Writer/Director Brooks Hunter and Cinematographer Pasha Patriki.

This is Michael Scratch as the film’s villain, Adrian Black.  Really nice and talented guy – I didn’t get to meet him during phase 1 of shooting.

Sean Samson prepping Vanessa Broze‘s head for drilling!

Ewwww.

The effect looked really cool, from what I saw on the monitor.  Can’t wait to see it in the final film!

This Friday we’re filming a huge fight scene with multiple bloody deaths.  I’m very excited.

Yesterday, we filmed at a motel in Shelburne, ON (about 90 minutes North of Toronto).  It was great to see everyone again!

This time I’d like to get some shots of Vanessa Broze not being tied up and/or duct taped on the back of a truck.

See: examples from last September.

Doran Damon Okkema (who plays Donovan), Vanessa Broze (as Kelly/Megan), and writer/director/producer Brooks Hunter.

Vanessa tied up with Brooks Hunter, Director of Photography Pasha Patriki, and Dany Gehshan (as Charlie/Patrick).

This is one of the most fun sets (okay, the most fun set) I’ve ever worked on.  Everyone is really nice and infectiously energetic.  Also, I love working on films that actually encourage posting pictures online – most productions don’t allow it.  Speaking of which, you can see lots more pictures on the Kenneyville Facebook page.

On Friday we’re filming in Cobourg.  The key prosthetic makeup artist from Resident Evil: Afterlife has created some crazy special effect props.  There will be blood.  There will also be pictures.

We’re having tons of fun so far, with lots of excitement from raccoons and bears to thwarting robberies to throwing cast members into the lake.

Here are a few behind-the-scenes pictures from this week:

Yes, that is as steep as it looks.

Director Brooks Hunter with Irena Angelousta, who is playing Victoria.

Movie-making in a boat!

Our lead, Vanessa Broze, getting taped up for her big kidnapping scene.

And apparently that’s all the middle-of-nowhere-Internet will let me upload for today.

He’s about to release his new album, called “Summer“, under the name “Your Heart”.  I took these pictures earlier this week at the studio where he’s getting ready to film 2 kids’ music videos with his band next week.  I cannot keep track of how many bands Andrew is in or how many albums he is currently working on.  There are a lot.

He’s having a CD/Video release party on September 1st, the details of which you can find on Facebook, here.  The “Video Release” part of the party is for the song “In the Sun” from the album.  Wendelfilm created the video back in June, and I helped produce it!

Here’s a teaser:

And here are some shots from this week.

The Last New Year (IMDB) (official site) is playing at The Royal in Toronto for its last night tonight at 7pm.  I went to see it last night, and it was fantastic.

Since I only started doing film stills in 2008, most of the things I’ve worked on still haven’t been released.  It was very exciting to see something I worked on on the big screen!

They will also be doing screenings in Victoria and Vancouver and I highly recommend seeing it.  It’s a great film that has come a long way since I saw one of the early rough cuts last year.

On day 9, the snow was up to our knees.  Where was all this snow when it was needed for the luge?

(Our script supervisor Tiffany Wong trying to keep her pants dry.)

On day 10, we went into Blue Mountain village, which was really nice (and a lot warmer!).  We had a restaurant scene, a scene at the Bark & Fitz pet store, and then miscellaneous shots around the village.

The next two days were spent on “The Art Farm” in Duntroon, ON, a beautiful farm owned by an arist and a producer.  On the first day, we had a trained raccoon – apparently the only trained raccoon in Ontario.

We didn’t see many of the farm animals, but the llama did come over to say hi to our locations manager.

And that brings me to my last day on set.  Day 13, the big strip club scene.  Again, this was a closed set so I wasn’t allowed inside for most of the day.  In the morning, we did some shots outside, and then we had a green screen for a dream sequence scene.

Our strip club scene was set in an abandoned gas station turned strip club… or strip club turned gas station, I’m not really sure.  Either way, it didn’t look like anything until a few hours before we started shooting.  Brian Garvey and his team turned this abandoned building into a bar, and it looked awesome.

Overall, it was a great experience and I met a lot of awesome people.  Hopefully soon I will be able to post some publicity stills!

Harvey was written and directed by Jeff Kopas and stars Jordan Prentice (In Bruges, Wierdsville) as Harvey, Kristin Adams (Who is KK Downey?, Where the Truth Lies) as Dakota, and Steven McCarthy (Eating Buccaneers, Dead Mary) as Lucas.

Not to forget our canine star, Inca:

Here she is being a goof with director Jeff Kopas in the background.

Everyone – cast and crew – was a lot of fun to work with.  Here is a brief recap from my 13 days on set.

We spent the first day at a really neat old church in the middle of nowhere that is apparently only open for service once a year.  It was a really great location, despite the fact that it was freezing cold and full of thousands of dead/dormant flies.  This place was dubbed “Where Flies Go To Die”.  It had a very neat cemetery out back.   Of course, I snuck around and took some shots of it – I’ll post them separately.

On the second day, we spent the morning at a vet’s office and then all afternoon and evening at the beautiful Scott Mission Lodge.

Cast member Steven McCarthy brought his dog Ben, so Ben and Inca spent the afternoon sprinting around the forest and tiring each other out.

Production Designer Brian Garvey did a very good job of turning this empty room into an orphanage in just a few hours.

The “Overweight Nun” (complete with fat suit and face full of cotton balls), pictured here with Jeff, was played by Karen Skidmore.  Karen is an amazing theatre actor who stayed in character from the moment she put on her costume to the moment she took it off.

We spent days 3 and 4 at the Toronto Ski Club, which were two very difficult days.  Lots of extras, lots of stunts, and not enough snow or time!

Again, I have to give props to Brian Garvey for building a whole luge track (seen in the last 2 pictures above) in just one morning when there was barely any snow left on the ground.

Days 5-8 were spent mostly inside, which was a nice change!  We were shooting in and around a ski chalet on top of Blue Mountain.

Climbing onto the roof to get a neat shot.

The chalet was actually where the cast and crew were staying.  One of the days was a closed set, which means non-essential crew (i.e. the still photographer) isn’t allowed to be there.

Read Part 2!

The Last New Year was written and directed by Garfield Lindsay Miller (A Stone’s Throw) and produced by Alyson Richards (The Line, Marjorie) and The Nightingale Company (The Line, Zixx).

The film premiered at the Victoria Film Festival on January 31st, 2009.

Photo: Mayko Nguyen as Courtnay