By Mike, on May 25th, 2010 This movie looks like a “must see.” The director, Kevin McMahon has directed some amazing documentaries, including one of my favorites, “McLuhan’s Wake” – a doc on the Canadian media communications theorist Marshall McLuhan.
Green Screens presents WATERLIFE
Directed by Kevin McMahon, 2009, 109 minutes.
Tuesday June 1 at 7pm
FREE
NFB Cinema – 150 [...]
By Mike, on May 3rd, 2010 The annual Contact Photography Festival is taking place through the month of May. Unlike the other famous Toronto festivals, including HotDocs and TIFF, this one is completely free – so there are no excuses – check some stuff out!
This year’s theme is “Pervasive Influence: Exploring the social and political consequences of the medium of [...]
By Mike, on May 1st, 2010 Wow. It’s been quite a week for arts and entertainment in the city. The HotDocs Documentary Film Festival opening and Contact Photography Festival mark the beginning of the many arts-focused festivals which take centre-stage during summer months. Venerable website Torontoist has a story and photographs of the founders of a new repertory theatre which will [...]
By Mike, on April 29th, 2010
Located at John and Richmond St. in downtown Toronto, the National Film Board’s Mediatheque centre is an inspiring place. You can check out all kinds of short films, animations and documentaries. Once I took a group of students there for a field trip. The presenter was amazing – it was one of my favorite [...]
By Mike, on February 22nd, 2010 Mike and "Driver 8" magazine – Hot off the Press! Photo by Ian Robertson
I’ve been involved with publishing and DIY enterprise for a long time— almost two decades! A colleague recently scanned some negatives and I thought I’d share a cool photo with you.
This was my first apartment in Toronto, circa 1990, and [...]
By Mike, on January 9th, 2010 I have been doing this blog quite a while – I just reached the amazing mark of 50 posts! Some blog nearly everyday but I tend to post about twice a month so it’s taken about two years to get to this point. I’ve learned quite a bit along the way and I’d like to [...]
By Mike, on December 21st, 2009 Recently I got to playing around with a graphic of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and a picture of artist/writer Douglas Coupland. I was compositing the two and came up with the image at left, which I really quite like. I started thinking about what makes Doug Coupland one of my favourite Canadians, and who [...]
By Mike, on November 25th, 2009 An interesting series is starting tonight on TVO. Here’s a description from their website:
“The written word: in prehistoric times, it took the form of drawings in caves. Today it speeds past on the screens of our electronic devices at the touch of a finger. How did the simple act of reading come to be? [...]
By Mike, on October 16th, 2009 The Coconut Radio video was a real pleasure to work on for the last year. Through the process I learned a lot about making videos. Let me share some of the experience and offer some tips.
The project was something I undertook alone. I had asked for some help from friends but realized early on [...]
By Mike, on September 12th, 2009 I have just launched the “Radio Coco Remix” site and released the “Coconut Radio” video on YouTube. I refer to the site in the context of an “open source remix” project. Perhaps that’s a bit oxymoronic an expression – by nature the idea of the remix involves taking the stems or bed tracks of a [...]
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Mike Simpson is a teacher, writer, musician and designer from Toronto, Canada. He is a new media enthusiast and has been "strongandfree" since 1996.
Mike is working on a hybrid music and video project called "City Symphony" and teaching at George Brown College.
Check out Strong+Free for his Design and Media work.
Contact him:
mike @ strongandfree.ca
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