Setting: Kensington Market (Toronto, Ontario), June 2006

Down the Hatch – Act One

Where to begin? Well, as some of you may know, Peter’s friend Martin has been talking about making this Super-8 movie for a couple of months. It was one of those things … we talked about it and made loose plans. The deadline for the film was originally June 9. On June 5, Martin got serious about it and he and Pete worked madly on the script. The whole idea was already laid out but they actually got together and hashed it out and wrote it down (key).

I wandered in and out of these sessions adding my two cents here and there. I liked contributing my ideas and I love coming up with names for things so I worked on this sort of stuff. I was quite skeptical that it would ever come to pass, so I approached it in the same way I would approach a sudoku puzzle. It was stimulating entertainment. Anyhoo … Martin kept getting extensions and his enthusiasm was growing. He got some experienced people on board (someone to shoot it! lighting people! yo!) and we all worked towards finding some of our stranger props (a generator, an oscillator thingy, baby chickens). And then it actually Happened. Yesterday. On three hours of sleep.

I woke up painfully early to my house full of people and Martin saying, “Pete, I don’t think Mr. Bojangles is doing very well.” Mr. Bojangles was one of the chicks. He was the littlest with beautiful dark brown feathers. The other two (yellow!) chicks wouldn’t let him into the food bowl and the largest one was pecking at him. I found another cardboard box and set him up with a room of his own. He was probably younger than the other chicks as well, so I put him under our kitchen lamp and he perked up a bit. I couldn’t focus properly at this point and I barely remember meeting the rest of the crew. I just sort of squinted and nodded at everyone. The crew left to shoot the first scene across the street and I was left alone to get properly dressed. I still had to finish making some props, so I poured myself a coffee and washed my face and got to work.

But something was wrong with Mr. Bojangles. All of the chicks had been peeping their little pants off since they arrived but they had been ‘cute-peeping’. Nice and quiet. But this wasn’t ‘cute-peeping’ anymore. Bojanglers was emergency-ear-piercing-peeping. Screaming for the souls of chickens everywhere. I closed the top of the box. I shushed him. I held him for a bit. I cleaned his water dish. I put a hot water bottle beside his box. I was not doing well at this point. Andy Barrie was doing the morning show and talking about the World Cup. After an hour of this torment, I called Peter and told him that he had to come and get Mr. B or I would lose my mind. He had to run and get some things from home anyway. Of course, when Pete arrived, The Jangler had screamed himself to sleep. We decided to leave the chick under the warm lamp and go over to the primary location.

-End Scene-

Please note that this post originally appeared on Kyra’s MySpace Page in June 2006. She has re-posted it here for your education and enjoyment.