Review: Mystery man in the middle from the Big Miracle movie set image is revealed

Between February 3 and February 26 of this year, I ran a 19 part series covering what I had saw and experienced during the Great Gray Whale Rescue of 1988, when three gray whales got trapped in the ice just offshore from Plover Point, just to the southeast of Point Barrow. I got motivated to do this series by the release of the movie, Big Miracle, VERY LOOSELY based on the real event.

Over a year before, I had been invited onto the movie set by director Ken Kwapis. Going to the set had proven to be great fun, because I found a little replica of "downtown" Barrow right there on the Anchorage waterfront, along with a mock up of the Arctic ice and the holes cut by mostly Iñupiat rescuers to lead the whales toward open water.

I was very restricted in what I could photograph. They didn't want me to show any of the actors or any of the set. Yet, director Kwapis did let me take a photo of him and my friend, Art Oomittuk of Point Hope together. I was then given permission to photograph Art with other Native crew members.

So, Art and some others gathered together to pose for a picture. One of the major big name actors spotted our happy little group, wanted to be part of it, scurried over and put himself right in the middle of the picture. Well, of course I took the forbidden picture - it would have been downright rude of me not to.

Okay, I was told afterward, you got the picture but just don't show the actor's face on your blog until after the movie is released. So I doctored this image in Photoshop and made both the famous actor and that part of the set visible behind him and my friends unrecognizable and put it on my former blog, but did not identify the actor. I promised that after the movie came out, I would reveal just who this mystery actor was.

Yet, I ran into a problem. After the movie release, I started to work on the real series in my Wasilla office here at home, but had to finish it in Arizona, where we went to visit the Apache side of our family. I took the rescue images I had hurriedly digitized before leaving home to Arizona, but forgot to take the image of the famous actor with my group of friends. So I could not post it. From Arizona, I went to India and did not return home for some time. By the time I did, this image and my promise to post it had slipped out of my mind.

A few days ago, Art tagged me with this image on Facebook and reminded me of my promise. So...

...here is the undoctored image. As you can see, the famous actor is Dermot Mulroney, who played National Guard Colonel and helicopter pilot Scott Boyer. Art is at the far right, next to him is Ossie Kaiariuak, Mulroney, Elmer Bekoalok, David Thomas and... and... damn... brain lapse... name slips me... Well, I am certain Art will send me the name right after he reads this and then I will plug it into this space. 

I also got a sort of backhanded permission to sneak in a photo or two from the set, as long as I did not publish any of the images before the movie release. So here is the ice and whale breathing hole part of the set, late in the afternoon after darkness had set in. It was very strange and yet, somehow, in relation to this never-ending story, strange had come to feel quite normal.

Comments

[Tony Kesler]

Bill... very creative!
Enjoying your blog.

[Logbook - Wasilla - Beyond]

Thanks, Tony. Always good to hear from you.

[Rich]

Enjoyed a very interesting day yesterday! Thanks for the encounter and the fun playing in the surf. I'm looking forward to reading more about the "Big Miracle" background.
Aloha,
Rich