A Word From The Editor: Much News in the World of DOC/Sue Thomas FBEye!
Welcome
to the Eighth Official DOC/Sue Thomas FBEye Newsletter. Just earlier this week, I got a call from one of you all, who was really ill and was telling me how that the DOC show was just such an encouragement to them in their sickness. I was reminded about how that these two shows just really give people hope and I was excited to be able to do this newsletter.
I got off the phone with Yannick Bisson (Jack Hudson of Sue Thomas FBEye) this morning. We had a great interview for the newsletter and it should be featured in one of the next few newsletters!
I also spoke with Richard Leaock (Officer Nate Jackson from DOC), who was in New York City for a special showing off his wife's (Nikki) paintings. Everything is going great with them and his brother Viv Leacock (who aslo played his brother on the DOC series) is starring in another film. If you'd like to see a short film of the exhibition, click here.
There is some exciting news. Sue Thomas FBEye has recently been selected to receive a 2006 Voice Award for the episode entitled “Mind Games.” The awards were presented at the Skirball Cultural Center's Ahmanson Ballroom in L.A. on August 23
This is a unique newsletter, in that we don't have an interview in the newsletter, but we got quite a bit of news. First of all, there are some new pictures of Tracy Shreve's son, Timas, who played Mattie in the DOC show. As you can see, he's grown quite a bit. Then there is a great story from Munaf Husain, the Senior Assistant to both Gary and Dave Johnson. Last, but not least at all, Tara Samuel and her husband Matt produced a film called "FIND."
And also, in case that you didn't know, I interviewed most of the DOC castmembers and several castmembers of Sue Thomas FBEye. If you'd like to read these interviews, they can all be found along with many reviews of films and home-entertainment at my Positive-Entertainment Website: http://www.positive-entertainment.com
I hope you all enjoy this newsletter!
Kees
Timas: The Youngest Actor On Screen.
We've all heard of very young childstars. One cannot help but think about the Olsen Twins, who started acting at the age of 9 months old. Well, Timas Shreve started practically, when he was just a couple of weeks old as Mattie, the young son of Beverly Jackson. The amazing thing is that he is indeed Tracy's real son. He was amazing as a young actor. During my interview with Tracy, she spoke about him:
“So, he came into the world making money, so that he could pay for his own education. I couldn’t ask for a bigger blessing. I can’t imagine leaving him every day to a stranger to go to work. Thankfully, my mother comes on the set with me and she watches him and looks after him,” Shreve explained.
Even though Timas is quite young, he already is a natural at acting.
“I think he definitely knows when he is on the set,” said Shreve. “We can be in the trailer and he’ll be tired and crying and miserable, and at soon as he gets on the set, he’s a perfect little kid.
“Fifteen months old and he knows that he’s working.
“He is happiest in the midst of action.
“Recently, he started talking. His first line on the show is: ‘Daddy.’ He started saying ‘Doggy,’ because I have a German Shepherd named ‘Max.’ He’s saying ‘Doggy’ but it sounds like ‘Daddy!’”
Since then I've spoken to little Timas several times and he is one of the kindest young boys around!
Tracy recently sent me some updated pictures.To see a bigger version of the pictures, just click on the picture.
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Munaf Husain's Story "When DOC met The Hawk."
Munaf Husain worked as the Toronto Assistant to the Series Creators (Dave & Gary Johnson) on both the shows for three years. Those three years were a very interesting period of his life, especially after immigrating to Canada in 1998 from his native country India. Munaf did many different things as part of his job on these shows. As you can imagine he has a wealth of interesting things to share about the shows.
When Doc met The Hawk
Once upon a time I worked for four years on a TV series
called DOC.
It was actually from 2000 to 2003. This was a US network show produced in Toronto and it starred Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus. I worked
as an Assistant Director during the first season and then as Assistant to the
Producers for the next three.
During these 4 years on the show I got to
meet many wonderful people. Billy Ray himself is an absolutely terrific guy. Amongst
other things he is the main cause of my rediscovering my passion for photography.
But that's another story for another time. This one is about the music legend
called the 'Hawk', Ronnie Hawkins.
My first encounter with him was in
the 80's on the big screen of a movie theater in Bombay called Sterling - a class
act of a movie house where we saw many Hollywood films while growing up in the
city. This film was a more off-beat one amongst the American films that normally
played at the Sterling. It was Scorcese's music classic "The Last Waltz".
For a whole bunch of westernized college kids in India, me included, it was more
than just another entertaining film. It had become a cult ritual amongst the student
community at South Bombay colleges to go watch this film every time it was shown
(which was about every six to eight months). And it was always shown only at the
Sterling during the Matinee slot that began at about 11:00 am. The film, the theater,
the time-slot - they all were part of the ritual. It was like our "Rocky
Horror Picture Show". Well, sort of.
We had all been captivated
by the Hawk belting out "Who do you love?" during his high-energy appearance
in the film. The 1978 movie is a documentary about the last performance by the
group "The Band", during which they got on the stage with a wide array
of special guests with whom they had collaborated earlier on. People such as Eric
Clapton, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Neil Diamond, and Ronnie
Hawkins. It was Hawkins who had first brought in Robbie Robertson to his own band
called "The Hawks" before Robertson eventually became the lead man for
"The Band". Bob Dylan referred to him as his "idol", to John
Lennon he was "Sir Ronnie". At the time, who would have known one day
I would meet 'the Hawk' and work with him on a TV show in Canada.
About
a couple of days after I first met him in person somebody told me the story of
Ronnie's miraculous recovery after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer
in 2002. An outpouring of love cured the man, some people say. Soon after the
diagnosis, friends such as Bill Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg, Paul Anka and David
Foster threw an exclusive party for him in Toronto. The city declared Ronnie Hawkins
Day, inducting him into the Walk of Fame and staging a four-hour tribute concert
at Massey Hall. Others say his own party attitude healed him. Ever since arriving
from Arkansas in 1958, Hawkins has displayed a singular talent for having fun,
and for the electrifying showmanship that earned him the nickname "Rompin'
Ronnie."
I first heard his voice as he was coming up the stairs of
the DOC production office before I saw his cheery visage. He had just arrived
in Toronto to play a guest appearance on the series as an old friend of Doc Cassidy's
(Cyrus) father from Montana. It was Billy Ray's idea to get him on the show. He
was coming to the production office for the first time to 'check in'.
The
same unmistakable spirit we had seen in "The Last Waltz" was evident
in his presence. Right away everyone in the front office was smiling widely as
the Hawk, with his trademark Stetson on his head, started joking around almost
non-stop. "I'm a celebrity in my own room, dammit!" he declared, before
breaking into a grin again with perfect timing. It was a great moment and I knew
immediately that the next few days would be a lot of fun. "Rompin' Ronnie"
was here and I would be shooting him.
One of my many jobs on the show
was to take digital stills and shoot video of the making of the series for the
executive producers' personal archives. All I had for the first two years was
a Canon camcorder for both, stills and video, but I had a lot of fun while shooting
and fell in love with digital. I discovered that still photos from this camcorder,
despite the low resolution or maybe because of it, had an interesting character
and texture that worked well for portraits. I got to shoot some terrific faces
and also fell in love with portraiture. (It was when I realized how much I had
picked up from my friend - and one of India's well-known commercial and portrait
photographers - Suresh Natarajan, while hanging out at his studio during our many
years in Bombay.)
Because of the way I hung around set, alongside the
crew but trying to keep out of their way, some of the main camera guys jokingly
called me the C-Camera. (Theirs were the A and B). I would modify that and call
it the 'See-Camera' - the one that could see everything. Some people from the
crew would get a bit nervous because they thought I was the producers' 'spy cam'.
Thankfully these were in a very small minority. Most people eventually realized
that I just enjoyed what I was doing. They saw that that my 'stealthy' way of
working was not to 'spy' but to try to get really candid shots. It helped that
a lot of my photos were liked by many.
Obviously I developed a closer
relationship with the wonderful group of regular actors and crew members who made
the DOC team. But it was an interesting and slightly mysterious kind of relationship
that I would develop with actors who appeared on the show just for an episode.
I would often just drop in on set and start taking pictures without any formal
introduction of myself. Mostly I just smiled a quiet greeting and they smiled
back in acknowledgement. The introduction usually came a few hours or even a few
days later, when I presented the actor with some prints of the pictures I had
shot. They usually liked the photos but I think many of them also relished and
appreciated what I was doing. It made them feel nice to be on the show, made them
feel special. And that made me feel great. I also shot portraits of many crew
members and gave them prints. This was just one of my many different functions
on the production, but it was the one that directly connected me to the folks
on set and made me part of the DOC family (and from 2002 also to the "Sue
Thomas: F.B.Eye" family - another series by the same producers). I was the
ever-present photo-documentarian, intimately capturing images of people doing
their work. One day we would all move on and go our different ways, but these
images would remain.
I shot a bunch of pictures of Ronnie while he worked
on DOC. Like with many other actors, I developed a little connection with the
Hawk too as the guy lurking around quietly with a camcorder taking his pictures.
We chatted a couple of times during lunch. But mostly I would just hang out and
watch him. And shoot pictures. The one thing that grabbed me most about him right
from the beginning was his hearty laugh and demeanor. I just could not help grinning,
if not actually laughing, the entire time he was around. It was not very difficult
to believe that this soul had triumphed over terminal cancer.
Here's a
picture I took that I think captures the essence of the Hawk's spirit.
~
Munaf Husain
August 16, 2006
Tara Samuel's Film "Find."
Tara Samuel and her husband Matt Flugger teamed up with executive producer Marilyn Stonehouse and the Sue Thomas F.B.Eye crew and filmed a short film called "Find" in March 2005. They have recently begun submitting it to various Film festivals.
It is about a time traveling 10-yr-old reconciling with her past. 9 minutes; completed in 2006. It has now been accepted by three festivals, in the Los Angeles area. It premiered this on Sept. 8 as a part of the L.A. International Short Film Festival! The other two festivals are The Temecula Valley International Film Festival in Sept. 2006, and the FAIF Festival, in October 2006. The film was also invited to be part of two more festivals: "The Austin Film Festival" and "The Kansas City Jubilee!"
Matt composed the music for the film and edited it. Tara wrote and directed it! And just in the last couple of days, Tara also completed the screenplay for the feature-length version of the film.
If you'd like to see the above postcard of the film bigger, just click on the postcard.
You can watch the movie trailer here: Movie trailer for the film FIND.
For more information check out the following websites: http://www.tarasamuel.com and http://www.busterhouse.com.
News from Tyler Posey.
Tyler has recently gone back to Canada to shoot an episode of Smallville to air in late November. He is also in a new ABC series Brothers and Sisters, along with Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal) and Sally Fields (The Flying Nun). that begins airing this month. For more information on the show, check out these websites.