Tue Jul 21,
2009,
2:21 GMT

Eddy the Man

Posted by: Sally

Tags: production, Video sharing, Voyeurism

So we finally got the peepcast working! It was kind of touch and go there for a while because the original plan to simultaneously upload the peepcast and download high quality images using DLink cameras didn’t work. It was a mad scramble to try and come up with a workable fix so what we ended up doing was using webcams for the peepcast and installing surveillance cameras just underneath the webcams to capture a similar looking image to a device known as a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). Stepping into the breach to hook us up with the surveillance equipment was Eddy Stevens at Security Stores in Concord, Ontario.

Eddy was awesome and basically dropped everything to source the cameras, DVRs and motion control devices that lets us record when the action is happening. Technically speaking, we can record all of Hal’s movements for the next two weeks and never even change the drive (size of a small book).

Eddy is a total pro. His expertise has been used on the sets of reality based TV shows such as Global’s “The Office Temps” and Debbie Travis’ “From the Ground Up”. He’s been obsessed with electronics since he was an 11 year old bumming around his dad’s basement workroom. In 1999 Eddy’s company got into the Guiness Book of Record for creating the “smallest video transmitter in the world”.

Well, we didn’t use the smallest camera for this production but we certainly used Eddy’s experience. If you ever need anything in the surveillance camera vein, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these guys!

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Tue Jul 21,
2009,
2:20 GMT

Cottage peep experience

Posted by: Sally

Tags: production, Video sharing, Voyeurism

My boyfriend and I recently organized an apartment/cottage swap for the summer and ventured up to Bancroft, Ontario for the first time last weekend to survey our summery home. It was beautiful…but that’s not the point of this blog.

Our guide was John Grant, father of Maggie Grant who owned the cottage. He met us at the lake marina, showed us how to operate Maggie’s pepto bismol pink boat and took us over to the cottage where he helped us turn everything on etc.. He was a jolly fellow, 70 years old with silvery white hair and a twinkle in his eye. I discovered we hailed from the same home town - neon Niagara Falls - where he was a high school principal (he had that kind of teachery habit of describing everything in minute detail). I kind of assumed I knew everything there was to know about John in the first five minutes of meeting him, which is always a bad idea, and in this case I was wrong again. Turns out that John is also an avid surfer and kite boarder and absolutely addicted to Facebook. He is constantly taking pictures of his surfing antics and his peeping activities turned into a website with a dedicated fanbase: http://www.windinsight.com. For John, peeping about riding the waves provides him with a whole new layer of social activity and support that he wouldn’t have otherwise and it just goes to show how cross-generational peep really is.

Comments: -4-, Add yours…

Thu Jun 25,
2009,
16:57 GMT

Rate Hal!

Posted by: Sally

Tags: production, Video sharing, Voyeurism

Hi everyone,

We want to get Hal some feedback on his blogging so far. Has he been doing a good job of ‘sharing’? Of revealing his personal side? What about his Facebook account? Do you feel you know him any better now than you did before? Or does he keep it too professional, too ‘managed’?

We’re looking for your feedback and you don’t have to be kind! Just send a comment to this blog and tell us everything that’s on your mind.

And stay tuned…full documentary production starts next week and we’re looking for people to get involved!

Comments: -6-, Add yours…

Wed Jun 24,
2009,
13:27 GMT

Behind the scenes of Hal’s book tour

Posted by: Sally

Tags: production, Video sharing, Voyeurism

The ups and downs of the book tour circuit, peep style!

I recently tagged along with Hal on his US book tour and took our little handycam along for the ride. I was doing double duty, scouting possible film locations and meeting up with potential interviewees at the same time. Along the way I was able to get to a few of Hal’s events and follow the action.

Comments: -2-, Add yours…

Tue Jun 16,
2009,
13:54 GMT

Thinking about Hal

Posted by: Sally

Tags: production, Video sharing, Voyeurism

So, I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to make this movie. You see, I’m at a bit of a cross-roads. They call this kind of movie a “hybrid essay film”, which means it’s half an essay film (evolution of a theme/idea rather than a plot) with something else, in this case Hal’s ‘journey’. I’m less worried about the essay part as I was always pretty good at writing those things, but Hal’s ‘journey’ is what’s stumping me.

When we first dreamt up ‘Peep Me’ and pitched it to broadcasters we said it was one man’s personal journey into the world of peep as he researched and wrote his book ‘The Peep Diaries’. Unfortunately Hal’s fingers work a lot faster than the world of film financing and Hal’s book is already written and published and we haven’t started filming yet. Hal has ‘figured it all out’, drawn his conclusions and is now sitting back and reaping the rewards. In fact, he seems downright bored whenever I ask him anything about it. So what’s his ‘journey’ going to be now? I suppose I could just take Hal out of the altogether and stick to the essay part, but for some reason I’m resisting that solution. I just don’t think ‘peep culture’ is best explored through a straight interview style film. We need to experience it, feel it, connect with it, and we need to do that through a person.

Okay, on the plus side: Hal didn’t really experience ‘peep’ in any deep, meaningful way when he wrote the book. Sure, he came up with a few gimmicks: tracking his wife on GPS (which he told her about so was kind of lame anyway) and throwing his Facebook party which only one person showed up for (a great idea and one that I still wince over when I think how amazing it would have been to capture for the doc). But he never made any real relationships with anybody online, never really revealed anything about himself personally, never really tried to get on a reality tv show, never truly peeped himself at all, except for a few half-hearted blogging attempts. Is that one of the reasons he has come down so negatively on ‘peep’? It’s easy to judge from the outside looking in, and indeed I don’t agree with everything he says about peep. I don’t think it’s all shaped by a desperate yearning for celebrity - I think there is a genuine need to connect and in a lot of cases that connection is made and blossoms. Not every online relationship is shallow or perverse.

So perhaps it’s a matter of moving the goal posts. Hal’s written the book but now he’s got to live it. What will he discover about himself and the world of peep that might surprise him? Or by revealing all, and doing it in-front of our documentary cameras so we can turn it into, let’s face it, peep entertainment - will that just re-inforce everything he’s said? And is that journey enough?

Thoughts anyone?

Comments: -7-, Add yours…

Sally Blake

Sally Blake has 12 years of experience in the radio and television industry as a writer, director, editor and producer.

She cut her filmmaking teeth in the bizarre world of professional wrestling, co-producing the Gemini-award winning documentary feature, “HITMAN HART, wrestling with shadows” and the A&E Biography follow-up “The Life and Death of Owen Hart”. Blake continues to make films exploring day to day life from extreme and unusual perspectives, including “Offstage”, a Guffmanesque peek inside the world of amateur theatre, and “The Disciples”, a revealing behind-the-scenes tale of power and profit in the world of Christian rock ‘n’ roll. Two years ago Sally took a mule across the Italian alps to re-trace Leonardo Da Vinci’s epic voyage to France, the subject of her upcoming documentary “Leonardo’s Last Journey”. Currently she is directing the documentary/interactive cross-over project Peep Me an examination of society’s changing attitudes towards identity and privacy in the world of reality TV, YouTube and Facebook.

Sally Blake is 35 years old and lives in Toronto. Her unrequited ambition is to land the role of a kung fu fighting Bond Girl – a role she is hopelessly unqualified for.