included using many different skills we've learned from our courses at Red River College.

We will launch tikkle. magazine at a magazine fair in the college atrium on April 1st. Twenty copies of tikkle. are being printed early next week and I couldn't be prouder of the effort put forward by each of my group members. We've created something special with tikkle. magazine and we should all be very happy with the result.

Come out and support all of the CreComm family on April 1st. There will be about fifteen magazines launched at noon on April 1st. The event will wrap up at 4 pm.

Come one, come all, and prepare to be tikkled!

Follow us on Twitter @ tikklemag

Mainstream Punk Is Here to Stay

Call me nostalgiac, but I was thinking about one of my favourite discs the other day - it might have something to do with the slow crawl towards summer and our daylight savings time changeover this weekend - and how iconic it is. Also, certain albums sound better with the car windows rolled down and the wind whipping around my ears.

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols was released in 1977 in the U.K. and soon after in the U.S. It would take 20 years before a copy of this album would end up in my hands. It's an album that I will never let go of and that I return to at least once a year. The words below the image of the Sex Pistols is from their song "Bodies" (just so you don't think I wrote this in the midst of a tangent) Incidentally, this song, though wildly profane, is largely about anti-abortion. The Sex Pistols never strayed from controversy and their exploits are legendary. In describing their short-lived career, they were a firecracker exploding compared with a slow-burning candle.

John Lydon aka 'Johnny Rotten' was easily the most outspoken of the group. He never shied away from speaking his mind and often ended interviews when he felt questions were boring or unintelligent. Bandmate, Sid Vicious, was arguably the most talked about due to his addictions and stage performances. Lydon was quoted as saying, "Everyone agreed he (Sid) had the look, but musical skill was another matter...the first rehearsals with Sid were hellish...Sid really tried and rehearsed a lot."

The infamy that found the Sex Pistols didn't agree with their personalities though. The public began to pay attention and the band became bogged down in their own punk status, releasing only the one full-length album during their career.

The Sex Pistols carved a path for modern bands who have strong messages of their own to deliver. Green Day was born in the late 80's and started out as a local punk band in California. With their major-label debut, Dookie, they achieved international success to go on to sell ten-million copies. The trios release was a fun album and the boys became the darlings of modern punk. As they've matured, so has their music.

Since the release of Warning in 2000, the band seems to have taken a more political bend in their songwriting. With titles like Blood, Sex, and Booze, Jackass, and Fashion Victim, the boys were making statements about the times they lived in and their dissatisfaction at what they were seeing. With American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, the band that has spanned over two decades has found a focus and is hitting their stride. Green Day is living in a faltering America. Their music aims to open this fact to the eyes of their audience and if not a 'call to action', they want their listeners to take notice.

It's not as aggressive a stance as the Sex Pistols made with God Save the Queen, but it needn't be. The Sex Pistols were pissed-off with the establishment for the sake of it, whereas Green Day has a more mature stance in my opinion. They're disappointed with the world and write songs to create awareness, the Pistols just 'screamed bloody f***ing mad,' and didn't aim to elicit change. Had they stuck around long enough and didn't self-destruct, maybe their social importance could have evolved.

They still made some damn fine music though.

Feel the Inspiration?

Three classmates and myself ventured far into northern Manitoba yesterday (actually less than 2o kms. from Winnipeg) to the town of Lockport for an assignment to open our eyes to what it has to offer. This trip was filled with many silly memories and a fun time was had by all (well, mostly, except for our driver's speeding ticket early that morning)

One of our stops within the small cluster of businesses in Lockport was to the Half Moon Drive In. (we were later corrected by a local resident that we were actually in Gonor) This little gem serves some of the best diner food in Manitoba; hot dogs, burgers, fries, poutine, onion rings, milkshakes, ice cream (you get the idea). The inside of this diner is decorated with antiques across ledges, wall hangings, and early 1950's memorabilia.

The standout for me at the diner was the front end of what looks to be a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. When cars like this come up in conversations with friends, there's most always agreement these cars are works of art. This leads me to think about the cars we make for the consumer today and how "plain Jane" they seem. Designers are setting the bar lower and lower in terms of imagination in design, opting for performance and aerodynamics. I suppose this is not entirely a bad thing in terms of energy efficiency, but it would be nice to see a nod to the artistic feel of our past generations of automobiles.