Tales From The Set:The State Within

Well I spent my Saturday all dressed up with no place to go on the set of a new miniseries by the BBC/Shaftesbury Films called THE STATE WITHIN. Produced by Patrick Cassavetti The series will be in Toronto till August. In the movie the U.S and Britain are caught up in the middle of a terrorist crisis. It's described as a combination of ‘All The President’s Men’ with a little part ‘24’.

I spent fourteen hours in two set ups around Old Toronto City Hall and Osgoode Hall first as a reporter on Washington's Capitol Hill covering a press conference by the press secretary (Maria Ricossa) in which she outlines the new fifteen minute seating policy for airline passengers.

The scene also included real life Toronto Sports Reporter Jody Vance(Roger's Sportsnet) as a Capitol Hill Reporter.

After lunch(road kill?) it was into the Men in Black suite to play a secret service agent. The scenes included Sharon Gless, Jason Isaacs, Ben Daniels and Paulino Nunes converging on the British Residence for a top secret meeting.

The mini-series is set to air sometime next year. That's all for now. Tomorrow I start a 'real' job down at the Cadbury factory. I hope to continue doing background work, it can be fun.

Later,
Kenaz

Tales From The Set:Angela's Eyes

Another night shoot, this time in China Town out on Dundas Street. Other than the smell of a mix between week old egg foo young and rancid rice wine vinegar eminating from the trash bins, it was an interesting night.

The shoot was for a new TV pilot called "Angela's Eyes". Emily Clinton (Abigail Spencer) is a straight As student with a loving family, and dreams of becoming a doctor. Then at age fourteen, Emily finds out that her parents are revealed to be CIA agents, suspected of treason for selling state secrets to the enemy. With her parents in prison, Emily's path takes her on a journey as an FBI agent in New York City, with a specialty for finding out when both suspects and victims are lying. However, the past still has a hold on Emily, making her suspicious of others, and closed-off to her new boyfriend Peter and younger brother, Jerry. No matter how much she tries to right the wrongs of her parents, she must still face them, and figure out whether or not they may possibly be sending her coded messages. The series is set to air sometime in July(?)

The scene entailed a jelous boyfriend, accusing his girl of having a lesbian affair after catching her giving her female friend an innocent kiss. He flies off into a rage, grabs her outside the resteraunt and threatens her with a gun. This is all witnessed by a detective and the suspect after a tense moment is arrested. Drama! Ya!

Our part was to cross notice the intensity of the situation and scatter when the gun comes out. All in all a nice cool spring night. I hope to work on this show again and the other biggie films set to descend on the area.

Those include Sir Richard Attenborough, who will be in Toronto May 3 to June 9, to produce/direct the romantic drama "Closing The Ring".

Premise of the film, beginning in 1943, focuses on a dying WW II bomber pilot who gives his ring to a local to return to his girlfriend in America. Fifty years later, another man finds the ring and attempts to find the woman.

"Closing the Ring" stars Attenborough, Mischa Barton, Chris Evans, Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer and Pete Postlethwaite.

Currently shooting in Toronto is a film starring Natalie Portman and Dustin Hoffman called "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", a family feature from Stupid Zebra Productions. The shoot will run March 27 to June 6.

Produced by Richard Gladstein and Jim Garavente, executive producers are Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane.

Portman will play 'Molly Mahoney', manager of toy store 'Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium', who is bequeathed the store by 'Mr. Magorium' (Hoffman), a 243 year-old eccentric.

But once Molly assumes ownership of the premises, a dark and ominous presence begins to take control over the establishment.

Looks like an interesting spring and summer,

Later,
Kenaz

Tales From The Set::Ultra

It's been a while says I've posted anything about any sets I've been working on, because, honestly, there wasn't much to say. It's same old, same old. Action! Do your cross, mime some fake conversation, cut! Back to one! Repeat a few times.

The exception this week, is the fact that I've worked three days now on the pilot for a new CBS action comedy series entitled "Ultra".

The stunt laden show makes it fun to on set. Personally I find it more fascinating to watch the way a stunt is outlined and set up, than the actual execution. For example, I spent Thursday and Friday night out on University Avenue in Toronto partaking in a scene that initialed a crash involving a semi, four cars and a cab. Then Ultra(Lena Headley) entering and saving the day.

The scene was only 6/8 of a page, but each of the six parts of the scene needed to be shot separately, requiring a wide shot, some coverage and little crowd reaction. Five of the six parts where completed on Thursday night, the most fascinating being a stunt driver, simulating being hit by the truck causing the car to ride up on two wheels and do a controlled flip. Amazing that it only took a couple of dry runs to execute the one shot deal.

That left the fun stuff for Friday night, Ultra pulling a family from a car, seconds before the truck and car go up in flames. This of course being achieved with the use of propane burners and camera trickery. The stuff any pyro would get off on (hmm, fire! Fire!). All I could think of is how nice it would have been if the god awful hot dog substantial had been barbecued for a change.

My contribution had me exiting one of the cars and running away safety positioned to look as if it came to a screeching halt. Unfortunately the camera mans positioning for the first take was over ruled by Barbara Hall and changed. A nice shot that would have caught my face was reduced to my feet. Damn I wouldn't have worn those worn sneakers if I knew that!

any who, it looks like the biz is picking up again in Toronto and especially here in Hamilton, where currently there are three productions in progress with at least four more set to shoot in the next couple of months. I've already worked on a couple of them and looking forward to a great spring.

I've added some new screen caps of some older sets that I've worked on, including The Eleventh Hour and The Man Who Saved Christmas over at kendalloliphant.blogspot.com

Later,
Kenaz

New Clip and Screen Captures

Back in December of 2003 I spent a day on a Discovery Channel production entitled, Blueprint for Disaster: Kings Cross. The documentary type show outlined the horrific effents of November 1987, in which a fire at the London Underground's King's Cross Station killed 31 people in only a few seconds; investigators spent months trying to explain the fire's unusual pattern, which they determine was started by a smoker's match. I played a commuter and I finally managed to grab a few screen caps.





Here is also a clip from the episode, uploaded to Rapidshare.

Blue_Print_For_Disaster-Kings_Cross

Later,
Kenaz

Screen Cap From Land of the Dead

Land of the Dead(2005)

It's not much, but I am in the movie. Extreme top left in blue, carrying the gunny sack. This scene was filmed on a cold day in December 2004.

Here also is the clip from the DVD, Land of the Dead

Later,
Kenaz

Tales From The Set

Well I just got home from the set of "Man of the Year", the latest from Robin Williams. I'll tell you more when I actually see set, I'm back tommorrow, down in the north end on Victoria Street. All I know for now is what IMDB says, Directed by Barry Levinson, starring Williams as the president, Laura Linney as his wife and also starring Christopher Walken. The tenative plot outline is as follows "On a lark, the host of a late-night political talk show (Williams) decides to run for president. The thing is, he never expected to win."

For a treat I was a mile from my home, and for a bigger treat I caught up on what's new with a guy I don't see too much, John Migliore. John is a school teacher, here in Hamilton, who's been doing background for as long as I have.

Tonight he mentioned that the tornado that hit a Hamilton middle school back in November was in fact the one that he taught at!

Anywho, it was a pleasure to see John again, please click on his link and view his great site that has to do with his cartooning and also contains screen captures from various movies he has done.

It was a pleasant surprise when he mentioned that he had a screen capture of me from "Resident Evil: Apocalypse". I had poured through this movie and don't even remember faintly seeing this shot. So along with the origional photo of myself and John taken on set here is the screen capture.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse, myself and John.

Myself and John Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Large photo

Later,
Kenaz

A Screen Capture From Wonderfalls

Back in 2003-2004 I had the opportunity to work a far bit on the FOX series "Wonderfalls". The series was never given a chance by the big wigs. They kept it out of the important January sweeps weeks, in fear of the show being called a "Joan of Arcadia" rip off? Anyway, a little tweaking here and there and what the public saw was only three episodes of a series about a girl working in a gift shop who heard an assortment of souveniers talking to her. What the viewers missed was the quirky humour that you needed a full season to mature. I'm glad up here in Canada the Vision Channel "saw" Fox's err and ran the complete 18 episode series, giving this series its due.



Later,
Kenaz

Screen Captures From Playmakers

From the set of Playmakers Episode 3 "The Choice part 1". This picture was from July 2003, shot in Toronto's then Skydome now the Rodgers Centre.

Here is a screen capture from a DVD rip of me in action.


Later,
Kenaz

Screen Captures and DVD Captures From John Q

Back in September of 2000 I spent two weeks on the set of John Q, here are some screen captures and a compilation of dvd captures in which I appear.





Click Here To Viw Clip Of John Q

Later,
Kenaz

Tales From The Set

Alexandra Paul(Baywatch, The Paperboy)is currently filming the movie in Guelph, Ontario, called, Gospel of Deceit, the story of a preacher's wife who falls for a mysterious 23 year old man and creates havoc in her marriage and in the church.

Guelph is about 52km North East of Hamilton and 90km West of Toronto. We were filming at Chalmers United Church on Quebec Street.

This yet to be listed on IMDB so details other than the details of the scenes that I was in yesterday are a little sketchy. The scene entailed about a hundred of us to be regular church followers of the good reverend who preaches a weekly televised program.

As he is giving his latest speech on how the devil tempts us all to perform acts of debotury, perversion and hate and how the lord allows us to be tempted as a test to our faith his wife played by Paul enters the church with a Pennsylvania State Trooper.

Pauls character in full rant accuses her husband of trying to poison her and then covering it up, making it look like a suicide. Embarrassed the good reverend tries to win back his shocked followers by trying to discredit his wife as a mentally unstable women, who he has been actively trying to obtain medical help for and then drops the bomb that his wife is indeed pregnant and he is very happy, looking forward to the future.

His wife now in total dismay, shouts back that this in fact is an obscene lie, a fact that this bolstered when the young twenty something intended alibi enters the church holding a microphone to a cell phone, playing a recording of a conversation between himself and the reverend. On the recording the reverend lays out his plan to poison his wife and ask the young pan to help him cover up his treachery and provide him with the cover.

Desperate, the reverend grabs a hold of the cops gun and fires a point blank shot into his former friends chest who promptly falls to the ground. All of us followers immediately sought cover behind the pews.

The reverend now showing his true unholy side, stands in front of his wife holding the gun to her forehead still clutching at his straw rhetoric. Telling how his wife tried to run the ministry for herself and that all he wanted was a wife not a business partner. Standing firm Paul's character manages to talk him down and the weapon is dropped. allowing the cop to regain control.

End of day. Overall this was one of the most pleasant sets I've been on. The director was a "good ole' chap" from the old country, the DOP was extremely funny and Alexandra Paul and her co-stars are genuinely nice

Until next time, later,

Kenaz

Tales From The Set

It's been a really busy week for me, thus I haven't had the time to post anything. I've been out working background five days this week on four different sets. Here's the rundown for the week.

Monday,
"Hades Factor"Shooting in Toronto at the Royal York. I played a reporter covering a conference on disease control in Germany. Stephen Dorff is just a generally nice, pleasant person to be around and director Mick Jackson moves very quickly, no debating his set ups with the DOP, just set it, get it, move on. Like it!

Tuesday
Again back at the Royal York. This time for Rexxx, the Fire Dog, a Disney Production. Luckily, I was booked as a Hotel Guest and not the majority who where having to walk down Front Street reacting to a fire truck.

Wednesday
Redemption time! Back on Rexxx for a series of pick up shots of scenes filmed back on November 2. Well early November felt like a Spring day compared to the -10C conditions we endured this night. Good thing this crew cared for the background and let us warm up in a nearby office building lobby often or their might still be a frozen body or two left on John Street. I still don't know alot about this film other than a boy, his dog and a firehouse.

Thursday
According to IMDB "Breach" is described as a movie based on a true story of Robert Hanssen, the FBI Agent convicted of selling secrets to the Russian's. This was a short a sweet, although confusing day. I was one of 500 background sandwhiched into a church on Queen St in Toronto for a couple wide shots requiring extras to kneel down a pray.

Friday
Out to Landsdown and Dupont to a studio located in an old factory for the CBC drama "Wonderland" in which I played a cop. Generally nice cast and crew, as is the case on most small sets, and is the case on most television series a short day, this case only five hours.

Sorry this isn't much, but this life of an extra. Can't wait for my ACTRA Apprentice membership to come through, I finally got the required amount of days and apllied a week ago, a little bit extra cash will by a lot of toe warmers.

Later,
Kenaz

Tales From The Set

This weeks semi-regular tale from the set takes place for a change in my home city of Hamilton. On Wednesday it was a complete pleasure to spend the day at Liuna Station, the old train station situated near the down town core. You can see a picture of the beautifully restored building either in the "Kenaz Vault" or click the link in the side bar to vistit "The White Oliphant", my photo blog, and scroll down until you get to the pictures of Hamilton.

Anyway, yesterday I played a press photographer covering the book release of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black in a CTV movie of the week entitled "Shades of Black". I had a chance to meet Canadian actor Albert Schultz and watch Hamilton-born filmmaker director Alex Chapple (Prom Queen), DOP René Ohashi (Saint Ralph), production designer Tom Bider (Terry) make movie magic. All of whom I had the pleasure of working for on the aft mentioned projects.

Here is the summerary of the movie from Playback Magazine

Albert Schultz and Lara Flynn Boyle are in town this month for the second half of the Shades of Black shoot. The bio of embattled press tycoon Conrad Black is booked at the Dufferin Gate studios until mid-November, with Schultz (Drive Time Murders) in the lead and Boyle (Twin Peaks, Vegas) as Lord Black's wife, Barbara Amiel Black.

Also in the cast are Jason Schombing (Cool Money) as Black's longtime and recently indicted colleague David Radler, and Amy Price Francis (Our Fathers) as Shirley, Black's first wife. Jason Priestley also appears as a fictional investigator.

The $5-million MOW got underway in the U.K. early this month, filming exteriors, gala balls, the lovebirds' wedding and the strike at Black's Daily Telegraph newspaper. It was to begin filming locally on Oct. 19 and will shoot for one month in Toronto, Hamilton, Galt and Cambridge.

Alex Chapple directs for a bevy of producers including Mary Young Leckie and Heather Haldane, both of local outfit Screen Door (Shattered City, Prom Queen), and Gub Neal and Justin Thomson-Glover for Box TV, Screen Door's partner in the U.K.

Chapple (Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story) is working with DOP René Ohashi (Saint Ralph), production designer Tom Bider (Terry) and composer Christopher Dedrick (Torso, Childstar). The script comes from Andrew Wreggitt (In the Blue Ground), based on the book Shades of Black - Conrad Black: His Rise and Fall by Richard Siklos.

The movie tells Lord Black's life story through a series of flashbacks going back to his boyhood.

"He's a character of very complex, tragic and epic proportions," says Leckie. "I think the script and the film will do very good service to that." She adds that, due to the ongoing legal investigation into Black, the production needed to buy plenty of insurance, even though it felt it was on solid ground with its research.

The project is backed by CTV's Heroes, Champions and Villains stream, BBC Worldwide and Screen Door. Delivery is slated for mid-February 2006, with a local airdate expected soon thereafter. Sean Davidson, with files from Mark Dillon.

That's all for now, later.

Kenaz

Some Old Pictures From Various Sets in 2003

Resident Evil II From October 2003. Shot in Hamilton and Toronto. How would you like to meet these dudes out Trick or Treating.

Resident Evil II From October 2003. Shot in Hamilton and Toronto. Sorry about the quality, I took a print out of the origional photo and then applied a water colour wash over it to give it a technicolour look. This doesn't come out well in the scan.

From the set of Playmakers Episode 3 "The Choice part 1". This picture was from July 2003, shot in Toronto's then Skydome now the Rodgers Centre.

From the set of the Canadian production "St.Ralph" shot in September 2003 at Hamilton's steel mill "Stelco". I loved this set the cars where fantastic.


Later,
Kenaz

Clip from Tilt

Through out 2004 and 2005 I worked on numerous episodes of the unfortunately cancelled (another, sigh?) ESPN show "Tilt". Here is a montage of clips from two episodes that I appeared in.

Click Here To View Tilt

Here's the photo captured from the above clip posted previously.




Later,
Kenaz

Clip from Kevin Hill

Through out 2004 and 2005 I worked on numerous episodes of the unfortunately cancelled UPN show "Kevin Hill". Here is a montage of clips from five episodes that I appeared in.

Click Here To View

Here's the photo captured from the above clip posted previously.

Clip from The West Wing

In a previous post I mentioned that I had the fortunate pleasure of being on the set of "The West Wing" when they came up to Canada to do a shoot. They shot this scene in a hockey arena in Ancaster, Ontario during December of 2004. Ancaster is a suberb of Hamilton. Here is the clip from The West Wing season 6 episode 15.

Cick Here To View

Here's the photo captured from the above clip posted previously.




Later,
Kenaz

A Clip From Cinderella Man

Today I am posting an .mpg of a clip that I captured from "Cinderella Man" in which as I mentioned in an earlier post I was an extra on for an extended time. I can be seen right near the end. Just after the announcer says "10 seconds". I'm the reporter 2nd from the bell man, next to the guy in the straw hat.

Click Here To View Clip

Later,
Kenaz

Tales From The Set: "Silent Bob and Jay Like Canada"

No big news today, but every experience helps in life. Last night I did a background gig as a boom operator on the set of the highly successful Canadian series "Degrassi: The Next Generation".

A little information about the series, The Next Generation is the fourth incarnation of the successful Degrassie franchise. In its twenty fifth year of production the series started back in the early 1980's as "The Kids on Degrassi" followed the growing pains of its pre-teen characters. They grew into teen hood and so did the series, it was off too "Junior High" and then "High School" for the Degrassi kids.

The series was internationally applauded for being the first series directed towards youth to compationately protray aids, gay relationships, bullying, teen pregnancy and divorce. Degrassi was showing the real life issues that effected our youth while American teen series like "Beverly Hills 90210" were busy with the pressing question "Does Brandon like Donna?" who cared?

As the actors grew out of their parts and moved on to bigger and better things, the series kept developing. A new batch of young performers mixed with returning guest appearances mixed with fresh scripts dealing with the ever evolving issues of youth.

That brings me back to last night, there I was pretending to be part of a media scrum interviewing the one and only Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, portraying their famous Silent Bob and Jay characters, who were being upstaged at their premier of the ficticious new movie "Silent Bob and Jay Go to Canada, Eh" by their two gorgious lesbian co-stars.

A bit about how this odd marriage of talent came to be. Briefly, Degrassi TNG was airing on PBS in America and caught the eye of Smith who fell in love with the show and its characters so much he phoned the producers of the all Canadian production and requested to do a cameo.

A three episode deal, in which Smith would portray himself as a producer of the new Silent Bob feature, shooting at the high school. Smith also would portray his alter ego "Silent Bob". That was last season, now "Silent Bob" is back for the premier and brought his side kick "Jay" upto Canada for the first time. Click on the link for more.

The guys where great, professional, right on!.

Kenaz,

News From The Set:Dough Nuts and Hammers

Todays news is a mixed bag of dough nuts and hammers.

First the dough nuts. Yesterday I had the opportunity to work in Hamilton again, on the set of the tv serial Regenesis (Ep202). I played in two scenes of many during the long thirteen hour shoot. The first as an RCMP officer assisting a CSIS(Canadian Secret Service) agent apprehend a suspect outside an airport(Hamilton's old bus station, doubled for Pearson Internationsal).

The second at City Hall as a Toronto Metro Officer doing crowd control. The scene was a series of small pick-up shots requiring us extras to act as a crowd of civilians and media looking on at a man who has just just been killed with a syring of unknown matter, injected into his neck.

Anyway, the script wasn't the interesting part of the day, the fact that I got too work with Canadian Director and Kingston, ON native Bruce McDonald again( cult hit Hardcore Logo, TV Serials Kevin Hill, This is Wonderland, Playmakers and guest directorials on Queer as Folk). I've worked with him on all of these series, and I find his directing style refreshing. He's not one for doing ten takes of five different angles, having extras stand around waiting for the magic to happen. Instead he keeps the extras comfortable in holding, while his crew set up each shot and once he's clear on his shot list it's usually a master, the closeups and then coverage as needed. Three, four set ups, no more than five takes is all he requires.
This night, he had good group of extras (about 50 of us), all of us had been around for a while and know interpret the directions from the AD's.

Bruce McDonald Bio,
Bruce McDonald

A funny moment was provided when at one point in the scene with the onlookers watching the culprit jab his victim, Bruce McDonald yelled out a request for an extra to scream out in shock. His request was met with dead silence, disbelief and mild amusement. See here in Canada, the ACTRA agreement(our version of SAG), states.

union performers,
"When a Background Performer, by virtue of an individual characterization or the addition of dialogue, is upgraded to Principal Actor or Actor, the Performer shall be contracted and receive payment in accordance with the fees and rates for the higher category, which shall be retroactive for all days during which the Performer was engaged to portray such Role or individual characterization.

for non-union performers,
"If any Background Performer is upgraded to Special Skill Background Performer in the course of a workday, then the higher rates shall prevail for that entire work day."

ACTRA Agreements

We all knew this wasn't going to happen on this set, so we kept are mouths shut. Bruce got his scream via one of the actresses who where not in this shot(don't know who she was).

Now the hammers, courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator. Producers of a superhero movie called Zoom have zoomed away from a plan to film in downtown Hamilton next month, although the city was willing to close three blocks of Main Street for two weeks. The producers said in a letter they've decided to rewrite the ending to take place in a remote setting with fewer elements and costs.

Full story, search by key word "zoom" article date August 11, 2005
"Zoom" Article

I hope "remote" doesn't mean I will have to travel to "Scarberia" (Scarborough) home of Mike Myers and not much else.

Any who, other than waiting to hear back from my agent about a commercial audition I did on Tuesday, which, realistically, I'm not optimistic. That's all for now.

Kenaz.

This Weeks Tales From The Set Archive-Miss Green Dress

A couple of weeks back while on set of some new network series slated for the fall called Beautiful People, a couple of us who had done a long stint on Cinderella Man together last year where humorously recalling some of the details of one particular female extra.

This womens dress was this sets equivalent to Vivian Lee's green dress in "Gone With The Wind". Problem was our Miss Scarlet, acted more like the lead character in the Scarlet Letter.

Let's just say this women was quite aware of how this dress lifted and separated her ample cleavage.

Although, to give her the benefit of the doubt, she might have had a bad back, so that could be the reason she need to bend forward and stretch a lot. Especially when men passed.

It's funny how memory works though, after recalled the facts of this women, we both said simultaneously, "By the way, what was her name ?"

Where ever you are Miss Green Dress, god bless your spirit!

Kenaz,