I was gone the last half of October working in Saskatchewan. I got to shadow a director on his shoot (I’m not sure if I am allowed to say who or not but if I find out it’s fine I’ll name him he was cool tho!) and it was a really great experience. I got sick on the last day though and had to stay at the hotel. But I spent four days on set and got to practice directing and got great feedback and it was an awesome learning experience. I also met an amazing DOP who we hope to work with.

Then I went back to Saskatoon and visited my friend Riki and my Mom. I didn’t have tons of free time so I didn’t see anyone else really, but it was nice to be with my Mom.

And then I went down to Regina for a location scout and a couple of meetings. I got to see the Regina Soundstage! It was super cool, really fascinating tour. And I got to see some great locations. I was totally sold on one crucial location but then on Saturday we were back in Saskatoon and found an even better location for that scene. Some amazing exteriors in Saskatoon that worked great. It was fun going from place to place seeing this film I’ve been writing come to life. Like YES this is where this thing happens! Here’s where the other thing happens! She’s sitting over there when blah blah happens. This is where the fire first shows up. It was such a cool experience. It was also exciting getting to know the Saskatchewan film crew folks and what they have going on over there.

I’ve had this deep sorrow about the difficulties of shooting a feature in Saskatchewan and why it changed after the tax credit was gone because all my stories are Saskatchewan stories. Which is funny because really I haven’t lived there in eleven years, and was in Vancouver for nine years. But I guess because my people come from Saskatchewan and that’s my territory, I feel like I have more understanding of the stories of that region. But also they are good stories and need to be told.

I think people see Saskatchewan and think wheat fields and Midwest and red neck. And there are Conservative people there. But also there’s a lot of really important stuff that comes out of Saskatchewan. Like we were the first province to have an arts council, and the birthplace of Medicare, and where Idle No More originated. So big wide reaching movements have come out of that province, and progressive ones too. I don’t know sometimes I get people saying shitty things about Saskatchewan but they don’t really know that province like I do. Plus it’s literally my homeland! My people have been there for thousands of years. And we got colonized and have this really bad system of inequality going on. Lots to think about, but I know not everyone is the same there and not everyone is racist etc.

I’m happy that it looks like I can shoot my film in Saskatchewan. I was worried it was just a pipe dream, we would have to choose Manitoba or something else that could fit it. But no! We can do it! I just have a couple of adjustments I want to make to my script.

The trans climate doc is going great, my research assistants have been doing a lot of work. I did my first interview and it was amazing, they were such a cool person and I learned a lot about how wildfires work and what they do to the land and the weather. So that’s been cool to think about and informed my feature script too. I’m interviewing more people this month, I’m hoping to interview three people.

I fell into a gopher hole on our Saskatoon location scout and hurt my knee. I am pretty sure I will be fine. The funny thing is near the beginning of the Saskatchewan trip we were in the country at night and I think I saw a wolf on my way to the honey wagon on the other side of the woods (it was too big to be a coyote). But it wasn’t the wolf that got me, it was the damn gopher! Just the little silly guys and their booby traps. It was a big gopher hole too it took my whole foot!

I’m excited to be working on projects right now. And I told the DOP about my idea about this next script I am working on and he got super excited about it and told me ways it could be done that wouldn’t cost a ton of money. So it got me excited again because I think I felt like damn this script is going to be too expensive to produce. But it’s doable! It’s going to have to be on a set but it can be done!

I looked at my WAVE account and my artist income over the last year. There’s a steep drop when Trump took power and it basically lasted until this last month when I went to Saskatchewan for work. Some months I only made like, a hundred bucks. But mostly very very low income, so much was lost while American organizations and institutions stopped working with me. It’s depressing, but also made me recognize I do need to have a JOB job, a day job. I don’t think that American income is coming back for a long time. And arts grants are deeply unreliable. Even if it is a good idea.

It’s disappointing to see it statistically match up that I lost so much income when the Trump administration took over. I don’t know, I guess I hoped Americans were braver than they are, but it seems not hiring or programming me for things was the easier option.