Corporate gigs are probably the life-blood of most artists (though coffee falls in a close second, for me at least).

Even more-so than commissioned work, corporate gigs have the benefit of an organization with vision and aspirations of greatness with the additional ability to pay for your services as a freelancer…. which is exactly why I take on this sort of thing. It allows me to eat more than just Ramen noodles.

mmmm…. Ramen….

Anyway…

Last year I put together a corporate-speech style video for the Council of Ontario Universities as part of their annual David C. Smith award dinner – From COU, the honour is awarded “for Significant Contribution to Scholarship and Policy on Higher Education in Canada [and] is presented annually to an individual who has significantly advanced higher education and research.” Past recipients of the award have included Dr. Martha Piper, former president of the University of British Columbia; the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien, former Prime Minister of Canada; and Rob Prichard, President and CEO of Metrolinx and President Emeritus of the University of Toronto.

Last year’s recipient was economist and former Queen’s University professor Don Drummond:

In similar style, I was approached to put together the video for this year’s recipient Dr. Peter George, the former President of McMaster University – I’ll be working on this over the next month or so, through a couple different revisions, though for this year’s video I had the added benefit of being able to use the audio/video gear purchased for The Indie Machine, so the quality will be much improved (even more so next year hopefully, if I’m to film and edit the 2012 recipient’s speech).

Additionally, as a bonus I get to stick around for the fancy gala dinner – which this year consisted of some sort of chicken cut atop mashed potatoes and various vegetables (I had no idea baby onions tasted THAT deliciously different) – it’s probably the best meal I’ll eat all year, save for when I go home at Christmas and my mother makes it her goal for me to gain 20lbs over the course of 2 weeks.

Last year she only hit 10lbs…. so we’ll see how this year goes soon enough :|