Texas Blog Part 4 - Home.

To those waiting breath bated, for this final blog about Texas - well the wait is over. Did that come across sarcastic? Good. Anyways - I left off Day 7 when we were in the desert. That day we left to Midland and shot some exteriors there and then drove back towards our camp which we stopped to get some epic shots of an oil derek and a moving train - which turned out to be the Ian's favorite shots. We came back to camp exhausted and Sarah and Carlton took a nap. Myself and Brennen after dumping the footage went atop a large sand dune and did some dune jumping which was awesome.

Carlton joined us and we picked the spot where we were going to shoot the sunset. We walked back to our camp site which didn't really seem that far - then we gathered the jib arm, 2 tripods, 2 cameras, a sand bag and 40 pounds of weights. The three of us treked across desert and the hot sand to capture the trips most epic footage - jib shots in the desert at sunrise. The walk then seemed A LOT further.

That night Carlton got the truck stuck - the park ranger the next morning wasn't happy but he pulled us out. Carlton claims that he only got the truck stuck a little bit and me and Brennen did the rest while trying to get it out. After getting our truck out - we packed up everything and left the camp site which had been our home for two days. On Wednesday at 2:45pm, after shooting some more exteriors in Midland, we decided to head home.

Between myself and the two Ian's we each did shifts of 5-6 hours of driving. We drove through the night and after lots of energy drinks, sunflower seeds and coffee we finally arrived back in Canada late Thursday night/Early Friday morning.

The trip as a whole was a fantastic experience and after looking at some of the footage I can't wait to see things come together in the coming months. I shall leave with these words from a song that we listened to over and over on the trip:

"Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma and Pa
Not in the way I love you.
Holy moley me oh my you're the apple of my eye
Girl I never loved one like you.
Home, Let me go home. Home is wherever I'm with you."

MK

Texas Blog Part 3

Alright so I believe I left off at day 4 - so day 5 we woke up after a gnarly night of thunderstorms and noisey crickets to a rainy, over cast day. We packed up all of our wet crap, the Ian's shot some ocean shots and we took off to the Golden Corral for breakfest which is awesome cuz it's buffet style! Then Sarah decided that it was best to trek forward and go to huntsville which is where the Texas Prison Museum is - so we hit that and saw "Ol' Sparky" which is this super old electric chair they used to use for executions. After Huntsville, we cooked it over to Livingston which is where our subject is currently being held - in a maximum security prison - we banged off some awesome exteriors of the place - the prison is MASSIVE and really intimidating.

The same day we drove to Marlin, Texas and grabbed an exterior of a place which we shouldn't have and it was super scary, police and security was involved but we escaped!

We stopped for night around 2am just outside of Dallas - we thought at the time we would head straight to Midland the next day but Sarah added two stops when we got up. We had stopped in West Dallas as to give us a head start to Midland but actually had to head backwards to Longview which we shot some coverage of the town and then booked it over to Eastland where we got some great footage of some important buildings and such.

After which point we were headed to Midland and decided to got to Big Springs, State park to camp but when we got there it was only a day camp, not actually a camp site. SO, with me at the wheel we took off to Monahan's which was about 2 hours away - this was the serious desert.

We camped there last night (day 6) and this morning it felt like we were in a Clint Eastwood Western movie - we saw this CRAZY bug which I filmed on my isight lol. Anyways - we are headed back to Midland today to film and then to Odesa and will end up back at our camp site, Monahan's for tonight. I think the Ian's are getting some great footage but today and tomorrow are very important to the story and to the documentary as a whole so I hope that we can figure things out here! It's HOT!
I will update again in a few days when we are on our way home - hopefully by then we will have everything we needed to get for the doc - so far it's been a fantastic trip - so much to see!

Texas Blog - Part 2

With the Ian's tag teaming the driving during the day on day 2, we arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas in the evening where we stayed at a motel 6 for some much deserved z's. We arrived officially the next morning on day 3. We went to 4 different county's where the subject of the documentary lived and went to school, DANGERfield, Avinger, Jefferson City and Mount Pleasant. The Ian's came up with a cool idea to film this which was to mount the camera on top of the truck and drive up, through and around each of the places. The footage looks amazing!

We headed to Lake Bob Sandlin State Park which is about 15 minutes away from Mount Pleasant to camp for the night. Me and Sarah forged some food (went to a HUGE walmart) and the Ian's set up shelter. We had awesome steaks for dinner. We all got up when it was still dark to set up an epic sunrise dolly shot which turned out amazing, the sun over the lake was incredible and after a hearty breakfest we were off to one more county, Ore, and then to Jamica Beach (near Glaveston).

The idea was to get some footage of the gulph of mexico but it was raining when we got there and things weren't looking good. Also, it was HOT and muggy. The bugs were insane since we were camping right on the beach. After forging for wood and setting up the tents, we all decided to go swimming and it was fantastic! The water was warm and the waves were huge! It was very refreshing, we then made some chili after we made a fire (not east with wet driftwood) and headed to bed.

I am writing this inside the truck with the window open and can hear the ocean, crashing away. Though we haven't filmed anything yet here, we hope too later on this morning, this place was still awesome and great stop on our trip! Also, SUPER windy last night, seriously, SUPER windy.

MK

Texas Blog - Part 1

It is Day 2 on our journey to Texas which started yesterday, the 30th, as Ian Brennen, Sarah and myself departed from Mississauga and headed to PS to meet Mike Krasney who hooked us up with awesome gear. After which we headed to Kingston with Ian Brennen at the wheel, to pick up the fourth member of our crew, Ian Carlton and also to drop off a weiner dog, Euie at Sarah's grandparents place.

Then a re-arrange of the truck and a changing of the drivers to Ian Carlton, we headed to the border where we registered all of our equipment and I took over as Captain of our V8 awesome truck to get us through to the U.S. We crossed over at around 10pm and Ian Carlton drove until 12:15am where we stopped at Tim's. I took over with a large coffee, energy drink in hand and Journey blasting, I drove until 7am the next morning where we were about 40 km's outside of Columbus, Ohio.

My playlist for the night included, Monolith, Toto, Journey, Avantasia and Pat Benatar. Nothing super exciting has happened as of yet, just tons of driving and talk of the desert. Oh and Sarah bought a sheriff's badge when we stopped in Kentucky. "I Shot the Sheriff" was playing on the radio at the time. True Story.

MK