Sam Heughan In Doctors – Supercut
The Fairy Flag of Dunvegan Castle at Skye
Scottish myths: The fairy flag of Dunvegan Castle
TO the uneducated eye the disintegrating cloth hanging in Dunvegan Castle looks more like something used to mop up a beer spill than the “most precious possession of the Clan MacLeod”. But if you look closely, you begin to pick out a delicate silk thread, the remains of an intricate pattern.
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016
TO the uneducated eye the disintegrating cloth hanging in Dunvegan Castle looks more like something used to mop up a beer spill than the “most precious possession of the Clan MacLeod”.
But if you look closely, you begin to pick out a delicate silk thread, the remains of an intricate pattern. The fabric looks ancient and foreign.
The Clan MacLeod has had its family seat at Dunvegan Castle since about the 12th century. For as long as the clan has been there, so has their flag. No one knows for certain where it came from but the MacLeods have always maintained that it is no ordinary piece of cloth. For this is no rag but the Fairy Flag of the Clan MacLeod, which came to Dunvegan from “a far away place”.
Legend has it that a long time ago a chieftain of the MacLeods met and fell in love with a beautiful woman, who unfortunately, turned out to be a fairy princess.
She begged her father to allow her to marry the handsome chief, and he agreed, on condition that she return to her fairy folk at the end of a year and a day. They were a happy couple, and the year passed all too soon. Before returning to her fairy palace beneath the hills the princess made her husband promise that he would never allow their young son to cry. Through his tears the chief agreed. His sadness grew and nobody could console him on his loss.
Loss
A great feast was organised to try to make him forget his fairy-wife. Such was the rumpus and laughter that the baby’s nursemaid crept away from his nursery to see the fun. The small baby awoke and – finding himself alone – began to cry. Nobody was there to hear him, and for ten minutes he wept out loud. When the nursemaid returned she was amazed and not a little startled to see a woman bending over the cradle comforting the infant, wrapping him up in a shawl. The mother, for it was she, then vanished into the black night. When he could talk, the boy remembered the night his mother visited. He told his father that the shawl could be used by the MacLeods three times when they were in danger and help would come, but on the fourth it would disappear. The chief took this seriously and ordered a casket to be prepared to store the fairy flag.
Flag
Hundreds of years later the MacDonalds were harassing the island. One Sunday they locked the doors of the MacLeod church and set fire to the building, killing most of the worshippers. In fear and fury, a small band of MacLeods gathered on the beach. They unfurled the fairy flag and, as if by magic, their number appeared magnified ten times. The MacDonalds were slaughtered and the flag returned to its safety in the casket.
The flag was used a second time when a terrible plague had killed nearly all the MacLeod’s cattle. With starvation on the doorstep they waved the flag once more, and again the fairy host rode down and miraculously restored the herd to health. Even today it is believed by some that the flag will give protection. During the Second World War, men from the MacLeod clan carried pictures of the flag in their pockets to act as a talisman.
Whether this saved them is not known, but the current chief, John MacLeod of MacLeod, freely admits to carrying a picture in his wallet when he fought the Mau Mau in Kenya in the 1950s. There remains a third time for the unfurling of the fairy flag, but it could be that the threat of the power of the flag is enough. It is thought that during the Second World War the clan chief offered to bring the flag to the white cliffs of Dover and wave it if it ever looked like the Germans were invading.
History does not record whether the War Cabinet slept better knowing of this “secret weapon”.
Six Ancient Myths from the Scottish Islands (The Scotsman)
Six ancient myths from the Scottish islands
From rock-dwelling giants to mermaids and seals who steal the hearts of local women, Scotland’s islands are still alive today with tales of their supernatural pasts. Here we look at six Scottish islands and the lore that keeps magic alive in these beautiful far-flung places.
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Published 13:13 Thursday 07 July 2016
From rock-dwelling giants to mermaids and seals who steal the hearts of local women, Scotland’s islands are still alive today with tales of their supernatural pasts. Here we look at six Scottish islands and the lore that keeps magic alive in these beautiful far-flung places.
Here we look at six Scottish islands and the lore that keeps magic alive in these beautiful far-flung places.
LEWIS – Blue Men of Minch
These blue-skinned creatures are said to live in the water between Lewis and mainland Scotland, looking for sailors to drown and boats to sink. Also known as Storm Kelpies, they were described at length in Donald Alexander Mackenzie’s book Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend, published in 1917. Mackenzie wrote: “They are of human size, and they have great strength. By day and by night they swim round and between the Shant Isles, and the sea there is never at rest.
“The Blue Men wear blue caps and grey faces which appear above the waves that they raise with their long restless arms.” Mackenzie said the blue men “skimmed lightly” below the water surface but were sometimes seen “splashing with mad delight” when a storm set in. Some also say the Blue Men live in underwater caves in a clan system. The origin of the Blue Men legend is unclear but possible from Moorish slaves marooned in Ireland in the 9th Century by Viking pirates and slave traders.
ORKNEY
The Selkie The Selkies are half seal, half beautiful human and were regarded as gentle, shape shifting creatures. Selkie lore is particularly potent on Orkney but the legend is also linked to the Shetland Isles – where the selkies may take on a darker role – and some parts of The Hebrides. Once in human form, the selkie folk would “dance on lonely stretches of moonlit shore, or bask in the sun on outlying skerries,” according to heritage site orkney-jar.com.
They would transform from seal to human once a year on Midsummer’s Eve with some accounts claiming the shift would come every ninth night, or seventh stream. Selkie men were known for their powerful sway over females and would come ashore, cast their seal skins and search out ‘unsatisfied women” whether they be unmarried or not.
Some believe that selkies were supernaturally formed from the souls of drowned sailors.
SKYE
The Old Man of Storr Folklore swirls around the Old Man of Storr, the rocky pinnacle which towers high over the west of the island. Legend has it that Old Man of Storr was a giant who had lived in Trotternish Ridge and when he was buried, his thumb was left jutting out the ground, creating the famous jagged landscape. But other stories have created further mystery and romance around this landmark.
One tells of a brownie – a Scottish hobgoblin-type creature – who are said to have done good deeds for the families they chose to serve. On Skye, it is said a villager called O’Sheen saved the life of a brownie with the two becoming firm friends. O’Sheen died from a broken heart following the death of his wife and the devastated Brownie took it upon himself to chisel two rocks – one in memory of O’Sheen and a smaller one to remember his wife.
SHETLAND
The Wulver The Wulver was said to live alone in a cave on Shetland and enjoyed a peaceful life. Such is the strength of this Shetland tale, the last reported sighting of the wulver is said to be in the early twentieth century. He took pity on the needy of the isles and left fish on the windowsills of the hungry. Covered in a layer of thick brown hair the Wulver was never human in the first place – unlike the werewolf. The ancient Celts believed that the Wulver actually evolved from wolves – and represented the in-between stage of man and wolf.
BENBECULA
The Mermaid’s Grave Seaweed cutters working the shore at Benbecula are said to have seen a miniature woman splashing in the sea, somersaulting and turning in the water. Some men tried to seize her and stones were thrown her way, some which hit her in the back. A few days afterwards, she was found dead at Cuile, Nunton, nearly two miles away, the legend goes. Her upper body was the size of a “well-fed child” aged three or four but with an abnormally developed breast. Her hair was long and glossy with the lower part of her body described as “like a salmon, but without the scales.” Mr Duncan Shaw, land agent for Clanranald, baron-bailie and sheriff of the district, ordered a coffin and shroud to be made for the mermaid, who was discovered around 1830.
In the early 1900s, one account stated: “There are persons still living who saw and touched this curious creature, and who give graphic descriptions of its appearance.” It is said the body was buried not far from the shore where the mermaid was found but the location of the grave is not known. A field reconnaissance of the dunes at Culla Bay, undertaken at the request of the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) at the end of the last century, led to the discovery of an isolated stone within a wind-eroded hollow upon the crest of the dunes. However, following investigation, it is not believed the stone marks the spot of the grave.
MULL
MacKinnon’s Cave One of the deepest caves in the Hebrides, it is said that Abbot MacKinnon was concealed here in the 15th Century. Deep inside lies a large, flat slab of rock, known as Fingal’s Table. The story goes that it was used as an altar by hermits and early followers of the Christian church. Another story linked to the dramatic coastal inlet is of the piper who tried to outdo the fairies in a piping competition and walked into the cave along with his dog. Only the dog returned, crazed with fear and hairless. Some say the piper went right through the hill and emerged on the other side of the headland at Tiroran on Loch Scridain. There is, however, a tunnel connection to nearby Cormorant Cave. Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell visited the cave during their tour of the area in 1773. Though they had only a candle, they measured the dimensions of the cave using a walking stick.
Forgotten Links Between Highlanders and Native Americans
The forgotten links between Highlanders and Native Americans
Despite an ocean separating their ancestral homelands, Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans encountered each other frequently on America’s wild frontier, fighting, trading and even living together. Both cultures were treated as tribal societies and driven from their lands by British authorities who would later romanticise the very ways of life they had destroyed.
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Despite an ocean separating their ancestral homelands, Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans encountered each other frequently on America’s wild frontier, fighting, trading and even living together. Both cultures were treated as tribal societies and driven from their lands by British authorities who would later romanticise the very ways of life they had destroyed.
The two peoples on the edge of Britain’s Empire underwent similar experiences at the hands of colonial powers.
Changing Times
American Indians and Highland Scots encountered colonisers in eras of major change on both sides of the Atlantic. The cliff of St Kilda Island. Over the centuries warfare and forced removal pushed many Highlanders across the Atlantic ocean.
In the eighteenth century Scotland’s Gaelic speaking Highlanders and the Indians of North America were facing increased pressure and aggression from a rapidly expanding Great Britain, that was fast becoming the most powerful nation on earth. In Scotland there was a clash between two cultures, one that was based on ancient obligations of honour and kinship and the other, an aggressive pursuit of progress and profit. British and American governments believed the Highlands and Indian lands had to be pacified before they could be civilised. This view led to several brutal and bloody confrontations as both sets of peoples – who were fiercely independent – resisted the tide of colonialism.
Historian and author Colin Calloway explains: “Both groups of people experienced displacement and other forms of colonial assault on their social and political structures, their cultures, language, and ways of life. “Highlanders and Indians organised their societies around clan and kinship, occupied land communally as tribal homelands rather than as real estate, and found themselves in the way of an expanding capitalist world that stressed individual ambition, private ownership, and aggressive exploitation of resources for profit.”
While Highlanders had been travelling to American since the 1600s, one of the first major waves of migration came after the major Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1745, when many Highlanders left (or were sent) across the Atlantic.
Despite differences between clan and tribes, eighteenth century observers viewed Highland and Indian ways of life as basically the same. They both came from rugged lands, had a strong warrior tradition within a tribal society and were used to hardship and it wasn’t long before the two cultures met. As a result the two peoples often filled roles in colonial American society such as hunters and fur traders where interactions were common.
“The most common, extensive, and enduring interactions occurred in areas where Scots were active in the fur and deerskin trades,” says Calloway. “The beaver trade among the northern tribes across Canada and the deerskin trade among the south eastern (USA) tribes like the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws lasted long into the eighteenth century.”
Trading with Indian tribes was commonplace and relations between Highland men and Native women ranged from casual encounters to enduring relationships. Intermarriage between Highlanders and Indians reached all across North America and entire Scots-Indian families were produced from these unions. Most of these Scots-Indians lived a quiet simple life but some played a significant role in American history.
Alexander McGillivray was the son of a Scottish trader father and a Creek-French mother. He was the dominant chief of the powerful Creek confederacy in the late eighteenth century, and played a pivotal role conducting the tribe’s foreign policies with Britain, Spain, and the United States. In 1790 George Washington even invited him to the temporary federal capital in New York City, where he negotiated the first treaty made by the United States after the adoption of the Constitution.
Scots-Indian, John Ross was the principal chief of the Cherokees during the era of Indian Removal around 1830, when the United States expelled 80,000 Indian people from their homelands east of the Mississippi to new lands in the West. Ross led the majority of Cherokee people in opposing Removal, wrote letters and petitions, lobbied in Congress and led them in rebuilding the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory.
Legacy
With prominent ancestors like Ross, perhaps the Highland influence is most keenly felt today among Native Americans in the Cherokee clan. It is believed that up to a half of the Cherokee Nation could be descendants of Ludovick Grant, a laird’s son from Creichie in Aberdeenshire. Grant was captured while fighting for the Jacobite army in the battle of Preston in 1715 and was due to be hanged but he escaped death and instead was transported to South Carolina, where he was an indentured servant. Following his release from his seven years of servitude, he began working as a trader for the Cherokee people and ended up marrying into the tribe and producing a daughter who became the ancestress of a huge proportion of Cherokees.
In 2004 Cree families from Canada traveled to the Orkney Islands tracing a 200-year genetic link back to the Scottish Islands. Although the traditional ways of life of both peoples were all but wiped out by colonisation and industrialisation, Highland and Native American culture endured. Even as Britain and the USA destroyed tribal societies they created romantic images of the people. Highland culture was no longer a byword for savagery but came to represent Scottish culture as a whole in the eyes of people inside and outside Scotland.
Native Americans were transformed by paintings and literature into a heroic foe, defeated by a great nation and the barbarity of what happened to them was glossed over in favour of an imagined, nostalgic past. Colin Calloway is the author of White People, Indians and Highlanders.
Highlander Immigration Helped Build America
The Highlands of Scotland proved to be a natural recruiting ground for emigrants that were to help build North America during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Highlander immigrants who helped build America
The Highlands of Scotland proved to be a natural recruiting ground for emigrants that were to help build North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. The breakdown of Highland society and culture created bleak prospects on home soil for ordinary folk while the revered fighting powers of the clans made their men sought after recruits for the British Army fighting the American Revolution.
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The breakdown of Highland society and culture created bleak prospects on home soil for ordinary folk while the revered fighting powers of the clans made their men sought after recruits for the British Army fighting the American Revolution.
Highlander migration to America in the 18th century.
From Georgia to North Carolina and New York, here we look at those from the North of Scotland who were tempted across the Atlantic – whether through desperate need or the dream of a better life. THE FIRST ARRIVALS Wanted: Industrious, laborious and brave Gaelic speaking Highlanders to populate the newly established colony of Georgia.
THE FIRST ARRIVALS
Wanted: Industrious, laborious and brave Gaelic speaking Highlanders to populate the newly established colony of Georgia.
It was 1735 with two Scots, Lieutenant Hugh Mackay and Captain George Dunbar, issuing the rallying call after being hired by Georgia’s trustees to find men suitable to defend frontiers against Spain and France and to make their 20-acre lands productive. The Highlands, whose men had been both feared and lauded for their strength and fighting power, was a natural hunting ground for the soldiers.
The Provost of Inverness, John Hossack – also a merchant and trader – was to help fund the boats to transport the men with Mackay launching a successful recruitment campaign in his home patch of Caithness and Sutherland. Dunbar successfully recruited from Clan Chattan.
Professor Marjory Harper, author and historian, said 260 men sailed to North America in three contingents between 1735 and 1741 with the first lot setting up the township of Darien on the Altamaha River – named possibly in defiance of the failed Panama scheme.
Professor Harper said; “The Highlanders did pretty well there and the trustees were pleased with what they did. A second contingent went in 1737 and a third in 1741.
“This all helped to publicise opportunity in this magical new land across the Atlantic.”
CAPE FEAR – OR THE ARGYLL COLONY
Cape Fear in North Carolina become home to around 1,200 Jacobite prisoners following the 1715 and 1745 uprisings. The fighters were the bedrock of this new community later to be known as the Argyll Colony, which attracted an estimated 20,000 Scots in the eight years before the American Revolution.
Harper’s Bazaar Interview with Outlander’s Terry Dresbach and Jon Gary Steele
HOW THE TIME-TRAVELING WORLD OF ‘OUTLANDER’ IS CREATED
by Julie Kosin, August 29, 2016
The show’s costume designer and production designer—who just so happen to be real-life best friends—open up about bringing the book series to life.
In Season 2 of Outlander, time-traveling heroine Claire Fraser (Caitriona Balfe) journeys through the 18th century, from the French court of King Louis XV to the Scottish Highlands, to 1940s (and later, ’60s) Scotland. Sounds like a daunting task for any design department, right? Not when your production designer and costume designer have been best friends and collaborators for nearly 30 years. Instead, you get a veritable smorgasbord of lavish costumes and intricate sets that tell their own stories—as well as Emmy nominations aplenty. Here, HarpersBAZAAR.com chats with Jon Gary Steele, Outlander‘s production designer, and Terry Dresbach, the show’s costume designer (and wife of its showrunner, Ronald D. Moore) to discuss their collaboration, designing accurately through different time periods and dealing with fan reactions to one of the most popular shows on television:
Harper’s BAZAAR: How do your teams collaborate to create the feel of the show?
Terry Dresbach: Gary and I have been best friends for, I hate to say, almost 30 years. I know him better than maybe I know my own husband in some ways. Creatively he’s like my twin. We confer a bit—”What color is that wall” or “What color is that dress?”—but we’re always linked creatively.
Jon Gary Steele: We actually think alike. If we’re walking the streets we’ll both notice the same thing. We always show each other as many colors of what we’re doing in advance. In Paris especially, everything was discussed. We were going for deep, dark rich colors for the walls and things like that, so her costumes would pop off. The first year we couldn’t use red because Ron [Moore, Outlander showrunner] wanted the Redcoats to be only red. It’s all thought-out and talked about.
HB: Are pieces of the sets echoed in the costumes?
TD: Always. Gary and I take vacations together and road trips. I make him chocolate cookies and he brings over a giant stack of design magazines. It doesn’t matter whether its fashion design or interiors, we’re both going, “Oh my God, look at that color.” I’ll open my email and be like, “You’ve got to see this image from Elle Décor ” or “I just saw this dress or this piece of jewelry,” so we’re always in sync. Those little pieces get echoed. I’ll walk on a set and go, “That looks like that jewelry piece you showed me last month.” Or he’ll go, “There’s that fabric color you were talking about.” It’s always threading through everything we do together.
JGS: I noticed there was a scene in Jamie and Claire’s bedroom and Claire was wearing some kind of metallic thing that was like a chain. It was a very old, ancient thing and it went from one part of her chest down to a little pocket, and Jamie has these buttons on the coat he was wearing. They’re sitting by the fireplace in this chair that had studs all up and down the sides. The fire was hitting the studs and his buttons and this piece of chain that she had on. We discussed it later; it was like it was all planned. We’re all trying to achieve the same magical thing and it does happen a lot.
HB: Gary, is there ever a time you have to make sacrifices in authenticity for the sake of filming?
JGS: Most of the time Ron wants it to feel as real and authentic as possible. Especially Season 1. When we did the first year, we did tons of research on the stones. It was so much easier to build our own stones. I hear stories all the time from people who live in the area trying to find those standing stones. I’m like, “Well, keep looking.” I wanted to put the stones up in a grove on a hill. Everyone was getting annoyed with me, and the director, John Dahl, said, “Gary, we could put it down there in the middle of that field and make everyone’s life 1,000 times easier. You’re making this really difficult!” So we get back to the office and he says, “Why are you insistent that this be in a grove on a hill when it would be so much easier to film in a field?” And I said, “Because this is the magic of this show. When you read the book, this is the one place. You shouldn’t see it from miles away. You have to work your way up and see little glimpses of it. You should get chills on your arms when you see pieces of it coming through. It’s the only thing that’s really mystical and magical. And he said, “You got your way, get out of my office.” Everybody gets it when you need it to be magical. He came up to me after we filmed it, with the women dancing around with the torches, and he said, “You were right. It worked.”
HB: What were the highlights of Season 2 for you both?
JGS: I’m a huge Francophile. It’s a dream to get to design 18th-century Paris sets because it’s one of the most decadent periods of time. It’s amazing for art, architecture, fashion, landscape architecture—everything. The best set to me was King Louis’s Star Chamber. Ron let me go a little over the top with it. The scripts just say it’s a mystical, magical space where the king leads Claire for this judgement thing. It was during a time of enlightenment, so people were interested in science and astrology and astronomy and witchcraft. We know from researchthe king dabbled in some of this. So we covered all the walls with 16th-century alchemy symbols and etchings that we found. I kept finding these amazing images of domes from ancient times throughout the world and a lot of them were pierced with little circles or stars that light would come through and land on the floor. When Claire walked through it, I wanted to have these little shafts of light cross her face and torso. I think the most response I got from anything was from that set. Even the actors were jumping up and down when they walked in, going, “Oh my God! This is fun!” And of course those crazy poisonous snakes. Usually I’m the one that asks for crazy stuff so when I heard there were going to be poisonous snakes I’m like, “Really? They’re gonna think I asked for this.”
Then we had the brothel, which was a hoot. I wanted to make the wall panels pierced so you could see the prostitutes taking men to the doors through the screens. It was supposed to be a very decadent place where Bonnie Prince Charlie would hang out. He’s royalty, he wouldn’t go to some sleazebag place. In our research, we found these underground clubs—I think one of them was in London, called the Hellcat Club—where men would do alchemy and magic and hire prostitutes. It sounds like this period was even more risqué than what we thought it was. The rich were really, really rich and they flaunted it. Sometimes it’s hard to show that kind of wealth but that’s what we were going for. We were trying to show the complete opposite of Scotland, which was much more utilitarian—just enough to get by.
TD: The French court was one of the real reasons I wanted to do the show. My whole career—my whole life—I wanted to do 18th-century France and now I’m like, “Done that! We’re good.” I’ve never been so glad to get out. I kind of poo-pooed Scotland. The kilt wasn’t a big thing for me. But I just fell in love with the Scottish stuff. There’s a subtlety and a richness and a depth to the textures. The way we tried to interpret nature in our Scottish costumes, they became something so unexpected. When you’re recreating Paris you can go as big as you want and you can be spectacular and beautiful, but you’re still creating something we all know. There’s millions of paintings. There’s clothes that still exist. But there’s a freedom to Scotland, a creative freedom that’s just magnificent. We’ve gotten really experimental. We’re painting all sorts of things and playing with textures and fabric treatments and it’s really exciting work. There’s no blueprint to follow but you have to remain true. When the show moves forward there’s a truth that we have to interpret but we get to interpret it and it’s exciting.
HB: Terry, tell me about that Swan Dress.
TD: The dress is an incredibly dramatic piece. What I tried to do with that dress was almost upstage the exposed nipples with the gloriousness of that dress. I’ve never done an adaptation before, but what I’ve learned is that people build so much anticipation into certain pieces. The Swan dress, the red dress, the wedding dress. They become pored over in detail so that when they come out, you can never match that expectation. Whereas the brown dress with the flowers on it, the Dior dress, Jamie’s coat with the deer stag. The fans didn’t have any way of anticipating them, so when they came out they were like, “Whoa!” When there is no expectation I can blow you out of the water because you weren’t anticipating something fantastic and it came at you anyway. People were freaking out about Louise’s costumes but you don’t really think about what she’s wearing in the book. [Before the show] nobody gave St. Germain’s costumes a second thought. Then they were floored by them. [The fans said], “What a minute, what? A man wore that? Oh my God, imagine walking into a room wearing that!” The other thing [about designing costumes for an adaptation] is that you are making a show for readers and non-readers. With the red dress or the nipple dress, people who didn’t read the book are like, “Huh? Why is that there?” It’s a finely-cut thing.
HB: Terry, can you walk me through the Season 2 finale? What were the challenges of going into the ’60s? What were you trying to convey with this older Claire?
TD: You should recognize the Claire we saw in Season 1, the Claire we saw in Season 2 and the Claire we see in Season 3. She should be recognizable. She cannot be this new person. It was really rewarding when viewers were going, “It’s still Claire!” They also had really powerful, emotional reactions to her costumes. People were telling me, “I cried when Claire came out with the blue robe because my mom had that robe.” Claire’s pajamas are my mother’s pajamas—literally. They’re made by Vanity Fair. They’re that nylon blue color we all know. You’re able to see Claire but you’re also kind of able to see yourself or someone you know. A lot of our audience is either Claire’s daughter or Claire. They are of that age. There’s a familiarity and there should always be. The beauty of the books for me were, “What would I do if I were in that circumstance?” So it’s about identifying with that character and trying to imagine myself in her situation. There has to be a sense of, “She’s familiar to me.” I love doing her clothes. I loved her clothes for the ’60s. I was going for Anne Bancroft.
HB: Were there particular challenges that come with aging her 20 years?
TD: Ron and I had a big argument about this. He said, “People need to believe that she’s older.” And I go, “Clothes don’t do tricks. They’re not angry, they’re not taller, they’re not shorter.” It’s really about what the person is doing. I kept saying, “You’re going to see such a leap. It’s going to be such a shift to see this woman out of 18th century clothing and into the ’60s. Then you depend on a phenomenal actress like Caitriona Balfe to sell it.
HB: We’re meeting Brianna for the first time. What did you want to say with her clothes?
TD: That was everything I ever wore when I was nine. My mother was a clothes horse. When I was nine I had a leather suit, a leather beret, a leather vest and jumper and knee-high leather boots. I remember all those outfits with tremendous love. So I translated that into Brianna. I had those corduroy pants and that pea coat and that cap. She’s listening to The Beatles and she’s looking at Carnaby Street. The British invasion is happening for her. We’re not doing Mad Men. Those million, brilliant costumes are New York on Fifth Avenue. Outlander is a different world. People are like, “You’re going to have fringe vests and paisley pants!” The majority of people didn’t wear that.
Sam Heughan on Doctors (Supercut Part 1)
Thanks to Sileas for making this. Now we can enjoy all of Sam’s scenes on Doctors in one (or two) sittings.
Outlander Casts David Berry as Lord John Grey
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Posted August 29 2016 — 10:00 AM EDT
This casting news should help take away the pain of the ongoing Droughtlander.
EW has learned exclusively that Starz has found the actor who will play the pivotal role of Lord John Grey in the third season ofOutlander, premiering in 2017.
Australian actor David Berry will take over as Grey, the former British soldier-turned-Ardsmuir Prison governor who strikes up a dubious friendship with the incarcerated Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). The third season of Outlander will be based on Voyager, the third novel in Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling series that was published in 1993.
Here’s the official description of Lord Grey by Starz: “He’s a steadfast and honorable British subject, torn between a finely-honed sense of familial duty and a strong moral compass of right and wrong. He is boyishly handsome with an upper class rearing — the consummate gentleman. However, a scandal from his past has relegated Lord John to an undesirable position as governor of a desolate prison in Northern Scotland.”
The third season will pick up right after Claire travels through the stones to return to her life in 1948. Now pregnant, she struggles with the fallout of her sudden reappearance and its effect on her marriage to her first husband, Frank. Back in the 18th century, Jamie suffers from the aftermath of his doomed last stand at the battle of Culloden, as well as the loss of Claire. Separated by continents and centuries, Claire and Jamie must find their way back to each other.
A newcomer to American TV, Berry is best known for playing James Bligh in the Australian TV show A Place to Call Home. Berry also tours nationally and internationally as a singer with the act Scream and Shout.
Starz has yet to announce when Outlander will return in 2017 — but at least fans can rest assured that it will be around for years to come. Though the drama that also stars Caitriona Balfe was picked up for a third and fourth season, Starz CEO Chris Albrecht told reporters in Beverly Hills last month that the series from Ronald D. Moore “will be around for a long time.”
Outlander Studios – Cumbernauld Stars in the Battle of Culloden
Cumbernauld stars in the Battle of Culloden
11:54Saturday 27 August 2016 0
Hundreds of film extras kitted out as Jacobites and redcoats have staged an epic rerun of the bloody 1746 Battle of Culloden in a field at Greengairs.
The gory encounter is a climactic scene in the latest series of hit fantasy-history drama Outlander, and main star Sam Heughan – broadsword in hand – was in the thick of the mock fight along with the rest of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s tartan army. Clouds of fake gunsmoke could be seen drifting across the make-believe field of slaughter – just a short distance from the heart of Cumbernauld.
The “battle”, filmed last week, was the latest success for Cumbernauld as a prospective national film studio centre, building on the reputation the town has already achieved from the filming of the first series of Outlander. Whereas before it was argued that the film base in a disused local factory was ideal as a central point for outside location shots in places including Blackness Castle and Doune the latest series has proved that countryside just minutes from the heart of the new town can be portrayed as – for example – a windswept moor in 18th century rural Inverness-shire. The real battlefield on Drumossie Moor is a war grave, and visitor attraction, and completely unsuitable for filming.
Cumbernauld’s evolving role as a successful film studio centre is taking place amid ongoing controversy about where a national film base should be sited. For several years rival plans have jockeyed for position while studio chiefs have complained about a claimed lack of action from the Scottish Government. Cumbernauld has repeatedly been touted as an ideal location for the national base, underpinned by the runaway success of Outlander at home and abroad – despite not being screened in the UK. But discussions on whether a private-public scheme based in Cumbernauld should be adopted have dragged on for more than two years.
Meanwhile other plans for studios have surfaced in Edinburgh and Dundee. Then in March both NLC and the Scottish Government confirmed that a private investor wants to expand with a new 30,000 square foot premises on-site. At 50 meters high, the building would be able to accommodate towering sets, lighting rigs and other heavy-duty apparatus. The site’s existing owners had been working on the project with the Film Studio Delivery Group from the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise. Meanwhile last week’s Cumbernauld version of Culloden isn’t the first time a supposedly unlikely Scottish location has been used for a “battle”. In the 1980’s movie Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life a farm in Kippen, Stirlingshire, was used for a comedy sketch based on the 1879 Battle of Rorkes Drift – with the Campsie Hills standing in for the hills of Zululand.
Outlander Season 3 and the Challenge of Its Storytelling (Matt Carter)
See full article below.
It was not too long ago that we first heard the glorious news: “Outlander” season 3 is in production! We may not know much in terms of a defined premiere date or guest stars just yet, but filming is underway and you can at least rest assured that the voyage to complete Voyager in in process.
Yet, with this series in particular you are certainly seeing more challenges than you would elsewhere for a show at this point in the run. You’ve got time jumps to deal with (Jamie and Claire won’t be the same age when the series returns that they are in the photo above), and you’ve also got to take on some further challenges in terms of locations with a story that changes place so often. These are things that executive producer Ronald D. Moore detailed further to the Radio Times below. (Obviously, there’s some spoilers ahead, the most minor of ones, for those who have not read the books.)
“I don’t think I’m giving too much away, but the story of season 3 will start in Scotland. Then there’s a sea voyage involved in the 18th century, an extended journey across the Atlantic, and then the story goes to Jamaica and the Caribbean and ending up in the New World … [It’s] exciting creatively, but really hard in terms of production. Normally by the third and fourth season of a show it’s basically a machine – this is the police station, this is an apartment, this is the bridge of the Enterprise – you’re familiar with using those sets. But with this it’s like you’re doing a whole new series every year.”
While we’ve heard already about the possible challenges that come could with being “at sea” or moving to other parts of the world, we’d never thought about it in relation to how many other shows operate and the advantages that come with it (despite the production costs and all the scouts necessarily). Look at it like this: A sitcom largely works within the same studio for its entire run, while a medical drama like “Grey’s Anatomy” has a mock hospital to move around in. While there are some familiar sets on “Outlander” here and there, these actors will continue to be moved around to new surroundings. For them, that could create an exciting sort of freshness — and of course for us as a viewer, it provides further visual treats. There is joy to be found in the unknown.
If you missed it, head over here to see our article about the first day of filming, complete with a few assorted comments from the cast and crew! Meanwhile, sign up over here to book some other TV news on everything we cover via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Starz.)