Filming at Fort Edmonton!
Jan. 20th, 2011 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beboots I'm not sure if I mentioned it anywhere yet - I'm sure if I did I didn't talk about it in detail - but on Wednesday I got to be a part of the short film they're making at Fort Edmonton. <3
For some information on the Capitol Theatre project, see here. Long story short: they're building a new theatre on 1920s street at the living history museum, right next to the Hotel Selkirk (which is a functioning hotel, by the way, with gorgeous rooms and delicious food). It's a super-exciting project! They'll be able to use it as a theatre space for dramatic productions, if they want, but during regular hours they'll be able to show 1920s silent films... plus some 1930s Talkies. :) (I put my vote in for "Freaks" and Bela Lugosi's "Dracula".)
They're also making an original film, entitled "Northern Light" or something like that, the plot of which essentially boils down to "10,000 years of Edmonton's history in 10 minutes". It will play in the theatre and serve as an introduction to what the park is all about to people who come here after hours or during the off season or what have you. A bunch of us interpreters got to go to a viewing of the earlier storyboards after work one day in the summertime, and it only made us all more excited to see the finished product. :D They go through local native history, using the framing device of an elder telling a story to a child. I don't remember all the details, but it's awesome. Some of the last scenes are traumatic scenes from the First World War, and then a bunch of children playing a hockey game in 1928.
One of the coolest things about this movie is that while the people producing it are some professional film group (from the States, I think? Most of them tend to be), they actually care about historical accuracy and have been not only consulting the supervisors of the streets but also local historians, and furthermore they've also been really absorbing the things they've been told. They're not just nodding and smiling at our explanations of why Penny Farthings were never ridden in Edmonton no matter how cool they'd look on film, they actually just pout a little bit and go "Well, if you're sure, I guess we'll just have to use that tandem bicycle you have parked on 1920s street, then, instead, if that's more accurate." So this film isn't going to be something that we as interpreters will have to refute every day at the work for the next several decades, like "Well, contrary to what the movie showed, there actually ISN'T a ghost in Ferkin's House. Sorry, yeah, I know, the special effects looked cool, I agree." :P
Anyway, while there will be many contracted actors in the film, Fort interpreters got first dibs at being extras. A few, like Will, playing the Chief Factor John Rowand, got to play their own character in a more major role.
So yesterday I got to skip a few of my classes to come down to the Fort, get back in costume, and pose for some still shots with a bunch of others. :) We got paid $11/hour, too, as employees of the production company for a day. (Métis woman #2, that's me! ;) ) We also got free food! (Catering by the Hotel Selkirk, so it was warm, fresh, and delicious.) I and several others were only in a few still shots of the Fort in wintertime. We were originally going to have a snowshoeing scene, but unfortunately we started late and lost the light.
Earlier in the day, the film crew had been at the pond behind 1885 street, filming the 1920s kids playing hockey. I saw them eating food afterwards: the boys were so cute in their little hats! <3 Walking back to the fort from Eggy's Barn (where the food and makeup people were set up), I saw some ruts cut into the snowdrifts into the woods. When I asked, I was told that that was where the cameras had gone when they were filming the boys running through the woods in excitement towards the pond. There was also one of the 1920s Ford Model T's sitting by the pond in front of a green screen. Apparently there's a shot of it pulling up and the boy's feet running past. Action! Excitement! :D
(Apparently, in October, they did some green screen shots in the Blatchford Hangar with actual live BISON. Tame bison from a farm, probably, but still! BISON, guys! Other scenes in the Hangar with the green screens included some war scenes (from the Great War, of course), in which we had our two "veteran" interpreters joined by a bunch of actual guys from the military base in town, in historical uniform.)
Anyway, the hockey scenes took longer than anticipated, so instead of being there for 12:30 and filming at 1:30, we fort people just hung around until 3:00 chatting and eating free food. I took some lovely photographs of the fort in wintertime, a few of which I shall share with you below. :)
In the end, I was only in a few still shots, but that's all right! I was glad to be involved. I was in a shot talking with several other Métis women in front of Rowand House with other company workers scattered around, and in a shot with another woman scraping the stretched bison hide. I was in the foreground of those, so perhaps I won't just be a blur in the background! ;)
Here is what I was wearing, by the way:
Oh god the snow blends in perfectly with the white of the web page background... D: In fact, I should mention that the filming date was originally last Thursday, but because of the huge dump of snow we got (something like 50cm or more in only a handful of days?) they decided to postpone filming so it wouldn't be done in the middle of a snow storm. They also had a lady who walked around handing out those little hot packs you usually put in your boots or gloves while skiing. SO LOVELY OMG. I'm sad that I didn't get a photograph of my mukluks, which belonged to costuming... very comfy, fairly warm, very stylin', too. ;)
There were also a lot of native actors who had apparently worked with the production company on a locally made documentary on the migrations across the Bering Straight (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, see this Wikipedia article). They reused some of the same costumes, which looked a little too prehistoric to my eye, but then again, it was approved by our costumer and it was real fur and leather, so I suppose it must have been fine. Also, theirs looked so much warmer than ours. But whatever. They had some awesome shots with a few horses, coming in with some furs to trade. Several fort interpreters (including Marcel, back from retirement! He was legendary for his awesome puns and French-Canadian awesomeness!) made a bale of fur with the fur bale... after digging it out of a huge snowdrift. ;)
All in all it was an awesome day! <3 I'm really glad I was a part of this production. I really hope that the shots I was in make it into the final product. Knowing the City of Edmonton, you see, I doubt that this film will be replaced for at least like forty years, so I'll be able to bring my grandchildren to see the movie: "Look, that tiny blur in the background is grandmama, back when she was young and beautiful!" ;)
In the meantime, here, have a few photographs of Fort Edmonton in the snow!
(Note: those things in the foreground aren't tombstones covered in snow. They are in fact ice walls built for the snowball fight competition being held there pretty soon. Can you think of a cooler setting for a snowball fight? :D )
Some of the beaded belts laid out on the table in Clerk's Quarters, ready to be chosen. Adele, the costumer, brought out our bag of "bling", as we call it: belts and chokers and so on so we could deck ourselves out. We laid them out quite nicely and several of us spent time photographing them. For more photographs of these belts (as well as more shots of the Fort in wintertime), see this album here.
Aaand... that's all she wrote!
For some information on the Capitol Theatre project, see here. Long story short: they're building a new theatre on 1920s street at the living history museum, right next to the Hotel Selkirk (which is a functioning hotel, by the way, with gorgeous rooms and delicious food). It's a super-exciting project! They'll be able to use it as a theatre space for dramatic productions, if they want, but during regular hours they'll be able to show 1920s silent films... plus some 1930s Talkies. :) (I put my vote in for "Freaks" and Bela Lugosi's "Dracula".)
They're also making an original film, entitled "Northern Light" or something like that, the plot of which essentially boils down to "10,000 years of Edmonton's history in 10 minutes". It will play in the theatre and serve as an introduction to what the park is all about to people who come here after hours or during the off season or what have you. A bunch of us interpreters got to go to a viewing of the earlier storyboards after work one day in the summertime, and it only made us all more excited to see the finished product. :D They go through local native history, using the framing device of an elder telling a story to a child. I don't remember all the details, but it's awesome. Some of the last scenes are traumatic scenes from the First World War, and then a bunch of children playing a hockey game in 1928.
One of the coolest things about this movie is that while the people producing it are some professional film group (from the States, I think? Most of them tend to be), they actually care about historical accuracy and have been not only consulting the supervisors of the streets but also local historians, and furthermore they've also been really absorbing the things they've been told. They're not just nodding and smiling at our explanations of why Penny Farthings were never ridden in Edmonton no matter how cool they'd look on film, they actually just pout a little bit and go "Well, if you're sure, I guess we'll just have to use that tandem bicycle you have parked on 1920s street, then, instead, if that's more accurate." So this film isn't going to be something that we as interpreters will have to refute every day at the work for the next several decades, like "Well, contrary to what the movie showed, there actually ISN'T a ghost in Ferkin's House. Sorry, yeah, I know, the special effects looked cool, I agree." :P
Anyway, while there will be many contracted actors in the film, Fort interpreters got first dibs at being extras. A few, like Will, playing the Chief Factor John Rowand, got to play their own character in a more major role.
So yesterday I got to skip a few of my classes to come down to the Fort, get back in costume, and pose for some still shots with a bunch of others. :) We got paid $11/hour, too, as employees of the production company for a day. (Métis woman #2, that's me! ;) ) We also got free food! (Catering by the Hotel Selkirk, so it was warm, fresh, and delicious.) I and several others were only in a few still shots of the Fort in wintertime. We were originally going to have a snowshoeing scene, but unfortunately we started late and lost the light.
Earlier in the day, the film crew had been at the pond behind 1885 street, filming the 1920s kids playing hockey. I saw them eating food afterwards: the boys were so cute in their little hats! <3 Walking back to the fort from Eggy's Barn (where the food and makeup people were set up), I saw some ruts cut into the snowdrifts into the woods. When I asked, I was told that that was where the cameras had gone when they were filming the boys running through the woods in excitement towards the pond. There was also one of the 1920s Ford Model T's sitting by the pond in front of a green screen. Apparently there's a shot of it pulling up and the boy's feet running past. Action! Excitement! :D
(Apparently, in October, they did some green screen shots in the Blatchford Hangar with actual live BISON. Tame bison from a farm, probably, but still! BISON, guys! Other scenes in the Hangar with the green screens included some war scenes (from the Great War, of course), in which we had our two "veteran" interpreters joined by a bunch of actual guys from the military base in town, in historical uniform.)
Anyway, the hockey scenes took longer than anticipated, so instead of being there for 12:30 and filming at 1:30, we fort people just hung around until 3:00 chatting and eating free food. I took some lovely photographs of the fort in wintertime, a few of which I shall share with you below. :)
In the end, I was only in a few still shots, but that's all right! I was glad to be involved. I was in a shot talking with several other Métis women in front of Rowand House with other company workers scattered around, and in a shot with another woman scraping the stretched bison hide. I was in the foreground of those, so perhaps I won't just be a blur in the background! ;)
Here is what I was wearing, by the way:
Oh god the snow blends in perfectly with the white of the web page background... D: In fact, I should mention that the filming date was originally last Thursday, but because of the huge dump of snow we got (something like 50cm or more in only a handful of days?) they decided to postpone filming so it wouldn't be done in the middle of a snow storm. They also had a lady who walked around handing out those little hot packs you usually put in your boots or gloves while skiing. SO LOVELY OMG. I'm sad that I didn't get a photograph of my mukluks, which belonged to costuming... very comfy, fairly warm, very stylin', too. ;)
There were also a lot of native actors who had apparently worked with the production company on a locally made documentary on the migrations across the Bering Straight (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, see this Wikipedia article). They reused some of the same costumes, which looked a little too prehistoric to my eye, but then again, it was approved by our costumer and it was real fur and leather, so I suppose it must have been fine. Also, theirs looked so much warmer than ours. But whatever. They had some awesome shots with a few horses, coming in with some furs to trade. Several fort interpreters (including Marcel, back from retirement! He was legendary for his awesome puns and French-Canadian awesomeness!) made a bale of fur with the fur bale... after digging it out of a huge snowdrift. ;)
In the meantime, here, have a few photographs of Fort Edmonton in the snow!
(Note: those things in the foreground aren't tombstones covered in snow. They are in fact ice walls built for the snowball fight competition being held there pretty soon. Can you think of a cooler setting for a snowball fight? :D )
Some of the beaded belts laid out on the table in Clerk's Quarters, ready to be chosen. Adele, the costumer, brought out our bag of "bling", as we call it: belts and chokers and so on so we could deck ourselves out. We laid them out quite nicely and several of us spent time photographing them. For more photographs of these belts (as well as more shots of the Fort in wintertime), see this album here.
Aaand... that's all she wrote!
claim insurance
Date: 2011-01-26 12:48 pm (UTC)claim insurance
Date: 2011-01-26 04:22 pm (UTC)