All Aboard, eh? (PART 1)
If you had told me last week that on Sunday night I would find myself walking the streets of down town Durbin, WV, looking for a bar while dressed as an 1880's train conductor, I would have first laughed at you. Then I would have asked where the hell Durbin was located. However, that is precisely how I spent part of my Sunday evening, and actually much of Sunday day too.
On Saturday, Jessica, a friend of mine from the local professional theatre at which I've done a couple of plays, phoned me up to ask if I wanted to go to Durbin and act in a Canadian television series from the Outdoor Living Network. She'd had a full compliment of actors, but one had dropped out. The job only paid $50 and would probably be filming late into the night, but it was a paid acting gig and I'd get to ride on a vintage train and hang out with friends of mine from the theatre. Sounded like a fun time to me, so I signed on.
Durbin, it turns out, is only about 13 minutes from Green Bank, where my family and I had taken a tour of the National Radio Telescope observatory, eight months back. It's a little town of about 300 people with an amazingly picturesque main-street, complete with a general store, a little bed & breakfast and a working train depot that runs scenic train tours using classic locomotives of the past.
We pulled into town around 3 p and stopped at the depot where we were to meet our Canadian film-crew. The crew works for a company called Creepy Features, based out of Toronto. They are the producers of a OLN show called Creepy Canada, though they are now branching out to film segments in the states and are planning to shoot some in Europe as well. They were in Durbin to film segments of a story called The Ghost of Silver Run Tunnel. See, legend has it that back in the 1880s a young woman was murdered aboard a train traveling near the Silver Run, WV. Naturally, her ghost came back and has allegedly appeared to people traveling in the area, often train engineers and other such folk.
Durbin, by the way, is in Pocahontas County, so we were in no danger of seeing the real Silver Run Tunnel ghost. The reason Durbin was chosen is because its tourist railroad depot is home to the oldest of two working Climax Model locomotive engines in the world, the very sort of engine that was part of the original legend. It's a great black, smoke-belching, steam-spitting dinosaur of an engine and is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. This engine was attached to four cars around and within which we would be filming. Bob & Al, the engineer and conductor, were tuning it up as we arrived and we spent a half hour watching it as we waited for the crew to arrive.
At 3:30 the crew pulled up in a big white van. John, the assistant director, came out, had us sign waiver forms granting them the rights to use our likenesses for the show, in any form it might take, etc. I was then immediately hustled off for a costume fitting and before long I was dressed in an honest-to-God conductor's uniform, which had been graciously provided by Conductor Al. I had the hat, the vest, the pocket watch and the big flappy gold-buttoned coat.
Now, from the script I'd read, I didn't think I would have much to do. The conductor was only mentioned twice in it and wasn’t necessarily the same conductor in both scenes. He certainly didn’t have any lines, nor did any of our parts since most of this action would be overdubbed later with narration. However, the director, Bill, had other ideas and soon I was in costume and being filmed assisting Jessica, our would-be ghost, in some pre-death scenes, the both of us improvising dialogue which was recorded by a boom mic over the roar of the train. I’m sure we looked atmospheric standing beside the enormous train-engine as it spat a steady stream of steam over us. After several different angles and close-ups, the director added the presence of the killer himself, played by my former local play director, Devin. He did look quite menacing coming through the steam and the atmosphere was lent additional creepiness by the overcast and rain-threatening weather.
We moved on for some filming in the caboose of the train, which we had to use for all the train interior shots as there were no passenger cars available. This filming wound up stretching on past sunset as the crew fought to get all their daylight shots done while they still had light, plus some day-for-night shots that would be darkened later in post-production.
As with any kind of project like this, a lot of our job as actors was to hurry up and wait, particularly after dark where every shot had to be lit, which was a complicated process as all the equipment had to be powered by a portable generator. I felt kind of bad for the others in our group who had to wait back at the depot doing nothing while Devin, Jessica and I filmed scenes in the train itself for a couple of hours, but I figured it would eventually be my turn to wait.
One of Devin’s scenes got to be a bit hazardous. Director Bill asked him to move along the side of the tanker car, which meant walking on a seven-inch wide grid of metal runner while holding onto a pipe for a railing, then step across into the caboose while the camera filmed. This was not an easy thing, as there’s a nice sized chasm between the two cars that’s constantly shifting length due to the jostling of the train. One wrong step meant potentially falling between the cars and getting ground up under the train’s wheels. Making matters even trickier was that the camera was set up blocking most of the way across. Devin did it just fine, though, and even looked menacing the whole while. We had several “Do your own stunts” occurrences throughout the evening, another of which was Jessica's "death" scene at a knife-wielding Devin's hands. It took a while to film and from my vantage point outside the caboose windows, looked pretty violent.
Around 8 p the train pulled back to the depot and we were told supper had been served. The crew had brought in around 8 huge pizzas and there was plenty to go around. It was good stuff too, particularly since it was not pizza from a major chain. After we ate, Bill announced that Devin was through filming as the killer and could change back to civilian clothes. Everyone else would be needed, but I wouldn’t be needed for a while as there were quite a few night scenes they wanted to get out of the way that didn’t involve me. Devin asked if there were any bars in the area and the crew mentioned that there was one across the street. He decided to give it at try and I decided to join him since it didn’t appear my services would be needed for hours yet.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
On Saturday, Jessica, a friend of mine from the local professional theatre at which I've done a couple of plays, phoned me up to ask if I wanted to go to Durbin and act in a Canadian television series from the Outdoor Living Network. She'd had a full compliment of actors, but one had dropped out. The job only paid $50 and would probably be filming late into the night, but it was a paid acting gig and I'd get to ride on a vintage train and hang out with friends of mine from the theatre. Sounded like a fun time to me, so I signed on.Durbin, it turns out, is only about 13 minutes from Green Bank, where my family and I had taken a tour of the National Radio Telescope observatory, eight months back. It's a little town of about 300 people with an amazingly picturesque main-street, complete with a general store, a little bed & breakfast and a working train depot that runs scenic train tours using classic locomotives of the past.
We pulled into town around 3 p and stopped at the depot where we were to meet our Canadian film-crew. The crew works for a company called Creepy Features, based out of Toronto. They are the producers of a OLN show called Creepy Canada, though they are now branching out to film segments in the states and are planning to shoot some in Europe as well. They were in Durbin to film segments of a story called The Ghost of Silver Run Tunnel. See, legend has it that back in the 1880s a young woman was murdered aboard a train traveling near the Silver Run, WV. Naturally, her ghost came back and has allegedly appeared to people traveling in the area, often train engineers and other such folk.
Durbin, by the way, is in Pocahontas County, so we were in no danger of seeing the real Silver Run Tunnel ghost. The reason Durbin was chosen is because its tourist railroad depot is home to the oldest of two working Climax Model locomotive engines in the world, the very sort of engine that was part of the original legend. It's a great black, smoke-belching, steam-spitting dinosaur of an engine and is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. This engine was attached to four cars around and within which we would be filming. Bob & Al, the engineer and conductor, were tuning it up as we arrived and we spent a half hour watching it as we waited for the crew to arrive.
At 3:30 the crew pulled up in a big white van. John, the assistant director, came out, had us sign waiver forms granting them the rights to use our likenesses for the show, in any form it might take, etc. I was then immediately hustled off for a costume fitting and before long I was dressed in an honest-to-God conductor's uniform, which had been graciously provided by Conductor Al. I had the hat, the vest, the pocket watch and the big flappy gold-buttoned coat.
Now, from the script I'd read, I didn't think I would have much to do. The conductor was only mentioned twice in it and wasn’t necessarily the same conductor in both scenes. He certainly didn’t have any lines, nor did any of our parts since most of this action would be overdubbed later with narration. However, the director, Bill, had other ideas and soon I was in costume and being filmed assisting Jessica, our would-be ghost, in some pre-death scenes, the both of us improvising dialogue which was recorded by a boom mic over the roar of the train. I’m sure we looked atmospheric standing beside the enormous train-engine as it spat a steady stream of steam over us. After several different angles and close-ups, the director added the presence of the killer himself, played by my former local play director, Devin. He did look quite menacing coming through the steam and the atmosphere was lent additional creepiness by the overcast and rain-threatening weather.
We moved on for some filming in the caboose of the train, which we had to use for all the train interior shots as there were no passenger cars available. This filming wound up stretching on past sunset as the crew fought to get all their daylight shots done while they still had light, plus some day-for-night shots that would be darkened later in post-production.As with any kind of project like this, a lot of our job as actors was to hurry up and wait, particularly after dark where every shot had to be lit, which was a complicated process as all the equipment had to be powered by a portable generator. I felt kind of bad for the others in our group who had to wait back at the depot doing nothing while Devin, Jessica and I filmed scenes in the train itself for a couple of hours, but I figured it would eventually be my turn to wait.
One of Devin’s scenes got to be a bit hazardous. Director Bill asked him to move along the side of the tanker car, which meant walking on a seven-inch wide grid of metal runner while holding onto a pipe for a railing, then step across into the caboose while the camera filmed. This was not an easy thing, as there’s a nice sized chasm between the two cars that’s constantly shifting length due to the jostling of the train. One wrong step meant potentially falling between the cars and getting ground up under the train’s wheels. Making matters even trickier was that the camera was set up blocking most of the way across. Devin did it just fine, though, and even looked menacing the whole while. We had several “Do your own stunts” occurrences throughout the evening, another of which was Jessica's "death" scene at a knife-wielding Devin's hands. It took a while to film and from my vantage point outside the caboose windows, looked pretty violent.
Around 8 p the train pulled back to the depot and we were told supper had been served. The crew had brought in around 8 huge pizzas and there was plenty to go around. It was good stuff too, particularly since it was not pizza from a major chain. After we ate, Bill announced that Devin was through filming as the killer and could change back to civilian clothes. Everyone else would be needed, but I wouldn’t be needed for a while as there were quite a few night scenes they wanted to get out of the way that didn’t involve me. Devin asked if there were any bars in the area and the crew mentioned that there was one across the street. He decided to give it at try and I decided to join him since it didn’t appear my services would be needed for hours yet.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
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