The commitments I make through Astoria Pictures are to (1) excellence in independent film; (2) profit-sharing, meaning that, in addition to a more-than-living wage, artists who work on Astoria pictures are paid a percentage of profits proportional to their labour; (3) accessibility, meaning that all Astoria pictures will appear with open captions and premieres will take place in maximally accessible spaces as I support the development of vibrotactile technologies to broaden the accessibility of the medium; and (4) ecological mindfulness, meaning that all products we create will follow a Cradle-to-Cradle model of design.
First Principles
The poet James Joyce says somewhere that if you describe your hometown with enough detail and faith, everyone will recognize it as their hometown, too. And I really believe that: our differences from one another are significant and should be celebrated—but they’re not essential. We connect as the branches of a tree to the trunk, as the trunk through the roots to the earth.
First Principals
Astoria refers to my childhood home on Astoria Court in London, Ontario, where I lived with my parents, Kevin and Lisa, my brothers, Mark and Brad, and our labradors, Jessie and Duncan. We lived across the park from my kindergarten and public school, University Heights, across the street from my elementary school, Orchard Park, and around the corner from my high school, Sir Frederick Banting Secondary.
My youth was filled with family, sports, friends, and the drums: my band rehearsed in the basement—it’s always the drummer’s place that gets it—and after leaving home, I asked our neighbour Scott Holman what that experience was like for them. “You guys definitely improved,” he said, generously.
Toward the end of highschool I started writing, reading, workshopping, and publishing poetry; and at university I began acting in school plays, writing film and art criticism for the student paper, and making films. I’ve since graduated from a couple small-business programs, written a few books, and founded this little film company to develop projects for which I can serve as writer, director, producer, and/or actor.