In Part One, we talked about the Canadian short movie, The Post-Lifers, and interviewed the Executive Producers, Greg Kovacs and Darren Hutchings. In this article we're going to find out a bit more about the brains behind the movie, Tasha and Friends and slip behind the scenes on the set.

The Producers
As with the Post-Lifers, Tasha and Friends in the combined brainchild of Greg Kovacs, Darren Hutchings, Nate Hawkins and Brad McMillan.

After working with them on The Post-Lifers, it was a "gimme" for Greg and Darren to bring Brad McMillan and Nate Hawkins on board for Tasha. Greg met Brad through Darren a number of years ago, and after he read the Post-Lifers script, Brad contacted Nathan, with whom he had worked on previous movie projects. Greg, Darren, Brad and Nate pooled their resources in order to produce the Post-Lifers. These four are back in the saddle with Tasha and Friends.

Greg is Director/Executive Producer and Darren is an Executive Producer, Darren has the additional role of Director of Photography. Nate has the role of producer, along with a legion of other duties, Brad is a producer and camera operator.

The  Tasha "set" is located in the basement of a large home on quiet residential street in Brantford, Ontario. As mentioned in Part One, the house belongs to Director/Executive Producer Greg Kovacs.

The entire house was a hotbed of activity, with Darren Hutchings' wife Cathy, taking care of the snacks and dinner preparations upstairs, various crew members dashing up and down the basement stairs on multiple assignments and Director/Executive Producer Greg Kovacs holding impromptu brainstorming sessions with Executive Producer, Darren Hutchings and Producers, Nate Hawkins and Brad McMillan. It may have appeared chaotic, but there was an unstoppable organized process underway.

The basement had been transformed into a set. They had to tape down large sheets of plastic, and put old towels on the floor to avoid "blood" from soaking through. Greg explained that he hoped to keep mess to a minimum since he plans to put the house on the market soon.

Makeup artist Mitchell Stacey was all set up in the laundry room, with his array of pots, brushes, tubes and spatulas lined up and ready for Stephanie Christiaens (the only human actor in this production), with plastic carefully laid down between the set and the "make-up room" so when she left the room, dripping with gore, staining would not occur.

It was truly fascinating to observe the transformation of the beautiful Stephanie Christiaens to a bloodstained, gory looking hag.

Watching Mitchell working his magic is a treat, he is intense and concentrates completely on his work. (Mitchell was the whiz kid makeup artist and creator of the horrifically realistic masks for The Post- Lifers, and he obviously is no one-hit wonder from what we saw.) He carefully applied "wound" patches and the first layer of blood with speed and skill.

 

Once the first part was applied and dry, Steph was free to go upstairs and relax until needed for the next layer of gore, shortly before the cameras roll.

(The really drippy blood would be squirted on literally moments before the shoot because the stuff dries rather quickly.)

While Mitchell worked on Steph, we snatched Puppeteer Campbell Mackinlay away for a few minutes to chat with him about his part in the production. Greg Kovacs has been friends with Campbell for a long time, since college in fact, and said that he knew Cam would be the right guy to handle the puppets since they both had a keen interest in puppetry. Cam is also a writer/director/animator and has a good sense of what works and what doesn't.

Cam's day job of animator keeps the bills paid, but his real passion is puppeteering.  Although he has been doing it on the side for years, this is his first official "role" in a movie. Cam does the puppet voices, as well as being the operator for the puppets in Tasha and Friends. While we were chatting to him, he introduced us to Boppy, a rather self-agrandizing, nasty tempered green puppet. Boppy let us know in no uncertain terms his opinion of Puppeteers in general and Cam in particular! Cam was soon on his way again, this time to enter the "skin" of life-sized puppet, Groopa in preparation for the next scene being shot.

Greg
It wasn't easy, given the level of activity, but we managed to corner Greg Kovacs

for a few minutes before actual shooting started. We asked him about his part in the creation of the puppets. Turns out he conceived the idea, sketched them and then got his Mum to do the actual making.  She did a wonderful job on those we saw - they ranged from a full (people) sized model to several smaller 3 foot tall models.  Amazingly simple designs, yet a variety of facial expressions are made possible by the mouths, the eyeballs and the eyebrows. (At one point during shooting,  Greg said gloomily "This would be a really bad time to lose an eyeball". This happened after the largest puppet, Groopa, almost lost an entire eyeball.  Greg explained that the eyeballs took a very long time to get right, attached delicately to the puppet "skin", then small pieces of fabric attached to the eyeballs themselves to create pupils, any of which could come off at inappropriate times.

Greg said that Tasha and Friends had been "in the works" for several years, but although they had actually begun shooting, they were unable to complete it due to various problems, so the script had lain dormant until they were completing the Post-lifers.  They were trying to think of what the next project was going to be and kept thinking, "Hey, there's the Tasha script …", and so on the heels of their completed Post-Lifers project, they put the wheels in motion for Tasha.  He said that with a bit of luck they hoped to complete shooting in 2012 and have the project ready for release in early 2013.

The transition from laid-back, pleasant interview subject to Eagle eyed Director is dramatic. The moment Greg goes on set, he is all Director. Nothing escapes him - he is everywhere, checking camera angles, lights, and set. Talking to the crew, discussing scenes with Darren, Nate and Brad, talking to Steph and Cam - 100 percent focussed on this project. But although you can sense how intense he is about this, he never loses his cool, nor his sense of humour,  joking and laughing with people as he passes through, throwing out the occasional one-liner.

Darren

The affable and cherubic faced Darren Hutchings (Executive Producer and Director of Photography) is always grinning happily even when crawling around on the floor trying to set up his position with his camera. He is equally focussed on the project, even though he appears to be very relaxed. We managed to talk to him for a few minutes before the actual shooting began.  Darren said it was a real help to be able to film at Greg's house. Greg's animation background came in handy since he did all the storyboarding for the project and had planned everything around his basement. Darren said that was helpful because they were all familiar with the house layout and it was easy for the production team to relate to where each scene would be shot. Darren is also mostly responsible for the marketing and publicity for the project.  Darren uses a  Canon Rebel T3i with a 17-55mm zoom lens and 50mm and 85mm prime lenses.

Nate

Producer Nate Hawkins was darting about the set, checking Cam and his entry into the life-sized Grooper puppet and checking on wheelchair-bound puppet, Spew. Spew was a gore-covered, torn-up mess. Nate told us that he had suffered life-threatening injuries at the hands of Tasha,  and was in the wheelchair "drying off" but refused to elaborate further, stating it would ruin the surprise.  Nate wears many hats, one of which includes "set Psychologist". In his own words, "Keeping things moving along, keeping people's spirits up" .

Nate met Greg through Brad, Nate and Brad had met and become friends while Brad when Brad was a camera operator recording auditions for an upcoming feature film in Guelph, Ontario, called HOLDING PATTERN. They hit it off pretty good there, and soon afterward Brad forwarded Nate a script to a funny short film about zombies which he loved and wanted to help make happen. The result was the formation of Post-Life Productions with Greg Kovacs and Darren Hutchings and their 'maiden voyage' short film THE POST-LIFERS. The rest of course, is history.

Nate's interest in film started at the age of 12 when he was cast for a commercial gig while living in the Bahamas.  He has no formal training, just a  "ton of ambition and desire".  Nate likes just about every genre of film, with the possible exception of romance. He says that Quentin Tarantino has been a big influence. His biggest concern on Tasha? He says that having had no prior experience in working with puppets, he had no idea how things would work out. He quips "Aside from being a tad dramatic on set, I'd work with them again!"

 

Brad


We noticed Producer and Camera man Brad McMillan intent on setting up his camera for an upcoming shot with Groopa and Tasha, he wants the lighting to be just right. He roams about like a big, friendly bear, but once he gets the camera in his hands he's all business. His primary camera is the Canon Rebel T2i DSLR running MagicLantern OS, with Canon 50mm, 18-55mm and 55-250mm lenses.

This quiet and unassuming man has been involved with some form of theatrical activities since Grade 8.  He became seriously involved with the film industry in 2007, plunging in head first as a production assistant on a BravoFACTS funded short film.  Brad studied History and Archeology in College; he has no formal training in the Film industry, but credits his studies in History and Archeology for inspiring him. Some of his influences include Producer/Director Steven Spielberg, Actors Tom Hanks and Sir Anthony Hopkins and composer John Williams. To use Brad's own words "They have away of making the ordinary extraordinary". Brad has helped to produce a number of short movies, but has not made any of his own yet, though he says this will change in the next year or so. Brad says that his involvement in film production is his full time gig.

Brad's duties as Producer and Camera Operator on Tasha lets him get his hands "creatively dirty", and involves ensuring the Director's story being captured is 'in frame', and looks the way it should. Brad says "Knowing your cameras many features, and being aware of frame problems like poor lighting and boom mics entering frame accidentally are just a few key elements to the Camera Operator role."  

We stayed around while they shot a couple of scenes from Tasha and Friends. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun and we can't wait for it to be released.

 Note: Late breaking news The Post-Lifers won Best Short at the Kitchener/Waterloo Local Focus Film Fest!

Still photography used in this blog article by Bruce M. Walker