Follow-Up: More Tideland News Train derailment photo and details…plus Terry Gilliam interviewed December 16th 2004 09:49pm | Posted by: Robert Falconer HNR Senior Editor A couple of weeks ago, HNR reported on a train crash staged for Terry Gilliam’s latest feature project, Tideland, which wrapped shooting in Saskatchewan on December 8. A member of the production team recently spoke with HNR and provided us with details on the wreck, as well as an exclusive photo of the final result, which you can view below. (The picture is a little fuzzy, but you get the general idea.) Here’s what our inside source told HNR: “We found a source of decommissioned train cars in southern British Columbia that belonged to a private collector, and the contractor brought them out by rail. We set all of it on a piece of decommissioned train track out in the middle of nowhere about a half-hour drive northwest of Regina. The contractor craned the train cars off the track and placed them according to Gilliam’s instructions—all planned out ahead of time. Then with heavy equipment, cutting torches and whatnot, we proceeded to bash it up and make it look like the aftermath of a train wreck. We dressed it with all kinds of debris and bits and pieces of body parts to make it look gruesome and real, and we had pyro as well. We shot it all over two nights. It was a lot of work. We were on a hillside and the terrain was quite rugged. It was very dangerous. The special effects crew had their work cut out for them securing the thing so that it wouldn’t slip down the hillside and cause havoc. A lot of people drove by, and you could see it in the distance from a long way off. Some people actually thought it was real and offered their assistance.” Also, Terry Gilliam recently spoke with Phil Stubbs on the UK website, Dreams…, an online fanzine devoted to the British filmmaker. In the except below, Gilliam talks a little about working in Canada: Phil Stubbs: How is working in Regina? Terry Gilliam: I've become quite a fan of Canadian filmmaking. The crews are great, they really work hard. They've got really bubbly, positive attitudes. In the beginning I was very suspicious of this. I was really irritated by their happiness and their pleasantness. But as things go on and you get more and more tired, it's really nice to be around really nice people. I remember when we first flew into Regina, you look down and you've got nothing but squares with longitudinal and latitudinal roads. It's very flat and I thought it has a strange quality. In fact even though we are up in the middle of Canada, it's a semi-arid desert. At first you think this is really boring, flat and dull, and repetitive. But it becomes rather hypnotic after a while and I'm enjoying it. The skies are beautiful. Maybe I'm being infected or affected by this place - I'm not sure which. Maybe I'm becoming more placid. Maybe it's something to do with the film, because the exteriors are these vast open spaces, and the interiors are very dark claustrophobic spaces. When we were out shooting in the Valley, the space around us was beautiful, almost exhilarating, and liberating. Whereas in the studios it's claustrophobic and irritating - just like the film should be. You can read the entire interview here. The $20 million Canadian-shot feature has been described as, “Alice In Wonderland Meets Psycho,” and concerns a young girl, Jeliza-Rose, who escapes into the world of her imagination after her mother dies of a heroin overdose. Tideland is produced by David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch production team of Gabriella Martinelli (Canada) and Jeremy Thomas (UK). The film stars Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Tilley and Canadian Jodelle Ferland as Jeliza-Rose. Source: HNR In: The Prairies & Up North News |Visit the HNR Forums

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