We’ll be announcing just what that show will be sometime in February or early March and posting regular updates right here on this show page as we continue to inch ever closer to June.

To start us off, the following is what I posted on allanmackey.com, thinking about Fringe shortly after the lottery and talking about what you just might see from VWP this summer.

I had considered applying for the Ottawa Fringe Festival since about the first year I knew it existed. I’d been out for one show in ’08 to see the show of an actress I knew and I saw three shows in ’09 which is when I was really introduced to what the Festival was. So I guess the first year I’d considered it would have been 2010. I was neck deep in production of Survive the House at the time so had no idea about the timing of the lottery until after it had passed. It hadn’t been financially feasible to put in an application the following two years, which brings us to the 2013 Ottawa Fringe Festival. The first time I actually did apply.

When lo and behold, I ended up one for one. Valley Wind Productions was one of fourteen local companies randomly selected for a main venue birth. Not sure out of how many applicants but I do know the waiting list was capped somewhere above forty with an unknown number of companies not even making that.

Not that it being a first time application has any causal affect on a random drawing, but colour me shocked nonetheless. I’m more than a little delighted to have won a spot, of course, and I certainly didn’t forget about it, I just had so many other things on my mind, I hadn’t really been thinking about it.

Your one guarantee is that whatever I end up doing, it will at least be this awesome.

So, now, as surprise wanes and the truth settles in, an important question is going to need answering:

What the heck am I going to produce and/or direct and/or write for Ottawa Fringe Festival 2013?

Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t a blind application. It’s not like I don’t have ideas. I had a half dozen alternatives planned before the applications were even announced. I came up with two possibilities in the last two days and another just last night. I’m Ideas ‘R Us.

For a while around application time the lead contender was an already produced and fairly popular international one-act musical. For various reasons, including wanting to do something original here, I decided I’d rather take on the musical with a more traditional run if I ever did it.

What’s still in consideration? One requires a specific performer I know with very specific skills who would need to learn an entirely new branch while we built the story and show around it. One is a pretty stylized show that includes story-telling, music, and movement components. One would be a short version of a full length play I’m writing in the new year.

There’s also one of a half-dozen more straight-up one-act plays I’ve got in the proverbial drawer or the one-act drama I’ve already got written. The current front-runner though, by a high margin, is some high energy comedy with a group of fun actors I’ve worked with in that capacity before.

All of the options are quite different. Meaning that what I really need to figure out is what I want to be working on, what I want to put up, and even who I want to work with. I do feel that some of the concepts I listed need more time for development and may be a few years off, but they’re still in the running for now.

There are lots of things I don’t know yet. Here’s one thing I do. It’ll probably be a big deal. ‘Cuz I just don’t go into things thinking small.

And once I’ve made a final decision, that’s when I get to step three. 1) Surprise. 2) Decision. 3) Excitement.

Then step four. Work. Which I greatly look forward to.

So right now, what we’ll see in the summer is still up in the air. But as I post this here, I’ve also been wondering if there’s anything else I should be considering. Which I’m going to put to you in the form of opportunity.

For the next month, and for the first time ever, Valley Wind Productions is open to pitches.

But let’s not get crazy. Here’s very specifically what I’d be looking for (and not looking for):

• A ready-made show that’s already packaged with director and cast won’t even be a blip on my radar. I enjoy the logistics and marketing parts of producing but only as a byproduct of the creative side.
• I’m most looking for projects I’d be very involved in creatively. Probably (but not exclusively) from a development and writing phase. Directing is almost a non-starter. There’s a lot of different possibilities so I won’t try and list them all. What do you want from me?
• I have a lot of my own ideas so what I’m looking for is the kind of show I likely wouldn’t initiate on my own and working/collaborating with people I might not think to approach on my own. Who are you? What’s your role?
• Wow me. As I just said, I have a lot of my own ideas, from the run of the mill to the super exciting. Whatever you pitch has to be as good as super exciting (in reality, better).
• Just because I’ve done this enough to know some people will mis-interpret – this is not an audition notice. When and if I’m looking for actors, audition notices will go out through the usual channels. (like auditionsottawa.com)

That taken care of, if you didn’t make the lottery and there’s a fire burning in your soul about a show – and you’re interested in having a partner/collaborator – drop me a note using the form on the contact page, say before January 6^th. (If you know me outside of this post and have other ways to get in touch, go ahead and use them.)

In two hundred and fifty words or less, tell me about you, the project, and basically what you’re looking for from me. I will be following a strict TL:DR policy and I will delete all attachments.

I will reply to everybody who sends in by the 6th. I may only say “thanks but this isn’t the project for me,” but I will reply. Where I’m interested enough, I’ll ask for more details (be it script or treatment or outline) or set up a meeting with you in early January to chat more. Then I’ll make a decision.

I’m going to be perfectly honest here. My front-running candidate has a huge amount of AP – awesome points, the official classification system – but co-developing a show with an interesting hook, a bit of style, and the right actor(s) will get my attention and might have enough AP to compete. I’m always open to great ideas.

This year, we’ll be primarily looking at casting the following:

• Supporting characters in Legend of the Looking Glass.
• Team members and guests for our regular sketch comedy show: Windcast.
• On camera talent for Production Ottawa, including (but not only) movie and theatre reviewers.
• Anything else that may come up in 2012, for us, or for 3rd parties who ask for casting help.

To be considered for any of these things, you need to make it out to audition for us. However, if you auditioned at our 2010 or 2011 General Auditions, those audition tapes can be applied towards this year. That’s the only exemption this year: if we already have a general audition tape for you.

Also new this year, the process for booking auditions is different. We’re only accepting appointments through the submission of this form.

Everybody who wants to be considered for any project this year must submit a form. If you’re exempt from auditioning, that information will be included in the form and submitting the form will be the only thing you need to do. Otherwise, when we receive your form, we’ll send you an audition time.

Please read through our actors page for more detailed information as well as the audition FAQ before filling out the form.

You can also take a look at these two videos we produced with some tips to help you ace your audition.

• 6 Ways you’re Blowing Your Audition
• 10 More Audition Tips (disclaimer: these are pretty obvious)

Share this page to let your friends know and help us spread the word. Then we’ll see you at auditions!

In this Windcast, the Windcasters offer up a sequel to last years popular “6 Ways You’re Blowing Your Audition“. This time they’ve got 10 new tips but personally, I think they might be a bit obvious.

Check out last year’s audition tips video.

Watch more from the Windcast crew — including the wicked funny Angel of DooOOOoooom!

And down below, let us know what your favourite tip in the video was, or give us a new tip (obvious or not).

Windcast 1×07,  Audition Tips
Starring: Douglas Connors, Meghan Murphy, Matthew Champ, & Robin Hodge
Produced by: Allan Mackey

What valleywind.com looks like in 2012

Truthfully, I’d been planning on a redesign almost since the last version went live. I liked how it looked well enough but it was just too much. (More detail below, if you care.) I felt this year that it was important to clean the site up and streamline it down – which I’m also doing to business in general. More, now that all of our major productions have their own websites, I took all of the redundant information down and just link to them. This is about a newer, cleaner valleywind.com.

One Architecture to Run them All

Giving credit where credit’s due, the site is powered on the free WordPress CMS architecture and by the Genesis Theme Framework from the amazing folks at Studiopress, and all our domains are managed and hosted with namespro.ca. I very strongly recommend all three of them. The design we’re running is a Genesis child theme that’s been heavily adapted to suit our needs.

In fact -all- of our sites run on WordPress/Genesis. Ours as well as those we help maintain on the Production Ottawa Network. The simple reason for that is that it’s awesome. There is no better system for the price point to get a pro-grade website up and running or for ease of maintaining it. Updating most parts of the website is as easy as sending an email. This, folks, is how you get great design and useability at low cost.

Those other sites we maintain: Untamed-Lands.com, LegendOfOz.com, AnEndToMadness.com, SurviveTheHouse.com (the only non WordPress holdout, soon to change), ProductionOttawa.com, AuditionsOttawa.com, CrewJobsOttawa.com, SeeOttawaMovies.com, ShouldYouSeeIt.com.

If you’re considering putting up or redesigning your own website and good looks plus ease of use are two things that are important to you, send us an email. Getting businesses and creatives set up with a quality and cost effective website is something we love doing.

Back to the Backstory

The rest of this is mostly for my own future recollection and is a brief history of valleywind.com

What valleywind.com looked like in 2008

What valleywind.com looked like in 2009

Feb 2008 – The first iteration of valleywind.com. Basic, but got the information across that we needed to going into our first major production. It survived for 13 months.

Mar 2009 – Fairly similar to the 2008 model with just a bit of a face lift. It survived 19 months.

Jul 2009 – Launched the blog which stayed alive as a distinct site until early 2011. The blog theme was pretty much poop but I posted more back then. Something I’ll hope to get back to this year. The posting, not the pooping. As a distinct site, it survived 21 months.

What ValleyWind.com looked like in 2010

What ValleyWind.com Looked like in 2011

Oct 2010 – Mega-major-update. This iteration was a bitch-ton of work because it was designed from scratch and all the content had to be written or rewritten. This was the the first time we really started featuring our productions and we increased the information on the site probably by tenfold. It was also the time we realized that as a production company, the site needed to be media rich and show off what we do. It was very nice but having started to get familiar with WordPress I knew that that was the direction we needed to go. With this version, we connected the blog right to the site, rather than keeping them as totally separate entities. It survived only 7 months. Painfully, that’s barely longer than it took to develop the site.

Apr 2011 – We made the jump to WordPress and Genesis, fully merging the blog to the site in the process. There was a bunch of design work to do but fortunately, all the content was there and it just needed to be ported over. Though I liked it, I was never completely happy with it. The problem was the front page was trying to do too much. We were trying to get so much across and it just wasn’t as effective as I’d wanted. It was well organized but there was just too many pages and too much content. It survived 10 months. Which brings us to-

Jan 2012 – Our latest design (photo above). As soon as I came across this child theme for Genesis, I saw the possibilities for valleywind.com. It fit immediately with what I’d been thinking. I mean just killing the individual production pages in favour of linking to their own sites is a huge imaginary weight lifted away but the front page looks great and provides easy and quick access to everything. Plus, a lot of the content’s been tweaked and rewritten and the inside is nice and clean. There’s still work to do on the Client Services section (content-wise) but on the whole I think this one’s a keeper. It’s the first time since 2008 that I’m launching the site and NOT thinking about re-designing it.

Now I want to know: What do you think? The comments are open.

Looking at the 2010 recap, I’m seeing that some announcements were a bit premature. Hopeful optimism. What can you do?

Click for full HD version.

The truth is that generally, the list of things I expected to take 12 months to get done, should actually have been estimated at about 14 and because of shifting priorities, life-type craziness, and the distribution of work, a lot of the bigger things are all getting just about wrapped up now.

The projects that the most people care about – Untamed Lands, Legend of Oz – are very close to being finalized. In fact, (hopefully without jinxing it) we were recently able to diagnose and fix a problem that’s been plaguing Untamed Lands for two years and has been one of the major slowdowns. While it would have been nice to have solved that issue –last- spring, it’s great news going into this final stretch (to the tune of saving hundreds of hours of work).

The second big thing listed as “coming” in the 2010 review was Production Ottawa. Well, as of January ProductionOttawa.com has officially launched and is ready to become *the* source for movie and theatre production information in Ottawa and surrounding areas. Some of Production Ottawa’s member sites include:

• AuditionsOttawa.com
• CrewJobsOttawa.com
• SeeOttawaMovies.com
• ShouldYouSeeIt.com

Worth saying that Production Ottawa is a separate business entity from Valley Wind Productions so we won’t be talking about it much here. (We do still remain partners in producing their video content and maintaining their websites).

Heading down the Rabbit Hole

The third thing I mentioned last year, I knew even then was wishful thinking. It was very quickly decided (like end of February decided) that we would wait to go to camera on Legend of the Looking Glass until 2012. We wanted to get our cast together, get some ducks in order, and most importantly not be burdened with post production on Untamed and Oz while we were working on this.

And we did do that. We’ve cast our leads and many of our secondary characters and they’re stupendously talented and ridiculously beautiful. We did some photo shoots with our leads, put up a website, and shot a seven-minute prologue called Prelude to Wonderland, which you can watch below.

 Bullet Point Summary

In addition to working on Looking Glass, post production times two, getting Production Ottawa launched, and the aforementioned life-type craziness, there was a lot of other stuff going on at Valley Wind HQ.  Let’s sum it up:

• New website for Untamed Lands.
• New website for Legend of Oz.
• Produced a children’s short film called The Storybook (mis)Adventures of Hanna and Greta. Despite a very young cast and a green screen, it was one of the smoothest productions I’ve been a part of. You can find some photos on the photos page and watch for announcements in the next month or two as to when you can see it. So far it’s only been available to the cast and crew.
• Produced a twenty-minute comedy short adapted from the David Pinski play “A Dollar”. A nice summer shoot. There are photos around here somewhere and, again, watch for announcements in the next month or two as to where you can see it. So far it’s only been available to the cast and crew.
• We started Yay or Nay Reviews/Should You See It just one year ago in January 2011 and had some fun with that. We do video movie reviews in under two minutes, occasionally do little sketches before hand, and also covered a bunch of local theatre. You can find us on YouTube and watch any of the over 120 reviews we shot or just start with the wicked-fun Year End video which captures all of our crazy hijinks in one video.
• In the fall, we launched a sketch comedy vidcast called Windcast, and have been having some fun with that. Here’s the playlist to all those videos.

In total we produced (beginning to end) more than five hours of content in 2011, making it a very prolific year.

Click for full HD version.

And now, the curtain.

So what are our plans and/or predictions for 2012? Yay or Nay Reviews and Windcast will continue until at least the late fall when they’ll come up for renewal again. We should go to camera on Legend of the Looking Glass in late spring/early summer and be wrapped on that up by the fall. Untamed Lands and Legend of Oz will be at least in the “available” to cast and crew stage before we go to camera on Looking Glass, if not available to the public. And that’s kind of all we’ll have time for.

But I think it’s enough.

This is how it starts.

Called “Prelude to Wonderland” the prologue picks after a major incident in Wonderland and brings you right up to the point where Legend of the Looking Glass starts.It will introduce you to the major players of the movie and give you the set-up for where things are going. Break out the popcorn, sit back, relax and enjoy.

If you enjoyed that, you’re going to LOVE Legend of the Looking Glass. Check out the official website – anendtomadness.com – for more information. Also, we’d love you if you could do us the favour of sharing and tweeting out the video to help spread the word and support the production.

It's an all out hunt for the Duchess in Prelude to Wonderland.

And before you go, what did you think of Prelude to Wonderland? Any characters stand out for you? Who do you like and what do you think is going to happen?

Prelude to Wonderland
Starring: Lawrence Aronovitch, Celine Filion, Robin Hodge, Jesse Reynolds and Emanuelle Carriere as Alice.
Written and directed by: Allan Mackey
Full credits available at anendtomadness.com

Does that clear things up? Windcast is our new sketch video show. One specifically geared to the world of online video, playing with all of it’s particular quirks. It’s a collaborative affair from the ground up with the team working together to write and produce content as it comes up. New videos will go online every other week with each video being totally different from the one before.

Yeah. Really, it’s just an excuse for us to do fun things and post the videos for you to see.

Hopefully you’ll like some of them. ;)

BTW – if you want to play the What Is Windcast Word Find, you can download it by clicking  the thumbnail to your right. Let us know how many words you find in the comments below and in a few weeks I’ll post the full word list to Facebook.

Emanuelle Carriere and Robin Hodge join us as new additions to the Valley Wind Productions family while Celine Filion and Jesse Reynolds both worked with us as part of Windrush 2010 and Lawrence Aronovitch previously voiced the Narrator in Survive the House and has been involved in other minor projects.

Accompanying these five principal characters on the other side of the Looking Glass are Ron Langton as the White Knight, Richard Groen as Humpty Dumpty, and Kyla Gray as the Duchess plus Brigitte Aubé-Harrison, Mike Kosowan, Celeste Haslett, Emma Wright and ShouldYouSeeIt.com‘s Matthew Champ in other supporting roles.

MORE NEWS

Principal photography on Legend of the Looking Glass isn’t set to start until spring 2012 but our leads and several supporting characters will be hard at work this fall shooting a teaser video in the form of prologue to the events that take place in Legend of the Looking Glass. Watch for it in early winter 2011. If you haven’t already, please visit AnEndToMadness.com, the official Legend of the Looking Glass website. At the beginning of August, we’ll be officially kicking it off with extended galleries from the above photoshoot but there right now, you can sign up to the mailing list and keep fully up to date on everything going on with the production as we start to gear up, plus be among the first to find out how you might be able to be a part of bringing the magic of a Steampunk-inspired Wonderland to life.

AND, if you want more pictures right away, visit the Legend of the Looking Glass fan page on Facebook where we’ll be posting one extra photo for each character, one a day over the next week.

Finally, comment away. What do you think of the group? Are you as excited as we all are to get this underway?

(Note: We have not completely cast every supporting or minor character in the project, nor have we listed every actor currently locked in as cast.)

Celine Filion at Windrush 2010. Now in two shows at this years Ottawa Fringe.

(Follow the Fringe link for synopsis and show times for each show.)

Complex Numbers, with Ellen Manchee (Untamed Lands, Legend of Oz, Windrush 2010)
http://www.ottawafringe.com/complex-numbers

Double Yellow Line, with Jennifer Vallance (Windrush 2010)
http://www.ottawafringe.com/double-yellow-line

Einstein’s Bicycle, with Lori Jean Hodge (Windrush 2010)
http://www.ottawafringe.com/einsteins-bicycle

glitch, with Kyla Gray (Untamed Lands, Legend of Oz, Survive the House)
http://www.ottawafringe.com/glitch

My Mother’s Daughter, with Celine Filion (Untamed Lands, Windrush 2010)
http://www.ottawafringe.com/my-mothers-daughter

Subnormality, with Shannon Riley (Windrush 2010)
http://www.ottawafringe.com/subnormality

The Walk, with Dyna Ibrahim (Legend of Oz, Windrush 2010) and
Celine Filion (Untamed Lands, Windrush 2010)
http://www.ottawafringe.com/the-walk

Let us know in the comments what else is worth seeing this year.

Yay or Nay Reviews Ottawa Fringe

In addition to those probably awesome shows there’s plenty more worth seeing during Fringe’s ten day run. If you’re looking for a little help making some tough choices, come and visit Yay or Nay Reviews over at shouldyouseeit.com

We are going to be out at Fringe. We are going to be reviewing shows. (A lot of shows.) We are going to be talking to show creators and actors about their shows wherever we can. We’re even going to be talking to all the Fringers to find out what they’re digging.

Then, we’re going to bring it all back to our website, shouldyouseeit.com to continue the discussion on all things Fringe. If you see us out there, be sure to say Hello.

One of Looking Glass's producers, Laurie Stewart, repping the production at the 1st Canadian National Steampunk Expo.

A few months ago, I couldn’t have answered that question. Not well anyway. I, myself, only had a vague understanding of it. Sure, I could point it out if I saw it. I recognized it. I liked it. But I couldn’t describe it to another person in a -simple- way they’d get it.

Then I went and put the word “Steampunk” on a casting notice. Legend of the Looking Glass is described as a steampunk-inspired adventure. I didn’t have any solid idea how I’d be implementing it, or how far I’d be taking it, but the word was out there.

Now, as we get further into production more people are asking: What is Steampunk? Uh…

Fortunately, in attracting some good and talented people to the production, they got me thinking more specifically, less generally, and -most importantly- bigger than I’d been thinking before. I’ve expanded my understanding some and have reached a place where I can give a qualified answer now.

And what is Steampunk then?

Just so it’s said, I’m not out to write an essay. I’m not an expert and what I’m saying has almost certainly been said before. I’m just writing from my understanding to answer the question for people who wonder what Steampunk has to do with our movie.

I see Steampunk as a three-sided triangle, built around a heart of Victorian culture. The three arms are aesthetic, technology, and mentality.

The core Steampunk aesthetic takes what you’d recognize as Victorian-era staples (corsets being a favourite), often blending them with various elements of punk or fringe fashion (hence the punk in Steampunk). Straps, studs, and accessories are custom-added to create unique looks and help people “own” what they wear.

Technology tends to be stalled at the dawn of the industrial revolution. No mass production, no factories, no plastics. It’s a world of iron, clockworks, and steam engines where most everything you come across was hand crafted and not pulled off an assembly line.

The Steampunk mentality roots itself in adventure and ingenuity. Coming off the era of exploration, without the industrialization, computers, or day-in, day-out 9-5 same-old routine weeks, it’s representative of a simpler world and a simpler time. A more fun time, idealized though it may be. Who doesn’t want that adventure of exploration and discovery, even on a small scale? It’s why we tell stories in the first place.

Steampunk effectively picks a moment in time – Victorian era – and manages to both stay there and advance forward. It can be considered an alternate history, or in some cases, a post-apocalyptic, post-industrial future. Think what happens when the fossil fuels run dry.

Some folk in their steampunk attire at the Canadian National Steampunk Expo.

Legend of the Looking Glass + Steampunk =

While the Wonderland we’re setting out to create is Steampunk inspired, I don’t know if it’s fair to brand this a steampunk movie. You won’t see any mechanical elephants or airships or many major contraptions. (Although if there’s a VFX house out there reading, let’s talk.)

Our Wonderland is on that post-apocalyptic, post-industrial side of things. As a people they’ve reached our level of technology in the past, but the big industries have effectively shut down. There are cars, advanced electronics, and plastics but all rare and most are juryrigged from relics. Nobody’s making new shit – complex, assembly line shit anyway.

Particularly centered on the Queen’s court, the accepted aesthetic for dress is undeniably Steampunk. Some other characters have other styles of dress, just as in our society not everybody dresses in traditional western fashion. (Particularly, ethnic groups maintain their own fashions, but punks/goths are happy to present their unique stylings in public.)

It’s easiest to look at Steampunk as the Wonderland mainstream, and other styles as the subcultures. Our Hatter comes from a Capone-era mobster mentality, the Spades gang are right out of the Wild West, and Humpty Dumpty rides around in a fancy automobile and dresses like a deep south plantation owner.

This Steampunk-inspired Wonderland is intended as stark contrast to where Ice (Alice) comes from – a world very essentially like our own.

There. Now that you have your answer. Hit us up on the official Legend of the Looking Glass website, AnEndToMadness.com and be sure to sign up for our mailing list for exclusive production updates and to learn about all the ways you can get involved in the production.

Down in the comments: What is Steampunk to you? Had you heard of it? Are you involved?

And to answer the question now: will Valley Wind Productions be going further into the world of Steampunk in the future? Will we do any other Steampunk movies, maybe even hard core ones?

Only if I can have an airship.

Seriously.