August 30, 2007
Two Tree Island Adventure
As promised, I have put together a couple of photo albums from my adventures on "Two Tree Island" with the Ontario Visual Heritage Project.
You can go look through these albums either on Facebook or Flickr, depending on your social networking preference, the pictures and captions are the same at both locations, with Flickr having the best resolution versions.
Part of my adventure on "Two Tree Island" involved this skull found by one of the cast members, as you can see, it has long canines and impressive whiskers. These two characteristics originally led me to believe that it belonged to a Bobcat, but further examination showed some unusual tooth wear, as well as eye sockets that just aren't consistent with those of a focused predator. Visit either album to see the full range of angles on this unusual skull and take a guess as to just what it could be from!
And, hust for Reference, this is an actual Bobcat skull:
P.S. The lenscap is from a 62mm lens.
August 28, 2007
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!
February 22, 2007
300 Update
Anticipation is running high with the release of "300" a mere 2 weeks away! If you haven't heard about this movie yet you must be either living in a hole in the ground or on Mars, but just in case here is my original preview from just after New Year's.
In the meantime, Wired News has an excellent little Q&A with the director of 300, Zack Snyder that covers a lot of ground, from blood and gore, to how he gave his artists free reign to create the utterly unique look of this film.
I almost fell off my chair when I realized that Black Current Screenings played an advanced screening of the IMAX version of 300 last night in Toronto! I'm starting to think that a trip to the "big" city may be in order to see the IMAX version!
January 3, 2007
300
Going to the city to see a movie has always been a special treat, but, with Sudbury being a 6 hour roundtrip from my home on the island, it really sucks to travel all that way to see a crappy movie. With the exception of Casino Royale (boo cliff-hangers), I'd have to say that crap is all that Hollywood was capable producing during the second half of 2006, heck, all of 2006 was pretty damn dry move-wise.
In fact, the only movies I particularly remember enjoying were Dead Man's Chest (double boo cliff-hangers), Clerks II and V for Vendetta.
2007 was starting to look pretty darn sparse as well. Ok, the trailers for Spiderman 3 were sorta interesting, but the first two Spidermans were just alright, so there's no reason to expect the third to be anything special, even if it does have Venom. Another movie based on one of my favorite Marvel comics, Ghost Rider, is scheduled for release next month, but for some reason my "bad comic book movie sense" is tingling, so this one is still a wait and see. The new trailer for Fantastic Four 2 isn't anything really special, even if the Silver Surfer has always been one of my favorite characters, I just can't see Mr. Radd's personality getting translated to the silver screen, especially if they focus on his "early enslaved to galactic evil" days.
There was a bit of stir on Digg over the new Transformers movie trailer, which perhaps shows a little potential, but it's another "give me a good story to go with all those effects and I might be interested, so this 2007 that I'm remaining sceptical about.
While looking for the Transformers trailer I stumbled on to a movie that based on a comic that I hadn't heard of before called "300". "What an odd name for a movie", I thought, so I watched the trailer and then I did something that I don't recall ever doing before, I watched it again, shivers running down my spine, thinking to myself "Holy (expletive deleted) this could be the greatest movie ever!!!"
So, what is "300"? Well, it's actually another comic/graphic novel to big screen translation, however, this time it's based on a Frank Miller (creator of my top movie pick of 2005, "Sin City", which actually ranks in my top 3 or 4 movies of all time) comic book series from the late 90's of the same name, which went on to be published as a graphic novel.
The story is dramatised re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae, in which the Spartan King Leonidas I led a group of 300 Spartan soldiers against the invading Persian army of "Xerxes the Great" (the original, not the XERXES who was usurped by SHODAN in System Shock 2), which was said to be over 1,000,000 men strong. At this point I am tempted to talk more about the historical accounts of the Battle of Thermopylae, but I'd rather not ruin a single page of this story for those who may be unfamiliar with one of the most fascinating battles in history. Let's just say that the line that divides winners and losers can only be viewed in the context of the whole war, not just a single battle.
What really blew me away was the visual look of the movie, while different than Sin City, the trailer manages to capture and evolve the visual magic that made that movie so special. I got the distinct feeling that this is what "Troy" and "Alexander" should have been; of course, we'll have to wait to March to see if relatively new director Zack Snyder and Frank Miller have managed to create a winner. Optimism is high, so are expectations, this one will really have to shine to earn my accolades, but shine like a Hoplite's xiphos it just might!
November 16, 2006
Dylon Whyte, At the Movies
1. Popcorn or candy? Both, real butter for the popcorn, for candy, it depends on my mood, Sugar Babies are always a good choice! (Twizzlers too, mmmm and Milk Duds and Peanut Butter Cups... Oh, uh Hello, my name is Dylon and I'm a sugar addict...) Of course, sometimes it's good to mix the candy with popcorn! (YUM!)
2. Name a movie you've been meaning to see forever. Terry Gillium's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
".
3. You are given the power to recall one Oscar: Who loses theirs and to whom? 2006 best picture "Crash" would be recalled and given to "SFrank Miller's Sin City (Recut, Extended, Unrated)
". (and the best actor award to Marv while I was at it!)
Continue reading "Dylon Whyte, At the Movies"
November 12, 2006
Better be Good to Me When I'm Going the Distance
A few months ago I was really bored for some entertainment so I rented a vapid little flick called “Going the Distance
”, one of this silly National Lampoon films, co-produced by Much Music.
I really didn’t expect much beyond a few cheap laughs based on all today’s easiest gag material (like sex and mary jane) and in the end that’s pretty much all I got.
One thing that did catch my attention was a musical interlude where one of the main characters, Sasha, played by Newfoundland native Joanne Kelly did a really rockin’ cover of Tina Turner“’s Better Be Good to Me”.
Now, I have a pretty big soft spot for Newfie ladies, so I was really curious to find out if Ms. Kelly had actually done her own singing for this scene (which I’m very sure she did not) and if not, who’s voice was it?
Well, I never did come up with an answer for my question, but (in typical form) I did find out about another very interesting musician: Holly Knight, co-writer of “Better Be Good to Me”.
Holly Knight is seems is actually a pretty famous classically-trained singer/songwriter, having penned dozens of well known tunes.
The thing that really stuck me though, was that Holly Knight had writren about a dozen of my favorite songs, including, but not limited to:
Love is a Battlefield - Pat Benatar
Invincible - Pat Benatar
Ragdoll - Aerosmith
Love Touch – Rod Stewart
The Warrior – Patty Smyth
Obsession – Animotion
I Pledge Allegiance To The State Of Rock and Roll - KISS
and the Theme for the TV Show "Angel".
As another odd coincidence, I share the same birth date with both Pat Benatar and Rod Stewert.
Go figure!
November 11, 2006
Passion Takes Its' Toll
Today’s post is going to be a tour-de-esoterica, covering International Cinema, Techno Groves, a few meaningful song lyrics and perhaps a little philosophy.
At the centre of this romp is Ukraine-born model/singer/songwriter/actress Milla Jovovich (It may be technically correct to call Milla Russian-born, as the Ukraine didn’t become independent from the USSR until 1991, well after her birth). Actually, we’re going to focus on Milla’s acting and music bits, as her career in both are more than enough to snowball this post to epic proportions.
The first time I ever came across Milla Jovovich it was on Much Music and she was just “Milla”, who I momentarily confused in the wife of ex-Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, when she was announced as an upcoming live interview. I didn’t really pay much attention to the interview, but I did enjoy the music video for the song “The Gentleman Who Fell”, which has very interesting lyrics, such as this passage:
Continue reading "Passion Takes Its' Toll"
April 2008
