sup – Page 108 – Adrian Taverner

The New Me

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(click for full size images)

I KNOW! I don’t post often enough. But when I do, hey, photo bonanza. Maybe I’d post more often if you sent donuts?

In the last couple weeks Avery has tried solid food and found it to be… interesting. She’s been notified she likes avocado, so she’s entertaining that idea. Squishy. Mum’s plan is to try a bit of something new each week for the next while, until little Pepper is making active grabs for our plates. Won’t be long.

Oh! Finally all the stars and planets lined up, and Lee delivered a little Christmas gifty for Avery from Kim and J. The best bunny hat ever. Adorable! Should be a perfect fit next year. Thank you, guys!

The other Big Fun News is that Matt came to town for a week. The plan was for Chaos Complex to shoot two shorts while he was here. Ambitious, but we’ve crushed crazier goals. One thing led to another, however, and long story short, it’s really hard to procure a prop gun in New York City. Go figure. I’m not sure it’s harder than it is in BC, but it’s certainly not easier. We actually wrangled a reasonable facsimile of the gun, and were seriously contemplating a script compromise, but in the end we really want the gun moment to ring true, so we’re going to hold off and do it right in a few weeks. It’s also not advisable to book fx makeup with three days notice, but that was not entirely in our control, because they want to know things like, “what day?” and “where?” and these things didn’t land as early as they should have.

Anyway, to drag us back on track, Chaos pushed two stories, but discovered a third. It’s a charming little bit of clone comedy. We think you’ll giggle. We still have to discuss how we’ll actually release it, with the festival circuit and such to consider, but I promise I will get your eyeballs on it as soon as I can.

So the Chaos Camp was a genuine success in the face of several adversities. We sent Matt home in victory (not counting some brutal stand-by flight delays – do NOT fly stand-by. Just don’t.)

Marjorie took full command of the Taverner household while the boys were out playing all week, and for that I am humbly grateful. She is a power of nature, and I’m the luckiest bastard you know. I brought her flowers. And pie.

I’m trying to remember when I last had a haircut. Could be ten weeks ago. Anyway, I looked ridiculous the last couple weeks. I tried a hipster flop, no deal. Mod flip, no deal. I’d taken to wearing it slicked back, which I do not carry as well as Brad Cooper. I get too hot wearing a hat indoors, so it was the slick or look, well, ridiculouser. So after missing one more opportunity for Chris to rescue me, I went for the clippers. No big deal, right? Adrian has pulled off this look before. The dudes like it. The chicks… the chicks do not care for it, as a general rule. I maybe look scary.

I had a moment of hesitation. Avery. I thought to myself, “Avery’s too young to be freaked out by this. She’ll be fine. Just like she’s fine with the dark, and dogs, and strangers.”

I was wrong. She went down for a nap, shaggy daddy. She woke up from her nap, velcro head daddy.

She was so confused. And had no idea how to deal with the confusion. So she was scared. Such heartbreaking tears! Inconsolable for half an hour! She wouldn’t look at me! Whenever she did, more sobbing! It took both Mum and Dad that whole half hour to reassure her that all was still right in the world. That familiar face was still on the right head, and that voice was coming from the right daddy.

Make sure your child is awake during momentous changes. My advice pour vous, because I like you and you shouldn’t have to go through that.

Other tidbits o’ trivia…

The Taverners have booked their fabulous tropical birthday getaway. Thank you, Marjorie, for taking us with you. Very generous. We’re going to Barbados. Woo!

Also, Chaos is once again booked for the Banff World Media Festival. We’ll be hobnobbing with top level network execs and industry greats like Julia Louis Dreyfus and Will Arnett. You know, ’cause that’s how we roll. Whatever.

I’ll probably need a haircut before then…

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Five Days Away

avery, photopost, sup

Hi! Been awhile. Miss me? I recently returned from a shoot in Vegas. It went terrifically well, but it took me away from my family for five of the longest days of my life. I had a good time, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if, up til now, I had spent that much time away from Avery in total.

Our little family managed to connect for some FaceTime twice, which was like water in the desert for me. But usually I would try to peek in on my bunny right before my own bedtime. Success was rare though. Avery and Mum were enjoying the luxury of a whole queen size bed to themselves, so a monitor in Avery’s room wasn’t good for much. I got lucky a couple times:

Yep, like water in the desert.

I’m not a stranger to dealing with separation, but this is a whole new deal. I love my job, and I know it will take me away from time to time, but some of the shine has been stripped off. You know?

So much to miss.

It was a good shoot though. We were the videographers for L’Oréal Professionnel Foundations 2013, a high-end brand reaching out to evangelists throughout the industry. Lots of learning, lots of inspiration, lots of plans for the year ahead. The hours are long but it’s neat to be surrounded by that kind of distilled creative energy. Our mandate was to capture the sense of transformation as people buy in to the vision. They made it pretty easy.

So the rush leading up to the event paid off, with all the product and supporting video very well received. Awesome. And the two videos we built and edited while there also brought us some high fives and kudos. It was really (really) nice to be appreciated. That doesn’t always happen. The plan is to get the Big Finale video up online where it belongs. If that happens, I will point you in the right direction with a certain amount of pride.

I had promised myself I would take more pics on the job, but it’s not a practical project when there’s so much going on. I took these though:

The first is a fair approximation of how the days look to us in the middle of it all. The second is from just after wrapping the Grand Opening, and just before a well deserved beer.

The Grand Opening, well, there was a spectacle. Dancers, opera, sequins, models, clouds of hairspray. Oh yes, it was a glamoursplosion. People wanted to buy copies of the video as soon as the dancers froze in final position. We hope to be offered the budget to produce said video. Here are some screencaps. You should click on them for maximum glamfectiousness.

Nice work. High fives and low bows for Christian [I’ve lost his last name] for his superlative stage production.

And in the trenches through the whole week, deep appreciation for J Thor (Hi JT!), Brian, Wayne and Jose for their capital technical production.

And I daresay Lee and I did a decent job of making it last forever. The boss boss previewed our Big Finish video (the transformation one) on the laptop and she liked it, but we didn’t get the wow we wanted. We put the headphones on her and oh there it is! So I will take that as a feather in my cap. Audio is half the movie, and don’t you dare believe otherwise.

So, exhausted and drained, we walked out of there feeling like we’d planted that touchdown. Mission accomplished. Checkered flag and winner’s circle. It felt good to come home though. Best hug yet.

Avery is 5 months now. She can hold her own bottle. She laughs if she thinks you’re funny and she smiles politely if she doesn’t quite get it. She still loves her swing but she loves sitting between Mum and Dad more. She’s chatty but sometimes she just watches. She’s commandingly confident grabbing things even if she isn’t quite sure what to do with them next. She still yells at Mr Octopus because she can’t get more than one tentacle in her mouth at once. And she’s wobbly, but she can just about stand on her own. With both hands on the couch. I wonder if she’ll walk before she crawls. At this point that’s where it looks like we’re going.

It’s good to be Home.

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Peppermix

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This is where I hoped to post a bunch of new pics and update the ol’ blog on what’s up, but because there’s so much to tell there’s no time to tell it. It’s so busy, I’ve had Avery helping out with the mix. She’s very good.

Huge production crush, Suz’ 50th b-day celebration, various and sundry all worth the telling, but it’s bedtime, yo.

May your Monday be super great.

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