NEWS ARCHIVE
MAIN - IN THE PRESS - CAST - CREW - SHOOTING LOCATIONS - PHOTO GALLERIES
- RUMORS FROM THE SET
- MEDIA - CONCEPT ART - LINKS - DISCUSS
MARCH 2007
03/29/07 François Perrier – steadycam operator
on Outlander – recently updated his website, as outlander finished shooting in
January. We previously reported on
François and his site
and how he had previously worked with Director of Photography Pierre Gill on
films such as The Covenant. François
also included in his latest update a few pictures and descriptions of his
work. Here, he explains the pictures:
During an attack on the main Viking's
village, we used a quad to make some nice fast travelling driven by one of the
nicest guy I met on Outlander, Keygrip Ross Sangster.
I always want to do my own version of
the labyrinth sequence of The Shining and got my wish come true in one made out
of animals skins on Outlander. That night I was on my own with the actors
having a great freedom of move.
The first photo is
really neat and gives you a sense of the scale and action of Outlander. We’ve added Ross Sangster to the crew page along with half a
dozen other new entries since our last update.
03/28/07 We’ve finally caught up on adding a
number of pictures we’ve been meaning to add to various galleries. As well, Warren sent us along another batch
of photos from the Newfoundland shoot, so our thanks goes out to him for
those. You can find the new pictures in
the Newfoundland extras
and on set
Galleries as well as the Nova Scotia extras
gallery.
03/23/07 First up, we’ll apologize for any
delays in updating. Our service provider
was down due to upgrades and we were unable to upload anything for a few
days. As for recent changes, look for
half a dozen or more additions to the Crew page and a handful of other minor
changes on various pages around the site.
03/18/07 Posting to an online forum, Outlander
co-writer and Executive Produce Dirk Blackman recently attempted to clear up a few
issues regarding the film, and to try and quell any fears. For those of you who are just catching up
now, various press releases have stated the date of the move to be anywhere
from 509 A.D. to 900 A.D. This was
compounded by the news that one of the buildings in the Norse village was a
Christian church – something a little out of place for the 509 Date. Here’s what Mr. Blackman had to say about the
issue:
It is in fact a church, whose priest is
fighting a very lonely battle to convert his Viking flock. He is not having an
easy time of it and has failed to have a recent Viking burial be a Christian
ceremony. As for anachronism, we may have cut it a little close, but all we are
asking the audience to accept is the possibility that a Christian missionary
made it to Scandinavia in the early 8th century (And didn't get his ass handed
to him)… [The film takes place in] 709
AD. It was originally 509 AD, which I
think is closer to the posited date of some of the historical nuggets in the
poem, but a little too far for the Christian component of the script.
Mr. Blackman also
had the following to say about the writing process:
I co-wrote [with] Howard ten years ago,
as 'the truth behind Beowulf, or - if you like - the sci-fi origin of
Beowulf. We changed the names as, sadly,
they don't mean that much to people these days.
I'm also an [executive producer] on the film, so was on-set during
filming and was re-writing certain scenes during production.
We played the Vikings straight, tough
and human. And from the very first time,
ten years ago, when we set down to write the script, the first law was "No
horns" - I kid you not. Without
question, we made mistakes, but not through contempt or laziness. We tried to create a Viking world that was
true in feeling but with certain liberties needed because it is after all a
movie.
We play it completely straight, without
a hint of camp. As for the alien technology, it plays an extremely small part -
we wanted our hero to have to fight the beast cleverly, not just hand light
sabers to Vikings, which would have looked absurd.
03/15/07 We previously reported on the work
that the Schmitthenner Armory
did for the production of Outlander.
Previously, they kindly gave us some pictures of the leather armor they
made for the film, and recently let us know about a few more we might be
interested in. We’ve added them to the corresponding
gallery along with their brief description
of what the pieces are. It’s really
great to see the kind hard work and detail that went into these pieces to give
Outlander that special feel, even if half of the stuff is only visible but for
a glance.
Notice that they
also sell some replica pieces. So for a
price you can get all decked out as a Viking warrior for the premiere, should
you be so inclined.
03/10/07 Warren sent us another set of photos
last night. Along a couple we had seen
before, he sent us a half dozen new pictures from the Newfoundland shoot. Once again our thanks goes to him for these photos that can be
found in our Newfoundland extras
and on-set galleries.
In other site
related news, we’ve adjusted most of the picture galleries. You won’t notice anything really different
visually, but hopefully the thumbnails should load a lot faster.
03/08/07 Warren, who we don’t really know much
about, sent along some neat pictures from Outlander’s Newfoundland shoot. Our thanks goes to him for the half-dozen new
pictures that can be found in our Newfoundland extras
gallery. Interestingly Gary Kean –seen
in the third picture
we’ve put here in the update – wrote an article about his experiences as an
extra on the set in Lark Harbour that first appeared in The Western Star newspaper. You can read it here.
03/07/07 We’ve done a few more minor additions
to the various pages of outlander.solsector.net since you last visited. We’ve added several new entries to the crew page
varying from set designer, to digital compositor. Also weve added a couple of new pictures to
the set gallery
and one picture to the cast page.
03/04/07 For all of you interested in the glut
of Viking movies coming out this year, a recent interview
with
Karl Urban has shown up on ugo.com. As you may know, Karl Is the star of
Pathfinder, a story about a Clash between Vikings and Native Americans around
1000A.D. The highly stylized movie
comes to theaters in april.
As you may
remember, Karl Urban was listed until very shortly before production started on
Outlander as being attached to play the role of Kainan. So what happened to make Karl drop the role,
which allowed Jim Caviezel to step in in his place? Here’s what Karl had to say:
UGO: Weren't you also in talks to play
the lead in Outlander at one point?
KARL: What happened was, before
Pathfinder was made I was in negotiations to do Outlander and for whatever
reason they stalled the development of that film, so I went around looking for
another project. It was just a pure coincidence that the project I found also had
Viking elements in it and I think that Pathfinder is more of an Indian
orientated film where the Vikings are an element in it. Outlander is 100% a
Viking film, and a Viking - alien film. Obviously, I couldn't do two Viking
pictures. I think we all agree that after doing one Viking picture, the next
film that you do should not be another Viking picture.
03/02/07 On Monday, CBC radio one in Atlantic
Canada will be airing an interview with J. William Grantham
on their Mainstreet program. According to Jeff, he will be talking about
Outlander briefly among other things. As
you may know, he had a significant role as a drunk extra and even scored some
time as a photo-double for Kainan (Jim Caviezel). So if you are interested in hearing what he
has to say you should be able to tune in online here. We’ll most likely still be at work over on
the west coast so if someone records it and sends it to us – and it has enough
about Outlander - we might put it up here after. But before then you can try and catch the
interview Monday some time between 4 and 6 P.M. Atlantic time. Alternately, we could set our PC to start
recording when we leave and just hope it gets enough of it before our harddrive
starts to cry.
MAIN - IN THE PRESS - CAST - CREW - SHOOTING LOCATIONS - PHOTO GALLERIES
- RUMORS FROM THE SET
- MEDIA - CONCEPT ART - LINKS - DISCUSS