Commentaries of 200
Aug. 19th, 2007 06:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenaya200 by Brad Wright and Robert C Cooper.
BW’s first commentary. He felt his commentary was the show itself and he said what he had to say in the show. (oh god. They are talking about their golf trips, 3 or 4 a year. And they see each other more than they see their wives.)
Cooper wanted to do nothing special for the 200, just stuff for the crew. No one volunteered to write it so it was suggested they all write it and it turned into sketches. The brainstorm was that Marty was the glue to tie all those bits together.
The shortened title credits was a in-joke. Cooper doesn’t laugh at other people’s jokes but he will laugh on a joke he’s trying to tell, and he may not get it out he’ll be laughing so hard. “I don’t think anybody is any funnier than me.”
The cast deserves a pat on the back for allowing them to be made fun of, they embraced it. Before they knew they would get RDA, they made up stuff where they could have Jack there without RDA.
About Carter taking a shower: a lot of people didn’t like that scene, thought it was off color. Scene with Teal’c walking with an invisible Jack and coffee cup: have a guy in a green suit do it and Rick was willing to do the green suit work. Rick almost always picks stuff out of any coffee cup he has.
Cooper’s fav scene was the Previously on SG with the Furlings. It was a Ewok suit with a koala head on it.
Wanted to call the film Ark of Truthiness as they are big fans of Stephen Colbert.
They are mocking the network with “Jeopardy plus ticking clock is box-office..” They hate getting the note, “funnier?” on a script. Thought the Carter technobabble was hilarious. BW suddenly remembers he is in this episode doing a Scottish accent. “Originally it was supposed to be Paul McGillian, but he passed or something.” “There was a mix-up.” They both laugh. “What do you say?” “One of those stories, unfortunately, that we can’t repeat publicly.”
Wizard of Oz. First reference was in First Commandment. Tons of them. A painting a fan sent in with the characters in Oz. BW: “Michael came to my office in the forth season and said we should do the Wizard of Oz.” “Seriously?” “He was serious, yeah.”
Vala’s line about a regular part was an in-joke. Again, they thanked the cast for allowing them to poke fun with them. The Tin man’s abs were actually Chris’.
Cheyenne Mountain blowing up was not cheap. They talked about Foothold and the first time RDA came down from hanging from the ceiling he said, “I’m going to start coming to concept meetings.” Anyway, they said the USAF wouldn’t have passed this script earlier because they would have said Cheyenne Mountain wouldn’t get blown up.
The Trek scene. BW is in Paul M’s uniform. He is standing in front of the real Trek background. BW shot down many ideas from Cooper as they were original Trek scripts but he didn’t know it because he never watched the show.
Chris pitched the young SG1 skit. Wanted to have themselves made up younger.
Farscape: Used the Wraith set, looked great. Joe Mallozzi wrote it since he’s seen all the eps. Ben and Claudia were concerned about doing their same characters.
After it was committed to film, Brad did the math and felt they should have done a lot more than 1000 missions. Cooper: You’re Mr. Science. BW: Let’s be honest here, I’m Mr. Fake Science. His grasp of science comes from reading a lot of SF novels.
Puppets. Shot the plates of the set with real actors then they sent it to LA to get the puppets made. Each puppet cost $25,000 each. They decided it wasn’t possible to do this but Charlie Cohen came through with the extra cash. They were worried most about the Daniel puppet because he didn’t look much like Daniel, but the costume, glasses and hair really made it take shape. They laugh every time Daniel writes on the board. Re: Jack, the vacancy is well captured in the eyes. It took the puppeteers two days to practice getting Jack’s finger pointing skyward right. Cooper wrote this bit, he thinks it needs to be a bit more crazier. They are big fans of Team America. The puppets were in front of a green screen, and they had to cgi in more of the puppet wires.
There was some debate about “bigger trailers” but there was also some debate about breaking the forth wall line. When Carter says it will be in the commercial, they didn’t want to let that one go because it’s happened so often. They work very hard planning twists in stories…like in Solitudes. The TV Log line was Carter and O’Neill are trapped in Antarctica.
Jack’s line about the orifice was not an adlib, it was Cooper trying to write the most uncouth line.
Re the wedding scene. RDA adlibbed a line that they thought might be perceived as inappropriate so they cut it. BW: Well the joke was already implied. Cooper said how many letters did we get ‘when will we see the wedding.’
They still didn’t have an ending. They toyed with the idea of them getting on horses and riding off the set but the puppets ate up the horse budget.
Walter wore a Velcro uniform he pulled off as he ran to join the away team. There are six kawoosh shots they have used since the beginning and it is a jet engine blowing air into a tank. BW and RCC have pitched a SG movie a few times but their success got in the way of doing them.
RE the Wormhole Xtreme bit. It captures the spirit of fun they have making the show.
Cooper: Every single one of these interviews has an incredible kernel of truth to it. Incredibly honest kernel of truth. I called each and every one of the actors before I released these pages to make sure they would be okay with it.
Willy says, “…gaffers, the lighting guy…” Gaffers are the lighting guy.
They then talk over the ending about plane reservations until they notice the nice ending with Teal’c’s stand-in, Herbert. They said he has a florist shop.
Martin Wood’s Commentary:
He loved the Furling stuff. All the shots were stolen from other shows. He spoke highly of the Furling actors, thought them quite funny. The script the characters are reading is the actual script with a new front page. He felt the fans would either love it or hate it. He feels Willie is a very funny man. Everybody embraced it as a romp.
The line there was different and I don’t know if BW and RCC commented on it. . Mitchell says, “I thought you were the producer?” Willie and Martin came up with the line, “Yeah, the real one.” It was just funnier. He had to make sure people didn’t try to make it funnier. Everyone has ideas but you have to curb that and let the stuff live on the page.
The Zombie sequence was, believe it or not, one of the most expensive sequence I’ve ever shot. It was much longer than this. Dan Shea got shot over 9 times. More than 18 hours to shoot this. It was hysterical. The Zombie was supposed to be big.
He needed to have different shooting styles for each of the sequences. The dog in the car was shot three different ways; Martin feels the dog is in Jack’s lap. The blackboard writing of Daniel is actually physic formulas and some gibberish. He felt the Carter taking a shower scene was hysterical. “She’s naked. We’ll leave it at that. We had to shoot it three times. Anyway….”
The coffee cup Invisible Jack is carrying not the one he was really carrying because his hand hid the handle.
He would use different lens or lighting to get different styles. The wild stories needed to look very unreal. In the Wizard of Oz set, they reused the little people that were the Furlings. The Wizard stuff with Beau was on the Atlantis set. The transitions are the big deal for this show. He got the close up of the guys in costume then the transition brings it back to reality.
The Trek sequence. Carter had a big thing in her ear, so big she couldn’t move her head or it would fall out. The engine room scene. It’s a still photo of the original ST engine room. BW’s parents didn’t recognize him as the Scottish guy.
Re the young cast sequence: Tried to use sweeping camera shots to make it look younger and hipper.
The Farscape bit was one of his favorite pieces. He went to Joe and borrowed the first couple of seasons so he could mimic the style. At the last moment, Ben wanted to switch characters with Michael. Online folks weren’t sure if it was really Amanda being Chiana.
The scene where they kid Mitchell about his parentage. It was difficult for him. He really liked the reactions of AT and MS. There is a look on AT’s face when she says, “it was the 60’s” that always makes him laugh. There’s a nervousness to both AT and MS in this scene. Chris didn’t know what to do, so he went back to doing old Teal’c, standing by and being very quiet.
The Puppet sequence was the biggest sequence they had because it was so involved. He shot the scene with actors. They weren’t in costume. He would shoot the scene with the actor, then take the actor out and then keep the camera running for the right amount of time. The puppeteers needed to see the actors. The guys who did this were the Team America people. When the battery goes dead in the puppet, their mouth opens and their eyes roll back in their heads and it’s disturbing because it looks like the puppet dies, but they call it ‘donkey face.’ He watched Team America about 11 times. The cut strings that dangle after the three go through the gate are CGI’d. They saved for the last shot the bit where they fell down because they needed the puppets in pristine condition. They had to do the drop about 90 times to get fall right.
Andy Mikita shot the Teal’c PI stuff.
Fishing scene. All they had to do was put Ben and Claudia in the scene (shot at the Furling planet, which all the exteriors were shot there.) Ben and Claudia went over the top on purpose on their costuming.
The Wedding. Everyone had fun with it. All the guests were crew that had worked on the show for ten years.
The ending is classic SG1 but it shows that it isn’t real. Landry (going through the gate) and Walter (his quick change) show it isn’t real. He feels he didn’t do a good enough job on the transition. All those characters go through the gate and the wormhole leads us to the Wormhole X-treme set. If you look, you will see a steady cam and a camera on a crane. All the footage is actually being shot by one or the other of them and you are seeing the camera at work.
About the interviews, he made sure that PDL was in the background for each of the interviews to demonstrate that he was the new guy, the eager guy. These interviews were a last minute thing that they had been talking and talking about. It was Martin’s idea to get the chair with “Actor” on it as a joke that after ten years, these guys still hadn’t earned their own chairs.
He talked a while about PDL swearing. One was a level six and the next was a level 19. PDL is there best swearer.
About the last bit, he said he loves Herb and Herb has been Teal’c’s stand in for years. And he had been practicing and when he finished it, he knew he’d really nailed it at the end and he had a tear in his eye, and so did Martin.
Behind the 200th: This has a lot of interviews with BW, RCC, Martin Wood and some of RDA. Lots of behind the scenes footage, which is really nice. It’s about 20 minutes long. And I was hoping for the wedding scene outtakes but alas, they ain’t there. Even still, it’s still worth watching.
BW’s first commentary. He felt his commentary was the show itself and he said what he had to say in the show. (oh god. They are talking about their golf trips, 3 or 4 a year. And they see each other more than they see their wives.)
Cooper wanted to do nothing special for the 200, just stuff for the crew. No one volunteered to write it so it was suggested they all write it and it turned into sketches. The brainstorm was that Marty was the glue to tie all those bits together.
The shortened title credits was a in-joke. Cooper doesn’t laugh at other people’s jokes but he will laugh on a joke he’s trying to tell, and he may not get it out he’ll be laughing so hard. “I don’t think anybody is any funnier than me.”
The cast deserves a pat on the back for allowing them to be made fun of, they embraced it. Before they knew they would get RDA, they made up stuff where they could have Jack there without RDA.
About Carter taking a shower: a lot of people didn’t like that scene, thought it was off color. Scene with Teal’c walking with an invisible Jack and coffee cup: have a guy in a green suit do it and Rick was willing to do the green suit work. Rick almost always picks stuff out of any coffee cup he has.
Cooper’s fav scene was the Previously on SG with the Furlings. It was a Ewok suit with a koala head on it.
Wanted to call the film Ark of Truthiness as they are big fans of Stephen Colbert.
They are mocking the network with “Jeopardy plus ticking clock is box-office..” They hate getting the note, “funnier?” on a script. Thought the Carter technobabble was hilarious. BW suddenly remembers he is in this episode doing a Scottish accent. “Originally it was supposed to be Paul McGillian, but he passed or something.” “There was a mix-up.” They both laugh. “What do you say?” “One of those stories, unfortunately, that we can’t repeat publicly.”
Wizard of Oz. First reference was in First Commandment. Tons of them. A painting a fan sent in with the characters in Oz. BW: “Michael came to my office in the forth season and said we should do the Wizard of Oz.” “Seriously?” “He was serious, yeah.”
Vala’s line about a regular part was an in-joke. Again, they thanked the cast for allowing them to poke fun with them. The Tin man’s abs were actually Chris’.
Cheyenne Mountain blowing up was not cheap. They talked about Foothold and the first time RDA came down from hanging from the ceiling he said, “I’m going to start coming to concept meetings.” Anyway, they said the USAF wouldn’t have passed this script earlier because they would have said Cheyenne Mountain wouldn’t get blown up.
The Trek scene. BW is in Paul M’s uniform. He is standing in front of the real Trek background. BW shot down many ideas from Cooper as they were original Trek scripts but he didn’t know it because he never watched the show.
Chris pitched the young SG1 skit. Wanted to have themselves made up younger.
Farscape: Used the Wraith set, looked great. Joe Mallozzi wrote it since he’s seen all the eps. Ben and Claudia were concerned about doing their same characters.
After it was committed to film, Brad did the math and felt they should have done a lot more than 1000 missions. Cooper: You’re Mr. Science. BW: Let’s be honest here, I’m Mr. Fake Science. His grasp of science comes from reading a lot of SF novels.
Puppets. Shot the plates of the set with real actors then they sent it to LA to get the puppets made. Each puppet cost $25,000 each. They decided it wasn’t possible to do this but Charlie Cohen came through with the extra cash. They were worried most about the Daniel puppet because he didn’t look much like Daniel, but the costume, glasses and hair really made it take shape. They laugh every time Daniel writes on the board. Re: Jack, the vacancy is well captured in the eyes. It took the puppeteers two days to practice getting Jack’s finger pointing skyward right. Cooper wrote this bit, he thinks it needs to be a bit more crazier. They are big fans of Team America. The puppets were in front of a green screen, and they had to cgi in more of the puppet wires.
There was some debate about “bigger trailers” but there was also some debate about breaking the forth wall line. When Carter says it will be in the commercial, they didn’t want to let that one go because it’s happened so often. They work very hard planning twists in stories…like in Solitudes. The TV Log line was Carter and O’Neill are trapped in Antarctica.
Jack’s line about the orifice was not an adlib, it was Cooper trying to write the most uncouth line.
Re the wedding scene. RDA adlibbed a line that they thought might be perceived as inappropriate so they cut it. BW: Well the joke was already implied. Cooper said how many letters did we get ‘when will we see the wedding.’
They still didn’t have an ending. They toyed with the idea of them getting on horses and riding off the set but the puppets ate up the horse budget.
Walter wore a Velcro uniform he pulled off as he ran to join the away team. There are six kawoosh shots they have used since the beginning and it is a jet engine blowing air into a tank. BW and RCC have pitched a SG movie a few times but their success got in the way of doing them.
RE the Wormhole Xtreme bit. It captures the spirit of fun they have making the show.
Cooper: Every single one of these interviews has an incredible kernel of truth to it. Incredibly honest kernel of truth. I called each and every one of the actors before I released these pages to make sure they would be okay with it.
Willy says, “…gaffers, the lighting guy…” Gaffers are the lighting guy.
They then talk over the ending about plane reservations until they notice the nice ending with Teal’c’s stand-in, Herbert. They said he has a florist shop.
Martin Wood’s Commentary:
He loved the Furling stuff. All the shots were stolen from other shows. He spoke highly of the Furling actors, thought them quite funny. The script the characters are reading is the actual script with a new front page. He felt the fans would either love it or hate it. He feels Willie is a very funny man. Everybody embraced it as a romp.
The line there was different and I don’t know if BW and RCC commented on it. . Mitchell says, “I thought you were the producer?” Willie and Martin came up with the line, “Yeah, the real one.” It was just funnier. He had to make sure people didn’t try to make it funnier. Everyone has ideas but you have to curb that and let the stuff live on the page.
The Zombie sequence was, believe it or not, one of the most expensive sequence I’ve ever shot. It was much longer than this. Dan Shea got shot over 9 times. More than 18 hours to shoot this. It was hysterical. The Zombie was supposed to be big.
He needed to have different shooting styles for each of the sequences. The dog in the car was shot three different ways; Martin feels the dog is in Jack’s lap. The blackboard writing of Daniel is actually physic formulas and some gibberish. He felt the Carter taking a shower scene was hysterical. “She’s naked. We’ll leave it at that. We had to shoot it three times. Anyway….”
The coffee cup Invisible Jack is carrying not the one he was really carrying because his hand hid the handle.
He would use different lens or lighting to get different styles. The wild stories needed to look very unreal. In the Wizard of Oz set, they reused the little people that were the Furlings. The Wizard stuff with Beau was on the Atlantis set. The transitions are the big deal for this show. He got the close up of the guys in costume then the transition brings it back to reality.
The Trek sequence. Carter had a big thing in her ear, so big she couldn’t move her head or it would fall out. The engine room scene. It’s a still photo of the original ST engine room. BW’s parents didn’t recognize him as the Scottish guy.
Re the young cast sequence: Tried to use sweeping camera shots to make it look younger and hipper.
The Farscape bit was one of his favorite pieces. He went to Joe and borrowed the first couple of seasons so he could mimic the style. At the last moment, Ben wanted to switch characters with Michael. Online folks weren’t sure if it was really Amanda being Chiana.
The scene where they kid Mitchell about his parentage. It was difficult for him. He really liked the reactions of AT and MS. There is a look on AT’s face when she says, “it was the 60’s” that always makes him laugh. There’s a nervousness to both AT and MS in this scene. Chris didn’t know what to do, so he went back to doing old Teal’c, standing by and being very quiet.
The Puppet sequence was the biggest sequence they had because it was so involved. He shot the scene with actors. They weren’t in costume. He would shoot the scene with the actor, then take the actor out and then keep the camera running for the right amount of time. The puppeteers needed to see the actors. The guys who did this were the Team America people. When the battery goes dead in the puppet, their mouth opens and their eyes roll back in their heads and it’s disturbing because it looks like the puppet dies, but they call it ‘donkey face.’ He watched Team America about 11 times. The cut strings that dangle after the three go through the gate are CGI’d. They saved for the last shot the bit where they fell down because they needed the puppets in pristine condition. They had to do the drop about 90 times to get fall right.
Andy Mikita shot the Teal’c PI stuff.
Fishing scene. All they had to do was put Ben and Claudia in the scene (shot at the Furling planet, which all the exteriors were shot there.) Ben and Claudia went over the top on purpose on their costuming.
The Wedding. Everyone had fun with it. All the guests were crew that had worked on the show for ten years.
The ending is classic SG1 but it shows that it isn’t real. Landry (going through the gate) and Walter (his quick change) show it isn’t real. He feels he didn’t do a good enough job on the transition. All those characters go through the gate and the wormhole leads us to the Wormhole X-treme set. If you look, you will see a steady cam and a camera on a crane. All the footage is actually being shot by one or the other of them and you are seeing the camera at work.
About the interviews, he made sure that PDL was in the background for each of the interviews to demonstrate that he was the new guy, the eager guy. These interviews were a last minute thing that they had been talking and talking about. It was Martin’s idea to get the chair with “Actor” on it as a joke that after ten years, these guys still hadn’t earned their own chairs.
He talked a while about PDL swearing. One was a level six and the next was a level 19. PDL is there best swearer.
About the last bit, he said he loves Herb and Herb has been Teal’c’s stand in for years. And he had been practicing and when he finished it, he knew he’d really nailed it at the end and he had a tear in his eye, and so did Martin.
Behind the 200th: This has a lot of interviews with BW, RCC, Martin Wood and some of RDA. Lots of behind the scenes footage, which is really nice. It’s about 20 minutes long. And I was hoping for the wedding scene outtakes but alas, they ain’t there. Even still, it’s still worth watching.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-19 06:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 12:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-19 06:24 pm (UTC)We saw at Vancouver that he certainly LOVES his brand of humor, even if everyone else sees it as mean and unfeeling. I can't believe he REALLY told the actors all about the Wormhole Xtreme interviews. Then again, after working with him for the past 6 or 7 years, most of them have probably grown the hides of rhinocerous' and know what they're in for.
I loved the ending of 200, with the quote from Asimov, but several of my friends thought it was pretentious, especially after the goofiness of the rest of the episode. I don't know, yes it's a bit pretentious, but Asimov's words are gold to me no matter what the circunstances.
Thanks again for all your work on these. You've saved me several hours of listening to commentaries!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 01:12 am (UTC)The ending was a bit pretentious but it was better than anything else they would have come up with. Frankly, I was relieved that that meant I didn't have to see something cruel about Chris.
Thank you for staying with me on these and letting me know you are reading them. That's always good to hear. :)
Say, anything we need to be doing about Vancouver yet? Are you going to Chicago? Burbank? I need to renew my passport. Must do it next week.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 11:37 pm (UTC)I got a rate of $129 Canadian with a US government discount. I first had $109, but then I realized I forgot to change the automatic web entries to two people whereupon it went up $20, darn it. Didn't really want to take the chance that they'd take away the second bed, though. So $129, (which beats the convention rate by about $20) plus the horrible taxes, and by the time next year rolls around it will probably be MORE in Canadian dollars than it is in US! (g)
Which is part of the reason I decided not to bother with Burbank this year. Originally I thought I might go, but I think I can only stand one Creation con per year. And I swore I'd never go back to Chicago after the disaster that was the first one.
I'm thinking I'd maybe like to try Comicon next year. But just how much do you end up standing in line?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 12:17 am (UTC)The line to get in is outrageous on Saturday morning but if you're already registered on Friday, you just walk in.
As for the panels...if there is something really popular you want to see, get into the room when it first opens....may have to wait an hour or so but then you're sitting down until you're program starts. Other lesser popular programs you can walk right in. So, it all depends. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-22 11:28 pm (UTC)How soon can you/should you get tickets for next year's Comicon?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-29 10:47 am (UTC)You can get them now. Sometime around early June the prices increase by $5 or 10. You have no idea of the guests until a couple of weeks beforehand so you so you have to commit and have faith. The hotel room thing starts in February. It seems like it's all booked up in ONE day. Then, in June or so, a scattering of rooms open up. I have waited until spring to decide then watch the reservation site like a hawk, every damn day. I suppose I should try to mail in my hotel room requirement in Feb.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 03:25 am (UTC)Aw! I'd have had to buy the DVDs if those scenes had been there. :-)
Thanks for the commentary on the commentaries. :-) I'm really enjoying reading these. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 12:14 am (UTC)About the only thing that would get me to buy the mega package of all the seasons together would be that footage. I'm sure Cooper would refuse to let that objectionable material out though. What a wanker.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 07:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 07:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 07:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 03:10 pm (UTC)Anyway, they could sell a bunch of those sets if they weren't so hung up, but I think we (and your children) are safe. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 11:58 pm (UTC)Anyway, they could sell a bunch of those sets if they weren't so hung up, but I think we (and your children) are safe. *g*
*g* But yeah, really, I can't see any reason to buy that whole set at this point, but for just that 10 seconds or so of footage, I'd find a way to buy it one way or another.