Making Movies...Short little movies...

Last weekend with the Casey Brothers was a blast! I have been busy making short films over the last couple months with film makers all with very different styles. Mike Dawson pulled in favours from all his friends in the industry to create an impressive and super professional styled shoot! The three Casey brothers went the other way and called on just a couple friends and created and bare bones style movie shoot in the suburbs.

Either because I don't really know or have many friends in the industry, I could relate way more to the shoot this past weekend. Or maybe because the film was made with practically no money, I'm not sure. I just know that this weekends shoot with the Casey brothers was a blast and I look forward to making lots more video shorts with the boys for my late night show this fall.

Banana Man and seven days afterwards...

Yep, for those of you who saw on Tv, that giant Banana walking around last Sunday night while the Much Music Awards were on, well it's true. It was me!

My late night show has been added to the new fall lineup for the E Network in the fall and E is big on red carpet stuff so I have to start shooting more stuff at red carpet events ect! I was racking my brain trying to come up with a way to make going to the awards show last sunday a bit more interesting and I gotta tell you, dressing up in a giant Banana suit just might be the most awesome thing I have done in years.

People loved "Banana Man", people wanted to meet "Banana Man" and hundreds and hundreds of people wanted to take their picture with "Banana Man"! I haven't felt so loved in years. Expect to see more of "Banana Man" kids!

By around this time last Sunday night I was then on my way up north to the cottage. I had my new laptop loaded up with about nine hours of footage and so up north I went for a good night sleep and a busy day of editting on the dock scheduled for Monday.

I spent most of Monday and Tuesday in a muskoka chair either editting footage or kickin back and taking it easy. However, most of Wednesday was spent in the Huntsville hospital! That's right the hospital!!!!!

On Tuesday night we went out for dinner and a friggin piece of beef got stuck in my throat. This has actually happened before to me but every other time I managed to flush it down somehow within an hour or so. By 5:000am on Wednesday after pounding my chest and doing everything else I could think to do over the last eight hours to dislodge this pesky piece of meat, I finally decided to go to the hospital.

All the things the doctor tried that he claimed usually work to resolve this problem, weren't working at all on me so they had to take me in to see a surgeon. To make a long gross story a little shorter, lets just say that the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday were spent back at the cottage sleeping and eating popsicles.

Friday I make my way back home to try and catch up on stuff that wasn't done over the last couple days and I went to bed early because I had to to up first thing Saturday morning.

I spent the entire weekend working on another short film which we rapped up with about three hours ago. Aside from getting way way to much sun, it was an amazing weekend. I'm totally exhasted now so I'm going to sign off here and tell you guys moe about this weekends shoot another day.

It all started seven days ago with Banana Man!

Will be hanging out at a Music Festival today...

Taking some time today to shoot some video shorts and re-creating kind of a character/singer/cowboy hat wearing dude that I shot some footage with last year at the Sound of Music Festival here in Burlington. Click on the above pic to view some footage we shot last year and aired on the show.

The folks from The Legendary Red Rooster Vintage Cafe have a stage set up there today with a bunch of cool bands playing, so I'm sure at some point I'll stop by and say hi. Check out their stage if any of you are in Burlington at the Festival today or on Sunday.

Joel Plasket is playing at the festival around 8:00pm so excpect to find me at the Molson Canadian Beer gardens enjoying the show around that time not in character or anything, just as me enjoying a fresh cold beer and some live music.

For those of you who might be watching the show tonight. You might recognize the long haired wig I'm wearing because it's really the only wig I have so I wear it pretty much any time I'm trying to be someone other than me.

It's fun wearing wig's!

NIce pose. shame about the face.....

The scares on my face here were put there by the make up artist last weekend in preperation for a scene I was shooting in the movie. Also above in the pic to the left, are a couple of guys in my crew. Steve is behind the camera as always and Alex is a new member of my crew who are all doing a great job running around with me for sixteen plus hours a day shooting the behind the scenes look at these film makers trying to shoot their short film. Alex is my main man with the boom! We recently landed Sennheiser as a new sponsor for the show and they have loaded us up with some amazing new microphones and audio gear.

Getting more and more new and major sponsors for the show is sometimes the best way to find out for sure if your new show is heading in the right direction or not! Anyways, I had a great time last weekend shooting the movie "Reality Check" and the few day I spent at the cottage after we rapped were awesome.

It's reaaly great to have a little time to get up north these days. Last year at this time, between shooting and putting together season one of "IN THE CAN with JR DIGS" and being on the road shooting "BE REAL" that TV Tropolis series, I hardly made it up north at all until the fall.

I don't have a short film scheduled to be shot this weekend because I will be busy shooting a bunch of stuff for "Another Crappy Canadian Latenight Talkshow" that is scheduled to be apart of the new fall line up on the E Network which is gearing up to be launched in the fall by the folks at Global. It should be cool!

Later guys, have a great weekend!

On the dock and hard at work...

Out of my giant hotdog suit and about to toast my hotdog buns on the BBQ up here at the cottage. After the longest couple of days I have ever spent on location making a short film for my series, I made a good call and drove straight up north here to the cottage to kick back a little bit. In the past I have always had to keep grinding it out, keep getting shows put together and in the process, keep myself from finally losing my friggin mind or becoming absolutely run down. Not the best formula for having fun and making amusing television.

I should be enjoying myself! I'm doing exactly what I have always wanted to do, I'm experimenting with new ideas for television series and this fall I'll be back to making my latenight talkshow on the E Network with my new pal Ryan Seacrest! We aren't really pals but it's funny to pretend we are.

Anyways, I'm up north here right now, it's beutiful outside and being up here doesn't even mean I have to stop working. After shooting each of these short films every weekend, I end up then having to sift through the eight or nine hours of footage I shot of the film makers in action making the movie.

It's way too much footage to have to look at for what ends up being about 15 minutes of content in the episode but I hate not shooting lots of footage for fear that we might miss something interesting that happens. Thats exactly why I feel like I have to then look at all the footage as well. I figure that if I don't, I might miss something funny or interesting that might make the episode better.

So I bought a laptop the other day which now allows me to be anywhere as I spend 12 hours looking and cutting footage shot over the weekend. Anywhere as in on the dock at the cottage. It's awesome, I just might figure out how to actually have a life outside of making my show after all. It's a good feeling!!!

Time to go eat those BBQ'd hotdogs for lunch.

Everybody likes weinners, right....

In the middle of another low budget high octane film shoot, this weekend with a wonderboy film school student attempting to shoot his short film for my series. The giant sized studios he has gained access to here at the Toronto Film school in the cbc building are pretty impressive. Sure hope his short film is as impressive as him and his crew all expect it to be!!!

I can say one thing for sure. He doesn't seem too keen on the wardrobe I brought with me to wear in my cameo appearance as the tour guide. Thanks to Penny Pincher Costumes in Hamilton, I brought with me a hilarious looking hotdog outfit. I have a few other costumes as well in case the hotdog suit isn't what the director was looking for!!!!

Spark up the barbys folks and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Mini-Me & Me!

Yep, The Toronto International Film Festival or TIFF for short is about to kick into gear and I'm lucky Verne Troyer was only in second gear earlier this evening when he almost ran into me. Ok well he didn't almost run me over but I did meet him and we chatted briefly about maybe even shooting something on Friday for my latenight talkshow that goes back on the air later this fall on Global and the E!Network.

One of the impacts this Gemini nomination for "Best Host" is having on me these days is it seems like maybe I have more crediblity with people all of a sudden. More so with people's "people" but those are the ones who set up all the interviews so if I am lucky, this year at Tiff I will get some really cool moments caught on tape with some interesting celebrities.

One thing that hasn't changed at all yet since the news last week is the lack of budget I still have to deal and work with when it comes to shooting stuff ect. for my little latenight experiment that I plan on putting back on the air this fall like I mentioned above. I for sure have enough money coming in these days from sponsors to keep things rolling along and to keep a couple full time guys hired to help me shoot and edit stuff ect. but I definately could still use more volunteers to help out with stuff.

It would be great to have a couple more people to do anything from holding another camera to general PA kinda work while we are shooting at TiFF over this next week. I absolutey need someone to help me with publicity one of these days and if any of you guys are into web design, I think the site might need another new look as well. Lots to do and no money to do it with! Wa wa wa... I guess I could start digging into my pockets again and go back into debt but I went way down that road once before and it really wasn't all that much fun so screw that idea!

Hopefully I'll find some new volunteers this fall and have a great couple weeks shooting footage at Tiff. I actually have real press credentials this year for the first time ever so that will make things a little easier for sure.

I'll be sure to keep you all posted!

E Network comes to Canada....

Spent most of the day in Toronto at the big Global Fall launch party where they announce the new fall schedule. Aside from the free food and drink you get at the party/shmoozfest thing thats held after the shindig at Massy Hall, I'm not exactly sure why I keep going to this thing every year. I guess maybe, it's kinda cool to see people like Ryan Seacrest or some of the actors from the show Hero's that were there today, but mostly I always leave these types of events with the feeling that I don't really even belong there. What I do in latenight and have been doing for years is almost completely unnoticed and seemingly unimportant to most of the folks at the network. Not that it should be I guess, but I'm really only reminded of that when I go to some big Network event like the one today.

When you are making a nobudget little show and producing it independently and airing it in latenight, trust me, it's not exactly that big a deal to the folks who have sunk millions into the production of a handful of other shows with the hopes that ratings end up being good and advertisers keep advertising and bringing the money in. The competition between the networks here in Canada these days is serious bussiness. A goofy little show like mine, just isn't that big a deal!

The folks at Global have always been pretty good to me and knowing that I will get to keep experimentng and pluggin away in latenight this fall is awesome. It will continue to be a strugle to produce a weekly television show without a budget to work with or any of the hype and media push a network produced series gets but considering what I've gone through to get to this point, how can I not be happy just being where I am today. The announcement that Global has bought and will be rebranding their CH stations as the E Network this fall is actually pretty amazing for me. Some exciting new opportunities look like they are headed my way but you never really know for sure with these things.

As uncomfortable and kind of awkward as a day like this can be for your ol pal Digs, compared to where I was just a couple of years ago, I probably should be feeling like I'm on top of the world. I have my second season of "IN THE CAN with JR DIGS" going on the air this coming weekend and all new episodes of "Another Crappy Canadian Latenight talkshow" scheduled to go on the air this fall!

That being said, I should get back to work now. I just blew off most of the day and when you are one of only a couple of guys making a network television show, it's not like their is anyone else to get all this work done this week.

I'm livin the dream!!!!!

Green Screens & Big Dreams...

Spent around 15 hours in the heat yesterday on the streets of the Hammer with my crew, a green screen and a plan to finish the casting of an experimental short film I am making! Every weekend for the next two months, I will be hanging out on sets and interesting locations with aspiring and unknown film makers but not this weekend. This is the only free weekend I had to cast, shoot and work on my own little movie which we finished shooting around midnight last night.

After that we went to Hess Village for a couple of beers to rap up the night,I ended up running into my Pal Tommi Swick the juno award winning best new artist and from there the night kinda turned into a gong show! I guess I don't really go out that much in Hamilton these days and it was cool to meet so many people who obviously watch the show and well, anyways, it was great night and a awesome weekend so far.

I have a little bit of work to do here yet today and then I might hop in my car and head up north to the cottage for the night. Sunday nights at the cottage are super relaxing and I don't have any meeting or anything planned on Monday until late in the afternoon so I can spend the night up north and head back later Monday afternoon.

Have a good day everyone.

"IN THE CAN"& On the internet....

A short film made by a group of Aspiring and absolutely unknown film makers in a Burlington highschool film studies class.

Everybody has to start somewhere!