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Actorspotting
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Oct. 6th, 2006 @ 10:14 am
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I am officially old, for I have become ... an actorspotter.
Sadder than a trainspotter, an actorspotter is someone who gets as much enjoyment out of identifying the cast as watching the programme. My mother used to be expert. She'd not only know the names and credits of the actors, she'd know who they married and whether they were dead or not. And would take great pleasure in sharing her knowledge with a running commentary. Cowboy enters stage left - he used to be married to x, never liked him. He should have never left y. Do you remember him in... And so on. I soon became used to the multilayered nature of films - the action and the commentary. It wasn't just a cowboy walking into that saloon it was a man with baggage - much of it filled with dirty laundry.
The old black and white films were particularly surreal. Man walks into a bar - he's dead. So's she. And her. Oo, and him. It was like watching a series of zombie films.
Then last week I was watching Black Jack an Australian cold case drama starring Colin Friels (not dead, but he used to play a cop in Water Rats...) and I started to notice the telltale signs. I was more interested in identifying the actress playing his daughter than the plot. Her smile was familiar - and that voice - and those mannerisms but ... I couldn't place her. For the next thirty minutes the action took a supporting role. Where had I seen her before? What was her name? It was a show I was sure I'd watched many times. An SF series?
Then it hit me. Farscape. Gigi Edgely, the Nebari. A ten pointer, for sure. My mother would have been proud. She'd never had to cope with actors made up as aliens. And Gigi looked very different without all the chalk white make-up and the blonde spiky wig.
But - he says searching around for a shiny silver lining - there is one huge advantage to actorspotting - the ability to spot the bad guy in a heartbeat. The moment Ronny Cox or Michael Cochrane walk on screen, I know they're going to do something bad. You'd think the TV detectives would have twigged by now. Wait a minute, weren't you the evil Vice President in Stargate and didn't you try and kill Picard? But they never learn. Obviously not actorspotters.
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The Creature From A Very Small Box.
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Sep. 20th, 2006 @ 04:00 pm
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It's Kitten Picture Wednesday with the emphasis on - The Pictures. With Xena off planet conducting delicate First Contact negotiations with the woolly aliens, Kai decides he wants to be a movie star. First up we have stills from his screen test for the new Hollywood Horror blockbuster: The Creature From A Very Small Box.
Not sure if he was frightening enough in the first take, Kai decides to play the scene upside down.
Then looms towards the camera for the close up.
Next, we have Kai's audition for the new Disney live action version of The Lion King - provisionally entitled The Lion Kitten.
Next, Kai tries his paw at action thrillers playing the escaped puma in - It Came From Just Underneath The Ceiling.
A seething Kai tries out for the new reality show - France's Next Top Kitten Model. Perhaps he shouldn't have eaten just before the take.
"I am a size 6!"
And finally, a long day over, Kai relaxes in his fleecy bed
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Meme Therapy Interview and The End Of The World
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Sep. 7th, 2006 @ 10:58 am
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Jose at Meme Therapy interviewed me the other day. He asked me and a number of other authors three questions.
What is the job of contemporary SF? Does it have a job?
In which I was concise and reasonably sensible (except for the picture:)
Is there a conspiracy?
In which I was loosening up.
And finally:
The forces of Fate have decided that the world will come to an end. Fortunately Fate is a drinking buddy of yours and she let’s you pick the means of the world’s destruction. Do you take her up on her offer? And if so please provide gory details.
Where I cut loose and provide a script for the ultimate disaster movie.
Chris Dolley is the author of Resonance (Baen, 2005) He blogs here and has a web site there He's also a shapeshifter and boxed for Great Britain as a kitten in the 1972 Olympics.
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Kitten Video Wednesday
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Aug. 30th, 2006 @ 11:39 am
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Yes, for the first time on Kitten Picture Wednesday we have video. It's only a small one - a few seconds of the kittens playing - and it's not a big file (a 530kb QuickTime movie with 320x240 frame size) but it's a movie and it's got kittens in it.
The plot: Xena has to make a run for the house while Kai lies in wait across her path. Will Kai's leap from the rock stop Xena? Where's Gabrielle? And will there be a sequel?
For those interested in the setting. The two buildings in the background are both a couple of hundred years old. The stone cottage (or house number two of our village) we now use as a stable.
The movie can be seen here:
http://chris-dolley.chez-alice.fr/catchase.mov
Now the pictures. First up we have those bowls again - it's the best way to keep the kittens still.
And talking of stills, here's one from yet another attempt by Kai to snag Xena as she runs past. Either that or he's practising his swimming stroke for next year's Kitten Olympics:
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Let me introduce myself...
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Jul. 22nd, 2006 @ 05:00 pm
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Well it's the weekend and after a hard morning ear-tagging lambs (I hate it, the sheep hate it but bureaucrats will chase after you with thumbscrews if you don't) I thought I'd write an informative post for all the new readers.
Who am I? No, not a 'senior moment' but a way of introducing myself. I'm an English author of SF, mystery and humour (sometimes all at the same time). My first novel, Resonance, was published last November by Baen and you can read all about it here: http://www.humor.me.uk/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=26
I first hit the headlines in 1974 when I convinced the UK national media that Cornwall had declared independence. Yes, I was a teenage revolutionary freedom fighter. And, yes, I did form an army, lead them across the Tamar, block all the bridges and annex the country. But - and this is a note to all world leaders - it was a small country and I did give it back. You can read all about it here: http://www.humor.me.uk/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=42
Or find the March 27th, 1974 issue of Punch which covered the event.
In, 1995, I moved to France with one wife, three cats, two horses and a large puppy. A decision so reckless that it ripped a hole in the space-time continuum - at least that's the only explanation that makes sense - for within ten minutes of us landing in France a gust of wind ripped the roof off our horse transport and left us sitting in a windswept convertible on a French cliff top. And within eight months I'd been impersonated, my identity stolen, our life savings seized, and abandoned by the police forces of four countries - who all insisted the crime was in someone else's jurisdiction. So, I had to solve the case myself. Which I did. But, unlike fictional detectives, I had an 80 year-old mother-in-law and an excitable puppy - both of whom insisted they couldn't be left behind if I was going anywhere interesting - like a stakeout.
I'm serialising the book - Nous Sommes Anglais - here on the blog. A book best described as A Year in Provence in the Pyrenees with Miss Marple and Gerald Durrell. The completed chapters are posted on my website here: http://www.humor.me.uk/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=51
And, as a man with a new camera, I also post animal pictures.
Now, coming up in the next month we have:
1. More animals behaving badly - the completion of the horse ride from hell.
2. Three fetes and a football match - I drink too much at a French fete and accidentally sign professional forms for the local football team. I thought I'd said I'd had professional trials when I was 15. They're under the impression I'd been a professional footballer for 15 years. Language problems again.
3. More confessions of a French Film Extra - I'm type cast again and this time spend eight days as an imprisoned aristocrat in Daniel Auteuil's Sade.
4. Pictures of our Normandy smallholding - including the medieval quarry and maybe the dolmen.
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Confessions of a French Film Extra (Part Three: Mila Jovovich in her Underwear)
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Jul. 19th, 2006 @ 12:04 pm
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Maybe it was luck, maybe it was my manic breast beating but I was selected as one of six extras to be called back the next day for a close-up. They needed a block of 6 extras (two rows of three with me front and centre) to fill the foreground in front of the Duke of Bedford and a histrionic French princess.
This was my moment. I could feel it. I'd listened to Michael Caine. Film acting is all about the face. And my face was ready to act. Subtlety was the key. No histrionics, no arm-waving, just bags of subtlety.
And an eyebrow lift or two.
I barely slept that night as I ran through my game plan. I'd start quizzical, turning slightly to my right for the Roger Moore left eyebrow lift. And then back, a look of shock, a touch of horror, a steely gaze of determination. And then, just as the air was thick with smoke and burning undergarments, I'd turn to the left and hit the camera with my piece de resistance - the right eyebrow lift. Luc Besson would inhale through his teeth. Roger Moore and The Rock would fall to their knees. For verily an ambi-browed thespian was in their midst.
Then disaster struck. One of the six extras had missed the 5:00 am bus from Sees. The one who was supposed to be standing next to me. They delayed shooting waiting for him to turn up. I stood in the muddy courtyard watching the cameras being set up. A make-up girl patted anti-dazzle powder onto my forehead and a coiffeur preened my right eyebrow. Still he didn't show.
Luc Besson looked at his watch. Maybe they should cut a row and just go with three extras.
Nooooo! We could do it with five. I could fill the space. Subtle Stevie Wonder-esque head shifts. No one would notice.
Luc Besson had no vision. And I had no close-up. I watched instead as three poker-faced extras stared at the camera. Not one eyebrow lifted. And in the background a black-clad French princess screamed and arm-waved and complained about being cold. I could have done her role too. I can wear black.
Which brings me to Mila Jovovich's underwear. Now, as a rule I'm pretty good at spotting famous actors; I can identify anyone who's appeared on Star Trek from forty paces - including the Cardassians. But my record on Joan of Arc was appalling. I stood within three feet of Mila Jovovich for about a minute, being nudged by the extra behind me - isn't that the actress from The Fifth Element? "No," I confidently replied. "Nothing like her."
The same went for John Malkovich. When asked if I knew who he was I replied that I was sure I'd seen him in an English soap. The only actor I thought I recognised was Timothy West but as I told the noble next to me. "It can't be him, he's dead." Which would have been news to Mr. West who was indeed playing the part of the Archbishop.
But, recognise her or not, I couldn't help but be impressed by Mila Jovovich. During the long day spent filming in the cathedral she'd kept the children - a dozen eleven year-old choristers - amused during the scene breaks by playing with them. And keeping a dozen bored kids amused for ten hours in a dusty cathedral is no easy task. And she even came back after shooting to ask why so many extras were being kept hanging around in the cathedral an hour after filming had stopped. We were being searched. The film company, paranoid about pictures getting out, were searching all seven hundred extras for cameras and recorders as we filed very slowly through the single exit. I watched from a few feet away as she argued with the security staff. She actually cared.
But it was her performance on that last day of shooting that impressed people the most. It was freezing and the two hundred or so extras had come prepared. After a long day standing around in freezing rain, we'd packed our extra vests and socks. But Joan of Arc was only allowed a thin shift.
And there was no heated trailer for her to repair to during scene breaks. All she had was a coal brazier at one end of the courtyard where her dresser would throw a blanket over her and try to rub some heat back into her body.
The hours went by. The Archbishop gave her the chance to repent from several camera angles. Her judges debated, the crowd remonstrated. And then four burly English captains dragged her kicking and screaming through the mud to the castle gates. For five takes.
In between each take Mila was taken to the brazier. I was wearing four layers of thick clothing and was still freezing. My hands were numb. I watched from a few feet away as Mila shivered in that thin, wet, cotton shift. I could hear her teeth chattering.
When she came out for the fifth take - shivering, white-faced and uncomplaining - two hundred extras spontaneously applauded. If she'd have asked the crowd to storm the castle and free her we'd have gone.
On a final note I did notice some tension that day between Mila and Luc Besson. Later I found out that their relationship had been going through a sticky patch during the shooting of the film. Whether having your husband pay four large men to drag you across a freezing courtyard in your underwear five times is grounds for divorce I do not know. But I suspect it would not be wise to try this at home.
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Confessions of a French Film Extra (Part Two: Never Wear Velvet to a Burning)
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Jul. 18th, 2006 @ 11:06 am
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(to recap: I'd been a French knight at the Dauphin's coronation, I'd worn full armour ... now Luc wants me to play an English noble at the burning of Joan of Arc)
This time the scenes were going to be shot at Luc Besson's house. Naturally his house was a little different from yours and mine - for one it had the ruins of a small monastery in the back garden. And it was a château. And its grounds were patrolled by mounted security guards. And the heads of three captured paparazzi were impaled on spikes over the front gate.
Well, perhaps not the last item but the film crew had built a city gate, castle wall and a medieval street next to the monastery courtyard. The workmanship was superb. Even close up the beams looked like real oak beams and not plastic.
But the mud was real mud. The weather had been appalling. It was December and when it wasn't freezing, it was drizzling. A thousand feet had churned the courtyard into mud and everyone was wearing Wellington boots. Which looked odd. There I was in rich burgundy velvet, gold chains and green tights - something I hadn't worn since the seventies - and Wellington boots. No shots below the knees one presumed.
Gradually the courtyard filled up. First they built the wooden pyre then they arranged banks of extras around it. I was in the third row of nobles, standing on the steps in front of the bank of seats for the dukes and princesses. Now, the goal of every film extra is to get his face in front of the camera. The closer the better. And I soon realised I was standing behind an old hand. He tapped the shoulder of the noble in front of him and told him that the assistant director had asked him to move to the end of the row. Being a green noble he obeyed and the master tactician slipped forward and took his place in the front row. I followed taking the vacated place in the second row. Who else could we fool? What about that John Malkovich bloke? Did he look like he'd fall for the 'Luc Besson wants you back at the house' ploy?
Unfortunately not. And I soon found out that standing nearer Joan's funeral pyre was not a good idea.
It was cold and wet, we'd been standing around for hours. Our clothes were soaked through. And suddenly two enormous gas barbecue-lighter cum flamethrowers were brought out to light the pile of wood. It was very impressive. Soon the fire was roaring and engulfed the very life-like dummy of Joan of Arc.
I was about 15 feet from the pyre and the heat was becoming uncomfortable. If a camera hadn’t been trained on me, I’d have moved back. But it was. A great big camera barely four feet away. And if no one else was moving neither was I. A determination that wavered as soon as Joan of Arc’s shift took off and hovered on an updraft of air some twenty feet above the pyre. The shift was a mass of flame and slowly disintegrating sending burning fragments floating towards the ground.
I forgot about the camera. I was waiting for the first person to scream and break rank. I was going to be right behind them. No one moved. Couldn’t they see the danger? The air was filled with burning cloth. And smoke. Suddenly there was smoke everywhere rising up from the nobles. And from me! My costume was smoking! Still no one panicked. I started beating my chest, in a I’m-not-really-panicking-but-can’t-anyone-see-my-costume’s-on-fire! sort of way. And then realised. It wasn’t smoke, it was steam from our wet costumes.
They cut much of that scene from the film - probably because by the end there was more steam coming from the extras than from the pyre. But somewhere on a cutting room floor is an Oscar winning performance of an English noble, distraught at poor Joan’s fate, beating his breast in despair.
(next instalment: Mila Jovovitch in her underwear)
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Confessions of a French Film Extra
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Jul. 17th, 2006 @ 09:42 am
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The year's 1998 and Luc Besson's in town looking for peasants for his film, Joan of Arc. Naturally I apply. I already have the clothes. So, off I rush to the photo booth in town, concentrate hard on not blinking, think myself into the role of peasant number eleven ... and send the resulting picture off to the film company.
The next day I get a phone call. Did I want to be a noble? Naturally my first thought was that, at last, the Queen had recognised my services to small furry animals ... but no, even better, it was Luc Besson's casting director. They wanted me to be a knight. In full armour!
There is only ever one answer to that question - even when followed up with, 'it will mean a haircut.' Besides, my command of the French language is such that I translate only those words I want to hear – and all I could hear was 'dress up in armour' and 'Oscars.'
The haircut, however, was a shock. They only had two styles - The Henry V and the Friar Tuck. Both decidedly more cut than hair. And as a person whose ears hadn't been seen in public since the sixties, I had more to lose than most. Including my beard which went from wild and bushy to battle-hardened stubble.
Suddenly, I was Christo d'Ouilly, veteran of the Hundred Year's War. And I wasn't alone. Half the male population of the small town off Sées sported Henry V haircuts. For a month it looked as though the town had been overrun by escaped mental patients straight out of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.'
But wearing armour was brilliant. I was dressed from helmed head to pointy toe in shiny metal. And for make up, I had the option of scars or fleabites - because I was worth it.
Lunch, however, was a shock. I hadn't contemplated the mechanics of eating in full armour but as I lowered myself onto the refectory bench I discovered rule number one. 'Don't sit down without first grasping the hilt of your sword and angling it forward.' Otherwise, as I found out, the tip of your sword hits the floor and the pommel flies up and catches you under the chin.
And as for eating, I couldn't get the food from plate to mouth. My arm would lock with the food dangling some six inches in front of my mouth. Maybe the armour was ill fitting, maybe the articulation left something to be desired, maybe they had longer forks in those days. But I did solve the problem, somewhat inelegantly, by grasping the fork at its base and craning my neck forward in sudden food-crazed strikes. Christo d'Ouilly was not a man to be messed with.
As for the acting, the whole day was spent filming the coronation of the Dauphin in Sées Cathedral. The main actors were in the front pews; then came three rows of nobles in velvet and wimples; then us armour-clad, scarred and flea-bitten warriors; then a slide down the social scale to the throng of peasants - even more flea-bitten - at the back.
As Luc Besson told us - at nine o’clock the Dauphin will enter the cathedral and by seven he’ll reach the altar. No performance enhancing drugs in the 1420s. Ten hours of filming then ended with three minutes of cheering the newly-crowned king as flower petals cascaded from ceiling galleries. And as the shouts of vive le roi began to die down, a single voice rang out from the host of armoured warriors - 'God save Henry the Sixth!'
Strangely that piece was cut.
And even stranger - and just as my hair was growing back - I was called back by the studio. They were looking for another noble - yes, I'm type cast - this time they saw me as an English noble at the capture and burning of Joan. Was I available?
(next instalment - for verily there is one: Don't wear velvet to a burning)
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