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Visualizing our Heritage
Visualizing our Heritage
Last May, I noticed a small blurb in the local paper about something called the "Ontario Visual Heritage Project", which was looking for actors to volunteer time for a visual heritage production that's being made about The Island.
So I dropped the producer an email listing my acting experience (which is all with the Gore Bay Summer Theatre) and received back a generic little note saying that I'd be considered for a role when they were shooting on The Island this summer.
After not hearing anything for a couple of months I was a little disappointed, but had pretty much forgot about the whole deal until I received a phone call from the producer a couple of weeks ago offering me a bit part as a fisherman named "Proulx" that gets wrapped up in the "infamous" "Manitoulin Incident" from the 1860's.
The shoot was supposed to be for one day out in McGregor Bay Bay and sounded like fun, so I agreed and that was that until last Wednesday when I got another (slightly more frantic) call from the producer. Apparently the gentleman slated to play the nefarious fisheries commissioner, William Gibbard, had backed out, so they were desperate to fill the role and was wondering if I would be interested.
Gibbard's role required a slightly more involved commitment of about 2 and a half days and involved some actual speaking, and since the character is generally considered to be the "general bad guy" for the whole Manitoulin Incident, I could hardly refuse!
Saturday was the first night that I was required for shooting, down at the museum in Manitowaning. In this first scene, the new fineries commissioner, William Gibbard, upsets the First Nations People of Wikwemikong by presenting them with the news that they will now need to purchase fishing licenses from him in order to fish in waters that had already been granted to them. This unsurprisingly upsets just about everybody involved with the Wiky Settlement.
I was a little trepidations arriving at the Museum, as I had never been involved with any sort of camera acting before, but I soon fell into the groove of things after meeting Dave, from the Manitowaning Museum, who was sort of helping with everything and Yvonne, the very energetic producer who was able to explain some of the details of what was going on. Yvonne also doubled as a general gopher and wardrobe mistress, who found me a floppy bow tie, top hat and heavy wool coat to complete my 1860's "look". (Sorry I don't have any pictures! We'll just have to wait for the DVD to see what I looked like!)
And then I waited and waited and waited, the crew was using an old log building on the Museum site as a general set for several scenes, mostly treaty signings and then another scene when Gibbard's special constables attempt to arrest several people at a council meeting.
Finally it was time for my scene where I was introduced to the crew, Zach the Cameraman (who's entire family seemed to be helping with the production), Drew the director and Paul (I think that was his name, who was Zach's brother), the soundman, all from a small company called Pixel Dust Studios.
Drew and Zach explained the scene to me as the figured out where they wanted Gibbard to stand and how they wanted him to address the council meeting. After a quick brush of powder and a jet of artificial smoke we were ready to go, with the exception that I didn't really know what to say and I really started to wonder if I had missed out on getting a copy of the script. Drew went on to explain that they just pretty much wanted to ad lib the scene, as it was going to just be a visual with a narrator explaining what was happening.
So, I just went at it, completely blowing the first take by not talking enough and then ending by completely cracking up with laughter and embarrassment.
After a couple of more takes I was much more into the groove of things and had a pretty good time attempting to dramatically present the council with my official notification.
The whole thing probably took less than half and hour and I was done!
As I was leaving Yvonne told me that Saturday night had just been a taste of what was to come and that Sunday would be much more exciting, as Gibbard was "the star" for the next scene (Gulp!)
Sunday's shoot was in Wikwemikong, way down a back road at a little wooden cabin that pretty much looked like it could have been part of an 1860's settlement.
Loads of extras were present as they were re-enacting a crucial bit of history when Gibbard shows up in Wiky with a group of special constables and unsuccessfully attempts to arrest a local resident that had been causing him some grief. This was to be probably the most complicated shoot of the entire visual history, as Gibbard and his men had to arrive by row boat, exit the boats, walk up to a Cabin belonging to the Jesuit priest, Father Chone', enter the cabin, then exit on to a second floor balcony, address the priest, then spot the man he's looking for in the crowd, order his constables to arrest the man, then rush down into a scene of chaos with Chone' following, then leaping up and ordering the Wiky residents to interfere with Gibbard's arrest, which in turn ticks off Gibbard so that he orders the father's arrest. After this things get really chaotic as weapons are drawn and a near riot ensues, ending only when one of the constables is knocked into the lake, which causes Gibbard to back down and leave with his tail between his legs.
Now, if that doesn't sound complicated enough, imagine that the crew decides that they want to shoot the whole piece in an action news camera style, with the cameraman moving through the crowd, as if reporting on the events as they develop! Which meant that from landing to exit, the whole scene had to be run through as a whole about 15 times in practice and then 15 times for real, to get all the various angles. This on top of the fact that we also had to do some out in the water rowing scenes that just about wore out my intrepid constables, who were all dressed in wool costumes, which is ever so comfortable for rowing around in the hot August sun.
I won't go into all the details, needless to say that it was a lot of fun once everything started to run smoothly and it was fun to get into the self-aggrandizing Gibbard character. The worst parts were changing floors inside the minute cabin, which involved climbing a very tiny two-by-ladder through a wee hole to get to the second floor and getting in and out of the row boats, which is no easy task on slippery rocks in black dress shoes (which hopefully looked period!)
The extras had an absolute ball expelling Gibbard and his men from the encampment, one lovely young lady named Loraina seemed to have a particularly good time hitting me with her basket and pelting me with apples and potatoes!
After about 5 hours of shooting the crew finally declared us done and invited everybody to stay for dinner, which gave us all time to talk and get to know each other.
The First Nations extras were mostly from the internationally known De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre Group from Wiky, the constables were from all over and included Dave from the Manitowaning Museum and Jeff, a cool stained glass artist with cool ink from Sheguindah.
I also asked the crew lost of questions, learned all about the digital Sony XDCAM HD that they were shooting everything on, the RAID 5 array that they use for storing the digital files (In MPEG format) and all sorts of other geeky details that I won't bore you with! I also learned that actually having dialogue in scenes was pretty new to the crew, as their previous productions had been done with nearly 100% voiceovers (which explained the lack of a real script and why I spent the whole day adlibbing the exchanges between Gibbard. Father Chone' and the Wiky crowd.)
Father Chone' was playing by a very cool gentleman from Hanmer named Henri, who's presence in the film as a Priest was actually a bit of a running gag with the production, as Henri has actually played priests in all four visual heritage productions that the crew is working on this year. Henri apparently does a lot of francophone productions in The Valley, including being part of a francophone comedy troupe that performs all over Northern Ontario. Henri was very cool and it made me a little sad that I don't know enough French to enjoy his shows, as it would have been cool to see him action.
After dinner I was pretty wiped out and sore, not just from running around and climbing ladders, but also from falling into the row boat during Gibbard's departure during the second last take of the day.
Yesterday (Monday) was the most tiring day, as the shoot was on location in McGregor Bay Bay, a lovely region to the east of Birch Island on the LaCloche Region. The crew had chosen a small rock outcrop with two prominent trees (dubbed "Two Tree Island") to be the location where Gibbard sells Proulx (my former roll) and his companion La Ronde, a fishing license for a region that had actually already been assigned to Wiky in a previous treaty. This ticks off a group of Wiky residents who try to scare off Gibbard and the fishermen, only to be repelled by a group of Gibbard's "heavies". However, after Gibbard leaves, the Wiky resident return and destroy the camp, scaring off the fishermen, a few days later, Gibbard returns to find the camp destroyed, which causes him to get ticked off and head to the Wiky encampment in order to attempt to arrest the Wiky residents responsible (which was the scene we shot on Sunday).
The chosen island was about a mile from the Birch Island marina and another member of the crew, Kyle (who looked like another relative of Zach), took us back and forth in a fairly small fishing boat in groups of four, along with costumes and other required props.
Fortunately, the crew decided to shoot the events in small chunks, as opposed to one long take like on the day before, which was much more manageable. Unfortunately, Jeff couldn't stay for the entire day, so Drew had to take on the role of one of Gibbard's heavies, which meant that Zach pretty much took the lead, blocking scenes and such.
The four basic scenes that I was involved with were Gibbard Arriving, Gibbard writing a license for Proulx, Gibbard doing a prat fall over the bench he's writing the fishing license on in order to escape the "attack" of the Wiky residence and Gibbard returning to the ransacked encampment and looking tre' ticked off.
I was very sad that they didn't do the death of Gibbard, who was actually murdered shortly after the incidents we were re-enacting (and I was soooo looking forward to playing a four day old cadaver washed up on the shore, as I had been practicing my bloated corpse look all week!)
Overall, I really have to say I was impressed with what seemed like a fairly young crew. They all worked very well together, which no visible tension over how to accomplish scenes; they also worked their collective arses off putting up and tearing down sets. I was also able to introduce them to the Illustrated history project that I'm currently working on with my father, artist Jack Whyte (more on this in the days to come!)
They were also very complimentary, which is always good for a very bad actor's (like me) ego, so I'd rate the experience as excellent, even if I'm still a little black and blue from falling on the rocks of "Two Tree Island" while taking photographs between scenes (and even though I'm earning about 1/10th of what my buddy Draxenn got for his total of one hour shooting the role I got him in the CBC Shania movie!) I guess the most amazing part is that they actually put up with my constant stream of amazingly bad jokes and comments, like when I was getting powdered the first night and said "Powder!? I thought that only happened in the movies, oh, wait a second..." So yes, incredibly high marks for patience!
The finished project apparently won't be done until June of 2008, which makes sense, since they are editing four productions worth of material this winter. I'll post updates here, including information about next year's launch party!
Stay tuned for some photographs from Monday's shoot on "Two Tree Island" as well, including a CSIesque mystery!
Posted by Dylon on August 28, 2007 10:09 AM |
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April 2008