A bunch of years ago, I did a little drawing of then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a gerbil. That drawing is embedded below:
Neat. Anyway, just as in my most recent post here, I have been experimenting with AI. The result of that is a 3D and glossed out rendering of this same drawing.
So there we go. Then, also with AI, I used this drawing to make a small animated scene. It's a depiction of what Justin Trudeau did while in Canada's parliament for the past 10 years.
It's a "fun" little scene that only took me minutes to create, but on the whole I do prefer animating the traditional way. Even though it takes longer, I like having absolute control of what it looks like, how it moves, and planning the movements right down to the individual frame. That's how greats like Tex Avery and Chuck Jones worked and that's how I prefer to work too.
From my brief experience, working with AI is like getting an idiot to help move your couch. You just need this couch moved from one end of the room to the other and you think giving him that simple command will get the job done. But instead he starts shoving that couch out the door, through the wall, he tries to eat it at one point and all you can do is get increasingly flustered shouting "NO NOT THERE!! WATCH OUT FOR THAT........ LAMP!! ARE YOU STUPID?? WHY WOULD I WANT IT IN THE FISH TANK??!! WHERE DID THE CUSHIONS GO??!!" It can get so exhausting. Well, the traditional method can get exhausting too, but at least I'm in much more control.
Oh well, this looks like the future of animation and possibly movies and TV in general. So...... let's do what we can.
Election season is upon us once again here in Canada. It was announced just today. Although, the circumstances for this election are a bit different than the ones I posted about in the past because this time around the sitting Prime Minister felt the need to resign.
*Justin Trudeau in the act of resigning*
He clung to power as long he could but, as of last February, could not hold on any longer. So he will NOT be in this leadership race this time around. There are a whole new batch of candidates to choose from, some new and some all too familiar. Here they are:
Mark Carney
Pierre Poilievre
Jagmeet Singh
Yves Francois Blanchet
Elizabeth May
...and bringing up the rear:
Maxime Bernier
The election day happens on April 28. May the lesser evil candidate win.
That's right. As of April 28 of this year, the highly controversial Bill C-11 passed in the senate and became law. Some are saying it's "great for Canadian culture" while others decry it as "the ultimate censorship tool". "Which of those is it", you ask. Well, let's talk about it here.
The pro-C11 side say that this new law is simply about boosting truly Canadian content on the internet including social media sites. A noble goal indeed, but severely flawed from the outset. Government meddling in entertainment and news media is NEVER a good thing. At the animation school I attended, one of our teachers grew up in Soviet occupied Ukraine. She told us that the only thing available on Soviet television was ballet.
this or nothing
In the USSR, the only shows you could watch on TV were ballet or nothing. This was the country's government colluding with entertainment and blatantly telling the entire populous that "THIS is what our culture is".
I'm not saying this amount of suppression is happening here in Canada already. There's certainly still a wide variety of shows and news available to Canadians made here and around the world. Here's hoping it stays that way no matter what the government does.
This idea of presenting a "Canadian identity" on our airwaves is certainly nothing new. It's a debate going back decades and decades. For instance, back in the day when "Justin's dad" was the Prime Minister, there was a Canadian made show called SCTV. The "SC" stood for Second City. The show was pretty much the main stage cast of the Toronto affiliate of Second City producing a TV show the same way they would create their sketches for the live stage. After their first season, they were shopping their show around to various TV stations in order to attract a wider audience. When they made their pitch to a station manager in Edmonton, they got some rather back-handed feedback. "Your show is not Canadian enough", he said. They didn't appreciate that assessment. "We're already using Canadian actors, writers, producers and facilities. What more do you want us to do? You want us to sit in front of a big map of Canada, wear toques and drink beer?" That was their response.
Well, the guy said "make it more Canadian" so that's what they did. This is what brought about the MacKenzie Brothers. Everyone in Canada (definitely those over 40) are all too familiar with these characters. But, for those who aren't, I'll post a video below:
Watching this skit all those years, did you ever wonder why they had that long scroll at the end of their first few shows? Well, that was their rebellion against the CRTC's guidelines of what constitutes "Canadian content" and against that weird jerky guy in Edmonton. "Is THIS Canadian enough for you, hosers??!!"
Of course, now with Bill C-11 in place, it's not just "some guy in Edmonton" whose pushing for "a more Canadian feel" to this country's content, it's the current Prime Minister doing it. He won't physically be in the writing room telling Canadian productions what to do and what not to do, which is how it should ALWAYS be. However, he will have his finger on the algorithm that will determine what productions get artificially boosted online and which ones don't. And the standards for which he and his cabinet will use to ascertain which productions will be boosted or not are................................... well, he's not saying so far. Whether Justin claims to make these decisions fairly or not, I will talk about a time not so long ago about another Prime Minister with a similar type of ambition.
That Prime Minister's name was Stephen Harper. About 15 or so years ago, the Bill C-11 was known as Bill C-10. PM Harper wanted to pass that bill so that, as Conservatives put it at the time,
"tax dollars should not be funding productions that some Canadians find objectionable". I talked about much of that controversy here on this blog back in the day. Here is an interview the CBC did about that topic back in the day. I find it rather odd that many of the same people who were up in arms about Harper passing this bill are today all uproariously happy with Trudeau passing the exact same bill. Of course, at the same time, some people who are outraged about the bill paying under Trudeau were hoping for Harper to pass it back in 2008. I, for one, want NEITHER of these sides in charge of Canadian productions and I want both of them far FAR FAAAAAAAAAR away from any kind of social media regulation. If the next Prime Minister to get in after Justin does not immediately take Bill C-11 and journey to Mordor to cast it the fiery lakes from which it was forged, that Prime Minister should receive a non-confidence vote instantly and then replaced by someone that WILL make that journey.
No, master. You no takes my precious bill away. I use bill responsibly. You see.
Well, ok Minister of....... Stuff. Just don't let the bill be handled by any of these guys:
But, for now, the bill is now here and is not going anywhere any time soon. But, I haven't given up hope in any way. As with the example of SCTV I showed earlier, there's always rebellion to fall back on. Anyone who's truly creative enough can find ways around draconian government rules no matter how many of those rules the government chooses to make. Freedom always finds a way.
I'll end this post with a video from one of the best group of sketch comedians in Canada or anywhere else in the world: the Kids in the Hall. I've embedded below one of their sketches that would surely challenge any rules that any Canadian government can dish out, even 30 years later. Enjoy, and also, screw you. :P
Well, it's election time again in Canada. Our incumbent PM dropped the writ just this morning. On the fast approaching date of September 20, all eligible Canadians will make the decision to either go out to the polls and vote for any 1 of the 6 candidates competing for our affection.................... or not. In a true and full democracy, abstaining from voting is a perfectly fine option. No candidate is automatically owed your vote just because they exist. That candidate still has to work hard enough to earn your vote. That being said, below are the list of candidates hoping to be (or continue to be) the leader of a country adjacent to the "free world":
Incumbent: Justin Trudeau
Jagmeet Singh
Erin O'Toole
Yves-Francois Blanchet
Anomie Paul
Maxime Bernier
These are your choices, Canada. Choose wisely. We'll have to put up with one of these people for the next two years or so (or whenever the rest of parliament can organize a non-confidence vote).
Well, it's election time in Canada again. Over the years of writing this little blog of mine I've taken it upon myself to present all of the candidates competing for the job and title of Prime Minister. This year's election promises to be a nail biter between two heavy favourites. Who will emerge triumphant? That remains to be seen. For now, I present all the candidates up for the job starting with the incumbent:
Justin Trudeau
Yeah, I went there.
Other major players trying to take his job are:
Andrew Scheer
Jagmeet Singh
Elizabeth May
Maxime Bernier
I can't and won't tell you who to vote for. What I can do is provide a link right here for any Canadian citizen that will help them find out what riding they're in and thus where their voting station is: Elections Canada
It has come to my attention that people are having some troubles watching my recently made video. Besides the copyright strikes that I mentioned earlier making it unavailable to anyone on Youtube, people are also uncomfortable with the video's length of 1 hour and 22 minutes. Hey, the movie All Dogs Go To Heaven was about that long and I don't recall too many people complaining (except for some movie critics, some parents that had to take their kids to it, some online personalities pointing out its flaws, and from artists who actually worked on the movie).
But yes I can understand the disgruntlement. It's much easier and more delightful to watch animated dogs have a grand adventure for approximately 82 minutes than it is to watch me prattle on about my opinions in a cold basement for that same amount of time. So here's what I've done. I've divided my video up into its 14 individual segments and embedded them below. That way you can watch one or two or three (or however many you can muster) at a time. Then if you're ever tired, you can go rest for a bit and then start again where you left off. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
"Why did I even make this video so long in the first place?", you ask. I just had a lot to say.
Also, as an FYI, this{these} video{s} was meant to promote both of my books, as it is with pretty much everything on my blog since about 2010. So, here's yet another link to those books on Amazon: Jesus Needs Help and Censor Monkeys Have No Class.
Now on to the video(s). Enjoy! If you've seen it/them already, feel free to enjoy again.
So apparently a lot of people are having trouble seeing my video on Youtube. That's because of two copyright strikes. One was for a rather long clip from a Quantum Leap episode. I fully accept that one. I thought I did a clever enough editing job on it that it could fall under fair use but I was mistaken. The other strike took be completely by surprise. It was for a clip of Frank Zappa reading his speech at the PMRC hearings. The group that claim they own that clip called it a "song" which I found baffling. Below is a screen shot I took of that copyright notice I got.
Oh well. Hopefully Dailymotion will be more forgiving. Anyway I've embedded both parts of my video below. Enjoy!
This is the video that has occupied my time for the passed several months. Of course, if I didn't have a full time job and I didn't take a trip to the Philippines to get married last December, I would've finished this 2 or 3 months ago. So, because it took longer than I anticipated, in the video above I talk about Donald Trump's presidency as a "possible future" rather than a very real present. However, I do think the rest of it still holds up. Let me know either way in the comment section below.
Oh, if there are any toes I haven't stepped on with the blistering satire all throughout my video, let me know and I'll try to get around to stepping on them next time.
