NEWS ARCHIVE
MAIN - IN THE PRESS - CAST - CREW - SHOOTING LOCATIONS - PHOTO GALLERIES
- RUMORS FROM THE SET
- MEDIA - CONCEPT ART - LINKS - DISCUSS
FEBRUARY 2007
02/26/07 Over the weekend a few job postings
popped up online for various 3D artists talented in MAYA to work on
Outlander. We don’t really know much
about the company that posted the listing other than that they have offices in
Vancouver and Montréal, and they’ve worked on effects for films such as 300,
and Final Destination 3. We don’t really know anything about what kind
of contract, if these listings are legitimate, they have either. Possibly they are subcontracting specific
services from Spin Productions. They are
looking for texture artists, shader writers, and Character TD’s (whatever they
are) for 3 to 5 months of work. Their
website seems to be under construction here,
but people interested in those listing can email them at info@animationrg.com.
If that is the
total sum of CG work left, that means that they will be hard at work on
outlanders effects until at least the end of May and possibly as long as till
the beginning of august.
Also, the CG work
on Outlander won’t be it’s only connection to 300, which was filmed in
Montréal. A number of stunt performers
on 300 also went on to perform stunt duties for Outlander, some of them being
specifically chosen for Outlander because of their involvement in 300.
02/25/07 We have a couple of great new stills
for you today. Unlike a lot of the
behind the scenes stuff these really help us get a sense of the actual look of
the film. It’s only too bad that they
are fairly low resolution. The new pictures can be found in the stills gallery.
02/24/07 Since our last update, we’ve added a
few more entries to the crew page. Also, just a reminder that if you spot any
Outlander news, let us know at the link at the bottom of the page. Plus don’t
forget to check out some of the great stuff already released.
With filming done,
there’s less people who will have worked on the set to talk to, but we look
forward to seeing the first poster artwork and teasers and trailers as they
become available. As well, we’d be
interested in knowing what kind, if any, plans there are for mass-marketing
tie-ins. A novelization doesn’t seem out
of the question, though I wouldn’t expect what appears to be a violent film
making it onto lunchboxes. But if you
hear of neat things in the works let us know.
Moorwen, and Kainan action figures might be fun too.
02/20/07 We previously reported on William F. White International Inc. and
their involvement with outlander. Their
company news letter detail some of their involvement with the film. One full page is dedicated to it and includes
a number of pictures from the set as well.
You can find the magazine in PDF format here. Outlander is on page 3. We think this is the first time we’ve had a
semi decent look at the village gates in the daytime in photos.
WFW is proud to be the primary provider
of Lighting, grip, camera support and related production equipment to
Outlander.
02/18/07 One out of today’s additions to the Crew page,
is Adam Harnett. Adam is trying to focus
his career on matte painting and concept art for film. As such, he worked on a number of matte
paintings that will appear in the background of various scenes in
outlander, whether they were physically
on the set or will be digitally added in post production.
Adam is a
relatively newcomer to the industry and doesn’t have an IMDB entry yet. Interestingly he also hails from
Newfoundland, where a few scenes were shot for the movie back in October.
You can see samples
of Adams work on his portfolio website here.
02/16/07 A number of people who worked or are
working on Outlander are members of the Directors Guild of Canada. As such, the Canadian directors guild’s
Atlantic division has a page that outlines which of their members worked on
Outlander. It’s an interesting find and
you can look at it yourself here. The Guild also has individual profiles and
résumés online for almost every member, and even says how many days they worked on the film. It’s pretty staggering if you add up all the
hours spent working on this film by even just this small cross section of the
crew.
Almost half of
these credits are, currently, not yet included in IMDB’s credit listing
for Outlander’s crew. They have been
added to our Crew
page as well as where possible links to both their IMDB page and Directors
Guild page
02/14/07 For all of you not in north
America, Wild Bunch,
the company in charge of international distribution of outlander (The Weinstein Company
will be distributing domestically) are now hard at work selling Outlander to
various local outlets. Depending on the
contracts awarded will determine when and how easy it is for you to watch the
film during its theatrical release. Cineuropa has a brief
article that outlines some of the films that Wild Bunch is shopping around
during the new film sale season that began with the Berlin Film
festival, and of course Outlander gets a
mention. You can read the article here.
02/12/07 Back in September, England’s The Evening Press
caught up with Jack Huston to talk with him about his role in Factory Girl, a
biopic about Andy Warhol. That said, the
actual article focused more on Jack himself and his background. Jack plays a young Viking prince in
Outlander, and a rival in a love triangle between him and Jim Caviezel’s Kainan
for the attention of Sophia Myles’ character Freya.
While some are
quick to dismiss him for his heritage, he makes the effort to stand on his own,
to the praise of some of his co-stars.
Jack’s family has been in show business for many years. His aunt Anjelica Huston recently starred
with Sophia Myles in ‘Art School Confidential.’ His Grandfather, John Huston, is the famed
director of classics like ‘The Maltese Falcon.’
His Great Grandfather, Walter was also a famous actor. All three of them are Oscar winners.
While he is keen to distance himself
from his aristocratic lineage, he fully embraces his cinematic inheritance. 'I
actually won an art scholarship to Millfield [school] but I wanted to act more
than to be an artist.' The resolution was made when, at six years old, he
played the lead role in Peter Pan. 'It's in the blood, you could say. At that
age, I didn't really understand the significance of my family heritage so the
decision was purely mine.' As a child, he would put on plays for his parents'
friends, such as Marlon Brando and David Niven, and from the age of 11, he was
touring local theatre companies during his school holidays in Norfolk.
'It's a weird thing acting is like a
fever that happens to my whole family,' he says. 'Even Anjel [Anjelica], she
didn't want to do it. She was a model for a while and then, bang, she's back on
set acting. We can't say no.
[When he moved to Los Angeles] he had
the advantage of his surname and his aunt Anjelica living nearby, but insists,
'I tried my hardest to disassociate myself from the family name. I shy away
from it as much as possible in meetings or auditions. The nepotism factor has always
been at the back of my mind but I would feel far too embarrassed to call up and
ask a relative for help. They've done their bit and now it's my turn to prove
myself. I'm not asking for handouts.'
Jack doesn't see himself [as too
glamorous]; he prefers to think of himself as a hardworking actor with a lot to
live up to. 'As a Huston, the window might be slightly ajar but you've got to
jump through it,' he says.
The article is an
interesting read so take a look here. Be aware though that that site’s layout makes
it easy to miss that there are three pages to this article. We didn’t
manage to find it anymore on the Evening Press’ site.
02/10/07 G4 finally put up the complete
interview they did with Patrick Tatopoulos.
Almost a month ago they released a video in which Patrick shows off a 3D
maquette of the Moorwen from Outlander.
This video is from a broader perspective and covers much of his career
up to and including the new Die Hard movie.
You can watch the clip here. All the interesting stuff about Outlander
is in the earlier video,
but you will see some brief shots of the same stuff in this one too. But it does give us an interesting look into
the man behind Outlander’s creature.
02/09/07 An interesting article showed up on
the Ask Men web site. They outlined their top 10 movies being
released in 2007 that were shot in Canada.
You can find the article here. Outlander is the 8th entry though
they’re in reverse order so it’s the third actual entry. Theres nothing really new in the article, though
but it’s neat all the same. Check out
the references on the last page of the article.
That said,
Outlander’s release date is still up in the air. Back in October, The Georgian
reported that the movie would come out approximately a year from then, and
various sources mention Outlander as being release in third or fourth quarter
2007, but various rumours abound perpetuated by some of the secondary crew on
the set that Outlander isn’t expected until summer ’08. Personally we hope it’s sooner than later
and a fall date would be perfect, though there’s often a lot more complicated
issues involved. The company releasing
the film will be looking at what kind of films it will be going up against at
the boxoffice. As well, they may decide
that they need to distance it from the other
Viking movies coming out this year, including ‘Pathfinder’ and Robert
Zemeckis’ Animated ‘Beowulf.’ So a later release
date certainly isn’t out of the question.
02/07/07 We came across this small bit from a
Halifax paper from a little over a month ago.
A colomnist with The Coast
mentioned that Outlander has another Executive Producer credit that has yet to
be added to the IMDB credits for Outlander.
You can find the full article here.
Bob Weinstein sightings began rolling
in during the Atlantic Film Festival as the former Miramax and current
Weinstein Company honcho assumed exec producer duties on Outlander. Budgeted
officially at $42 million—we hear it's more—this sci-fi extravaganza has been
sapping every film resource in the city, especially bearded men.
02/05/07 An interesting article surfaces on
the Times online,
out of the UK. The article
focuses on the Bafta awards – the English equivalent of the Oscars. It details some of what goes on behind the
scenes but then diverges into a showcase of up and coming English talent that
they expect to continue to turn in Oscar – or Bafta - caliber performances in
the times to come.
“Just for the fun of it, and to show that,
whatever may be said, British films are rich in talent, we invited some
excellent actors, directors and writers to be photographed, all of whom should
be winning Baftas in the future.”
Of course one of
the featured actresses is Outlander’s Sophia Myles, who plays Freya, the Viking
warrior princess opposite John Hurt, Jack Huston, James Caviezel and Ron
Perlman. She told the Times about her
role:
“I spent a lot of time hanging from cliffs
in freezing rain.”
02/04/07 We’ve added a number of new entries
to the cast page. One of the more
notable ones is for Kevin Labanowich.
He is also an animator working on Outlander’s computer effects.
02/03/07 As Jim continues his world tour to
promote Déjà vu, more interviews are popping up around the net. The New Zealand web site http://www.incinemas.co.nz/ interviewed
him and remembered to ask him about Outlander, which he had just finished
filming. Here’s what he had to say:
Q: Can you tell me about your character
in Outlander, the science fiction project you're currently working on?
A: It's a hard one to explain, the
Director, Howard McCain wrote it and has had it for years, much the same way
that Peter Jackson did with "Lord of the Rings". The producer on this
is from "Lord of the Rings", Barrie Osborne. Special effects will be
lead by the people who did "Star Wars" and "Matrix".
The film takes place is 750AD. The
movie opens up with a great Viking King being buried at sea. They have really
authentic characters of Viking times in the Nordic Areas with beautiful 1000
foot waterfalls with cliffs. Archers fire these arrows from the cliffs which
land on the ship and begin to burn the body and the ship. That's how they
buried them back then. Sparks go up into the air, you hear a different kind of
music and a spaceship comes into this world. The Director calls it when Sci-Fi
meets the Mythological. They actually made up a word for it - Sci-Mythic. I
just got done filming then got on a plane to come down here. I think the film
is due out next year some time. It's cool!
The only unfortunate
bit is how his answer only further confuses the issue about when *exactly* the
movie takes place. All evidence seems to
point to a date closer to 900AD as one of the executive producers has pointed
out as opposed to 500, 700, or 750
A.D. In some respects it’s a trivial
issue and it’s debatable whether or not it actually wouldn’t be better for the
movie to come out theatrically without some kind of date disclaimer at the
start. At most, the date is merely
relevant in establishing the look and historical accuracy of the Vikings to any
given period. You can find the complete
interview here.
02/02/07 We recently got in touch with Peter,
a background performer from Outlander, and he was very excited to have been a
part of the production. Despite having
his hands full with a set of year and a
half old twins, and running a home business, he couldn’t resist the urge to
slip away for some twilight Viking action.
Here’s what he had to say about his experience:
Sneaking off to be a Viking warrior was
challenging… And extremely fun!
I have absolutely zero film experience
but got excited when I heard the call-out for "bearded white men who can
look Norse". I had actually given
up and was about to shave, but luckily decided to call the agency one last
time. She said "what are you doing
this afternoon? A number of guys have dropped out."
I had already been up much of the night
before but figured how hard or long could it be? Surely there are labour laws
to protect the lowly film extra. I had no idea it would be a sixteen hour overnight
blitzkrieg shoot of fire and sword battles and sprinting through the mud with
torches and spears. Apparently I was coming off the bench to fill in for some
injured and overworked backgrounders.
Around midnight, after enjoying a
bottle of water and Subway sandwich, I exchanged helloes with a rather well
dressed Viking and thought afterward "Holy sh*t that was John Hurt - I
didn't know he was in this movie".
A few hours later I was fighting alongside Wolfric to chase a very
intimidating and well-armed Ron Perlman
out the gate. I got home around 10am with fake blood on my face and black
kerosene soot in my nose. What a ride! The next day I was walking funny and
feeling like maybe I was abducted by aliens.
Without any other film experience for
comparison, I can say that I was always treated very well without exception.
The makeup and wardrobe people were especially delightful. The ones whose job
it was to herd us around getting us to leap out of hiding at the right time and
coaching us to do the right things (Preston and his helpers [Assistant
directors]) were certainly curt and "results-oriented" but always
professional. The backgrounders I got to know are an eclectic group to say the
least, I had a ball and if there's a wrap party or premier party somewhere I
want to go!
Peter also kindly
sent along a few photos for which we’re grateful. You can find them in our galleries.
MAIN - IN THE PRESS - CAST - CREW - SHOOTING LOCATIONS - PHOTO GALLERIES
- RUMORS FROM THE SET
- MEDIA - CONCEPT ART - LINKS - DISCUSS