SC Entertainment History - 2020

 Well the first little part of 2020 was promoting and getting very excited about the Ghost Tank.. we had a premiere and everything... like a few weeks before everything shut down for Covid. 

Then there was covid... which still continues while I write this post. Global pandemic. No fun. My work was shut down, so we did school from home. I was convinced it wouldn't last past the end of the year. I was mistaken. I had some time alone, so I came up with a few projects I could do. The first was to release a 3rd Nandi Bear Tenants Graphic Novel. Based on the movie, and mostly using stills from it, so it was fairly easy to put together. The thing is I had so much fun making this book I decided I should spend the pandemic making another new double length graphic novel. So as soon as #3 was done I set to work writing #4, The Return of Super Punk. 

Then as I started working on that my mum got Covid. She lasted a few weeks but it ended up killing her. It was a very surreal event, and losing a mother isn't fun. I miss her a lot. We still haven't had any sort of memorial service for her. It makes me feel very weird. So the summer was spent thinking about mum and making comics. 

During on-line school, one of the things I did was record a bunch of songs for the toddlers and kindergarten kids that go to the school where I work. It was lovely and the parents would send me videos of their kids dancing around and singing while watching me play the songs. I have always sang to the kids at school, but filming it and watching them watch it at home was inspiring. I decided to make a new kid's show. Not space station zero this time.. something new with lots of different segments and things.. more like sesame street with short cartoons and films. Lots of puppets. I taught myself how to make proper puppets and made a bunch.. I really figured we could film in a few months while I made all the puppets and other preparations. But the pandemic kept going and going. I decided that the star of the show would be Beth the Bunny, played by the same Beth who was Beetrice in the Ghost Tank. 

Meanwhile I was working on a new album, this time trying to put together a lot of things that had happened over the last year, including my mum's death. That was released in the summer.

I was hoping to have the new Nandi Bear Tenants book out by Christmas, but it was too big and too good to get done by then. And Rabbit Ears, my new kids show was still waiting to be filmed by the end of the year... no one could get together because of Covid.. so we just waited. I got a lot of stuff ready to be made into Rabbit Ears, but the closest we got was a few Christmas songs.. it was I guess the first official Rabbit Ears release. The coming year would be nothin' but rabbits.

SC Entertainment History - 2019

Since I was feeling so 'great' I thought to go along with my new therapy, and upped meds dosage and everything else I was trying to do to save my own life and help the people around me by not having to deal with my problems... I would make a brand new fukachuk egg machine record.

I hadn't made an actual fukachuk record since 2015. After that I became something else to try to fix what was happening to me... I became Cashew Body. Anyway, it didn't work, and I figured I should resurrect the world of fukachuk egg machine. Something I knew so well for over 20 years. Anyway I worked very hard for about 3 months and released Phases of the Moon. It was pretty excellent, and did what I needed it to at the time. I think I started getting better.

Have a listen:

The rest of the year was spent writing the script for, getting funding for, and ultimately completing  'The Ghost Tank' A new film that was my response to my brother's death.. I was trying to make sense of life and death and afterlife and what happens to a person when the die... how a story can continue and the end isn't absolute. It was important to me to make this movie, if only for my own sanity. It had a female detective duo to take the place of Beefart and Cheenkaw... Terence had told me he retired from acting, so this seemed to be the natural progression. I got one of my old students who was now like 18 to be Beetrice, and our old dear friend Jennifer 'Dorriss doom, Simeon the robot, etc.. etc..' Hartley to be Charleenkaw.

It's a beautiful and excellent movie. My old friend Fran who was first seen in the 2003 film 'The Pet' came back as the lead. She had been in South Africa for a long time and it was always a bad time for her to be in my movies. Suddenly she was in Calgary and the time was right. She's an excellent actress and I was very lucky to have such a great team. Old favourites like Rene, Chengis, Johnny Auchie, and my dear friend Randolph were there, and I'm very proud of the effort. It did very welll and to date has been viewed over 12,000 times on the internet.

In October I played a very rare live fukachuk egg machine show at Blind Beggar Pub. It went really well. I'm glad I got the opportunity. 

Rabbit Ears - September 11th!

I can't even begin to explain how much love and how many hundreds of hours of very hard work have gone into creating rabbit ears over this last year. So many different segments and animations and puppets and sets and I am so very proud of this accomplishment. Next month when the first episode of the new series comes out I hope you and your kids or kids you know or just anyone, really enjoys what I've tried to do. Thank you so much everybody who was there to help me. Especially Elaine and Beth. You guys are absolutely wonderful. Please let your friends know about rabbit ears, I think kids will really like it. ❤️🐰

For more information, please visit the rabbit ears website!

http://rabbitears.ca
 

SC History - 2018

 2018 was generally a terrible year in my life, and other people's lives. 

I was kind of convinced I shouldn't work with other actual humans on projects any more, mostly because I was having an extra bad time with my mental health, so I decided to do a feature length animated film. That way I could sit around by myself and draw and edit and not have to be around anyone... I ended up being around lots of people any way.

I did another film collaboration with Suzie for the follow up to her last movie... this time it was post apocalyptic, and it looked beautiful. We filmed over a period of several months  to get different weather.

The cartoon was Nandi Bear Tenants: The Movie. I spent the early part of the year running away to the Devonian gardens and the library and stuff to write the script. 

We were asked to screen Night of the Shadow People at this year's Calgary Entertainment Expo. So we were looking forward to that. I had given up on having a table there at this point, but I don't mind screening films!

The day before the screening I got a call telling me my little brother had overdosed and died. It spun my already fragile mental health out of control. I had a pretty nasty year after that point.

The next month I spent hiding in my room making a record about my brother. 

I spent the rest of the year basically being very grumpy and anti-social to a unbelievably high degree. Working on the Nandi Bear Tenant Movie and editing the movie I made with Suzie, You can see "The Signal" here: https://youtu.be/Fr-bX6POgek

I finally finished the cartoon around Halloween. It is actually pretty amazing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmNq3wzZMqA

By the end of the year I had successfully pushed away anyone in my life that cared about me at all. I knew it was time I started to make a change. 

SC Entertainment History - 2016

 So I think one of the first things we did this year was to go out for a drive in Terry's car and shoot the video for daddy's Pants in a secluded parking lot. Probably don't watch the video below.

terry and Johnny Auchie started making some music under the name Art Prostitutes. I was originally asked to join the band, but after I made fun of the name they said I wasn't allowed to make music with them ever again.......   https://artprostitute.bandcamp.com/

Then there was a big build up to Imitative Magic being released on the internet, and it was one of the more successful promotions in our history. People seemed to really care about it! 

With Imitative Magic done I set to work straight away on my next project, which was 10 times as

ambitious. I wanted to make a 100% sci-fi movie that takes place on another planet, with almost no budget whatsoever. After several versions of script ideas I settled on Night of the Shadow People. using the idea of Shadow People from stories my brother would tell me when I was a kid. One of the most important things I wanted to accomplish with this film was to have one of the main characters be a robot. It wasn't going to be easy, but I didn't worry about HOW I would do it until after the script was written.




In the mean time the radio station did a Electric Oinks feature special show... it was pretty nice of them to do it, and it was ridiculous. Listen to the whole thing here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqSpOAMIgIo

Most of the rest of the year was literally making this huge production. All the costumes and props and sets... everything had to be made because it took place on a different world... it was wild. We got some really amazing actors and actresses to be in it, and we spent a lot of time running a fun raising campaign. The budget ended up being a couple thousand dollars.. which for us is astronomical! But still not very much to build a movie this epic.

The movie took up so much time that I didn't even make a fukachuk egg machine record that year! 

But after months and months of very very hard work the film was done. And the first thing I did with it was to have it available at that year's Calgary Comic  Holiday Expo.

Honestly it didn't sell well.. but I guess no one outside of my friend group really knew about it.

Night of the Shadow People would be released to the internet for free the following year... 

SC Entertainment History - 2015

I think the first thing that happened in 2015 was finishing up a collaboration with SC starlet, Sue Kenyon. It was our first movie together and was very cool... a cyber-punk pre-apocalyptic  thing called  Rubicon. We even had a premiere at some Art gallery downtown!

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k74LqbrINdw

Then I started writing one of my very favourite films I ever made... it was so different and strange, and even had a romantic subplot.. but it was a very interesting concept: A Beefart and Cheenkaw movie where it was only about their fans. We didn't start actually shooting until June... in the mean time I ran a funding campaign, wrote the script, made props and all sorts of other pre production fun. I hired two of the people from the previous year's Christmas special to be the leads.. and they were absolutely perfect!

We went to that year's Comic convention with hopes to get people interested in this new film. But I had a really bad time there, and was generally having a really bad time with my mental health, which was only going to get worse over the next few years.. to my delight. I had previously been diagnosed with something called Pure-OCD, as well as PSTD and depression... and it was coming back full force. I was also having problems with my work and home life and was generally a mess. 

We entered a 24 hour film festival that was to be presented at the comic convention... our entry didn't even get shown. It was an embarrassment.. It wasn't a bad film though.. here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6BDIT98gww

In the midst of my fun mental health crisis I made what I still consider to be my best album... very dark, and very good. Patterns was an album about how it's impossible to break the patterns set up in your life no matter how hard you try.. A pretty bleak outlook, but as I said I wasn't at my best.

Along with Patterns I released Light Patterns, which was an album of demos and stripped down versions of the songs on the main record... it was actually pretty good too.

Then we finally started filming Imitative Magic! It was actually a really good time shooting, and the people were great. I had my friend Neil behind the camera, and it made it a lot more fun for me to direct. I also met Randolph and Chengis, who I would make movies with for years to come!

Imitative Magic would go on to be our most popular film ever (as of 2021 any way) It was a lot of fun.

It was finished and available for sale, but wouldn't be released for free to the public until Valentine's Day 2016. 

The last important thing that happened this year was the recording and release of another fantastic album by me and Terence! EO-Free Clinic was birthed, and made people happy and sick all over the planet.

SC Entertainment History - 2014

 The first part of 2014 was dedicated to working on the very exciting Dorriss Doom cartoon. Which in turn was also reigniting my love of my old comic heroes and making comics!

 Another wildly silly and different kind of thing we did this year was to make a 9 part weekly radio drama about Beefart and Cheenkaw, it was played Monday nights on CJSW. The whole thing was completely improvised by me and Terence... It's ridiculous, to the max. http://www.scentertainment.ca/2014/03/beefart-cheenkaw-sinister-co-co.html

I released a 10 record set of SC Entertainment film music. It is honestly one of the most useful things I have done, and I continually go back to these volumes to grab some SC music for various productions. 

https://scentertainment.bandcamp.com/

We went to the Calgary Entertainment Expo this year wil hopes to sell the new Dorriss Doom DVD. We were also asked to have a screening of World of the Uncanny, and then at the last moment we were also asked to show Dorriss Doom. The world of the Uncanny screening was less than eventful, with very few people attending, but the Dorriss Doom screening was packed, and people got very excited! To the point where kids were asking for my autograph and buying all out copies of the DVD. It was maybe the most successful Comic con we ever attended. 

Jennifer Hartley even cosplayed at Dorriss Doom at the event. It was a great time.

Meanwhile I had been recording a new fukachuk egg machine record. I hate to say it is mostly forgettable.. for me at least, but there were definitely a few good songs. Street Worms comes to mind.

We did spend a day shooting an interesting video for one of the songs. Our friend Emilia came over and I did a bunch of stop motion animation using her feet and pastries.

By the time the summer had come, I had decided to get back into making comics again, in a serious way. The Nandi Bear Tenants were born, and began a huge sprawling story that continues. I wanted to get it printed properly and beautifully, and sell as many copies as I could, so I started up a successful indiegogo campaign. I worked very hard and released my first 50 page graphic novel. For me it was a huge deal.  people loved it and it was put in the library at the school where I work, where it still is one of the most popular books to get out.

Then I made an album of old coyboy cover songs... I learned a lot about old time cowboys while making it, and I guess that's the point. I was inspired when I was hanging out at an old folks home and there were a couple people there putting on a concert, singing old songs.. one of the songs they sang was comanche, and I got pretty excited.

For my birthday that year the Electric Oinks played live, and it was absolutely awesome.. playing old favourites and new songs.. everyone was disgusted and happy by the end of the show.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOcpk6FNPb24sncp_r-FzXDjzVR6fWXwD

And finally to end the year I thought I should make the ultimate SC Entertainment Holiday special. It has become a tradition to watch it every year, and is a compilation of a bunch of short films hosted by me and Terence. So many exciting short films were made in the last couple months of 2014!

https://youtu.be/90e8qJ9Hkpo