|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Timeless was a massive nostalgia binge for Jon Blum, who was getting to fly back home to Washington DC for the first time in ages. While in Australia, he wrote a short script (inspired by a chance comment from Drew Vogel), sent it to AC for polishing, and set about getting the gang back together.
|
Reunited from Time Rift were Jon, AC Chapin, Marsha Twitty, and Itzy Friedman in the main roles; Kevin Cherry also turned back up in a non-speaking role. Cary Gordon came back as Director of Photography, Neil Marsh came down from Boston to do sound, and Jim Vowles and Sean Corcoran joined as extras. Last but not least, Kate Orman turned up as First Assistant Director, and astonished the crew by introducing them to the concept of efficiency and speed. Unfortunately, Amy Steele was unavailable to rejoin the cast, since she was off in LA working for a post-production house, but a tribute to Ray was still worked into the story.
|
The story required one and one-half days of shooting. Jon and Cary had made careful plans for the art-gallery location, selecting a first, second, and third choice. All three fell through one after the other, and as a result the interior scenes were all shot inside Jon's parents' house... after all these years, the Lemmings finally succumbed to the legendary homemade-video tradition of shooting in your parents' basement. Fortunately, the Blums have two painters and a photographer in the family, so the art was not in short supply.
The eventual schedule would spend the first day at the (extremely patient and helpful) Blums', and the second split between location work at Chestnut Lodge (a former mental institution being converted into a school) for scenes which didn't require artwork, and further work at the Blums' for scenes which did.
|
The first day's work consisted of all the scenes in the main gallery room. It would also have included the scenes at the doorway, with Carolyn Friedman in a cameo as The Woman from The Bridge, but Itzy and Carolyn had to leave before they had time to shoot the scene. Itzy's part was finished, and Carolyn wouldn't be available on the second day, so Kate Orman agreed to take on the role.
After shooting, and a vast Chinese meal, the cast and crew and friends (including novelist Lloyd Rose) returned to the Blum household for a playback of a cassette copy of the as-yet-unscreened Death Comes To Time pilot, and Neil's thumping techno version of the Doctor Who theme.
|
The second day, one of the two unshot scenes with the Woman, involving AC Chapin as Ace, was moved to an exterior location at Chestnut Lodge so that AC could still leave after the location shooting. The exterior shots went smoothly, despite the fact that -- again in the grand amateur-film tradition -- about half of the extras didn't show up. Fortunately, the people involved were going to be cut and pasted multiple times anyway.
Unfortunately, the person supposed to let the crew inside for the interior scenes was nowhere to be found, so the remaining location interiors were also transplanted back to the Blums' house. The scenes of the Figures storming the gallery and pursuing the Doctor were duly completed with a minimum of fuss.
|
A little bit of second-unit shooting, with Shadowy Figures dematerializing actual works of art, was done at the National Gallery of Art in Sydney, Australia. Andrew Shellshear joined the cast as a Shadowy Figure; again in the grand tradition, the other half of the extras couldn't make it that day.
Post-production was completed on Jon's new Power Mac G4, and the story premiered to a highly positive reception at the Gallifrey 2002 convention. After which, just as it was about to be put on the website, Jon suddenly realized how he should have done the special effects, and completely rebuilt every last one of the major shots.
All in all, the Timeless experience proved that you can go home again, even if they've moved a lot of the furniture around since you left.
This film is dedicated to Ben Steele,
Amy's late brother, |
|
|
|
|
