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Although not much actually got done yesterday per se, it was a rather eventful day of laying groundwork. We made it to the Theatre Centre where some dance recital for children was taking place in the neighboring building, but we managed to slip past and get into the studio space—the black sandbox. It involved mostly a lot of fucking around and coming and going to bring more stuff from home or go get food. We are gonna have way too much fun in there: kicking a yoga ball around the empty dance floor, logging into the mobile computer carts to edit the plot/shot list, trying to get a pair of subwoofers to work, digging through props, wandering around in the pitch black of the basement, imaging what we could do in this building after everyone has gone. We were both feeling inspired in the way that a little kid gets excited and has ideas. Our guerrilla filmmaking is branching into a plethora of projects made only possible in such a flexible space: more video ideas, sleepovers, parties. We’ll see if we get kicked out before that happens, but we already have a way to sneak back in should we be kicked out by University Police. Was that sign on the door to get into the studio always there? A police escort for not being associated with the Dance or Theatre departments seems a tad excessive. However, evidence of others having been in the space is apparent, so we gotta be careful, although no one disturbed us for the hours we were in there being not exactly quiet; no one came to check or lock up before the faculty left the building for the night.

But our freeform exploration of the room—digging through the props left in the back storage room, me randomly playing the same four notes or so on the piano and inadvertently developing a theme when no prior mind had yet been dedicated toward any musical score, shuffling all these new ideas into the fold of the Google Docs outline on the computers we didn’t realize were there—allowed us to get to know the space, how best to live in it. We are not an occupying force, laying claim to or using the space, more like nomads or hobos who come and go. Although, a lock and key that was found in the storage area is currently being borrowed so we can house our equipment in the locker room. Heavy rain for the next hour, the forecast said, and I was not about to carry my camera through the downpour, as we biked and longboarded through a mile of puddles that splashed up to my waistline. It was a good day.

The day before yesterday, after my internet was thankfully fixed, we spent the night revamping the YouTube channel (new profile picture, new banner, new name), making an Instagram account, and all the work that was required to make that all happen. Milk Toast Video is officially online. I found an app called Photo Cartoon Coloring Editor, a real piece of shit, but it allowed me to color in the drawing that I asked my friend to do, so we didn’t just have a black-and-white sketch for our channel. Later that night, I painstakingly fought with Instagram over the upload of my “Seasons in the Sun” video, cutting it into four parts and trying again and again to upload them despite extremely unhelpful error messages. (I ended up having to compress one of the videos, the third of four, even though Instagram swears you can upload videos up to 1GB.) It really is an awful, poorly made app—the post count is higher than it should be, as a result of trying to get these videos public. But, hey, it’s at least up there now and I cannot say the same for YouTube. (I still need to appeal that bullshit.) We’ll probably be back in there tonight to actually start shooting, and then, back to the 9-5 until next three-day weekend.