About

Adrian Taverner works in the movies, but it wasn’t always so.

Adrian graduated high school with honours in 1989, majoring in visual arts and among the highest scoring students in English in BC.  He fled Prince George as soon as the car was packed, heading to the University of Victoria.  He hadn’t quite figured out what he wanted to do there, but it wasn’t Prince George, and that was a pretty damned good start.

It wasn’t long before his love of music (and his prodigious collection) landed him as the designated dj at parties, and this was before being a dj was really cool.

He bartended for one fateful summer at one of Victoria’s more tourist-gouging restaurants, and this is where he met Lee Baran, fellow bartender and night life connoisseur.  But the lure of the decks was too strong, and too fruitful.  Turns out he was really good at it, and he wound up working residencies in all the best clubs in town for the next several years.  When the crown jewel of them all was torched less than two weeks after opening in a blaze of soap-opera drama, he abandoned Victoria in disgust.  What else could he do?

Scouring Vancouver for the right dj gig, Adrian came across Lee outside Vinnie’s, a hamburger joint on Granville.  After an enthusiastic reunion, Lee pressured management into making a change in the entertainment and Adrian was spinning weekends there.  Has there ever been another burger joint that could boast line-ups and random hot girls dancing on the bar?  Maybe not before the dream team took over at Vinnie’s, and maybe not ever again, but it was legendary while it lasted.  Vinnie’s didn’t last too much longer after they left.

While in Vancouver, Adrian dove into his other passion- photography.  He borrowed a friend’s Nikon F-65 and was soon spending $50 a week on film and processing.  Turns out he’s pretty good at that, too.

Adrian was lured back to Victoria in 2001 when the owner of the club that had been torched tracked him down and made a very sweet offer to come back and do it again.  After some soul searching Adrian took the offer and returned to Victoria.

That club was also torched.

Adrian quit spinning.

His part-time gig at web company Wondermill became a full-time gig, where he brokered ad space on the interwebs.  Wondermill: a very friendly team with a very progressive human resources mind-set. Evidence shows overwhelmingly that if you love your staff they will love you back, and it pays off– give them a day off when they need it, and they will take fewer days off over the long run, not to mention the fanatic loyalty.  Wondermill flourished in an internet recovering from the bubble.  It was here, during his part-time beginnings, that Adrian began blogging as djmischiff.  Wondermill enjoyed phenomenal success until idealism was crushed by scum…ism.  A splinter group with no qualms about rampant flexible morality went on to become quite monetarily successful.  One can only assume their karma will eventually run over their dogma.  Wondermill recovered but Adrian had moved on.

Adrian had maintained his avid interest in photography, buying his own F-65 and then his first digital camera, the famous Canon G3.  His interest went from expensive to prolific, shooting about a thousand frames every month.  He toyed with the idea of committing to a career in photography through AdrianTaverner.ca, but as always he struggled with too many interests and not enough clones.  In late 2005, when Adrian was drawn inexorably back to Vancouver with an offer to work as an assistant sound editor for his friend Miguel Nunes, he took with him the mighty Canon 20D, eight point two megapixels of brilliant photographic ninjitsu.

While Adrian proved more than up to the tasks assigned, he found that those who had pursued an actual education with the Pro Tools software did have certain advantages, like employability beyond the immediate circle of friendship.  Time to find another gig.  How about production assistant?  The locations department, indeed.  Working on set in the thriving Vancouver film scene?  Hells yes. Sounds good.

His advice to anyone interested in a career in film production– jump right in after high school.  Do not wait.  If you wait you will be too old and, more importantly, too smart.  If someone offers you $185 a day to basically lug tents around, keep an eye on cars, and keep people quiet, you might find the idea immediately appealing when compared to your $70 a day at Pizza Hut.  Consider, however, that when your eight hour shift is done, a locations dude is only just staggering past the half-way mark of his work day.  And if that day is in Aldergrove you have to add on the hour commute there, and the hour commute home before crawling gratefully into bed.

Working in the locations department is, in fact, the easiest way on to set.  But you are first in & last out, and as far as anyone else is concerned, you are just a lowly PA, because they are also aware that locations is the easiest way on to set.  In Canada you are the only other department covered by the Directors’ Guild, but the only way you’re getting ahead is sheer force of personality.  Progress is slow if you leave it up to the system.

Adrian was tired of locations after six months.  It’s a great way to get on-set experience, but if you’re still a PA after a year, 18 months at most, you should double check your strategy.  Your plan ain’t working. He did a turn as a grip, and then a brief stint in special effects, and really enjoyed that, but still- the system moves at its own… slow… pace.

Meanwhile, Lee had escaped from bartending to pursue his own interest in film.  He worked as a voice actor and developed an increasing skill set in various facets of production.  After some award-winning success in the industry he entered a partnership with Chris Baran, the Artistic Director at Redken.  Chris wanted to bring the best of film production to his own industry in systematizing his education program for hairstylists and salons.

One can only admire the vast, wonderful synergy of the universe.  Technology has come to the point where a film shot digitally in high definition can be completely produced from home.  This has really only just happened since perhaps 2006, when processor speed and computer memory had finally become fast enough to edit full-resolution video.  At the same time, Adrian and Lee were keenly pursuing the skill sets necessary to produce film from outside the industry structure.  The right guys at the right place in time.

Fuel Productions has now released two four DVD volumes comprising the complete foundation of Chris Baran’s education system, with another volume on the drawing board.  The Fuel Education System now forms the core curriculum of a major school franchise. In addition, Adrian contributed heavily to Fuel’s production of Scott Valentine’s epic Seasons video cycle, and an incisive parody of Apocalypse Now and the Vancouver film scene entitled Audition Now.  Through Fuel, he is now produces the online education content for Redken.

The titles on his business card in 2008 approached the ridiculous: stills photographer, sound editor, sound recordist, picture editor, photo editor, music producer, assistant camera, camera operator, assistant director, assistant producer, gaffer, grip, locations manager, scout, copy editor, managing editor, graphic designer, and even special effects assistant.

With a dizzyingly developing skill set, Adrian has sets his sights on the film industry at large.  He now lives in New York City, with a very full schedule producing content as Technical Director for Redken and Pureology for L’Oreal, for Kasho shears, for Chris Baran and Fuel Productions, and most interestingly as one third of the creative force behind the Chaos Complex with Lee Baran and Matt Kennedy. They see no reason at all why they should not one day soon occupy centre stage with the rest of the A-List.