Gary Wheeseltin going national
Creation of teenager tentatively scheduled to appear on Bell's Fibetv1 this fall
After five gruelling years of hard-hitting interviews with Newfoundland and Labrador musicians, entertainers, athletes and media personalities, 60-year-old Gary Wheeseltin worried if he didn’t stop hosting NL Now, he might come apart at the seams.
But Wheeseltin, a puppet and character created and voiced by 16-year-old Jake Thompson, can’t relax just yet.
Last summer, Jake and Pete Soucy began working on scripts for a nine episode, seven-minute show “The Adventures of Gary and Lou.” The series is tentatively scheduled to air this fall on Bell’s Fibre TV as an ondemand feature.
“Gary … he’s moving on, he basically has no plans, he just wants to sit back and relax and do nothing now that he’s retired,” Jake said. “But Lou, his next-door neighbour, has other plans. They make a deal for the seven days after Gary’s retirement that they will go on an adventure.”
The new show was shot over a period of five, intense days, with Ruth Lawrence in the director’s chair.
Going from a fascination with “The Muppet Show” as a two-year-old boy to creating a Youtube channel at 11 and to now having his creation available nationally is something Jake never expected.
YOUNGER PART FOR SOUCY
The dynamic of a 60-year-old and a 16-year-old working together on the writing was perfect, Soucy said.
“He kept the energy and the joy in it and I had the experience of (knowing) how to finish and polish a script,” said the veteran Newfoundland actor and writer.
As the new show took form, so did a voice for the younger character of Lou.
Soucy ended up playing that role. It was an unexpected, but welcome development, he said.
The shooting process was terrific but exhausting, Soucy said.
“There were long days, 12hour days and I haven’t really had to hold my arms up over my head for long periods of time for quite a while. So, it put me through my paces and I had some soreness ... but it was great,” Soucy said. “Ruth and (producer) Jenny Hawley put together such a fantastic group of people. They were thoroughly professional, enthusiastic, optimistic, forward-looking and every day was a wonder to behold how well everybody worked. And there’s so many people, it takes so many people to shoot a show like this. It was a joy from start to finish.”
FIRST-CLASS EXPERIENCE
Producing was a joy, Hawley said.
“There (were) moments when … we would cut our take and our sound recordist would say ‘We need to do that again because I can hear everyone laughing in the background,’” she said.
“We actually shot part of one of the scenes on my front step of my house and all the neighbourhood kids … sat down on the front lawn and were watching us film for hours, wrapped up in blankets.”
Jake’s father Chris Thompson said he’s been watching his son’s puppetry passion steadily develop since he was a child. But it was surprising to see how many people were involved in the production.
“(There’s) a lot of great people in it,” he said. “It’s first class.”
Experiencing so many people on set making his vision become a reality was really cool, Jake said.
“Some of them would say to me they couldn’t believe a 16-year-old gave them their job for a couple weeks,” he said.
For Soucy, Jake is a champion. And it warms his heart that there is still inspired, passionate people, creating opportunities in the province.
“It really comes down to fearlessness. Fearless creative energy that makes it all happen and that creates a wonderful working environment and working landscape for everybody here,” he said. “I got a feeling that this could very well be the start of something a little longer and more fulfilling for everyone attached to it.”