Cinematic/Scars Productions

L-R David Skene, Cleo Leslie, Kaeleigh Ayre and Nicholas Friesen

It's been a long time since I've updated this - apologies! We've had a slew of projects the last few months ...

First - she's been part of the team for at least a year, stage managing our Fringe show and helping out on just about everything we've shot, so the fourth member of Cinematic/Scars Productions has been obvious for a long time, but for some reason "unofficial" on the website. It's great to announce that documentary filmmaker Cleo Leslie is a member of Cinematic/Scars! Check out her film "Around the Table" right now on the main page (and congrats on her recent University of Winnipeg graduation)!

David Skene has been crazy busy with his bands The Manic Shakes (who have a 7" coming out June 22 with a show at Negative Space) and Mary Jane Stole My Girl, a duo that has received a lot of great coverage and has a new album set for release in August. He is also prepping a short film that will tentatively shoot this summer.

Kaeleigh Ayre recently completed the third year honours acting course at the University of Winnipeg and is currently rehearsing for a show at this year's Winnipeg Fringe Festival. She will be returning as the Arts writer at The Uniter and had a successful year working at Ecopia - the UW's environmental group.

Nicholas Friesen sat on the awards jury for the Freeze Frame Film Festival and acted as the assistant co-ordinator of the UW's Tenth Annual Student Film Festival (where he also sat on the selection jury). He continues to review films and albums for Uptown Magazine and will be returning to The Uniter in the fall as the Arts editor. He also produced a hand drawn, animated music video for musician Greg Macpherson that debuted exclusively on Uptown Magazine's website and a partially animated/live action video for Federal Lights.

As a group, the four have been creating music (along with Brian James, David Van Den Bossche and Kylie Friesen) as Merch Table Delite, a band that is a member of The No Label Collective along with Hey Pilgrim, Johnny Sizzle, Ex Modern Teen and many others. They'll be playing June 21 with Young Pixels at Pop Sodas. After collaborating on numerous videos over the past year, including a new one from Nicole Byblow, the team co-directed its first clip together for organic farming duo/married couple Young Pixels (which was documented, along with all recent videos, and can be seen as an episode of The Next Reel).  

It's been a great year, the first with Cinematic/Scars being more than just Nicholas Friesen, but an actual gang that gets stuff done. We work quickly for little to no budget and we've collaborated with some incredible people along the way. Thanks for checking us out.