Tidal Wave Film Festival Journal
2006

Saturday November 11, 2006

Remembrance Day today.  Remember the solders who served and are still serving.  I slept in today because I knew I was going to have a late night.  I was torn between getting back to the island or staying the festival.  Luckily I could stay at a friends house near the ferry landing.  I met with Wayne to go over the Survivors of Rimec and the Good Samurai.  I finished my sermon to, I figured I should do that.

I went to the NB Shorts II and I am glad I did!  I must say every short was great!  Just like last night.  The bar keeps getting raised.  I do not remember the screening order because I could not get to the computer until much later.  Glendon McKinney's "We Two Boys Clinging Together" was shot by Chris Giles on super 8.  I has a ghostlike grain to it that is very interesting.  Chuck Elgee created a horror movie called "The Devil's Tide."  Wayne and I were just saying that we need a good zombie movie at the festival.  It must have been a blast to do.  Zombies, swords and pre-occupation with tennis shoes, how can you go wrong.  Gretchen Kelbaugh had this great digital short called "Piece o' Cake."  I am glad to see that did not make the only family film of the festival.  She user her own kids too.  It was real funny.  Great stunt cat.  My good friend Diane Terry took the claim that dogs are better than men a little further in "I Woof You."  She had such a bizarre set of character that Melony marrying her dog came across as the normal one.  I loved Winnie the whippet, she was on set for Seeds.  I have been waiting to see Gia Milani's "Bathroom Stalled" for some time.  It lived up to the hype.  Angela Cullins was fantastic as this washed out celebrity having a nightmare of day.  She was very good at physical comedy.  I hope Gia can turn it it into a TV series.  I had seem some advanced footage of Matt Brown's "A Cold Day in He**" when he was working on it at the co-op.  He did this swat team raid sequence which was the most professional footage that I have ever seen made a co-op member.  You do not see to many action movies at film festivals.  Matt did it in surround sound too!  Really Really Cool!  Tim McDonough, who directed last nights "January" had a very beautiful film called "The Strings Attached."  Great production value, the set was great.  The young actress was very good.   UNB students Mary Clements and Jason Chisholm directed sweet romantic comedy called "Mailbox Romance."  It was even more romantic that Matt Brown's movie.  Very good performances for the leads, who I think really made the film.  Good story that was cute and different.  Richard MacQueen, who directed last nights "The Meeting" went in a complete different direction with "Markings."  The only similarities are that the both started with M.  Philip Savage gave a great performance of a man in torment.  I got to know Philip at the festival too, he is a great guy.  I do not want to give too much away, but Richard had a nice twist in the movie that hooked me.  Just when I thought I knew what was going on, he hit me.  Great job!  It ends with a strong sense of hope, which I really appreciate.  Joel Maillet directed a music video for Nova Scotia's "The Museum Pieces" in a song called "It Keeps Me Up."  They are a good band and I was very impressed with the set of the video.  They had this fire prop that reminded me of the burning, but that is just how my brain works.  Joel is real nice guy and a good actor as well.

After the festival they had the Silver Wave awards.  Matt and Gia's films too the lion share of the awards.  They were really good.  I was stunned to see that Seeds was nominated for excellence in Art Direction, they had Chelsea Martin (our Art Supervisor), Derek Pendleton (Set Designer), Gavin Mitchell (Props Supervisor) and Dayna Cline (Costume Supervisor) names on the screen for the awards.  We did not win that one, but it was huge honor to be nominated.  The other films had such great art work.  The festival announced that since Seeds did not really fit in any category, they created a special appreciation award for Most Unique film.  They liked us, they really really liked us.  They gave out recognition awards for John Christianson for volunteer and Kevin Matthews for professional work for the film community.  Connell Smith, my DOP from Tanzen won the coveted Colin Barnhill Memorial Award.  Connell has helped most filmmakers in the area at some time.  He is very gracious and helpful man as well as a talented filmmaker.  The festival will post the award winners soon.  I am trying to remember who got what.  The young girl from The Strings Attached won a special award, and she really deserved it.  There was another special award for "The 33rd Annual Harrison House Great Pumpkin Sacrifice" which as documentary by J. Anthony Brown. 

I could not stay for very long after the awards and it was like a huge whirlwind kind of thing.  I was just so proud of kids from seeds.  I did finally get to see Daniel Greenwood!  He cut his hair so i did not recognize him at first.  He is a really nice guy and excellent camera man.

Friday November 10, 2006

A big day today.  I am still a bit sick so I missed the scriptwriting workshop.  The extra sleep helped a lot though.  I did attend the other workshops (on legal matters and a round table of people telling how they made their feature).  It was great to see my friends from the co-op.  Connell, Gretchen and Norean made it up from Saint John. I loved their feature last year.   I even saw Peter Atkinson later on, so it was great to see so many that I don't really get to see so much anymore.  It did make me miss my buddy Amy Whitmore though.  I hung around with Diane Terry and Michel Guitard for a while.  The industry schmooze was great, it would come as no surprise for you to know that I schmoozed with everyone.  I was surprised to find out that there was already a buzz about "Seeds".  Word had got out about it.  It is such a different project that it gets peoples attention.

I ate at El Burrito Loco.  That Laura and my favorite restaurant in Fredericton.  I got the lunch special.  I am happy.

I went to the NB Shorts I.  This was the big one for me.  I sat next to Wayne Casey and Diane Terry.  Films are better in the theatre and even better when seen with friends.  Seeds premiered tonight along with 8 other films (Big City, Leap of Fate, Not On My Own, January, A Dream of Life, Say Cheese, Dead Flies and The Meeting).  I think "Seeds" fared very well, the only think that looked kinda like it was "Say Cheese" which was this brilliant stop motion monkey movie.  I loved it.  Tara Wells, who did last years Dance of the Pixies shot it on super 8.  "Not on my Own" was a music video for Three Season Ant, which is a New Brunswick Christian band.  So obviously I would like that one.  The director, Steve Doiron is a brother with a member of Three Season Ant.   I think it was very well thought out and told a very bittersweet story that was laced with hope.  "January" was a pretty powerful film as well.  I really liked some of of the moments with the mask and camera and the light.  The ending was totally not what was expected.  I do not always like figuring out a film, so hats off to Tim McDonough.  My friend Donavon Richard directed "Dead Flies" which stars Dennis Poirier (who worked on Seeds).  Dennis also wrote this crime drama.  Wayne shot it so I knew it would look great.  It was good to see Jonathon Blizzard, who has been in several co-op films over the past few years and I think he just gets better each festival.  I have known Dennis for a few years now.  But I have to honestly say that I have never thought of him as an axe wielding maniac.  I would not consider Tao Vantu's "Big City" as youth group friendly, but it was very funny.  They took concept of losing your moral way to new heights, or maybe new lows.  Cayman Grant's "Leap of Fate" was a beautiful film.  I really like the lead, she did a good job.  I man not sure if words can describe Richard MacQueen's "The Meeting."  Jason Wallace is running all over Saint John in his red underwear in a panic to get somewhere.  I can not say much more without giving it away.  You just HAVE to see it.  Conrad Steeves' "A Dream of Life" was kind of hard for me to take in.  I under stood Line Pelletier's anguish at not being able to have children.  I felt kind of guilty because my wife and I were blessed with a new wonderful baby just three months ago.

It is getting late and I have another long day tomorrow.  I will chat later.  Jeff

Thursday November 9, 2006

I will not be around as much for this years festival.  It got in today at the co-op and I did get to run some errands.  It was not much, but I do have a car which is rare for Fredericton.  I hung out with Dennis Poirier for a bit at the Co-op.  Cathie is always so encouraging.  Things seemed to be going so well.  No one was in a panic.   Must be that years of good planning is paying off.  I only took in one film today.  I saw the Journals of Knud Rasmussen. It was filmed in Nunavut.  Interesting film, but the documentary feel kind of threw things off.  They shot it digitally and then made a 35mm print.  Some shots looked great and powerful.  Other times it was under lit.  Some of the camera work was jumpy.  It is always good to see a film that shows you a world that most of us never really get to see.

I saw Jeremy Robinson, who is getting married soon.  Michel Guitard was working with him.  I also saw Diane Terry.  Her film "I Woof You" will premiere on Saturday Night.  Go Diane.  I also talked to John Christianson, Mike Cowie and Jonathan Collicott (who was moving everywhere like a blur). 

I am staying with Wayne and Mel.  They are such dear friends.  Their dog Molly had three puppies yesterday so they are watching over her.  They were one of the first ones to visit us after we had our daughter Debbie, so I guess I get to see their new babies.

2005

Sunday November 6, 2005

I am back home on Deer Island.  Alas no paparazzi were waiting for us.  Only fog and rain.  The ferry ride home was like those compression chambers on submarines or space ships (leave it to me to think of space ships and subs).  There is a lot going on in my mind now.  I got to take Shania on a tour of the co-op facility.  She got her filmmaker pass (thanks Cathie).  We had a good breakfast to go over what she was going to say about Bad Alice.  I had some good meetings with some TV people about the LNG documentary and some encouragement on the story.  I got some great ideas on how to move forward with the doc and get more of the word out of what is happening to us on the island.  Michel Guitard got to host the student showcase.  We so belong on our own cable access show.  Shania did great on her spiel as did the other filmmakers.  It was shown at 2 on Sunday so we did not get the crowd we wanted but we did get some people who came just because they saw the name CSI: Jerusalem and wanted to know what it was about. That was very encouraging.  I got to download the stern swift files to Michel Guitard’s computer so he can mess with the edit a bit.  Hopefully he can recreate my edit through the EDL file.  For the majority of you it means I hope he can take what I have done to build on it rather than start from scratch.  Good to be back on the island.  Shania has a new movie idea that we might use for 456.  It would fit in with Nehemiah and we would do mostly blue screen.  We will see.

Saturday, November 5, 2005

Busy day.  Draining day.  Good day.  Wow the festival is getting closer to ending.  I had pitching classes for most of the day.  Classes on how to get noticed when you talk to producers, networks et al.  At noon I attended the Atlantic Docs.  This was the world premiere of “Talk to Me About LNG.”  I had really hoped to see more people from Charlotte County up to see it.  However, I know it is a bit of a trip and most know I will show it there.  It was very well received.  Most important a lot of people told me how much they learned about the issue.  It would have been nice to put material into these people’s hands.  A couple of groups at the university are interested in having showings at UNB and STU.  That would be great.  I can’t talk too much about it now but I did have many other talks with others about the film.  Then I jumped back in to the pitching workshops.  Laura came up with mom and Shania.  We checked in to the hotel.  Laura and Shania got to go swimming.  Then we all went out to El Burrito Loco’s (our favorite restaurant in town).

Laura and I took in the NB shorts.  These are the reason to come to the festival. These are the films made my co-op members.  They are very varied in quality, ambition and content.  Some I love and some not so much.  The joy of the film festival.  There were two sessions of shorts.  Some highlights for me were: Kirk Pennell’s R.2. The Extra-Special Astromech which stars a fully operational R2D2 and a fictional story of how George Lucas might have come up with his ideas by a close encounter in his childhood.  It has lots of several references to star wars and some other Lucas works (and Spielberg too).  Only a true geekmondo like me can fully appreciate the nuances.  But everybody can enjoy it and I mean everybody.  Very sweet, very funny, very relevant and very appropriate for all ages.  Kirk, YOU ARE MY HERO.  Thank you!!!  And the R2 actually at the festival was a great added bonus.  Hunting Lessons was very funny and very well done.  I love the performance of the older man in that.  Michael MacDonald did a great job and he is a great and encouraging guy.  There several stunning visual shorts as well such as dawn of the pixies (a stop motion flying kuppee doll wonder) and Mark Hemming’s stunningly beautiful Geist which is hard to describe in words.  I loved the spirit and moxie of Canada, We love you.  I got to see some work by dear friends.  Rodrigo’s one reminds us that we when we strive for unity that we need to keep our diversity.  Rodrigo has helped me in the editing process and work out ideas many times.  La Cousine was shot beautifully and Pierre Huard (my first AD on Tanzen and we worked on Hell Dog) did a fantastic job of directing it.  I got to see Lynn Richard (we worked on Hell Dog and Pen Pals) in a new light (dangerous with a knife).  My friend Jeff Bate Boerop really carried the film Making the Grade with a powerful presence and willingness to take risks.  

I am getting very tired here so I will just talk about a couple of films from the second set.  I really liked Freeloader.  I met Scott Rickets in classes today so I was wanting to see it.  It is simple and powerful.  Good production quality.  I want to use it as a sermon illustration.  The last one is the last film of the night.  Andrew Tidby’s My First Kiss was fantastic.  One of the best things I have ever seen at the tidal wave.  I have to get a copy to show my youth group.  Andrew is a very warm, honest and funny guy and his energy is like having 10 cappuccino’s.  We see his neurotic approach to kissing and dating since the bad experience of the first kiss.  I do not know where to congratulate Andrew or offer him pastoral counseling. 

I gotta get to bed.  I got some meetings about the Doc, I will see how that goes.  Also for those coming up, the youth group movies are being shown at 2 pm at the play house.  Many members of the co-op are very excited about our youth group movies because they see it as a mark of success for the co-op.  They have trained me and I go and train others.  I get to hang out with Michel Guitard too, he is very cool.  I will catch you later.

Friday, November 4, 2005

Greetings from the Silver Wave Film Festival.  What an awesome and action packed day.  I really enjoyed the workshops and the talks today.  I had a chance to pitch the LNG doc to TeleFilm and they were very supportive.  They want to hear more but they were concerned with time.  It is happening now so I need to keep shooting if I can.  They were riveted with the story and the want to see the short doc in this festival.  I went the producers schmooze again and had a ball.  I am the kind of schmooze you know.  I got to spend a lot of time with David McQuinn and his wife (forgot her name) from Outreach productions in Hanwell (near Fredericton).  The company started off much like Old Sow Film Productions by making church ministry videos.  They also do commercial work, but only family friendly work.  We were very excited to see each other and pass on each others passions and dreams.  I also saw Matt Brown (we worked on Plastic together a long time ago).  He has been working on a cruise ship doing video shooting and editing for a cruise line.  The DOG!!!  Good for him and it is good to see him back.  I also ran into Jeff Boerep at the socials.  He is very good actor and has a great sense of humour.  I spent a lot of time with Brian Francis from Bear Paw productions.  He has a great doc in the festival that I saw tonight called Circle of Justice about Mi’kmaq (mostly) inmates and the healing of effect of reacquainting with their cultural and language.  We talked about linguistics and it impact on defining culture and the spiritual power of telling stories.  He knew a lot of the people that I interviewed in my documentary and will be in the area during the winter.  All and all a very encouraging day.  I gotta get to bed.  I got pitching classes in the morning and my doc is on at noon.  Hope to see you there.

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Another great day.  I got to be on the radio today.  http://www.cjri.fm/ It was a really good interview but we forgot to record it!!!!  Uggh.  Oh well we had a good time.  I spent some time at Smythe Street Cathedral (we used their passion play footage for CSI: Jerusalem).  I finally got to show it to Vernor Drost, the pastor and director.  They are helping me to contact people who were in it so they can try to catch themselves on the big screen on Sunday.  I did a poster for Sunday which will go out to a few venues for a last minute push to get some more people there.  You can see or download the poster at: http://www.oldsow.com/documents/SWFF%20poster.jpg

The feature (Margaret & Deirdre) tonight was by Saint John’s own Gretchen Kelbaugh.  I know her and a lot of the crew.  Norean Goldston (I worked with her in Searching for Daniel Baldwin) shot it beautifully.  They did it on miniDV, the same format we shoot on.  They shot it over weekends for 5 months straight.  It was cool to see Saint John in a feature film too.  A teacher takes on an at-risk teen who is her last hope to avoid being incarcerated.  Along the way they change each other or really bring each other back to who they really always were.  Having been a youth minister for many years and a foster parent I really related to the teacher.  The musicians who wrote the musical score were on hand to perform too.  It was cool.  I met many of the actors and that was really cool.  A few of them had seen Tanzen and remembered who I was.  That is always cool. 

Wednesday, November 2, 2005

What a great start to the festival.  I got into Fredericton later than I wanted to, but I had a blast.  First off I stopped at the Co-op new offices.  They moved to a new place, the Charlotte Street Arts Centre.  It is a fantastic place for all kinds of artist, film, photography, dance, acting, etc.  There is also a hall to screen films which the festival will be using this weekend.  I think Talk to Me About LNG will be screened there on Saturday.  I saw Cathie LeBlanc, so all was well in the world.  For those unfortunate enough not to have met Cathie, just imagine the most encouraging person you have ever met and add to that a wonderful sense of humour and dedication and you are getting close to describe Cathie.   Dennis Poirier was also there.  I worked on his werewolf short Hell Dog last year (and I had a blast).  We went to Tilley Hall to see the first film in the festival.  I ran into so many other great friends at the screening (Wayne Casey, Melony McCarthy, Tanya, Swinimar Chris Giles, Lynn Richard etc.).  It was a packed house and I was worried if we were going to get in.  

There are new festival commercials this year.  First off there is a new commercial for the city of Fredericton that my friend John Christenson worked on.  The Center for Arts and Technology has another great animated short for the festival.  There were also two very funny live action commercials for the festival which is even more funny if you have been on a no budget film set.  You can see the clips if you click the MEDIA button at the film festival website (http://www.swfilmfest.com/).

The film Water is by Deepa Mehta (who directed Bollywood/Hollywood) and it is a beautiful and powerful film.  It is set in late 1930’s while Gandhi was coming out of jail.  It dealt with the abuse of widows (some as young as 7 years old) who were forced into horrible existence because they no longer had a husband.  I do not want to give away the film but one of the themes through the picture is how people can use scripture to make it say what they want and pick just the parts they want.  The youth group and I were talking about this a few weeks ago.  We talked that it is always more effective (and more difficult) to adjust ourselves to fit scripture rather than try to adjust scripture to fit us.  There is nothing new under the sun.

Afterwards there was a party at Dolan’s pub where we had Indian food and dancing (in great Bollywood style mind you) by a very energetic 11 year old.  You can tell that she has put a lot of time and work into her art.  I had a blast.  I enjoyed seeing my co-op friends.  I got to spend more time with Wayne Casey, Mel McCarthy, Cathie LeBlanc, Tony Merzetti, Colin Smart, Chisholm Pothier and many others.  The festival is off to a fantastic start.  I can’t wait to see what else we have in store.

2004

I did not have any films in the 2004 film festival.  CSI: Jerusalem is not quite done and I do not want to push it just for the sake of having a film in the festival. 

2003

Jeff is attending the Tidal Wave Film Festival.  Tanzen was premiered on Friday night November 7, 2003 at 9:30 at the Fredericton Playhouse.

Saturday, November 8, 2003

Laura and I finally got to sleep in a little bit today.  We worked the booth at the empire theatre for Jericho Mansions, staring James Caan and it was shot in Saint John.  This film had a real CSI type of feel to it.  They made good use of the steady cam and really well planned script.  The cast was awesome as well.  I would not have used all of the language they did, but they did not ask me. 

Laura and I had a film free afternoon.  We were Mall rats for a little bit.  Then we came back to the Calabreses for a while.  Then we visited Matt and Laura got to see the Starmat studios.  That is always a special treat.  Speaking of special treats, we went out to eat at our favourite restaurant, El Burrito Loco!!

We took in the the second wave of NB shorts.  We had so many great shorts this year that we had two separate showings.  Again, there was a big improvement in the quality of films as well as the number of films this year in our shorts.  I was very excited to see films by several of my friends.  I know that Tanya has waited a long time to show House on Milder Road.  I have also heard so much about Unseen Enemy and Hobson's Choice.  I had also heard Meanings to Dreams (but never saw) several times because Nik and I were editing about the same time.  They were fantastic.  Expiration about gave me a coronary.  I have to work with Chisholm and Matt some time.

Friday, November 7, 2003

Laura, Shania and my mom came into town today.  Shania had to get 4 teeth taken out!  She was so brave and so good about it.  I am very proud of my little girl.  Mom and Shania headed out and I ran a camera to document a documentary film class.  I was in a room of very experience camera operators and I was the one fumbling with a camera I never saw before.  David and Mike were on the panel so they kept it fun and lively, but also very real and informative.

That night Laura and I took in Feel Neil, David's documentary about Neil Diamond impersonators, fans and tribute bands.  It was fantastic, I need to get the DVD when it gets out.  Then it was time for the NB Short films.  Wow, what an improvement from last year on the quality of filmmaking from our province.  I will have to go into detail later about all of the films.  They covered a wide spread of approaches to filmmaking.  Tanzen was screened last.  That was cool, cause it stayed on people's minds that way.  It was well received and I am very pleased.  Most of the crew was on hand as well as some actors (Holly, Judy, Wayne and myself).  It was neat that some people involved with it were really proud of it (they worked hard for this film).  I think Matt will get more animation gigs.  I know Holly will go very far as an actress.  I wished I had more lines for her, she was so good to work with.  I know Laura will get calls for hair and makeup, I could go on and on.  But we made our little budget stretch beyond normal limits!  We went to the parties afterward and hung out with the other filmmakers and industry people.  Now I need to decide what to do with this little film.  I am so glad my wife Laura got to see it on the big screen, it makes all of the stress worth it.  I wish Joel and Anne Elizabeth could have been there, they are in Sweden.  Also my mom could not make it, she had to watch Shania.  I will have to add more about the night later, there is just too much to say right now. 

Thursday, November 6, 2003

It has been a crazy week here.  I got to work a few panels and meet more amore people from the industry and pitch the U-boat doc and talk about Tanzen as well as filmmaking in general.  One of the coolest things was hanging out with David Sarich, the director of Feel Neil.  He has a great sense of humour and genuinely nice guy.  I got to work a class about legal agreements in filmmaking (the depth of this film world will astound you).  I got to meet several filmmakers from Bathurst, New Brunswick.  It is very exciting to all that is going on in the province.  At the schmooze session, I met a lot of animators and this motion capture guy who showed me some the motion capture equipment (the kind of stuff used to create Gollum on the Lord of the Rings).

I got to work at the screening of U.  It it was a feature made by UNB Students.  I hung out with Jeremy Robinson from the Co-op for most of it.  Then I got to see Zone 20 and My Student Loan.  Zone 20 was done my by friend Peter Atkinson from nearby St. Stephen and it was about Moose Hunting in Charlotte County.  My Student Loan is by Mike Johnston who decided to make a movie about his student loan to pay off his student loan.  It was great guerilla documentary filmmaking at its finest!  Later that night I hung out with Mike, David and Sebastian MacLean (another great guy).  Mike and David were very helpful and encouraging to me on what to do next with my film.

Wednesday, November 5, 2003

It is good to be back at the Tidal Wave Film Festival.  Last year, I was just here for the weekend.  This year, I am here for almost a week.  I came in early for a press conference at the Beaverbrook Hotel.  Most of the press conference was for David Sarich, who is showing his documentary Feel Neil.  It is a film about Neil Diamond impersonators.  Afterwards it was time for Tanya Swinimar (House of Milder Road), Nik Mills (U, Street Music and Meanings to Dreams) and myself.  Most of the press left with Neil Diamond.  We did get our pictures taken and were interviewed by the Daily Gleaner.  We should be in tomorrow's paper.  Having most of the cameras leave after the first press conference was bad enough.  I found out that my name was misspelled as "Coombes" for the press conference schedule. 

Matt and I went the first showing of the Matrix: Revolutions!  That has to be worth some extra nerd points somewhere (cause I am so low on nerd points).  Later we went to the Opening Gala.  There were a few industry people there and I pitched the documentary to them.  Some showed some interest, but you never know at these things.  I will keep plugging away at it.  I had an e-mail in my box when I got back from the National Arts Report on CBC wanting information on Tanzen.  I will check with them tomorrow.

Tanzen Shooting Journal

Jeff Combs is trying to keep a running journal on the progress on the shooting of the Mini DV short, Tanzen.

Monday, June 16, 2003

The Week Before the Shoot August 7, 2003

Friday August 8, 2003

Saturday August 9, 2003

Sunday August 10, 2003

2002

Tidal Wave Film Festival Journal
Jeff, Laura, Shania and Jeff's Mom are attending the Tidal Wave Film Festival.  Our Film is being screened on Sunday night November 10, 2002 at 6:30.

Sunday, November 10, 2002

Saturday, November 9, 2002

Friday November 8, 2002