NEWS ARCHIVE
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JUNE 2007
06/29/07 David helped us fill in another hole
in out crew page. He let us know that
Mike Kitchen is also an animator at Spin Productions. When he’s not working on Outlander, Mike also
likes to write comics. Check out his
company’s website here.
06/28/07 Brian sent us along an email to let
us know he was credited wrong in the Crew page.
Our crew page is a work in progress so all input is appreciated and we
apologize for any errors. We had him
listed as “previs/tracking”
when it should have read “Lead Animator.”
He also let us know that we hadn’t yet added Amy Lu
and Mark Schreiber. They are
both animators working for spin productions on the movies digital effects. You can find Amy’s portfolio website here
along with samples of her work. And you
can have a look at our updated crew page here.
06/27/07 Jim Dorey, who had a background part
as a Viking warrior in Outlander, has recently posted some cool tales of his
time on set to his blog. Head over to MarketSaw and read the full
tale of his struggle with stubborn pants and of hanging around the set with Mr.
Hurt.
Jim Caviezel was looking right at me
from about 5 feet away when we finished one of the runs - wonder if he saw the
pants problem. Oh well, I guess they could have weaved in that I was in the
throes of passion with my lady just as Ron Perlman decides to invade our
village - I had to jump up and immediately don my viking duds for battle!!!
Check out the
entire entry here. Jim also promises more memories soon, so
keep checking back.
06/25/07 The Daily Mail out
of the UK recently featured an interview with Sophia Myles about one of her
upcoming films that is making its debut at the Edinburgh film festival. Sophia shot Hallam Foe shortly before heading
to Canada to shoot Outlander in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. In the article she also throws out a few
humorous Outlander tidbits:
After she made Hallam Foe, Sophia shot
the sci-fi Viking thriller Outlander in Nova Scotia.
"I was the one with a bare
midriff, wearing fur and leather. Why is it the girl who always ends up wearing
the least in movies?" she joked.
You can read the
whole article here.
06/23/07 Speaking of Fantasy II Film Effects, Raul Contreras – an aspiring filmmaker – Spent the
first week of this month working there in California on more effects work.
Raul does a lot of work as art director and production designer so it’s
possible he was employed at Fantasy II in this regard.
In his blog he describes some of the scene they worked on:
Fantasy II is one
of the last of the old school special effects houses left. I have been working
there on a sci-fi film called "Outlander" starring Jim Caviezel
(Jesus of "The Passion"). We sunk a section of a space ship into
their huge water tank and turned the bottom into a sea bed.
All
fun stuff...
This
news, along with the other reports of Visual effects “reshoots” makes us think
that more likely, once the studio honchos saw Howard McCain’s rough cut of the
movie they opened their pockets to give the movie some extra flare and an even
more epic feel. So more likely the new
scenes are *additional* or alternate footage as opposed to reshot footage. Otherwise it seems odd to be shooting more
footage so late into production. Some
of these scenes may just not have been possible with the official budget and
may have been shot to supplement some of the CGI work being done on the
Moorwen. It’s really hard to say for
sure and this is just speculation but it has us wondering…
Also, Barbara emailed us to tell us a little bit
about one of the key player in the make-up department:
Elizabeth
Kuchurean [was] the personal makeup artist for Jim Caviezel. I have worked with her on occasion and she
really has a passion for her work.
She
is a very talented lady who has been nominated for consideration on 3 different
occasions for the Gemini (Shattered City) and the prime time Emmy's (Wedding
Wars and Riverman with the A &E network).
Thanks for the message. Our constant work-in-progress – the crew page – has been
updated to reflect the new info.
On
another note, there’s an interesting article over at Playback Magazine about
the relationship between the Director of Photography and the movies
Director. The article Discusses the
issue from a few different perspectives – namely those of Outlanders DoP,
Pierre Gill, and Executive Producer Don Carmody. Outlander is mostly mentioned
in passing but it’s an interesting read.
You can find the article here.
06/20/07 One of the latest additions to the
Crew page is Tony Magaletta.
Tony works for Fantasy II Film Effects and helped work the camera for
various green screen/pyro elements that were shot on a stage to enhance
Outlander’s various effects shots. In
scenes like the crash landing and other scenes you may see some of the
pyrotechnic elements digitally overlayed onto various explostions or fires that
were physically shot on set in Nova Scotia.
Fantasy II film effects also does a lot of work with miniatures and an
under water shots. So for now we will
have to wait and see exactly what shots were complemented by their work.
Some of the other films
Tony has worked on include the Underworld films, Hellboy, and The Punisher.
Along with Tony we’ve also added quite a few other
names to the
crew page and one more to the Cast page.
06/13/07 We’ve previously reported on some of
the metal work that was done to give Outlander an authentic period feel. Some of Darrel Markowitz’ - of the Wareham forge
– work is featured in our Props gallery. We were also aware that a number of pieces
were also made by Iron Raven
Metalwork.
We got in touch with Bill Flemming of Iron Raven and he told us a little
bit about what it was like to work on the Viking Movie and it’s Norse Village.
The entire experience was a pleasure
and everyone in the art department and
the set crew treated me very well. The art department used me as a consultant
with regards to what was possible and the design of some articles , many changes were made as a result for both
practical and historic reasons. Having said that some items were much larger
and abundant than history would allow !
While doing movies can be a lot of fun
there can be times when the work load is
overwhelming and I need help, In this case I used Jerry Levy of Practical Blacksmithing to
fabricate the hinges on the main gates and the barbecue spits and some
incidentals working from his own shop and on site, Kyle Woods helped out in my shop by making
blades, pokers and assisting me with larger Items. Kyle, Jerry and myself are
all members of the Maritime Blacksmiths Association.
Ian Greig [set decorator] and I both
attended the same art class in high
school and attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design together and he uses me when he needs some custom metal work for one of
his projects.
Bill
also kindly sent along a whole bunch of images of his work and you can find the
new gallery HERE.
06/05/07 So what exactly are VFX
reshoots? This question comes up as we
do further digging to flesh out our crew page. Some of the new names we’ve added include Danny Virtue,
a stunt coordinator and performer who works with horses. You can find an extensive bio of his work here.
Joe Battrick is a
precision/stunt driver and we can only imagine what crazy stunts they had him
do for outlander… A spaceship crash
maybe? It’s not like the Vikings had
their own vehicles.
And finally, Shawn
Maher’s résumé over at the IATSE website has him as
Director of Photography of the second unit doing Outlander reshoots… Note though that Shawn is a visual effects
DP. Elsewhere on the site he’s listed as
having been busy on visual effects and Visual effects reshoots, though that was
to run through till may 22 and he is currently listed as available to work on
other features. So presumably this is
nothing major – no foreboding omen of doom.
Rather it’s most likely that one or two key frames essential for making
some of the effects shots weren’t up to par and needed to be reshot to be
convincing. And second unit is almost
always used to pick up secondary filler shots.
For example, they may need a close-up of a boiling kettle, so the second
unit goes out and shoots the kettle while the first unit is getting all the
really important stuff with the main actors and such.
06/04/07 As you probably know, Our Crew page
is somewhat of a work in progress. So
we’re always glad to hear from people like Rahema. He/ she emailed to let us
know about a gap in our data that they could fill us in on.
I see you are still updating your crew
page and there is one main person you are missing. The person whom without,
Pierre GIll and Howard McCain would not have gotten their shots; Kevin Bishop
operated The Panavision Technocrane everyday on set of this movie and I see his
name has not yet been added to the crew list.
Kevin Bishop was Camera A most everyday
and worked closely with Howard McCain and Pierre Gill every day. He was brought
in from Toronto, Ontario specially for this movie and, spent the whole time on
the east coast of Canada shooting this movie. In fact, Every shot you see (with
the exception of a few second unit shots) were shot by Kevin Bishop. He is
originally from London, England and has been one of the head film technicians
in Toronto for 15 years.
Thanks for the info. Check out our updated crew page HERE.
06/01/07 A few weeks back, Halifax’s Chronicle Herald
ran a piece
(which is no longer available online) about a couple of actresses that decided
to improve their marketable skills by taking a stunts workshop. One of the featured actresses was Amy Kerr,
who played a small role in Outlander. In
fact, the article mentioned that it was actually her experiences on Outlander
that prompted her to develop her stunt abilities further! She mentions in her blog that apart from
appearing as a bored kitchen wench, she made her first stunt
performance as a village woman getting sliced in half by an angry viking
warrior
The 28-year-old actor was one of 11
people who signed up to fall down stairs, crash through windows and basically
be battered and beaten in the name of film training.
The training stations involved
rappelling down walls, dealing with cables that with a sudden jolt either flung
the participant backward or up into the ceiling of the gym. Sometimes they
would smash through a boarded-up window, fall down concrete stairs, be thrown
into barrels or get propelled upward by an air ram that simulates an explosion.
Kerr had to muster up all her courage
to get through the first couple of stunts, but she was determined to finish
what she started.
"That was messed up. I physically
couldn’t do it on the first try; my mind just wouldn’t let me move," she
said after walking down the wall face first at the rappelling station. "I
got a taste of this stuff when I worked on the movie Outlander, though, and it
was so exhilarating that I wanted to do more so I’m going to as long as my
nerves hold out."
Kerr’s nerves continued to kick in before
every stunt and she made at least one visit to the paramedic on site, but she
pushed on in hopes that the training would add another layer to her acting
skills.
In other site
related news, we’ve been tweaking various sections around the site, There’s been
some re-organizing in the Links page, some additions to the crew page, and a
few new pictures here and there so have a look around, and remember to Email outlander@solsector.net if you have
Outlander news to report.
MAIN - IN THE PRESS - CAST - CREW - SHOOTING LOCATIONS - PHOTO GALLERIES
- RUMORS FROM THE SET
- MEDIA - CONCEPT ART - LINKS - DISCUSS