Beginning to move

A few years before...

Everything was going great. This was early 70's and if you were close to Detroit you were in rock and roll heaven. And when the second wave of English rock blasted into our neighborhood, it was unbelievable. 

There was Motown of course, but there also were local rockers, Bob Seger and Alice Cooper and a dozen or more other local music. And I got chances to shoot them in local bars. Everything was rolling. 

But I was now working at my TV station as a soundman for TV news. We had two 3-man crews; I held the sound and the cameraman shot in 16 mm film and a news reporter. But by now I was getting the feeling that I've been here too long. And it looked as though I would be a soundman. My wife was from Toronto, the big time but she didn't want to go back there.

Until I got a call from a network in Toronto and someone wanted me as a film cameraman. It was my break. Except for my wife, she wanted to stay in Windsor, across the river. I would be working there.

I took the job, stayed at my wife's place and started shooting film. One of the biggest difference between Toronto and Detroit was that it was totally different than in one way.
No homicides and big city action. Toronto at that time was quiet for a few million people.

And I missed it. But you can't go back sometimes. I did notice local Toronto filmmakers all around making shorts and a few features. But it didn't work. I got fired.

my wife wanted Detroit and I knew that I couldn't get back my original start. I hung around T.O. as they called it but it wasn't enough. Do I go back - or -

My Banff mountain school friend Phil wrote me. "Why don't you come here".. meaning Vancouver. I talked to my wife and we thought about it. Finally I drove out to Vancouver and really liked the feeling. Phil and I found a small office in downtown Vancouver and started Rocky Mountain Films. We had a movie seat and a desk.

Both of us got jobs, I went back to editing again, getting a job at the local TV station. Just what I was doing before.  Phil got a job at the local film lab and between us, we were able to do a small short film taking 16mm and I was finally shooting film. We managed to get film from a few reels from cameramen who had leftovers. Then we made another short, similar but longer.

But my wife didn't want to go. This lasted three years until we divorced quietly and without any anger but still hoping someday to see each other again. We did actually meet each other again when her niece found me on Facebook ironically. And better still, we are still close to each other again.

Phil and I kept Rocky Mountain Films for a few years but then both of us began to go different ways, but always together and we were always close.

The both of us --  in the film course where we failed. Phil with the bushy hair behind the older woman and me to the right with the beard. I always like telling students that I failed in filmmaking.