14 Reviews of me, the bees and cancer and a few words from me too.

MBC Trailer V3 from Jim Donovan on Vimeo.

me, the bees and cancer has two more showings Wed. at 7 and Thurs. at 9.30.  It has been a fine time for me to stretch my wings and get to listen and talk to strangers.  It has also garnered me 14 review so far and most are supportive of the movie, its content and direction and me too.    Enjoy!!!

Metro

Rating: 3/5

"...the film unfolds as a clear-eyed and even-handed assessment of the value of alternative medicine." - Adam Nayman

June 21-23, 2013

The Globe and Mail Online

Rating: 1/5

"That makes his film essentially an eccentric home movie promoting dubious alternative-medical advice." - Liam Lacey

June 21, 2013

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/film-reviews/me-the-bees-and-cancer-essentially-an-eccentric-home-movie-about-alternative-medicine/article12734354/

NOW Toronto

Rating: 3/5

"Charming and eloquent, he finds fresh ways to communicate the confusion cancer causes and the inadequacy of established medicine." - Radheyan Simonpillai

June 20-27, 2013

http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=193140

The Grid

Rating: 6/10

"Whether or not viewers share Board’s enthusiasm for this, they may still enjoy his company." - Jason Anderson

June 19, 2013

http://www.thegridto.com/culture/film/me-the-bees-and-cancer/

Film Corner with Greg Klymkiw

Rating: 3.5/5

"...sit back and prepare yourself for one of the strangest, creepiest documentaries you'll have seen in quite some time - and, for that matter, an illuminating work that will generate more questions and discussion." - Greg Klymkiw

June 23, 2013

http://klymkiwfilmcorner.blogspot.ca/2013/06/me-bees-and-cancer-review-by-greg.html

The Star

"While Board says some have called him brave and heroic, he brushes that off and talks about his therapy with typical good humour." - Linda Barnard

June 15, 2013

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2013/06/15/toronto_documentary_about_bee_sting_therapy_cost_less_than_1000_to_make.html

Toronto Film Scene

"It’s entirely entertaining due to Board’s good-natured personality and enthusiasm for his subject matter, but it also works as a starter guide for anyone who’s ever considered looking at alternative forms of medicine." - Kristal Cooper

June 20, 2013

http://thetfs.ca/2013/06/21/review-me-the-bees-and-cancer/

Dork Shelf

"His treatments look painful and labour intensive, but the film places the focus squarely on staying positive, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that." - Andrew Parker

June 19, 2013

http://dorkshelf.com/2013/06/19/me-the-bees-and-cancer-review/

Press Plus 1

"Board introduces us to a counter-culture that prefers to be outside of the medical system and often with great results." - Kindah Mardam Bey

June 21, 2013

http://www.pressplus1.com/canadian-film-reviews/me-the-bees-and-cancer

Shannon Kelly

Rating: 3.5/5

"There is something quite valuable to be learned from this documentary. The utmost important thing he teaches us is to Question everything!" - Shannon Kelly

http://www.shannonnkelly.com/2012/10/15/1k-feature-film-challenge-review-me-the-bees-and-cancer/

Exclaim

Rating: 5/10

"It's certainly not essential viewing for everyone, but Board's bravery should prove a valuable case study for those looking to re-evaluate how we treat our flesh vessels." - Scott A. Gray

June 21, 2013

http://exclaim.ca/Reviews/Film/me_bees_cancer-directed_by_john_board_jim_donovan_hector_centeno

Northern Stars

"Cheerfully he self-administers up to 20 bee stings a day, a routine that’s as fascinating as it is painful to watch." - Wyndham Wise

June 20, 2013

http://www.northernstars.ca/2013/me_the_bees_and_cancer_review.html

The Film Reel

"...there’s no mistaking that John is a wonderful person, and he’s created a film from his heart, allowing us to take part in a journey that is difficult for him to face."

http://www.the-filmreel.com/2013/06/20/me-the-bees-and-cancer-2012-or-not-just-for-honey/

National Post

Rating: .5/4

"It’s a testament to the profound, sordid depths of the Internet that the promotional rap music video John Board sandwiches around his alternative therapy documentary hasn’t already gone viral." - David Berry

June 21, 13

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/06/21/this-week-in-documentaries-the-sheepdogs-go-from-the-swamp-to-the-spotlight-plus-b-b-king-bees-and-more/

trailer Me the bees and cancer.  http://vimeo.com/61531449

Opening Night "the bees and cancer

The opening of "me the bees and cancer" was a fine event. Some great questions. More than entertainment and yet... You listen, you laugh, you wonder, you wince. It is an adventure and in the end you decide what it means to you. Come when you can. I will attend all the shows.

Saturday 20...13-06-22 7:00 PM

Sunday 2013-06-23 4:30 PM        

Sunday 2013-06-23 9:30 PM

Wednesday 2013-06-26 7:00 PM

Thursday 2013-06-27 9:30 PM

http://www.nowtoronto.com/search/index.cfm

NOW magazine review.

Last year the Toronto Film Critics Association awarded local filmmaker Ingrid Veninger their $5,000 Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist. She decided to divvy up the proceeds five ways with local filmmakers who could each produce a feature for $1,000.

Me, The Bees And Cancer is among the fruits of Veninger’s generosity. Co-director/co-producer John Board makes the most of that humble budget, documenting his own battle with lymphoma and his unorthodox method of dealing with it.

Faced with what he sees as traditional medicine’s uninformed and experimental therapies, Board decides to go the homeopathic route. This involves maintaining a bee colony in his backyard (I can’t imagine what the neighbours said) and being stung 30 times every other day, a sight that will make you cringe while you appreciate the courage it takes to undergo such a treatment.

The film is just a series of talking heads, but Board holds our attention. Charming and eloquent, he finds fresh ways to communicate the confusion cancer causes and the inadequacy of established medicine. Wait till you see his Slick Rick-style rap video.

He also owns up to his own comical contradictions, like advocating for a healthy lifestyle while refusing to quit smoking. If Board kicked that habit, he could probably afford to make a few more docs.

My life and challenge...

It is a beautiful fall morning and the breeze is rustling in the trees and is warm. The word challenge seems to dominate my life. First there was and is the challenge of cancer. It is ongoing as I try to rid myself of it through the various efforts of good food, good supplement support and healthy living. The bee stings were daunting and some painful and were a big challenge to use this as a means of healing. I ended up stinging myself over 1200 times. The 1K Wave Challenge which I was one of the winners of had a budget ceiling of $1000 and a filming to be finished by the end of July. It was taken on with much trepidation but I have persevered and on Friday night, 2 days from now we shall see how I did with it. My next challenge is upon me now. I have had a goal over the last 10 years to bring Homeopathy into as many lives as possible. To raise the awareness of this successful and safe way of dealing with illness. The Hollywood Survival Kit was in production and selling for 4 years but it was too expensive to make and to buy so I was advised to make a smaller Pocket Pack that was less expensive for people to buy and was therefore and effective way to introduce Homeopathy to people.. The Pocket Pack was first issued in 2007 and indeed it is a wonderful introduction for people as it has remedies almost all of us need from time to time. For stress, anxiety, colds, sprains, toothaches, headaches and sleeplessness to mention a few of the the conditions it deals with. My challenge now is to sell 500 Pocket packs before the year is over. Here is why. It all happened at the beginning of September when my supplier of the remedies BJain said that they could now supply my remedies for the Pocket Pack from their new laboratories in India. BJain is perhaps the largest publisher of Homeopathic books in the world and are tireless in their efforts to expand the use of Homeopathy world wide. Their Canadian Manager Yves Lavoie, a fine homeopath himself, has known me since he was at Dolisos who supplied the first Hollywood Survival Kit with remedies. It was on September 27th at a meeting in downtown Toronto when they said they could supply my Pocket Pack with product by the 1st of December. I signed the contracts and have taken the challenge to live by it. They broke the payments down to reasonable for the 1000 that I felt I needed to really launch the kit. All my efforts to create this launch of the Pocket Pack have taken place in the last two weeks. My financial obligations to do this has to be met by selling Pocket Packs as I have no bank roll to pay for it. I have to find 100 people who can understand my quest and will support it by buying Pocket Packs before October 15th when my first payments are due. Another 100 Pocket Packs must be sold by November 15th to meet the next payment. It is a challenge and I am rising to it. I want to reach the public. I will use as my marketing to the public a free magazine called "Homeopathy and US, that will be at Toronto health food stores by mid November if I can raise the $1000 to publish the first issue. It is already written. It will be for people like you and I who use Homeopathy and are willing to share their experiences. People who will write testimonials to share with the public. Homeopathy is a peoples medicine and I am sure it will grow as more and more people read the testimonials and buy the Pocket Pack and discover that Homeopathic remedies are successful. That they have no side effects is a great plus for even herbal remedies have side effects. My life is full of challenge and I rise to each as best I can. I have gone forward with the launch of the Pocket Pack at this time as I feel my old and new friends and those I reach will buy the Pocket Pack and use it to deal with everyday health problems that we all share. On the 12th I will see my film for the first time with an audience and know how well I dealt with the !KWave challenge to make a feature documentary for $1000. I will also begin

my next challenge to sell 100 Pocket Packs by October 15th.

2010 Magic Numbers

Magic is a personal decision and so 2010 is officially magic in my lexicon of numbers. Sounds good doesn't it. Sort of foolish but then what we cannot know we can believe what we want. I can believe what I want.

Is it truer if more people believe it? Not if we cannot know. And yet the human over the centuries has created his belief systems mostly based on what he cannot know. Vast empires of religions have risen and fallen or lie stagnant waiting for a shriveling up and all are based on what we cannot know.

There is lots than we can know. Humans have the capacity to experience and learn from observation. We can store information and have learned to store it even into electronic space so we can gain experience even without experiencing things directly. Thus over time through experiences we can directly learn and know.

I have been one to learn mostly by experiencing first hand. It is only later in my life that words and what they mean have come more to the fore of my mind. My real experiences in life through film making, healing and teaching get me to this point of real confidence in the reality of what I can know.

What I cannot know is of use as well. As I get older I get both more controlled and wilder in my creativity at every level. I explore my curiosity continually for it challenges me at every turn.

I meditate. It helps me stay in charge of my mind more Slowly the wild child is settling down to perform the more serious work of the person I am. The healer, helper and motivator; the artist, creator and activist.

Sir Wiliam Osler to the rescue.

I was in a heated debate with an eminent doctor about Homeopathy and I sent him a quote by Sir William Osler. Here it is.

THE GREATER THE IGNORANCE THE GREATER THE DOGMATISM.
DR. WILLIAM OSLER, CHAUVINISM IN MEDICINE 1902

The doctor's answer was as follows.
"Funny you should quote Osler to me. He was one of Medicine's first scientifically oriented clinicians basing his ideas on observation research and the brilliant pathological studies of Rudolph Virkow.
He knew that homeopathy was bunk and said so along with comments about phrenology etc. ..."

I looked up Sue Young's site http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/ The site has histories of all the famous men who used Homeopathy or said something about it. It is surprising the famous people who used and spoke well of Homeopathy. Press search and enjoy... Below is what I found for William Osler to refute the eminent doctor's prejudicial and blind response to my first quote from Osler's book Chauvenism and Medicine 1909

William Osler 1849 – 1919

William Osler, Time Online - “Founder Hahnemann was given his historic due by no less a personage than Sir William Osler. “No individual,” said Dr. Osler, “has done more good to the medical profession than Samuel Hahnemann.”

Harvey Cushing The Life of William Osler P. 171

“His belief that over-treatment with drugs was one of the medical errors of the day has been hinted at, and it was always one of his favorite axioms that no one individual had done more good to the medical profession than Hahnemann, whose therapeutic methods had demonstrated that the natural tendency of diseases was toward recovery, provided that the patient was decently cared for, properly nurses, and not over-dosed.”

Hans J Eysenck on William Osler

“It is more important to know what kind of person has a disease than what kind of disease a person has”

William Osler A Concise History of Medicine

“One notable example is typhoid fever. At the outset of the nineteenth century it was treated with ‘remedies’ of the extremest violence–bleeding and blistering, vomiting and purging, and the administration of antimony and mercury, and plenty of other heroic remedies.

“Now the patient is bathed and nursed and carefully tended, but rarely given medicine. This is the result partly of the remarkable experiments of the Paris and Vienna schools in the action of drugs, which have shaken the stoutest faiths; and partly of the constant and reproachful object lesson of homeopathy.

“No regular physician would ever admit that the homeopathic preparations, ‘infinitesimals,’ could do any good as direct curative agents; and yet it was perfectly certain that homeopaths lost no more of their patients than others. There was but one conclusion to draw– that most drugs had no effect whatever on the diseases for which they were administered.”

William Osler

“It is not as if our homeopathic brothers are asleep; far from it, they are awake (many of them at any rate) to the importance of the scientific study of disease.

“It is distressing that so many good men live isolated in a measure from the great body of the profession. The grievous mistake was ours: to quarrel with our brothers over infinitesimals was a most unwise and stupid thing to do.” and “Our homeopathic brothers pursue very seriously the scientific study of disease.”

William Osler

“Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease.”�

William Osler

“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.”

William Osler

“All scientific truth is conditioned by the state of knowledge at the time of its announcement.”

William Osler

“I fear that we may return to the state of polypharmacy, the emancipation from which has been the sole gift of Hahnemann and his followers….”

William Osler

“But, fortunately for medicine, some hundred and fifty years ago Hahnemann appeared…”

Dr. Osler not only recognized Homeopathy and Hahneman, he recognized the hate that ignorance could generate. I find that this kind of blind hate is still alive; this inordinate resistance to honest investigation.

I also find that there is a growing community who are using and examining Homeopathy and it includes many doctors, scientists, artist and everyday folk. Homeopathy is the medicine of the 21st Century.

Now have to band together to stop Pharmaceuticals from weakening our immune systems and harming our emotions and minds with the medicines they sell that have debilitating side effects.

The usefulness of IDEAS

This is very mind provoking and the end caused me to think far beyond my daily life and into the clarity that we are indeed all joined together. We even share the same energy. Marvelous!!!

About bees and ants sortta

I was thinking about bees and ants that live in huge colonies of thousands of members. Each member knowing and doing its duty unfailingly to render a perfect home for all. I was realizing that our bodies are in some ways like hives only the residents are so small we cannot even understand if they are just energy or have mass. I mean tiny. I know that I have arthritis all over my wonderful body and I can feel it activating at times. I can feel it encroaching on territory. An army moving quickly if I bang myself and slowly if I don't eat right and I do not eat right dumb as I am. So we have tiny negative and positive things that keep us in stasis. I know too that the little pill I take right now is a perfect messenger to the positive side that must do its work to keep the negative under control: to keep the balance. I am able to run and jump too. When I did that Rap I ran and fell and was totally active for over 8 hours and I am 72. I think we fool ourselves if we take medicines that will either mask the negatives or anhialate the negatives and positives at that level of activity through anti-biotics. They leave around all sorts of undesirable effects which we call side effects. It is a drag but true. We all know this. That is one of the main reasons I got into Homeopathy and Flower remedies. They do not have side effects. That is a major reason I tried but I was and am still amazed at how effective they are. I must be well of a couple of thousand experiences that I have seen with my own eyes of people being helped quickly. I myself can tell you I must take a pill or one sort or another maybe 25 times a year for everything from a cold coming on to a hangover in the morning or an upsetting situation where I feel I have to calm down. The odd bang. Wow when I fell into the flowers on the rap I really hurt the arm I thrust out to break the fall. I winced with pain. I think the bone between my elbow and shoulder twisted for I had no damage at all at the shoulder or elbow. I immediately called for Arnica and cream was husstled out and pills as well and I was pain free in under 5 minutes. My son Simon who is also a 1st AD asked me if I had pads down and a stunt coordinator with me. I said no and his look told me he thought I was nuts. I tell you I was half way to the ground when I started to think about landing. I was nuts not to have a pad down. Never trust an actor and that is what I had turned into that day. Mind you not a great actor but the idea of actor. I will one day put together the out takes and you will marvel at how often I had to say each line to get it right. Unbelievable how stupid my mind is when it comes to repeating even one sentence. Arnica is fabulous as a remedy. It is for any physical trauma.

Despair!!!

An awesome word. I suffer from it and I suspect most people do from time to time. I had been flown into Atlantic City to take over the job as 1st Assistant Director for Louis Malle. They were three days into the shoot and the person doing the job was not working out. I arrived about noon and after a quick stop to drop my luggage at the motel was driven to the set. It was a restaurant and I hardly sat down to read the script when Vincent Malle came to me and said I would have to read later as he was too busy to run the set. I met Andy who was the focus puller earlier this week when I went to a set to sell some Pocket Packs. He is an operator now and loves it. Well I met Louis Malle and Bert Lancaster, Susan Sarandon and Wally Shaun who was playing the waiter. He told me he was going to do a film with Louis. Fat chance I thought looking at this small round funny little man going bald. Little did I know that he was talking about "My Dinner With André."
The third day there we were to do shots in a parking garage where the cars were driven onto a platform which was on a revolving chain so the cars moved up until there was a circle of 8 cars. Robert Joy was to be killed as he tried to escape on the revolving platforms. The sun was not bright enough and so we had to go to cover as they say in films. Cover in this case was Burt Lancaster walking along the boardwalk and meeting someone in front of the shop. I had two policemen and 4 Production Assistants who knew very little about film making. Louis and I walked the half block to the boardwalk and I asked him what he wanted to see. He said the whole boardwalk in both directions. Impossible I said for I did not have the people to expedite the pedestrian control. Louis went away and I looked at it all to see what I could do. I realized I could give him enough boardwalk on either side of the store front so he could bring Burt in and out of the scene with the feeling of seeing lots of the wooden walkway but still be under my control. When I turned to suggest this I could see Louis sitting on the street curb with his head in his hands in despair. I could feel his energy all gone. It is a horrible feeling to sense your leader is in a hopeless state for it is like looking at a dead person: no evergy is coming off. I went over and in the a gentle but positive way asked him to come with me for I thought maybe we could do something that would satisfy him. Reluctantly he got up and went up onto the boardwalk again. I showed him my plan and he said that is what we would do. Despair comes to us all at times and along with it comes angels who want to help move you away from the feeling of hopelessness that surrounds despair.
The cold has come with the beginning of winter and Christmas is looming and I must now use all my energy to sell my Pocket Pack which is a perfect Christmas gift. I have used incredible energy up getting it to the market in the 8 weeks that it took me to design and create all the written material and make all the deals with the suppliers and measure my paltry bank account so everyone got some little bit of money for what they did to make it all possible. But this morning I despair of my task and so in writing this blog I gain some energy to realize that even great artists can despair and I can be a good angel not only to him but to myself as I coax myself back to action.

Getting older and wiser!!!

Yesterday it got cold and I in the late afternoon I went to a set to visit with some of my friends. It was out at the Brick Works in the Don Valley that cuts through the center of Toronto. Once a real open pit with kilns, it is now mostly abandoned although it is turning into a mid-city art installation. Now, before all the factory space is altered film crews go there to get seedy wrecked buildings to film in. Well, it was cold and my hands quickly felt the chill. The rewards of years of smoking have taken the toll of my circulation system and the chill sets in fast and deep. Undaunted I chatted with friends and sold my little Pocket Pack to those who know my Hollywood Survival Kit and could recognize the value of the good things in the Pocket Pack. Nothing against cold alas but lots against the sprained ankles that the slippery muddy half frozen ground would bring in the darkness.
I think often about age for I belie my years and can still hotfoot it around a set with the best of them. I look at those younger who do not move as well as I do and feel sad for them. I also look at those my age and older for role models as the years mount. Eli Wallach has to rate as an all time role model. I worked with him only once. In Halifax on a film called The Book Fair Murders. It was about a man who had stolen millions in paintings from a Jewish family in the second world war and at last was being caught for his crimes although they seemed somewhat justified. Eli Wallach was to play the old man. He was born in 1915 and we were going to film with him in 2000. He was 85. It was hard to arrange for him to come to us from New York as he was rehearsing a new play and his day off was Monday so we could fly him up on Sunday, film with him on Monday and he would fly home on Tuesday early in the morning so he could be at rehearsals that day. He did not miss work for any reason it would seem. He had two scenes to play supposedly by the sea where he had a sumptuous house. Robert Joy who I first worked with on Atlantic City was to play opposite him in both scenes. They were pivotal to the plot for Roberts character was the man who discovered the theft and one scene was an interview and the other reminiscences of his life as a young man in the employment of the rich and kind Jewish mogul. Both scenes were long and had very long speeches in them. I mean more that one page of Eli just talking about his past. He was arriving at 9 on Sunday evening and he asked that the final script be left at his hotel so he could check it against the script he was given to make sure he had the changes if there were any. He also asked to have a limo take him to set the next morning for he would polish his lines during the drive.
So this 85 year old man was going to fly to us on Sunday evening, although in the midst of play rehearsals which are not easy for there is script to learn and changes to be made in words and feelings and new people to deal with: a full time job and difficult time for any actor.
We were lucky for Monday was a sunny day although the temperature was around freezing. We had decided to go to Peggy's Cove, the famous tourist attraction that is on a rocky point that juts into the Atlantic ocean. With clever placement of the camera we could see just the roof and chimneys of the large pavilion there and it played as the rich man's house. We laid a dolly track in front of the bench where the two men were going to be seated. Wolfgang Panzer who was our director and a wonderful man as well as a great director could shoot the whole scene just moving up and down the track. A dolly back and forth while the scene played and then close ups. Wolfgang started with the close up of Ely's whole speech. We are talking about three minutes of straight monologue with the odd question thrown in. We had everything set up and lots of blankets and hot shots to keep Ely as warm as possible. He strode out and only his carefulness about where he was walking told us of his age. He was chipper, happy, friendly and met everyone with a handshake. He sat down with Robert and first discussed a couple of the changes that had been made in the script with Wolfgang. This only took a few minutes and all was ready. He rehearsed once with the camera so we could get our moves. He never missed a line or word in any of the speech. It was awesome as we went through shot after shot in one or two takes and always with excellent results. After we finished with Robert Joy's close up which was our last shot of the scene Eli called me over. He leaned forward and whispered to me. "Do you think we could do another take of my close up. I think I can do it better." I was awestruck that after three hours of sitting in the cold repeating this speech over and over he knew the nuances so well and remembered how he had delivered his first attempts in such detail that he could know this and that he wasn't tired or bored with it all. I went to Wolfgang who immediately said yes and we did one more take of the close up.
It was worth the effort. We did the next scene in the afternoon and finished the day with flying colours.
That evening Eli Wallach took the director, the actors the producder and me too out to dinner at a fine restaurant; about a dozen people. He regaled us with stories and talked quite a bit to Samantha Bond one of the more memorable Miss Moneypennys from the James Bond films. Eli I think had worked with her father who was a well known British actor. He could recall events clearly. He was a wonderful host and it was an honour to be at his table and to meet and be with such a gracious young old man. To this day no one of his age has matched him in my eyes. A very special person to me and a role model in every way.
By the way he made two films this year that are now in post production. Lets see now, he is 92 and I am sure still all here.

Halloween a time for fun

Halloween is gone and the goons and goblins put away in cardboard cartons to await another airing. I love the idea of dressing up and having a different face. It has always been my fun to do so and often on set I dress to my own dress code. I suppose that the strangest incident that brought out this idiosyncrasy was in China when I was there filming MButterfly. It was totally an awesome trip with Jeremy Irons and Jon Lon and of course David Cronenberg and many of our Canadian crew. We even filmed on the great wall. I remember my first visit to the wall when we climbed the steps to the tower we were going to film from. Every step was a different hight and a different depth so you had to look down or you would trip. I could not believe what seemed to me to be very bad workmanship until I realized if I was an enemy I would have to look down on every step to see where I was going and at night it would be impossible to go up without tripping. I guess the Chinese defenders were trained to go up and down blindfolded both forwards and backwards giving them a tremendous advantage in defending the wall. On the day that we filmed we saw about a mile away at the next tower a bright reflecting light. We investigated as it was spoiling the picture. It was a film crew just like ourselves filming a fashion show. Can you imagine the laughter that in the thousands of miles of wall two film crews would be so close to one another. Luckily they were gone in an hour and out scene was as it should be. In Beijing we shot streets and comings and goings which would be used in the film. We did most of our interiors for China in Toronto. That was odd to in that the studio we filmed in used to be Toronto Iron Works and in 1960 one of my last jobs before I went into show biz was as an xray technician at Toronto Iron Works and I worked in the same huge building back then xraying large boilers to make sure their welds were perfect. Shooting MButterfly was the next time I ever went there so it had a certain special meaning for me.
In Beijing we did the play in a local play house. It was down an alley and on first look hard to imagine that a 400 or so seat theatre could be anywhere nearby but then that is the surprises found in the city. So Jon Lon was going to sing with the Opera group and we loaded in and prepared for our first day. We had about 300 extras and the scene was the first time Jeremy sees Jon and is infatuated by him. One major problem we had was that it took Jon about 3 hours to do his makeup. He was trained in classical opera and rehearsed himself tirelessly to bring back the skills he had learned as a teenager and young man so that in the end he could once again perform his own singing. He did not take kindly to the heat and because alll the make up was pancake make up we had to worry about him sweating. After much fuss we were able to get two air conditioners put in the room he was to use as a dressing room. I planned the day to use 4 hours of insert shooting of the other singers and the players to give Jon time to do his makeup without rushing. Everything was going along swimmingly until one of my assistants came to me and said that a spot of white had flaked off Jons cheek and he said he would have to begin again as there was no way to repair it.
I thought for a moment and told my assistant to tell Jon that I would only do wide shots and a small blemish would not be noticed. It was disaster to the day if I could not film him for it would have meant turning all the lights in the other direction to do the audience and Jeremy's side of the scene. My assistant came rushing back and said it was too late and Jon had already begun to strip off his white face. I was distraught to say the least. Not my fault but now my problem to reorganize the shooting to satisfy the bad situation. We all discussed what to do and the orders were given and in a moment of I frustration I ran behind the stage to the large room that the other singers and performers were using as a dressing room. I said I had two minutes to spare and I wanted them to make up my face. It would make me feel better. And they did. Two of the singers came over and after a quick exchange decided on what character they would make me up as. It did only take a couple of minutes to do and for the rest of the day I ran the set looking an odd mixture of things. The Chinese audience laughed when they first saw me but took my orders to watch and clap and enjoy so we accomplished Jeremy's entrance and all his close ups and the day was saved. When I was doing The Bay of Love and Sorrows in New Brunswick it was Halloween and there were some lovely make ups done and the make up lady there did my Chinese face once again for me to enjoy.

Robert Goulet has passed away

This morning I opened up my New York Times and read that Robert Goulet has passed away. It made me think of Atlantic City and the day in Montreal where he came and worked with us as a lounge singer. I was very nervous about it all as the script certainly indicated that the singer was a send up of a lounge singer and my first thoughts were that this famous guy, Robert Goulet would have too much ego to send himself up. I wondered if Louis Malle had actually told him what the part was really all about. You know in life you often have impressions from past suppositions that just are not real. This was one of them. He came, he was gracious, friendly, did great work, wasted no time, understood exactly what Louis wanted and made us all have a great day of shooting. I was so pleased to be there and to hear him for he had a wonderful voice and a great presentation as well. He entertained us. It was easy to see how he captured hearts with his role of Lancelot in Camelot and how he became so popular and one of the Canadian icons of his time. I am sorry that he is gone now but I know he will be remembered by millions of people which he richly deserves.

I remember being at a yoga session and having a Guru say "Life Begins with the first breath in and ends with the last breath out." Simple statement and yet in its own way it led me to understand that, watching my breath seems to ground me. I read in a yoga book about meditation that "Watch your breath and see your life change." Again a simple statement but I can remember once when I was thankful to remember both the statements.

I was working in Halifax on a little TV series called, "Local Heroes". It was about people who were for the most part unsung except for their 15 minutes of local newspaper fame. Some were quite heroic and others just seemed to happen by chance and really be about being someplace at the right moment. Well we were at the end of a small river leading into the Atlantic ocean and the story involved a daughter in her twenties out for a row with her father when the boat capsized. A man on the beach swam out and saved them. Easy to see in one's mind but not so easy to capture in the fall of the year in the Atlantic ocean with tides to deal with and on top of that weather that could be good or just awful. A low budget was also a great impeding factor at times. So we got the two zodiacs (inflated rubber boats) for filming, and found a river that ran into the ocean with a sand beach that went out about 150 feet before it was over your head. Good to do most of the work in shallow water and not drown anyone. Drowning has a lot to do with the last breath out.
What happened in the story was that when the row boat capsized the daughter and her father clasped hands over the keel and yelled and yelled. The man heard them from shore and swam out. We put the upside down boat across a 14 foot zodiac and towed it with our bigger zodiac. Video cables were run from the bigger zodiac to the smaller one where the camera was locked down. The trick was to keep the locked camera with the two people hanging on to the keel in the foreground and the hero swimming toward them in the background. Sounds easy but with the outbound current from the river and the ocean current moving inward it was dicey. I was wearing a dry suit as I had been standing in the water where it was shallow. It was not done up and sealed. We rolled camera and I could see we would not get the shot, the man was not in the right alignment. This meant steering the camera boat a little this way or that to keep him in frame. I knew if we stopped and lined it up again the whole resetting would take 15 minutes or more so I jumped off the stern of the larger boat and got between the two zodiacs. Perhaps a dumb move but I had quickly sensed I could not be hurt by the rubber sides of these two craft squeezing me and I knew exactly what I had to do to keep the boat facing the right way. Perhaps not the job of a 1st Assistant Director which is what I was at the time and still am. But with a tight schedule and no money for overtime, every second saved to spend wisely later is worth it. That is the job to make the seconds count. Tough job.
So I jumped in and grabbed the ropes joining the crafts and delicately steered the smaller zodiac to keep the people in the shot. We got the shot in one take which was great. We broke off the cables and one cable they gave to me to swim the few feet to the large Zodiac that held a dozen people and was very fast and powerful with its engines and propeller well under the keel. It slowly started to pull away and remembering the fun of being towed by a rope in the water I lay on my back about 30 feet behind the craft and enjoyed the trip. In a sense it was a small reward for getting the shot and I knew I had a few minutes to kill before everyone was on shore and we could set up the next shot. I knew the water was shallow and I could stand whenever I let go of the rope so I just was having fun. The zodiac driver was not aware I was a freeloader enjoying the fun of it all. I let go and sank not to my shoulders as I expected but down, down, down about 8 feet. I jumped up off the bottom and popped to the surface and I could not kick with my feet in the dry suit all filled now with water. I was worried and I realized I did not know how to signal that I was in distress. I sank again and this time when I came up I raised one arm which seemed a logical sort of signal for attention. Nothing. I raised both arms nothing. I sank and jumped up once more now panicking that I was going to drown. I for some reason remembered that I should watch my breath and try to get under control. I do not know exactly why this came to mind but it relates directly to those two statements at the start of this story . Well when I watched my breath and I was immediately reminded of laboratory mice used for feeding boa constrictors hyperventilating when they were being squeezed. I was terrified that I would not get my breathing slow enough to really get any air. I was beside myself with fear and panic. There is no other feeling so profoundly debilitating. My arms started to paddle frantically underwater as they did when I was probably 5 or 6 when I was learning how to float on my back and this tiny action kept my head a bit above water and I slowly my breathing slowed down and I regained some control of things. I steered myself toward shore and people came and helped me out. They turned me upside down in my dry suit and I must have had 20 gallons of water in it which made me realize that the joy ride on my back had filled the dry suit with water from the neck down. Everyone laughed as I was deluged with water. I was happy to be alive. It was a lesson and I think the only time I have come close to death and had time to think about it over a minute or so. Fear led me to tense actions and in the end panic. I have experienced accidents but they happen in a trice and you either make the right move or bite the bullet. I have so far made the right moves and each motorcycle and bicycle accident I can remember in minute detail although none took more than 10 or 15 seconds to materialize and come to a conclusion. Each is a miracle of luck for other than a couple of cracked ribs I have never been hurt. Each seemed to go on a long time with many decisions being made mid air or in the moments leading up to the actual contact of the crash. It is amazing how fast the mind really is and how it remembers vividly what takes place in milliseconds. I do not think computers are faster. They just can keep the pace up for a longer time in a narrow simple task.