I’ve been working with MUBI (formerly The Auteurs) since the beginning of the year on a project to put the MUBI experience on the Sony PlayStation 3 in Europe. It was this project that allowed me to go to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time, for the official announcement of the partnership between MUBI and Sony, where I had the privilege of meeting the likes of Agnès Varda. It’s a very cool and demanding project that has us working with the fine folks at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe to create an easy to use video-on-demand platform with social capabilities. When it launches, MUBI on PS3 will be available through the PlayStation Network in 18 countries and 7 languages.

As part of the development of this project, I’m moving over to London to establish the MUBI UK office with Efe and Ryan and to work closely (and finally in the same time zone) with the Sony team.

I’ve been living in Toronto for most of my life and I truly believe it’s one of the greatest, most liveable cities in the world, and to prove it to myself I’m leaving it behind to discover another great city: London. Living in Europe, and London in particular, is an adventure I’m excited to embark on.

Before we leave Toronto, Ryan and I are planning a send-off party on July 18th at Cadillac Lounge on Queen St. W. where we’re hoping a lot of our friends will join us for a drink. We’ll be there from 3pm onward so if you’ve got some time, try to stop in, it would be great to see you.

May Truong and I did a photoshoot with Ravi Jain of Theatre Why Not last week at Alison Milne’s new studio space. We were originally hoping to do it at the Theatre Centre as part of our “people in their environments” series, but things didn’t quite work out that way.

This shoot was a lot of fun, and once we were done with the portraits, Ravi and I worked on some stop motion ideas I’ve been thinking about recently and am hoping to employ in my next film, Houndstooth. The session was really productive and left me with a lot to think about and more experiments to try out in the coming weeks and months.

More shots from the shoot with Ravi

We recently returned to Jamaica for Bob Marley’s Earthday to continue building Project Nine Mile. We hoped that the celebrations on and around February 6th would provide a good opportunity for us to meet many people and spread the word about what we were trying to do up in Nine Mile.

Our goals for the trip were to learn more about the needs of the community in Nine Mile, to determine what is currently being done within Jamaica for the community and the school at Stepney, and to see how we could fit into the mix. We shot a lot of video and stills with the aim of creating a documentary to assist in creating more awareness about Nine Mile and to assist in future fundraising endeavours.

The trip was amazing, we had a great time and built relationships with many wonderful people who are invested in working in the community, and developed a deeper appreciation of the needs of the people in Nine Mile and Stepney Primary and Junior High School. We’re still trying to sift through all of the materials and the knowledge we gathered now that we’re back in Toronto, so check back soon to see more photos and thoughts about the experience, and our plans for next steps.

Visit the Project Nine Mile website

View the photos from the trip!

A picture from my recent trip to NYC, where I visited my friend Saira and had lots of fun. My memory is dying today so I can’t remember the name of their band (EDIT: Their band is The Wooden Sky), but these guys are friends of Saira’s and their names are Gavin and Colin, I think, although don’t hold it against me if I’m wrong (EDIT: I was right, thankfully). I’ll update this thing when I find out for sure, because no one likes to be forgotten (EDIT: This is still true).

One of a handful of interesting shots from my recent trip to New York City. I was walking along Fifth Avenue on a Monday evening, just before I headed over to Rockefeller Center, people watching and looking for the MOMA.

There’s a strangeness to this image that I really like. You can see more photos from NYC on flickr.

I’ve been thinking about eating healthy recently, which led me to memories of my visit to Clermont-Ferrand this summer, where I stayed with my wonderful friends Laure and Aude. Their father has a garden in their backyard and we would regularly eat from it’s bounty. Squash, tomatoes, apples, zucchini, herbs and other goodness would spring forth, delighting my GMO-saturated palette.

These cherry tomatoes weren’t actually from their garden, but they were fresh and delicious and addictive. I was picking at them all afternoon and evening until only the bowl remained.

Last spring I was working near the court house and one afternoon, as I was walking past this spot, I was inspired to make this photo. I was by myself at the time and I don’t think I had my camera but I made a mental note and moved on.

Flash forward to early September, and I was in the same area with Scott and JD, and my camera, and knew I had to make the most of the opportunity. I coaxed them into going along with my plan, and this was the result, after only two tries.

The original idea was a bit different, and tweaked by a Richard Avedon exhibit I saw in Paris this summer, that involved a girl, a dress and a wind machine (or just plain wind). Perhaps it’s still in the cards.

Gotta love the fact that he didn’t even put down his cigarette.

This is one of the shots from a photoshoot I did with Alison for her new interior design company Alison Milne Designs Inc. The shoot was super simple, relaxed and a lot of fun to do. Hopefully it’s going to pay off by getting Alison a gig on TV.

A few more of the images from the photoshoot can be found on fightingtheboss’ flickr.

There has been a bit of discussion recently about the continuation of Project Nine Mile sometime early next year. The tentative idea is to revisit Stepney and do a short photo/video workshop with interested students with a focus on literacy and numeracy, two big problems with youth at Stepney and across Jamaica. There are still a lot of logistics to be worked out before anything becomes concrete but there are a lot of good people with great intentions working on it, so we’ll see how things progress.

For the uninitiated, the initial phase of Project Nine Mile involved me going to Jamaica for six weeks this past summer to start a computer education program at Stepney Primary and Junior High School, near Nine Mile, Jamaica, the boyhood home of reggae legend Bob Marley. The experience was incredible and was documented as Internet became available over at the official Project Nine Mile website.