And now, for a
special announcement! Tomorrow, one of my consultants,
Dan1988, will be posting a special interlude update to the thread, to help provide a snapshot of a key player on the periphery of the Trial of the Century, and how the situation looks from where he sits. I hope you all enjoy that post, as well as your holiday, depending upon which side of the 49th parallel you call home: Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians, and Happy Columbus Day to my American readers! (And if there's some other holiday tomorrow in some other part of the world, enjoy
that as well.)
Definitely, on all counts. Without further ado, here it is:
-----
“I'm sorry, Malcolm. I can’t let you pursue it.
― And why not?
― If the pathology comes out the way you think it would, then it would be an embarrassment not only to the Coroner's Office, but also to the city, and maybe even higher up than that. You do realize what we’re dealing with here?
― Leo – it shouldn’t matter how high-ranking a politician this guy is! It really shouldn't! It seems pretty simple to me: the guy drives his car into the train because the barriers failed to stop him, and in the car they find a woman and a bottle of whiskey behind the seat.
― What
appeared to be whiskey – for all I care, it might as well have been apple juice. The guy was a teetotaller.
― So what? To me, Leo, the evidence speaks for itself, and just because he happens to be a high-ranking city councillor does not mean he should get a pass on this when all of his opponents would use it as just the argument they need to slash our budget even more than they already have!
― And
that’s why we need to handle this with discretion. We can’t let rumours about his infidelity or alcoholism start spreading around town. You know what will happen to his – and our city's – reputation if they do? Not to mention, he was one of the few councillors who consistently advocated for maintaining the budget of this office while everyone else has favoured cutting it!
― I know, I know. So that justifies a cover-up? This is not the mercy-killing case from a couple of weeks ago.
― It is
not a cover-up. It's giving dignity and privacy for him and his family.
― What dignity? What privacy?”
“And cut!”
Another scene was now done – for the most part – and the waiting game began. There was so much more that had to be done – a power outage the previous day so that hydro crews could work on a nearby substation had meant that shooting was well behind schedule, and thus had to be accelerated considerably over the following days. Both Donnelly Rhodes, who played Malcolm, and Christophe Blanchard, who played Leo, were considerably exhausted after going through a marathon session of filming, and hence needed a break.
“Good job, guys, that scene came out great. Just a couple more to shoot, and then we can take this to the break room.”
Hence, work on
Life After Death proceeded very quickly that day, unlike other days. In this case, the shooting focused on the interiors – and after finishing up all the scenes taking place in the coroner's office, the ones taking place at the police station would be next; in fact, they formed an important part of the day’s agenda. This episode's case involved a city councillor who had been killed (and badly burned) in his car – along with his passenger, another, apparently unrelated, woman – when he accidentally rammed it into a moving freight train. Because of the councillor’s high status and considerable political power, this had massive repercussions throughout the city, particularly since he was also a former police officer. As a result, the homicide squad, the coroner's office, and other units in the police department and the city government each jockeyed for position in trying to deal with the consequences of the councillor's death.
There was, however, another reason why work on
Life After Death went by so quickly, which was also why some people on set were distracted as well as exhausted. Everyone knew that night the Winnipeg Jets would be playing against the Los Angeles Kings – a matchup which was all the more significant because of the concurrent events which the legal department at CanWest was carefully monitoring. Everyone on set would be congregating in the break room once shooting ended for the day, where the TV was tuned to the local Global station, CKND-TV, which was naturally carrying the game. If Winnipeg won, studio chief Izzy Asper promised that everyone would get the following day off. That added yet more pressure to get shooting done in time, as did the news that Izzy himself was coming down from his office and visiting the set, keeping tabs on everyone and seeing how the filming was going. As the flagship show on Global's schedule alongside
SCTV, he wanted to make sure everything was going according to plan.
As he walked around the set and talked with the production crew and members of the cast, Izzy felt pleased. The turnaround plan for United Artists had worked much better than he anticipated, as several Global TV series including
Life After Death had proven surprisingly effective at attracting both positive critical reception at home and abroad as well as the audience numbers to match, and even Rikavisión, the Puerto Rican TV station which had difficulty against the more established TV stations on the Island, had its schedule totally revamped and hence its numbers were improving greatly. On top of that, plans were now afoot to expand the existing complex or even build an all-new studio close to Downtown Winnipeg. The reasons were simple; taking on new responsibilities had put a premium on space in the existing station complex. What had worked well back in the 1970s, when it was just the one station complemented by relays from southern Ontario, was now becoming a liability; the police station set was actually used for an earlier low-budget series back in the day (which, needless to say, did not go far) which got a major renovation and yet was still obsolete and hideously cramped. Some of the scenes in the coroner's office, in fact, were shot from vacant office space within the building, which made it very difficult to manoeuvre cameras around. In addition, studio space had to be rented from other areas around Winnipeg just to get things done, including additional areas of both the police station and the coroner’s office. Outside the set, CanWest was also quickly running out of office space to handle all the new responsibilities and there had been times where Izzy worked from home. The focus with the new building project, which was a long-term goal, would be to provide both CanWest and the Global TV network with spacious, modern buildings which would not only allow room for expansion, but would allow both United Artists and Global to fully utilize the space to produce quality content. Despite this, the project never really seemed to go anywhere and consequently was a low priority.
So it was that in this climate that it took several minutes to shoot the last scene at the police station – Malcolm Richter confronting the sergeant at the homicide squad and the police chief for forcing a cover-up being a pivotal scene that had yet to be shot. In this case, that Richter was ex-RCMP (though never mentioned in the script, it was implied in such a way as to be obvious to Canadian viewers) made the police chief feel that Richter was coming off as arrogant and with a “holier than thou” attitude, which made the sequence all the more intense. After that scene was shot, marking the end of the day’s schedule, the break room quickly filled up as everyone turned their attentions to the game. For once, at least something that was not focused on work.
As the third period commenced, everyone had their eyes glued to the television screen. This time, Izzy would join his workers in rooting for the Jets, cheering whenever Winnipeg scored, or throwing things at the TV when the ref made a bad call. Then, all of a sudden, during a commercial break, one of his people in Los Angeles called him over the phone. After berating him for interrupting a Jets match, because that’s one of the few absolutes everyone knew in Winnipeg but apparently not in L.A., things went straight to business.
“How’s that case going? No, the one that’s been on the –
― You’re kidding, seriously? That was the Court’s ruling? Well, I guess it had to come sooner or –
― Look, I’ll have to get to you later, I can hear another goal from Winnipeg.
― I'm serious!”
As he came back into the break room – just in time for the game to cut to commercial – everyone was wondering why Izzy looked so agitated. After apologizing, he mentioned to them what happened with those events happening in L.A. itself. One could sense the palpable wave of “oh no, not again!” sweeping over the break room. Izzy obviously wanted to get something out of Paramount if Gulf+Western lost the trial, since many financial analysts and industry insiders predicted that there would be, at the very least, some sort of asset liquidation to pay out the judgement, and Izzy wanted a piece of that. There were, however, people at CanWest that thought he was getting a bit too over-ambitious and that he should slow down for a bit, hence let things build up naturally. But enough of that – the focus now was the game, not work, which was the last thing anyone wanted to talk about.
It was an interesting game, that was for sure. Early on, the Kings built up a solid, seemingly impregnable lead, which meant that disappointment became obvious in both the arena and the break room. As the game neared its end, though, both Winnipeg and L.A. were tied, Winnipeg having clawed back their deficit, and with less than 30 seconds to go, Winnipeg suddenly scored, which brought everyone in the arena to their feet. And in the break room, everyone was ecstatic about the game and the positive outcome of the trial before the Supreme Court. At least it allowed for a break in the routine that left everyone happy – including Izzy, who took the win as a sign. As such, he now knew what he was going to do . . .
