GlenJM Design!

As the current Emperor of the GlenJMpire, I have the arduous duty of being a multi-talented artiste. One of my many talents is graphic design.

Let’s take a blog entry to look back at my short history as a graphic designer. Most recently, I was assigned to graphically design a poster for the upcoming production of Lilly, Alta. at Neptune Theatre...


Earlier in the year, Neptune Theatre also had me create the poster for Little Women...


I created a businass card for my acting endeavours...

...what a pederass.

In the Summer, I created a poster for the show I was taking part in for the Atlantic Fringe Festival, Tough!...

Here is the un-used cover art that I proposed for The Top Dog, a short film by Evan Elliot that was featured in the 2008 Atlantic Film Festival...

About a year ago, Neptune Theatre allowed me to create the poster for the Pre-Professional Training Program’s show, Blood Wedding (which I was in)...

Two years ago, I did a poster for another show I was in called Jump! An 80’s Musical.


A poster I did for a BBQ/Skate jamboree hosted by Homegrown Skateboards...


Here’s the poster & the VHS sleeve for my baby: Mugshots...



And here’s the poster for Park View Education Centre Men’s Hockey, which was never used because the printing costs for it were too high.

And the last stop on this tour through time; my earliest documented poster was for Ultimate Wrestling Championship’s 13th Pay-Per-View: 666 (which I also took part in)...

That’s all for now, more to come I hope! New York City is up next week!

Building the GlenJMpire: Chapter 6.

CHAPTER SIX:
“Quitter”
Spring 2003

A couple months past the Mugshots release and I was still exhausted from the whole ordeal.

I wrote a script for a feature-length film to be shot that summer titled Repo Men (starring myself, Scott Bailey and Evan Mosher) about a rogue group of repossession men who were experiencing hard times.


The summer months came and we started shooting our epic comedy; days were long and took much more orchestrating than when we shot Mugshots, which required (1.) showing up & (2.) a video camera. Still without a car (or a driver’s license), “showing up” became the film’s nemesis.

There was one day when I had to bike an hour to the shooting-location carrying an army kit bag full of props, the camera bag, and a tripod. And then everyone else showed up an hour late.

The strain was too much, and after filming approximately 25% of the film, I called it quits. Getting to and returning from the locations was just too much of a headache.

Here's the only released material from Repo Men. A behind-the-scenes photo. We convinced Dave F'n Maddox (our dear friend and grip for the day) to let us shoot him in the junk with our high powered Super Soaker.

The Super Soaker was used as a prop for the main character, Ben (played by Scott Bailey) as he had a difficult time managing his morning boner and ends up running through, and pissing all over his house. High-class comedy.

It really hurt to just let the movie die, but I really didn’t think that we could pull it off without me turning into a torrential typhoon of bitchy grumpyness and punching someone.

Months went by, and no new films were being produced. Seg-Way Productions was on an unofficial hiatus.

In school, I took Film & Video where we produced a few videos (80’s COP SHOW, RESIDUE EVIL, LIFE IN PVEC, IRON CONQUEST, FEED MY FRANKENSTEIN) but the motivation didn’t come back to us to make our own films on our own time. Lazy bastards.

FEED MY FRANKENSTEIN...


High school ended. My camera broke. I got a girlfriend.

I decided filmmaking wasn’t for me; it was time for me to buckle down and get in shape to follow my dreams and become a pro-wrestler (see: chapter 1). Next WInter, I would attend The Kardinal Sinners Pro-Wrestling Camp (in Moncton) taught by Hercules AKA Kingman AKA Brody Steele AKA Peter Smith.


Most of my friends moved away in the pursuit of knowledge, leaving me with my girlfriend, and a job at Bluenotes. Fuck. It was the longest Winter of my goddamned life.

The time came, and I went to Moncton, leaving my girlfriend and my shitty job behind me in Bridgewater. I stayed for 4 days of training before I hurt my back, got really homesick, depressed, and decided to head on back home.

I quit.

It was one thing to quit a movie that no one was expecting to get made, but quitting pro-wrestling really sucked. I was so sure for all of my life that this was what I wanted to do; to tour the globe as a high-flyin’ babyface named JJ Loveless… and now I had no fucking idea.

Back to Bridgewater.

I applied [and was accepted] to Nova Scotia Community College for Applied Arts (Graphic Design & Photography) in Halifax where I could at least keep myself entertained during the Winter months.

Could be okay.

I am Not a Skinhead.

Hey there, how are you doing? Keepin' it sexual? Good.

Last night, during my bi-weekly hair trimming that I do all by myself (like a big boy) I accidentally switched up my 8mm guard (which I use for my hair) and no guard at all (which I use for beard trimming).

The end result (take a deep breath) is as follows....

Not to be confused with...
I still like blacks, jews, asians and mexicans. Every last one of them.

Moving on.

What's new?

Myself and my girlfriend Kristin Slaney (I know, we're still together, I didn't think it would last either), and Sher Clain (another Neptune Theatre Pre-Professional Training Program '07 graduate) have been having rehearsals for the film Scanner, written and directed by Daniel Jardine. We'll be shooting mid-April.

Scanner will be my 4th time working with Dan Jardine on a film, what can I say, the man has an irresistable smile.

Scanner will be Kristin's 5th time portraying a pregnant woman. What the fuck?

Mr. Jardine doing sound on some other film that doesn't matter.

One last note before I leave you longing for more; tomorrow night (Wed. 26th @ 8:00pm) is Night of the Killer Reel II hosted by Scott Thorne, at Ginger's Tavern (1662 Barrington St.) is a night of short horror films. The teaser for Parker Porkham by Sam Fisher will be featured in the lineup.


That's all for now, keep it fresh.

Building the GlenJMpire: Chapter Five.

CHAPTER FIVE:
“VHS FTW”
November 2001

Into my second year of high school and boredom was deeply settling in. This was the first time in over 5 years that I had absolutely no creative outlet. Help Wanted TV had just ended (as with all ties with Garden Hoe Productions), and so did Ultimate Wrestling Championship. What’s a teenaged boy to do?

I drank.

We all drank.

A lot.

To waste the time, and to try and get the opportunity to touch a female. One particularly foggy evening in November in Lunenburg, myself and Scott Bailey were drinking on a hill in front of Composites Atlantic (a Lunenburg trademark) before a “gig” (that’s cool-teenager-lingo for “rock concert”) when Scott pitched me the idea of a movie titled Mugshots.

He wanted to keep making the type of films we were making with Mike Nauss (and Garden Hoe Productions), but this time it would be on our own terms.

He proposed that since we knew fuck-all about HTML and internet-ing that we would just buy a camera, shoot a buttload of footage, and get it out to everyone in one glorious hour-long jam-packed VHS film.

I asked him what the title “Mugshots” meant. He said it was a double-entendre, that it could mean doing shots of booze with mugs, but it could also mean an actual mugshot (as if we were arrested). And I still think it’s a stupid fucking title.

Dumb title or not. I was drunk and I was psyched.


Soon thereafter, we entered the Pre-Production stages for Mugshots and after a few months, I purchased my first video camera, a Sony CCD-TRV108 Hi-8 CamCorder, and a whole bunch of tapes.

Summer came and we started shooting.
Half of us had our driver's licenses and none of us had a job, so we had a whole lot of spare time to kick around and film whatever. And boy, did we film a whole lot of "whatever".

This summer went on to be one of the randomest (not a word, I know), funnest summers I have ever had.

This was the first summer that we had, where we knew that the law couldn't touch us. Being under the age of 19, especially in a small town like Lunenburg, meant that the long arm of the law, was rather forgivable towards us, and our demographic.


Sporadic , is one way to describe that summer. Non-stop, random, and efficient all at once. It was a weird mixture of careless production.

The end of the summer was closing in, and we knew that we had some great footage on tape; but another thing we knew, was that we didn't have that "big" stunt. Scott called me one night and put forth the idea that he wanted to jump from the second floor of the Atlantic Super Store onto a check-out.

After some discussion, we planned out "the skit", and headed to the Super Store where Scott jumped from the second floor onto a check-out. Managers, cashiers, and other Super Store staff chased all around Bridgewater for about 3 hours in one of the greatest memories I will ever experience. I rendezvoused with Scott on the riverbed of the Lahave River then headed back to my Dad's where we played video games for a few hours until everything die down.

Principal photography on Mugshots was complete.Come November, I started telling people that Mugshots was coming late in November. Like an idiot, I left myself about 3 weeks to import, and edit an hour-long film. During these 3 weeks, I had school and exams, which are pretty stressful to begin with.

The editing was unbelievably frustrating on a PC that was already 3 years behind it's time.

I switched the release date to December 19th to allow myself to put the finishing touches on my baby.

Come the 19th, I had finished editing, and recording more than 50 copies of Mugshots, ready to be distributed.
Within the next year I had produced more than 150 copies of Mugshots (from San Fransisco to France) and everyone sincerely loved the film.

Everyone seemed to overlook some of the pacing issues I had with it (thanks to my time constraints), and really enjoyed the finished product.

Through the years, I have continually heard of people putting Mugshots on at parties, which has consistently brought a smile to my face.

Scott Bailey & Evan Mosher model to Mugshots tee-shirt

Looking back now, Mugshots was our send-off to our innocent/devious teenage years. We knew the end of our immunity was forthcoming, I'm just glad we managed get some of it on film before it was uncerimoniously snatched away on our separate 19th birthdays.


Thanks to absolutely everyone involved in Mugshots. It was one of the most triumphant projects ever undertaken in my life. Thank you to everyone, everyone involved and everyone who watched it.

Treevenge Cock-Tease!

Above is the teaser-poster for the upcoming short film written & directed by Jason Eisener, produced by Rob Cotterill (Yer Dead Inc.) that I will be featured in.

COMING SOON.

Stupid Foreigner Volume 2: NYC

Coming in June!

Filming May 5th. I have 14 hours at JFK Airport so I'm gonna be a tourist for the day. Shit's on.

Building the GlenJMpire: Chapter Four.

CHAPTER FOUR:
“Two Chapters With One Stone”
August 2001

I spent the Summer of 2001 begging my dearest Mother and Father to drive me to Mike Nauss’ house. A huge portion of those months were geared towards filming a new project for Brew Crew Productions, titled Help Wanted TV, a show that we made as a tribute to the Jackass/Tom Green craze that we all worshipped.

We would stroll into town with some random, vague idea of a skit, and film it, and see what reactions we would get from the general public. At 15 years old, there wasn’t much of a better way to spend my Summer vacation.

After a couple months, we were in our first year of high school at Park View Education Centre, and we had a good bundle of footage for the first episode of Help Wanted TV. Then news came in; there was going to be a film festival for the students of PVEC in late October. Episode 1 of Help Wanted TV was going to premiere in front of a live audience.

Kickarse!

In an attempt to promote our involvement in the festival, we brought the camera to school, and filmed a skit there. It was a rainy day when we went to the hill behind the school and started sliding down the hill at very high speeds, resulting in guaranteed pain. A crowd gathered to watch us throw ourselves down the hill, and laugh at our idiocies. The cherry on top, was when Scott Bailey decided to take his shirt off, and then run and slide bare-chested down the hill. The crowd laughed and gasped at the “V” on Scott’s chest, where his flesh was formerly located.

Tough as nails.

We had business cards that we gave out, and a decent sizeable fan-base that we took in (much bigger than any previous Brew Crew related work). Therefore, Scott and Mike renamed Brew Crew Productions, to Garden Hoe Productions.

A couple of weeks of editing on Mike’s part, then it was time to show-off episode 1 of Help Wanted TV at the festival!

People lost their shit that night laughing at Help Wanted TV, which felt really good. Surrounded by family, friends, and a whole bunch of people who never seen us before, we were on top of our own little world. Naturally, we went outside and jumped into bushes to celebrate.

After that, it was back to the grind-stone, filming and producing new episodes in all of our spare time. In Lunenburg County, word travels quickly, therefore, we were soon featured on a program on Eastlink Television, a channel that is broadcasted across Nova Scotia… the big time.

We were also interviewed for the Lunenburg newspaper, the Progress Enterprise. Check it out…

‘Help Wanted!’ may be a hit, but it’s not for everyone
Including the parents of most of its creators
January 2nd, 2002

Susan Corkum-Greek
scorkumgreek@lighthouse.ns.ca

LUNENBURG – Their wacky video website has developed quite a following, not just in Nova Scotia but as far away as Tampa Bay, Florida.
Still, the six young men behind internet-based Help Wanted! TV admit it’s not for everyone, nor usually their parents.
The site, which features shock-value stunts a la The Tom Green Show or the MTV segment known as Jackass, went online this past September and now gets up to 45 hits a day.
“That’s up from even a few weeks ago,” says the show’s technical mastermind, Mike Nauss.
Better still, fans are now asking for VHS copies of the show’s first episode, meaning the group could actually make money on the deal.
Mike explains the website-based show basically came about following two separate, though failed, attempts at similar shows in the past. The first being the original Help Wanted! TV, which lasted less than a day.
“It was basically a bunch of us sitting around watching Tom Green and deciding that we should make a show showing all the crazy things we do,” says one of the show’s most outrageous participants, Scott Bailey.
Armed with a video camcorder, he and his then Grade 7 classmates Taylor Daurie and Evan Mosher set out on a door-to-door quest during which they asked area residents for their personal views on a number of sexual fetishes.
At least one man did not find it funny. He telephoned Evan’s mother and she destroyed the tape.
Then two years ago, another group, this one headed by Mike, decided to create a television show using a webcam. At the time, Mike was already operating the most successful Tom Green fan site on the internet, getting in excess of 1,000 visits a day.
“That kind of weird, wacky humour just appealed to me. I never saw anything like it before,” he says. “So we decided it would be fun to make a show of the stuff we did.”
When technology failed them, the group settled for an internet radio show, known as The Brew Crew. The show has was the guys describe as moderate success, particularly once it picked up a couple of new members, namely Scott and friend Glen Matthews. It lasted until the next spring when infighting among group members caused it to fold.
A few months passed before Scott and Mike were at it again, devising an all-new Help Wanted! Site. It debuted in September with its current cast, including its aforementioned creators, original Help Wanted! Alumni Taylor and Evan, Glen and now Liam Frier.
Their first segment, filmed at Park View Education Centre where all six attend school, attracted instant attention, although it was the release of their first full episode at a school film festival in October that really gave the show a following. Before long, Mike’s computer server was incapable of handling the traffic. It’s since been upgraded.
The guys say the show involves “two-basic types of comedy” – pain and reaction.
The pain bits result from some semi-sadistic stunts the troupe has undertaken. These include everything from daring skateboard moves, that inevitably end in injury, to body surfing down a hill bare-chested. Scott claims he still has scars from the latter stunt, while Mike says one segment left him with a stiff neck for four days.
But what’s so funny about that?, we ask.
“I don’t know,” says Glen, “If I saw someone fall down and slam his face, it wouldn’t be funny. But if I saw Scott do it, it would.”
“People seem to like it,” adds Scott.
The show’s second tack is capturing the public’s reactions to their craziness. For instance, when a member recently ran across a street in Lunenburg with only a teddy bear to cover himself. That said, the group claims there are limitations on what they will do.
“Oh yeah, there are tons of segments that we talk about, then say we won’t do because we’d be arrested,” says Glen, who points to Mike as their collective conscience. Still, there are some things group members agree they will not tolerate, among them, any sort of vandalism.
When it comes to the rules surrounding good taste, however, the guys say they neither know, nor care for them. As a result, they’ve likely made as many enemies as fans. At Park View alone they say there are teachers who “really encourage” them, while others think what they do is immature and tasteless. The fact a certain sector of students enjoy Help Wanted!’s oddball humour adds to the latter group’s ire.
However members such as Scott, whose antics recently led one person to tell him he was “cracked,” say they don’t really care what people say about them. “Any attention is good attention,” he reasons. “And we’ve actually been pretty lucky to have had more good than bad.”
“All in all, it’s gone over a lot better than we ever thought,” adds Evan.
But what about their parents’ reactions? After all, it was Evan’s mom who destroyed the original Help Wanted! Tape. Most say it’s an area they just don’t discuss.
“I’d be scared to,” says Mike, to nods from most of his cohorts. The lone exception is Scott.
“My parents are different,” he says. They not only watch and support Help Wanted!, they often appear in segments, just like the parents of Ottawa-born Tom Green.
The site, which is preceded by a warning, can be viewed at http://helpwantedtv.cjb.net

Help Wanted TV went on to produce 4 episodes over the period of a few months, and then coming to an abrupt end when there were some creative differences (I hate that term, but that’s really what it was).

Along with just about everything else in my past, I am severely embarrassed by some of the things I did in Help Wanted TV (pooping on my bathroom floor, for one), but I’m still really proud of it. It was the first taste of success, and giving people something that they wanted, that I had ever had.

It needs to be said that without Mike Nauss, Help Wanted TV would have never happened. Not a chance in hell. And without me having some form of involvement in Help Wanted or Brew Crew Productions, I might have never developed a taste for filmmaking and performing, therefore, thanks Mike.

That coming Summer saw the end of another chapter of my life, UWC. After three years, we went out with a bang, we had our first event with a crowd. Thirteen of our friends and a couple aunts and uncles came out to see UWC PPV “666”.

We were rapidly raising the bar in terms of our stunts and our “extreme antics”. It seemed our slogan of “Hardcore to the breaking bone” might soon come true. We were using thumbtacks, chairs, fire, cheese graders; it was getting dangerous.

At this point, my destiny in life was to become a professional wrestler, so I started weighing my options. I was busting up my body pretty bad, with no training whatsoever and it was getting more risky. I talked to Scott and we decided to end UWC after 14 glorious PPVs.

I now had no creative outlets whatsoever. Shit.

(Note: All footage and photos of Help Wanted TV are the property of Garden Hoe Productions and Mike Nauss who has them all backed up, and in storage. It’s sort of like the Disney Vault. Beg Mike to release the series online again for the masses to rejoice.)

Treevenge Storyboards

Here's the storyboards for the scene in Treevenge that Kristin Slaney & myself participated in. Do enjoy...

Treevenge Behind the Scenes, foolz!!

Hello everybody, I'm here to bring you two things: (1) some behind the scenes goodness from the set of Jason Eisener's Treevenge, and (2) some love in blog-format.

On Saturday morning, Kristin (my significant other) and myself had the pleasure of waking up at 5:30am to catch a cab over to the set of Treevenge in Dartmouth.

Here's an excerpt from Eisener's MySpace page, giving you an idea of just what Treevenge is...

"New short project 'Treevenge' So right now were waiting for things to go underway for Hobo With a Shotgun the feature film, so to do something with our time we decided to make a short film about the life of a Christmas Tree, this is our follow up to our hobo trailer. We have three more shooting days left and things have been going great. Again this thing is done totally out of our own pocket which is now empty haha and with the help of alot friends."

Before shooting, make-up lady extraordinaire Cadence Macmichael did her best to make me presentable before I got torn to shreds...


Soon thereafter, Jason showed us a thrown-together scene from Treevenge...

Jason showing Henry Townsend, Kristin and myself the scene.

Here is a blurred photo of the work-in-progress. "But why is it blurred, Glen?", because I'm a goddamned cock-tease, that's why...

See all that green? That's trees. See all that red? That's human remnants. Fuck yes.

The scene we were shown was effing phenomenal!!! (<-- 3 effing exclamation marks!!!) And it was only "thrown together" in a couple hours. There was one shot that has been etched into my mind forever, it's truly haunting. If that scene is an indication of things to come, Treevenge will be far too much fun. People will lose their shit.

It was time to go down stairs and get to work...

Lindsay Thorne, Scott Thorne & Henry prep my head to be TREEVENGED!

"Not cool, dudes."

The man-behind-the-branch Mr. Jason Johnson. Jason created the Street Samurai costume seen in Hobo With a Shotgun. He created the tree costume for the hero in Treevenge. Awesome stuff...

Here's a photo of Kristin and myself standing behind Zan Rosborough, the genius of everything sound. For some reason, I look like a fatty...

Poor, poor bitch...

Director/Writer Jason Eisener and Producer/Writer Rob Cotterill watch the action...

Glen Matthews, post-Treevenge...

The aftermath...

Wayne Forrest ( WForrest Photography ) was on the set the day of shooting and took some kickarse production stills. Here's a handfull of them...


Awesome stuff.

Man, I have way too many endearing photos of Kristin in this blog update...

...there we go.

That's all for now, I'll keep you all posted on the progress of Treevenge. I think they had their final day of shooting yesterday, so I do believe it's in the post-production stage.

Peace-up. A-Town.