From Niagara This Week:
Letting world-renowned tightrope walker Jay Cochrane walk his fine line over Niagara Falls would be an appropriate way to celebrate the glorious cataract’s natural wonder and its long and rich history, says a St. Catharines film maker who hopes to capture the historic event through the eye of his lens.
“When I think of the falls, I think of tightrope walkers and stunts,” said Jay Cheel, a 29-year-old St. Catharines man who is working on a documentary about Cochrane’s bid to cross Niagara Falls as a grande finale to his illustrious career. “It’s been 100 years since someone crossed the falls, so no one has seen it.”
Cheel began filming his documentary last year. He was looking for a project which would present a fresh and interesting light on the world-famous cataract that often slips to the back of minds of locals. He was shooting in Niagara Falls when he heard about Cochrane and his pitch to cross the falls.
For those who have been following the blog, you’ll know that I was interviewed by Jay Cheel last September. I’ve also updated you several times about the progress. It’s an interesting project, and his “promo” video is very well done.
Don’t forget to sign the petition!
The other day I heard from Jay Cheel, the independent documentary filmaker who is working on a Jay Cochrane project. I’ve written about this a couple of times before. We had a bit of an email exchange, and with Jay’s permission, here is some of it:
Jay Cheel:
I just wanted to point you in the direction of a new updated proposal video I have online. The Jay Cochrane project is tentatively titled ‘Crossing the Falls’, and the new video features my interviews with Wayne Thomson, Tim Parker and some Cogeco footage of Wayne’s interview with Jay.
Here’s the link:
http://vimeo.com/810753
Graham Wing:
Awesome!
Did the guy from Niagara This Week ever contact you?
Do you have anything lined up with Jay yet?
Jay:
I haven’t heard from the Niagara This Week guy.
I’m hoping Jay will make it down to Niagara this summer. If so, I’ll definitely be meeting up with him. If not, I’m considering flying down to Florida. I just have to decide what I’m going to do if his proposal is denied!
Graham:
That footage from Cogeco is great. You can really see how intense Jay is.
What plans do you have for “releasing” the finished product when it’s done?
Jay:
Plans for releasing it are up in the air at this point. I still have a year and a half until it will be totally completed, and that’s dependent upon Jay getting permission to actually go through with his walk. I have my fingers crossed both for him and the film.I’ve started sending my proposal out to some production companies, but I will be finishing the film no matter what. At this point it’s a one man show, as I’ve been shooting, editing, lighting and what not all by myself. Hopefully in the future I’ll have some support from a production house. If not, I’ll probably enter the finished product into as many film festivals as possible in hopes to get distribution via television and dvd.
I’m really confident with the footage I have thus far, and I think if everything goes as planned, there could be a great little film here.
The video looks better than ever, and as I mentioned to Jay Cheel, the footage of that interview with Jay Cochrane is great stuff.
Don’t forget to sign the petition!
First off, I need to tell you I’ve never seen this movie, so my summary depends on other sources…
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is a movie from Universal Pictures about two friends (Adam Sandler and Kevin James) who come to Canada to get “married” so that they can get domestic partner benefits.
Niagara Falls is shown about 30 minutes into the movie. They are sitting in a taxi as they drive to the wedding chapel. As they drive through the city you see a lot of recognizable locations. Chris (my friend who occasionally posts here) says he remembers being on Clifton Hill the day that the film crew was driving around the city. Neither Adam Sandler or Kevin James were here, as the film crew was just filming some stock footage to be used later.
At the very end of the movie, you see a night scene of Niagara Falls, and some computer-generated effects fireworks go off.
Here are some screen captures from the movie. Note that the pictures have been cropped and adjusted, so things may look slightly different in the movie.
Nice shot of the Falls
This is the Niagara Parkway and a bus loading/unloading area just beside Table Rock Place
It’s kind of hard to see, but they are on Centre Street here. In the background you can see the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! sign as well as the oval Kelsey’s sign
Just behind Adam Sandler is a bus (looks like from the Marriott). Just above the bus is the top of the Great Canadian Midway sign (the maple leaf part that has the word “Great” on it)
You can see the Falls Avenue sign here at the bottom of Clifton Hill
Here you can actually see the street sign at the bottom of Clifton Hill
A couple of night shots of Niagara Falls and some CG fireworks
The Boston Globe had a feature on their site the other day that talked about the 14 shows they wished were still on. # 12 was Wonderfalls:
Fox didn’t really give this unique portrait of twentysomething existential angst a fair chance. Caroline Dhavernas (pictured) was a wonderfully offbeat heroine, a 24-year-old college graduate who majored in philosophy and spent too much time pondering her life and looking for direction. In surreal flashes, she got advice from the figurines at the Niagara Falls gift shop where she worked.
I’m not really sure what to make of this article. The article from FreeRepublic seems to be all over the place (and it’s very long), but it does spend quite a bit of time talking about Marilyn Monroe in Niagara Falls:
In 1952, when Marilyn Monroe arrived at the General Brock Hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario, she was dating Joe DiMaggio and on the brink of becoming a superstar. DiMaggio checked into the Hotel Niagara (on the American side) while, over in Canada, Monroe got to work playing sultry seductress Rose Loomis in Henry Hathaway’s new film Niagara.
This is just a preview of a few posts that I will have over the next few weeks. I have taken screencaps (screenshots or screen captures of videos) of Wonderfalls (the TV show that was based in Niagara Falls), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (they used the Horseshoe Falls as a guide for creating a CG falls), and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Adam Sandler and Kevin James get married in Niagara Falls).
Below is a screencap from Wonderfalls. This is what most of them will be like. I’ll have a frame or a few frames and explain why I’ve included it.
Although it doesn’t seem like this show was filming too long ago, it obviously was. You can clearly see the Niagara Marketplace and Movieland building (now torn down and replaced), the old Ripley’s facade (before the “building falling over” look), and the old Comfort Inn sign.
On Monday I was at Marineland being filmed/interviewed for a document on Niagara Falls. Local documentary film-maker Jay Cheel is putting together a documentary on the state of the tourism industry in Niagara Falls, and asking how Jay Cochrane would impact the industry.
I showed up at Marineland before it opened (9 am) and met with Jay (when I refer to Jay, it is to Jay Cheel, not Jay Cochrane) and Anne Marie Rondinelli. We were taken over to Friendship Cove and Jay setup his equipment. It was neat being there when no one else was around. I was able to talk to Anne Marie about various Marineland plans (not really anything new happening), how they deal with bad publicity (they try not to get caught up in things as it can cause even worse publicity), and how business was (some people aren’t happy, but overall it seemed like a decent year). I also had an opportunity to talk with a couple of the trainers. Before filming began I spoke with a female trainer (I didn’t get her name) who hadn’t been with Marineland very long. She spends most of her time with the Belugas, and spends one day a week with the Orcas. The whales seem to have a bond with their trainers.
The filming took around half an hour. I shared a bit about the AccessNiagara web site, the Jay Cochrane petition, and my general thoughts about the industry. Of course I won’t be in this documentary for a full half an hour, but Jay wanted lots of information so that he can edit it all together.
At the very end, Mike, the main trainer for Ike (the male whale on load from SeaWorld) came down and had Ike to some tricks in front of the glass. It was great. Since no one else was around, you could hear the whales making noises. Also, I was right in front of the glass, so the whale was only a foot or two away from me. Very cool!
Jay has already interviewed Mayor Salci, and is hoping to interview Jay Cochrane soon.
Don’t forget to sign the petition!
I’ve found out some more about the filming that was going on around Clifton Hill last week. Apparently the female star (the girl in the black dress shown in the previous post) is well-known Bollywood actress Vidya Balan. The movie will be called Lucky Charm.
Yesterday I mentioned that there was some filming going on. It didn’t appear that they had anything setup, but there was lots of equipment around. Today they are actually filming something in the courtyard area between Boston Pizza, Tim Hortons and the Niagara SkyWheel. It appears to be some sort of Bollywood film. There was a girl singing (lipsyncing) and while I was there they did the same thing 4 or 5 times.
There was a small crowd gathered around
The girl on the left is the one who was singing/lipsyncing
The “backup band” pretended to play instruments
The director was sitting a bit away and watching it on a display
I’m not sure what it was for, but there was some filming going on yesterday on Clifton Hill. When I was by, there was a bunch of people and equipment outside Boston Pizza and by the concessions underneath Boston Pizza (Spuds and Sweets & Treats).
Most of the people standing around seemed to be of middle-eastern descent (Indian, Pakistani, etc). I don’t know where they were from or what they were filming.
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