NEWS ARCHIVE
MAIN - IN THE PRESS - CAST - CREW - SHOOTING LOCATIONS - PHOTO GALLERIES
- RUMORS FROM THE SET
- MEDIA - CONCEPT ART - LINKS - DISCUSS
APRIL 2007
04/29/07 Here at outlander.solsector.net, we
both love and hate the IMDB. Today is a perfect example why. Cool news:
They added another actor to the cast list. The down side: IMDB continues to be incomplete and
inaccurate and they take forever to fix errors even when they are obvious and
people spend a lot of effort to point out to them where the mistakes are.
Anyway, 8 year old Owen Pattison was added to the
cast and the IMDB lists his part as “Galen,
son of Kainen.” We mentioned previously
that the concept art seen in the Space Channel video was labeled “Kainan family
compound” and “Kainan backyard.” So today’s
news reinforces the rumors of scenes having been shot that take place on
Kainan’s homeworld. However the idea
that he left behind a family could complicate his stay on Earth, and or his
romantic interest in a certain Viking princess.
04/28/07 Over the last week, we’ve added
another handful of names to the Crew page.
Notable are three gentlemen working on the movie’s digital effects.
Bojan Zoric is a digital matte
artist. Matte artists work at creating
and implementing backgrounds into scenes.
In other movies you might have seen mattes used as star fields outside a
spaceships windows, or mountains outside the windows of a house set built on an
indoor stage. Digital mattes have more
flexibility of use and can be more realistic.
Working with green or blue screens, the artist can implement more
complex scenes than previously possible with huge canvases draped outside the
windows. Sometimes existing horizons can
even be replaced with more appropriate ones.
For example, there is some indication that the Outlander team is
actively adding the hills of western Newfoundland to the background of footage
shot on the Nova Scotia sets. You can
find examples of Bojan’s matte art and other previous work on his website, here.
Eric Doiron Is a digital
Compositor and Effects artist.
Compositors combine various shot elements into one scene. Sometimes the effect is obvious like in the
classic split-screen shots of two people talking on the telephone. And other times, their work is done best when
no one notices. Various effects shots
might need overlaid on a filmed element and the viewers suspension of disbelief
could be ruined if the blending was too obvious. Check out some examples in Eric’s demo reel.
And lastly, Drago
Avdalovic is a character rigger. He
worked under contract with Spin Productions as the Moorwen’s lead Rigger. We described what this involves previously,
but you can check out samples of Drago’s previous work at his website, here.
04/27/07 Though we’ve had lots of pictures of
extras in our gallery,
we’ve been lacking in one notable area.
Of the numerous extras on the set, a number of cute kids also rounded
out Viking village’s population. Todd
noticed that we had few - if any - pictures of them so sent us along the
following picture
from the Newfoundland shoot. Here’s what
he had to say:
That's my son Cohen on the far left,
they were pretty excited about taking part in the film. The film crew and all the actors/extras paid
a lot of attention to them. Cohen got to
spend a little bit of time talking with John Hurt as well. It was a wonderful experience for them,
besides taking a few days off school.
We really
appreciate any and all contributions you, our readers, have made. Thank you Todd for this picture and thanks to
everyone who has sent something along in the past.
04/24/07 A couple of interesting tidbits
surfaced over at www.shocktillyoudrop.com. Apparently Ryan Rotten (We’re assuming that’s
his online alias) got in touch with Executive producer Don Carmody for an
update about the production. You can
find their update here.
"The creature is looking
good," producer Don Carmody tells us. Shock spied a look at the Moorwen
during a visit to Patrick Tatopoulos' shop - and we found it accurately
depicted the style of work we've seen from him in Godzilla and the
"Underworld" films; later, an early peek at the beast found its way
online here. "I just saw two more rough sequences with the creature where
it's looking really, really cool."
Carmody says Outlander conquered a
rough start and endured an even tougher shooting schedule "sloggin'
through the mud in Newfoundland and Halifax. It was challenging because my
partners had tried to mount [the project] before in New Zealand with WETA and
$65-70 million dollars. So they came to me and asked if I could help them raise
the balance of the financing. I said if everybody is on the same page, we can
do it, and as long as it's all up there on the screen we can do it. I think we
succeeded, it was really tough."
Presently, McCain is whittling down a
three-hour cut (!) of his film. "The aim is [to release the film] for
late-October, but the picture is running long," Carmody chuckles.
"We're getting down to length and that may delay us a little, that's always
the toughest thing." He adds that everything is on schedule FX-wise and
that Outlander boasts an estimated 580 visual effects shots.
Personally, we
wouldn’t mind seeing a three hour version, but we’ll settle for an extended DVD
version. Ideally, we would rather them
just make a movie that works as intended instead of trying to force a
predetermined length on it. But at the
same time a movie that drags isn’t in anyone’s best interests either.
Also note though
that they intend (as long as they can finish it on time) to release the movie
in late October… *OF THIS YEAR!* That’s amazing news as some sources had
the production team pushing for a summer ’08 release. Though it’s too early to comment on the
acting an how the movie will work as a dramatic whole, a fall release also puts
it in a strong position to be an Oscar contender. At the very least, hopefully it gets
recognized for the hard work of the digital effect team on that astounding 580
visual effects, though it will obviously be up against effects heavy summer
titles like Spider-man 3, Transformers, and Harry Potter, which all have
considerably larger pools of money to work with.
04/21/07 Today this one can be filed under
useless trivia, but all the same, it’s kind of a neat tidbit. Aparently, after Outlander’s funding was in
flux, and Karl Urban dropped off the project because he had just taken another
Viking movie project (Pathfinder,
which apparently opened in theaters April 13th to less than stellar
acclaim) but before Jim Caviezel
signed on to star in the Sci-fi epic about an alien visitation in the time of
the Viking, The role of Kainan was
looking to be filled By… Thomas Jane! You may remember Thomas from The Punisher
movie.
You can read
ViP-medienfonds 4’s quarterly report from which we gleaned this here. Incidentally, putting “The Weinstein
Company” into a German to English translator spits out “the Tartar Company.”
04/21/07 Blue Rider Pictures,
who provided bridge financing for Outlander, have updated their page for the
movie.
What
is bridge Financing?
Bridge Financing is a loan made to a
production prior to its primary production facility closing with another
recognized lender. Without a Bridge Loan, and without cash flow, many
independent producers risk losing actors and other key “elements“ while waiting
for their main bank loan to close. Bridge loans can help keep productions from
falling apart. Blue Rider has lent sums ranging from $75,000 to $8 million, for
periods averaging 90 to 120 days. When a production’s bank loan closes, the
production repays Blue Rider’s Bridge Loan in full and also pays Blue Rider a fee.
Blue Rider funded Bridge Financing for
the upcoming $42-million sci-fi creature adventure Outlander, whose US
distributor is The Weinstein Company. It stars Jim Caviezel as a space visitor
who crash-lands into a seventh-century Norwegian Viking village, unwittingly
bringing with him a murderous monster.
They didn’t provide
any new details about the plot or people involved but they did provide some
detailed background info about a number of the people involved. You can find the page here. They did however provide a number of cool
new shots from the movie and a reworked description of the movies plot. It’s too bad the pictures are low res but
they give a good sense of how the movie will feel.
Kainan, a space visitor who crash-lands
among the majestic fjords of a seventh century Norwegian Viking village,
unwittingly brings with him a murderous monster from another world--called The
Moorwen. As the Moorwen ravages the Viking world, Kainan forms an unlikely
alliance with the fierce, primitive Norse warriors. Kainan and the Vikings
apply advanced technology to Iron Age weaponry in their desperate attempt to
kill the monster, before it destroys everyone.
04/17/07 We were previously aware that Craig Harris
did work on Outlander, but recently the IMDB
added him to the Cast list along with the “Viking Warrior” descriptor, which
elevates him slightly above the level of a simple background performer. So we’ve gone ahead and added him to out Cast page.
Craig is also a talented
musician when he’s not playing dress-up and running around in the mud. You can hear samples of Craig’s music here.
Interestingly,
quite a few of the extras on Outlander are musicians from the local Halifax
music scene, and cover a wide range of styles. In hearing their accounts, there seems to
be a strong sense of camaraderie among them and it could certainly be the
source of an interesting article in the future.
04/16/07 Cornerbrook’s The Western Star,
ran an article
nearly a month ago about a soundstage that was built in the city. While the article about a Mobile sound stage
that is supposed to be housed there is somewhat political in nature, it does
include a few notable technical tidbits about Outlander’s production while in
Newfoundland.
The Atlantic
Studios Co-operative purchased the mobile film production
equipment which was used to help film the opening and closing scenes of the
Viking movie in Lark Harbour in October 2006.
Some of the scenes filmed included norse-style funerals, complete with
burning boats.
Paul Pope, spokesperson for Atlantic
Studios Co-operative, said… the mobile
equipment is doing what it was intended to do, including allowing many of the
people who worked on Life with Derek to get work on the bigger Outlander
production.
04/15/07 Today’s update adds Ran Sariel
to the Crew page. Ran is the rigging supervisor at Spin Productions on Outlander’s CGI
effects. Mr Sariel has previously worked
on such films as the recent animated feature Happily N’Ever
After.
You can see samples of Ran’s work on his website here.
Imagine trying to walk
around without bones. We would all be
blobs of flesh on the ground without them.
Essentially 3D animation is similar.
Each model has a basic underlying skeletal structure around which the
character is animated which determines how the model is manipulated and how the
model will move. A character rigger is
responsible for determining how the 3d model is connected to the skeleton.
04/13/07 We’ve added another three entries to
the Crew
page among which is Shaun Escayg. Shaun is working as an animator at Spin Productions on Outlander’s CGI
effects. You can see samples of Shaun’s
work on his website here.
04/10/07 An article was run in yesterday’s Toronto Star about fitness
trainer Nuno de Salles. De Salles worked with Outlander’s actors and
actresses to make sure they were able to meet the physical demands of the
movies action scenes. The Toronto star
interviewed de Salles and Executive producer Don Carmody about their work
together on various projects.
After the producer and the director,
the next person in the pecking order to read the script is often de
Salles. After reading the script, reviewing
any costumes to be used, de Salles said he then has a sit-down with the
actors. "Then I see, based on where
they (actors) are at that particular point, where I'm going to take them,"
said de Salles...
Among the films de Salles has worked on
so far: Resident Evil II, Land of the Dead, Silent Hill and Highwaymen. Among
the roster of satisfied clients to date: John Leguizamo (who did 12 chin-ups
bare-chested for Land of the Dead), Jim Caviezel (who worked with de Salles on
Highwaymen and the yet-to-released Outlander) and Sienna Guillory (Resident
Evil II).
The job does have its challenges for de
Salles. Because of odd shooting schedules, he has routinely found himself in
the gym, training actors like Caviezel, at 4 a.m. "He was a high-level basketball player
so he was extremely disciplined and it was quite an experience to work with
somebody who was so eager to train," de Salles said, adding he helped
sculpt Caviezel's physique just before the actor began filming the
controversial Passion of the Christ.
You can read the
full article here.
04/09/07 The Cinefex website
now lists Eyetronics as having provided 3D scanning services on Outlander. Eyetronics
provides these services for various movies and video games. Some of the movies they have worked on
include Poseidon and this weeks box-office competitors Grindhouse and Blades of
Glory. They also provided player
digitizing for games such as Major League Baseball 2007 and Mass effect. This excerpt from their website describes
their services:
Eyetronics offers 3D scanning services to the digital
content creation market, including movie, television, game and
advertising. We scan faces, heads, body
parts and/or full bodies, as well as objects (e.g. cars, clay models,
maquettes, statues, ...)
This could mean
numerous things for Outlander.
Digitizing the Actors would immensely help the effects team blend the
digital creature effects with live action elements. For example, there are scenes where the
actors interact with full scale Moorwen replica appendages. Also, it helps make believable some effects
that either aren’t practical with real actors or that would be too
expensive.
As an added bonus,
digitizing all the movies physical elements makes creating a tie-in video game
somewhat easier. We’ve heard rumours in
the past to that effect, but haven’t heard of any official merchandizing plans
just yet.
In site related
news we’ve added another handful of entries to the crew page.
04/06/07 Not familiar with Beowulf? Well, It couldn’t hurt to take a look at the
original text which formed the springboard from which Outlander was
launched. The Epic old English poem
was reworked with a sci-fi twist by Howard McCain and Dirk Blackman, and some
names were changed to distance the movie from the Poem in peoples minds. You can read an e-book version of the
original here.
MAIN - IN THE PRESS - CAST - CREW - SHOOTING LOCATIONS - PHOTO GALLERIES
- RUMORS FROM THE SET
- MEDIA - CONCEPT ART - LINKS - DISCUSS