Wednesday, April 8, 2009

A Dog's Breakfast

“A Dog’s Breakfast” is the project of actor turned writer, director, and story teller David Hewlett. David is best known for his portrayal of the genius and arrogant Dr. Rodney McKay on SciFi’s Channels enormously successful Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.

Produced by his wife Jane Loughman and starring himself, his lovely and talented sister Kate Hewlett, as well as fellow SGA cast member the ever funny Paul McGillion. Guest staring SG-1's Christopher Judge, SGA’s Rachel Lutrell, the beautiful Amanda Byram, and of course Mars The Dog.

David’s character, Patrick, is an eccentric somewhat neurotic 40ish guy who still lives in the house he inherited from his parents with his dog Mars. He eats every flavor of his fruit cereal each morning from a different bowl, is addicted to on line auctions (hence much of the missing furniture and pictures) and is obsessed by a spider and its web just outside his living room window.

But Patrick’s little world is soon turned upside down when his sister Marilyn (Kate Hewlett), a makeup artist, shows up with her new fiancee Ryan (Paul McGillion who plays several parts), as a well known TV SciFi star on the fictional show Star-Crossed.

This cleverly written and wonderfully acted slapstick comedy is the best eighty-eight minutes you will spend in a long time. “A Dog’s Breakfast” is packed with fun filled prat falls, plot turns and misdirections that will keep you on the edge of your seat laughing.

As a supporter of independent films “A Dog’s Breakfast” is clear proof that it doesn’t take big budget Hollywood to produce a quality movie that has found a home in my DVD collection. You can watch “A Dog’s Breakfast” on Hulu and if you enjoy it as much as I did...I encourage you to help support independent films by purchasing your copy at Amazon.com.



David

Friday, February 20, 2009

The NASA Project

I am pretty excited about a new project. One that will take me out from behind lens for a little while. With the blessing of NASA and in fact as this is their Fiftieth Anniversary one they have encouraged me to undertake. I am restoring images from the 1959-1960 Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Space Program.

I have to give NASA a lot of credit they documented and photographed everything. The mountains of information so far is just amazing. From crew selection, to training, equipment development and mission reports that are hundreds and hundreds of pages long.

The most difficult part I think of the whole project I believe will be in bringing all of this material together into one cohesive bundle and yet still keep it an engrossing and entertaining read. The tendency for people to simply skim the surface, to hold their attention, to make it compelling this will be the real task.

We seem to have almost evolved into a society where brief visual stimulation has replaced intellectual curiosity. In short many people really don’t read anymore. It takes too much of their valuable time, “Why should I read the book when I can just see the movie” type of thought process.

The story of the so called “Space Race” was personified as one of “Good vs Evil” and was made possible by more than just the Astronauts that piloted these rockets beyond our earthly confines. It took engineers, machinists, carpenters, masons and seamstresses. The Apollo Space suit alone had twenty seven layers of insinuation! It took the work, and in some cases the lives, of more than four hundred thousand Americans for Neil Armstrong to take that first small step.

It was a time when we learned by trial and error and it opened the door to so many of the technological advances we have today. What I find most saddening is that the program waned and faded not because of failure but because people simply lost interest. Sending a man to the moon was with in just a few short months of Apollo 11's landing to be something almost common place.

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance and kindness of NASA for the information and images you will be viewing in the coming months. A time when man reached for the stars.

David




Earth Rise...Taken by Apollo 8, 24 December 1968.