08 Feb Staff Profile: Siri Arnet
We are incredibly lucky to have the brilliant and talented Siri Arnet on staff. Not only is she a fine artist and musician with several special projects always on the go, she’s also one of our senior caption timers and has been with us since 2002. Siri is clever and fun and a joy to work with, and we hope you get to meet her sometime!
Job Title: Caption editor.
Years at Line 21: Almost 11 years; been here since 2002.
What you did before Line 21: I was a bit of an artsy wanderer, doing different jobs in and out of the film industry while painting and making art with the rest of my time. My favourite previous “job-job” was the now-defunct position of animation cell painter (which was kind of like captioning, actually: a bit tedious, but rewarding!)
Favourite part of the job: The diversity of the work I think is the best part of the job. You just never know what you’re going to see week to week, and there’s nothing better than being surprised by good work. I get to hear so many different voices and points of view, weird little idioms and facts I never would’ve understood if I didn’t have to figure out exactly how to spell them.
Favourite project(s) you’ve worked on: So many things! Most memorable has to be captioning the Parseltongue sequence in the Chamber of Secrets. Phonetic challenges like that are the most absurd fun. Most inspiring project to caption was probably the series Sanctuary, which often had me working to a version without any finished visual effects, and it was great to watch the story unfold with just the actors in a massive green screen set, with maybe a persian rug, a suitcase, one lamp to help their imaginations along.
Best memory/story from working at Line 21: Now, this really is too hard to choose, so many fun conversations and small kindnesses. They are a really great bunch of people. I feel so lucky to get to work with them.
Favourite Vancouver restaurant and why: I’m a fan of diners and the all-day breakfast. A current fave is the Roundel Cafe on Hastings. It’s super friendly and casual, and breakfast is so fresh and tasty that you feel renewed. Also big points to the Templeton Restaurant on Granville St. downtown, and the chocolate croissants at the Uprising Breads bakery just off Commercial Drive.
Favourite place to travel: I’m not much of a traveler really. I just can’t resist spending my vacation time indulging in all the art and musical projects that require big chunks of uninterrupted time.
Funny travel story/best travel memory: I was lucky enough to be taken traveling a lot as a child, and I vividly remember visiting my mother’s family in Australia and being shocked, totally gobsmacked in fact, at the night sky. I knew that most of the big telescopes and observatories were in the Southern Hemisphere, but I didn’t realize, until that clear, rural night, exactly why. Oh, man, just huge and monumental sky! Just luscious and glittery, and it felt so close and so endless, and all those clichéd feelings of human insignificance hit my 10-year-old self like a hammer. Alas, love of the stars is a long-distance relationship in this rainy town.
Thanks Siri! Check out our other staff profiles.
