Funny little treat for you!

When prepairing to film a scene or shot, sometimes the director asks the actors to walk through the scene to see how it unfolds, for the benefit of the camera & sound crew.
This process is called “blocking”.

Occasionally, there is tricky camera work and the camera operator needs extra practice.

Actors Will Conlon & Darryl Dinn were asked to walk through their scene slowly… They responded to “slowly” quite literally.

Composer/Performer Adrian Ellis in his studio, during a spotting session with for episode 2x03.

One of my greatest prides about Out With Dad has been its music. I’ve been very fortunate to work with my good friend: composer Adrian Ellis. He’s been scoring Out With Dad since the beginning. I think his work is outstanding.

I’ve also been privileged to have music by a number of talented musical artists who have shared their music, including: Late July, Lara Martin, Dan Beausoleil (vote for him in The Vox Essence Music Competition!) and Trio Arjento. And in February of this year, we were honoured by We Love Soaps with the Independent Soap Award for Outstanding Use of Music.

Since our first season some fantastic musicians have approached me about using their music in our second season. I plan to, because I love their work! I don’t think this is really a spoiler, so I’d like to introduce you to: Tonella Roy from Toronto and Jeryl from New York City. Click on their names, check out their music. You’ll be glad you did.

I’d like to have some more songs! I need several songs for an episode that we’ll be shooting next month (and will premiere in November). How many? Not exactly sure yet. I’ll be using music by some of the artists mentioned above. Maybe we could hear YOUR MUSIC TOO!

Rose & Vanessa's Grade 10 Advanced English Class

This week was a busy week for us! We filmed all day Monday, Wednesday morning and all day Friday. Monday & Friday were our school location shoots. We successfully filmed every school scene for season two. Amazing!

We were hosted by the The 519 Community Centre on Church Street in downtown Toronto. They were super accommodating, such wonderful hosts! Thank you so much for helping us accomplish what we’re doing. The 519 is committed to providing  high  quality  community  programs,  services and accessible public space for the local community, broader LGBTQ communities and the general public. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Very, very important: I want to thank our background actors – many of whom we’d never met before Monday – who came to join us filming.

Thanks in advance to all the cast and crew for today’s exterior film shoot. Weather looks good enough: see you bright and early!
Be sure to check the call sheet for your call time.

P.S. Make sure you have a good breakfast!

Our call for story submissions remains open. I’m still looking for one more (non-fiction) story with a specific tone for an important upcoming scene. The missing story I’m looking for needs to be rather grim. A story that is quite unlike the loving and accepting story Rose has experienced.

Fortunately we still have time on our side, so we can afford to extend this deadline in further.

The original call for story submissions:
http://www.outwithdad.com/making-out/tell-us-your-story

Extended call for story submissions:
http://www.outwithdad.com/making-out/your-story-submissions

Lindsey and I took a moment at the end of our busy production day to record this message regarding the call for submissions.

Do you look like you’re high school age? Are you free on June 13th or June 17th? Maybe you can help the second season production of Out With Dad by participating as one of Rose’s classmates in our two days of filming!

On Monday, June 13th we begin filming 9AM, and will wrap background actors by late afternoon.

On Friday, June 17th we begin filming 9AM, and will wrap background around 7PM.

If you can’t come for the both or full days, that’s okay too. We’ll be shooting several different scenes, so it’s okay if our background cast changes. Minimum, we’d ask that you commit to 4-5hrs.

I’d like to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has submitted a story for consideration to be a part of a second season episode, as requested in this post. Every person that has submitted a story will hear back from me personally in the near future. You haven’t heard from me yet (apart from the automated response), because I’m holding off my replies until after I’ve made my final decisions and we’re ready to lock the script to begin production.

Your stories are all rich, heartfelt and inspiring. I wish I could include them all.

At this time, I think that I know two of the three stories that will be told in our scene. For the third story, I’m still looking for the right “tone” that would proceed Rose telling her own story. The missing story needs to illustrate to Rose, Nathan and our audience an example of the struggles and challenges faced my many growing up LGBTQ or their loved ones. In other words, I’m looking for something rather grim. Rather dark. The ugly side of homophobia.

We want to hear from you.

In an early episode of season two, personal LGBTQ stories will be told.  Some of these stories will be sad, some will be funny and hopefully, some will be inspiring.

I’d like these stories to be real experiences from LGBTQ people, families and friends.  I’d like to ask YOU, the audience, to submit your stories.

It can be about anything.  Such as: how you found out you or a family member is gay, an encounter with homophobia such as bullying or discrimination, some help you’ve found from an unlikely source, your coming out story, your child’s coming out story, why you came out, why you can’t come out.

This post is inspired by a question asked on our Formspring account:

I’ve heard many tips over the years on how to write a good screenplay.  There are hundreds of books on how to do it, many of which are well respected and often recommended.  One thing I have learned about all these tips and tricks I’ve been told: they’re all wrong.  Well, they’re all wrong for me, anyways.  That’s not to say these aren’t excellent tips for someone else.  I’ve come to the conclusion that, if anything, it’s a matter of figuring out what works best for you.  And that can only come from trial and error from loads of practice.

But that’s not what you’re looking to hear is it?  That’s a lame answer.  So I’ll tell you what works for me and what doesn’t work for me.  With any luck some of it might apply for you.

Often I do a first draft in a barebones word processor.  I pay no attention to spelling, grammar, formatting, tense, repeating myself, spelling, grammar or the like.  Just hash it out.  I like having a laptop/netbook/portable computer so that I can work anytime inspiration strikes.  I also always have a notebook with me should I not have the computer.