R.I.P. Kim Manners: The Vancouver production community loses one of its own
‘I first met Manners during The X-Files’ fifth season, the series’ final year in Vancouver as it would turn out. He was directing a short, inconsequential night scene in a parking garage involving Mitch Pileggi, “Skinner” from the show, and Vancouver acting teacher William B. (Bill) Davis, aka “CSM” or Cigarette-Smoking Man. It was a nothing scene, really, just filler — the kind of scene TV scripts use to “bridge” one key scene with another.
Manners, always one to take a weird angle on the obvious, had decided to shoot the scene at shoelace level — literally. He lied down in a puddle of cold, dank water on the cold, hard cement floor of the parking garage floor and arranged the camera dolly track so that the camera would tilt up from Davis’ shoes as the Cigarette-Smoking Man dropped a lit cigarette down toward the camera and then angrily stubbed it out of his toe. Manners laughed easily, and he could curse a blue streak that would put Gordon Ramsay to shame.’
