Cole sets up shop in chilly hot spot
Indie feature: Edge of the Interior plays host to director Carl Bessai and his crew
Sunday June 15, 2008
By Glen Schaefer - The Province
LYTTON - There's still snow on the tips of the high mountains that loom over this little town.
"It's Canada's hot spot," says actor Richard de Klerk, lightly dressed in T-shirt and jeans, his back hunched against the blustery wind that cuts through the Thompson-Nicola region. Variations of that line are repeated all day on the set of the indie drama Cole. On this unseasonably cold day, the community of 350 is a one-joke town.
Director Carl Bessai, doubling as his own cameraman, is seated on a dolly rig mounted on rails, for a smooth tracking shot as de Klerk's Cole comes out of a ramshackle house to meet his big-city girlfriend Serafina (Kandyse McClure), pulling up in a Mercedes sedan. McClure, in a sleeveless cotton sundress, admits during a break that she's got the car's heat cranked.
The town of Lytton has welcomed Richard de Klerk and his fellow cast members for the indie feature film, Cole.
The Vancouver-based cast and crew are here for two weeks of filming, after a week spent filming scenes in Vancouver. Written by Adam Zang, a Seattle-based graduate of the Vancouver Film School, Cole is the archetypal story of a young man looking to escape his small-town roots. Bessai and his cast met regularly before filming started, working the script to get specific details into those archetypes, including making Lytton and its surroundings a specific setting for the movie. It's the kind of project the well-schooled Vancouver acting pool can do for little money in between the big-ticket jobs.
"It's the lowest budget film I've ever worked on," says Chad Willett, who divides his time between Vancouver, New York and Los Angeles after getting his start more than a decade ago on the teen drama Madison.
De Klerk, too, is busy in Vancouver and L.A.-filmed episodic TV, McClure has spent the past four seasons as part of the ensemble on Battlestar Galactica and Sonja Bennett, as Cole's sister and the wife to Willett's character, has logged a series of indie-darling roles in Vancouver and Toronto.
Willett signed on as an abusive husband, seeing a challenge to bring some layers to the character.
"He can be the easy-to-target bad guy," says director Bessai of Willett's character. "We worked with the actors to get the details right."
Willett takes off his baseball hat and shows a detail he came up with -- the classic small-town mullet. "People in Vancouver were looking at me funny, but I fit in here."
De Klerk, in his first feature-film starring role, did some pre-filming homework as well, taking a road trip through the surrounding countryside with co-star Michael Eisner, who plays Cole's best friend. They motored a further 60 kilometres up the road to Lillooet before turning back.
"You just get a full sense of how isolated the place is," says de Klerk.
During filming a fight scene with Willett, de Klerk took a tumble that required a couple of stitches to the inside of his lip. He took it as a good sign that the doctor who stitched him up was also named de Klerk. Later, when the stitches split again, he had to wait several hours for the doctor to come back from Cache Creek.
Another method touch for the cast -- Lytton has no cellphone service. When shooting wraps in the evening, cast and crew meet for beers in the motel parking lot or in their makeshift office at the town's parish hall. Willett barbecued burgers for cast and crew one night at his lodgings, and spent weekends camping and fishing to stay in character.
Singer-actor Rebecca Jenkins, who plays Cole's mother, invited her law-professor husband Joel Bakan up for a break. "We spent the weekend riding horses, just being cowboys," says Bakan. For Jenkins, the shoot brings back memories of filming the 1989 period hit Bye Bye Blues in rural Alberta.
"You're happily stuck out somewhere in jaw-dropping beauty," Jenkins says. "It's so freeing. We all cycle around -- most people brought their bikes up."
Bessai's small, nimble crew is barely noticeable in the town, which wasn't the case with the last movie to shoot here. Cole's only artificial touch, oddly enough, is that ramshackle house and gas station on the outskirts. Turns out it's a leftover set built for the 2001 Sean Penn-Jack Nicholson movie The Pledge. The weathered look is painted on.
All three of the motels will tell you that Jack Nicholson stayed there," says Bennett.
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Indie feature: Edge of the Interior plays host to director Carl Bessai and his crew
Sunday June 15, 2008
By Glen Schaefer - The Province
LYTTON - There's still snow on the tips of the high mountains that loom over this little town.
"It's Canada's hot spot," says actor Richard de Klerk, lightly dressed in T-shirt and jeans, his back hunched against the blustery wind that cuts through the Thompson-Nicola region. Variations of that line are repeated all day on the set of the indie drama Cole. On this unseasonably cold day, the community of 350 is a one-joke town.
Director Carl Bessai, doubling as his own cameraman, is seated on a dolly rig mounted on rails, for a smooth tracking shot as de Klerk's Cole comes out of a ramshackle house to meet his big-city girlfriend Serafina (Kandyse McClure), pulling up in a Mercedes sedan. McClure, in a sleeveless cotton sundress, admits during a break that she's got the car's heat cranked.
The town of Lytton has welcomed Richard de Klerk and his fellow cast members for the indie feature film, Cole.
The Vancouver-based cast and crew are here for two weeks of filming, after a week spent filming scenes in Vancouver. Written by Adam Zang, a Seattle-based graduate of the Vancouver Film School, Cole is the archetypal story of a young man looking to escape his small-town roots. Bessai and his cast met regularly before filming started, working the script to get specific details into those archetypes, including making Lytton and its surroundings a specific setting for the movie. It's the kind of project the well-schooled Vancouver acting pool can do for little money in between the big-ticket jobs.
"It's the lowest budget film I've ever worked on," says Chad Willett, who divides his time between Vancouver, New York and Los Angeles after getting his start more than a decade ago on the teen drama Madison.
De Klerk, too, is busy in Vancouver and L.A.-filmed episodic TV, McClure has spent the past four seasons as part of the ensemble on Battlestar Galactica and Sonja Bennett, as Cole's sister and the wife to Willett's character, has logged a series of indie-darling roles in Vancouver and Toronto.
Willett signed on as an abusive husband, seeing a challenge to bring some layers to the character.
"He can be the easy-to-target bad guy," says director Bessai of Willett's character. "We worked with the actors to get the details right."
Willett takes off his baseball hat and shows a detail he came up with -- the classic small-town mullet. "People in Vancouver were looking at me funny, but I fit in here."
De Klerk, in his first feature-film starring role, did some pre-filming homework as well, taking a road trip through the surrounding countryside with co-star Michael Eisner, who plays Cole's best friend. They motored a further 60 kilometres up the road to Lillooet before turning back.
"You just get a full sense of how isolated the place is," says de Klerk.
During filming a fight scene with Willett, de Klerk took a tumble that required a couple of stitches to the inside of his lip. He took it as a good sign that the doctor who stitched him up was also named de Klerk. Later, when the stitches split again, he had to wait several hours for the doctor to come back from Cache Creek.
Another method touch for the cast -- Lytton has no cellphone service. When shooting wraps in the evening, cast and crew meet for beers in the motel parking lot or in their makeshift office at the town's parish hall. Willett barbecued burgers for cast and crew one night at his lodgings, and spent weekends camping and fishing to stay in character.
Singer-actor Rebecca Jenkins, who plays Cole's mother, invited her law-professor husband Joel Bakan up for a break. "We spent the weekend riding horses, just being cowboys," says Bakan. For Jenkins, the shoot brings back memories of filming the 1989 period hit Bye Bye Blues in rural Alberta.
"You're happily stuck out somewhere in jaw-dropping beauty," Jenkins says. "It's so freeing. We all cycle around -- most people brought their bikes up."
Bessai's small, nimble crew is barely noticeable in the town, which wasn't the case with the last movie to shoot here. Cole's only artificial touch, oddly enough, is that ramshackle house and gas station on the outskirts. Turns out it's a leftover set built for the 2001 Sean Penn-Jack Nicholson movie The Pledge. The weathered look is painted on.
All three of the motels will tell you that Jack Nicholson stayed there," says Bennett.
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