Canadian Musings

Magical Garden and some nice shots

2009-07-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

Went off to a private estate garden yesterday and toured around, shot a whole lot, then did some shots in the stable of John. Not quite what I was going for. Going to try and re shoot him and create a bit more mystery in the foreground.
Maureen likes the photo. I want drama.
More stuff today at a party in Church Stretton, then we are off to see the Welsh choir tonight.
Saw Victor Spinetti last night in the assembly rooms. A Welsh actor who has done tons of film and theatre work back in Richard Burton's day. He appeared in the Beatle films and won a Tony award. So funny and sad, times gone by. Bought his biography and we hung around to chat with him afterwords. I think he is the first person I have not mentioned the show to.
Everyone in Ludlow knows about Murdoch Mysteries and that we are in town. Too funny eh?

Romeo oh Romeo or . . .

2009-07-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

Liam Bergin's mothers birth mother lives in Brampton and he is currently starring in the stage production of Romeo and Juliet which we watched last night in Ludlow under the stars at Ludlow castle. The festival is celebrating it's 50th anniversary and every year there is a Shakespearean play performed in the 12th century castle in Ludlow. I am going to try and shoot it at night within the next few days.
We ran into Liam and of course told him about Murdoch filming in Bristol. He is fantastic and a young new actor on the UK scene.
We said to let his agent know about it.
Here are more images from the past two days. I have this fashion designer interested in hiring me to do her stuff. Ahhh, maybe a free trip back in September??? Who knows

. . . and more from the magical forest

2009-07-01T08:21:00.001-07:00

It's so hottttt!!

2009-07-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

This is the UK, and it is hotter here than in N/A.
We went to a special forest last night and there are the most amazing carvings. We were in Church Stretton.
Got news that the crew is coming to Bristol to do location scouting next week, so Maureen and I will be meeting up with them. Oh what fun!!

Hard to believe from these photos but

2009-06-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

Maureen suffered heat stroke yesterday while riding an old train from the 1940's researching for her new book.
She's okay today but it was plus thirty and about 100 percent humidity.
Off to climb Long Mindh tonight to shoot the waterfall and watch the sunset. I'll be there with my gear.

Sir Derek Jacobi???

2009-06-29T02:26:00.003-07:00

Met him last night at a show here. And . . we spoke to him about Murdoch and shooting in Bristol. I forwarded his interest to the boss. Let's see.

New website is up idenfordphotography.com

2009-06-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

We're in Ludlow after another day of travel and settling into our cottage. I took tons of photos this morn.
Check out my new website http://www.idenfordphotography.com
Oh yeah, we spoke with Tom Craig yesterday and he flies over to do the show one week from Monday.
Gearing up again is exciting. We're planning a trip down to Bristol the week after next to see if we can meet up with the folks who are location scouting for the show.
Won't be posting again til Tuesday am. Bye for now

Birmingham Uk

2009-06-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

We arrived safe and sound. Maureen is busy researching the next book and we had time to visit the WW2 memorial in Birmingham where here father's name is listed as a casualty.
Find Herbert Jennings
Off to Ludlow tomorrow.

My new website is coming along . . . .

2009-06-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

I hired a company in Montreal to build a proper website for me with galleries and links, etc.
Should be up an running by early next week.
I am rather excited about it as it will be an online portfolio.
Stay tuned

Off to the merry old land of . . . .

2009-06-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

Went over again yesterday to see the new film set and they have reconstructed the morgue and police station to the exact specifications to the first two seasons.
It is rather magical to see this warehouse space in the west end of Toronto being brought to life with the archictectual trappings of Victorian Toronto.
Early next week, Maureen and I are off to our usual visit to the magical land of Shropshire for the purposes of research and holiday.
She is writing the second book in a series of WWll books and this one will be oriented around a munitions factory in Birmingham.
We also hope to take a side trip down to Bristol as there is a chance some of the crew will be there to scout locations for the week in September when Murdoch Mysteries films in Bristol.
So now that my documentary course is finished I shall apply what I learned to my trip this year.
I intend to visit the film set when I get back on a regular basis so that I can learn more about lighting set ups.
And it looks like my next university course will be cinematography and lighting design if I can get into the class.
It all crosses over into photography so it will be valuable info and practical techniques that I will learn. This will dovetail nicely with hanging out with our Director of Photography when I am able, but I have promised not to pepper him with questions, I will be note taking like crazy. I think Jim Jeffries is the best DOP we have had on the series and luckily we get him back again.
Can't wait. Here's a shot I did last year and our cottage is right behind the tavern on the other side of the bridge. I'm there right now in my mind as I write this. More before I go.

Just found this @ $40 US - I bought one for us

2009-06-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

This is now the best price and he advertises that he has 10 sets of the DVD at $40 per. Copy and paste the link to Ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280352490660

Murdoch Mysteries DVD is in the top 100 at Barnes and Noble

2009-06-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

If you go the the Barnes and Noble website, the Murdoch Mysteries season one is the best price on the net at $47 US.
And considering the series has not aired in the US yet, and the DVD was released yesterday, I think that is amazing.
Go and get it. The DVD is loaded with extras including an interview with Maureen. I love this show eh?

Published today in the Torontoist - Televising Toronto the Good

2009-06-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Dr. Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy) and Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) from Murdoch Mysteries.
The Victorian Era, when the city gained its nickname Toronto the Good, is usually thought of as a time of staid social order upheld by unwritten laws of morality. In the name of propriety, boarding houses had a strict ten o'clock curfew. And keeping up public appearances was paramount. There was, however, another side of the city beneath this prim and proper surface, as journalist C.S. Clark describes in Of Toronto the Good (1898)—which despite its name is actually an excursion into the bars, brothels, and gambling dens to uncover the city's underbelly of vice.
Murdoch Mysteries, the Shaftesbury Films–produced television show that follows the exploits of William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson)—the Victorian detective first encountered in the best-selling novels of Maureen Jennings—helps bring this other side of Toronto's history to life. Currently riding a wave of success, the multiple Gemini-nominated show just got renewed for a third season on Citytv and will begin being aired on American Public Television at the end of the month. Season one was released on DVD earlier this week.
The main characters on Murdoch Mysteries. Murdoch Mysteries works both as a straight-ahead detective procedural as well as an illuminating take on mid-1890s Toronto. On the one hand, the straight-laced Detective Murdoch employs all the latest scientific and forensic techniques, including fingerprinting and ballistics, and blood-testing to solve each week's murder. Some critics have dubbed the show CSI: 1895. Other critics have suggested that some of the mysteries wrap up a little too conveniently, but that's really no different from any of the other television procedurals that must go through the requisite twists and turns before the final credits roll.
The show's real strength is in the main characters: Detective Murdoch and the city of Toronto. Murdoch is an emotionally stilted bookworm, a methodical thinker who devises his own contraptions—like building his own lie-detector device—and scientific methods based on what he scours from journals. But his character is complicated at moments, paced over the course of season one, when the strength of his convictions is challenged—most notably when the mysticism of a séance shakes his certainty about the infallibility of science, and when his single-minded antipathy towards his estranged father forces Murdoch to confront his own biases during an investigation.

Toronto is more than just a character because its cobblestone and dirt streetscape provides the setting—and incidentally the show is filmed on soundstages and in Cambridge. The show captures the historical character of the city: its fashions, its social codes, and its corridors of power. It's also a deeply Protestant city that places severe limits on the advancement of Catholics, as Murdoch—who crosses himself every time he sees a dead body—encounters when he's refused a promotion solely because of his religion.

Murdoch's investigations take him across the city's class spectrum, from "ratting"—betting on which terrier can kill more rats—in dingy taverns to fundraisers for Barnardo-like charities in upper-class drawing rooms. Another episode wades through the cutthroat debates and back-stabbing politics surrounding public utilities and power in the city.
While Murdoch is a progressive in scientific method, he is also a man of his time. Rarely does Murdoch Mysteries fall into the all-too-easy trap seen in historical dramas of giving a smug nod and a wink to the present by making a statement about how far we've come. The era's social attitudes are, for the most part, presented matter-of-factly. When a groom's murder on the morning of his wedding leads Murdoch into the city's homosexual subculture—a group that meets under the subterfuge of being a tennis club—the detective isn't at all antagonistic, but he isn't an anachronistic champion of rights either. It'd be unbelievable. Rather, the unease he displays promises to repeat over the course of the series when Murdoch is forced to reexamine his steadfast beliefs. Likewise, in deference to the social protocol of the day, Murdoch's romantic pinings for Dr. Julia Ogden—the pathologist played by Hélène Joy—remain largely limited to stiff sideward glances and awkward, unfinished conversations throughout season one.
Rather than framing the Victorian era as entirely dark or oppressive—as in David Lean's Dickens adaptations—Murdoch Mysteries has a sense of humour, provided by Constable George Crabtree, Murdoch's assistant. The constraints of Victorian social mores are humorously examined when Crabtree makes a social visit upon a lady or when he has to baby-sit a wild, ne'er-do-well prince visiting Toronto while Murdoch investigates Fenian rebels conspiring the prince's abduction.
While Murdoch Mysteries gives a good representation of Victorian Toronto, it doesn't overwhelm by enumerating an abundance of quaint but unenlightening historical detail intended only to emphasize historical verisimilitude. When such subtle details do arise, like when one character eating an orange casually mentions how difficult it is to acquire one, they serve the story or as scene-setting.
Sure, there are probably anachronisms if you want to find them, and the rotating case of visitors, from Nicola Tesla to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, stopping by to help the detective solve crimes is a bit far-fetched. But a lighter tone for the Victorian era—while still illuminating the era's darker shades—is a refreshing change from an overly noir or stuffy costume drama.

The four-disc DVD set, released yesterday, includes commentary on the first episode, and brief interviews with all the key players—including Jennings—on disc four along with textual background information.

My documentary on Union Station

2009-06-15T15:49:00.001-07:00

I am having all the prints done in 17 x 22 mounted on foam core for presentation this Thursday.
copy and paste
http://www.idenfordphotography.com/unionstation/

Random Street and River photography this weekend

2009-06-14T14:57:00.001-07:00

Always practicing my craft wherever I go

For the record so all is clear . . .

2009-06-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

Murdoch Mysteries goes into production for season three on July 8th. The production schedule will go til the end of November.
One of the episodes will be filmed in the UK this year.
Keep coming back and I will post news as I can and when I get it and when it is okay to post it.
The permanent set location has changed from the first two seasons and is now located in the west end of Toronto in Etobicoke. The crew is hard at work erecting the Police Station and the Morgue as well as the swing sets.
Maureen and I will be taking a visit to the new set within the next 10 days before we go off to the UK.
We will be over in the UK researching for Maureen's next book in her WW2 series. I have no news yet on when "Season of Darkness", the first WW2 book Maureen has written, will be published. As soon as I know I will post it here.
The second in the series is set in and around a munitions factory in Birmingham. I have read the first 6 chapters and it is unlike anything she has written. It is soooo good.
Anyway, I hope more news on that front soon.

From today's Philadelphia Inquirer

2009-06-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

Fri, Jun. 12, 2009

Canadian TV on DVD

Ever wonder what our polite neighbors to the north watch? Here's a chance to find out with three new releases produced for Canadian TV.
Murdoch Mysteries: Series 1 due out June 16 from Acorn (www.acornonline.com; $59.99; not rated) is a terrific procedural police drama with a difference. Based on the mystery novels of Maureen Jennings and set in Toronto at the turn of the 20th century, the first season's 13 episodes follow the exploits of an oddball detective (played by Yannick Bisson) who uses his brain - and the newly established science of forensics - to solve murders. Murdoch's ally is an equally unconventional medical examiner who is (gasp!) a woman.

The one-hour show was produced after the success of a series of three amazing TV movies from 2004, which featured talented Toronto actor Peter Outerbridge in the title role. It's out on DVD as The Murdoch Mysteries Movie Collection from BFS (www.bfsent.com; $39.98; not rated).

Here is some of the photography I have been doing lately

2009-06-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

And another . . Variety Reports

2009-06-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

APT takes ITV Global package
Shows include 'Poirot,' 'Murdoch Mysteries'
By STEVE CLARKE

LONDON — U.S. PBS distrib American Public Television has acquired a 50-hour package of U.K. and Canadian drama from ITV Global.
The shows include Shaftesbury Productions' "The Murdoch Mysteries," starring Yannick Bisson as eponymous detective William Murdoch, season eight of Brit medical saga "The Royal," and season two of "Agatha Christie's Poirot," starring David Suchet in the lead role.

Another press release-ITV Global scores bumper US drama sale

2009-06-09T06:12:00.000-07:00

9 June, 2009 | By Will Hurrell

ITV Global Entertainment has sold a 50-hour package of drama, including Agatha Christie’s Poirot, into the US.
The slate of British and Canadian drama series has been sold to US public television distributor APT and was negotiated by John Norman, ITV Global’s senior vice president, Americas.
The deal means that the content will be broadcast to a potential US public television audience of 65 million viewers.

The slate includes Shaftesbury Productions’ 13 x 60-minute crime drama Murdoch Mysteries, season eight of ITV1 medical drama The Royal and contemporary crime drama Rosemary and Thyme, which stars Felicity Kendal.
Noel Hedges, head of drama at ITV Global Entertainment said, “Broadcast in more than 180 territories, Murdoch Mysteries and Agatha Christie’s Poirot have established themselves as worldwide favourites. This deal is a superb example of ITV Global’s portfolio of innovative, high-quality and independently produced drama.”

There is a new discussion group if interested

2009-06-07T08:40:00.000-07:00

By some fans who came to the readings on Tuesday. Nice photo of Helene signing one of Maureen's books. Copy and paste
http://community.livejournal.com/murdoch_mystery

Contact your local PBS broadcaster

2009-06-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

In order for The Murdoch Mysteries series one, which will be airing nationally in select markets in the USA starting June 30, to expand its market reach within the PBS system nationally, it helps if they know you want to see the show.
So wherever you may live in the USA, call your local PBS station and tell them you are interested in seeing Murdoch Mysteries.
The list of all stations that will be in on the first roll out will be known at the end of the month.
So far there are some very large marketplaces like NYC, most of NY State, Maine, Idaho, Kansas, Alaska, Wisconsin, part of Illinois, with more to come.

Gallery from Last Night

2009-06-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

copy and paste
http://idenfordphotography.com/vickyandcheryl

Rubbing elbows with Helene Joy at Crime in the Library

2009-06-03T08:00:00.001-07:00

More photos later today, but some fans have their dreams come true eh?

Meet Helene Joy tonight @ Toronto Reference Library

2009-06-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

She and Maureen might even autograph some of the books that will be for sale if you ask them.
I will be there as the usual photographer for these events.
Click on this to enlarge