News: Powell River Peak

Acting coach trains young stars

Luke Brocki - Peak Reporter

11/01/2006

One of Canada's top film and television acting coaches is coming to Powell River.

Jacqui Kaese, founder of Nanaimo's Spotlight Academy for Actors and Models, will be in town Saturday and Sunday, November 18 and 19 for three workshops and a free question-and-answer session.

"The information session is geared toward people who just want a general background in terms of what's available and how feasible it is living in Powell River," she told the Peak in a telephone interview.

The workshops are geared toward people who have little or no acting experience and will cover basics and pitfalls, helping hopeful actors market and motivate themselves.

Kaese said technology is enabling people from rural and remote communities to be seen and heard by industry professionals through the use of audition tapes.

"We've persuaded casting directors that we're a force to be reckoned with and through modern technology we've become more available," she said. "We've gone from being able to courier VHS tapes to emailing audition pieces."

She said there is still some skepticism and naivetie around remote auditions, but a lot of film crews in the United States will now accept taped auditions.

"At some point or other they've got to be prepared to make the journey," she said, adding that most commercial work requires actors to audition in person. "When you're in Vancouver, it's a 20-minute commute to the studios. With us, it can be an overnight trip," she said.

Because of the distance, Kaese said it's important for hopeful actors to know what it takes to market themselves in the business.

Kaese has more than 1,500 hours of on-set coaching experience, collected over 25 years of working in film, TV and commercials. Spotlight Academy's alumni include Cameron Bright, star of X-Men: The Last Stand and Thank You For Smoking; Colin Ford, star of Dog Days and Dungeon Siege and Blake Woodruff, from Cheaper by the Dozen 1 and 2. Kaese's latest success story is Beau Mirchoff, appearing on screen as one of the leads in Scary Movie 4.

Prices for the workshops range depending on age. For a complete list of times and prices readers can visit www.powellriver.ca or call 604.485.2891. Kaese said she could soon be a regular presence in Powell River. If these sessions are successful, she'll be back twice a year to train more young stars. Readers wanting more information on Kaese's projects can visit www.spotlightacademy.com.

Cameron working on new project

Indie film brings a pair of rising stars to town

By Michael Sragow

Baltimore Sun Movie Critic

Originally published November 1, 2006

The cresting talents of Gretchen Mol, fresh off the personal success of The Notorious Bettie Page, and Cameron Bright, the child actor who provided a controversial cure for mutants in X-Men: The Last Stand, converge in Baltimore this month for the filming of a low-budget independent movie, Boy of Pigs -- a play on the Bay of Pigs.

Set in 1963, in the swirl of glamour and intrigue that turned President John F. Kennedy's Washington into Camelot, the movie traces the coming of age of a lonely 13-year-old Catholic school boy. Bright (also memorable in Thank You for Smoking) glimpses the nude beauty of the artist across the street (Mol), and decides to find out everything he can about her.

She's one of JFK's lovers and the ex-wife of a top-ranked CIA operative. And she appears to be conducting her own back-channel negotiations among the CIA, Kennedy and the Cubans in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Producer Kevin Leydon says a combination of factors brought Boy of Pigs to Baltimore, including Maryland's wage rebates for film productions, the architecture of the neighborhoods, the hands-on assistance of the city and state film offices, and the vaunted "film-friendliness" of the area.

But a single factor brought him and first-time feature director William Olsson onto the project and attracted their top-flight cast: the distinction of Alex Metcalf's script.

Mol, he says, feels so strongly about it she's commuting between Baltimore for Boy of Pigs and New Mexico, where she's simultaneously co-starring in the big-budget Russell Crowe-Christian Bale remake of the classic Glenn Ford Western, 3:10 to Yuma. (Walk the Line's James Mangold directs that one.)

Baltimore neighborhoods such as Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon are standing in for Georgetown circa 1963. A full complement of Baltimore's film talent makes up the key crew, including cinematographer David Insley of The Wire and production designer Vincent Peranio, who has contributed to the collected works of John Waters as well as David Simon's The Corner and The Wire and Barry Levinson's Homicide: Life on the Street and Liberty Heights.

Will America lose its innocence on the big screen once again, in the wake of JFK's assassination?

Probably, but producer Leydon promises that Metcalf's deft writing ("there've been no rewrites!") and Olsson's "great eye" make it fresh.

And, for now, it will give Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon residents a chance to catch two of Hollywood's most talented and talked-about actors in the flesh.

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While there is no listing on IMDB, I have found a partial character list:

Adam Billy Del Valle Dr. Gaston Grace

Gaurd Ken Quinn Sister May Eunice Steven

And the Casting Director on this film is Johanna Ray

Wardrobe specs for the film.