A Surprise Night of Tribute
Posted on 01. Dec, 2010 by Scott Carnegie in Blog
Photos courtesy of KEVIN UDDENBERG
A couple of weeks ago I was at The Park Theatre in Winnipeg interviewing some people for a documentary I am working on. I was up on the second floor in “The Loft” with my camera and subjects. After some time a fellow come upstairs and asked if he could speak with me. A few of my interviewees actually knew him and after some light chit chat he got down to business.
It turns out that he had an event that night in the Theatre and their videographer had fallen ill and couldn’t be there, so seeing that I had my equipment with me, he was wondering if I might be available.
Sure!
It turned out to be a great night, full of art and music and surprises.
Linda Tooley was an artist, and for the last 10 years was the film liaison for the City of Winnipeg Film and Special Events Office, negotiating city services for the making of films, videos, commercials, and major motion pictures.
She passed away about a year ago and the event at the Theatre this night was a tribute to her and her art.
Her husband Reid Dickie, a writer and at one time radio DJ, had for the past year gone through loads of visual material that he and Linda had put together over the years and worked with the people at Video Pool to digitize them from the film and tape sources that they had and have them ready to present for this special night.
Reid started off the night greeting his guests in the lobby and re-connecting with many people that he hadn’t seen in a long time. I captured footage of him hugging, talking, laughing, and got comments from people about some of their memories of Linda.
Then we moved into the Theatre for the presentation and the videos.
Here is one of my favourites.
You can see more at the DickToolCo YouTube Channel.
After viewing several of the videos that Reid and Linda had put together through the years we were treated to a performance by WildFire, an exciting music and dance troupe that put on one of the most unique performances I had ever seen, seriously. The whole performance was in black light with their bodies covered in glow-in-the-dark paint; a little hard to capture on camera in the low light situation but I turned up the gain and let the camera roll.
I put the footage onto DVD for Reid who is now going to edit it into a completed package of memories. Thanks Reid for the chance to work on this great project! Glad that I happened there that night to help make it a success!
