A little bit of History..

Ok well I'll start off with some information about my history (Don).

I started off loving movies at a very young age but never had any inkling of an idea that I would be able to actually work on movies and produce my own short films one day. During the university years from 1989 to 1995. I studied history and researched on a lot of subjects that always interested me. One of the things that we did as well was rent the Audio visual department video camera to simply film ourselves and what we did for fun during those weekends! But we managed to film some short corny films in between. The beginning?! Not quite! In 1997 the first movie I worked on was a short animation for the NB department of health contest that was running in all the schools. We had to create a movie that would promote non smoking and bring the awareness of cancer to people. So I had drawn a cartoon lung, which started out all pink and by the end of his monologue he turned out black and charcoal. That was my first experience, and we actually won that contest.

If I fast forward a few years in the future (well actually it's still the past but you know what I mean) in 1998 I got together with a good friend of mine who had his own video camera and who loved to write interesting and deep scripts. He was not the type to go for the commercial type of storyline, but that was fine! I loved to help him out on his short movies. It helped me learn a little as we went along. We shot a few shorts. One called "Care tu toi" was edited the old school way, meaning he had used two VCR's. I have all the original footage and I'll edit it using proper editing software and add a sound track and music to it. Should be interesting once that is done.

In 1999 I then decided to purchase my own video camera. I purchased an old one and in the beginning I was only playing with it and filming friends and events. I had ideas but nothing concrete on paper like a script. Then in 2000 I decided to go ahead and purchase myself a real digital video camera and a computer which would allow me to upload the film into my computer and allow me to edit it. Now this was quite a boost. We then started filming some short films and used some scripts as well! My first movie was a music video of a French song titled "Le Batailleur" from Zackarie Richard.

Afterward I shot a few more shorts, "Late", "Death on vacation - La mort en Congé", "La poursuite - The Chase", "Mopettes" and a family short movie for my parents. In 2002 after having played with movie making a bit, I was curious to see what else I could do. I wanted to see if I could maybe get some training or even classes close by. So I researched online about movie making training in the Maritimes. And I discovered that right in New Brunswick we had an organization that would help people like me who loved to make movies. They offered us the training with workshops, the people for resources and the movie sets on other people shoots for experience. Soon I will be able to enjoy the privilege of applying for grants and equipment through them to film some of the projects I have in mind. I already worked on a few of the NB Film coop projects: Visions (Christian Milligan), Sometimes they come out at Night (Glendon McKinnon), Bathroom Stalled (Lisa Whalen). We are working on post production for Dennis movie called "Hell Dog" we need to finish some special effects shots and then edit the film. And this July we will be shooting his Police thriller "Dead Flies".

You can see what I am currently working on in the Filmography/Projects section. As well as learn more about the older projects in this link as well.