Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Last Day in Vancouver

Today was the last big day in Vancouver. Tomorrow morning I will be heading home. Today was our last show at the O-Zone in Richmond! We had an excellent show as part of the Pan North presentation on the mainstage at the O-Zone. With a modest crowd, it was one of our best lighting shows, with movers, and LED's twinkling above... the performers of YFN did an awesome job! I hope that I will have another opportunity in the future to work with these guys, it has been an excellent experience being here in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics. I am going to miss this experience.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Vancouver Report: Feb 22nd

Today was a day off.... and how better spend the day, then head downtown to take in the sounds and sights of the Olympic experience. Tonight, I hung out with some friends at the Canada Hockey House, where we watched the woman's hockey team win victorious 5 to 0. What a game! Tomorrow is our show at the Richmond O-Zone!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Vancouver Report; February 21st

Today was the big day of our show "What The Land Remembers" presented at the Aboriginal Pavilion here in beautiful Vancouver.  The day started off early for us with a 6am load-in.  We arrived this morning to connect the microphones and lighting gear which was additional to the provided equipment of the pavilion.  Our shows were at 10am, and on the hour, every how with the last show at 2pm.  The show was fantastic!  And we had easily over 1000 people come over the 4 shows.  This was the highlight of our experience here at the Vancouver Winter Games 2010.  A reception was held afterward for the contingent from the Yukon First Nations.  Tomorrow is our day off, and I am hoping to meet up with my friend Phil who is here working for Sam Robert's, and take a walk in Stanley Park.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Vancouver Update - Feb 20th

I had an excellent day today here in Vancouver! Taking a break in the morning at the house, but then I headed downtown around noon to catch the Northwest Territory show at the Aboriginal Pavilion. There were a couple of performers in the show whom I have worked with before from Iqaluit. The show was excellent, and they got a standing ovation - one which was definately deserved.

I had a couple of hours to waste, so I walked around downtown for a bit. Then I was off to BC Stadium for the Victory Ceremony tonight! That was awesome.. as the Yukon was featured tonight, and the Dakhka Khwaan Dancers from our contingent were featured as part of the entertainment. They did a fabulous job of course... and we didn't end up staying for very long, heading home shortly after the headliner act went on.

Tomorrow we have a very early morning, 6am setup at the Aboriginal Pavilion for our show.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Update: Friday Feb 19th

Today was our first show at the Surrey live site! And the show went very well. We are part of the Pan North presentation at both the Surrey and Richmond live sites. Our next live site performance is on the 23rd in Richmond. We are getting ready for the big presentation however this coming Sunday at the Aboriginal Pavilion in downtown Vancouver. It should be the highlight of the trip!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

YFN 2010: Wednesday February 17th

Here is today's report from Vancouver! It was an absolutely gorgeous day here today weather wise in Vancouver. Sunny +10 or more... and a nice day to just relax! After yesterday's marathon walk, I wasn't about to do that again, so I spent half of the day relaxing at the house. We had a very nice "columbian" style egg breakfast made by Diego our sound man. The crew (director, SM and SD) headed off to the rehearsal in Richmond around 12:30pm. I headed to Broadway Camera around 2pm in search of miniDV tapes for the camera.

As it turns out, Broadway Camera was completely sold out of tapes, but there was a Sony Style store directly across the street, and they had ME class tapes, which was perfect! And exactly what I needed.

I then headed to rehearsal to meet up with our 43 performers and crew in Richmond. I got to ride on the "Canada Line" train on my route. An un-manned subway system, which was quite interesting. The train was packed, but that was to be expected given the events going on around town. I arrived in time for the thunderous sounds of the grand finale of our show. We had a very nice dinner at the hotel where our performers were staying, and afterwards headed to the OZone in Richmond to check out the live site where we will be performing the show on the 23rd.

After seeing the live site, we headed back to the house together in a cab, and called it a night. All in all, a nice day in Vancouver.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Day 1 in Vancouver...


Today, was the first full day in Vancouver, and we started off the morning by sleeping in a bit... but that was perfectly fine with us. We headed to the Aboriginal pavilion for 12pm to do a site tour. We arrived with a show just about to commence, so we ended up watching it. It was showcasing the Cree indians of Canada, and it was a good presentation. I was able to get a good idea of the lighting situaiton. The venue is very small, so there is not much we can do, but we are adding some fixture's for gobo's, and that is a good thing.


Once we were done at the pavilion, Alejandro and Diego (director and sound designer) went their seperate way, as they needed to go to the airport to collect some of the gear which was coming in as cargo. Chris and I headed to Yaletown with Chris's friend Phil. Phil worked on the opening ceremony, and will be working on the closing as well as other events throughout the olympics. We had lunch at a very nice restaurant in Yaletown - which used to be an industrial area of Vancouver. It has been converted into an area that reminds me of Toronto's distillery district.


We were thinking of going to the Yaletown live site after lunch, however long line-ups didn't seem attractive, thus we ended up deciding the take the ferry across to Granville island, and checking out the scene over there. While over at the island, I was stunned by the gorgeous view of Vancouver's downtown west area - over near Stanley Park. There was a beautiful mountain range in the background. So I decided to split from Chris and Phil, and headed for a walk to Vanier Park. The view paid off - it was stunning, and got some great photos.


I then spent the next 5 hours or so in downtown Van. I took the ferry over to the mainland of downtown, and walked up Horby. I did a stop into Robson square, where there was quite the buzz. I decided to return, but first - I was flame bound! That's right.... the olympic flame (outdoors). So off I went, and saw, and took pics. Then back to Robson square! There wasn't much going on, so I just sat down for a while, took a load off, and once I was refreshed, headed for the bus and back to the house.


Highlight of the day: The Olympic Flame.


Monday, February 15, 2010

In Vancouver!

8pm local time here in Vancouver, I have arrived! After a 4 hour flight, we have arrived in Vancouver... there were athletes on our flight -- we believe a number of them were curlers from Switzerland, and there was a Croatian cross country skier.

We are settled into the rental house, and looking forward to tomorrow. We are heading downtown to check out the sights and sounds of the Olympic buzz.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

VANCOUVER 2010

Hi all,

as of Monday February 15th, I will be on my way to Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics. I am working for the Yukon First Nation's show "What The Land Remembers", which will be featured at the Aboriginal Centre on the 21st of February with 4 shows. We will also be performing the show at two live sites as part of the Olypics in Richmond and Surrey. I will be updating the blog here on my site on a daily basis while I am in Vancouver, and letting you know how things are going over in Vancouver. I am very excited to go and be part of the celebrations, even if only a small part in a much larger event.

David

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Millworks Presentation

On Saturay February 6th, David gave a presentation to the "Canadian Tool Group". The presentation was well received, to a full room of participant's from the group. The presentation ran for approximately 1 hour. David would like to thank all of those members of the Tool group that attended the talk. The feedback from the talk will be great for future presentation's. David will be presenting the MILLWORKS project to the Beach Photo Club on June 3rd 2010.