Ricky's House

So it's kind of surreal to walk into a strange house in Regina for the first time to find framed photos of Sam on the fridge, the mantelpiece, the dining room hutch, and side tables... There are more photos of Sam in his movie house than in his real one! I'm not sure if any of them were caught on camera, but I snapped a few before we left for the last time. I didn't take any of the house, really - but I wish I had. It's incredible what a difference lighting and the camera frame make.

The house is for sale and my first impression was that it needed quite a bit of work - new kitchen, repaired floors, new windows, and more. The rooms are small and cluttered in a "we're moving soon" kind of way, but it's cozy and has a century-home charm. Depending on which room was being used or was "hot" (could be seen on camera), Jeremy and I tucked into a corner of the living room or dining room. We sit for hours at a time, so there is a lot of opportunity to look around.

On day two, we flipped from the den/living room scenes to shoot a few dinner table shots in the dining room. We came back from lunch at the CBC Soundstage to find the dining room all set up. It already looked different with a dressed scene - plants, table set, nice lighting. But when I stepped around to look at the shot in the monitor, I couldn't believe how beautiful the room looked. The pale yellow stucco walls were glowing softly, and the wooden trim, sconces, and recessed bookshelves looked like shiny, rich mahogany. Remarkable. Look one way and see normal house; look at the monitor and see movie house. It really is almost magical. And I think I understand why 90% of time on set is spent doing exactly this ...

(whoops - sideways video. But you get the idea. Camera angles and lighting. And lighting. And lighting :) 

Working with Kim Coates

It's Sam again! Yesterday, I finally remembered to bring my vest back from tutoring. I was very proud of myself. The production wants to pull us out of tutoring as quick as possible, but we usually manage to convince them to let us have 5 more minutes so we can count our time. But one time when we couldn't, we had to do high knees all the way to set, and still had time to do 5 push-ups before the shot to count as P.E. We got our time in. But tutoring isn't what I'm going to talk about today. Today, I'm going to talk about working with another actor in The Adventure Club.

Kim Coates is awesome. When we first got here,and looked at the cast wall, we noticed a character was missing. The director told us they hadn't cast him yet. He had a fairly big role in the movie, and we were only 5 days from shooting! So the producer got a list of stars they had in mind, and found out who they could grab. They found Kim Coates, known for his role in Sons of Anarchy. He wanted to meet us before the shoot. So he came over and talked to us, then watched us do a scene. He's a really nice guy. He was really enthusiastic. He had to leave, but the next day, we had a full day of shooting with him.

He told us that he changed lines all the time, but our cue lines would stay the same. We were off to turtoring when we were saved by Kim, who wanted to run lines with us. So we switched them up a bit. They still got the same idea across, only better. We learned from him that sometimes, if it feels more natural a different way, you can change your line. But since we're only kids, we ask the director first. He often says yes. I think Kim's a really smart guy. Like Geoff said, he is a seasoned veteran in the ways of acting.

We all noticed that during the scene, he'd just pick something up from his desk and start tinkering with it while talking, which worked really well with his character. It was always something different. And when he did the scene, it was never the same. He said something different all the time. He said whatever was natural to him. Sometimes, when we had to laugh a bit, he'd change the line so it was funnier. And when we had to be scared, he'd change the line so it was scarier.

Before every shot, Kim got into character. He'd be talking to us even before the camera was rolling, and acting like he was his character. He was talking like we were still in the last scene. So when the cameras started rolling, it was like it was one continous scene, and we were all in character.

I found that he is very good at improvising. Sometimes, he would start a sentence without even knowing where he was going with it. But that just made it more realistic when he was searching for words. So he just made that sentence flow into the sentence from the actual script.

Kim gave us some good advice about acting. He told us as long as you listen, really listen, that's the only trick to it. He told us that acting is listening.

So, I'm running out of things to say here, and I got stuff to do. Gotta go now, but this isn't the last you'll hear from me.

Learning and Forgetting

Working on The Adventure Club has been a blast. You've heard about what it's like on set.  You've heard all about some of the other actors, and about how to prepare for scenes. But you've heard about all of this from a mother's perspective. It's me this time. The one you've been hearing about all along. It's Sam.

I am still yet to read the blog, but that won't stop me from writing in it. Don't worry, you'll still hear from the master blogger, my mom. But every now and then you might hear from me. I'm something like a guest writer.

Anyways, like I said, shooting this thing has been awesome. It's by far my favorite shoot. And one thing you haven't heard about is tutoring. Since I am still just a kid, I need to keep up my schoolwork here in Regina. So, a tutor is on set for me and the other kids. Her name is Kathy, and she's great. We need to have minimum 10 hours a week of tutoring. So we can just pop in and do 10 minutes of work every now and then, right? Nope. The rules say we need to be working at least 30 minutes to count our time, though we count anything more than 25 minutes as half and hour (Shhh!).

Because we can't do all of our tutoring during shooting, we have to "bank" hours. That means we do tutoring beforehand, so we don't have to do it later. I'm in a lot of the scenes, so I don't get as much tutoring as the others do. I've been a bit behind, but by the time I'm done writing this, I'll be caught up. We're in the suite right now. Back to tutoring.

The tutor has her own trailer, but shares the room next to her with some production room. While tutoring, we often get thrown around, because the trailer shakes whenever a guy gets on or off. Jakob is always looking for ways to skip school work. He'll stall as much as he can. He's been trying to convince production to let us count riding our bikes in the movie as physical education. No luck so far. I doubt he'll give up anytime soon.

And for some reason, I manage to lose my vest in the tutor trailer every single time I leave that place. I take it off when I get in because of the heat, and I'm so rushed to get back to set that i just hop out. Luckily, the second assistant director, Taylor, is always quick to remind me. I once left the trailer, crossed the street, and walked into the set, forgetting the whole time I'd left my vest back in the trailer. They needed me for blocking (figuring out where I would walk, stop, and walk again), so the poor wardrobe lady had to run back and get it for me!

My parents were in the movie! In a scene where my friends and I bike up to the science museum, they are walking down the sidewalk in the background. My dad took off his glasses and zipped up his coat so he could be another extra again if they needed him. The other parents got to walk out the front doors as we went in. Little did these two know, by volunteering for this job, they would have to do it over and over because we could still see them in the next shot. My parents, on the other hand, could happily sit and observe while enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

I have to go off to tutoring shortly, but I'll be writing more soon!