Latest news with #Leven
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
Father is fined £80 for taking his son out of school for 20th anniversary of Boxing Day tsunami that killed his two brothers
A single father has been fined £80 after he removed his son from school to mark the 20th anniversary of a tsunami that killed his two brothers. Jack Coop, who was 16 when his siblings perished in the horror wave in 2004, flew out with his family to Thailand at Christmas time last year to remember the tragic event. Mr Coop had stayed at home on Boxing Day 21 years ago when the horror occurred to look after his cancer-stricken grandfather as his mum, her fiance, and two young sons jetted off to their dream holiday. But none of the family would return, except mum Sharon Howard who was miraculously saved, when a tsunami struck the Thai resort of Khao Lak. Ms Howard lost her partner David Page and sons Mason, eight, and Taylor, six. Now, Mr Coop, Sharon's surviving son has branded the school as showing 'no empathy' after he took his own son Leven out of St Ives School in Cornwall for a few days to mark the occasion. Mr Coop said there was no one else to look after Leven and that he wanted to involve him in something important. He claimed he had been 'ignored' when trying to get the trip waived for 'exceptional' circumstances. Leven missed a total of seven days of school to enable the three-week trip and had previously had no issues with attendance. Mr Coop, a carpenter from St Ives, who was returning to Thailand for the first time in 18 years, said: 'I was 16 when it happened and was very young to see a lot of the things I saw. 'A lot of things have to live with you forever. I don't talk about them that often - they are things you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy what we had to see and go through as a family. 'Mason and Taylor were my son's uncles at the end of the day. He has heard so much about them. 'He's never had the opportunity to go over there and it was financially a stretch to go. But to make the effort to go out there and support the family - and then get fined - seems a bit of a crazy thing to do.' Sharon's three loved ones were among 151 Brits killed in the tsunami as water engulfed their ground floor hotel room. Mason was on a sunbed outside the room while Taylor had been taken to a kid's club. David was killed instantly when the wall of water struck him and Sharon was knocked unconscious. She later scrambled out of her room and her life was saved by Australian holidaymaker Ian Walsh, who hauled her to safety by dangling a beach towel from above. Mr Coop said: 'I knew I would regret it if I didn't go. I feel more emotional now than I did when it happened. I think it was because it was like a part of my brain shut down for years. 'You learn to live without them but you never forget. You never heal. I see their friends around still and what they are doing and it makes me wonder what my boys would have been doing - if they'd have had children, what they would look like. But I'll never know.' Mr Coop added he had needed to go and support his mum and flew back with her. He said: 'It was incredibly traumatic for her. I was settling her in, we were meeting people that saved mum, working that network. Mum also had to do a number of interviews and there were ceremonies to attend. 'There were some nice things and it was nice for the country to remember everyone that was lost with all the families there celebrating their lives. 'Rightly so, mum was there and brought her family. Thailand is such a big part of our lives. I only went back very early on after the tsunami so it has been around 18 years now since I've been. 'It was an emotional experience for everyone and it was nice to celebrate them and to see they are still remembered. It has been a long time but was very emotional.' Jack said he initially made an application to take Leven out of school for four days, which was turned down. He then decided to go a few days earlier so he could fly with his mum, who had changed her date so she could meet some of her rescuers. After returning, he was told the fine could be 'waived' by the school in 'exceptional circumstances' but claimed all efforts to communciate with the school had fallen on deaf ears. He added: 'I've still not heard from the school. It was originally going to be four days but as I was getting fined anyway and mum had left earlier we thought we would go early to support her. 'I would have just liked to see a bit of empathy towards the situation from the school and the headmaster - but there has been none of that. 'I explained it all on the form why I was going. But was told by Cornwall Council they won't accept it. I was told if there were any issues and "exceptional" circumstances the school could revoke it. You can not get much more exceptional than this in my eyes. 'I would understand if I was taking him out of school on a regular basis. There needs to be some enforcement for education but he's had no previous issues with attendance. 'I've not paid it yet. It is not even about the money or the fine. It is only £80 but it is the principle and the fact you can not communicate with anyone. 'I put in an application and it got turned down. 'Mum then changed her date as she was going over to meet people saved her. She was going a bit earlier than Boxing Day and as I was getting fined anyway I went out seven days early before the school broke up so we could be with mum. 'I am a single dad and there is no one else that can have him. 'Regardless of that he had to come - it was very important for him to learn about the history of our family and what happened. 'It was the last week of school before Christmas and they were just messing around anyway and watching videos. It was not like he had any exams.' Mr Coop said he has since tried to phone the headteacher on multiple occasions to speak with him personally but hasn't had a call back. He added: 'I can't stress how important it was to be with mum and support her after everything we saw and went through. 'There was no way I could just let my mum go back through that. She has suffered enough. There was no one else to support her and no one in their right mind would allow her to go alone. 'There is a lot of trauma still in the family from it all. We all live with it each day. It is hard to speak about the main thing was to support mum as she went to show her respects and be there for her.' Of the fine, Ms Howard said: 'This needs to be out in the open. We had hoped he could have gone a bit later but there were genuine reasons why he needed to go out beforehand. 'A lot of others wouldn't even have asked for permission so I hope the school sees sense.' She said she had needed to be in Thailand for the anniversary and added: 'I am not the same person I was before. 'I lost my two babies who still needed me. I needed to mark the anniversary where it happened. 'David had taken us to Thailand because I was convalescing from a hysterectomy. 'We had two days left when the tsunami struck. 'We suddenly heard this huge noise like a jet and the water came in. I blacked out after I told David: "I'm going now. I love you".' Cornwall Council said its only role was to administer fines on behalf of schools and wasn't part of the decision making process. A waive of the fine would have to be made by St Ives School under 'exceptional circumstances.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How ‘Severance' creates Lumon's ‘manufactured perfection' through VFX
As sci-fi TV shows go, Severance certainly seems lighter on special effects than the likes of Andor. There are no alien planets or laser guns to be had here, after all — but the 'manufactured perfection' of Severance still takes a lot of work. Lumon Industries is determined to shape the world according to the corporate ethos of Kier Eagan, and putting that world on screen requires a variety of techniques. In a new interview with Gold Derby, Severance VFX supervisor Eric Leven of Industrial Light & Magic explains how various aspects of Season 2 were constructed. Alongside his commentary, you can watch the finished shots in the reel below. Severance has constructed massive sets for the labyrinthine white hallways of Lumon's office. But filming Season 2's dramatic opening scene, in which Mark S. (Adam Scott) runs paranoid through seemingly endless corridors in a single camera shot, required more than what the production could physically build. More from GoldDerby 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' Final 2025 Tony Awards winner odds in all 26 categories, including last-minute Best Actress in a Musical flip to Audra McDonald 'Deliciously at odds': Zachary Quinto on embodying the brilliant yet flawed Dr. Oliver Wolf in 'Brilliant Minds' 'Ben [Stiller] really likes to shoot as much practically as possible, he wants to have as much reality as possible, but particularly for that opening scene, there was just no way to do that,' Leven says. 'So even for the very first shot, where they had envisioned this very precise mechanical movement around Mark's head so it makes this 540-degree circle and then moves out of the elevator and then swings all over the lobby and then runs down the hallways, there was no way to shoot that practically. There is no camera setup that can make that happen. So we started combining a bunch of different techniques, one of which was this big giant robot motion-controlled camera.' But a camera that size couldn't fit in the Lumon elevator, so then Leven's team had to figure out how to create a digital version of the elevator to make it work. Ultimately, that opening sequence involved a combination of real sets and CGI environments, blended together to look seamless — a process that took nearly six months to complete. 'There's a part where we're pushing with Mark, and then we do this 180 around him,' Leven says. 'What became the most feasible was, let's put him on a treadmill and build a CG environment around him. So he was running through real hallways for part of this shot, but the trick was, even with these endless stages, there's only so much he can actually run through. So we did have to do a bunch of stitches. "Ben was really adamant that audiences are more sophisticated now, they can see these stitches. We wanted to make sure to avoid that. We basically shuffled the deck and made new techniques. So for example, when Mark goes around a corner, you would think that normally that corner wall would be the stitch point, but we would back in to, say, his ankle so that if you watch really carefully, you'd see his foot never leaves the frame. And this keeps the audience guessing." READ: The Bell Labs complex in New Jersey stands in for Lumon's office building where Mark S. and his fellow innies report to work every day. But as anyone who attended the Severance event at Bell Labs back in April knows, there's still a big difference between our real world and Lumon. Leven and his team help create that difference. 'It was important for Ben to be on a real location that the actors can react to,' Leven says. 'But we want to make this place look isolated in the middle of nowhere, so we're getting rid of other houses, we're changing the trees. Everything has to be perfect, precise, and symmetrical. So we're changing the layout of some of the roadways and the surrounding environment. We're adding period cars, because Severance takes place in this nebulous world where, for some reason, a lot of the cars are from the '80s.' Leven credits Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle with the idea for the '80s cars. It's an aesthetic that Hindle personally likes, which also helps distinguish Severance's world. Meanwhile, the specific layout of the Bell Labs building posed its own problem. 'What's really interesting about the Bell Labs building is that it was the first building ever built with a mirrored exterior, the first mirrored building,' Leven says. 'So when the camera is looking away from Bell Labs in the parking lot, we obviously have a lot of work to do, like I said: Making the symmetrical roadways, making everything perfect, adding all these cars, changing the trees. But then, when you point the camera towards the building, you may think it's practical and we don't have to change anything in visual effects, but because there's a big giant mirror, we are now reflecting all of this stuff that also needs to be changed. So now we're adding the reflection of the period cars, the reflection of the symmetrical roadway. Just about every shot is, if not completely digital, almost 80 percent replaced in CG.' Special effects work best when they are a vehicle for storytelling, and all this work by Leven and his team does have a resonance with the show's big themes. It takes a lot of work to make things seem so perfect. Lumon often appears to have total control over their severed employees, but the past two seasons have shown that such control takes a lot of work, and can break down easily. 'It's a manufactured perfection that is never really achievable,' Leven says. 'That is one of the things Lumon is trying to do, but it feels like whenever mankind tries to do that, it always backfires.' Hindle also told Leven that one of his big aesthetic touchpoints for Severance, in addition to '80s cars, was a shot from the Joel and Ethan Coen's film Fargo, where a character is alone in a big wintry field, surrounded by snow that makes them seem like a small, insignificant speck. That's what Severance creatives want Lumon employees to feel like. Unfortunately, snow is hard to control. 'That's where a lot of that idea that there should be this constant snowfall comes from, and they schedule the shoot to happen in the winter,' Leven says. 'They're shooting in New York, they go to places like upstate New York and Newfoundland, and then the weather does what it does, and frequently it just doesn't snow. Or if it does snow, it's not enough snow or it snows and immediately melts the next day or whatever.' Once again, reality must be massaged by the magic of VFX in order to give Severance the required look of endless winter. 'There's a constant visual effects presence to make this snow a character throughout the series,' Leven says. 'Because Ben likes to shoot as much real as possible, we try to have some practical snow on set, but even when they have these big piles of snow that they shovel into the location, that snow is too chunky or it's not the right shape or not the right design. So even the practical snow is changed by visual effects to give the perfection of Lumon and the town of Kier. Everything has to be just so.' READ: One of the most dramatic moments in the Severance Season 2 finale comes when Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) summons a marching band to MDR to celebrate Mark's achievement with the 'Cold Harbor' project. As you might expect, the band was mostly cast with real actors in costumes — but VFX helped swell their ranks. 'They had a band there, and they really wanted the band to crowd MDR,' Leven syas. 'But MDR is a really big space, so it was like, how many band members can we get? Because every additional band member is another costume and another instrument. So they got a certain number of band members, but then it was like, well, this area feels a little bit empty over here. Can you fill that in with extra band members? So we would do some of that. We'd fill in with extra band members where it felt a little empty.' But the biggest challenge of this sequence was the overhead shot where the band members hold up cards forming Mark's face and 100 percent completion of Cold Harbor. 'Ben and I thought, we really need to do this as practically as possible,' Leven says. 'The issue was that the real MDR set has a ceiling, and you just couldn't get a camera high enough to get that shot. So we actually had to shoot that one shot on a different stage, on a different day, with the whole band. But even then, the camera could only get so high. I think we only saw maybe 16 or 18 band members in the practical high shot. So then we were adding all the additional band members digitally, adding CG walls of MDR, and then all of the cards are CG. It was a really great use of having that practical base to work from.' Watch Gold Derby's exclusive roundtable with the cast and creators of Severance: Best of GoldDerby 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Click here to read the full article.
Telegraph
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Manchester hotel that's full of Nineties nostalgia
On any stroll through Manchester's Gay Village, I try to piece together fractured, blurred bits of the Nineties. Like many Gen X bores, I gas on about the Haçienda, and how all the dives – as well as what, 30 years ago, felt like shockingly new and edgy bars around Canal Street – were starting points for misadventures that ended up in utter chaos at the now fabled nightclub (long since turned into luxury flats, of course). On a recent visit, I was wondering where, precisely, amid all the old redbrick waterside warehouses, a particularly memorable and magnificent multi-level restaurant and bar complex designed by Marc Newson, had been. While checking into Leven, the swish, oh-so 2020s aparthotel on the corner of Canal and Chorlton Streets, I clocked that defunct restaurant's name four down on the cocktail list (the bar doubles as Leven's reception): 'Mash & Air! Wow!' I announced with a camp flourish to the moustachioed mixologist. 'You'll be too young to know what that is!' He was the wrong generation to have been a patron, but he knew what it was: 'You're standing right where it used to be.' Mind blown. Hallowed ground. And even if this hadn't been where Mash & Air was, I'd still give Leven a solid 10/10 for location. Canal Street has changed massively over the decades, but it's still party central, super-queer (but welcoming to all who are respectful, with a lot of hen parties in the mix), and a five-minute walk from the main railway station. I'd give full marks to Leven for a lot of things, actually. The aesthetic is calm and clean, with a few Manchester-centric twists (industrial metalwork on the hallway ceilings, for example) and flattering lighting. It's chic throughout and the rooms would be perfect for longer stays as well as weekends. Kitchenettes and tables for two mix with original warehouse exposed-brick walls, wooden floors, and marble and ceramic shower rooms with Grown Alchemist body products from Melbourne (the current hot brand for those jaded by Aesop). The 'Life Size' entry-level rooms have a decent footprint, all with good views, too. The penthouses, on the more recently built top floor, have a duplex arrangement and are popular with TV luminaries in town for filming. Some have baths and balconies. All rooms also come with a gratis pair of white socks as an amenity – a great idea. I always feel like an ugly sister in Cinderella trying to fit my giant hoofs into tiny towelling slippers that barely last a single wear. The hotel is overtly aligned with the surrounding local nightlife (there are earplugs on the bedside tables, but I wasn't kept up at all) and its lobby bar – stocked with Leven-branded merch – is cute. As Google Maps said of pretty much everywhere for so long, it's 'cosy with good cocktails'. You're not coming here for an evening with friends, but it's a good starting point. I didn't have the Mash & Air cocktail (I don't do vodka-based drinks after breakfast), but the Bananas Fostered, a mix of spiced rum, banana liqueur, cinnamon and caramel, was a party in my mouth. A continental breakfast is served in a little library space at the end of a hallway off reception. It had been cleared away when I surfaced at 9:45am, but staff quickly got the toaster back out for me and rustled up a flat white. I lingered for an hour at the long communal table, working contentedly before my train back to London. There's no official Leven restaurant, but the hotel shares the building with Maya, which is spread over three floors and flashy, new-wave Manc glam in feel. Get a Yuzu Gimlet cocktail on the ground floor; head one floor down for grilled steaks and martinis; then hit the basement for the vaguely Prince-themed live music and club space that I could just about recognise as being the home of the old brewery in Mash & Air. I got talking to a couple at the bar on the ground floor of Maya, who were only too happy to hear me go on about the Nineties. 'Oh, it must have been so great,' one said. 'Yeah, it was,' I told her. 'But so is all this.' Doubles from £99; breakfast, £12. There are four fully accessible rooms. O'Flaherty travelled as a guest of Avanti West Coast, which offers returns from London and Manchester from £32 one way. Leven, 40 Chorlton Street, Manchester (0161 3597900)
