Eternal Kiss trailer

The trailer for Eternal Kiss, due for release in August of 2009.



Thanks to good friend John Rosoborough for all the help in putting the trailer together!

Paul Kimball

Draft trailer

This is the first draft of the trailer:

Screen captures

Some screen captures from the rough cut.

Paul Kimball

Joseph Gallaccio as David Price:


Laura Bleasdale as Laura West and Kate Mullan as Marianne Simmons:


Christina Cuffari as Stephanie Fielding:


Carly Street as Elisabeth Langstrom:


Laura Bleasdale as Laura West and David Connellan as Oliver Seward:


Christina Cuffari as Stephanie Fielding:


Nigel Bennett as Simon Polidori:


Joseph Gallaccio as David Price:


Carly Street as Elisabeth Langstrom:


Joseph Gallaccio as David Price and Vanessa Furlong as Miranda Polidori:


Sandy MacLean as Dean:


Laura Bleasdale as Laura West:


Holly Stevens as Sophie Price and Nigel Bennett as Simon Polidori:


David Connellan as Oliver Seward:

Black and White Stills

A few black and white production stills:

Joseph Gallaccio and Laura Bleasdale as David Price and Laura West.


Kate Mullan as Marianne.


Nigel Bennett as Dr. Simon Polidori.


Christina Cuffari as Stephanie Fielding.


The film was shot in colour, but the black and white photos always look great!

Paul Kimball

More production stills

Vampire hunters on the prowl.


Joseph Gallaccio as David Price.


Josepah Gallaccio and Laura Bleasdale as David Price and Laura West.

Paul Kimball

Cast - production stills

Here are some production stills of the amazing cast of the cast ofEternal Kiss - all shots taken by our 2nd AD, Ben Stevens.

Joseph Gallaccio as David Price


David Connellan as Oliver Seward


Carly Street as Elisabeth Langstrom


Laura Bleasdale as Laura West


Christina Cuffari as Stephanie Fielding


Holly Stevens as Sophie Price and Nigel Bennett as Dr. Simon Polidori


Sandy MacLean as Dean


Vanessa Furlong as Miranda Polidori


Amy Kerr as Emily Parker


Kate Mullan as Marianne

Production stills - Vol. I

Here are some photos from the Eternal Kiss shoot, which began September 11th and is ongoing.

Carly Street as Elisabeth Langstrom and Christina Cuffari as Stephanie Fielding.


Christina Cuffari as Stephanie Fielding.


Holly Stevens as Sophie Price.


Vanessa Furlong as Miranda Polidori.



So far, the shoot has gone great - we're headed into our final week!

Paul Kimball

Production Team: Bill Niven - Executive Producer

I'm happy to announce that my good friend Bill Niven is on board as the Executive Producer for Eternal Kiss.

My first job in the film and television industry was as a consultant with Salter Street Films back when Bill was the Vice-President of Development there - his office was just down the hall from mine.

Since then we've served on the boards of various industry groups and committees together, and talked about working together on a project, but nothing has ever presented itself... until now!

Welcome aboard, Bill!

Paul Kimball

Thanks Film NS!

We signed our equity investment contract with Film NS today - they are a significant partner in the production of Eternal Kiss, and it would not be possible to make the film without them.

Many thanks to Film NS CEO Ann MacKenzie for being a strong supporter of both the film and our company, to the Board of Directors at Film NS for approving our application for funding back in May, and to Director of Business & Legal Affairs Linda Wood for getting the contract done and guiding us through the paperwork.

Film and television production in Nova Scotia wouldn't exist without Film NS, and the great people who work there. I began my career with Film NS (back then it was known as the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation), and they have supported Redstar Films through our past nine years of business. I look forward to having them down to Shelburne for a set visit - the least I can do is introduce them to the vampires!

Paul Kimball

Fielding is a Robot??

Well, not quite... but Christina Cuffari (left, above), who will be playing Staphanie Fielding in Eternal Kiss in just a couple of weeks, is currently performing at the 2008 Boulder International Fringe Festival as Jane in the sci-fi mystery "Doing Time", which I co-wrote with my good friend Mac Tonnies, an American author.

I'm out in Boulder "directing" the play right now - I put "directing" in quotation marks because when you have actors as talented and hard-working as Christina and her co-star, Annie Briggs (right, above), there isn't a whole lot for a director to do once the play starts but sit back and watch the magic unfold!

Paul Kimball

Storyboards

Here are a couple of panels from the storyboards, which are being done over the next week or two.


We start production on September 10th.

Paul Kimball

Laura Bleasdale

Some recent photos of Laura Bleasdale.

Meet... Holly Stevens

Holly Stevens, who will be playing Sophie Manners' in Eternal Kiss, has been acting all her life, whether it be on set or stage. However, it wasn’t until she graduated from Acadia University in 2005 in the sciences that she decided to really pursue a career as a film actor. With a biology degree under her belt she headed off to Halifax, where she quickly found herself involved in some large budget features as well as numerous student films.

Since that moment Holly has never looked back. She has been involved in several independent features such as Waiting for the Apocalypse and Random, and numerous shorts including the role of Bee on Parker Porkham: Supernatural Detective and the lead role Gillian on The Were Jerk. To date, her favourite character was as an aristocratic lady on several book trailers for Julianne Maclean’s romance novels titled In My Wildest Fantasies and most recently The Mistress Diaries.

Character Bios - Elisabeth Langstrom

Elisabeth Langstrom

- Born Livia Aurelia Magnus, in northern Gaul, in 55 BC

- Daughter of a Roman Centurion and a landowner

Livia’s mother was consistently ill while she was growing up, and her father almost always away on military campaigns under the command of first Crassus, then Julius Caesar. She was therefore responsible for the running of the land, and for making decisions regarding the welfare and disputes of the peasants and farmers occupying their land. The responsibilities were many and continuous, and as so many men were away at war, she never married.

She was known for being incredibly strict with lazy or insubordinate servants, and used corporal punishment without a second thought. However, in several instances she intervened on behalf of destitute women, including a woman whose husband was executed by the state, and a woman whose daughter was raped and impregnated.

Livia was educated by Greek tutors, and could read and write in four languages. She was interested in science, astronomy and agriculture.

In the summer of her 31st year, she was notified that a carriage of female nobles were passing through the area. She made ready the estate for their arrival. The four women arrived in the night, brilliantly dressed. The Strangers, though clearly wealthy, never supplied their names. They were shown their rooms and brought food and wine. The following night, Livia visited the eldest of the Strangers in her chambers to see that they were pleased with the accommodations. The woman asked her to sit and talk with her. They sat for many hours and conversed about philosophy, astronomy and statecraft. The evening stretched on and seemed, pleasantly, to last an eternity. Just before dawn, Livia felt light-headed, as though she were going to pass out. It was in this moment that the Stranger “sired” her. When she awoke at dusk the following evening, the Strangers were gone, and Livia knew everything would be different.

The following events happened swiftly, almost instinctively, for Livia: She waited for her father’s return home; then murdered both her parents, most of the slaves, and sold the land and cattle. The few young female slaves she spared, she kept in her service as she travelled to Rome.

She conducted much of her business in men’s dress, but revealed her womanly aspect when, after amassing great wealth, she approached the realm of the Caesars. Livia was never a woman of great sensual desire while she breathed, or thereafter, for she had never found a man worth the true effort, but she developed the ability to seduce and manipulate the stoniest of all men. Her chief interest was profit, strategy and the science of winning.

For hundreds of years, Livia bought and sold property, while setting up international trade systems, and moving precious commodities through the Roman Empire. When the Empire dwindled, Livia moved further north into Europe, changing her name many times, and finally settled in Ireland. She found her seat at the sea.

Throughout the dark ages, she stored the great literature, art and documents that were thought lost to the world. She read, she thought, and she feasted on the local villagers. She rarely sought any company, let alone that of others’ of her kind. But she would, very, very rarely, take a particular interest in the plight of a resourceful, young peasant woman who could not seem to transcend the circumstances of poverty. When the family of one of these young women reached the peak of its’ suffering, she would swiftly murder the parents, feast on the brood, and then transform the young woman into one of her own kind. The young woman would do as Livia had done; sell the property and disappear into the world like a ghost. One of these young woman, whom Langstrom found in the early 1860s in the southern United States, was Laura Watson. Though Livia would never have considered it in this sense, she was giving birth to the children she never had… or never even knew she desired.

By the early 19th century, Livia was now living under the name Elizabeth Langstrom. The first name she chose after the most notorious female serial killer in history, Elizabeth Bathory; the last after the English gentleman whose property she had appropriated in Switzerland, and in which she was now living.

One weekend in June, in the summer of 1816 (“The Year Without a Summer”), Langstrom hosted a group of English poets at her villa in Switzerland. Dejected, bored and disillusioned by her too-long life, she usually kept company away, but her interest was piqued by this self-indulgent group of romantics. For three nights, she silently watched the group read from Tales of the Dead, and create horror stories of their own. They were high on laudanum, but their gothic imaginations, and the language they used to express their dark desires, took hold of her. Among this group was P. B. Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and an unassuming doctor and man of science, John Polidori.

Only Langstrom foresaw the massive effect the meeting of these souls would have on the world of romantic poetry. But even she did not realize the obsession that would take hold of her. Long after they were gone, she could not shake the impression that the stern, elegant Dr. Polidori had on her. She felt he kept a secret from her that she had to discover, but did not even know its’ nature. For years, she kept a watchful eye on his life, his family, his literary work. And though she never made her presence known to him, she sensed he was aware of her.

When Polidori died, she stood at his grave during the funeral, wondering at the meaning of her obsession. Polidori’s first-born son looked up at her, and she realized that the chain had not broken.

The next two centuries played out with great ferocity for Langstrom. She did not know what her fate was, but she felt a palpable awakening coming, and she acted with purpose, and with passion. She killed with passion. She exploited with passion. She destroyed and built empires with passion. Her sense of humour returned, and her personal powers grew. And all the while, she knew every step of every son in the long line of Polidori’s descendants.

In 1970, Simon Polidori, the great-great-great grandson of Polidori, emigrated from his home in Cambridge, England, to the East Coast of Canada, with his wife, Sophie. For many years, Langstrom had had her minions report his actions. But their reports came back elusive. He was elusive. It was as if he was intentionally and skillfully avoiding her detection. Shortly thereafter, she was told that he had died. Childless.

In the spring of 1978, Langstrom, who had located to Los Angeles, where she had assembled a massive media empire, travelled to Nova Scotia. She was drawn there, as though her fate was linked with Polidori, despite his passing. When she found herself at Harker’s Cove one evening in June, she felt herself staring at her own fate; at what had led her there after one and a half centuries: The young David Manners, only 8 years old. Here was her soul’s match that she had waited two thousand years to claim.

At this point begins the story of Elizabeth Langstrom, in Eternal Kiss.

Ron Foley MacDonald on Eternal Kiss prep...

Ron Foley MacDonald has been Halifax's ace theatre and film critic for well over a decade now. We're friends, and have been since our days in the music industry back in the mid 1990s, but he's never shied away from telling me when I'm working on something, or have made something, that isn't up to spec. So it means a lot to me that he likes the Eternal Kiss script, which I sent him to read a while ago. Here's his preview (original article here):

Kimball Preps 'Eternal Kiss'

Halifax filmmaker Paul Kimball is gearing up to shoot his first feature script, Eternal Kiss.

A contemporary Vampire flick to be lensed in the Shelburne Studio Complex in September, it’s a story that deftly balances humour and romance. Montreal’s Joe Gallaccio is slated to star as David Manners, an intrepid documentary maker on the trail of some suspicious characters who may or may not be real vampires.

Gallaccio - who spent a season with Shakespeare By the Sea and starred in Kimball’s as yet unfinished film version of MacBeth entitled Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow - is a charismatic and forceful actor who will undoubtedly give his Manners character a real edge.

The name David Manners is no stranger to the world of the cinema. That was the stage moniker of an immensely successful Hollywood actor from Halifax, originally named Duane Acklom, who made nearly 40 features--including Tod Browning’s ever enduring Dracula with Bela Lugosi and The Mummy with Boris Karloff--in an amazing run that made him one of the biggest stars in the movie business in the early 1930s.

Kimball has made some light of this on one of his amazing internet sites. He keeps them freshly updated, especially the ones dealing with UFOs and the paranormals (his popular site Above And Beyond seems to be a hotbed of UFO debates).

Having made a raft of UFO documentaries for the Space Channel has brought the Acadia University Graduate a reputation as a lively presence on the international UFO circuit. He’s presented some of his films - including the recent award winner Best Evidence: The Top Ten UFO Cases to UFO conferences around the world. Kimball--also a Dal Law Grad--has even organized UFO conferences here in Halifax.

And the Para-Normal is not the only universe Kimball manages to traverse with ease and confidence. His Redstar Films Company has already produced two other feature dramas including Will Fraser’s existential musician’s tale Dying Fall and the only full-length motion picture record of a Patrick Christopher-directed Shakespeare By the Sea production, Julius Caesar in Halifax’s venerable Spring Garden Road Courthouse.

With directing credits for two 13-part TV series shot for Bravo (The Classical Now Seasons One and Two) Kimball is ideally positioned to move on to direct his own feature scripts. In the last two years he directed two stage pieces (Peter Brook’s Marat/Sade and new original sci-fi script Doing Time with Mac Tonnes), specifically to hone his skills dealing with actors and scenography.

As the financing gently falls into place for Kimball’s Eternal Kiss--Film Nova Scotia is already on board according to the website--the East Coast might just want to prepare itself for some edgy genre filmmaking from an emerging filmmaker who has managed to be both a veteran of the scene and a bright new talent on the horizon.

Location Scouting

Here are some photos from a location scout Director of Photography Tarek Abouamin and I conducted in Shelburne on Thursday.

This is one of the bedrooms in the crew quarters section, which will also be used for a scene that is set in a hotel:



This photo shows yours truly firing a golf ball into a lake at a local driving range in Shelburne, where another scene is set:



This photo shows what will be "Dean's Place", a bar in which several scenes are set:



A hallway in the sound stage facility, where a confrontation between our heroine and some bad vampires will play out:



Another room in the crew quarters area:



A cemetery in town where one of the scenes is set:



Finally, the exterior of David and Oliver's office building in Shelburne (the interiors will be shot at the sound stage).



Shelburne is a superb facility - we are going to have a great time filming there!

Paul Kimball