Alan Skeoch

Blog

  • Episode 391 MOTION PICTURE TREASURES…(beaten and bashed like all of us)

    FILMING IS BIG BUSINESS IN TORONTO…HERE IS ONE REASON WHY


    EPISODE 391     MOTION PICTURE SET DRESSING TREASURES (matter of opinion)


    alan skeoch
    july 2021



    Good news came up the farm laneway in the form of a 5 ton truck sent
    loaded with gifts from Michael V.   Treasures ,really.  So here are
    some pictures and a few questions to which the only answer is “GOOD!”

    “ALAN, we need set dressing for a factory in ruins…”
    GOOD
    “MARJORIE, we need some things for village in 1950’s…i.e. oil storage tanks…iron wheels.”
    GOOD
    “ALAN, we need some things for a back alley in a tough city.”
    GOOD
    “MARJORIE, we need some things for a ship yard in ruins…1930’s rusty…broken…forgotten”
    GOOD
    “ALAN  we need a disaster scene dressing”
    GOOD
    “MARJORIE, The setting is a scrap yard.”
    GOOD
    “ALAN, we need rusty things left on a desert island in 1944.
    GOOD

    “MARJORIE, I would not have this stuff on our lot.”
    GOOD
    “ALAN, This is ridiculous…junk”
    GOOD
    “MARJORIE, there is no place to keep this stuff.”
    GOOD
    “ALAN, we need a fake sunflower,,blooming in a junk yard.”
    GOOD
    “MARJORIE we need a guy in short pants …goof/”
    GOOD
    ALAN. I would not allow this stuff..”
    GOOD

    THANKFULLY few people know the secret of good set
    dressing.  Do you really want to know? Good set dressing
    must be beaten and twisted, torn and paint chipped, weathered and
    dying.  Why?  Because then and only then does a motion picture
    set capture the human condition. I’m talking about serious drama…
    not the fluffy stuff.  Take a close look around the real world.

    alan


  • EPISODE 390 “PLANTING A SUN FLOWER THAT WILL NEVER DIE” (With help from Bill Brooks)

    EPISODE 390   “PLANTING A SUN FLOWER THAT WILL NEVER DIE” (with help from Bill Brooks)


    alan skeoch
    July 20, 2021



    “Bill, could you help me get this sunflower ready to survive the winter…to survive many winters?”
    “Expect I can”
    “After you get the road grader done.”
    “Might just do the sunflower first.””
    (Bill never said I look like a water melon but he must have
    thought that…instead he got working on the sun flower.)


    “This potato digger needs a new home…are you interested?”
    “Bill, Marjorie will be thrilled…”
    “I’ll drop it on the lawn in front of your farm house tomorrow….along
    with the sunflower.”




    “NOW I might just get back to the road grader…”

  • EPISODE 390 “PLANTING A SUN FLOWER THAT WILL NEVER DIE” (With help from Bill Brooks)

    EPISODE 390   “PLANTING A SUN FLOWER THAT WILL NEVER DIE” (with help from Bill Brooks)


    alan skeoch
    July 20, 2021



    “Bill, could you help me get this sunflower ready to survive the winter…to survive many winters?”
    “Expect I can”
    “After you get the road grader done.”
    “Might just do the sunflower first.””
    (Bill never said I look like a water melon but he must have
    thought that…instead he got working on the sun flower.)


    “This potato digger needs a new home…are you interested?”
    “Bill, Marjorie will be thrilled…”
    “I’ll drop it on the lawn in front of your farm house tomorrow….along
    with the sunflower.”




    “NOW I might just get back to the road grader…”

  • EPISODE 389 “STRIPPING THE GEARS” ( with Bill Brooks)

    EPISODE 389   “STRIPPING THE GEARS”  (with Bill Brooks)


    alan skeoch
    July19, 2021



    “World treating you well, young fellow?”
    “good and bad…up and down…hot and cold”
    “Come over here…something for you to see.”

    I had a job for Bill Brooks to do…to make a special sunflower…but
    he got me distracted right away.  Bill is a mechanic who likes
    to be challenged.

    “Take a look at those gears”
    “Look good to me…what are they worth?’
    “Can you spare $3,000?”
    “You mean those gears are worth $3,000?  what’s wrong with them?”
    “Look closer….gears have been stripped…”



    “I have to find new or used gears like this…to fit the front end of a
    four wheel drive Ford tractor built in the 1960’s.”
    “Any luck?”’:
    “We can get new gears from a factory in Italy for $3,000…right now we are
    asking around scrap yards for a used set but no luck.”





    “Stripping the gears…jamming a gear change without using the clutch…that’ll
    start the stripping….eventually the gears just will not work together any more.”

    “You know something Bill…”

    “Know some things.”

    “The term ‘stripping the gears’ could be applied to the current big
    problems below the border in the United States.   A lot of gear 
    stripping going on down there…eventually the government could 
    just not work any more.  Trump stripped the gears a lot when he 
    was president….”



  • EPISODE 388 ROAD JUST DID NOT LOOK GOOD … UNTL OUR HIBISCUS GREETD

    EPISODE 388   ROAD JUST DID NOT LOOK GOOD … UNTL OUR HIBISCUS GREETED


    alan skeoch
    july 13. 2021

    TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT RAINDROPS…BETTER TITLE



    “Alan, this storm is bad…cannot see as I drive…should I pull over?
    “too dangerous…cars behind will drive over us…keep moving.”
    “Why did they decide to reconstruct the road?”
    “To test your driving skills Marjorie.”





    “Alan, I can’t see the road….driving blind.”
    “Try prayer.”




    “Road blocked…just as rain eased….”
    “Power of prayer”


    Not exactly comforting to find this blocking the road just as the rain eased up.

    And then we were home and raindrops began to look charming