Paying their dues

Jeremy Dickson
Entertainment Reporter

Humber film students looking for jobs in the film industry got some sound advice from three IATSE representatives this week.

IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, is the labour union of professional stagehands, motion picture technicians and allied craftspeople in the entertainment industry.

The union helps its members secure better wages, working conditions, health programs and retirement plans and is the oldest and largest union in the entertainment industry, with 110,000 members.

Toronto IASTE representatives from three branches spoke with film students on Tuesday, addressing their concerns about getting in the union, rates and fees, security and the likelihood of summer jobs and work after graduation.

Cleaning up the act

Jef Catapang
life Reporter

Second-year comedy student Brett Morris’s first gig this school year was at a women’s rehabilitation centre for drug abuse.

“We were all pretty scared,” Morris said. “It’s a different story going into a place where people are recovering from addiction.”

As part of a new exercise for this year’s second-year sketch comedy class, Morris and his classmates performed their material at community centres instead of traditional comedy venues.

Blades of Glory

Blades of Glory | John Heder, Will Ferrell

Adrienne Huen
Entertainment Reporter

The world of professional figure skating will never be the same, thanks to Will Ferrell’s latest farce against sport’s beloved spandex and sequins wearing athletes.

Blades of Glory begins with a young and orphaned Jimmy MacElroy (John Heder, Napoleon Dynamite), skating around a frozen pond with his blond curls and wearing a pastel blue jumpsuit. Upon seeing his immense talents and potential on the ice, billionaire entrepreneur, and all around creepy guy, Darren MacElroy (William Fichtner, Prison Break) quickly adopts the young boy and grooms him into the perfect figure skating champion.

However, years later at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, Jimmy is forced to share the gold medal with his arch rival and womanizing booze hound Chad Michael Michaels (Ferrell). The duo’s hatred and jealously of the other immediately causes a public brawl, which results in both their medals being taken away and the devastating decision to ban both athletes from the men’s singles competition for life.

Three years later, Jimmy’s former coach (Craig T. Nelson), appropriately named Coach, tries to convince the duo to return to the ice as the first ever all male pairs team at the Winter Olympics. They reluctantly agree.

Sorting through the archives

Tyler Kekewich
Entertainment Reporter

A Toronto artist who is inspired by newspapers, said young people who get their information from the Internet might not be getting the whole picture.

“They just don’t see it [newspapers] as part of their daily habit,” said Barbara Astman, whose collection, Newspaper Series, is at the Corkin gallery in Toronto’s distillery district until April 28.

The exhibit is a collection of photographs that are digitally stitched together to create an image of a long row of newspapers, opened to interesting articles and images.

The newspapers in Astman’s photographs look like books lined up on shelves.

With some pieces more than nine feet long, the exhibit feels like being in a library of newsprint.

She collected newspapers for nearly three years and mostly used images and articles from the National Post, Globe and Mail, and New York Times.

Duran Duran

Humber faculty bring home a collection of hardware from the Junos

Jeremy Dickson
Entertainment Reporter

Last Sunday the Junos aired on CTV and members of the Humber faculty were not only nominated for their hard work and talent but had the privilege to win and take home their very own Juno.

Hilario Duran, a piano teacher at Humber Lakeshore took home a Juno last Sunday for contemporary jazz album of the year.

“It was very emotional, it was really great,” said Duran after winning the award for his album From the Heart.
Duran attended the 2007 Junos in Saskatchewan, hosted by Canadian icon Nelly Furtado.

This was Duran’s 2nd win and fourth nomination. Duran first won a Juno in 2005 for the same award and was nominated in 2006 and 2002.

“Winning a Juno has been a lifelong dream since I came to Canada,” Duran, who moved to Canada from Havana Cuba in 1998, said.

Duran’s next big dream is to someday win a Grammy and be recognized all over the world.

Duran isn’t the only Humber talent to be recognized at the Junos. Mike Downes, bass department head at Humber, was nominated for his work on the Molly Johnson record, Messin Around. As bass player and composer for a nominated best vocal jazz album, Downes feels honoured to be recognized.

“The Junos are important and they honour Canadian musicians,” said Downes. This is the sixth time he has been nominated for a CD he was involved in.

Publishing mogul Diane Davy returns to steer book program

Adrienne Huen
Entertainment Reporter

Students in the creative book publishing program will have the chance to study with one of Canada’s leading professionals in the world of publishing.

“I will be returning (this summer) for my second-year at Humber,” said Diane Davy. “I taught the business components of the curriculum and even though it wasn’t the most popular with students at first, I absolutely loved it.”

Davy, who was born in Winnipeg and attended the University of Toronto for Fine Arts, said her initial attraction to a career in publishing was because she thought it was glamorous.

Painting for nature’s sake

Wildlife artist Christine Marshall captures the beauty of Mother Nature one stroke at a time in her acrylic work

Jeremy Dickson
Entertainment Reporter

People have three days left to experience Christine Marshall’s Romance of Nature solo art exhibit at the University of Guelph-Humber.

“Her work is beautiful,” said Claudia Soldevilla, a part-time business student. “I like landscape art and I’m currently taking some painting classes so, I understand how hard it is to get the detail.”

Marshall, an accomplished painter from Bala, Ont., is one of Canada’s foremost wildlife artists and has been featured in over 350 exhibitions across Canada, the United States and overseas.

She has painted for over 30 years, specializing in acrylic on canvas, and has been called “Canada’s first lady of wildlife art.” Her new exhibit in the GH art gallery features highly detailed work spanning a career that began in the 1970s.

Early paintings of mushrooms and leaves stand out among numerous animal and landscape scenes featuring owls, hawks, pandas, tigers, loons, koalas, fox, deer and wolves. Her style has been described as romantic realism.

“People say I look at wildlife through a romantic eye or the idealized eye of nature,” Marshall said. “Not the harsh cruel reality world of nature.”

Rogers Television will continue covering OCAA sports

Radmila Malobabic
Sports Reporter

The OCAA Championships are the most anticipated games of the season and Rogers Television is a local station that airs most of the championship games.

“It’s a big challenge to focus on locally, as much as possible,” said Mike Patterson, senior manager of sports and sponsorship at Rogers. “Our motto is ‘local matters’, so we have a number of challenges when we try to air games. We can’t all the time be perfect, but we try.”

MLB should expand its playoff format

Josh-Gold Smith
Sports Reporter

Imagine 50,000 screaming fans filling the stands at the Rogers Centre for the Toronto Blue Jays’ final home series against the Boston Red Sox. Picture Roy Halladay taking the mound with Toronto battling for a playoff spot.

The Jays aren’t the second-place team, but they are still in the running. The buzz around the building hasn’t been felt this late in the season since the back-to-back World Series. Under baseball’s current plan, this scenario is highly unlikely. But the Jays and 21 other teams could benefit if the playoff structure changed.

If you were to place all professional sports leagues on the political spectrum, Major League Baseball would be on the right wing. As the most conservative sports organization of the big four (MLB, NHL, NFL and the NBA), baseball has continually fought change.

Building Champions program launches in fall

Department aims to increase success of athletes on the floor and in the classroom

Michael Clegg
Sports Reporter

Over the summer the Humber Athletic department will put the finishing touches on its new Building Champions program, an initiative designed to push athletes to a higher level.

“You look at how many silver and bronze medals we had this year and we’ve got to get some more gold,” said athletic director Doug Fox.