Dark Gems Media

26/03/2022

The time is now! Album is up!

DEAR DISASTER is up everywhere! I recommend listening to it while in a dark, empty room. Or loudly in the car, whatever floats that boat of yours.

Thanks to .empire.studios for your mastering finesse, for all of your time and energy recording, editing, and mixing (and random percussive/guitar add-ins), and for gluing the entire project together with your instrumentation and A+ producer's ear.

17/01/2022

***FEATURED VIDEO***
The Criminal Kid - "Persephone"
https://youtu.be/qpuvf5yX-EY

Regina-based artist The Criminal Kid (Allysia Marie) with her first track in a decade along with an official video created by Saskatchewan-originating producer and filmmaker Rob Hillstead (Dark Gems Media). The intimate track, and forthcoming album "Dear Disaster", was born from adulthood complacency, dissatisfaction and divorce.

The track is an emotive reflection on growing up and shedding the youthful buoyancy present in The Criminal Kid’s 2011 debut album, "These Blue Walls are Faking Freedom". The track is darker and subtler than TCK’s previous release, with echoes of A Perfect Circle’s weightiness and Fiona Apple’s pop instincts. "Persephone" mourns the loss of the youthful self, and yearns for the destruction and creation of a new beginning. https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-criminal-kid/667348359

15/01/2022

Official Music Video for The Criminal Kid – PersephoneListen Here: : https://open.spotify.com/artist/2r7pS4I5hmUlVOon82KzwpFollow The...

19/11/2020

We won the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Edmonton International Film Festival.

27/09/2020

Edmonton folks, I will be joining both Wednesday screenings for a Q&A. Can’t wait!

Directors: Rob Hillstead & Jon Jon Rivero | 83-mins. | Canada | TRAILER Super

10/09/2020

Behind the scenes, of the Mud Dreams...independent SK filmmaking with the late, and absolutely great Michelle Sereda.
https://vimeo.com/142182214

This is "Behind the Scenes on The Mud Dreams" by rob hillstead on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

10/09/2020

A stunning short film written and directed by the wonderful Mohammed Saadoun. One of my favourite films to shoot, a blue-hair, eccentric cinematographer (Christopher Doyle inspired), for Mohammed's semi-autobiographical and intense complexity of a character in distress. An amazing story set amid the start of the Syrian civil war. Led by serendipity, my chance meeting with Mohammed during my grad studies at the University of Regina, and our common anger and dismay (his with much more at stake) led to this very thoughtful and constructive film.

فيلم أحلام الطين مترجم إلى العربية: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH-O70BLRf8&feature=youtu.be صفحة الفيسبوك: https://www.facebook.com/themuddreams/ The Mu...

09/08/2020

Dark Gems Media co-produced a documentary known as "Balikbayan: From Victims to Survivors," a part of the The Balikbayan Project. It's world premiere was yesterday at the Compassion Film Festival Online, and it is available to view online this weekend only, until it's broadcast and theatrical premiere in October.

Check out the Compassion Fest! Three days of films, workshops, speakers and music to inspire us and remind us that we each make a difference in a world; one compassionate action at a time.

09/08/2020

Rob has spent most of COVID's lockdown time trying to finish off open projects, and his efforts on this feature-length narrative have been doubled. COMING SOON (as always), please enjoy the trailer for my fiction feature-film debut, Prairie Gothic.

Teaser trailer for the film Prairie Gothic directed by Rob Hillstead

09/08/2020

Rob Hillstead from Dark Gems Media has spent the last 6 weeks working with The Criminal Kid producing their sophomore full-length music recording "Conversations With You in My Head." Please enjoy some behind-the-scenes from the studio from Pianotv.

Today's video is a behind-the-scenes look at recording The Criminal Kid's second album. Allysia is the lead vocalist/keyboardist of TCK, and primary songwrit...

01/05/2020