A Visit to Dominic's Film Set

As fate would have it, Dominic Monaghan is here in my home town of Ottawa, Ontario for a few weeks to shoot a movie called The Day. He has been spotted at several well-known Ottawa locations over the past week including Algonquin College and the University of Ottawa (where he held Q&A sessions with students), the National Arts Centre (where he attended a performance of Romeo & Juliet), the Rideau Center shopping mall, a downtown pub, and various restaurants.

This weekend I received a tip that a film crew had closed down a road in the small town of Vars, which is about 20 minutes from my home. Given that film shoots in Ottawa are quite rare, I threw a few LOST items (including Charlie's pants) into my car and drove there with my daughter to check out the situation. Despite the clouds and rain, this was an opportunity I didn't want to miss.

Although there was indeed a film shooting in Vars, it was not The Day. It was instead a film called La Sacrée, touted as the very first Franco-Ontarian comedy. Coincidentally (and I love this coincidence given LOST's propensity for overloading names) the director of the film is also named Dominic -- Dominic Desjardins.

Although slightly disappointed to miss Dom M, I had the good fortune to speak with a local resident whose home was used to shoot several scenes of the movie. She mentioned that the house had in another life been a branch of the Royal Bank, with the bank on the ground floor and the bank manager living directly above it on the second floor. Here's the fun part -- my Father had also been a bank manager and our family lived directly above the bank that he managed. Crazy, huh?

So, although my quest to meet Dominic Monaghan continues, I did get to visit a location shoot and had a very nice conversation in the process. I've included some pics from the visit below.

For more about the film check out La Sacrée's Facebook Page

The stretch of road on which they were filming was closed off.

A couple of rental trucks and several cast and crew cars lined the road.

The filming location.

The bank manager lived directly above the bank, and even had a concealed peephole in his floor through which he had a direct view of the bank's safe. It's a little hard to see here, but this is a view of the 2nd-storey floor, with the bank safe's door below. (The safe is still in place and the current owner uses it as a pantry.)

Fro Design LOST package

Fro Design has issued quite a few LOST prints over the last year. I decided to pick up their LOST package of twelve 11x17 posters. I particularly like the first four prints below.

John Lennon Pen by Montblanc

While overseas recently I spent a little time window shopping at an enclave of super-exclusive boutiques. One item that caught my eye was a collection of pens from Montblanc tied into Lennon's 70th birthday.

It is hard to know what Lennon himself would have thought about his association with pricey luxury goods -- like Dylan, contradiction and inconsistency were an integral part of his character and his charm. Perhaps he would have been disgusted, or perhaps he would have been delighted to find another way to move money from the fortunate to those in need.

Although I didn't spring for the pens, I did pick up this slick promotional book which has some fantastic visuals of the man...and his pen.

Best. LOST. Prizes. Ever.

What could be better than winning a Locke's Secret screenprint signed by Damon Lindelof? How about winning said print while also helping a Nashville family rebuild their flood-damaged home? Sounds good, yeah?

The signed Locke's Secret is one of many fantastic prizes that are part of a raffle organized by The Kharma Initiative. Check out full details here.

Giving feels good, and giving then winning feels glorious. If you can spare a dime, brothah, this is the place to spend it.

Lost Auction: Jin's Handcuffs

The first lot I won at the LOST auction was #167, Jin's handcuffs. Prior to the auction I prepared a spreadsheet to help guide my bidding. Basically, I gave each item a "desirability" grade and also noted down the number of advance bids it had garnered. My strategy was to target items which had both high desirability and a relatively small number of advance bids. I gave this lot a B+ and noted that it had only 3 advance bids, so it was on my bid list.


First off we have the intact metal cuffs, which I'll label Cuff-M1. (It turns out that the collection consists of ten cuffs, so I needed to label them to keep track!) These are the cuffs with which Sawyer secured Jin to the Oceanic 815 wreckage following Jin's assault on Michael. There are no engravings on these cuffs other than a "Taiwan" label.

Cuff R-1. These are "comfort" cuffs, made from a light rubber. The cuffs can be opened and closed by removing and inserting a metal pin.

Here are some screenshots of the intact cuffs, from the time Sawyer heads toward Jin until seconds before Michael uses an axe to cut the chain. It's pretty obvious that the M-1s aren't the cuffs used in the scenes after Jin is secured to the wreckage, unless the length of M-1's chain was shortened some time thereafter. The cuffs Sawyer is holding may be the M-1s though. Or perhaps I got a pair of Kate's cuffs instead?

Cuff M-2. This is a single cuff with little to no rust made by Peerless Handcuff Co. of Springfield, MA.

Cuff M-3. Another Peerless cuff, slightly more distressed than the first. This one has a number hand-etched onto it.

Cuff-R2. This is the rubber version of the single cuff. I assume that the LOST crew added the Peerless name to match the real thing.

Screenshots of the single cuff, from the moment after Michael broke the chain with an axe through his adventure on the raft and return to the beach camp during season 2.

Cuff M-4. An opened (but unbroken) single cuff with a bit of rust. Although the company name isn't present, a bit of research suggests that it is also made by Peerless and is actually intended to be a leg iron rather than a handcuff.

Cuff M-5. A model 703 leg iron by Peerless, with a cut clasp.

Cuff M-6. Very similar to M5, though a little less rusty/distressed.

Cuff M-7. Another severed 703.

Cuff M-8. One final severed 703, this one with some extra rust distress.

A bonus shard, though I can't seem to figure out which cuff it might have been cut from!

Screenshots of the happy day when Locke used the Swan station's bolt cutters to finally remove Jin's handcuff. Looks like it might have been the M-6 in these shots!


The LOST Complete Collection bonus disc contains a featurette called "Artifacts of the Island" where propmaster Rob Kyker, cast and crew reminisce about some of the LOST props, including Jin's handcuffs.