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August 25, 2006
The birth of a nickname...
There’s a new writer on Atlantis this year; it’s Copernicus, the Polish astronomer (1473-1543). Well… not exactly. That’s actually the new writer’s nickname. His actual name is Ken Cuperus.
The back story is this. Usually at the start of the year, when the writing staff first gets together to come up with episodes and start writing the season, the writers take pitches from freelance writers. There’s also the outside chance that freelance writers will be hired onto the staff if there’s a need for a new staff writer. With 40 hours of TV to produce each year, there’s often such a need. So this year, on Atlantis, Ken successfully pitched an episode that will be shown tonight, called “Common Ground,” and was subsequently hired onto the staff.
So how did Cuperus become Copernicus? Well, listen close my friends and I’ll tell you. During preproduction, Robert Davi arrived, ready to reprise his role as Kolya, and stopped by the writer’s room to say hello. And just to let you know, Robert Davi is kind of rough and tough in real life too. So Robert Davi walks into the room, greets everybody, and then asks, right out of the blue, “so which one of you guys is Copernicus?” And Ken, being new on the staff, chose not to correct Robert Davi. He just quietly raised his hand. Mr. Davi just wanted to say he liked the script, but… well… sometimes nicknames just stick. By the next day somebody had taped a number of photocopies of pictures of Copernicus onto Ken’s door, with a perfectly placed square cut-out that you can look through to see “Modern-Day Copernicus At Work”.
Other nick names from the writing staff? “Grudgy Grudgerson” (Joe Mallozzi), “Mr. Jeopardy” (Paul Mullie), Martin “Gero-Worship” aka “The Class Clown”, Carl “The Truth” Binder – because he tells it like it is, Alan “Pretty Boy” McCullough, “Coop” and “Big Idea Brad” Wright aka “Mr. Science”.
Enough babbling! Onto this week’s shows:
Common Ground is a great Atlantis episode. Mr. Jeopardy would be soooo proud. You’ll be impressed with the prosthetic make-up, done to perfection as always by Todd Masters.
Counterstrike, tonight’s SG-1 episode, features the first appearance of Morena Baccarin. Morena is most famous for her role as Inara Serra in Firefly. She graces us as Vala’s grown up daughter, Adria, the Ori supervillain. And I do mean grace. Morena is one of those actors that is as beautiful in person as she is on camera.
Also, and this is straight from the mouth of writer Joe Mallozzi, as far as the relationship between Daniel Jackson and Adria is concerned, their scenes in this episode kick off a through-line you’ll see all season. There are small moments, if you pay attention, that show that these two are going to have lots more to do with each other in the future. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Say no more.
ATL
Posted by Alex Levine at 10:25 PM
August 19, 2006
200 or 246?
I say 246. The reason: I count Stargate Atlantis too. I know it’s Stargate SG-1’s 200th episode, but there’s really been 246 Stargate shows produced if you include Atlantis. I don’t want to take away from the milestone, I just want everyone to be aware of how many Stargate stories have been told in total! And hey… if Air Force personnel are going through a big ring and traveling to distant planets, I say it’s Stargate.
Around here, everyone’s excited about the big party. Yup, there’s a party to celebrate the 200th episode and some of the brass from Sci-fi and MGM and Sony are even coming up for the visit. Now, I wasn’t around for the 100th episode party, but I hear that one was a blast, so I’m looking forward to getting my drink on and my feed on and my groove on.
Meanwhile, as I write this, Rob Cooper and Brad Wright are brainstorming the SG-1 season finale down the hall. Yes, it’s true, we’ve got 18 episodes of each series written now, and another episode of each series in outline stage. So they’re down to the finales. It really is amazing how time flies by, but it’s been yet another great season here in Burnaby, BC.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the sci-fi promo about the 200th but I promise it truly is just the tip of the iceberg. RDA is back in full effect, and Willie Garson, Christian Bocher, Herbert Duncanson, Peter DeLuise and Jill Teed all reprise their characters from the 100th episode, Wormhole X-treme. Now, the 200th episode (aptly titled “200”) has been kept extremely confidential because the producers did NOT want to let the cat out of the bag. I wasn’t even allowed to upload it onto our Virtual Production Office website for fear of spoilers…. Darn you spoilers! You just have to spoil everything, don’t you? Naw… just kidding… I understand why you do it… but for those of you who like your entertainment to be… well… entertaining, mind those spoilers. And hopefully you’ll be pleased and delightfully surprised by 200, which was written by all of the writers together. Each writer or team of writers wrote a particular act or vignette, and then Rob did a pass on the whole thing. I watched Ivon Bartok’s behind the scenes featurette on the 200 and it’s a doozy! Keep an eye out for that one on the DVD’s.
So, in addition to the 200th, which I’m not really going to say anything more about because it would SPOIL the fun, on Atlantis you get to see yet another episode written by Carl Binder entitled “The Real World”. Since the Sci-fi promo already gave away the basic plot elements, I can tell you the working title was “Weir’s Ladder”, which will only mean something to you movie buffs out there. Now, I don’t think this was Carl’s fault, but quite a few of his scripts this year involve apparitions, ghosts, characters seeing things etc… and as a result Carl has developed a bit of a reputation. So now in the writer’s room when anybody suggests a plot point involving a character seeing ghosts, all eyes turn to Carl and Rob Cooper starts making eerie ghost noises. And we laugh at Carl because it’s funny and he doesn’t mind. Oh, good times. Good times.
Until next week!
ATL
Posted by Alex Levine at 01:00 AM
August 12, 2006
Money talks... and shows on screen.
I read the reviews of the last Stargate Atlantis’ episode on Gateworld the other day. I was so pleased to see that everybody loved Sateda, and they’re right to, because… well, what’s not to love? It’s got a great story, accomplished acting, tons of action sequences, amazing special effects and digital effects, great sets etc…. It’s awesome. But what I wanted to respond to was the inevitable whining that goes along with such great audience response. And the whine is: “why aren’t all the episodes this good?” Well, it’s not for lack of effort, that much I can tell you. Making TV isn’t a perfect science. And the powers that be on this show sure get it right more often than they get it wrong. But among many other reasons why some shows are better than others, I’m going to talk about one: money!
Sateda had a bigger budget then most of our other episodes. There was an extra day of shooting, and extra costs for special effects, visual effects, prosthetics etc… I mean, just look at the number of special skills extras and stunt men they needed to pull off some of those fight sequences. Plus there were extra costs in using a variety of film stocks for the flashback sequences, and prosthetics and new costumes for that number of Wraith – you get the point: it was a bigger show than a lot of others, and the money shows well on the screen. Not taking anything away from Rob Cooper (I’m really not!), who wrote a great story and directed the hell out of it, but you can’t make action and fight sequences with that level of excitement without the dough!
Now, here’s an interesting little factoid: sometimes, if a number of shows are expensive in a season and the season is over-budget, the producers will recognize that and pare down costs for an episode. Yup, it’s true. They’ll actually look for ways to save cash. So how is that done? Well... the easiest thing to do is to shoot an entire episode on the lot, on existing sets. We call that a “bottle show.” Which is not to say that these shows can’t be great – in my opinion, great creativity often comes from a lack of resources, when you have to do things in new and exciting ways. Often these smaller stories are character driven, which are the stories that I enjoy best. And to make a good television series you need the smaller, quieter character driven episodes. Because too much shoot ‘em up is… too much! But don’t worry – this isn’t a lead in. This week we don’t have bottle shows, we have two more great episodes.
SG-1’s “Uninvited” is a creature feature and has a great B-side plot featuring Landry and Mitchell. I gotta say, wait for the Fulvus Whistling Duck call… I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder watching an SG-1 than this scene… And Joe Mallozzi just mentioned that Beau Bridges is actually a bird-watcher. Ahhh… It’s the little known facts that I love the best.
In Atlantis you get another Carl Binder gem, Progeny, which is an episode that introduces the new Atlantis villain… and it’s one you SG-1 fans will be well familiar with: The Replicators. I got a chance to watch the final visual effects for this one last week and it is a feast for the eyes. I don’t want to spoil the story but you’ll get to see the city of Atlantis like you’ve never seen it before. And you M*A*S*H* fans will enjoy seeing David Ogden Stiers out of his military greens – he played Major Charles Emerson Winchester III in that great sitcom.
ATL
Posted by Alex Levine at 12:28 AM
August 04, 2006
Excellence in all we do…
Okay, that sounds a little conceited, but I’m not talking about us here at Stargate actually. That’s one of the core values of one of our key partners, the United States Air Force. I mean… we also believe in that. A lot. And our mission: to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests. Oops. Actually that’s the Air Force again. Our mission is to deliver sci-fi entertainment options for the improvement of global minds, or something like that. I’ll have to work on that one.
So… did you know that when Air Force personnel appear in public on duty they should be in service dress? Did you know that the black tie equivalent for Air Force personnel is mess dress? Did you know that female Air Force personnel must have their hair up when in uniform? Well… neither did the powers that be when they started this show, so they asked the US Air Force to help. And since the beginning we’ve had very valuable support from the Air Force for accuracy in all matters Stargate – this includes our characters’ personal histories, costumes, weaponry, locations of bases and all sorts of other help… we’ve even had two Generals appear in SG-1 – General Ryan and General Jumper.
In fact, I’m looking at a copy of “Airman, the book” right now. It was given to me by Doug Thar, one of our liaisons with Air Force Public Relations. Doug actually just retired, so I’m going to take this opportunity to thank Doug for all of his help and encouragement over the years. Thanks Doug! The other person who helps me out regularly is Captain Mary Danner. Thanks Mary!
Okay… enough about the Air Force! Let’s talk about Sateda and Insiders.
Sateda is as action as Stargate gets… this episode is loaded with fight scenes. I talked with James Bamford (aka “Bam Bam”, aka “The Silent Assassin”, aka “the Man with the Plan”), and he told me the action sequences in Sateda are very fast paced and stylistic. I asked what that means, and he said Rob Cooper, the director, used different film stock, played with variable frame rates, and used alternative shutter angles to achieve a non-stop action packed festival of Wraith killing wonder! Bam Bam told me Jason was seriously beat up at the end of the shoot – bruises, pulled muscles, fatigue – he had some very emotional scenes as well. In Bam Bam’s words, “he went balls out from the moment the camera started rolling until the final window shot at the end of the episode.” So I guess you can tell that James Bamford is a big fan of actors who can step up to the plate and perform their own action scenes and make it look as spectacular as planned!
In Insiders, all I have to say is you get to see all the Baal’s in the air at once. Yup… CLONES!
ATL
Posted by Alex Levine at 06:52 PM
