Wrestling, pants, “Big-Me”, and drawing

In the film, I have to wear short shorts, but I didn’t have any. So my Mom cut off my jeans with the hole in the knee and made them into short shorts. I started singing: “Who wears short shorts? I wear short shorts!”

Also, to pass the time while I was waiting to film, I drew a drawing of me wrestling three tires and a hockey stick. Then Craig March — the director of The Beast of Bottomless Lake — saw my drawing and put it in the film! Finally, my other “art” has been put on display!

When we were filming, I had to go into freezing water with socks and sandals and wrestle three tires and a hockey stick (Ogopogo). It was fun because I got to make all these weird, funny faces in front of a camera!

Since I play the younger version of the main character ‘Paul’, I had to look like David Nykl, so I loaned him the necklace I wore during the shoot. Now he looks just like me! We call ourselves “Big-Me” and “Mini-Me”!

Thanks to Craig, Kennedy, Keith, and the rest of the Beast… gang for this great experience!

See you on the big screen!

— Thomas Fournier

Method Acting

I’ve never been one to take method acting too seriously. I always identify with Sir Lawrence Olivier when I tell (or hear) the famous Marathon Man Dustin Hoffman/Olivier exchange (I do wish my career would identify with Sir Lawrence Oliver [or Dustin Hoffman for that matter!]). However, after the first read-thru, going out to Tim Hortons to get some sandwiches for some of the cast and crew, I seemed to be shanghaied by the spirit of my character “Neville.” What should have been a 15–20 minute excursion turned into a hour-and-a-half long series of mishaps which, at the time, felt extremely tragic but quickly resolved into a comedy once the experience was over; which is what The Beast of Bottomless Lake is, isn’t it? A tragedy to those living through it but a comedy to those watching it.

It started out simply enough: David Nykl, who is playing Paul – a hapless character just like Neville! (oh why did we go together? Why didn’t I pick one of the responsible characters in the movie to go get lunch with??? Ah, hindsight!) Anyhow, David and I following somewhat vague directions start walking (actually David is on his bicycle – which I have to admit he didn’t even offer to double me on! What rudeness!) and immediately go the wrong way. It takes us 4 or 5 blocks to realize our mistake and once corrected we continue on our way, having what I must say is a very pleasant conversation. Passing the Cactus Club, David convinces me that we should stop and eat there (far nicer that Tim Hortons he points out, and I counter that the cute waitresses are a bonus). Yes, it was very hard for him to convince me to eat at the Cactus Club (twist that rubber arm!). And to seal the deal, he quite rightly points out that I can go to Tim Hortons, which we both think is only one block away, after I order my food and pick up the sandwiches only to return to C Club in time to eat my hot food. Ahhh, the best laid plans of mice and men (I’m not sure where I stand in that comparison).

At this point, things start to go horribly awry.

It’s a hot day, so I leave my jacket at the Club only to return immediately to retrieve the paper with all the food orders on it. Aha! Things are going well; disaster averted. Imagine how embarrassing to arrive at T.H. (Tim Hortons) only to realize the food order is sitting in a jacket pocket at the C.C. (Cactus Club). Full of sunshine and happiness over disaster averted, I (or shall I say ‘Neville’ at this point, because he has definitely started to take over) walk to TH only to find that TH is not where our vague directions led us to expect it to be. Quel surprise!

Having no one to ask where it is, Neville pulls out his phone and — with ease — tracks down its actual location. It’s another 2 (long!) blocks away. Thinking of my meal about to be served, Neville breaks into a jog. Construction on the street has removed the sidewalk and replaced it with a dirt track liberally strewn with rocks (actually think boulders; that is more their size). Jogging around a woman who must be the slowest walker in the world, I (Neville) step on a boulder and manage to twist my knee (ouch!). Now, sweating and limping (ok, limping only a little – but it sounds good doesn’t it: “sweating and limping”?) I jog-hop the 2 blocks to TH. Yeah, there it is!

Entering TH I wait (impatiently) in line and finally get waved over to the “cash only” counter. But no problem I have collected the cash from the cast/crew so I place the order (which took quite a while as actors, it turns out, have very specific ideas of what belongs on a sandwich!). Payment time. I empty my normal money carrying pocket: you know, the one where you always stick your money. But sadly there is only a $10 bill in it. No problem! I remember putting the money in a different pocket so it wouldn’t get mixed up with my money. Smart! I congratulate myself on my foresight as I start to check my other pockets… I’m not so congratulatory as I check them again when they turn up empty… and again.

What the hell? I look at the floor. Did I drop the money?

And then it hits me: I must have put the money in my jacket pocket with the food order!?! Getting a little desperate, I offer my Visa®. But no, TH for some unknown reason doesn’t accept Visa® (Who the hell doesn’t accept Visa®!???).

Sweating a little more and causing a little bit of a commotion, I hit on Interac™. Saved! Except we have to switch lines since I’m in a cash-only line.

Ok, once that is done and I bump (on instruction of the staff, I might add) an elderly gentleman who was just about to order his lunch out of his line (who insists on standing right behind me — and I mean RIGHT behind me), I offer up my card and watch in amazement as it doesn’t work.

5 attempts… 8 attempts… Manager is called over… plastic bag is found and more attempts are made with plastic wrapped around my card… (remember the elderly gentleman? He is muttering not so quietly into what feels like the back of my neck things that shouldn’t come out an elderly gentleman’s mouth).

Finally the manager gives up and insists that she can not enter the numbers into the machine rather than swiping it. At this point, much of the lunch crowd is thinking: “boy, this lunch is more entertaining than normal” since there is no hiding what has been going on. Really sweating and feeling very desperate, I suggest the only option: hold my food order ’til I can return with money.

Jog-hop-limp the 3 blocks back to CC. I arrive to see David enjoying a tasty meal and my meal growing cold in front of my spot. I check my jacket. Yes! The money is in it. Good! You got to see the good at moments like this. I sit down and half eat my meal as we have now been gone for a long time. David, the gentleman — not to be confused with earlier elderly gentleman — offers to pay for my lunch. Great! Things are looking up! In a fit of generosity, David offers me his bike. Things are better and better!

However, it take David 2 tries to get his bike key off of his (rather large (!) key ring). Finally he gives up and gives me the whole set. It takes me a minute to unlock his bike lock and then I can not figure out where the lock goes. The lock holder doesn’t seem to like the lock. I’m stumped. I think of throwing the lock into the middle of the street hoping a big truck comes along to destroy it. David comes out (from his leisurely lunch, I think darkly) and snatches the lock out of my hand and explains as one would to a child that the lock is bungee corded down to the rat-trap. Of course! How did I not see that (I think sarcastically)! But then I get the last laugh! Ha! David can’t get his lock to lock. (David was channeling Paul at this point I am convinced.) Finally the lock is locked and bungeed down and I am up on his bike picking up speed as I race to TH. Oh oh, I forgot about the non-existent sidewalk. I slow down to avoid the boulders but mistakenly go a little too slow so I lose maneuverability and ride over a smallish boulder.

SNAP.

What the hell was that? The pedals stop moving and as I dismount in confusion I realize that the extra bungee cord not being used to hold down the lock has wound itself around the back tire and gear area! ARRRRGGGGG! Oh, and to top it off the bungee hook has wedged itself into the spokes and is strangling the wheel so that I can’t release the pressure on the cord.

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck I am muttering (well muttering is not really the right word; it’s more like a contained yell) only to look up at a shadow passing by to realize it is a mother with a young child in a stroller. Oops!

After playing around with the wheel, spokes and cord for 5 minutes or so, I finally untangle the cord. Praying to Ogopogo, I test the wheel and everything seems to be working. Back up on the bike and off to TH. The rest is somewhat anticlimactic as it goes smoothly. Nervously riding back to the studio, though, I check over my shoulder for cars, dogs, bikes, raccoons, birds, whatever because I do not trust this day to end without my visiting the hospital.

Now, as I said from at the start: I’m not into ‘Method’ much. After this day I’ll be happy to stay distant from it for a long time.

- Roger

Egg and Tuna Salad Work Their Magic

Okay - So I have been asked to write a blog about the first weekend of rehearsal for The Beast of Bottomless Lake. I have never “Blogged” before… it all seems a little strange but here goes…

So meeting everyone for the first time on Saturday was very cool. It was great to actually see the people who are going to bring the script to life. Watching “Neville” try on all of his costumes was pretty hilarious… who knew that costumes alone could steal the show quite like that? The costumes seemed to have quite the effect on Roger causing him to be quite Neville-like and take about an hour-and-a-half to get sandwiches for lunch from Timmy’s two blocks away… Long story… no one stayed lost… everyone did make it back alive… eventually.

Egg and Tuna Salad were successful mood managers and we managed to get through the afternoon of costume fittings and group photos and no one else got lost for the rest of the day.

On Sunday we blocked out a couple of the scenes that are quite physical or are scheduled on one of the really jam-packed days. That was pretty fantastic. A bit of a luxury to be able to work on a scene without the pressure of a crew, location time running out, or even a camera running. It was great to get a small sense of where each actor is taking their character… which we be very helpful this week when I am doing script-work, homework, etc.

I realized today that a map of my journey (as “Sondra”) from Paul to Stuart is where I will start my homework. I think that I will go through and ask myself five or seven of the same questions in each scene and start to map the arc that way. I am looking forward to getting started on that.

To finish the weekend off, we had a business meeting that gave us as much info as is available schedule-wise at the moment. We talked about accommodation and transportation. So far so good. Everyone seems to really be on board… all pulling in the same direction and excited to get started. Now I just have to pack…

— Leanne

Back in the Saddle

It may seem that we fell way behind in our blogging.

Not truly the case.

For reasons I may get into at a later time, we got sidelined in the fall.

But we are back on.

Beast of Bottomless Lake is set to shoot in May of 2007, and there is no stopping us now.

The Okanagan dates are firmly set. The Vancouver portion is in the works.

It's going to be crazy. There is still an awful lot of work to be done.

Hopefully we'll think to update this more regularly, and perhaps even go back and tell the tale of the past six months.

- Kennedy

A Good Start

Kennedy asked me to write a little something about our first few days of shooting. Overall, it would appear we are off to a good start on the production. The crew all arrived in Penticton late on Sunday night and set-up to film the actor playing Buck being attacked by the Ogopogo. Through the dense clouds of smoke from the fog machine and ‘special aquatic effects’ (i.e.: buckets of water) the first scene of The Beast of Bottomless Lake was finally filmed.

After only a few hours sleep we were all up the next morning and off to Kelowna to visit our friends at CATO. Further interviews of potential crew transpired. We even had one résumé with "Pyrotechnics (self taught)" listed. It was nice to catch up with familiar faces from the casting last year.

Shari, our excellent DP decided on sushi for lunch and we managed to find the slowest take-away in the Okanagan.

We visited the Kelowna Princess and looked around, chatting to Bob the skipper. We found out that over 25 weddings have taken place on the boat, all on the same day! It was then off to see the Summerland yacht club where we found they have had a new bar put in. They must of known I was coming.

The next day saw us at a marina to film the real Buck and his news interview. Despite cold temperatures the crew soldiered on. Patrick, our slightly eccentric sound guy insisted the sub-zero weather was nothing and wore a T-shirt. He then removed a sock to help fashion a furry! The more sane members of the cast and crew grabbed whatever was near to hand to keep warm, be it other crew members' clothes or the crew themselves. Kennedy, our illustrious writer, found that his raging heart was all that was needed to keep him toasty and proceeded to flirt with our glamorous newscaster Dorothy. Obviously, as I run an equal opportunities production, I will now be insisting he flirts with all our actors, both male and female, for the rest of the shoot.

The search still continues to fill our final crew positions. We were hoping to hire more locals from the Okanagan but it seems they are all still hibernating from the cold. If anyone out there is interested please contact Provost Pictures, you never know you may end up part of the dream team. There are only a few weeks to go till production starts.

In the afternoon the sun came out and we filmed Chief Bigsky (pronounced Big-ski). It was a beautiful moment that reduced our sensitive director to tears. An eagle even soared overhead watching the set with a keen eye. That reminds me: I really must cut the craft services budget.

We are still looking for a van for the film. If you or anyone you know has a VW camper-style van, please get in touch. There are also the last few shares in the movie available for sale. I’m sure investment analysts around the world are rushing for these, so act fast.

— David Jevons, Producer

Going Dark

I'm about to head out the door to our second day of rehearsals.

But before I do I figured I should do a quick entry. What may be my last entry until we return from the Okanagan, possibly even 'til we're finished production.

I'm trying to encourage Craig to do one last entry too - if I'm not going to get to write, he certainly isn't.

For the next while all the entries in here will be done by cast and crew. Enjoy their journey!

I also wanted to acknowledge that from this entry onwards, the posts are original to this blog, not transfered from the old one.

T-Minus one week. Yikes!

- Kennedy

Beastly Dreams

I wake up yesterday morning to my wife looking at me kind of funny with this grin on her face and she says, “You were sleep-talking last night.”

I reply with, “Oh yeah, what about?”

“You woke me up talking about casting for the movie. You were talking about casting a female and her audition was pretty great and what did I think. You kept on talking and I finally pinched you and asked if you were awake and your reply was, ‘Of course I'm awake!’ in a rather grumpy tone and that was the end of it.

“The conversation ended and I went back to sleep knowing you were asleep the whole time.”

Okay, when one starts talking about the movie in one’s sleep, one is a little obsessed.

But I am glad that I am obsessed.

I'm glad that this is all-consuming.

I'm glad that I am dreaming out loud about our dream of making The Beast of Bottomless Lake.

- Craig

Hugs all around!

What a fabulous evening that was! Meet the cast and crew. With the exception of having met the director, Craig, once at the audition, everyone else was a total stranger to me. By the time I had to run to catch my ferry, well…

I’ve done much more work on the stage than I have in film. I love the rehearsal process of theatre as much as, perhaps more than, the actual performance. Strangers gradually become acquaintances, often friends. In front of your eyes actors’ personalities morph into something else; characters who develop relationships with each other, with the cast, with their creators. It’s a beautiful, crazy time.

I felt the beginnings of that process last night; like being part of the birth of a new family. I’m usually a ‘day player’ in film so I miss out on most of this process. I feel so excited and privileged to be joining this project in early days. Well, not that early really. The project has been working up to last night for about eight years. But I feel like I’m entering the flow way upstream this time, and I’m excited about the trip.

The first time I read the sides for my audition, I knew there was something special about this film, and I felt the first pangs of “I want to be a part of this.” When the director came over and gave me a hug after the audition, I was hooked.

Apparently he hugs a lot, but what are families for? So let’s hug away and watch this baby grow.

Cheers,

— Gordon / ‘Clive’

Audition Excitement

What an exciting week! Two days in Vancouver and two days in Kelowna casting for our soon-to-be-shot movie, The Beast of Bottomless Lake. I laughed my ass off, and for those that know me, that is no easy accomplishment.

I don't think I have had as much fun in my whole career as I am having now.

The actors brought so much creativity and genuine talent to the words Keith, Kennedy and I have written that I truly feel we are blessed to be surrounded by such amazing talent. It also saddens me a little to know that so much incredible talent is under-utilized in the system that is Hollywood North. I wish that these wonderful friends and new friends could be recognized by the industry as I see them, a much deeper pool of talent than what the industry constraints place on them.

Wake up L.A. and L.A. North, see what I see and start taking advantage of the great talent that exists here, eh?

- Craig

The P.A. BBQ Incident

This Blog Entry (A.K.A. "The Cunt Post.") has been temporarily disabled.

It will return... in all it's infamy.

Sincerely,

- Kennedy

Dust this off...

Oh wow… look at this over here… it's the old Provost Pictures blog, all dusty and left forgotten.

Jeez, look at this stuff… "Kennedy, Craig and Wendy…" Oh that's a laugh… Wendy was two producers ago.

Oh, and look at this quaint title to the next most recent entry "A Big Few Days" - oh how naive I was. Twice over.

And so much else has happened… media… trips… more staff and crew… promises from actors…

It goes on.But what's this about entries disappearing?

Hmmm… I guess I won't invest too much time in this. That was the issue before. Too much time for stuff that didn't exist in the end.

One last thought before I go… and I have no idea if I'll be back, so this really could be the last…

This came up on a Google search. Right now I Google us at least once a week to see where we're coming up. Some of it's pretty damned funny (not as funny as Juanabees fan mail, but pretty funny). I was actually wanting to find a blog entry about us that amused me. Very funny. I want to put it in my video diary (which better serves my needs than a blog). But this is the first time that this blog ever appeared — and only once in the entire search, no redundancies. That alone might be its saving grace. I had forgotten it existed. Presumably now I'll get an occasional hit.

- Kennedy

Okay… I hate Blogger.

Okay… I hate Blogger.

How many times have I written posts only to lose them when I go to publish them?

I've learned to copy the text first, though I don't always remember.

This time… I was in the process of copying the text… and it all disappeared, never to return again.

Grrrr.

And I don't want to waste time rewriting it all now. Fucking FUCK!!!

Perhaps in a day or two I'll try again.

In a few sentences what I lost was…

We had some meetings with various financiers/development people - generally good.

Tony our Telefilm contact has left Telefilm - could be good.

We interviewed 1st A.D.s - one excellent candidate, we hope she says yes. We may want to hire others we interviewed for different jobs.

Bleah!

- Kennedy

Fortunate Meeting

There are actually a number of things worth mentioning…

A week ago yesterday I met with Neil Every regarding the script. Ouch. Well... good and bad. He generally loved the script, but I walked away with three pages of notes — most of which rang really true — of things he felt we could improve.

Gawd… we've done this how many times? I'm tired of rewriting this damned script.

We'll do it, but… augh!

If Neil's notes didn't feel right, it would be a different story. Much of what he had to say appeared to me to be symptoms of minute changes in various directions which have gradually dragged the script away from strengths it once had in order to serve other elements that needed to be buoyed up.

I guess it feels a bit like the wheels are spinning.

But in other news…

I scored a gig that technically speaking I have no business doing. It's only about 5 or 6 days of work, but I got a job on an indie-feature wearing a number of hats — in this case I was brought on as the B-Roll director/camera-operator, but it has morphed/blossomed into B-Roll/B-Cam/2nd Unit/1st A.D. (when the real 1st A.D. is unavailable)/and now possibly location scout. It's certainly the nature of Indie film, but the difference between this and anything else I've ever done is that there are some very real star-power (Canadian famous) in this one.

But the real story here is that the Senior Investment Analyst for Telefilm is one of the producers.

He knew who I was — he had been impressed by the eBay initiative. He gave me his card and wants to talk. Yoiks.

- Kennedy

Features First, left behind

Blah.

Okay, we blew it. Sort of.

Craig is now off in Toronto for a few months, which makes things harder. We knew this was going to happen, but I don't think we quite appreciated its impact… but I suppose that is sort of shifting blame a bit too. I did just lose the better part of a month to rehearsing and performing a Fringe Festival Show.

Wendy and I met, night before last to get our Features First application back on track. Part way through the evening I admitted that for various reasons I feel like Features First is the wrong program for us. Part of that is a certain fear of someone trying to push us to make the film something that it was never intended to be, but that is going to be a reality no matter how we get this thing made. I feel like the Features First schedule (over 10 months) is contrary to what our intentions are — this film is going to happen in the spring, not a year hence. Having said that, the Features First program would be an awesome experience — I just don't think that this is the right project.

Further on in the meeting Wendy made a call to a professional acquaintance to ask about some budgeting information. From the one side of the conversation I heard I could grok a lot of info.

1. Wendy was getting a lot of insight out of the discussion
2. We weren't going to get the budget done right on time.

When she hung up that was exactly what she imparted. Yes, we could get the budget done on time, but not well — and certainly not for free, or even cheap. Ah the immortal equation: Speed, Quality, Cheap... pick two.

But we did get put onto something else... the CFC's Feature Film Project. Very similar to Features First in both application requirements and benefits, but even more suitable to our needs and with a deadline an extra two weeks away (a critical amount of time) AND with a second application date in January.

In the end this was kind of a no-brainer.

- Kennedy

Report from the ReelFast Frontlines

The ReelFast gala was last night.

I can't say I've ever enjoyed it more. The top ten films were actually the top twelve (five years running that there was a tie for the 10th place — me thinks they should put a process in place to deal with that), and not one of them offended me as a choice. There were two which I would not have picked as top ten, but neither upset my sensibilities.

I ran into Rob Neilson who was our editor for last year's project. He's doing quite interesting stuff around town these days. I know he's aching to direct a comedy. He apologised for not making it to our launch, but wanted to discuss the project. It didn't really happen last night, but we did discuss discussing it. I don't know what we'd do if he said he wanted to direct and could add some promise to it really happening. ‘…Cross that bridge when we come to it’, I guess.

Also got to thank Lori Triolo for the Cold Reading Series' donation to the project.

Her film made the top ten. Nice piece. Their location was our submission (our photograph was poorly used in the Audience Choice Award winner, and our food donation also made it into a top ten film).

Our auction winners have started contacting us. Tracey is going to handle the $$ business and then we'll take over from there.

- Kennedy

Is this it?

Well, I'd hoped for better, but with only four hours left until the auctions are over, I'm betting we're pretty much looking at our final price. But our hits are pretty great.

Craig sent me an edit of the script yesterday, I just finished going over it. Lots of good food for thought. Certainly freshened my mind as far as the structure goes. I'm resisting two of his larger changes, but in so doing I've been forced to more carefully consider

1. what the scenes in question accomplish in the movie
2. if there aren't better solutions than either what existed or what he did.

In both cases I think we're on our way to a cleaner solution to the plot points involved.

In one case, I think he over-cut in order to fix a problem (and actually failed to cut a portion that was even more of an issue in the same problem); in the other, I think he cut where he should have been adding (and not much adding at that). He came up with a few other changes which generally were positive and if anything inspired me to think outside of what we'd already established. Hopefully this draft will round out in a few days.

Craig is leaving for Toronto soon (Sept 1st). Kind of scary. Just as we need to kick out the jams on our NSI application.

- Kennedy