SG1: Commentary of Insiders
Aug. 15th, 2007 05:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenayaInsiders by Alan McCullough and Peter Woeste
Ba’al is a fav villain of all the writers and Cliff Simon really nailed him. The ep is dim in their memories cause it was over a year ago for them.
In the original script, the alkesh was being tailed by F302s but Brad Wright wanted F-16s, which they feel enhances the show’s plausibility factor and was cool.
Technically, this ep was a terrible challenge for the director and gave him gray hairs. All the duplication shots are done one at a time and then laid on top of each other. A rule of thumb is 6 hours for 3 pages, then double or triple that for how many Ba’als are in the scene.
They were able to use doubles and shoot the footage on the monitors previously. Lots of praise for Cliff. Cliff spent a lot time in the South African Army, and owes some of his physicality to that, and the ability to do some of the stunts later which is amazing, and seems second nature to him. And probably where he gets his intensity from, too. They praise his focus and the power that is in his visage. They discuss Ba’als many plots.
The B story of Barrett’s duplicity was not there originally. Originally, it had to do with a suspicion of a mole on the base. They had lots of interviews of everyone, starting from the lowliest sergeant up to SG1 and then it was revealed it was Barrett. The SciFi executives thought the script tipped it was Barrett early on and asked them change it to this.
Bill Dow is always a pleasure to work with. They discuss Ba’al puns and how they tried to keep the number down. This ep had a lot of oners (one take scenes with no cuts back and forth between the characters.) They did it because they didn’t have time to do more coverage due to all the time taken up by doing all the Ba’al shots, and Cooper complained in the editing room about the lack of coverage.
They mentioned that the forest scene was shot in a three different places, that the whole production schedule was so protracted over months and months with a day here and a half a day there. Mitchell’s line where he calls Ba’al Sparticus was a punch line and the set up line got lost somewhere along the way.
The easiest way to explain the multiple Ba’al shots is to call it double exposing a piece of film.
Praise for the actress that portrays Dr. Sheffield. It was a one go, one take scene. Praise for the guy who set up the clone storyline. It’s made it easy to kill him over and over again without loosing that character.
Barrett to Landry: “I understand you have a few extra Ba’als.” They wondered if that was one Ba’al joke too many, but felt the way the line was underplayed was its saving grace.
Paul Mullie did a rewrite on the script. AM thought it was much better after the rewrite. There were gasps around the monitor during the Ba’al Mitchell scene because of its intensity.
Praise for Claudia for her interrogation scene. She was very uncomfortable with that scene but after a couple of days, had it spot on. In fact you can’t say enough about our main cast as they are such professionals and very reliable.
Barrett has been brainwashed. The Barrett and Carter scene (where Barrett flips out) was added because they were short on time.
Where Vala is trying to arm wrestle Teal’c, that was Claudia improvising and it was a nice touch. Again, it’s those little interpersonal moments that make this…
In the next scene with Dr Lee, they reshot that because originally, he was working a crossword puzzle (meant to underscore that a lot of the time, they are waiting on results a lot of the time) but they felt it undercut the seriousness.
More praise for Cliff in the scene with Carter and five Ba’als. It was 20 hours to film. Cliff had to interact with himself and remember what he was doing during the quadruplicately exposed film. In the scene where Teal’c and airmen are concealed down a hallway, two Ba’als leave the scene through a door…the only time the show actually had an actor exit the set completely. The other door visible through that open door is the door to the Atlantis set.
It was a questionable thing for Carter to do here, to cooperate and give away the code, but justifiable because Ba’al was going to kill Barrett and she later slows down the download.
The symbiote gas is actually clear, but they had the tanks have visible gas or else it would have looked silly. In the scene were the Ba’als are covering for each other and escaping took till 5 am to do.
The scene where SG1 confront Barrett; they reshot the end of the scene (where they disarm him) months later. You can see the haircuts on Barrett and Landry change for a brief shot. The last scene between Carter and Mitchell was originally between Mitchell and Vala. The writer thought this worked better. Mitchell’s “says you” line gave resolved a conflict Browder had about a banter line that he was uncomfortable with earlier in the episode.
The Director’s Series on this disc is Peter Woeste while he was filming Insiders.
At one point, he is showing the construction of that scene with five Ba’al’s and Carter. There is a green screen, the desk and a Ba’al. The camera is on a track and is motion controlled by a computer so it’s action is the same each time.
He shows the choreography of a fire fight. That each shot is angle at someone for some reason and it has a reaction. Every bit a piece is rehearsed and precisely needed. Again, praise for Cliff Simon, for remembering how he acted in each take of the Ba’al. Also gives praise for Barrett’s actor.
Ba’al is a fav villain of all the writers and Cliff Simon really nailed him. The ep is dim in their memories cause it was over a year ago for them.
In the original script, the alkesh was being tailed by F302s but Brad Wright wanted F-16s, which they feel enhances the show’s plausibility factor and was cool.
Technically, this ep was a terrible challenge for the director and gave him gray hairs. All the duplication shots are done one at a time and then laid on top of each other. A rule of thumb is 6 hours for 3 pages, then double or triple that for how many Ba’als are in the scene.
They were able to use doubles and shoot the footage on the monitors previously. Lots of praise for Cliff. Cliff spent a lot time in the South African Army, and owes some of his physicality to that, and the ability to do some of the stunts later which is amazing, and seems second nature to him. And probably where he gets his intensity from, too. They praise his focus and the power that is in his visage. They discuss Ba’als many plots.
The B story of Barrett’s duplicity was not there originally. Originally, it had to do with a suspicion of a mole on the base. They had lots of interviews of everyone, starting from the lowliest sergeant up to SG1 and then it was revealed it was Barrett. The SciFi executives thought the script tipped it was Barrett early on and asked them change it to this.
Bill Dow is always a pleasure to work with. They discuss Ba’al puns and how they tried to keep the number down. This ep had a lot of oners (one take scenes with no cuts back and forth between the characters.) They did it because they didn’t have time to do more coverage due to all the time taken up by doing all the Ba’al shots, and Cooper complained in the editing room about the lack of coverage.
They mentioned that the forest scene was shot in a three different places, that the whole production schedule was so protracted over months and months with a day here and a half a day there. Mitchell’s line where he calls Ba’al Sparticus was a punch line and the set up line got lost somewhere along the way.
The easiest way to explain the multiple Ba’al shots is to call it double exposing a piece of film.
Praise for the actress that portrays Dr. Sheffield. It was a one go, one take scene. Praise for the guy who set up the clone storyline. It’s made it easy to kill him over and over again without loosing that character.
Barrett to Landry: “I understand you have a few extra Ba’als.” They wondered if that was one Ba’al joke too many, but felt the way the line was underplayed was its saving grace.
Paul Mullie did a rewrite on the script. AM thought it was much better after the rewrite. There were gasps around the monitor during the Ba’al Mitchell scene because of its intensity.
Praise for Claudia for her interrogation scene. She was very uncomfortable with that scene but after a couple of days, had it spot on. In fact you can’t say enough about our main cast as they are such professionals and very reliable.
Barrett has been brainwashed. The Barrett and Carter scene (where Barrett flips out) was added because they were short on time.
Where Vala is trying to arm wrestle Teal’c, that was Claudia improvising and it was a nice touch. Again, it’s those little interpersonal moments that make this…
In the next scene with Dr Lee, they reshot that because originally, he was working a crossword puzzle (meant to underscore that a lot of the time, they are waiting on results a lot of the time) but they felt it undercut the seriousness.
More praise for Cliff in the scene with Carter and five Ba’als. It was 20 hours to film. Cliff had to interact with himself and remember what he was doing during the quadruplicately exposed film. In the scene where Teal’c and airmen are concealed down a hallway, two Ba’als leave the scene through a door…the only time the show actually had an actor exit the set completely. The other door visible through that open door is the door to the Atlantis set.
It was a questionable thing for Carter to do here, to cooperate and give away the code, but justifiable because Ba’al was going to kill Barrett and she later slows down the download.
The symbiote gas is actually clear, but they had the tanks have visible gas or else it would have looked silly. In the scene were the Ba’als are covering for each other and escaping took till 5 am to do.
The scene where SG1 confront Barrett; they reshot the end of the scene (where they disarm him) months later. You can see the haircuts on Barrett and Landry change for a brief shot. The last scene between Carter and Mitchell was originally between Mitchell and Vala. The writer thought this worked better. Mitchell’s “says you” line gave resolved a conflict Browder had about a banter line that he was uncomfortable with earlier in the episode.
The Director’s Series on this disc is Peter Woeste while he was filming Insiders.
At one point, he is showing the construction of that scene with five Ba’al’s and Carter. There is a green screen, the desk and a Ba’al. The camera is on a track and is motion controlled by a computer so it’s action is the same each time.
He shows the choreography of a fire fight. That each shot is angle at someone for some reason and it has a reaction. Every bit a piece is rehearsed and precisely needed. Again, praise for Cliff Simon, for remembering how he acted in each take of the Ba’al. Also gives praise for Barrett’s actor.
