I hopped out of my car this morning and was about to head upstairs when I noticed some dress blues on display in the costumes department…
I didn’t recall seeing O’Neill in any of the upcoming scripts and asked SGU’s Costume Designer, Val Halverson, what was up. Was Richard Dean Anderson make a secret guest appearance on the show, an appearance so secret that even I didn’t know about it? As it turned out, sadly, no. O’Neill’s uniform was brought out of stasis for the set tours Rick was doing the other week. False alarm.
- Our Costume Designer, the lovely Val Halverson.
I headed upstairs, unpacked, then went down and grabbed an egg white omelet from the truck. My writing partner, Paul, was also in bright and early to supervise the on-set action on Alliances. After our breakfast chat and updates, he headed down to Stage 6 to negotiate the rubble while I headed over to join the location scout for The Hunt.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?”asked Producer John G. Lenic once we’d all piled into the van.
I couldn’t help but notice that everyone else was decked out in jackets, vests, and windbreakers. “I’ll be fine,”I assured him, figuring that having experienced endless deep freezes in Montreal, an early morning walk through the forest would be a piece of cake.
And then it started raining.
Thankfully, by the time we arrived, the rain had slowed to a light sprinkle. We disembarked and headed into the brush led by our sherpa guide.
We were looking for an area with dense foliage that we could supplement with some magic from the Greens Department, a clearing, a potential camp area, and various other little script peculiarities.
- Locations Manager Heather Vedan takes over when after our sherpa guide is devoured by coyotes.
- Director Andy Mikita snaps Lakhpa’s unfortunate demise – while Director of Photography Mike Blundell looks on with mild indifference.
- Something left over from those Twilight movies.
Anyway, the location was perfect. All we need now is a house for the Tamara flashbacks, a cave, and to finish off that big shipboard chamber.
Whew. I am feeling exhausted. It could have been the early wake up or the fitful night’s sleep or yesterday’s grueling work-out, or some mysterious ailment (Could I have been bitten by a tick?). I made the mistake of wondering aloud within earshot of Ashleigh who offered an alternate possibility. “Maybe you’re dying.”.
“Imagine if your prediction came true and I droped dead,”I said. “What would you do then?”
“Probably by a lottery ticket,”she informed me.
After lunch, John Lenic and Tanja Balic came by to show us one of the possibilities for this year’s crew gift. Carl, who happened to be in my office at the time, said “If I can put in my two cents…” and then proceeded to offer up about a buck twenty-five in opinion.
Look who we found waiting for us in the writers’ room today (turns out we’d inadvertently locked him in last night): the subject of yesterday’s blog entry, none other than our amazing Visual Effects Supervisor Mark Savela who wanted us to approve some shots…
Later, I swung by post to approve the “previously on” for episode 10, Resurgence. On my way, I stopped by to say hello to my good friendo Kerry –
Meanwhile, on the home front –
Jelly continues her recovery following her stem cell treatment. She seems a lot happier (definitely a lot more vocal) and has tons more energy, scampering around even though her floppy back legs (atrophied from lack of use although I’m sure she’ll eventually build back the muscle) have a hard time keeping up with the rest of her. Still, not bad for a twelve year old. Many dogs her age aren’t as lucky. Hell, many dogs younger than her aren’t as lucky. Which reminds me of this little website someone recently brought to my attention: http://www.orangedog.ca Its owner has created “an online gathering place to share and celebrate individual acts of animal kindness”. There’s also an online shop offering a host of doggy merchandise, a portion of the proceeds from all sales going toward something called The Freedom Flight Program which flies unwanted and abandoned pooches from California to loving homes in Canada. So far, they’ve sponsored four such flights, rescuing 313 dogs.
Tomorrow, I play catch-up with the mailbag.
Promise.
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