SEASON 3 - EPISODE 5 - "SEARCH AND RECOVERY"

SEASON 3 - EPISODE 5:   "SEARCH AND RECOVERY"

WARNING:  THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS - IF SPOILERS MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'VE BEEN CHASED BY SKITTERS AND THROWN OVER A WATERFALL - STOP READING NOW!!!


Tonight's episode was written by: Jordan Rosenberg

And was directed by: Sergio Mimica-Gezzan  

It rained every day on this episode.  And not just a little.  Hard core pounding rain.  It’s the main thing I remember about it.  And to make matters worse, there were only about two days shooting indoors.  The cast and crew were wet to the bone – the horses were wet to the bone – the sets were waterlogged – all day – every day.

The Vancouver crews however, are experts at shooting in the rain.  And the weird thing about rain, which I only learned by working in Vancouver a lot is, if you don’t want to see the rain – you don’t.  To see rain you have to back-light it.  (To see snow, oddly enough, you must front-light it.)  (Oh yeah, also the ocean – if you want to see it – front light!)

On almost every scene in this episode, the crew hung tarps from trees and on huge poles which they extended and they kept the rain off the set.  Most of the time you don’t sense it.

I think, in fact, Noah was a little disappointed when he realized how little we saw of the sleeting rain.  For he and for Collin Cunningham – this was a physically arduous episode.  They were not only wet, but they were running and jumping and fighting and moving around in heavy water-soaked clothes for twelve hours a day, all-day, for days on end.

Even if the rain doesn’t show up that much, I do think that the pain the cast went through does subtly translate to the film.

The inspiration for the film, from Remi Aubuchon and the writer’s room, was an old 1958 movie called: THE DEFIANT ONES in which Tony Curtis and  Sidney Poitier, play two prisoners chained together after a prison break.  Remi thought it would be fun to see perennial adversaries, Tom and Pope, forced to be together and to survive together.

Noah was excited about this idea from the first time he heard of it, early on.  He and Remi talked together a lot about how the two characters would interact and evolve.  To both Remi and Noah it was important to learn more about the characters than we had known before - and to see both dark sides in Tom and light sides in Pope that we hadn't seen before.

The two most memorable of these moments (for me) were the story Tom tells, in bits and pieces, about how his father was a drunk and ran a hardware store.  This presents a very different history of Tom Mason than we may have suspected.  I also love the way Noah played the scene.  It was scripted that Tom was buildng a fire, but the director, Noah and Collin evolved it just a little differently.

The script said this:

"Tom starts searching for dry dead wood. Pope shakes his head, but can’t think of anything else to do but get up and help."

But what occured during the rehearsal, was that Noah began to build a fire in a focused and intense way.  Pope sits in the background egging him on.  As Tom talks, and as painful small details of his life story come out, he stays focused on the fire.  I think that Noah's intensity around the fire building adds intensity to the story that would have been too direct and maybe even saachrine, if he'd been looking directly at Pope and engaging with him.  I think the fact that Tom was turned away from Pope, also gave Collin Cunningham a chance to do a great reaction of surprise when he hears this story, without giving away any empathy to Tom.

Now, I don't mention this to put the script or screenwriter's down in any way.  The screenplay is the roadmap that directors and actor's follow.  Without a script we would be lost at sea.  But our job is also to use the script as a jumping off point, and we strive to maximize the effect both visually and in terms of performance, and enhance it if we can.

On Pope's side of the aisle is the very lengthy and intense story that Pope tells of how he lost his family and ended up in jail.  Collin was a bit anxious about this scene going in, because it is a very long story, unbroken by anything other than a few small interjections by Tom.  It also had the potential to get saachrine or self-pitying. The trick in a scene like this, again, is to not be too direct or too "connected" to the emotions of the scene, but instead to get lost in the telling and remembering of it.  To sublimate the painful emotions and to tell it in a detached way is better.  And Collin, working with Sergio, picked his way down this path.  When I started to study the film in the editing room, I saw that Collin had done a number of variations in his performance - some were bigger and some were smaller.  In one version he got almost angry as he told the story.   It was great that he gave us so many colors and choices - and we used pieces of many takes to put together  the vesrion we have in here.  

Also, Noah, for his part - just listened - intently.  I feel when I watch Noah's very focused reaction to Pope's story, that there is both incredulity at what he's hearing and some empathy as well.

In the end of course, although they may know each other better - Pope and Tom will always be on the opposite sides of things.  The line that sums this up best (that I think John Wirth wrote) is the line from Pope in the final scene - "Next basket wins."

The other half of this episode is, of course, the search for Anne - lead by Weaver of horseback.

What's interesting is, that coming out of his first reading of the script, Sergio always saw this story as Matt's story.  Matt is the one who strayed from his fathers side, and had had words with Anne in episode 2 of this season.  Matt is the one who is coming of age in this harsh world, and who is wanting to fight.  But here he is the observer - the one taking in the harshness and the determination.  He is the one who insists on burying the woman they find, and on eulogizing her.

If you watch the episode again, notice how in many scenes there are group shots of the cast, and maybe the occasional medium close-up - but the close close-ups are reserved for Matt, watching and taking things in.

Finally I'll talk about some of the complexities that go into what end up just being a few seconds of film.  When Tom and Pope are chased to the edge of the cliff by skitters - Remi, really wanted Tom and Pope to leap off the edge into the water (taking a page out of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID) - we searched for cliffs over rivers - but nothing was available in range of our production.  The nearest decent sized waterfall was 100 miles away.  Sergio came up with the idea to do the jump virtually - his plan was to film Tom and Pope in the woods on the edge of a small cliff - to make their POV (the "down" angle) a backplate of a distant river with Tom and Pope on blue screen.  And the jump would be done with stunt men.

This was a good plan but it didn't quite work.  We couldn't find the appropriate sized cliff's edge in the vicinity where we were shooting.  So the art department built an eight feet tall twelve feet wide "cliff edge."  It was made from plywood and covered in scenic dirt and grass and weeds.  Noah and Collin ran up to the edge of this and stopped abruptly - then they backed up and jumped off-stage into an air bag.

The waterfall was harder though.  We found the right one, but the Canadian Conservation Corp. wouldn't let people jump into the water (the river  became a source of drinking water downstream.)  So we sent Visual Effects Producer Curt Miller, up to the river to film a backplate which we would later add a CGI Tom and Pope into.  But the complexities continued.  Curt needed two splashes in the water - so something heavy had two be thrown in.  Well if Canada wasn't going to let two humans jump in - they certainly wouldn't let two blocks of metal either.  After much thought - Curt came up with a plan...  The special effects team built two catapults side by side and loaded them each with 100 pound blocks of ice.  The ice was catapulted into the water... Splash!  Splash!  We were happy!  And Canada was happy!

And finally, finally...  Matt Frewer meets his demise in this episode.  I've talked over the years in this blog (in regards to this show and others) that I've had the repeated and unfortunate task of telling actors they're being killed off.  Most recently it was Crazy Lee.  And now I had to tell Matt.

But - unlike most, who take it with grim acceptance - Matt took it with rather well...    "I was wonedring when you guys were gonna kill me off!" He told me, with a big smile.  "I'm surprised I lasted this long!"  Anyway - I haven't talked about Matt enough - but he was a great and very fun guy to have around.  And I will miss him!

Thanks for reading....

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

SARAH CARTER IS AN EXPERIENCED HORSEWOMAN. IN REAL LIFE,  SHE VOLUNTEERED TO TAKE CARE OF MAXIM ON SET.  THE WRITERS LIKED THAT AND PUT IT IN THE SCRIPT FOR MAGGIE.

IT WAS COLD AND WET IN THEM THAR' CANADIAN WOODS

TOM GETS A DROP ON A SKITTER

DIRECTOR SERGIO GEZZAN

DID YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU DON'T BACKLIGHT RAIN - YOU DON'T SEE IT?  (IT WAS RAINING HERE TOO!)

MAXIM AND CONNOR PREPARE FOR WHAT IS TO BE A VERY MOVING AND EMOTIONAL SCENE

WARRIOR WOMAN

SHE RIDES HORSES, SHE SHOOTS GUNS AND SHE DRIVES HUMVEES!

BETWEEN TAKES

BRAD KELLY AND I

THIS IS THE KIND OF DETAIL THE ART DEPARTMENT PACKS INTO EVERY FRAME OF OUR SHOW...

AND THIS...

ROB GREY - HEAD OF ALL THINGS ART DEPARTMENT-ISH FROM THE BIGGEST TO THE SMALLEST

LACI

THE MATCH GOES ON

COLLIN BETWEEN TAKES

POPE AND TOM MAKE IT HOME 

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