DACAPO goes to the Signature Awards

DACAPO Productions attended the Signature Awards for Advertising in Winnipeg earlier this month. From left to right : Angela Derkson, Annalee Schellenberg, Paul Bell and Chris Goertzen work on their small talk repertoire. Ange and Olaf bump into Laura (of Picanté Advertising) and Alan BOY! Was Laura ever happy to see Olaf! Annalee and Chris chuckle at Olaf's expense (a common pastime at the studio...) Olaf presented an award... And I accepted one for Best Original Music used in a Communication (dame, why do I look so morose?... probably because I LOST MY SHIRT at the blackjack table that night!). The DACAPO crew all together!

DACAPO Bowels... er I mean Bowls

On Friday, DACAPO staff took a late lunch and went to hit the pins at Academy Lanes. Although we were intimidated by the bowling prowess of the school kids in the lane next to us, we frightened them with Dick's inappropriate bowling t-shirts and went on to claim bowling, er, glory? Dick models his highly inappropriate bowling t-shirts for an un-amused Kim... ..while jealous Annalee obviously wishes she was on Giselle's team! Olaf and Dick show us their bottoms (nice skin Olaf!)... ...while Giselle and Paul do THEIR thing. 'If I hold my fingers really close to my eyes, I can use my giant hands to knock over the pins...' (that only worked on Kids In the Hall Nolan!) Giselle and Annalee laugh at Nolan... ... and Dick is not amused. Giselle and Dick discuss strategy... ...while Jayson talks trash... ... and Jesse eggs him on! Olaf, Giselle... and Nolan all hit the gutter... much to the delight of Paul, Ruth and Jesse (ok, Paul does not really look delighted... more like drunk.). I laugh evilly at our opponents misfortune (I'm like that... I can't help it!)... ...while Giselle and Dick console each other. GO ALLEY CATS!

DACAPO F1!

The DACAPO staff took to the racetrack on March 14th at Speedworld reaching nail-biting speeds of up to 50,000 meters an hour. Our faithful videographer Kim was there, and brings us the following footage...

If you don't know DJ... you don't know Dick!

Well, here I am. Back in Winnipeg. Who'd a thunk it! Stranger still is the fact that I'm here working at daCapo. Sitting at a computer all day writing music and hanging out with some really great human beings is a far cry from having your head in a toilet and asking customers what shade of beige they want they're bathroom walls to be. It's a little surreal to say the least.  I mean after all, not three months ago I was living in the land of milk and money.  That's right ... the center of the universe... Calgary, Alberta... YA-HOO! (The correct term is "Ya-Hoo" not "Yee-Haw". "Yee-Haw" is the American version of that expression. (This I learned during my years in Calgary.) 

When I left Winnipeg 14 years ago I thought I'd never come back (except to visit a few friends and family). But here I am freezing my big western ass in this white frozen prairie province. Don't get me wrong I am happy to be here, but this winter thing is well... unsettling to say the least. I was thinking someone should make one of those little snow globes of Winnipeg for tourists. You know the kind I mean ... you shake them and the snow flurries around and when it settles you see this cute little scene representing the place you're at. Mine would be filled with snow and when it settles you see a thermometer stuck at -40 degrees. I can't  wait to get my official tourist T-shirt... Winnipeg "Home Of The Wind Chill".  BBBRRRR!

I do however look forward to the summer. Ah... all that warm air, great lakes, fishing, lying on the sand at Grand Beach. There's a real "buzz" about Manitoba in the summer. Oh right, I forgot about the mosquitoes. Hmmm, maybe someone should make a little shaky snow globe and fill it with mosquitoes instead of snow for the summer tourists.  

So why does a construction contractor from Calgary pack it in and move back to the land of  his birth?  Simply, it was time for a change, and what a change it has been for me.  I had been running my own little bathroom renovation company for a lot of years and enjoyed touring and giging with a little group called "The Rodeo Riders" in Alberta and performing my children's show (which has been something I've been doing since 1986).  But when Olaf and Clint asked me to join daCapo I had to say yes.

Being part of a creative team is a dream that I had for many years, and now thanks to Olaf and Clint it's becoming a reality for me. I am enjoying the new things, the people and experiences here at daCapo. Like... the "album of the week" is a fun thing. I liken it to eating out a different restaurant every week. You may not like the food but at least you tried it. And like some food that your mother would make you eat as a child I am currently gaging on this weeks special and can't wait to dump it off of my ipod.

So here I am, and there you are.

And now you know...Dick. ( at least a little)

Dick join the madness at DACAPO!

Dick (DJ) Warkentin has taken the plunge and joined the creative (and crazy) team at DACAPO! Dick is an old friend and goes WAY WAY back with us, and we are excited to have him kicking around the studio!
Dick comes to terms with the fact that he is stuck working with us...

Dick has helped us out on a few projects in the past, most recently when we worked on a stage show for Caillou a couple of years ago. Besides that Olaf and Dick worked on albums as far back as 1991ish, with one of the featured tracks being 'Little Pigs' which has been make into this shocking video...:


It's great to have you here Dick.... we're gonna' have fun!

I Can't Bear...

...not to post this photo!

Kevin Aichele, one of our lovely composers, used to exercise his chops by performing at Disney as THE BEAR in Snow White (Yes, Yes, we know that the Prince was your MAIN ROLE there, but, damn this bear costume rocks).

Anyhow, Olaf went to see him there and got this great shot with Kevin in costume.

Other interesting facts about Kevin include, he hates the words 'open face' (as in sandwich you sickos!), 'moist' (as in sandwich you sickos!), 'slacks' and 'pant'.

I win an award

I have been officially presented with this award from Mick at FK. I am currently preparing an acceptance speech.

Monkey see...

Nolan goes ape.... enough said!

String Ball Causes Chaos!

We have been working on the Sound Effects for the Supa Strika television series for the past few weeks now. It has posed some interesting challenges as many of the effects we end up needing are a bit, um... original.

There is this one scene in the first episode where some monks are playing soccer with some kind of home-made ball...
and we wanted to be certain that it sounded different from an actual soccer ball, as it clearly had some unique characterists!

I found a huge roll of string in my basement, and gave it to Jesse who used it to create..
THE STRING BALL

This was all well and good, until we decided to kick it around like the monks in the television show (HELPFUL HINT #346: just becase animated characters do something doesn't mean you can too!)
Believe it or not, this ball is HEAVY... (think 10 pounds of string!). Things ended abruptly as Paul's parent's cooler took one for the team. Don't worry Paul, we won't tell them you kicked a 10 lb string ball into their cooler... and they NEVER read this blog, right?

Strikas Come To Winnipeg!

Over the last 9 days, we have had the pleasure of Bruce Legg's company (director of Supa Strikas) all the way from Cape Town! It has been a fun, productive, and always entertaining time!



As Supa Strikas is about a soccer team, we had Jerseys made to inspire us! To wrap up Bruce's time here with us, we took a DACAPO - Supa Strika team shot (Bruce is number 10 on the right)!



That's not all of course... in his time here, Bruce got introduced to some important Canadian things... like this

... and this





We also took Bruce to the Winnipeg Folk Festival

Had a few more drinks...

And introduced Bruce to the production team...Jesse on Sound Effects and Sound Design Kevin on Music Nolan on Voice Direction Olaf also helping with music, ...and myself of course!

We also got lots of voice work done, with voice talents like Sambath San as Twisting Tiger

Its been fun Bruce.... we'll be sorry to see you go back home, but we're excited to know that we'll be working together on this project for the next year! Thanks for everything Strika!

The 80's Rise From The Ashes...

Phoenix Group, a great agency located in Regina, Saskatchewan celebrated it's 25th annaversery this past Thursday with a 1982 theme party (they opened 25 years ago in 1982... NOW DO YOU GET IT??!).

We have had the pleasure of working with David Bellerive and Dustin Panko on a couple of project recently, including Truck Town and Access Communications.

To show our love, Kevin, Olaf and myself drove down to Regina for their fête, and dressed the part...

mmmmm.... gotta love the 80's!

Growing PAINS!

Well, although recent blog entries have not reflected it, things have been hoppin' here at the studio. We have recently signed a really exciting contract with 'Strika Entertainment' based in Cape Town, South Africa to provide all the audio production for the new animated series Supa Strikas.

I had the chance to pop down to Cape Town at the end of April to visit with Oliver and Bruce and to finalize the production schedule (photos to follow.. they were taken on a (gasp) FILM CAMERA!).

To accomodate the Supa Strika (13 X 22 Episodes, with some animation being done by our good friends at FatKat Animation), we are building three new sound rooms...

This used to be our Foosball room...

... but it is now 'en-route' to becoming an audio editing suite.

I have also, unfortunately, lost my office as our building is suddenly too small for our requirements. Here is where I USED to work...

...Annalee spent an afternoon in it while the floor in her office was being redone last week... ...and it now looks like this (and soon will become Olaf's composition room and a new edite suite, and a VO booth).

In any case, in addition to Supa Strikas, business has been so busy that we have hired a new Commercial Production Engineer, Paul Bell, who started with us on May 31st! It is going to be awesome to have another engineer here. For now, whe have put him to work in MY OLD OFFICE...