The Long Drop

I told you all I'd keep you updated on any upcoming blog I'm working on. I've just posted the first in several chapters of my new fictional blog "The Long Drop" If you've enjoyed my writing style, feel free to check it out over at http://longdropstory.blogspot.ca/ 

Hopefully it's to your liking!

For more updates on Lobster inc. remember to check out our facebook page.

Peace

Matt

Day 24: The Journey pt. 3

We never did end up going to sleep yesterday. after we got back we kept talking and joking until 2 am, and by that point, as Mike was planning on being at the airport for 4:30, we decided to just stay up and sleep on the plane.

Brad drove us to the airport.

He's going to be staying here on his own, to try to keep the magic going. He's going to keep following the story and chasing down leads, as well as trying to nail down some government funding. He's got the heart, and the drive to make it happen.

We all do. But I've given it all I can this stint. I've pored more resources into this trip than I can really afford and I took the flight back because if I didn't I'd be stranded here with no money at all in a couple weeks with no way home. I'm not giving up. How could I? This story has become a major passion for me and I intend to see it all the way through, and I'm going to do everything I can on my end to try to make it happen.

Mike feels the same. But he's trying to hold down two jobs as well, so he is needed elsewhere as well.

When we arrived at the airport I gave Brad a hug and wished him good luck. He's taking a massive risk, and betting on himself. I respect that very much.

Once inside the terminal, Mike and I parted ways, planning on seeing each other in a week or two.

I could go into detail about my flight back, but it's really not that entertaining, and not really what I'm here to talk about at all.

What I want to talk about is how amazing this experience was for me. I learned so much about not only the ins and outs of the Lobster Fishing industry, I learnt a lot about myself. I learnt the value of trying something no matter what the consequences are. I learnt how real scallops taste. I learnt how the attitude of one person can change an entire production. I learnt a better work ethic. I learnt that for some reason, over over a hundred people have been reading the posts I've been putting up, God love you all.

My blog may be going on a hiatus until I return to NS (hopefully as soon as possible), but please don't let any intrest in the Lobster industry, or Lobster inc you may have acquired here grow stale. Look into what's happening out here. Pay attention. It all starts here.

Thank you so much for reading every day I put these up, and giving me such great feedback when I needed it most. I feel I've grown a lot by being out here, and this blog has been a big part of that, so thank you.

I also want to thank the many people who allowed us to stay with them/eat there food/let us into their lives. Thank you PJ, Carl, Lucien, Frank, James, Kevin, Vern, Liliana, Dwight, Samaira, Jessie, Sonny, Blaire, Kristien, Stephen, and everyone else who helped us along the way.

It's true what they say. East coasters are the nicest people on earth, without you we'd never be doing what we are.

-Matt

P.S. Totes saw Rex Murphey on my flight.

Day 24: Our Trio's Down to Two

Today opened up with a call to PJ. As probably our most useful contact out here, and the man with which we'd spent the most time with, it was odd that we'd gone all this time without getting a sit-down interview with him, and with Brad on the boat, Mike and I needed to fill our day with shooting ourselves. I had wanted to get a sit-downer with PJ for a while and It was ironic that I had to wait until my director was on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and it I was on my last day in Nova Scotia, before  I finally got to do it.

PJ has a bit of a reputation (some might say deserved) for being hard to rein in. He does offer up ideas and conversation topics faster than almost any other person I've met, and it can be hard to get him to focus on one thing long enough for you to, say, shoot it. I was expecting that that's what I'd be in for on the shoot today, but I was pleasantly surprised, PJ was ready for us when we arrived and took all the direction we gave him very well. We were down a camera, as it was on the boat, but the shot we had of PJ looked great in the natural light of the morning. It was a great way to wrap up shooting.

But in classic PJ fashion, he wasn't going to let us go out the door without giving us a contact to chase down.

And chase it we did.

PJ's contact lead us to "Fisherman's Market" a Lobster buyer/retailer/distributor and we made several contacts there for Brad to chase down in the coming weeks.

We then arrived back in Lower Sackville to offload the rest of our footage from today and the day before, before we made the trip to Wedgeport Warf to pick up brad.

The drive down to the southern tip of NS was easier today, as I fueled my body with copious amounts of Mountain Dew, gamer fuel has never let me down.

We arrived at the harbour to find Brad in one piece, surprisingly alert and well rested and in a great mood. Turns out he's pretty much immune to motion sickness and got some amazing footage that truly is the cherry on top of the sunday that has been our shoot. The drive back was filled with more laughter than we've had in a few days. As Mike remarked, "Boys, life is good."

It is.

This place has been great to us. Tomorrow two of us leave, but only for now.

I'll be back. No question.

I'll sign off for good tomorrow. Not home yet.

-Matt

Day 22 & 23: Dumping Day

This one's a dousie, buckle up.

Monday had arrived, the day we were going to drive down to Wedgeport and finally get out on the ocean. Originally the plan was for all three of us to spend two days on Cpt. Lucien LeBlanc's boat the John Harold, to film him, his crew, and as many of the other 1688 boats in the same waters as we would be as we could. However we soon learned, after our first call of the day to Lucien, that There was only room for one extra on his fishing boat. this meant we had to nominate one of us to go, while the other two shot b-roll for the same two days. We nominated Brad, not a tough decision, as he is the Director, but also not hard because we'd heard many, many tales of how bad seasickness on the Atlantic can get, and I for one, was not down for that.

It wasn't all bad news because as we were soon to discover, there would be some amazing scenery waiting for Mike and I once we got down there, but more on that in a bit.

As for the morning, Brad and I headed into Halifax once again, this time to pickup a Lav Mic, that we'd convinced a local production company (Pink Dog Productions) to let us borrow for a couple days. It took a while to find, but we did eventually. It was nice to meet some fellow media folks with some similar interests (Pink Dog works primarily with not for profit organizations), and the extra mic is a huge bonus.

By the time all that was done it was another hour after we got back before we left for Wedgeport, there was a lot of gear to pack up and Brad had to make sure he was stocked up on every motion sickness remedy he could find in the drug store. the drive ahead was to take around 4 hours, and as Brad was feeling a bit drowsy from the motion sickness patch on his neck, I was to be the driver. Normally that'd be fine, but the drive from Sackville to Wedgeport is pretty much a straight shot on the highway, there's no need to even turn until you reach Wedgeport, and it was dark out, a perfect recipe for a very drowsy Matt Brisby at the wheel. I was fighting the urge to just close my eyes pretty hard, eventually I had to make the others entertain me and keep me engaged in conversation. That seemed to do the trick. By the time we reached the warf Lucien had directed us too, it was about 8 o'clock, and night had fully fallen.

It seems to be an accidental tradition on this journey, that we always arrive in the best parts of the world at night.

Lucien met us at the entrance to the warf (after we'd accidentally driven into about 3 private driveways, and yards, thinking they were the warf) and we quickly loaded our gear onto the small motor boat that would take us to the LeBlanc family private warf and "camp" on a place called Big Tuscant Island. The ride was cold, dark, wet and about 15 minutes long, with waves of salt water pounding us as Lucien piloted our craft to a location unknown to his passengers. Every time a really big wave hit us, we were all sprayed with salt water, (a tast that I still have on my lips after showering just moments ago!). We couldn't see much as the high winds had pushed a lot of cloud cover over the Islands surrounding us, blocking out, for the most part, the glorious full moon that would occasionally peek through the clouds as if to remind us of it's own presence.

Then we pulled into the harbour area (for lack of a better term), which was made up of over a dozen private warfs, sticking out into the low evening tide like small wooden cliffs, each one with one or more 30-40 foot fishing boat, packed to the gunnels with around 400 baited lobster traps, moored to them. We'd heard about how full the boats would be, but these boats exceded our visual expectations. There was not a single square foot of space on the deck of any boat that was not occupied by a trap, excuse me, a stack of traps, usually between 4 and 6 traps high! Ropes were tied all around, weaving in every direction over the traps and the boat itself like the vines on the side of X-mansion (or Wayne Manor if you prefer). The warfs themselves were attached to two separate Islands that ran about 500 meters apart from each other for about a 1 and a half kilometer stretch. At the time it felt like a dark wet street of boats.

As we drove along this stretch in Lucien's motorboat, he pointed out his boat to us, the boat his father had bought in 1981, the John Harold. It was on the smaller side of the boats docked, but not the smallest by far, probably about 32 feet long, this proud old, white vessel was packed just like the others, but with one difference; one of the bunks below deck bunks was going to be filled with some 23 year old from Ontario, who'd never been on a boat before, trying to work a camera and probably puke his guts out at the same time.

Lucien docked us next to the John Harold and we climbed up the retractable ramp (has to be to deal with the massive tides) until we were finally on the warf itself. Once up there I got a much better view of my surroundings. Each one of the warfs I'd seen on my ride in (with the exception of one) was connected in some for or another to a small cottage, or "camp" where the fishermen could eat, sleep and prepare to go out on the water. None of the camps were large, the largest probably being the size of a greyhound bus, but each one has running water (though not drinkable), Heat (via wood stoves) and electricity. These camps are usually "staffed" with a cook in each of them, usually a relative (most of the time female) during the days in the season when the fishermen are due to come back. After a rough two days at sea, with little to no sleep, and mediocre at best sustenance, the last thing any fishermen wants is to have to try to cook a meal (also I'd say most of them can't cook very well at the best of times).

These cooks and the camps they reside in on, not only the Tuscant Islands, but many other islands in the area, play a vital role in the livelihoods of the fishermen who have access to them. It saves most captains and their crew a lot of time to have their own warf about an hour away from the nearest major port. It makes them closer to their fishing grounds than most of their competitors. They also get a head start on dumping day because they're already so far out.

It's also really, really cool.

Lucien took us from the warf into his camp, telling us to be careful not to wake his crew, as they had worked extremely hard that day and would all be getting up at 5 am to get a head start on what would be an extremely hard haul and they obviously needed all the rest they could get. Lucien himself needed rest, he told us as we entered that, "I hope you won't think I'm tired but I'm tired as all hell, so I'll be going to bed, like, now." We certainly didn't begrudge him of that. How could you? The man's been working like the dickens for a week straight, and he's about to work even harder! Go for it Lucien, sleep all you can. The inside of the camp was tight, it had a mud room as you entered, filled with the coats and waterproof, winterized, very used bodysuits of the crewmen, and the water heater. There was also a small bathroom, with a tiny shower, a decent sized kitchen, a small living room (Complete with crystal clear satellite TV! Don't ask me how that works, my phone stopped having reception hours before) as well as a flight of steep stairs that lead up to a room full of bunks and a cook's bedroom on the bottom floor.

Once inside we were introduced to the John Harold's cook. None other than Lucien's father, former captain of the aforementioned seafaring vessel, Kevin LeBlanc. Kevin is a great guy to be around. He and his family have been around fishing boats their entire lives, and have been involved in not only fishing on them but also building and repairing boats, the warfs they dock at and the camps they call their own. Kevin is a man full of stories, like Carl, but much more wholesome, Kevin spun yarns of the days when his father and grandfather and brothers all fished from the island we were standing on, which even in the dark looked majestic. We talked with Kevin long after Lucien had gone to bed, and even after Kevin had gone to his room to sleep, we stayed up helping brad come up with ideas for shot to get on the boat, in between bouts of hurling, obviously. Then at around 9:30 we snuck up stairs to bed. I found a top bunk right next to the stairs and as I was lying there listening to the wind roaring around this tiny little cottage I thought about how wild it was that I was where I was, how far this journey had taken me, and how glad I was that I wasn't the one going on a fishing boat for 48 hours.

* * *

The next morning I awoke to the sound and smell of cooking bacon wafting up the stairs mixed with the ever-present aroma of salt water and fish. It definitely wasn't the light that woke me, it was still dark, because I was up slightly early at quarter to five. I mean, only early relative to the crew, Kevin had been up since 4 and Mike had gotten up at 2 to film the moon and the boats sitting ready in the warfs. But soon enough Brad and Lucien's crew were up and mowing down the awesome breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, fish cakes (fried mash potato, onions and haddok in pan fried pucks the size of an english muffin), orange juice, fresh coffee (a highlight of any morning), OJ and buttered english muffins. It was awesome. I ate it this morning, and I want to eat in again right now. 

Once we ate, Dumping day began.

At  twenty to six we joined the crew as they headed down to the warf to prep the boat as much as they could so that they could be one of the fist ones out of the gate at 6 am, the time at which you are permitted to leave your warf, (any earlier and you could face hefty fines). Mike was manning his camera while I scouted the area for different shots and helped brad get his gear onto the boat. It was very cold, I again was thankfully I was not going on the boat, because after 5 minutes after being outside, it became painfully obvious to me that thin cloth sneakers were not ideal oceaneering footwear. however the rest of me was kept warm as I had several layers on, as well as gloves a hat and a scarf I found in the car. 

Then came the moment when we said our goodbyes to Brad as he stepped onto the boat the final time, he looked excited, but excited in the way that, he's trying to burry his nerves in excitement. We wished him well, told him to stay safe and headed to the furthest warf toward the open ocean and set up our camera. The stuff we got was hauntingly beautiful, the full moon was shining a bright yellow, having shaken the clouds that had been strangling it mere hours before, and the wind had died down to almost nothing leaving the water inside the cove glassy and flat, disturbed only by the boats that powered their way through it, laden heavy with empty Lobster pots. We watched all the boats go out from the harbour, we could even see the lights of the boats leaving from Pubnico, and Wedgeport in the distance. I was struck by how big of an operation it was, 1688 plus boats all heading out to the same water, all at once, all in the dark, with edgy, motivated crew members and their livelihoods on the line.

All to drag some bug off the ocean floor.

After we watched the boats leave, we took some time to offload the footage we just shot, whilst setting up the camera to get a time-lapse shot of the sunrise that broke cleanly over the treetops of a far off point of Big Tuscant Island. Inside, Kevin told us many more stories and factoids and we decided to put it all on camera, and interviewed him about his life, his son's profession and this weird red invertebrate that has spawned entire industries. 

As the sun came up and daylight kissed the land around us it became abundantly clear just how beautiful the place we were standing was. The sea stretched out infront of us, wild and untamed, smashing into the rock that was the Island we were on. The grass was long, windswept and soft as moss. The only sound to be heard out there is the wind and the sea. It's a loud silence that makes you stop in your tracks and marvel at your surroundings. It was so different than anywhere I've ever been in my life before. I could have stayed there for years. 

Kevin was going to be our ride to the mainland again, but just like Carl and PJ before him, before he let us go, he had some things to show us. We were more than glad to see them. First was a trip across the gap between warfs to meet Kevin's neighbour, Vincent, an 81 year old who had literally been born in a light house on an island, and his wife of 63 years, Pauline, who was cooking for their son his crew, a captain like Lucien and his crew. Vincent was funny and Pauline was lovely and offered us delicious cookies. 

After those two Kevin took us in the motorboat (aptly named the Ho-bo Go-Go) around all the neighboring islands, they all had awesome names like Mud Island, Strawberry Island, Sheep Island, and each one had a history behind them, some had been old fishing spots, others had been Native burial sites, one even had a church on it. Just a church. Must be quite the commute on sunday mornings. 

He pointed out light houses and shanties and shacks and warfs he'd help build. He then took us to the other cottage that His family owned, also very small, this one lacked both power and running water, but it had a view that I can't even hope to try to describe. It was probably the prettiest thing I've ever seen.

Once we got to the mainland Kevin took us around in his truck showing us his family's homes, the boat building plant that he and his brothers had owned until very recently as well as his own home and the immense shed he'd built himself (he was keen on showing us all the amazing things he'd built) which housed the biggest collection of hand restored axes and hammers I've ever seen, a hobby he'd picked up after he stopped fishing in 1999 and passed his boat on to, first another captain for a few years, but then his son in 2007. Each tool was not only restored to it's full former glory, but each was engraved with an individual carving, or burning. It was really cool and I wish I took pictures of it.

Finally we parted ways with Kevin and began the long road back to Lower Sackville, stopping along the way to get b-roll of Digby and Bedford.

It's been a long day and a lot happened, tomorrow we'll be doing more shooting as well as picking brad up from the warf in Wedgeport at 8, hopefully he's still in one piece.

Ah, it feels good to shoot again.

-Matt

P.S. Kevin reminds me of an Acadian version of my dad... who's built more boats.  

Days 18 - 22: Arrivals and Departures

Wednesday Morning found us preparing for a meeting with Jana Mcgreggor, an independent marketing consultant who PJ had introduced us to. It was our second meeting with someone from a more business perspective in two days, and I for one was a little apprehensive. Our meeting with Paul the day before had been really informative, but for me it had been a little discouraging to see just how far we'd have to go, and how little we have to do it with. However my nerves were calmed significantly during the meeting as Jana proved, to be not only knowledgeable about what our needs are, but also came with a much more positive attitude. I know that Brad and Myles hadn't been perturbed by Paul's message the day before, but it had kind of gotten to me, and I don't know why, but for me, Jana gave me back a little of the motivation that I lost the day before.

After the meeting that morning we went back to Myles' Mom's house and did some editing before making the journey to Halifax that evening. There were two things we needed to accomplish there, the first was simply attending a concert that Myles was going to take pictures of for a magazine, the other was picking up our Director of Photography, and fourth member, Mike Zakrzewski from the airport. Mike's flight was supposed to get in at around midnight, and Myles' concert was going to take place at around 6 so the concert was the first thing we went to.

The venue was a place called "The Pavilion" which is basically a small box of a building in the middle of a park, that seems to be in place solely to provide a space for local musicians to play all ages gigs with ease. It resembled many of the venues that I went to see shows at in high school, a smallish back room, with almost as many people standing outside waiting for the band they wanted to see most perform, as there are people inside. The music was raw and heavy hardcore rock, very much in my wheel house, but Brad, being an old man at heart, was really not into the drop d tuning, breakdowns, screaming and the aggressive thrashing of the audience. So upon his insistance, we left Myles to his photography and found a small pub where we could have a pint, watch The Raptors, and flirt with the bar maids (they didn't seem to mind).

After the concert was over we left for the airport and waited around for about an hour after we found out his flight was delayed. We spent the time wandering around the Halifax airport at 1 am, a weird experience, as everyone you see at any airport at that time (when all the over-priced stores and restaurants are closed) looks like death warmed over, passed out on benches and at tables, looking like all they want most in the world is for someone to tell them that it'll all be ok in the end. A bit macabre, but that was what was going through my head.

But after a while Mike finally arrived. Telling us tales of his work at CTV, courtroom drama, and some Baseball trade that everyone in Ontario seems excited about (It's hard to really follow sports when you don't always have access to a TV or the internet). Mike was part of the first expedition made out here, Brad and Myles and Mike came out here in July and found out about this crazy tale we're trying to uncover, and he wanted to be with us for this adventure, but sometimes work can make following your passions a little bit more difficult. Mike's commitment to this project is tremendous and the skills and experience he brings to the table are going to be invaluable as both him and I face our last week (for him I guess his only) week out in beautiful Nova Scotia.


That's right, it's my last week. I've booked a flight back for the 29th. As much as I want to stay longer, like Brad is planning to do, I don't have the means to support myself for very much longer, So I'm coming back while I can still afford to. Brad's plan is to stay and try to secure funding, as well as for those of us back home to get a crowd funding campaign together for us to come back again very soon.

But more about that on a later date.


Mike kept us entertained all night long with stories, jokes, great conversation and music, while we briefed him on everything that'd happened to us, and all the new facts we've discovered this time around (and when I say all night, I mean that we ended up going to bed when it was daylight again). Mike was in our class at Conestoga, and seeing him again brought back memories of all the great times we shared, and It's always great to see someone after a long time apart so you can hardly be surprised we didn't go to sleep until our bodies completely shut down.

After we awoke (after not nearly enough sleep) we set out for Middleton and Myles' Grammy Jessie's house again, not only had we promised we'd return before we left, but Jessie had made chowder that night, an incentive if I've ever heard one. We ate the delicious Chowder and stayed the night, because we had an appointment tomorrow morning at Myles' old middle school to announce the winner of a contest that the others had started last time they were out here. The contest was to deign the cover of the DVD case for Lobster inc and the contestants were all grade 6 through 8 students at Myles' former school.

The next day when we went into the school, I had a lot of flashbacks to my own schooling, and remarked that I never thought I'd be back in a Grade 7 math class, but that on the whole it wasn't that surprising that I was. We announced a winner and a runner up and stuck around for some Q & A with the students and teachers, but within an hour we had left. the rest of the afternoon was spent playing basketball with Myles' little brother Ryan out in the driveway, and all three of us who were playing with him (Myles had chosen to abstain) realizing just how out of shape we really are (very).

That day was also Myles' last day with us before leaving for his brothers wedding in Cuba. Luckily, even though he may be gone, his mom and stepdad have offered us their basement to stay in for as long as we need it. Honestly the generosity of the people out here is mind blowing, and we're forever grateful to those who've agreed to not only put up with us, but to feed us as well. Seriously, if you're ever traveling to the east coast, don't pay for a hotel, just meet some locals, the rooms may be smaller, but the service and food are infinitely better. Myles has been with us all month and without him it would have been a lot harder to do things with only two people, good thing we've got Mike.

I've talked a lot about how we're editing and researching mostly lately, and that's definitely true, but tomorrow we're going to be back in the saddle again. We're going back to Lucien's pad, and he's taking us on a lobster boat. Finally, after a month of making a documentary about fishing, we're actually going to go. We're pretty excited to finally get back to shooting, it's really what we came here to do, and all the business work, and editing, and research is important, but at our core, we're all cinematographers, and sitting on the edge of these beautiful shores and not being able to point a camera at it was always somewhat unsetting.

But for tonight, we're going to work on our crowd funding campaign, and maybe find somewhere to watch the Grey Cup.

Go Argos.

-Matt

P.S. GO COLTS! #chuckstrong

Days 15-17: Incorporating Corporation

Editing takes up our entire days now, from wake up to sleep time, Brad is primarily the one working on the trailer and he's putting in a tremendous amount of time, leaving the research and organization of shoot dates, to me and Myles. Some days we don't even leave the "office" we've constructed in Myles' Mom's basement (which we've moved around and re-jigged since it's original construction). This all means that anytime we have a reason to go out into the real world, it's actually fairly unsettling. At least for me, because I tend to acclimatize myself to indoor life a little too much if left unsupervised.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a house cat that doesn't know what to do with itself if you let it outside.

One of these outdoor excursions happened on Sunday when PJ called us down to his home, as has become a bi-weekly occurrence, but this time to film a pitch video for the CBDC, a governing municipal body that gives entrepreneurial grants to small businesses. In typical PJ fashion he called us down with only a vague Idea of what he wanted from the video, and the assumption that editing a 5 minute pitch video and throwing it up on youtube would be insanely quick and easy. It might have been if PJ and the other two CAL inc. board members hadn't talked on Camera for about 45 minutes...

But PJ has become a friend to us so we decided to do the best we could for him, and edited the video down to a lean 18 minutes, and sent it off, albeit a little later than PJ had wanted it, but was much higher quality than it would have been if we followed PJ's suggestion of "Just do it on an iPhone, it'll be fine."

We capped off that Sunday with a long overdue viewing of Anchorman and an episode of Doctor Who, which, if your wondering, is a great combination.

The next day found us working hard all day editing and planning for our meeting with a small buisness consultant the following day. We were inside working so long that by the time 8 o'clock rolled around we'd been working for about 16 hours straight, so we decided to just go for a drive. To wherever the wind would take us! Well, so long as the wind took us to somewhere with a hot meal and maybe a nice cold beverage to go with it.

"The Wind" ended up taking us to downtown Halifax, where we spent about an hour walking around in search of the harbour, which is much easier to find than we made it. We kind of had this vague idea of heading towards "The Ocean" but the end goal, being not established, wasn't a primary concern. We instead were taking joy in the simple act of stretching one's legs outdoors in a beautiful city on a peaceful monday night. We made jokes and laughed loudly into the mostly empty streets of the harbour front.

I visited this part of Halifax six years ago with my family, it was a hot day and we arrived, spontaneously into the middle of a massive Busker's festival, featuring musicians, acrobats, jugglers, magicians and more. It was a very bright and bustling atmosphere with the smell of freshly made fish 'n chips, beaver tails and hot dogs wafting over you as you walked along taking in the various performances, It's where I played the then new Xbox 360 for the first time (I don't know why they were demoing it at a street performance festival), and we all spent time climbing all over the playground that's shaped like a boat. There's also a life size version of Theodore the Tugboat you can look at. It's one of the days I remember most from any of our vacations as a family, it's the memory that's always made me want to go back to Halifax.

And there I was. Standing on the same spot the tightrope walker had done his act six years before, looking over at Theodore Tugboat and the playground shaped like a boat!

I was able to recall everything, yet it seemed so long ago that I'd been here last. I wasn't even in high school yet. It's strange to think how much life can change in six years. I was looking at it all through a fresh set of eyes, the eyes of a 20 year old film maker, not a 14 year old still scared about what high school will bring his way.

My sentiment was somewhat lost on the others, who, instead of being distracted by the facets of my childhood, found a pub on the edge of the warf, where we sat down, ate some more delicious seafood, and shared a pitcher of "The Pride of Nova Scotia" (Keith's). After much merriment and exuberance, and with our bellies truly full, we made the journey back to the car, remarking loudly about how wonderful a city Halifax was, and how great it would be if we could just get the funds together to start a production company out here.

The Barenaked Ladies provided the soundtrack to our return journey from Halifax, which found me in the drivers seat, because not only had I not had more than one glass of Lager (with a meal, over an hour before, for your information mother),  but also because, without his glasses Brad can hardly see at night at all, so it would be unwise to put him in the driver's seat.

That all brings us to today. Where this vague idea of forming a production company reared it's ugly head of specifics. We met with Paul Beasant, a small business adviser at the New World Merchant Bank, a company that finds financial solutions for start ups and entrepreneurs, at a coffee shop in Bedford. He told us how specifically one actually becomes a company and what has to be done from a legal perspective (well, he told us that we'd have to see a lawyer),  as well as different financial grants and small business loans and such. It was clear before we even went in there that incorporating ourselves was going to have to be a step we'd take eventually, even just to apply for any government funding, funnily enough no one wants to just give three random 20-somethings 30 grand, couldn't tell you why. It became even clearer to me as I was sitting there that we were only just now getting to the things we should have done before we left, you know, like make a business plan.

But that's kind of the beauty of what we're doing; We dont know what we're doing.

We're so indie, we're actually unsure how to make an indie film. Because as it turns out there's a heck of a lot of money that goes into even the lowest budget movies, and it's not easy to come by. But that's not going to stop us telling this story. It just might make it a little interesting.


Acquire experiences, not possessions.

-Matt

Days 12-14: The Work Continues

The last few days have been full of work, we've been editing, lining up shoots and going to meetings. Everyday begins at around 10:00 with a cup of coffee and some disgruntled moaning and ends at around midnight with some jokes and usually an episode of Doctor Who. We haven't really gotten out too much, as our shoot isn't scheduled to begin until next week and we're too short on cash to really go experience the Halifax nightlife that we've heard so much about. But that's fine, the work in and of itself is difficult, long, tedious, but rewarding, the few things we've cut together look better than we expected and that's strengthened our resolve to get this thing done right, by whatever means necessary.

One of the things we've discussed is the probability of starting a production company out here. A big step, but not an unwise one, Halifax/Nova Scotia/ Maritime based production companies are fewer and further between than the more saturated markets of Kitchener/Waterloo and the GTA. So right there it gives us an opportunity to really carve out a living if we chose to do so. We would definitely like to.

In the upcoming days we will be helping PJ make a couple videos to promote his business (CAL inc.), he then in turn will supply us with the resources to stay on out here longer. Hopefully in the next few days, we will also be getting over this cold that we've all caught. That would be great.

Get well, then save the lobster industry.

How hard can it be?

-Matt

Day 10 & 11: Office Space

With our office space in Myles' mom, Samara's basement carved out we've spent the last two days working pretty hard in it. Our general proposal to show to potential investors is done and sent to the agent PJ has hooked us up with, although we may have forgotten to take some of our crude jokes to one another out of the Google Doc. So we had to send a bit of a retraction on that until we could make sure we had taken all the instances of the words "fart" and "nipples" amongst others out of our very professional (I swear)  proposal.

We have been spending a lot of time in very close quarters with each other. We've been pretty much sitting at our computers working on all the things that require our attention from the time we wake up until we go to bed, it's long hours, only punctuated by the occasional trip to the comic book store, the pub, and the photography store. But at least we have Samara's cats and her hilarious dog Stevie to keep us company. Stevie is probably the funniest dog I've ever been around, at any moment he can just do something that will make you loose your seat from laughing so hard. So that's good.

I've been working on putting together a little behind the scenes video to go on our newly minted facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/lobsterincmovie) to hopefully give people a bit of a peak into the truly indie spirit and technology we've employed in our shoots so far.

Tomorrow we'll be working hard on setting up a network so we can all work with the same footage all the time, which will speed up production considerably, as well as shifting our focus exclusively to cutting a brand spanking new trailer which not only will look better, but more accurately portrat the ideas of the story we're trying to present, which our current trailer does not (There's a link to the old trailer in my first post if you're curious). We'll also be meeting again with PJ to go over our business plan.

Hopefully there will be some more crazy adventures soon. But then again this whole thing is a crazy adventure.

A1

-Matt

P.S. If you're a comic reader and haven't picked up Batman #14 yet, get your act together.

Day 8 & 9: Trading Spaces

Monday morning found us once again in Grammy's house. So we spent the day planning and budgeting and off loading the hours of footage we've taken from around Nova Scotia. The plan was to meet with PJ that night when we made the journey to Myles' mom's house in Lower Sackville, very close to Halifax. So we worked on our proposal for getting short term funding from PJ to get us to the end of the month, because going home on Wednesday as planned is out of the question. We're not going anywhere, not if we can help it.

I did research on James Mood and the 1688, to provide more information to us when we go back and interview him personally. It's always a good idea to do some back to someone after reading up on their history, and James Mood's 1688 has quite a history to say the least.

After out proposal was done we headed to Lower Sackville, but on the road got a call from PJ saying that the next morning would be a better time to meet, we were pretty ok with this as we had wanted to see the new James Bond movie for a while and this would give us some free time to do so. Before we went to the theatre though we stopped by a grocery store in Halifax to meet Myles' 17 year old sister, Marissa. We introduced ourselves and then headed to the theatre, killing time before the show with some arcade games. Skyfall wasn't bad, Brad hated it. We then got to Myles' mom's house and hung out in the basement before going to bed.

The next morning we headed out, (after some confusion as to when we were supposed to) to PJ's house in Halifax and met with him and his marketing guy Harm Geurs. Together we worked out a plan for going forward. That plan is to spend this week editing some promotional video, a trailer and crafting proposals to go after funding, because we're going to need a pretty hefty bunch of cash to go after this story for real, and you can't get money without doing some serious leg work. That's what our next week is focused on, business. We're probably going to form an actual production company as well to handle any incoming revenue anyway.

We're looking at apartments.

I think I'm going to end up moving out here.

I'd be pretty ok with that, it's a heck of a place, and I could definitely see my self living out here, the ocean always just minutes away, the people are nice, I found a comic book store, pretty much everything one could want.

After the meeting with PJ we picked up an extra Macbook from an electronics store to edit on this week  (we already have 2 but this one allows all three of us to be working at the same time) the plan is to take it back to the store in less than 30 days and get our money back, so that we can buy a computer with the funds we're hoping to get, which means we can get a better computer. We need this third one only temporarily is what I'm getting at I guess.

The inside jokes that have formed between the three of us are getting ridiculous, we don't even have to say punchlines anymore, the set up alone is funny.... it's a dangerous comedy game, because now everyone else thinks we're crazy because we die laughing every time one of us says something as simple as "listen....listen...listen..." What does that even mean? Why is that funny? What's going on?


After the laptop "purchase" we organized a corner of the basement into an office sort of space, and it actually looks pretty cool and as it turns out, quite practical. So that's where I am now, typing on our borrowed computer, trying to get my iTunes to work, and downloading editing software. We're going to be editing all week, so there may be fewer crazy adventures for a little while, but when you're around  the people I am, there's never not going to be anything to talk about.

Take 'er easy, take 'er often.

-Matt

Day 6 & 7: Running, Gunning and the Big Picture

Saturday had arrived upon us. The day we've been waiting for all week, because it was the day that we knew we would have some time off. We've been shooting pretty intensively all week as well as constantly talking over the project until the early hours of the morning everyday. We've had such jam packed days with PJ around because of the incredible speed and enthusiasm, he took us places we had no idea existed, and introduced us the people we never would have met, and it's been an incredible experience the whole way through, but it left us with no time or opportunity to step back, look at what we're doing with clear, well rested, heads and make some progress, plans and decisions. In short, we needed to take a break from production and start our pre-production.

It's weird because normally one does all the things we still had to do (budget, shot list, schedule, structure possible story ideas, research, etc.) well in advance of just showing up somewhere. But not us. Instead we were doing a practical fact finding mission in unfamiliar territory, but then also filming it.

All week we've been wrestling with how we would present this project, a documentary as planned, a TV series, a web series, made for TV documentary... we could do so many things with a story like the one we'd uncovered and we were largely undecided and in the dark about our own plans because we'd been so sleep deprived and busy shooting that we just never had an opportunity to sit down, just the three of us, and have one, single production meeting.

God bless PJ, he's given us so much, and moving forward, he's going to be a massive part of the project, and very intimately involved, however he was throwing a lot at us very quickly. That's how he works, a hundred miles an hour which is awesome, and just what we need, it's just something we're not used to yet. I mean hey, we did just meet the guy this week. How can you anticipate anyone's reaction or next move on a professional level after only 2 days? And on almost no sleep, no less.

This all meant that we were looking forward to saturday evening, a time to decompress, discuss and cut loose a little bit. But before we could do any of that PJ had a couple places he wanted to take us, so we thanked Lilly-Anna for her help hospitality, promised we'd return and hit the road, following PJ to an acadian town named Dennis Point, which was a little over an hour away. Once we got there he introduced us to a man named Vernon D'eon. Vernon was the man behind the manufacturing of Lobster Plugs, which are small wooden pins, which were inserted into the membrane of a caught lobster's claw, to stop it from opening. More recently these plugs have been replaced by simple and more cost effective rubber bands, wrapped around a lobster's claw. Since the plugs are now no longer in use, Vernon, among other things, owns a Lobster restaurant, named eloquently enough, the Dennis Point Cafe. While there Vernon showed us an 11 pound lobster that he'd bought to cook for a special occasion he had coming up. An 11 pound lobster is massive. Most lobsters you see in a grocery store are between 1.5- 4 pounds. This one was a sea monster.  He also showed us a 5 pound lobster and even cooked it for us. We also had some of the Cafe's famous Hot Lobster Sandwiches, which will forever be one of the best things I have ever eaten OH MAN! It was so good, if you're ever in Acadia, or Nova Scotia in general, make your way to the Dennis Point Cafe and have a Hot Lobster Sandwich, it will make you rethink everything else you've ever eaten.

Vernon himself turned out to be an amazing interview, with knowledge of the Lobster fishing community going back to the 60's he talked for alost an hour about how tings are changing, not just for the fishermen, but the province as a whole. He also informed us about the many different ways to measure the quality of a lobster and the state of the lobster population as a whole (spoiler: there's a lot of lobsters), but as always, eventually it was time to move on from the Denis Point Cafe, and head to PJ's next destination, a lobster holding facility in Wedgeport, named (oddly enough) Wedgeport Lobster. There we got some great footage as well and saw the different methods buyers use to keep the caught lobster that were purchased from the fishermen on the dock nice and fresh for as long as possible. It turns out this is not easy, as lobster are not only extremely susceptible to becoming diseased, but are also cannibalistic, not an image one normally associates with this particular crustacean.

Then after a short trip to buy some extra hard drives we finally parted ways, if only for a few days, with PJ and headed back to Carl's house in Digby, to fetch the memory cards that Myles had forgotten there. It was great to see Carl again, and even better to see him sober! Carl proved once again that he was more than some random guy to us, he's our guru, basically a loud mouthed bearded Buddha, who we see very little of, but challenges us to consider more than we had thought too whenever we do.

After that we back to Myles' grammy's house, and ended up going to see a few friends of his from high school, a welcome break from the constant lobster talk we'd been partaking in all week.

Today has been referred to as our organizational day all week, and though it took us a while to get started, that's what we did. Our ducks are firmly in a row and we now have an action plan to get the funding that we need do this project any kind of justice. We also know how much funding we need, which is also key I've found. We pretty much went over all of our nitty gritty today, gear costs, living costs, long term and short term plans and much more, tomorrow we will be doing much of the same, it's incredibly important, but not that exciting to write about. It was all basically "office" work today, and will be much the same tomorrow. I can't say much, as we haven't made anything public yet, but I'm excited for the possibilities and I feel confident as of right now that we can meet the goals we've set for ourselves, in both the short and long term contexts.

We're making a film.

Film is a business.

We've finally started to treat this one like it deserves.

-Matt

P.S. We will probably go see Skyfall tomorrow, no one ruin it for me.

Day 5: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Carl told us we were on the cusp of something big. We thought we had something on the drive out. Everyday here we've grown more and more convinced that this is a long term project. Today we started to quantify those feelings.

What we've got here isn't a ten day shoot. It's gonna have to be a lot longer than that. We're going to have to find a place. We're going to have to roll the dice. We're putting our cards on the table and going all in.

The story we've uncovered is beyond what we thought we would find, and we're the only outfit in town.


We had planned to wake up earlier today than normal. We were aiming for 8, but when you factor in how late we stay up talking/blogging and the fact that the Stagecoach Inn, where we're staying, has amazingly comfortable beds... we woke up at 10:30. But when we got up we found that PJ had pretty much our whole day planned out for us. That's the awesome thing about PJ, he's got an incredible entrepreneurial spirit, at the mere mention or an idea or concept, he's on his phone, texting and calling and setting up an interview with someone, this particular time it was an extremely well informed deck hand named bailey and the municipal tourism promotions manager who were in our kitchen before we even know they were coming, and we got a great interview out of it. PJ's got an insane network, and he's behind us and our idea one hundred percent. It's awesome that the's got such an insatiable passion to see the lobster industry grow and change to help the communities that are really struggling.

And he knows about struggling communities.

Because after our interview with Bailey, PJ had us get into a van with our gear and the woman who runs The Stagecoach Inn, Lilly-Anna, who drove us to down the road to Clarks Harbor. Clarks Harbor is not only PJ's hometown, but the hometown of his family going back generations. He started telling us about the town as we drove into this picturesque location. So we rolled on him. He told us every story about the town as we got out and explored it's warf, streets and shoreline. He explained how the only boats in the warf were lobster boats. He told us how lobster alone sustained this small town for generations, and with all the fishermen leaving (for various reasons, I don't want to spoil the show for you) the town had shrunk. Their convenience store is gone, the town's amazing b&b is gone, the movie theatre and parlour his family once owned is gone, even the elementary school is gone. It's all slipping away, leaving the only businesses left here being lobster buyers and a bait shop. Because the only industry in that whole town is lobster, and it's not providing enough for these fishermen anymore, so they leave, so the town shrinks, and shrinks until there'll be nothing left.

It was a great morning of shooting, getting to know everything about PJ's backstory and his family and the home they made for themselves that's largely been sold off to the highest bidder. We got great footage too.

PJ then took us to dinner, and along the way we met more people, got more contact information and ended up having dinner with James Mood and his right hand man at 1688, Steven. But of course we had thought this was a dinner run, and we didn't have our cameras. But it was still a great conversation and we learned a lot about what James Mood is actually like, and what his viewpoints are.  He wants to get the price per pound of lobster from the buyers to 5 dollars per pound and to do that he says he needs to unite the fishermen. But beyond that.... I don't know what his plans are, I don't think anyone knows exactly what he'd do if he managed to unite the fishermen under his 1688 banner, other than call for a strike, which could work, but from what we've seen and heard at the 1688 meeting tonight and the night before, he doesn't have much of a plan to win back many of the fishermen he's alienated with his extreme and brash viewpoints and conduct. But his heart is in the right place, and what he's asking and proposing is not an invalid option, if it were successfully implemented it could very well sustain many in the community who would not be able to with out a buying price increase. He's a tough man to read. I'm still not quite sure what to make of him. He's very passionate, that much I can say for sure, and the meeting we just filmed is proof positive of that in more ways than one.

The meeting was rowdy at times with PJ clashing heads with one of the boat captains and James Mood, for merely suggesting trying to work with the buyers. He then spoke about how the internet changes business and even made me speak up in a room full of mostly old, grisled fishermen, why the internet matters to the world.

I had to explain the internet's importance to a large group of people, in 2012.

Needless to say it was eventful, i could go on for a long time about it, but it's late and I must move on.

After all this we got back to the inn and after attempting to define PJ's and Lobster.ca/CAL's involvement in our project, Lobster Inc. it became clear to us that this is no short term project, this is no DIY home movie, it's a real project that if we're going to do it right, will probably take about 8 months of work to do. That's a real amount of time, for an incredibly real project. We need real money. So we've devised a plan to try to find some funds, and once we've outlined our objectives and put together som proposals and presentations we'll be hunting funding down, for cost of the film, and also the cost of sustain ourselves (Mom, that means making money, in film). Tomorrow we'll be doing some filming that we've already scheduled as we try to get our ducks in a row in the next week. You will all be hearing more about these efforts as they develop. But the point is that this just got real, and we may have bitten off a lot here, but that means we need to just chew harder. We're chasing a story and a dream, and we're not leaving until we've caught them both.

It's time to rock out, with the docks about.

Down.

Set.

Hut.

-Matt

P.S. I just want to thank everyone for reading, I've had over 300 total page views on here and that's all you, I love hearing feedback and your reactions to what we're doing, feel free to tweet at me (@brisbianajones)  and follow my exploits on facebook. I also want to say a quick Hi to Ben, Hannah, Phillip, Mom and Dad who I know are reading these. I miss you all very much.

Day 4: Chasing Tale

This being the second day of shooting on our documentary it's becoming incredibly clear to me that a lot can happen in one day here in Nova Scotia so don't expect a short read from me, especially on a day like today.

We came with a story in mind, today was the day we started to find our characters.

The morning started us off at Carl's house in Digby, where we had stayed the night before. The plan was to go out into the community nearby and shoot some b-roll, or stock footage of local warfs, boats and seasides, later to be used to bridge the gap between interview shots or set a specific tone in the editing room. Basically, we were looking to capture a small taste of the local culture. The plan was to do this for an hour or two and then be in Wedgeport, to interview a young lobster boat captain named Lucien, and then stick around for the 1688 metting in the Wedgport firehall that night.
That morning we only thought we were going after a small taste of Digby, but the thing is, with Carl around, there's no way you're ever going to get a small taste of anything. The man's got a personality twice the size of any mortal man. So when we announced to Carl and his son our intentions for our morning and day he declared in a loud, slightly inebriated voice, "I'm comin with you bays, and we're takin my truck.... but you're driving!"
So we grabbed our gear and threw it into the back of Carl's dilapidated Ford Transit, and then piled ourselves in as well. Brad, however, was in the driving seat, and forced to take Carl's poorly timed and demanding directions. It was a hilarious drive with Carl and his son constantly ripping into us and each other for just about everything they could think of (It is true about sailors and foul language, it's pretty much a straight blue streak with those two around) but eventually we arrived (after a trip to the liquor store, I might add) at an abandoned warf Carl wanted us to see.

And see it we did.

The views would have been picturesque on a day with blue skies and sunlight, but instead we were blessed with high winds and an overcast sky. It gave every shot an amazing sense of realism, it was incredibly raw, haunting and beautiful. The warf was crumbling and broken and obviously hadn't seen use in a couple decades, the tracks to load boats and skips into the water was rotting away quickly and covered in seaweed, there was even a washed up, rotting, plant infested 30 foot fishing boat. It all looked amazing and we could have shot there all day, but Carl had something else in mind. Carl started talking.

He talked about how this was a place built by men, fishermen of old with their hard earned money, by their blood, sweat and tears, because they believed in the dream that is fishing on the wide open seas. How the men who built this were young men, and now with all the problems in the fishing industry the young people of today, the ones with the passion and ideas were leaving. They are leaving. They all go west, to the oil sands because they can offer something that a lot of these young fisherman can't get out here; a steady and extremely lucrative pay-check.

In short, Carl did what he did best, he told stories.

And we filmed it.

After the warf, Carl took us to the currently working warf to get some more basic b-reel and then to the local tavern, where he talked up the bar-maid, told more tall tales and where we had an amazing plate of scallops, haddock and clams, all caught right there in Digby (apparently they're pretty famous for their scallops). It was my first time having both clam and scallops, and they were absolutely delicious, if you're going to loose your scallops virginity, do it in Digby.

We stayed at the tavern for a short time, but it was getting pretty clear that it was time for us to be moving along for our interview with Lucien, scheduled for 4 o'clock that afternoon. we said our goodbye's to Carl at his place and re-assured him that we'd be stopping by again before we left the province all together. So to the road we went again. The drive to Wedgeport was not a long one, only taking about 45 minutes, but finding Lucien's house was something else entirely, as all of our phones either had no service or were out of charge (It's pretty common place for Myles and myself not to have any reception where we are, we're both with Rogers and their coverage of the south western half of Nova Scotia is notoriously terrible). We had driven in silence most of the way, exhausted from our time with Carl (He's a great guy, but to match his level of intensity requires a lot of mental fortitude) so we pulled into the Wedgeport warf and, well we just sat there for like 20 minutes and power-napped. We were too early for our appointment with Lucien anyway and by the time we awoke we still had about 20 minutes to kill.

We did eventually find Luciens house and after waiting a short time for him to get back from his cottage, He invited us inside, offered us a beer and immedietely began talking about the Lobster Fishing industry and the imbalances, problems in it, and how he thinks they should be fixed, in fact, I was worried that he was going to say everything he had to before we got the cameras rolling (he was also incredibly amused and strangely impressed with all of our makeshift camera gear), but we did get rolling and my worries proved to be unfounded as he was very eager to talk about every aspect of what he's been doing in the industry both as a boat captain, and as a member of the Lobster Pricing Committee where he volunteers as a board member.
Lucien was extremely open and honest with us, he's 22 years old, making him one of the youngest of the boat captains in his district, and the youngest member of the Board, but he speaks with the maturity and wisdom of a much more experienced fisherman. He was an amazing interview and it's become clear that he's going to be featured fairly heavily in our documentary. He's extremely relatable and incredibly smart.

Lucien was also the first one to ask us to stay longer than we've planned.

He said that we were going to be leaving to soon, that we'd miss a lot if we left.

Maybe he's right.

After Lucien we went to the Fire hall where the 1688 meeting would take place, about an hour and a half early to meet and talk to a guy named PJ Swim, who's working to rebrand Canadian Atlantic Lobsters which will subsequently grow the demand and the industry (check out www.lobster.ca for more details on his plans). PJ has turned out to be a great guy to hang out with and has hooked us up with lodging for the night, and a little food and drink (somethings we always appreciate). He really cares about what he's doing and he's a really exciting person to have around. He's also got ins with some of the big lobster buying companies in the Maritimes, and he's hoping to be able to get us in to check out the massive lobster holding facilites they have to keep the surplus lobsters fresh for when the season's over.

PJ was also there for the 1688 meeting, which turned out to be my highlight of the day. James Mood's 1688 organization is calling for a strike. A strike to start the day the season opens (commonly referred to as "dumping day") so that the fishermen of the 33 and 34 LFA (Lobster Fishing Areas) located on the south west tip of Nova Scotia can secure a better price per pound for the lobster they catch. Right now they get around $3.00-$3.50 a pound and that's not enough to support many (not all, but many) fisherman, who are struggling to get by at the current price. There were around 55 fishermen and captains in that meeting, including our new friends Lucien and PJ, and every one of them had something to say, they were very passionate and all spoke for hours. I don't have time to get into the details of all of their ideas, or any of the great back and forth we caught on camera, because it's 2:30 in the morning and the others have gone to bed. Besides, it'll all be in the doc, you'll see what I'm talking about... hopefully.

The one thing I will say is that we have made a lot of strides today, and Identified three key "characters" for our story. I have no doubt Lucien, PJ, and James will all have a lot to give us in this thing. they've each got their own idea on how to help the parts of their communities that are really struggling finacially, and each idea could work... but good luck getting everyone on the same page, or even at the same table, yet, that's what needs to be done. United these fishermen will stand tall and overcome, no matter what they decide to do. Divided, they fall.

As Canadians, we can't afford that.

G'night

-Matt

P.S. No pictures tonight, even though I took a bunch. Check my instagram (@brisleyadams) they're all there. I didn't want to do any extra transferring tonight.
  

Day 3: Research

I'm a pilgrim on the edge,
on the edge of my perception
we are travellers at the edge.
We are always at the edge of our perception.
- Scott Mutter

This is the opposite of yesterday's post. This will be long. The formatting will likely be off, I noticed in other posts that my Blogspot app makes weird decisions about where paragraphs start and end so.... I don't know, try to imagine where I might place spaces.

Like here...good luck...

Today was very eventful. We started by waking up in Myles' grandma's house, having breakfast and trying to make plans for the day. We had eggs and toast and discussed getting interviews and what equipment we didn't have and would have to build that day. The latter turned out to be a slider, Softbox/lighting rig, and a shoulder mount for our camera. Building these items took us most of the day, between trips to the local hardware store and scrounging materials from Myles' Grandma's shed and garage we got them built with the help of Myles little brother, Ryan. We made a slider out of a skateboard and a 2x6, the soft box out of a lamp, a dog cone and a pillow case and the shoulder mount out of a bunch of plywood a shower rail, duct tape and half a set of free weights. All together, its one of the most makeshift batches of camera accessories I've ever encountered, let alone made. We used duct tape and mis-matched screws broken drill bits and whatever else we could find to slap together what we needed for our 10 day shoot. I didn't think to take any pictures of the results for the blog, but rest assured I will have some on tomorrow's post.

After completing all three objects ( nicknamed Superman, Tony Hawk and "The Peddy") we hit the road for Digby, Nova Scotia and the house of Carl Jenkins, an ex-CBC producer, who had agreed to put us up for the night. Being in Digby  is essential for us as it's one of the best fishing areas in the world and we have three interviews and a union event to cover that all need to be filmed here tomorrow, so staying here with Carl is ideal. Carl himself is a joy to be around, in just a few hours of talking to him and his son Justin and we have been given more to think about than we ever have before. Carl is a gem of a man, his house is a treasure trove of artifacts from both his years at the CBC and his elaborate and, frankly, badass personal life. Paintings, large picture prints, swords and stacks of literature are only a few of the things that adorn the partially finished house of this aging intellectual. I say partially finished because Carl is in the midst of rebuilding the extreme fixer-upper he purchased some years ago. It may not be a finished house but it defiantly is this man's complete home. His style of story telling is enthralling, he totally gets the fact that we hang on his every word because of the quality and brevity of his tales and he milks that for all its worth, literally making the three of us beg him to finish stories that I cannot divulge the details of (they include, but are not limited to, the Fraggle Rock Set, the Big Friendly Giants personal life and the whereabouts of a Canadian children's TV icon's most prized possession).

Carl is more than a retired CBC worker, he's an all out man's man. He speaks with conviction, fights with gusto, romances all the ladies and cooks a mean fish'n'potatoes (an amazing meal the he tells us only cost him 4 dollars, but I think would be worth ten times that if it was cooked at a restaurant here in Ontario). He and his son (himself a fisherman) grilled us about the subject matter of our doc and really made us call into question our motivations and ideas about what was happening to the lobster fisherman in Nova Scotia. And we came to the conclusion that we cannot, will not, and should not draw a conclusion for the audience, all we do is raise an issue, a question for them to answer themselves.

Carl challenged us, sang with us and drank with us as we talked about life, death, fish and the universe. We jammed out original songs on a guitar that was missing a string and discovered Carl is also a gifted musician and singer. He is a man of many talents, stories and opinions and, he put us up tonight. He let three random Ontarian kids stay with him, in his house while they make their cooky movie. What a boss.

To really understand Carl you have to meet him. He's a unique individual and completely unapologetic about it. Brad said it best: "All I want to do is stay here and write this man's biography." Me too Brad, me too. But I don't think that's what Carl would want us to do. Carl wants us to go and do, and be, and live and not to worry about an old guy like him, surrounded by books and tools and memories.

He's living the dream. And he doesn't even know it.

I could write for hours about Carl and what we've talked about with him today, but I already have spent one hour and I haven't even told you about all of today's major developments, so I will do that now, briefly.

Tomorrow we will be interviewing a boat captain and maybe one or two of his deckhands here in Digby. After that we will be at a Sixteen-Eighty-Eight meeting. The Sixteen-Eighty-Eight is a organization that represents 1688 individual fishermen that fish lobster in  two specific Lobster Fishing Areas in NS. They are one of the loudest voices in the region speaking out against big businesses taking over the Lobster fisheries and tomorrows meeting revolves around the 1688 trying to organize a strike of the fishermen, to make themselves heard by the government and to let the big companies know that they can't just take over the industry without some push back. But, not all of these fisherman can afford a strike, because with a strike on, they have no means to feed their families. However if they don't strike they will continue to be exploited out of the money they should be earning.

So you can see why it's important we be there.

The 1688 is a lead by a man named James Mood, who I will be letting you know more about as we get to known him better over the next couple days, as he's also agreed to let us stay with him for a night or two.

Big things are on the horizon. We're about to take then plunge.

Hold your breath. We take the big dive tomorrow.

-Matt

P.s. Below are some of the pictures from today, mostly from Carls house. As well as one of  our makeshift softbox- "The Peddy"

Day 2: The Journey pt 2

We made it. Oh man. Long drive. I'm very tired, so this will be a shorter post.

Tonight we're staying with Myles' family before getting our legs under ourselves tomorrow. The drive was not a difficult one, just, as stated above, long. We left Quebec City at around 11:30 this morning and quickly got onto the Trans Canada highway- the road that would be pretty much the only one we were on today. The drive through rural Quebec certainly had some great scenery and awesome poutine (with bacon even!) But that scenery got about a million times more beautiful when we crossed into New Brunswick, or as we nicknamed it; "The Bruny!" If you ever have the chance to drive the trans-can through NB, I highly recommend it. Endless hills, lakes, forests and mountains, with the setting sun as their backdrop, enthralled us as we made our way through the first of the Maritime provinces we'd encounter. We ditched the satellite radio in favour of a few of the cassettes Brad had in the car. Frank, The Beatles and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magic, blastded through our speakers and through the mountains of "The Bruny."

By the time we finally reached the province we'll be filming most in, Nova Scotia, it was already dark. We haven't really seen much of this province today apart from twisting roads and trees, but we will. Tomorrow we'll be lining up interviews and prepping our gear before we start filming, and I will be blogging in depth about the subject matter of our documentary, but tonight, we're all too tired for any of that.

Time for sleep, more pictures tomorrow, or you can check out my instagram (BrisleyAdams).

Sleep tight, The Bruny's a beauty.

-Matt

Day 1: The Journey pt 1

It's 11:30 Monday night, and I'm sitting on the floor of our hotel room in Quebec City typing out this post on my phone. That's how these post are going to work, end of the day, or close too, I'll sit down with my phone and tell you what's happening. Again, on my phone, so proofreading will probably be at a minimum, for all you grammar Nazis out there.

We just finished a 9 and a half hour drive across most of Ontario and Quebec. The day started with some puking (Myles), some lost library books (Myles) and trying to set up an XM Satellite radio system en route (Brad). The driving's been split between Myself and Brad (from what I hear it's a bad idea to put Myles behind the wheel) with me doing the whole drive until around Ottawa, where we switched over. We've driven through Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec city today, staying headed in the right direction with our mantra, "Just always go east, if we go east we can't be wrong." A philosophy that rings true for a drive to the Maritimes, more than you would think. It even got us through Montreal, one of the most confusing cities on earth, at night, without much trouble at all.

Its been awesome to see the landscape go by and have the conversation continue for the entire ride. Politics, music, women and the internet, we covered it all. But the longest conversation has been the planning process. Figuring out in detail our plans and expectations for the filming process. What we want to focus on and how to cover it, it's served as an amazing side dish for the stacks of junk food and energy drinks we've brought to sustain ourselves through the drive (below there is a picture of just a few of the items I brought).

Road trips of any kind are great, but when you add in a mission like ours and it becomes a build up to something huge. We've got a story here. Something that's going to hopefully change the way all Canadians think about the way we get our Lobster. Whether it does well or not, we know we've got something magical here. And this is just the team to do it.

I

I'm in Quebec without a lick of French, may as well have a drink. Cheers Matt P.S. below I've included some pictures, the first is what I brought for the rise, the next, a gas station just outside Ottawa, then the last one was me trying to capture the awesome view of Quebec City as we crested the hill to enter. It doesn't do the view justice. What a beautiful city. Also the hotel gave us a remote in a bag. Weird.

Day 0: A Prelude

I've attempted to write blogs before. But each one fails after a few post because I'm far to obscure with my subject matter and I make myself bored and confused just writing them. Not this time. Because this time I've got a clear goal, a designated schedule and an awesome subject for which to write about.

Tomorrow I leave for Nova Scotia. I'll be driving out with two friends as we attempt to make a documentary film about the Nova Scotian Lobster industry called Lobster Inc. (you can find a link to the trailer here). We'll be looking at how big fishing companies are responsible for placing a stranglehold on local fishermen and their families, by buying hundreds of individual fishing licences and then, in turn selling those off to the locals, taking a huge cut off the top. It's a complex issue, one that we'll be exploring deeply over the next 12 days as we go out to shoot, but the end result of it is hundreds of families being forced to leave the fishing industry because they just can't afford to stay. While we're out there we're going to talk to many fishermen and their families as well as industry professionals to find out what's really going on. We're also going to have the opportunity to stay with many of these people and really get to know their stories first hand, we're even going to get to take to the open seas to see what goes into catching lobster and bringing it to your table, which will be both awesome and probably induce seasickness for those of us less experienced with being at sea (read: all three of us).

So that's what this blog is. I'm going to take some pictures, and some video along the way, as well as writing lots of posts, but at least once a day they'll be something up here, so you can keep up to date with what's going on with us as we try to tell a story that no one else has before. We're going out there with limited funds, a small amount of equipment and a huge passion for an issue that effects hundreds of Canadians every year. It's not going to be easy, but nothing great ever is. From adversity comes art and I have no doubt that we're about to face some adversity as we embark on this journey, but hopefully that translates into something amazing.

But I don't know what's going to happen, I'm just along for the ride like the rest of you.

Buckle up.

-Matt.