So today I finished working on a script I got a Canada Council grant to write for the past year, Skunk Cousins Christmas. It’s a comedy about a First Nations family struggling with addictions at Christmas.

So it’s done enough that I did my final report and it’s all sitting in an envelope waiting to go to the post office. But realistically to get it produced I’m going to have to do some more work on it. BUT it’s done for now and I can put it aside and come back to it later.

I’m really glad it’s done because now I can apply for another Canada Council grant. So I’m gonna try and make a short film that’s kind of dark and sad and dramatic, because I had an idea for a comedy but someone told me it would be better for me to get directors cred to do the feature I am working on now if I do a short drama, because the feature is a drama and pretty dark also. SO I have to write a script and a grant this next month, but a short one. I hope it works out!

Also Ontario Arts Council is due this fall. Ahhhh jeez I haven’t even checked the grant deadlines for that yet.

BUT this weekend I am NOT working on any of that, I am trying to finish up some older stuff, which is my video game. I’m going to be talking about it at Ed Video in Guelph on the 1st of October, and showing it at ImagineNATIVE in October also. So I really just want to wrap this thing up and give it to Dames Making Games so I can get paid. I still kind of think there will be more I will do on it, like, more scenes. But I have to concede temporary defeat because there’s really only SO MUCH I can do and this year I overloaded myself with work. Plus life happened. Like my Grandpa dying and stuff.

I’m looking forward to working on it though, because it’s something more tangible than a script. People can look at it and play with it and experience it, whereas a script just sits there until you produce it. Or rewrite it.

I also have a performance coming up in a couple of weeks in Prince Albert that I have to work on. Which I am going to use for my next 2 Spirit videos. Which I ALSO have to shoot this year and edit. I originally wanted to do them on the RED like my first 2 Spirit video, but I didn’t get a grant for it so I had to scale back, because I DID get one grant that was way less. Bummer.

I also have a ten part webseries I have to finish for a Sask Arts Board grant I got a long time ago. I applied for an award that might cover the costs of my actors next year. So I eventually have to do that because it is so overdue. Plus it would be fun.

So those are my arty obligations. They are fun though, really. I’ve been basically a full time artist for the past year and it has taught me a lot about myself and building discipline and making space to make work. This next year things get serious, because we are going for some development money to keep working on the screenplay I wrote as my thesis project at Ryerson. I got some script notes from someone at CFC who read it at the Female Eye Film Festival so I’m going to work with those and get it further along. If we do get the development money then there’s someone awesome who has agreed to work with me as a script editor. We should know before Christmas.

It’s different because it’s moving into more Industry stuff, which I have wanted to do for a long time, but it’s a whole other world and I’ve been like, a scrappy teenage punk dyke video artist at heart for my whole career. I hope it works for the best. My project can’t be done in a DIY crowdfunded way, it’s too big. And anyway, I’m tired of people telling me I should do things anyway even if I only have a budget of 100 dollars. Like, for shorts that is okay. But not this one. NOT THIS ONE! I don’t want to half ass it and also I feel like it’s kind of insulting to expect a woman who has been making films for 21 years to be content with 100 dollar budgets forever.