Sunday, January 26, 2020

"Fighting Canadian TV's clone wars" (Orphan Black)/ "Bollywood director pushes for more women in film"


Oct. 8, 2016 "Fighting Canadian TV's clone wars": I found this article by Simon Houpt in the Globe and Mail.  They write about the show Orphan Black, which I haven't seen.  It's more about the TV production company Boat Rocker Media.

The producing duo behind Orphan Black have only one, possibly impossible, hope

When Tatiana Maslany won the best actress Emmy Award last month for her kaleidoscopic portrayal of a collection of clones on the cult Space channel hit Orphan Black, her acceptance speech was filled with the usual forgettable blandishments: She thanked her PR team, her partner, the show’s writers.

It didn’t take long after her win, though – an historic moment, the first time a Canadian actor had won an Emmy for a show made for a Canadian network – for a sharp argument to break out over its significance. In the pages (and digital platforms) of this newspaper, TV critic John Doyle suggested that Maslany had won for her “stellar” work in a show that wasn’t as great as she. 

Orphan Black, he wrote, “began as a thrilling series and then stumbled into a near shambles of storytelling.”

At the east-end Toronto headquarters of Boat Rocker Media, the parent company of Temple Street, which makes the show, the words fell like stink bombs. The other day, Ivan Schneeberg and David Fortier, the co-executive chairs of Boat Rocker, sat down in their office to talk about the recent rapid expansion of their company. But first they had to get something off of their chests.

“It’s naive to suggest – I would even say it’s stupid to suggest – that an actress, no matter how talented – and Tatiana is, without question, one of the most talented actresses we’ve ever encountered,” Schneeberg begins, “could win an award of that importance without being given, in this case an array of characters to portray; brilliant dialogue; a show that looks and feels world-class in terms of the way it’s written and the way it’s lit and the way it’s directed; and a host of additional leads and supporting cast that she can play off of, such that that performance shines. To suggest that she could win that award in the absence of that? It’s profoundly stupid.”

Fortier adds: “The articles that come out in the States don’t say: ‘Oh, great victory for Tatiana, too bad the show’s not up to snuff.’ ”

The men may be feeling especially defensive because, in the 12 or 13 years since they left their jobs as entertainment lawyers at the Toronto office of Goodmans LLP and started making their own shows – their first prime-time show was the three season Showcase comedy Billable Hours – they say they have watched English-language Canadian TV become respected around the world.

A confluence of factors, including the advent of streaming services such as Netflix, has brought more money into the Canadian system. And Boat Rocker has been working to position itself at the fore of the pack, because the two men are convinced the best days of Canadian TV and other content are in the future.

To that end, last year, Fortier and Schneeberg sold a majority stake in the company to Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., the Toronto-based insurance and investment firm headed by Prem Watsa that has recently been moving more into media.

With the Fairfax cash, Boat Rocker went on an acquisition tear of its own, buying the Ottawa-based animation studio Jam Filled Entertainment, a significant minority stake in the boutique animation house Industrial Brothers, and a couple of companies that hold the rights to small TV libraries.

In late summer, they swept in and bought a large chunk of the assets of Arc Productions, the Toronto animation house that declared bankruptcy in August. About 200 former employees of Arc are now back at their jobs, on the Boat Rocker payroll.

In addition to Boat Rocker Studios, which produces Orphan Black, Family Channel’s tween dance hit The Next Step and its spinoffs, CBC’s X Company, and other shows, the company comprises a division that handles international sales on Boat Rocker’s programs and others, and Boat Rocker Brands, which is focused on exploiting a show’s so-called intellectual property in as many legitimate formats as possible.

“We think about brands,” says Schneeberg, standing in the cheery kitchen area of another symbol of Boat Rocker’s expansion: A gleaming, newly renovated four-storey brick-and-beam century building near Toronto’s Distillery District. (Schneeberg says it was the original headquarters of John Ross Robertson’s 19th-century newspaper The Toronto Telegram. More recently, in the manner of such things, it was a crack den.)

“A great show should be bigger than just the show, right? A show like Orphan Black is a great example – it’s great I.P. It’s worked as a TV show as the cornerstone, but we’ve done comics, some board games, all sorts of different types of merchandise.” For the past year, an in-house digital team has been working on an Orphan Black mobile game, which will be launched soon.

In the summer, the company’s venture capital arm, Boat Rocker Ventures, also made a small investment in The Outline, a New York-based digital publication from Josh Topolsky, the cocreator of The Verge and Bloomberg’s former top digital editor.

“We’re a financial partner, but we’re also the content partner. So if The Outline comes upon a great story, and it’s television worthy, or worthy of a feature, or perhaps worthy of a game, opportunity outside the scope of The Outline, we’re that partner,” Schneeberg explains.

If that sounds eerily close to the model of Talk magazine, Tina Brown’s high-profile post New Yorker venture which was supposed to spin off intellectual property for its backer Miramax Studios to develop into feature films and TV shows – and which instead racked up an estimated $50-million in losses before shutting down two and a half years after launch – Schneeberg is unfazed.

“That partnership we bring to the table is not the core reason for doing it. Josh is doing it for his reasons, and frankly we would have invested in it, if it made sense, irrespective of the relationship with Boat Rocker because we believe it’s a great idea. If we never made a single show out of it, I think we’ll still make a lot of money off of our investment.”

Still, Schneeberg and Fortier say that sales of Boat Rocker’s TV shows make up an estimated 60 to 65 per cent of the company’s revenue, so that’s what they spend most of their time and energy on.

When they started out, Schneeberg says, “there wasn’t enough money in the [Canadian] system to make great shows. Now, we’re in an era where there’s way more buyers, and Canadian broadcasters are much more inclined to support higher budget shows, because it’s actually in their own interests.”

U.S. networks, as well, are open to partnerships like the one between Space and BBC America, which airs Orphan Black in the United States. And the so-called over-the-top streaming services (Netflix, CraveTV) “will buy from anybody, as long as the content’s good.

They’re agnostic, in terms of the nationality of the producer, but very particular in terms of wanting the quality to be great. So, what we’ve realized in this era – this so-called Golden Age of TV – is, if you can make really great stuff, you will sell it. And you will make money off of it. So it’s become a creative meritocracy, more so than it’s ever been.”

Fortier and Schneeberg say that Canadian producers have two competitive advantages in the new ecosystem: firstly, the cultural protectionist policies and the matrix of government subsidies; secondly, their proximity to Canadian writers.

“We meet them when they’re young, coming out of the [Canadian] Film Centre, coming out of the colleges or wherever they might have gotten their training, we read their earliest scripts, we follow their careers closer than anybody else can, because we’re here, we live amongst them. They become our friends, and that is a unique pipeline to English-speaking talent.”

With that in mind, they have one hope: That, as Canadian made TV continues to gain respect in international markets, more Canadian writers will stay home, and generate the next big show here rather than Los Angeles. “Sometimes it’s heartbreaking for us, to develop a writer, develop a relationship – only to have it taken away by the gloss and the bright lights of Hollywood,” Fortier says.

Schneeberg nods. “We’re supposed to be building a worldclass cultural business here, employing people, and exporting these shows, and there are a lot of writers and actors making a lot of money as a result of that. And every single time they achieve that success, they immediately migrate to L.A. because they perceive that to be the brass ring.”

“A great show should be bigger than just the show, right? A show like Orphan
Black is a great example – it’s great [intellectual property]. It’s worked as a TV show as the cornerstone, but we’ve done comics, some board games, all sorts of different types of merchandise.” Ivan Schneeberg co-executive chair, Boat Rocker Media



Here is another article about Orphan Black:

http://badcb.blogspot.com/2020/01/singular-sensation-orphan-black.html


Jul. 24, 2017 "Bollywood director pushes for more women in film": Today I found this article by Rina Chandran in the Globe and Mail:
 
MUMBAI, July 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A Bollywood director whose "lady oriented" film was blocked by censors has hit back at the movie establishment, saying it needs more women at the top to battle deep-rooted Indian prejudice. 

"The censors have a problem with a female point of view; they're just not comfortable with something that questions or disturbs the status quo," said Alankrita Shrivastava, whose film has now overcome its critics and will be released in Indian cinemas on Friday.

In an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Shrivastava said popular culture was shaped by man's perspective, and it was therefore important to encourage more women directors, artists and storytellers. 

Her movie - which profiles women who break free from tradition - stars a Muslim woman and a middle-aged widow among its unlikely heroines. 

Shrivastava battled hard on social media for its release after India's censor board refused to certify "Lipstick Under My Burkha", calling the film "lady oriented". 

Shrivastava appealed the decision with the film certification tribunal, which said the film could be released with an adult certification and after minor cuts. 

Relating the story of four women who want to realise their dreams, the movie has sparked a debate in India over what is permissible in movies and how women are actually portrayed.

"Our popular culture, our cinema is largely a product of the male gaze, for the male gaze," she said. 

"Art and popular culture are powerful tools we can use to have a conversation about perspective and conditioning. It can force us to think differently, see a different point of view." 

Women film directors in India's Bollywood, just as in Hollywood, make up only a small fraction of the industry. 

Churning out about 1,000 films a year, Bollywood is largely known for its formulaic fare of action flicks and syrupy romances with elaborate song-and-dance sequences.

Movies with female protagonists and stories that challenge gender stereotypes are still rare. This has a far-reaching effect on audiences, said Shrivastava. 

"Women are 50 percent of the population; we have a particular way of seeing things, but it is the male perspective that has dominated for so long in popular culture," she said. 

"This perspective has led to discrimination against women, violence against women. Our popular culture justifies this perspective, and makes stalking seem like love, makes harassment and abuse of women okay." 

Campaigners in India have urged the film industry to stop glorifying stalking and harassment after several violent deaths of women.

There has also been a campaign to rewrite Bollywood songs to end gender stereotyping and misogyny in films.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-film-comiccon-marvel-idUSKBN1A803M

My opinion: I like this article because it's about feminism and women in film.

My week:

Jan. 20, 2020 "Calif. Girl, 14, Uses Snapchat to Escape Kidnappers After She Was Sexually Assaulted: Police":



A 14-year-old girl in Northern California apparently was able to use her Snapchat app to save herself from a dangerous situation.

On Tuesday morning, the girl — whose name has not been released — met Albert Vasquez, 55, in Capitola, California, when he drugged her and she became “incapacitated,” according to a San Jose Police press release.

Police say Vasquez called his friends Antonio Salvador, 34, and Hediberto Avarenga, 31, for help to load the victim in the vehicle so that Vasquez could sexually assault the minor.

The men drove the victim to the E-Z Motel in San Jose, carried her into a second-floor room where Vasquez sexually assaulted the child for a second time, the release added.

According to CNN, the victim was able to use the Snapchat app on her phone to warn her friends about her situation. She did not know where she was, the police told the outlet, however her friends were able to quickly locate her using the Snapchat map feature.

KPIX reported that the teenager messaged her friends, “Somebody help me. I’m in a random man’s car … I am not in Santa Cruz. Where am I?”

  1. The girl’s friends called 911 and at approximately 11:08 a.m., San Jose police officers arrived at the motel to find the victim and Vasquez.


Vasquez was taken into custody and later booked at Santa Clara County Jail on charges of kidnapping to commit rape, digital penetration with a child under 14 years with force, false imprisonment, lewd act with a child 14 or 15 years with force and rape by intoxication or controlled substance.
The other men allegedly involved were booked the following day at the same jail on charges of kidnapping and conspiracy.

Comments:
  • 12 hours ago
    I am sad for this poor girl. I am outraged at these sick men that would do this to a child. I am grateful for her quick wit and ability to save herself with an app and some really good friends.
    I wish her well in the future.


  • Laura
    13 hours ago
    Did she have plans to meet up with this guy? Something is off from the get go but thanks to he friends she survived. She will live with the nightmare forever.


  • Steven
    15 hours ago
    there is three for the hangman's noose


    Jan. 21, 2020 Harry Hamlin played gay character "10 yrs too early":

    Harry Hamlin says he took a role playing a gay character “10 years too early.”
    The 68-year-old actor appeared on the It Happened in Hollywood podcast on Saturday in which he spoke about his career, which he says took a nosedive after he appeared in the 1982 film Making Love as an openly gay man who begins an affair with a married doctor (Michael OntKean).
    Hamlin recalled that “everyone in town had turned” down the role because “at the time the idea of a gay world was not accepted at the time.”
    “Overall, in terms of how the way that film was received, it was too early,” he said. “It was like 10 years too early and it completely ended my career. That was the last studio picture I ever did. The door shut with a resounding smash.”
    Before Making Love, Hamlin was one of the hottest actors in Hollywood having starred in Clash of the Titans. After the film’s release, Hamlin said he struggled to get good roles until 1986 when he starred in television show L.A. Law in which he starred as Michael Kuzak.
    Since then, Hamlin has gone on to star in television shows such as Veronica Mars, Army Wives, Shameless, Mad Men and Glee.
    “I’m very proud of the movie and not a week goes by that people don’t come up to me and — I’m serious about this: in the supermarket, on the street — and they thank me for making that movie,” Hamlin said.
    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainment/entertainmentmovies/harry-hamlin-says-playing-a-gay-man-in-1982-film-making-love-ended-his-career-it-was-too-early/ar-BBZbGUo?ocid=spartandhp

    Terra Christoff: Create your Best Biz Year Yet: Grow your Soul- Aligned and Prosperous Business the Feminine Way: I was listening to this telesummit and I really liked it.  I was posting all the videos I listened to on my Facebook page.

    Money Mindset Shifts to Fuel New Biz Growth with Kendall Summerhawk

    Kendall Summerhawk is a pioneering leader in the coaching industry. For nearly two decades, she’s coached thousands of women entrepreneurs on their relationship with money so that they can achieve soul-aligned success. 
    In this interview you will:
    • Discover the 4 Money Mindset shifts that are critical to make for creating wealth
    • Eliminate the most common money blocks women entrepreneurs experience
    • Learn the #1 habit you can easily implement today to run a more profitable business

    https://mybestbizyearyet.com/expired/

    Chinese New Year: It's on Jan. 25, 2020 and it's the Year of the Rat.  My grandma swept, my dad mopped, and I vacuumed.  You're supposed to clean your home before the new year comes.

    Detox to Destiny Global Community: This is a private Facebook group and Britta Aragon and Claudia Duran is behind it. 

    Today we start with Day 1: Personal Alchemy. We will be defining alchemy, and then move into discovering and owning your personal alchemy in a powerful way by identifying the roles and masks that are destabilizing and blocking you.

    1. Expose the mask and role
    2. Identify the time your mask was in action
    3. Identify how it feels in your body
    4. You can dialogue with this feeling and part of you: What does it need from you?
    5. Acknowledge the dialogue and the request
    6. Rewire your brain.  Breathe love in and exhale the mask

    Day 2: New thoughts, new actions.

    Perception: Bad things do happen, but what is the lesson to this?

    That reminds me of my Counselor #1 who says: "If you are angry about something, what is the lesson here?"

    List all the good things that come from this challenging situation.

    What is your 50% part responsible for this relationship problem?


    This is a private Facebook group, but you can easily join it.


    https://www.facebook.com/groups/1072642239458271/?multi_permalinks=2675541482501664&notif_id=1579638761141471&notif_t=group_highlights

    "Singular sensation" (Orphan Black)

    Jun. 9, 2017 "Singular sensation": Today I found this article by Johanna Schneller in the Globe and Mail.  It was inspiration in my TV writing.  I never watched the show before, but I like this article.

    This part stood out to me the most:

     Fawcett and Manson, newcomers to show-running, spent 10 years developing and flogging the idea with Temple Street Productions (and its parent company, Boat Rocker Media).

    My opinion: It took 10 yrs to get it produced and it lasted for 5 seasons.  That's good.  I find 5 seasons is a good amount of seasons, and anything more than that are a victory lap.

    They also aired the show in the spring season of Mar. 2013. 

     If you want a Canadian TV show to last, you put it in the least competitive times like: mid-season, spring, and summer.

    The fall season is usually too competitive.


    On a Toronto soundstage in February, the hit sci-fi drama Orphan Black is humming, shooting the eighth episode of its fifth and final season. Cosima (one of many clones played by Emmy-winner Tatiana Maslany) and Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) are huddled around a computer in Cosima’s underground laboratory, which includes a mini grow-op. “For medicinal use only,” whispers John Fawcett, an affable dude with floppy blond hair, who co-created the show with Graeme Manson. 


    The writers are toiling, too. The final scenes that Fawcett and Manson (who sports a shaved head and interesting eyewear) have envisioned since day one aren’t working, so they’re refining episodes 9 and 10. No pressure there. 

    An adjacent set is littered with props, wigs and costumes. Every wig has dark roots, a nod to the genetic link among the clones. Each clone has her own wardrobe rack – punky Sarah’s is all black leather and hoodies; flashy Krystal’s, leopard and lamé. The clothes for Helena, the most dangerous clone, are shredded and blood-stained. 

    The costumers pull together 15 to 30 choices per clone per episode, and Maslany texts them late at night with suggestions. 

    There are retractable knives, charred Barbie-esque doll heads – Mattel declined to let the production use real Barbies – and books annotated with arcane codes. There are fake scorpions (for blocking only; during filming, a scorpion wrangler unleashed the real thing, with a dot of glue on their pincers and stingers to make them safe. 

    Maslany was cool with them, until she realized one was on her neck). There’s a rubber dead baby, chalk-white, so sad and eerie that no one wants to look at it. And on a gurney, partly covered with a sheet, lies a naked body – a full silicone cast of Maslany, so heavy it takes three people to lift it. Her eyes are closed, her hands and feet delicate. 

    “Oh great, my dead body is here,” Maslany says, entering the set with her co-star Kristian Bruun, who plays Donnie, husband to Alison, the suburban clone. Bruun pretends to pull the sheet down. “Don’t look,” Maslany squeals. 

    Everyone’s at their most gracious today, the last press push for what they all call “our weird little show.” (The final season begins June 10 on Space and BBC America, at 10 p.m. ET.) 

    Orphan Black has been a real Canadian Cinderella story – if Cinderella had multiple, murderous clones who became tangled in an international, Big Science conspiracy. 

    “Nobody wanted to make this show,” Fawcett says. The concept – a genre mash-up – was new. “There was not a lot of conviction from anyone that it was going to work.”

     Fawcett and Manson, newcomers to show-running, spent 10 years developing and flogging the idea with Temple Street Productions (and its parent company, Boat Rocker Media). Finally BBC America, which was just getting into original programming, said yes. With real money in place, Canadian specialty channel Space signed on.

    “I think back to Tat and me, day one, scene one of shooting,” says Kevin Hanchard, who plays police detective Art Bell. “We were quivering like branches on a tree.” They had no idea what Maslany would be asked to pull off, and how well she’d succeed. 

    “That first season on set, we felt we had something – ‘This is different,’” Bruun says. “BBC America, Space and Temple Street saw that as well. They trusted us and let us do our thing.” 

    “The outcome – would it be a hit? – took up no real estate in my mind,” Maslany says. “I was like, ‘How do I get through this episode?’ It was a moment-to-moment challenge.” 

    But from the premiere, March 30, 2013, fans and critics got it, creating a synergy between audience and creators that most shows only dream of. The themes were beyond timely: 
    identity, autonomy, feminism, diversity, inclusion, nature versus nurture, ownership of one’s body. 

    Viewers who responded to them, especially young women, found each other online, creating the Clone Club. 

    “They are connected to each other internationally,” Maslany says. “They meet in cities to be together and talk, not just about the show, but about science and feminism and art. That blows my mind. They opened our eyes to what reach can be.” 

    Clone Club members began visiting the set; they inspired the writers and actors to double down on those themes. 

    “I’ll be getting a coffee, someone will glance at me,” Bruun recounts, “and suddenly they go weird-faced. They launch into how much they love the show, Tat, the storylines. Random people tell me deeply personal things on the street.” 

    By the end of Season 1, Fawcett and Manson had to toss their imagined three-season arc and develop a five-season one.

     Awards and accolades rained down: Canadian Screen Awards, GLAAD Media Award nominations, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Peabody. 

    Maslany won a Young Hollywood Award in 2013, a Critics’ Choice award in 2014, had an Emmy nomination in 2015 and won an Emmy in 2016 – the first Canadian lead to win for a Canadian show. 

    “To see Tat win was such a release for all of us,” Bruun says. “Here we were, nominated against these massive, sweeping epics with big budgets and huge stars. We were on our feet screaming and crying. We were like embarrassing cousins at a wedding.” 

    Maslany tries to shush him, but he goes on: “There’s not a person on this planet who has a harder acting job. Tat is the hardest-working actor in the world. She preps four, five leading roles every episode. If it was just quantity, that alone would be insane. But the quality of her output – I’ll never see anything like it again.” 

    The impact of the show has gone “well beyond our best-case scenario,” Manson says, in both entertainment culture and on the Canadian TV landscape. The co-production model had been used before. 

    But Orphan Black’s success with it blew open the doors for sumptuous-looking, well-written Canadian co-pros, including The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace and Anne – the glimmerings of a Maple Golden Age. 

    Boat Rocker Media is plowing its profits from Orphan Black back into Canadian television, buying animation studios, TV libraries and a stake in the New York-based digital publication the Outline, which they hope will generate stories that can be made into television.

     And for now at least, Maslany herself is staying in Toronto, resisting the siren call of L.A. 

    “I think we’ve made a splash,” Maslany says. “In the beginning people would say, ‘Oh, this is a Canadian show?’ Now they know. And other things in the world are also making Canada a place of note.” 

    Maria Doyle Kennedy, who plays Mrs. S, agrees: “I think the timing is very good for seeing a perspective of tolerance and inclusion, and for that to come from Canada. I’ve often heard Canadians put their own stuff down, and look for validation from the U.S. I’m from Ireland, and we suffer the same manifestations of a postcolonial idea. But this show proves that stuff that’s made here is as good if not better than stuff made anywhere. It’s increased confidence in the thing Canadian.”

    “When you’re limited with cash, it limits the number of characters you have, the number of hours you shoot,” says Jordan Gavaris, who plays Felix, foster brother to the lead clone, Sarah. 

    “Your world stays small. Corners get cut. But with the right budgets, not only can we compete with American content, we can politicize our own TV. 

    Canada is 150 this year. That’s a young country, just finding its voice culturally. We’re on the precipice of figuring out who we are. I hope we stay on this path of not apologizing for the fact that we have a different perspective than the U.S.” 

    “The show became political without us really realizing it,” Manson says. “Events have been catching up. We’re talking about the importance of diversity on a biological level. And Tatiana’s commitment to diversity, she lives it. 

    She’s politically active, and demands respectfulness around all those issues. It’s wonderful how our idea about cloning – that we’re all the same – has grown to encompass another idea: We’re also different, and our differences are the most important thing about us, as humanity.”

    Maslany is revered on set, sincerely. Stephen Lynch, the key makeup artist, extols her work ethic (though she pulls a 70-hour week, she often gives up her lunch hour to refine looks with him) and her talent – she can hold her face so it looks like fake teeth! She became a producer during the run of the show, and managed it with grace. “She’s a master class in acting and interpersonal relationships,” Kennedy says. 

    “The way Tat moves through the world as a young woman, in a business that can be oppressive, she’s a unique paradigm,” Gavaris says. “Her voice is in everything you see. Her leadership is never about satisfying her needs. It’s about satisfying the art.” 

    The writers credit Maslany for pushing them – for example, to broaden Helena from a generic assassin to a damaged woman with a deep backstory. On the weekend, as they laboured on the finale, she came in and worked on the story with them. “She taught me as a director to be more present, in the way the scenes go down,” Fawcett says. “This is not a typical lead-actress collaboration.” 

    The clones could have been excruciating, just wigs and mannerisms. Maslany makes them characters. “I’d mostly played opposite Cosima, and we had a banter between scenes,” Brochu says. 

    “But when Rachel walked in” – the most coolly conniving clone – “everyone’s spine went up. It wasn’t that Tat was ‘being Rachel.’ But something in her soul felt changed, and the scene hadn’t started yet.” She shivers. “I’d much rather play opposite Cosima.” 

    Maslany’s head still spins when clones pretend to be each other. “I always start with the clone I am, and play to the opinion she has of the other clone, which is usually judgment,” Maslany says.

     “But it’s embarrassing. I know I’m being seen in an act. I’m caught acting.” For one crazy scene, she had to be Sarah, pretending to be Alison, pretending to be Donnie. “I felt insane that day,” she says. 

    The most challenging scenes, of course, are those where the clones interact. First there’s the repetition, doing the scene over and over as one character, then another. Then there’s the infinite technical finessing. The show’s tech has always raced to keep up with its stories, says Geoff Scott, the visual-effects supervisor. With each new script, his heart constricts in panic. Then he buckles down and figures it out. 

    In Season 1, he celebrated after Alison poured Cosima a glass of wine and it was so seamless that no one noticed. By season’s end, he’d pulled off a clone dance party. “That was us showing off – ‘Please, somebody notice!’” he says, laughing. 

    Season 4 ended with an epic fight between Sarah and Rachel – one stabs another in the leg – in which Scott “Frankensteined pieces of Tat and her double, Katherine Alexander, using the legs from one shot, the torso from another.” It took 20 compositors hundreds of hours to pull off. 

    Scott and his team have developed new tech: When they needed a camera mount that would repeat its movements identically so the takes would match, they found robotic factory arms too noisy. So they built their own super-techno-dolly. But Scott also embraces low-tech: He blocks scenes using dolls on his desk. 

    Effects experts on other shows routinely call to ask how he did something or other. He always shares. 

    “I don’t believe in secret knowledge,” he says. But he’s learned to not shoot clone scenes outside – the simplest ones take two days, and weather is too changeable. 

    Despite the bustle, it’s clear the series is winding down. (The final shoot date is a month away, March 21.) The cast and crew are in that bittersweet, last-days-of-high-school place, simultaneously looking backward and forward. “We’re starting to get wistful,” Bruun says. “Lots of crying at read-throughs.” 

    “Lots of group texts about how much we love each other,” Maslany says. Tonight, the cast will go out for beer, pizza and dancing.

    They agree it’s time to go. “How long can you string an audience along?” Bruun asks. “People want the answers.” They’re relieved they’re going on their own terms. 

    “We have a sense of finality,” Hanchard says. “The writers are working with purpose and intent. The actors can drive for something. It’s only 10 episodes, so it’s like water going into a funnel, it gets faster and faster.” 

    “Everyone has their favourite clone, and Graeme and I really wanted to use this season to explore those characters more deeply,” Fawcett says. “Like, who are Cosima’s parents?” 

    Manson concurs: “We’re happy we have this space to ask, ‘Who were they when we met them, and who are they now?’ We get interesting answers.” 

    “Five seasons is a great run,” Maslany says. “We don’t want to start repeating ourselves.” She gets offered a lot of twin parts. She’s not taking them any time soon. 

    “Character is the thing I’m most turned on by,” she says. “This show has such a strong external aesthetic. I’m excited to do more subtle, internal character work, where I don’t have to wear a wig and do an accent.” 

    She’s done four films during Orphan Black’s run, and two are Canadian indies: Two Lovers and a Bear, directed by Kim Nguyen; and The Other Half, directed by newcomer Joey Klein, co-starring her partner, Tom Cullen. 

    Maslany does have one mandate, however: “I’ve had my eyes opened to the deep need for feminist stories on TV. That’s something I want to take into all my future work. Tell stories about the true nature of where we’re at, in terms of what needs to change.”
    As the day ends, Fawcett takes a spin around the sets. Some have changed this season. For example, Rachel is undergoing some spiritual growth (they call her “Enlightened Rachel”), so she has a meditation room – though its gleaming white perfection is still pretty scary. 

    Felix has temporarily converted his loft into an art gallery; there’s a painting of Rachel on the floor, so people can dance on her face. But Alison’s craft room, with its rolls of ribbon in rows like soldiers, is unchanged. “There’s so much responsibility – to the characters, the story, the fans,” Fawcett says. “We want to get everything right. I hope we manage it.” 

    He can’t imagine what a sixth season would look like. “We have nothing left,” he says. “It would be the clones sitting around playing board games.” Beat. “I think some people would still watch that, though.”




    'made in Canada' has been around for decades. . Wake me when there are more internationally acclaimed shows SET in Canada (as opposed to being some anonymous American Major metro' (Only ones I can think of that are/were internationally recognized amounts to 'beachcombers' and 'Forest Rangers'....