The long weekend at the first of August had perfect summery weather here in Kingston although it seems that some of Ontario experienced severe thunderstorms. I spent a few hours yesterday by the lake taking about 300 photos of folks enjoying the day. I won’t drop them all on you but hope this few gives you a taste of the day.
I have been a bit lazy about blogging over the summer. Outdoors. On the move. Every once in a while, pulled out my phone to grab a photo. So since a picture is worth 1000 words, here are a few thousand to illustrate the sultry weekend we have had in Kingston, Canada. Summer doesn’t last long enough!
It is a calm, almost balmy, May evening on the waterfront in Kingston. Folks are strolling and absorbing the warmth and the quiet.
As I walk along, I am troubled, however, thinking of the young man, a stranger to me, who chose to end his life this week by throwing himself from the 17th floor of the apartment building where I live. I grieve for him and for his family. As I soak up the beautiy of this early summer night, I am saddened that this fellow, a boy really, must have felt such overwhelming turmoil and despair and that he will never again experience this peacefulness.
It is heartbreaking.
I am excited for the upcoming week. And not because of the Oscars on Monday night. I wasn’t nominated for anything, despite my dramatic background performance in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming thriller Crimson Peak. My role in that one may be a bit like Where’s Waldo. But I did get paid $141 for getting up at 2am and doing several retakes while tending chickens in the market and hanging out between takes eating a hot dog with Mia Wasikowska.
No, my excitement is for two premieres happening later in the week. The first is an invitation-only first screening of Nightrunners -the Movie in Toronto on Thursday night. This thriller was shot in Kenya in early 2013 and I was lucky enough to be there for most of the shoot, filling a number of roles from looking for locations to putting on bandages and taping iv’s in place on the actors. I even had one scene in the movie with a few lines.
Unfortunately it ended up on the cutting room floor. The director claims that it was not due to my acting but maybe she was being kind. The scene was shot in a real hurry as rain clouds threatened and the light from sunset was quickly dying. The intent was that I carried the leading lady from the lake something like King Lear and Cordelia and then we had a bit of dialogue. Because the rain threatened to damage lights and equipment and the schedule was running tight, we did this scene three times with no rehearsal. Prior to each take the director poured a pail of water over me and we then managed through our lines in the sand on the beach, having never even read them together before. It was fun but we had to pack up quickly to save the equipment ( I was already drenched) and I have never seen the takes. I am wondering if they even filmed anything or if it was just fun dumping water on me as a joke.
A consolation could be that it is one more thing that I share with actor Chris Cooper. Last year with King’s Town Players I had the role of Charlie Aiken in August, Osage County, a part played by Cooper in the movie. I also learned that he had been totally cut from scenes in The Ring. Apparently he had a part early and late in the film but the test audiences wanted more of him and as a result his entire part was cut out. Maybe director Neilson was concerned that the Nighrunners audience would want more of Heinrich.
Nevertheless, the movie will premiere on Thursday night and I will be there to enjoy it. I can hardly wait for it to be shown to the folks in Kenya who had significant roles in it. Will it be worth a 35 hour trip both ways for the 2 hours of sharing this moment with my Kenyan friends? We will see.
On Saturday night at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival, Leigh Ann Bellamy’s movie, Fault, will be shown for the first time at Memorial Hall. I was present for much of this movie shoot doing the still photography. I saw a rough cut and my right arm appears twice (unless Leigh Ann has cut those scenes, too). At least there were no pails of cold water for this one. It will be a real pleasure to enjoy this evening with my friends in the cast and crew. So proud of them for this production.
It has been great fun to be associated with these movies and watch them take shape. It has given me a totally new perspective when I see a film as I am more aware what goes into each take.
Who knows where these two films will end up being shown. Watch for them. And will you be able to find me in Crimson Peak? I doubt it, but I will know that I am there.
Today has been a beautiful, cold, crisp, clear wintery day in Kingston. Fresh white snow, blue skies, lots of sunshine. My friends in Africa would find this unbelievable. The sun is shining and it is minus 10 degrees. But if you bundle up and soak in the beauty it is truly incredible.
A few photos to prove it.
Capt. Matthew Dawe. Killed in Afghanistan in 2007.
I did not know Capt. Matthew Dawe. I do not know his family. But the death of this Kingston soldier in Afghanistan in 2007 touched me, just as the recent deaths of Corporal Nathan Cirillo and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent did last month. The collective outpouring of grief we felt as Canadians reminded me of the debt we have to people who provided support and protection and care to our society. This includes members of the Forces but also firefighters and policemen and nurses and …
Several friends on Facebook are posting a photo of Matthew Dawe, both to remember him and his family but also as a representative of all those other people, alive and dead, we need to remember and acknowledge.
In July 2007, I wrote an article for the Kingston Whig Standard about this event. Here are some updated excerpts.
When I go to an NHL hockey game I’m always astounded and delighted when the whole arena erupts simultaneously with a response to a near-goal or a spectacular play. It feels like all twenty thousand people are experiencing the same emotion or reaction at exactly the same instant and are expressing it as a whole rather than individually. I never get tired of that experience. It momentarily bonds the entire crowd and is what makes seeing the game live so much more exciting than watching it on television, no matter how big the screen.
This past week, I experienced a similar feeling of oneness with a crowd but the link was found in solemn silence and not a cheer.
I’m not in any way a “military” person and I have absolutely no connection with the family of Captain Matthew Dawe or his family; however, I felt an intense draw to attend his funeral service.
I read with interest and concern the reports from Afghanistan and elsewhere of the lives of Canadian soldiers lost in a conflicts that are complex but ones to which our Canadian military presence has been committed. I had not had the opportunity to show my respect and gratitude to any of these fallen individuals or their families. So the death of this young Kingston man with strong local connections drew me to participate in the grief that accompanies such a tragedy.
Several hundred people from all walks of life gathered for the funeral as a brass ensemble played brief muted selections prior to the ceremony and images of an ordinary young man and his family appeared on large screens at the front of the hall. Between the selections, despite the large crowd, there was an absolute and intense silence. Like the cheers at a hockey game, this sober silence, a spontaneous and collective reverence, had a dramatic and unifying effect.
No doubt we were all thinking the same thing. How difficult it must be for the family to experience this loss. How sad it seems that there is such hatred and tension throughout the world. Is it really worth it? Is anything being accomplished or is the whole exercise futile?
How many similar ceremonies have been held for many young Canadian soldiers? Slowly my thoughts moved to a wider perspective to include the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq or, every bit as tragic, to the thousands of military and civilian families who have suffered painful losses as a result of wars around the world, including Kurds and Palestinians and Somalis.
Canada’s role as a stabilization force and facilitator of reconstruction in states like Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq is an important one. We have trained and skilled military personnel who, like it or not, we must share with the rest of the world. Repeatedly we hear how young soldiers are anxious to serve in these areas. It is their profession and they are convinced that they can make a contribution. We have to believe them. From a distance we are overwhelmed and perhaps biased by images of slain youth. They, however, can see first hand the positive effect that they are having and that is what motivates them.
The Dawe family gave us a great gift, not only in their contribution to Canada’s military force (Matthew was not the only soldier in the family) but also in allowing us to participate in some small way. Their dignified, yet personal response to this tragedy and their generous invitation to the public to share in this time of mourning allowed us to express the sadness that we feel as a result of losses we know are occurring and also to reflect on the forces that have brought this conflict about and our country’s role and responsibility to attempt to bring about a some resolution.
The spontaneous, respectful, dead silence of that arena said more than loud cheers or protests could. The service of our Canadian Forces personnel touches us all in one way or another. Collectively we pay a price but we must not lose sight of the reason that our troops are caught up in these conflicts or focus only on the losses and not on the gains that happen as a result of their work.
Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent
Corporal Nathan Cirillo
The stage has been cleared. Set dismantled. Moustache shaved off. Kings Town Players production of August:Osage County is over.
What a great run we have had. This is the best production that I have been in. The play is very well written and keeps the audience engaged throughout. It is intense and emotional and funny and relatable.
I was going to say that the cast and crew have worked like family to put this production together. But given the dysfunction in the play’s family, that may not be an apt analogy. We have worked like good friends. A real ensemble of cast and crew.
Theatre is a team effort. For it to work, we need to trust and rely on all the other members of the team to do their part and sometimes rescue us if we goof up, forget a line or are in the wrong place at the wrong time. We all pulled together to mount a show we are all proud of.
One of the sad and wonderful things about live theatre is that every production, every performance, in fact, is unique. And once it is done, it is done. Unlike a movie that you can watch over and over again, the theatre play exists only for the couple of hours that it is presented and then it vanishes. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with my K.T. P. friends to bring this magic to life in August:Osage County.
Kings Town Players – August:Osage County September, 2014
Anyone who has worked with Domino Theatre in Kingston, Ontario is familiar with the practical but rather stark actors’ dressing room. White plaster walls, big mirrors, lights and a floating rack of costumes for whatever production is in the works.
Last weekend the crew of Fault were challenged with turning that little room into a location for their movie, presumably a dressing room in the rural “Barn Theatre” where some of the movie action occurs. Last year, scenes on the stage of the “Barn” theatre, in the lobby and lounge and outside the theatre were filmed. An additional pick up scene was required to finish the film and the original location was not available. Fault‘s producer, Barbara Bell, coaxed her Kingston theatre friends to let Fault use the Domino dressing room for this scene.
The crew arrived at Domino around 6 pm after a day shooting outdoors and started to scrounge for set pieces to give the place more character.
Director Leigh Ann Bellamy contemplating how to dress this set.
Now, if you are going to look to dress a set, the best place to be is in a theatre. Soon the small crew came up with pieces of wall and drapes and lights and set pieces that turned one corner of the DominoTheatre dressing room into a wonderfully warm set, rich with great character.
The scene, with Jennifer Verardi and Amelia MacKenzie-Gray-Hyre and directed by Leigh Ann Bellamy was shot from several angles, including one from between the costumes on the rack.
By 11 pm it was a wrap, the props and set dressing all returned to various cubby holes in the Domino Theatre and the crew on thier way home, anticipating one more day if shooting before the movie was in the can and ready for all the work of post production.
In the past year or two I have had the pleasure of working, in varying capacities, with friends who were shooting movies in Kingston and in Kenya. I worked with “director greats” McGuire, Hincer, Nielson and Bellamy and was even a background performer (along with 200 other Kingstonians) in the major studio Guillermo del Toro film, Crimson Peak, shot in Kingston market square in April. It has been fascinating to participate in this process and given me great appreciation for all the work and planning that goes into even few seconds of motion picture.
Here are some glimpses of what you might eventually see and what it took to make that magic happen in Fault. Watch for it.
Leigh Ann Bellamy and Director of Photography, Christian Paulo Malo, contemplate a camera angle.
Daniel Karan is boom operator. Sound is captured with lavaliere microphones hidden in the actor’s costume and an overhead boom. Jennifer’s microphone was in a box of Kleenex on the counter.
Here is what you will see in the movie , or close to it. A far cry from the bare Domino dressing room.
Jennifer Verardi and Amelia MacKenzie-Gray-Hyre in a scene from Fault. When you see two characters quietly talking in a movie scene there is a whole crew only inches away making that happen.
It has been a treat this week to walk to work in summer sunshine past gardens filled with brightly coloured flowers. Sure is different from winter! I want to share some of these beauties with you.
I couldn’t resist bundling up and taking my camera down to the lake shore in front of my apartment building early this morning. It was a frigid -17C but the sun was trying to break through and the wind was whistling fine snow over the breakwater. Stunning.
johnageddes 