Friday, October 12, 2012

À bientôt!...

...Halifax

I'm sure many of you have been wondering when exactly those promised photos of my iceland trip would be appearing.

You may have to wait a little longer.

It's a truly mammoth task. For example, I took over 500 individual photos on just the first day (almost 1000 when you take into account the jpeg/RAW and movies). Many of these are of course just alternate angles, but I do delete crap ones as the day moves along, leaving a fairly solid bunch of photos to choose from, and I'd like to select the "right" ones so as to not bore you all to death...

I've also been busy.

Well, that's actually a lie. I've been extremely "Un"busy, but it makes me feel at least a little better to lie to myself.

There was a job I was going to roll onto from the end of Mr D (hence the overseas trip to Iceland in the first place). However, I found out on the day of my departure that the union/immigration/work visa stuff wasn't going to be able to be sorted, and I'd be "homeless" a week after I returned...

Of course, I'd already changed the return date of my flight to Australia to allow for the new schedule; which would now need to be changed again, lest I get stuck in Canada burning through my cash reserves without any means of earning anything.

Changing the tickets to anything earlier than mid-october would be cost prohibitive (we're talking $2000 without even receiving an upgrade to business-class), so I bit the bullet and accepted the fact that I'd have another month to hang out and get some immigration stuff sorted. Luckily I've got an awesome support net of friends willing to shelter this li'l aussie from the harsh Atlantic fall-weather.

Fast forward 3 weeks, and I'm packing my stuff for yet another trip to the "other" side of the world. most of my iceland photo-editing is done (so the blogging can start in earnest once I land), and I've also been able to figure out a solid plan for permanent residency. everything that can be done over here, has been.

I now return to Australia fairly confident that a more permanent move will be able to happen sometime soon.

For the moment though, here are a few of my favorite photos from the last 3 weeks in Halifax.


Back-lit flags are cool



especially when they're on a boat?



moar boats!



apparently, in 1812... the americans attempted to "occupy" Canada. there was a war that lasted over 3 years, and those wiley-canucks won.



Post-immigration interview coffee/choc-pastry



another spectacular view from my old apartment on Morris street



The Queen Mary II (doesn't look too big from this distance...)



up close though - it's pretty darn big!



Rogue. 



Nermal



Nermal-teeth



ol-timey corner farm



yup - halloween is big over here



catching the "bus" to go apple-picking



funky rusty metal-y



straight from the tree = tast-y



this kid looked like he'd just won the lottery (being able to sit so close to the tractor)



we finish with some shots of my last sunrise on Morris Street



October 1st 2012



simply stunning.


ok, that's about it from the east coast for a little-bit.

my canadian cell-phone will go into voice-mail-announcement mode, so please don't leave a message - shoot me an email instead.

almost time to jump on 4 planes and traverse that pesky date-line again. 

See you in... THE FUTURE

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

time...


...to fly away.


I'm off downtown to catch a bus... that will take me to the airport... where I'll board a plane... to Boston... where I'll sit in a lounge for a bit... get on another plane... fly across the atlantic (and up a bit)... before finally landing in Reykjavik, Iceland... tomorrow morning...

I've spent a week off already, and haven't really done too much aside from hangin'out and trying to recover from the past 11 weeks.

perfect time to take a little trip to the edge of the arctic.

planned activities involve hiking on a volcano, walking on a glacier, kayaking on a fjord, and trying to see the "northern lights"

we'll see just how successful i am, when returning to halifax next monday.

photos from the past week


'twas a lil foggy early morning mid-week, got some AWESOME shots... (the one at the title spot is my favorite of the year so far!)





ahhh the disney cruise ship (has a very "musical" fog-horn)


there was a slight concern about a hurricane (caused a massive amount of rain yesterday), but it seems to have moved off to the northern atlantic (iceland next?)


morning fog (post rain)





our B cam op was an amazing fellow - he managed to hook me up with a sachet of vegemite...
my first hit since home!
add one coffee and a tim tam for good measure, and I'm one chuffed lil' aussie





bags all packed for the iceland trip.
green one is my new day-pack :)





ready?
better be!

ok, see you all in a bit.

off to the land of fire and ice!

Sunday, September 02, 2012

sunset...



...on another season of Mr D, in Halifax.

52 days, 13 eps, over 400 "rolls" of digital media on the A-cam; and a whole bunch of laughing.

check it out in January 2013 on CBC


time for the wrap party?

in a fairly unorthodox move (due to some scheduling with our lead), it was decided to hold the wrap party on the weekend before we actually finished.






beautiful walk along the harbour front to get to the party






held at the casino (functions room)





one of our cast is a prominent canadian rapper = he decided to get up and give a live performance when the DJ played one of his songs (unrehearsed) = the kiddie actors *(senior students) were lovin' it - evidenced by the number of cell phone videos that will be soon floating around.





dancin'





walking home I saw my first Weekly WTF





best recovery from a night of fun? coffee, sun and a book...





nice view of the island





busy sunday afternoon





perfect sailing weather





Moon, 26th August 2012 = pretty





last day at our regular "Barrels" Bar-set... Boom position 'reserved' thankyouverymuch :)





even more 'reserved' at the strip-club-set!






going to be a fun day in this lighting...





wow - that's a bargain!





more-funky lighting from behind the bar





lunch-time nap in the 'VIP' room.





there's a moose at the top!





stripper does his thing...





...while camera and boom collect the general ambience





yup, it's a colourful kinda day...





...punctuated by the occasional dance-off (turn on the lights and EVERYONE wants a dance...)




Bathroom stall artwork (in the ladies bathroom!) Censored by yours truly, and yes... I was being fairly generous with the size of the censorship black-out :)





kitties playing guitar? I'm there!





2AC all work and no play...





...electricians = all play and no work?





B-cam = blue
A-cam = pink




Crew gifts for the year (sadly only the ladies got the option of a pink jacket)





Thursday sunrise = two days to go...





love my view of the atlantic





Zan "retires" the character names as we limp along to the end... that's allot of speaking roles!





last ankle micing of our bobby :(





sweeping epidemic of cell-phone use on film sets - footage at 11...





don't know who decided that THIS was a good postion for the camel/beaver





last-day approaches





simply fantastic thursday sunset





...pretty cool friday sunrise too (from what I've been told, the clear sunny weather will soon be replaced by an oppressive grey/cloudy/windy fall)





Mixer says his special goodbyes to the B-cam AC





fun-fact = adding "Pana" to anything increases its value by a factor of ten




not the 'last' slate, but I still thought it was pretty cool





"funky-shirt = check. nice-tie = check" last-day costumes are fun... perhaps the day will go smoothly...





...nope = post-wrap total-system-shutdown hit 8 hrs early... this day is going to suck!


in all honesty, aside from the snotty-sneezing-congested-mess-of-a-human holding the boom for the last 2/3 of the last day - it was a fantastic finish to an awesome show.

I know that it was said a lot during the season, but I'll say it again.

Mr D is quite simply the best job I've ever worked on! the cast and crew truly make it something special; I've enjoyed every single day on-set and look forward to many more seasons of laughter and fun.

all the best

"Dean Undah"