Elf: A Short Story of a Tall Tale

"SANTA! OH MY GOD! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!"
That's a memorable line from the movie Elf, and one Ian Cole said he has probably uttered "a few thousand times" since it came out. So it worked out perfect he was given that line to say during the Pens' annual holiday e-card shoot which re-created the film.

"I was extremely excited," Cole said. "Elf is one of my favorite Christmas movies. A movie that I've quoted quite often around the Christmas season, so very excited."
Two years ago, the team did National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989). Last year, they did Home Alone (1990). This year, they opted to fast forward as Elf wasn't released until 2003.
"We were looking at a bunch of movies for this holiday season, and we decided to use more of a modern classic," said PensTV producer Mark Cottington, who again headed up the project with motion graphics design producer Dave Distilli. "Elf is a fan favorite for a lot of people. It just seemed like the natural thing to do."
The process was similar to last year's, as they again took the original theatrical trailer and built a new one off that featuring scenes from the movie. From there, they created a shot sheet and used that to figure out what exactly needed to go into each shot.
Distilli then prepared composites and digital plates (basically backgrounds) for each shot so that he could layer the players in using Adobe Photoshop and AfterEffects, while Cottington took care of getting the costumes and props. While some parts were easier this year, there were also new challenges as well.
For example, they had to use blue screens instead of the usual green screens because of Buddy the Elf's outfit, which is also green and would be hard to key out. But overall, the shoot was a tremendous success as everything went smooth production-wise - and the guys had a blast doing it.
Fifteen different players took on the role of Buddy the Elf at some point: Cole, Sidney Crosby, Eric Fehr, Evgeni Malkin, Tom Kuhnhackl, Brian Dumoulin, Marc-Andre Fleury, Chris Kunitz, Justin Schultz, Patric Hornqvist, Nick Bonino, Matt Murray, Bryan Rust, Kris Letang and Tom Sestito.
Crosby had one of the funniest scenes as Buddy, as he got to do the snowball fight. To recreate it, Cottington threw a handful of coconut flakes at Crosby, who had to cover his face and exclaim, "Son of a nutcracker!"
While Crosby got it on the first take, one of the cameramen requested a second one for audio purposes. "For audio's sake, he says, eh?" Crosby laughed. "What a veteran."
"I think the very first throw, I said I apologize beforehand for what I'm about to do," Cottington smiled. "He was great with it. We had to do two takes, which mortified me. I think I barely grazed him on the second one, so the first take was the one that was the winner and is being used."
"I don't know how well I did it, but I'm glad it only took two (takes for each scene),"
Crosby added. "We seem to have some good ones every year. I think it's only been a couple years we've done this and this is a great movie to do it with. Just fun to see guys in different parts."
One part that was perfectly cast was Matt Cullen as Buddy's real father, Walter Hobbs, since his teammates lovingly call him Dad. Jim Rutherford was also fantastic as Buddy's adopted father, Papa Elf. But the best role may have been Bill Guerin as Santa Claus.
Guerin completely committed to the role. Not only did he dress in the full costume, complete with a red jacket, red pants, black belt and black boots - special effects makeup artist Nathan Blaine applied a white beard and painted his hair white to complete the look. And for that reason, Cottington gave him the Oscar for Best Actor.
"I would have to say Billy G. because he fits the part perfectly," Cottington said. "Spending the 45 minutes to put the beard on, the white through the hair, he sold the character well."
Guerin was just doing whatever he had to in order to nail the role and ensure a future in showbiz.
"To date, it's my biggest part," Guerin said. "So I was very excited about it. Called my agent and he said it was the right part, would probably do a lot for my career. So I accepted."
Carl Hagelin also donned the Santa suit at one point - though he went with just a regular fake white beard - to play the Gimbel's department store Santa. Rutherford's son James filled in as Paul, the kid sitting on fake Santa's lap in the scene where he fights with Buddy. And when Hagelin asked James what he wanted for Christmas, the youngster had the perfect answer.
"I want the Penguins to win a Stanley Cup for a second time," James said.
Now that would be a great gift.