Archive for September, 2011

Check out the latest coat of arms that we commissioned Jill Southern to create for us! It’s a sign of things to come, so stay tuned.

Welcome to The Playground, a place for Vancouver families.Every week I post a roundup of upcoming family-friendly events and activities.I’m always on the lookout for fun stuff to do, so if there’s something happening that you think I should know about, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Autumn is officially here and for most of us that means falling leaves, pumpkin lattes, wearing that new peacoat and most importantly, the start of the NHL season.   Taking your child to a hockey game is a luxury afforded by very few but that doesn’t mean your child can’t see their favourite Canuck take to the ice.

A few weeks ago friends told us of the open practices the Canucks host every year right before their exhibition games get underway.  Fans are invited to stop by Rogers Arena to watch them practice.  So we woke up early on a Sunday, grabbed a coffee and took Sadie down to check it out.  What I really took away from the experience (other than my daughter’s apparent love of hockey sticks) is that despite being just a practice, there was no shortage of excitement from the kids getting a chance to see their hockey heroes up close.

The Canucks will be hosting another open practice at 10am on Saturday, October 8th. Fans in attendance will have the opportunity to take a photograph with four major NHL trophies, including the Art Ross Trophy, Frank J. Selke Trophy, Presidents’ Trophy and Clarence Campbell Trophy. Those wishing to take a photo with a trophy must provide their own camera and are asked to make a donation to the Canucks for Kids Fund. The Canucks will be giving out great prizes including autographed sticks to randomly selected fans.  Tickets are free for this event but there is a $6 handling fee.

If you can’t make it to the event above, the Canucks practice regularly at Doug Mitchell Winter Sports Centre out at UBC throughout the season.  There is no set schedule so you are encouraged to call ahead of time to see if they are expected to practice in the next day or so.

Psssst…Trevor Linden is going to be appearing at the grand opening of the CIBC Walnut Grove Branch this Saturday from 11am – 1pm.

You’ve got less than 24 hours to help fund the greatest satirical, Vancouver-based action film ever made. HERE is what I already wrote about it, see below what Cameron MacLeod and company had to say to Fiona Forbes at Shaw and Bob Nixon at CBC about Steel Viper Force: Fiero’s Redemption.

Like I’ve said when we’ve done our own donor drives in the past: if you don’t help fund this then NOBODY WILL. Seriously. They’ve been doing this drive for more than a month now and they’re at 20% of what they needed to raise. DONATE NOW!

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!)

By now I am sure you are aware that tomorrow is the official opening of the newly-renovated BC Place with the BC Lions hosting the Edmonton Eskimos. And as exciting as that is, and as tempted as I was to talk about BC Place today, the truth is I haven’t seen it finished – none of us really have. So perhaps its fitting to take a look at the temporary-but-quaint Empire Field. The Lions may indeed open the new BC Place, but the Vancouver Whitecaps had the honour of closing out Empire Field.

And attending that last outdoor game was passionate football fan and blogger BlueAndWhiteArmy, whose photograph below really conveys the atmosphere that was present in the stadium. While I am not an expert on anything – let alone soccer – I do know that soccer fans worldwide are among the most passionate of any sport. How do I know? Let’s start with the logo on the flags in the photo: they don’t belong to either the Whitecaps or the Seattle Sounders (the two sides that night) – but the Southsiders, an organized community of enthusiastic Whitecaps supporters. With their own logo. ‘Nuff said.

Here is Tifo flags.

Gary

In THIS first post about my trip to the Social Venture Institute at Hollyhock on Cortes Island I kicked things off on a slightly heavy tip with the details of my rare eye disease (Central Serous Retinopathy) and how we got to where we’re at with the regular travel/resort features in this Super, Neighbours series. I then proceeded to take you on a journey with me in my car onto 3 separate ferries, landing 6 hours later on the heavenly little island called Cortes, where Hollyhock is. If you’ve been to any of the Gulf Islands you know that they each have a similar feel to them. They’re all on “Island Time”, most of them have old-school mailboxes and few (if any) chain stores, but each has it’s own charm and it’s own intangibles that set it apart from the rest. To me, Cortes feels a little more remote than any of the others I’ve been on. The windy road leading to Hollyhock from the ferry terminal felt more like a back road than the main artery that it actually is, with great stretches where there are no driveways or properties that look inhabited at all.

And I would use a metaphor of the back road and the main artery to describe the annual conference. As they describe it, it exists for people like myself to “join mission-based entrepreneurs for a dynamic gathering to share goals, challenges and successes. Social Venture Institute (SVI) is a practical, problem-solving, alternative ‘business school’ which creates a confidential, supportive and inspiring setting.”. I would describe it in the same way, only I would add that it’s perhaps the most important road I’ve started traveling down since creating Vancouver Is Awesome almost 4 years ago. After attending SVI I feel connected to a group of peers also doing positive work. Be it socially or environmentally focussed business leaders, I feel like we’re all paving this back road together, leading into the main artery of doing good with our business. Perhaps paving might not be the best metaphor when you’re talking about the environment, but you get what I’m saying.

And whoa. Sorry, I got a little heavy again on you there. Let’s reel this in a little: If you were to only take a glance at the photos I’m about to share with you you’d likely have no idea that I shot them at a somewhat rigorous 5-day business conference which had a jam-packed daily schedule (as well as a nightly funtimes party schedule) and during which most attendees would get little sleep.

Let’s start with this photo taken on the path that goes from the main lodge where we ate our meals and congregated to a building called Olatunji Hall where there were case studies and more. Oyster shells line the entire trail which is about a five minute walk.

This gigantic apple tree is on the beach out in front of the lodge.

Another apple tree is nearby, with fruit that’s easier to reach. I picked that one on the right and …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

This series had its genesis when I began photographing Vancouver area location shoots in the summer of 2010 to get over a post-Olympics funk. Film and TV productions like Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Fringe, Supernatural and The Killing showcase our city in similar fashion and sometimes put a celebrity actor or two in the frame.

It’s not often in this series that I get an opportunity to talk about movies where Vancouver plays itself but the Vancouver International Film Festival is showcasing 17 locally-filmed features in theatres over the next two weeks.

Four of the most-buzzed-about are Sisters & Brothers, the third in Carl Bessai’s trilogy about dysfunctional Vancouver families with real-life friends Cory Monteith and Dustin Milligan as brothers ; mockumentary Sunflower Hour about maladjusted puppeteers vying for a spot on a hit children’s show featuring real-life pals Patrick Gilmore and Ben Cotton; dramedy Everything & Everyone about a group of family and friends with Ryan Robbins’s naked torso in the teaser; and Donovan’s Echo with Danny Glover as a man who returns to his family home 30 years after a tragic accident in a movie produced by veteran Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood.

I met and chatted with some of the filmmakers and cast earlier this month at a VIFF media conference but didn’t get to see any of the filming here, mostly because the low budgets meant shooting is done mainly on weekends with a limited crew. The Sunflower Hour writer/producer/director Aaron Houston told me it took  eight weekends, sixteen days of filming, seventeen locations and thirty-four actors to make his caustic and  reportedly very funny Spinal Tap homage. Eveything and Everyone took only 12 days in Maple Ridge and Alouette Lake; Donovan’s Echo filmed last November in Fort Langley. So I’ve made an exception in this series and used the VIFF handouts below to illustrate the films not my own photographs. From top to bottom: bearded Dustin Milligan and Cory Monteith as brothers in Sisters & Brothers; bad-ass Irish puppeteer Ben Cotton and his smoking puppet in Sunflower Hour; Gabrielle Rose and her newly-discovered grandson  in Everything & Everyone; and Danny Glover in spooky blue on a bridge in Donovan’s Echo.

C

Low budgets don’t have to limit these films when it comes to promotion though. Vancouver filmmakers are as savvy about social media as anyone in this city. The Sunflower Hour and Donovan’s  Echo boast websites, YouTube trailers, facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Everything & Everyone has a teaser on You Tube and a facebook page. Sisters & Brothers has a facebook page and currently rules Twitter thanks to Glee star Cory Monteith’s 800,000+ Gleek followers. Almost everyone involved in that film has a Twitter account including @SisBroFilm and director @CarlBessai.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Yesterday I shared THIS track from Kathryn Calder’s (of the New Pornographers) upcoming album, Bright and Vivid. And just when I was thinking about what a shame it would be if this album doesn’t make it onto at least the long list for the 2012 Polaris Music Prize, she goes and releases this video for that same song, giving me another reason to share with you the earmind blowing Ms. Calder’s latest.

Who Are You? from Kathryn Calder’s sophomore album, Bright and Vivid, out Oct. 25th, 2011 on File Under: Music. Directed by Jesse Ewles and Cameron Tomsett.

If you’ve been following our blog for a while now then you should be no stranger to Paul Anthony’s Talent Time. We’ve been a longtime media partner and supporter of this monthly variety show that takes place as a live event that’s filmed at the Biltmore Cabaret and then aired on Novus TV.

Recently the shows creator and host, Paul Anthony, announced that they’re making a jump over to Shaw TV and a larger audience. I asked him to share his thoughts on it and he told me that “Moving to Shaw TV will allow us to reach a much larger audience and should help connect with unique talent through the entire lower mainland that we currently isolated from. Talent Time is a show that belongs on cable access and although broadcasting on the Novus network exposed us to a small unique market, the addition of the Shaw subscribers bump our potential viewers to close to a million. Our hope is that this spike in exposure will help us push the show to the next level.”

Click to enlarge this poster you should be seeing all over town soon

Knowing that Paul and his crew have been doing this as a labour of love for what seems like an impossible amount of time, I asked him what the Shaw TV move means in terms of keeping the show afloat in the long term. He noted that they’re “in serious need of sponsors to keep this community show going. We hope that businesses and individuals with a love for this province and a desire to see it celebrated will choose to join us and help make this happen. I’ve produced this comedy/variety/talk show for 3 and half years as a passion project simply because I believed that the talent and uniqueness of character in this city was too special to not have it documented. Now I’m hoping people in Vancouver that see a value in this show will step up and align themselves with Talent Time.”

The show is incredibly real, hilarious and entertaining, showing off a ton of local talent. Paul sees it as “a video yearbook. Snippets of the fascinating people that make [Vancouver] such a great place to live and I would like to see the sponsors to be an extension of that.”

Paul stopped in to see Fiona Forbes and Michael Eckford on Urban Rush yesterday! Watch below as they welcome him to the station and talk a bit more in depth about Talent Time.

Tune in to Shaw TV on Tuesday October 4th at 8:30PM to watch the Randy Quaid episode and then be sure to check out the live taping of the show the next night at the Biltmore. Event details RIGHT HERE.