[Music]
I’ve enough to musicologist okay that
was okay that’s okay but I’m also a
filmmaker and I don’t put up with I
don’t put up with like if you’re gonna
be here if you’re gonna be an extra snap
– okay okay all right
I’m enough – musicologist you’re
brilliant it’s really a mixing of
anthropology and musicology anthropology
you know what anthropology is musicology
you know what musicology is but I’m also
a filmmaker an anthropologist filmmaker
just like that guy up there Robert
Flaherty the guy who made the very
famous film
Nanook of the north you see that this is
that camera the Inuit helpers all the
people working together to try to make a
film how many people here have made a
film no one person put up there have you
seen this okay hold on to this this is
Ted worthy this is a phone with a screen
that’s a clock and a camera and if you
turn it this way you can watch a movie
anywhere and if I point it at you I can
make a film and put it online by hitting
one button clarity did not have that
kind of technology and he made films we
do and we’re still not why not let me
start with the end this is what I’m
gonna argue we have the technology to
make incredibly interesting films about
incredibly interesting people every one
of you and if we were to do that when
our children go to school they’ll learn
about Edmonton and they’ll learn about
their neighborhoods and they’ll learn
about their neighbors and they’ll learn
from stuff that we make
for them in that they make for each
other we can do that now let me tell you
about how I use the camera because I do
this thing I’m interested in music
these are King fancy way of saying music
making it’s just one less word
music it’s much more fun I’m also from
Cape Breton and I have to start with
that because I can’t explain why the
sound of bagpipes just makes every hair
on my body just dance and I’m sure it’s
just like you the sound of big you hear
the sound of bagpipes and it’s just just
you just want a party and the Gaelic
people like like my ancestors you know
MacDonald’s Gaelic people like us one
bagpipe isn’t enough we need more
because the more bagpipes you put
together the more out of tune they are
it’s astonishingly beautiful okay so
check this out
okay that was a bit creepy
now
I know its astonishingly beautiful
absolutely beautiful and now what an
ethnomusicologist does is try to figure
out why it is that a sound like that
makes people go crazy I have to well
will tell you that story this magic
carpet is going to take us back to Cape
Ratan to my neighborhood when I was a
kid right when I got on a bicycle and I
went down to the end of the street and I
got a pop from the local store you know
what it was not coca-cola it was ayran
brew you’ve never heard I renew we
didn’t have well we had coca-cola I’m
sure but nobody wanted coca-cola I was
like whatever that is we had iron brew
this thing that was made in Glace Bay
you had you know her glaze Bay is go out
to the trans-canada highway go east when
you hit the ocean turn around
that’s glaze bag very easy to find once
you’re there you used to be able to get
ayran brew which was made by the
McKinley pop Factory
I definitely think feeling like being
independent minded has to do with being
able to drink your own pop when you’re a
kid not only that I had a friend of mine
that I brought home they introduced to
my to my grandmother his name was Paul
Campbell said grandmother this is Paul
Campbell my grandmother looked at him
and said Campbell hey
ah you don’t trust Campbell’s my
grandmother taught me how to hold a
grudge the Campbell’s apparently in 1692
in the middle of the night killed a
whole bunch of McDonald’s while they
were sleeping
burned down their houses women and
children froze to death in the snow
terrible story my grandmother in the
1980s was making sure Paul Campbell was
being held to account what’s fascinating
to me is that the sound of bagpipes for
me somehow is tied up with weddings it’s
somehow tied up with funerals it’s
somehow tied up with my grandmother I’m
not exactly sure how all of this works
but I know it works I know every time I
hear that sound of that instrument I
have all of these feelings and I think
so do you and I think everybody has all
of those feelings so I started trying to
figure out how to write with a camera
because with a camera I could capture
the sounds I could capture the people’s
faces I could capture what they said I
could capture their room I could capture
all of these things I could write a
whole bunch of new tracks I could make
books that have visual images that have
sound images and I could tell stories
about a loaf of bread being taken for a
walk now this may look innocuous to you
just somebody taking a little for bread
for a walk happens all the time what was
interesting about this is I tried to
write about a group of young people at
the Winnipeg Folk Festival taking a loaf
of bread for a walk and I wrote it over
and over and over and over again and
every time I wrote it it just sounded
worse and worse and worse this was
hilarious and nobody on my dissertation
committee thought it was funny at all
when we were at the defense I said hey
they took this loaf of bread for a walk
look how fascinatingly creative they are
and they just went
and when I tried try to show it in the
five-minute film that I showed at the
very beginning of the defense they said
I’m sorry the rest of the committee you
can’t actually count you can’t pay any
attention to what you were about to see
because you this is not academic work
you can’t include this in your in your
defense this is 2010 but why I don’t
know audience I don’t know about that at
all I’m not gonna buy that that easy and
I’m gonna take one step for I will take
one step further I think documentary
films which I’ve made a lot of are
fascinating and interesting and you’ll
want to choose how a subject for a
documentary film take your phone and
point it at anyone and start getting to
know them they’re going to be the most
fascinating person you haven’t met yet
and you can make a story about them
that’s five minutes long or 45 minutes
long and in the process of doing this
you’re gonna learn something about
yourself and the people you’re making
films about and other people but why
stop there why stop with documentary why
not use fiction why not make fiction
films why not make our own fiction films
fictions films based on ethnography on
learning about what people do so I
started doing that a fiction film I’m
working on now is called unsuitable it’s
about a trio a hip-hop trio in Edmonton
young guys 20 21 22 they make music at
drop-in centers at the library they make
it at I human they make music at Boyle
Street Community Center at downtown
schools and in the process of doing that
they get together and they make hip hop
music that’s astonishing in itself and
they’re incredible young men but to get
people to watch a documentary of
three young men in the Intercity I can
tell you because I can see the stats on
my website people watch for the first 20
seconds maybe the first two minutes and
it goes from 100 percent down to 35 by
the time you’re getting to the
vegetables but you put a fiction element
into the story and you do this three
young hip hoppers play a show and then
don’t get paid watch them run around
Edmonton trying to get their money and
you keep 80% rate to the end so that’s
what we started doing
we started making ethnographic fiction
films we’re in the process of making
fiction films about what it means to
live in Edmonton what it means to do
music in Edmonton and then the process
of doing that we’re not only getting to
see each other on camera we’re not only
getting to see each other starring and
our own films but we’re actually getting
to see Edmonton and the music that
happens in Edmonton and center stage on
the big screen we are telling our own
stories to ourselves
take out your phone let’s start the
storytelling revolution so that in 10
years when your children come home from
school they could talk about all the
cool films they saw but the people in
their neighborhood for real see you then
[Applause]
I’ve enough to musicologist okay that
was okay that’s okay but I’m also a
filmmaker and I don’t put up with I
don’t put up with like if you’re gonna
be here if you’re gonna be an extra snap
– okay okay all right
I’m enough – musicologist you’re
brilliant it’s really a mixing of
anthropology and musicology anthropology
you know what anthropology is musicology
you know what musicology is but I’m also
a filmmaker an anthropologist filmmaker
just like that guy up there Robert
Flaherty the guy who made the very
famous film
Nanook of the north you see that this is
that camera the Inuit helpers all the
people working together to try to make a
film how many people here have made a
film no one person put up there have you
seen this okay hold on to this this is
Ted worthy this is a phone with a screen
that’s a clock and a camera and if you
turn it this way you can watch a movie
anywhere and if I point it at you I can
make a film and put it online by hitting
one button clarity did not have that
kind of technology and he made films we
do and we’re still not why not let me
start with the end this is what I’m
gonna argue we have the technology to
make incredibly interesting films about
incredibly interesting people every one
of you and if we were to do that when
our children go to school they’ll learn
about Edmonton and they’ll learn about
their neighborhoods and they’ll learn
about their neighbors and they’ll learn
from stuff that we make
for them in that they make for each
other we can do that now let me tell you
about how I use the camera because I do
this thing I’m interested in music
these are King fancy way of saying music
making it’s just one less word
music it’s much more fun I’m also from
Cape Breton and I have to start with
that because I can’t explain why the
sound of bagpipes just makes every hair
on my body just dance and I’m sure it’s
just like you the sound of big you hear
the sound of bagpipes and it’s just just
you just want a party and the Gaelic
people like like my ancestors you know
MacDonald’s Gaelic people like us one
bagpipe isn’t enough we need more
because the more bagpipes you put
together the more out of tune they are
it’s astonishingly beautiful okay so
check this out
okay that was a bit creepy
now
I know its astonishingly beautiful
absolutely beautiful and now what an
ethnomusicologist does is try to figure
out why it is that a sound like that
makes people go crazy I have to well
will tell you that story this magic
carpet is going to take us back to Cape
Ratan to my neighborhood when I was a
kid right when I got on a bicycle and I
went down to the end of the street and I
got a pop from the local store you know
what it was not coca-cola it was ayran
brew you’ve never heard I renew we
didn’t have well we had coca-cola I’m
sure but nobody wanted coca-cola I was
like whatever that is we had iron brew
this thing that was made in Glace Bay
you had you know her glaze Bay is go out
to the trans-canada highway go east when
you hit the ocean turn around
that’s glaze bag very easy to find once
you’re there you used to be able to get
ayran brew which was made by the
McKinley pop Factory
I definitely think feeling like being
independent minded has to do with being
able to drink your own pop when you’re a
kid not only that I had a friend of mine
that I brought home they introduced to
my to my grandmother his name was Paul
Campbell said grandmother this is Paul
Campbell my grandmother looked at him
and said Campbell hey
ah you don’t trust Campbell’s my
grandmother taught me how to hold a
grudge the Campbell’s apparently in 1692
in the middle of the night killed a
whole bunch of McDonald’s while they
were sleeping
burned down their houses women and
children froze to death in the snow
terrible story my grandmother in the
1980s was making sure Paul Campbell was
being held to account what’s fascinating
to me is that the sound of bagpipes for
me somehow is tied up with weddings it’s
somehow tied up with funerals it’s
somehow tied up with my grandmother I’m
not exactly sure how all of this works
but I know it works I know every time I
hear that sound of that instrument I
have all of these feelings and I think
so do you and I think everybody has all
of those feelings so I started trying to
figure out how to write with a camera
because with a camera I could capture
the sounds I could capture the people’s
faces I could capture what they said I
could capture their room I could capture
all of these things I could write a
whole bunch of new tracks I could make
books that have visual images that have
sound images and I could tell stories
about a loaf of bread being taken for a
walk now this may look innocuous to you
just somebody taking a little for bread
for a walk happens all the time what was
interesting about this is I tried to
write about a group of young people at
the Winnipeg Folk Festival taking a loaf
of bread for a walk and I wrote it over
and over and over and over again and
every time I wrote it it just sounded
worse and worse and worse this was
hilarious and nobody on my dissertation
committee thought it was funny at all
when we were at the defense I said hey
they took this loaf of bread for a walk
look how fascinatingly creative they are
and they just went
and when I tried try to show it in the
five-minute film that I showed at the
very beginning of the defense they said
I’m sorry the rest of the committee you
can’t actually count you can’t pay any
attention to what you were about to see
because you this is not academic work
you can’t include this in your in your
defense this is 2010 but why I don’t
know audience I don’t know about that at
all I’m not gonna buy that that easy and
I’m gonna take one step for I will take
one step further I think documentary
films which I’ve made a lot of are
fascinating and interesting and you’ll
want to choose how a subject for a
documentary film take your phone and
point it at anyone and start getting to
know them they’re going to be the most
fascinating person you haven’t met yet
and you can make a story about them
that’s five minutes long or 45 minutes
long and in the process of doing this
you’re gonna learn something about
yourself and the people you’re making
films about and other people but why
stop there why stop with documentary why
not use fiction why not make fiction
films why not make our own fiction films
fictions films based on ethnography on
learning about what people do so I
started doing that a fiction film I’m
working on now is called unsuitable it’s
about a trio a hip-hop trio in Edmonton
young guys 20 21 22 they make music at
drop-in centers at the library they make
it at I human they make music at Boyle
Street Community Center at downtown
schools and in the process of doing that
they get together and they make hip hop
music that’s astonishing in itself and
they’re incredible young men but to get
people to watch a documentary of
three young men in the Intercity I can
tell you because I can see the stats on
my website people watch for the first 20
seconds maybe the first two minutes and
it goes from 100 percent down to 35 by
the time you’re getting to the
vegetables but you put a fiction element
into the story and you do this three
young hip hoppers play a show and then
don’t get paid watch them run around
Edmonton trying to get their money and
you keep 80% rate to the end so that’s
what we started doing
we started making ethnographic fiction
films we’re in the process of making
fiction films about what it means to
live in Edmonton what it means to do
music in Edmonton and then the process
of doing that we’re not only getting to
see each other on camera we’re not only
getting to see each other starring and
our own films but we’re actually getting
to see Edmonton and the music that
happens in Edmonton and center stage on
the big screen we are telling our own
stories to ourselves
take out your phone let’s start the
storytelling revolution so that in 10
years when your children come home from
school they could talk about all the
cool films they saw but the people in
their neighborhood for real see you then
[Applause]
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