25 Actors: Day 1 - Chris Lamb

As part of the 25 Days of Sine Fine Films extravaganza leading up the 25th Anniversary I have decided to write a series of posts celebrating the 25 actors who have been the most dedicated by participating in the most productions.  

               Actor of the Day: Chris Lamb

Chris joined the company in spring of 1998 when we were filming The Perfect Combination. He has participated in 5 productions as cast and/or crew.  

While filming The Perfect Combination on day we needed some extras to be evil henchmen.  He was friends with Chris Hutchens and Mike Baym so they called him to come over and he did.  I'm not sure if he and Annamarie were dating at this point but if they were that was one more person asking him to come.  Have a black turtleneck and black pants? Have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon?  Then come and be a henchmen!

There was a fabulous miscalculation on my part in the filming and/or script because in one scene the henchmen get killed and a few scenes later they are alive again.  For this beautiful piece of unintentional resurrection they received the award for Best Extras at the first Frank Awards in 1998. 

In the summer he was again persuaded to be an extra for the fairy dance in The King of Elflin's Daughter where he turned out to be a great dancer and he and Annamarie stole the show with their graceful abilities.  How do they make it look so easy?

He was also willing to be Mike Baym's stand-in as Malacite when Mike couldn't make it to the shoot early enough to film all the scenes he needed to.  Chris was of similar height, build, and hair color...ish so I put him in the costume and filmed over the shoulder shots and some far away wide shots.  I think it worked. Sort of.

Since he was already on set he agreed to be the elf assistant to the King and there are some great bloopers of him helping Edward Stasheff get into his "armor" and it failing miserably. There was some down time on that shoot and it was the first time I got to hang out with him a little.  He's a really funny guy and a perfect match for Annamarie so I was happy to see them get together. They're both so wonderfully goofy!

Up until now he had only played extras but that changed when Edward cast him as Talin DuFole in Mind Games.  I was reluctant to film it at first since I was trying to kick my addiction to filming, but Chris was actually one of the main reasons I decided to go ahead with the production.  He'd been willing to play any part and deserved to have a chance at playing a real character.  And what a character Talin is!

As the primary antagonist of Mind Games, Talin is a psychic who starts out a really nice guy but then goes insane, believes himself to be Death incarnate, and tries to kill everyone on the spaceship. Chris did an excellant job of playing both the nice, sensitive guy and the insane Grim Reaper.  He was really quite intense and even scary sometimes in that role and I still think his performance as Talin is one of the best in all the SFF productions. He also helped out with some of the special effects in Mind Games, including the Talin/Tilia morph which I did not have the equipment to do at the time so that was awesome. 

When I decided to turn the Destiny Trilogy into a TV mini-series that aired on PCE-TV in the spring and summer of 1999 I needed someone to do the voice for the villain Tartarus. You only see his hand so all his lines are just a voice over. The original actor who did the voice overs back in 1997 was a random guy in my high school class who had a great voice and agreed to do it but I had no idea where he was and the voice overs had been recorded on a cassette tape and then lost.  I re-recorded the lines with Chris Lamb doing the part and the deep voice he used sounded great.

Always a glutton for punishment and still seriously addicted to filming I began shooting the longest TV show - Pandora's Box.  Once again Chris was willing to take any part as long as he had the time to do it and ended up being both Lord Scarsdale, an imperialist, and Alban, a rebel.  So that was interesting.  He also agreed to play various soldiers and rebels extras as needed. Thanks Chris!

One of the reason he played Alban is because Jacob MacLeod wanted to choreograph a kick-ass fight for the final episode.  Since Chris was dating Jacob's sister and they hung out a lot it was easy for Jacob to do the choreography with Chris and spend time on their own practicing it.  

Chris also helped Annamarie with the fight scene choreography in Episode 4 and was willing to freeze his butt off.  In classic Yibble-forgot-to-bring-an-extra-costume-but-here's-a-cloak-so-just-wear-that style he looked a bit out of place but the fight was really cool and Annamarie was drenched with blood so his costume's not the first thing you notice.  Unless you're me.

After filming Pandora's Box I began filming new productions at college and Chris became really busy getting his degree and starting his own business.  He no longer had time to film with us but was able to join in the fun at reunions.  He was also willing and able to be play Judge Sommers for the TV segment Edgar Lee Masters and the Spoon River Valley I filmed for Prairie Fire on WILL-TV in 2007, but that's not a SFF production.  He did a great job though.

I haven't been able to film with Chris since 2007 and he hasn't been able to participate in an SFF production since Pandora's Box in the fall of 1999.  Although I would love to film with him again someday he is WAY too busy for that and currently he and Annamarie (and their wonderful family) live far away from our hometown in Central Illinois.  I hope he is doing well.  Thanks for always being willing to jump in as needed Chris!