1941 - Devil

I've wanted to check this out mostly 'cause my pal Zoie is in it, and she's actually got a fun little part.  It's based on a story from M. Night, but don't let that dissuade it for you.  It's not a great film, it's not bad.  It's helped a lot by good actors like Chris Messina, but it doesn't deliver on it's awesome premise - which is essentially that the devil is among us, and when the opportunity arises he traps himself within a group of people and tortures them before bringing them to hell.  The film largely relies on cheap tricks rather than real scares.  Like I said, not amazing, not terrible. 

Paul Shepard: REVIEW ROUND-UP!

Today is the day!  Anyone living in the greater Toronto area needs to get their butts to the Carlton this weekend to see my film The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard, screening at 4:25pm and 9:20pm daily.  For those who don't know, the opening weekend of any film, particularly small films, is crucial.  For a film like ours it's the difference between only running one week in one city, and get expanded.  If we do well this weekend the chances of the film moving on to another city is very good, as well as getting an extra week in Toronto.
So, to the reviews.  A lot of filmmakers will claim they don't read reviews, and I'm sure some don't.  I haven't been doing this long enough not to care what other people think.  For a small film like ours a review can be the deciding factor on whether or not someone wants to give it a shot.  So without further adieu, here they are... Click on the name of the paper (the heading) to get the actual review, otherwise I'll just talk about it briefly:

The National Post:  I'd be lying if I didn't say that getting this three star review meant a lot to me.  But what meant even more was that this reviewer really seemed to "get" the film.  And to boot they said some really lovely things.

The Toronto Sun: While I'm sure she doesn't remember it, Liz Braun reviewed a short film festival a few years back where she commented on my film and said that I had done in five minutes what others like it couldn't do at feature length.  It was a nice thing to say.  And she has more nice things here, in particular that this is a film that should make Canadians proud.

The Toronto Star: Not our biggest supporter, but still nothing to shake your fist at.  No film is for everyone and considering how routinely romantic comedies get slammed by critics, I think we did just fine here.  

The Grid:  The black sheep of our reviews.  I very well can't post all the positive and leave out the negative.  I'm trying to avoid reviewing the reviews, however I can't help but think that from reading this one that this reviewer just hates the mockumentary format to begin with - so it's no surprise that we didn't get much love.  You can't win them all!

These are all the reviews I've seen so far, if anyone spots any more please let me know - post in the comments.  Otherwise, get your butt to the theatre and tell everyone you know!

The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard THEATRICAL RELEASE!

At long last my first feature is being released in to the theatres!  For those that live in the GTA (or that feel like traveling at all!)  It will be screening at the Carlton (Yonge/Carlton) from Friday, Oct 21st to Thursday, Oct 27th.  The showtimes are 4:25pm and 9:20pm (apologies that there are no early evening screenings - I have absolutely no control over that). 
We've been nominated for several awards along the way as well as having played as several of Canada's top film festivals, and others around the world.  The programmer at the Calgary International Film Festival had this to say about the film:

Part HIGH FIDELITY, part THE OFFICE with a dash of SPINAL TAP thrown in for good measure, THE UNTITLED WORK OF PAUL SHEPARD is a mockumentary with genuine heart to go with the genuine laughs.

So get your butt out and support a great Canadian film!  And on Friday and Saturday nights get a chance to meet some of the cast at the Q&As!  We are expecting reviews in all the major papers, so we'll post them here as well (unless they absolutely trash the film, and then I'll say that 'I don't read reviews...')
Looking forward to seeing you all out there.  Spread the word!!!

TUWOPS - Zoie Palmer nominated for ACTRA Award's best female performance!

It is my extremely proud honor to announce that Zoie Palmer has been nominated for 'best female performance' ACTRA Award for her role in my film The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard. Pictured above, an outtake from the scene which I'm pretty darn certain went a long way in getting her nominated.

If you want you can check out the various articles that mention her nomination, amongst the other nominees. Here are some links thus far:
The CBC
The Toronto Star
The Amherst Daily News

I love Zoie Palmer the actor only second to Zoie Palmer the person. I'm extremely fortunate in how many amazing people I've met and formed friendships with from having made this film, and Zoie is no exception. If you follow the tag below you'll find an interview I did with her back in the fall for my Three 2 Five series. Working with Zoie is a delight because she revels in playing, in discovering, and yet she so respects the work that's come before her. She's the kind of actress that is going to work forever, and be in great demand, because of that and many many other traits.
It goes without saying that I think every single member of our cast deserved to be nominated for their fantastic performances this film, but I think Zoie represents us all well, and I appreciate the extra attention that the film will get from having this honor bestowed upon it as Zoie.

Three 2 Five Questions: Zoie Palmer

This is a new segment that I'm going to start doing on the blog and I was fortunate to have Zoie Palmer be my first guest and test things out. I just bought a new camera, the Canon Rebel T2i DSLR and I've been testing it out - so please cut me just a bit of slack as the focus isn't exactly perfect through-out the entire thing - and the audio is, well - it's what it is - the place we were in was loud and I didn't have proper sound gear - going to look into that for next time. Also I'm trying to work out the best conversion and way to upload to blogger with video (it looks a lot better than what's below) The idea is that I'll ask each person at least three to five questions somewhat related to what they do, because I won't give them the questions ahead of time they can chose not to answer a question if they'd like.
So like I mentioned, the first up is Zoie Palmer. For those of you who don't know Zoie she's a pretty damn fantastic girl. She's been all over Canadian television from Instant Star, The Guard, and more recently Lost Girl. But more importantly she's in my film The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard. These segments will be added pretty randomly and I hope to get a cross-section of the arts community in on them, not just actors. If there's anyone you'd like me to include, or if you yourself would like to be included, let me know and I'll see what I can do!
Also, I'm including the link to the music video Zoie referred to above. Click here.

TUWOPS - Set Photos!

So I've been busy cutting away at the film, Anthony's been busy trying to get a sense of music and the licensing of it for the film as we're gearing up for a test screening next Friday that should prove useful in making the final tweaks in the film. Ideally we just want to know that the film is working for people outside of just the core group of people that have made it. Trying to invite a good mixture of people from different backgrounds, age groups, etc… just to get a general sense of how people react to it. I'll try to post the findings from the questionnaires (unless everyone hates it - then I'll just tell you that the screening was cancelled...)

So. Set photos. If you're a friend of mine on facebook you can see more, but here's a nice selection (in no particular order):


This was actually taken right before the last shot of the film. Anthony Grani (in the middle) is notorious for not getting in any of our production stills. Zach Melnick (on the right) is having a rare smile.


Kris Holden-Reid makes Paul Shepard's office his own.


Mary & Kris get mentally prepared for "the big scene".


The lovely Mary Krohnert gets no privacy whatsoever.


That's right - we were brave and let the actors hold the camera.


My one regret of the entire film shoot is that I was not there when this went down. I was there, however, when Aron Tager started busting a move to the Beastie Boys on a nearby ghetto-blaster.


Aron Tager = awesome.


On set at Montcrest School


God bless Paul Lee for actually owning this outfit and offering to wear it.



Kris & Zoie's beautiful dance. Alex Poch-Goldin will probably never admit it, but I think he secretly loved working the sound equipment.


Kris is trying to feel me up here, I believe. (I was trying to let him)


Kris loves mornings. Zoie looking snazzy.


Kris & Alex. The odd couple of our film.


Yes. Pat Mastroianni is in his underwear. And Tricia Braun finds it very funny.


Apparently Yvonne approved of the sound on that take...


Kris and Christine on set at Veritas (King Street East)


Christine Horne willingly making a fool out of herself for the sake of our film. Bit of trivia here: she's wearing the same wig she wore in "The Stone Angel"


We had a permit.... I think...


I love this as the classic Director & Cinematography shot. I look like I'm actually making decisions! (I'm probably pointing at the craft services table)


Mary and Kris on set in Withrow Park. The kids behind them were our extras for the day. They played soccer for about five hours straight (and then left to play an actual soccer game... they lost. Sorry kids - you must suffer for art!)


Hehe. This is the second day of shooting and we were short a head-set, so Jen and I were sharing, huddled up in the bush.

TUWOPS: Day Thirteen

Thirteen days down, two to go. We’re in our final location, which is a gorgeous Coach House that’s very… 70’s architecture. Check out the shower in the pic below with our AD Mark Huisman:


We got this location through a rental agency that usually rents to producers/directors/stars coming to town to shoot. This place screams group orgies. Seriously, if you took a red-light through this place it would look like a Jackson Pollock painting.

So we’re here for the last two days shooting the ‘heart’ of the film. Today was especially interesting because almost all of the stuff was shot by our actors Kris and Mary as it’s meant to be home movie footage. It was even more fun because it was a simulated Christmas morning. Tried as she could, our production designer Meaghan couldn’t find a Christmas web-radio stream that worked so that we could get a little more in the spirit. See below, Anthony Grani, our fearless producer, indeed in the Christmas spirit:


Tip of the Day: We had to fog out some windows to hide the extremily green trees. Spray deodorant works perfectly, although it pollutes and makes the place stink and the crew cough.

Also, fancy expensive locations have awesome toilet paper.

So. Stills.

A lovely Meet-Cute between Kris & Mary:


I'm going to leave it a mystery what Paul Lee is doing here:


Zoie & Kris dancing from our day eleven shoot:


And last but not least, the brilliant Aron Tager as Dr. Max Henreid:

TUWOPS: Day Eleven

Today was probably the saddest day on set for me. Not because the day didn’t go right. Not because the performances weren’t coming through. It’s simply because we had to say goodbye to not one, but two of our amazing actors.

The first, Zoie Palmer. What can I say about Zoie. She’s a delight. She took a role that could have been such a cliché and breathed beautiful life into it in a way that was exactly what I wanted, and yet so much her own. The scene we shot with her was an intense scene both emotionally and technically and she just gave and gave and gave. The scene will be a tough one to cut because there’s so many great choices. These are the kind of problems that you want to have.

And the second we say goodbye to – Alex Poch-Goldin. It was hard to say goodbye to Alex. I can’t even begin to describe what he brought to the role of Ray. He has a fantastic dry wit, and one of the best smiles I’ve ever come across in my entire life. He has a tremendous talent both in terms of what he brings to his own performances, but even more so in what he brings to the whole. Alex is the kind of performer who pays attention to everything, and if he can offer a note or suggestion he does, and he’s right when he does so. In short, Alex makes a scene better – even if he’s not in it. A man with no ego, he has helped to elevate this film. His presence will be missed.

So one day of rest before we begin our last four-day-stretch. Next week we are re-joined by Mary Krohnert as the new girlfriend-of-the-week. We’re in the home stretch, and the mixed emotions that come with it.

TUWOPS: Day Ten

Here we are. Two thirds finished. What a ride today was. It started off pretty horribly to be quite honest. To set the scene we were shooting on a sound stage, and we don’t have the kind of equipment one would usually have when shooting on a large-scale sound stage. We needed something to patch into the sound stage’s electrical. So what we thought would be a simple pick-up at the camera store took A LONG time and because the crew member who was picking it up had all of the make-up with them we couldn’t start to process any of the actors. We started today two and a half hours behind schedule. Because our crew is awesome we were caught up by the third of six sequences we had to shoot today.

Two of our sequences today required a fair amount of blocking and figuring out. In the end we went into over-time a bit, but we had planned for that for today anyway, we actually planned to go much further into overtime so technically we did quite well, especially considering our start. Go team!

So today we finally got to put Zoie Palmer up in a scene. I don’t want to show off too much of her stuff today and it’ll ruin the scenes for an audience not familiar with the script. We also had Landy Cannon, Ace Hicks, and a slew of great actors doing background joining us today.

The hardest part about this whole process has been getting all of these amazing actors and only having a few days to shoot with them for the most part. Outside of being tremendously talented they’re also a group of really sweet, beautiful people.

So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s some stills from our last few days now that I’ve had a chance to catch up on digitizing the footage:

Pat & Tricia

Tricia being interviewed:

Kris being interviewed by the lovely Ms. Hoople.

TUWOPS: Day Nine

So that above here is the exterior of our location this morning. We were shooting a scene that will eventually play as a news-magazine-style show in the finished film – and the marquee is boasting the title of one of Paul’s films. So this morning was busy with lots of extras and doing some mock interviews and photo shoots outside of the theatre. The actor’s union rules state that I’m actually not allowed to talk to the extras – if I do I we have to upgrade them and pay them more. I can address them as a group, but not specifically. I have to go through my assistant director for that. It’s retarded. Alas.

So I broke off from our main crew with Kris, and our girlfriend-of-the-week, Zoie Palmer, who is playing Haley, an actress-slash-model. So this afternoon was spent in the studio of pro photographer Virginia Macdonald. We shot a bunch of stuff of Kris that we can re-use for fake magazine covers, newspaper articles, etc… including the gorgeous shot below.



For Zoie, who plays former model, we had to create her “world” through a series of fake photo shoots. Now the character of Haley is not a high-class model. Far from it. She was one of those working models who is used to sell glasses, furniture, and back to school clothes, as per below…

The Hakim-Optical shot:

The Sears-esque furniture shot:

The pseudo lingerie shot:

And my favorite, the over-the-hill-model-trying-to-do-a-back-to-school shot:

So that’s it for now. Tomorrow we spend in a sound-stage shooting more with Zoie’s character. It’s going to be a long day, but a complete blast!

TUWOPS: Casting Update & End of Week Review

This whole week has been a blur of activity. Each day has gotten us closer and closer to having a full cast, and today was no exception. All of our offers are out, and most have come back. Just a few stragglers aside that should get ironed out at the beginning of next week. But I have to say, it feels good to have the majority of the cast locked down with two weeks to go - AND to have a cast as amazing as we have. So, here's who officially joined us today:

Zoie Palmer


Alex Poch-Goldin


Tricia Braun


Katherine Ashby


Ace Hicks


and last but not least... Paul de la Rosa


We finally hired a costume designer today, so there's another thing I can sink my teeth into next week. This will be my first time working with a costume designer so it's pretty exciting for me. Next week is going to be a busy one, I'm doing a lot of one-on-ones with the actors, starting to approve art work, props, etc..., and we'll be having a few big tech meetings to make sure that post is going to flow smoothly. Still have to find a good script supervisor, but other than that we've got all of our key crew nailed down.

Fingers crossed that pre-production continues to go well!