Sidewise LEXX

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  • #39511
    SadGeezer
    Keymaster

    Is there any interest in discussing some of the collateral LEXX?

    For instance, there are two different versions of Rated: LEXX, both of which are the length of a full episode, and some of which has new stuff?

    Or what about the Contender Xtras, where they did an hour of material, as a kind of Waynes World Cable access.

    Then there’s the three Canadian documentaries (1/2 hours).

    The fourth season blooper/gag/wrap reel.

    Or the various little documentary bits floating around.

    Or the unproduced scripts, drafts, etc.?

    #68652
    BebopChic
    Participant

    *Bebop boggles at all the Lexx stuff she was not aware of*

    MORE!

    *Bebop drags bean bag chair over and sits down*

    Tell me all about it……..

    *Bebop waits like a kid on Christmas*

    *Grin*

    #68657
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Okay, here’s the list of stuff, I’m aware of:

    Apocryphal LEXX, Official and Semi-Official Video Materials

    The Original Dark Zone Demo (4 minutes)
    Media Television Documentary Segment on Cluster Lizards (4 minutes)
    Sigl’s Shadow (directors rough cut of Gigashadow) (90 minutes)
    1st Season Documentary (25 minutes)
    Burning Down the House/Bonnie Rait, Lexx Music Video (4 minutes)Contender Lexxtras (4 x 15 minute segments, 60 min in all)
    2nd Season Documentary (25 minutes)
    3rd Season Documentary (25 minutes)
    3rd Season Documentary (rough cut)
    Star TV Michael McManus Interview Segment (6 minutes)
    Rated Lexx: The Original Version (45 minutes)
    Rated Lexx: The Broadcast Version (45 minutes)
    4th Season Wrap/Blooper Video (approx 20 minutes)
    Various DVD stuff from Contender, Koch and Acorn, including
    interviews with Lex Gigeroff, Paul Donovan, Les Kriszan, interview with 790, sing along to Brigadoom, Brian and Lex’s audio commentary on Mantrid, feature on videomatics.

    Apocryphal Lexx – Unofficial/Fan Lexx Video

    Uncon 2000 Q & A Session, 2 hours
    Uncon 2002 Q & A Session, 2 hours?
    Hirschield Interview, 2001, 45 minutes
    Mark Laing Interview, 2002 90 minutes
    Panel sessions, Conventions

    At the 2000 Uncon, Salter Street gave away
    over 200 production tapes to 60 fans, featuring
    everything from completed episodes, to rushes, bloopers,
    auditions, videomatics, partial special effects, etc.
    This still has to be floating out there, either in compilations
    or in bits.

    Also, there is a catalogue of fan made LEXX music
    videos by people like Lianna X and Rachel, and at
    least three ‘fan episodes’ including a tape of fans singing
    Brigadoom on the bridge, and the original fan performance
    of Brigadoom.

    Lost Lexx, Episodes

    The Dark Zone Video Game (plans)
    The Original Love Grows 1st Season Movie (script)
    Supernova, original version by Allen Resnick (script)
    Back to the Cluster, 1st Season movie (script/treatment)
    The Dark Zone Novel, by Paul Donovan (outline/some chapters)
    The Return of His Divine Shadow – Beginning (script)
    The Return of His Divine Shadow – Time Loop (script/treatment?)
    The Return of His Divine Shadow – Dogfight (script/treatment?)
    Dorkadia (treatment)
    Sniff the Bliss (treatment)
    Flytrap (treament)
    My Bonnie (treatment)
    1 x 9 x 10 Loveline (script)
    The Lexx You Never Saw: The Brunnen H (treatment)
    The Salesman (treatment)
    Original version of Twilight, by Wolfram Tichy (script)
    Original version of Patches in the Sky (script)
    Clizzards of Woz. (treatment)
    Lexxstasy (treatment)
    Prison Planet/Planet of the Savage Ultra Vixens in Cages (treatments)
    Final Days of the Brunnen G (treatment)
    The Original Brigadoom/Broadway in Space (script)
    Passionflower (treatment)
    Lament For a Love Slave (treatment)
    Heaven (treatment)
    Hell (treatment)
    Big Bertha (script)
    The Original Girltown (Queen’s got a body)(Script)
    Lost Version of Rated: Lexx, 790’s girlfriend (script)
    Lost Version of Rated: Lexx, The Tavern (script)
    Fermi Labs (treatment)
    The Spec Script of Viva Lexx Vegas (script)
    The Frank McGinn Script of Viva Lexx Vegas (script)
    The Spira and Selzer Script of Viva Lexx Vegas (script)
    The Spin Off That Wasn’t (outline/proposal?)

    Also, there are a lot of interesting storyboards floating
    around for actual episodes.

    Some notes: The stuff listed as scripts, are scripts
    that I know about, which actually were fully written,
    and consequently, were at least theoretically close to
    actual production.

    The stuff listed as treatments were taken mostly from series
    outlines from June 26, 1996 and December 17, 1997. Basically,
    they’d do an outline for a season, featuring the list of episodes they wanted to do and where it was to fit. Some of these didn’t get much past a few lines and an idea. Some were very elaborate.

    A few may have made it close to script form, or were radically revised into quite different episodes. The Clizzards of Woz became Woz. There was a completely different version of Brigadoom. Wolfram Tichy’s Twilight was substantially revised.
    Viva LEXX Vegas went through a morphing process.

    One exception was Hi Wist, which became Lyekka, and was pretty much the same episode throughout. There were minor changes that all episodes and movies went through, things dropped in or dropped out, scenes or characters added and deleted, which didn’t really alter the episode too much – this includes episodes like White Trash, Stan’s Trial and Lafftrack which seemed pretty constant.

    #68658
    Anonymous
    Guest

    How do we get our hands on the stuff to review for discussion?

    I’d love to see some of the treatments/scripts. Some of the interviews on the Acorn DVD’s lead to questions I’ve always wanted to ask, and I’ve always wondered what the episode commentary on the British DVD’s was like. I always hoped someone would transcribe it.

    Of course I’ll discuss most anything Lexx….:wink:

    elmey

    #68660
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Is available on the DVD’s.

    The first, second and third season documentaries, as well as the original version of Rated: Lexx have been sliced up and distributed among the North American DVD’s. That means you watch them in three to ten minute segments. But, get creative with a VCR and DVD hookup, and you can reassemble them into the original forms and view them as organic works.

    The Broadcast version of Rated: Lexx was broadcast on the sci fi channel, and I happen to know that at least a few fans recorded it and copies get traded around.

    The Contender LEXXtras were available from Britain, so if you know British fans, or can shmooze them… The Contender tapes with the extras were also available here in North America, although Koch had the license and did something different. Again, it can be traded among fans….

    The Star Time Michael McManus interview aired in Canada during the height of the Kai cult, lots of those floating among fans.

    As for scripts and other bits of tape. Well, those two have started floating around at conventions. If you ask around, chat with fans, and so forth, you should be able to get lines on stuff. Salter has been very generous with its fans, there are lots of bits and pieces out there. All you have to do is a little legwork.

    I’ve suggested, in the past, that there be a lexx central, or a library or referral point, that could allow people to hunt down these things.

    Certainly, there’s stuff I’d love to find, the Viva Lexx Vegas things, Tichy’s original Twilight, Resnick’s original Supernova, etc. etc.
    Some of this probably only now exists in Salter Street’s filing cabinets.

    But there’s a lot out there

    #68664
    lizard
    Participant

    Well, I will chime in with a discussion of some of it. I have the canadian/US release of S1–S3 dvd’s, so can comment on the extras there.

    Far and away my favorite (besides the Micheal McManus interview on S2V1 in which I cannot register what he is saying because I keep getting distracted by all that flowing hair) is the Making of S3 segments on the first few S3 dvds. To watch the making of as a whole, it is necessary to have all of the parts, and change dvds, but it is worth it to see the “making of S3” as a “whole”. DrDel has a review of this on her website too. Good things about this “making of s3” include: we get to hear a fair amount from B.Downey, N. Bennet and M.McManus about the filming— and their characters. N.Bennet tells a funny story about fire being “hot” but when he speaks down the well it was so cold in reality that they had to get a heater to blow heat up into his face so his breath did not show. This kind of interview is fun, because it gives the viewer an idea of how the “illusion” of the show is created.

    There is also a hilarious clip of BD discussing the nipple clips used during “the key” episode– again not something a viewer would think about, this is a must see.

    The clips of the green screen work are also really interesting. One finds out that B.D. would really rather not hang from wires for extended periods of time, and by contrast M.M seems to like any part of the job that involves acrobatics on wires, being sunk in water etc. It would have been interesting to hear Xenia interviewed about this, because she has lots of action shots in S3, but she isn’t (at least not in the parts that I remember). Ellen Dubin also talks about sitting in a hot steam bath with real fire, so it seems as if appearing in Lexx did involve a small element of danger, or at least discomfort!

    Apparantly, everyone thought that the gondola was uncomfortable, and hot, so I guess the sweat on all the actors was real.

    I wonder why there is no “making of S4”??? No time? No money? No one willing to talk to the carmera???

    #68665
    Anonymous
    Guest

    There was actually a rumour that there was going to be a making of Season 4 documentary.

    But Mark Asquith, having done two, didn’t really want to do another one. He wanted someone else, but no one else wanted or was available. So eventually, he said he would do it, but by then, it was too late. So it basically just kind of never got off the ground.

    There was plenty of raw material for a season 4 documentary, from the rushes, to Brian’s home movies, even to fan camcorder stuff from the 2001 and 2002 Uncons, as well as interviews done for the DVD’s and things like that. But no one really put it together.

    Its kind of a shame…

    #68666
    lexxrobotech
    Participant

    I want to see a porno where Xenia Seeberg and Eva Haberman get it on.

    …no wait, wrong topic. 😳

    My experience, and particularly in sci-fi, is that side shows never to well. Look at all the Star Treks… Deep Space and so on never came close to the originals. As for the documentry, I’d love to see it, and so would a few fans but would the small amount of viewership warrant it? After all, isn’t it all about money?

    Im sloshed. Im not entirely sure Im making sense, then again, Im not making typos so Im not to wasted.

    live long on fosters!

    #68675
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Did Space Channel Canada do any promo features that are separate from the “Making Of” docs?

    When I first started looking for Lexx stuff (summer 2000) their website still featured Lexx Season 3 material. It included some interview video that wasn’t on the Season 3 “Making of” program that’s on the DVD.
    One of the interviews was McManus talking about Season 3–it looked like it was shot in a recording studio. I later saw somewhere on the web another short promo that must have been shot at the same time (same studio, same outfit): he’s talking about Brigadoom–that tape also included comments from Marty Simon and others. Any idea where that stuff came from and if its part of a longer program?

    I gotta say that the interview with the videomatics director on S3V3 is one of my favorites–if anyone has it and hasn’t watched it yet, watch it! Very funny, but also a really interesting look at some of the low tech underpinnings of hi tech FX. How DO you get a job like that?

    elmey

    #68685
    Jhevz
    Participant

    Hi Fellow Lexxians,
    Very cool & interesting ideas brought up there; it would have been neat for someone to explain what Treatment & script is (are) for those of us who don’t understand.
    I’ve got the `Making of 3rd season of Lexx’ since I bought it at Dragon*Con, but all I have to do is watch it; I really don’t know when I’ll watch it, since the baseball playoffs are going on, the start of NHL hockey begins next week & my parents & I will be doing a lot of taping. I’m very excited to see the tape & will laugh to my hearts content.

    Lexxians, especially NHL fans, Unite,
    Jhevz 😉

    #68686
    Anonymous
    Guest

    [quote=”Jhevz”]Very cool & interesting ideas brought up there; it would have been neat for someone to explain what Treatment & script is (are) for those of us who don’t understand.[/quote]

    In short, a treatment is a brief summation of what a potential episode will be about. Someone generally submits a treatment for an episode in order to get the approval to write the script. The script is generally the final blueprint (though things do change in shooting) of the episode, with all the dialogue and technical notation. Something like this:

    INT: The bridge of the LEXX. STAN waits at the command center, looking warily at the screen.

    CUT TO: Stan’s POV. The screen displays a shot of the earth.

    STAN: Uh, Lexx? Is there any sign of Xev and Kai’s moth?

    LEXX (VO): No, Stan.

    STAN, frustrated, steps away from his post. 790 rolls forward.

    CUT TO: tight shot of 790, and back to Stan as conversation progresses.

    790: Stan, if one strand of hair on my dead man’s head is harmed, I’ll…

    STAN: You’ll what? Run over my toe?

    …and on and on like that.

    #68688
    Anonymous
    Guest

    [quote=”elmey”]Did Space Channel Canada do any promo features that are separate from the “Making Of” docs?

    When I first started looking for Lexx stuff (summer 2000) their website still featured Lexx Season 3 material. It included some interview video that wasn’t on the Season 3 “Making of” program that’s on the DVD.
    One of the interviews was McManus talking about Season 3–it looked like it was shot in a recording studio. I later saw somewhere on the web another short promo that must have been shot at the same time (same studio, same outfit): he’s talking about Brigadoom–that tape also included comments from Marty Simon and others. Any idea where that stuff came from and if its part of a longer program?

    I gotta say that the interview with the videomatics director on S3V3 is one of my favorites–if anyone has it and hasn’t watched it yet, watch it! Very funny, but also a really interesting look at some of the low tech underpinnings of hi tech FX. How DO you get a job like that?

    elmey[/quote]

    The only segments I ever saw on the Space Channel for season three turned out to be three or four minute cuts from the documentary that they used to fill time.

    Having said that, I know that they did several interviews, and these interviews would be full length, sometimes an hour or more. They’d cut these interviews, selecting the best quotes, and use that in the documentary.

    For instance, for the 2nd season documentary, they had over fourteen tapes worth of material, so that could be anywhere from 4 hours to 40 hours of LEXX stuff. Unfortunately, its all on an obsolete video format. Sometimes I think about trying to start a crusade to pay to have this stuff downloaded into a current format and made available to the fans.

    As for videomatics. It was seriously cool. A lot of videomatics was found on the production tapes that Salter Street gave away to fans during the second uncon.

    #68696
    Anonymous
    Guest

    [quote=”Valdron”] Unfortunately, its all on an obsolete video format. Sometimes I think about trying to start a crusade to pay to have this stuff downloaded into a current format and made available to the fans.
    [/quote]

    Did they archive the material? A lot of times they don’t for non-news material. Do you know what format?

    An undercover assault on the Salter Street filing cabinets for unused scripts, hmmmm….shouldn’t be [i]that[/i] hard. Anyone got a diagram of the office lay out? Or we could wait till they show up on e bay; but that’s no fun.:twisted:

    Hey Jhevz–I’m looking forward to hockey season too! Though the Rangers don’t look any better than they did last year 🙄 Today’s Sportspages: “Management says this is not make or break season for Sather”. Kiss of Death. (Ok, Ok, I’ll take further comments to the Pub 😉 )

    elmey

    #68692
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Hmmm. I don’t know. Tell you what. I’ll ask Mark Asquith.
    Last time I talked to him, they still had it. If they’ve thrown
    it out, its tragic. If they’re thinking of getting rid of it, well…
    I’d be happy to take it off their hands… As would any number
    of people…

    #68693
    lizard
    Participant

    Google, google google.

    Here is an interview that i think plays in realplayer. It is not included in any of the making of segments that I have on the dvds…

    Maybe it is the one elmey is talking about.

    http://hometown.aol.com/lexxytwo/space.html

    #68694
    lizard
    Participant

    FOUND on my computer! Two interviews (what a sad groupie eh???) playable in real one player, one of them probably corresponds to the above, with MM (and others) talking about Brigadoom, and another where he (and others) is being interviewed about the show in general. They look different from what I have on the making of segments from the DVDs, but i have the US version and maybe these are included on the british release.

    If someone tells me how I will be happy to upload these somewhere……or attach them in an email for someone else to upload….

    Disclaimer: I hope this isn’t breaking any law—-I originally got them off the web but don’t know where.

    #68703
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Yeah, that’s the Brigadoom segment I was talking about. You think you’re bad, I found the link to the S3 interview among the stuff I’ve saved over time :oops:–it’s streaming video, Real Player. It’s not on the Space website anyore, but it’s still on the server, I checked:

    rtsp://ondemand.muchmusic.com:554/space/lexx/lexx4.rm

    I’m not linking directly because the only way I can get it to work is to copy it and paste it directly into the RealPlayer “location” command. Don’t ask me why.

    The British S3 DVD’s don’t have extras so this must come from the Space Channel interviews Valdron is talking about.

    elmey

    #68704
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Never mind, the link should work. I forgot I screwed up something on my computer I haven’t fixed yet 🙄 . But if you have trouble just open RealPlayer and paste it in.

    I’d love to see what you found lizard, but don’t have a website to put it up on. Maybe someone else will volunteer theirs.

    elmey

    #68755
    mandara k
    Participant

    Um …can i ask a kinda related LEXX question 😳 . I pulled out my “won” CD from Dragon Con (BTW thanks Aleck and Acorn) from my stash; and watched The Rock. Where was that filmed? Was it in Newfoundland? Oh and I loved the subtitles to Newfoundland-ese… that was hilarious 😆

    I ask because the bargain bin yielded up amovie called “Deeply” to me…. with Kirstin Dunst and that took place in Nova Scotia and that was produced by this Wolfram Tichy guy; who is that masked man? He’s got his fingers in all the pies of the area it seems; good and bad. And is it a Maritimes thing to have young German women remove their tops; I mean it was in the bargain basement DVD for cripes sake.

    I have not seen The Rock since it aired on TV. Brud P makes the old skin crawl, eh? Well, this movie “Deeply” was very strange.

    Got to go.

    #68757
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Is not a maritimer. He’s actually a German film and television producer who has been in the business for approximately 25 years, in various roles and capacities… agent, distributor, exhibitor, mogul, etc.

    According to Les Kriszan, Wolfram distributed Paul’s first film,
    South Pacific, 1942, in Germany. Wolfram doesn’t remember this at all.

    Wolfram met Paul and Michael Donovan about 1993/1994, when Paul was developing Lexx. Later, in late 1994, he signed on as a co-production partner for the development. He was LEXX’s co-producer for the first three seasons. He, and the Germans, pulled out for the 4th season, and the British took over.

    Wolfram’s tangible contributions were hard to pinpoint. He chose or brought in some of the critical German talent, such as directors Robert Sigl and Christoph Schrewe, as well as production designers like Ingolf Hetscher, Frank Wieman, Alexander Knopf and Gerry Kunz. He also was heavily involved in selecting the principle cast (although that was mostly Paul), but was pivotal in recommending or putting forth Doreen Jacobi as Wist, and Louise Wischermann as Lyekka. (He also brought forward Anna Kathrin Bleuler to be May, and recommended several other German actors and crew members.)

    On the creative side, he was responsible for the story for Twilight, and actually wrote a script. The script was substantialy rewritten into its present form, and so he did not have a credit, but shooting scripts note that its his story. He also did a treatment for Clizzards of Woz, which became Woz. He wrote the German Lyrics for Brigadoom. And proposed two episodes, Passionflower and Lexxstacy that never got made. He was also around a lot and heavily involved in the creative process, particularly for the first two years.

    In the third year, in Patches in the Sky, he achieved a kind of LEXX immortality when they named the Wolfram T Galaxy after him.

    In the third season, he was getting heavily involved with other stuff. He had a dozen projects on the go, including two other series and nine movies.

    Even after he stopped working with LEXX, he continued to work with Salter Street and Michael Donovan in co-productions. Those who look will find his name on the credits as a producer for “Bowling For Columbine” which won some sort of award.

    He’s an extremely knowledgeable, thoughtful, courteous intelligent guy.

    #68758
    Anonymous
    Guest

    It is necessary and good for young german girls to remove their tops as often as possible to demonstrate that they are not concealing weapons of mass destruction.

    After WWII, you can’t be too careful.

    Hmmm… You know, this comment is going to haunt me if I ever run for Governator of California.

    #68780
    mandara k
    Participant

    Thanks Valdron; (Murmurs “Is there anything this guy doesn’t know about?)

    Back to The Rock and all and BTW kiddies if I have to cradle any rock by force well that guy would be cradling a hatchet in scalp; Prez hus or no Prez hus.

    And the blue underwear of Brian Downey; 😯 😆 It was great; I’m surprised they didn’t have his name embroidered on it or at least the day of the week so you know you have fresh pair for every day; essential for the swinging guy out for some action; c’mon ladies you know there is no worse turn off than torn and stained underthings!!! 😈

    So Mr Donovan redid the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical? 😯 😛 No, I know it was something else. A war flick I think.

    More later I think.

    #68782
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Actually, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the South Pacific ‘Rogers and Hammerstein’ musical. I wouldn’t rule out some sort of inspiration, but it seems to have been a more mainstream, black comedy, war flick.

    The following is a cut and paste from my never to be published LEXX book. Basically, I just got lazy, and this is one of those topics that will allow a cut and paste…..

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Certainly this seems reflective of Donovan’s early work. South Pacific, 1942 was shot on a submarine set inside an oil drum, Siege takes place largely in a rooming house, Defcon 4 was built around three principal sets.

    Donovan graduated from the London Film School in 1978, and returned home to hook up with his equally rootless and brother Michael Donovan, who was discovering that after making his way through law school by selling cadavers to medical students, he didn’t want to be a lawyer. Instead, they decided to make a film together.

    * * * * * * * *
    SOUTH PACIFIC, 1942
    Their first film was South Pacific 1942. The story is about a Canadian submarine in the pacific in World War Two. The submariners are completely untrained, the radio operator doesn’t even know morse code, so they wind up sinking a cruise ship.. Picking up the survivors, they wind up having to flee the Japanese navy, before being sunk and rescued by American sailors. South Pacific also introduced us to a few familiar faces who would pass through LEXX.
    * * * * * * * * *

    South Pacific 1942 is pretty hard to find nowadays. It seems a remarkably ambitious effort for a first time film maker with a shoestring budget of only half a million dollars.

    It seems amazing that anyone would give two first time film makers a half million dollars to go out and make a flick, and a lot is made of the mixture of earnestness and passion with which they charmed people.

    According to one story, an investment broker once told them he couldn’t, in good
    conscience, give them his clients money. But he gave them ten thousand dollars of his own. Bit by bit, from dentists and doctors and lawyers, professionals and small investors, they put it all together.

    The truth is that it’s all about timing. In the late 1970’s, the Canadian Government decided that what the country needed was a film industry of its own. An original attempt, to simply give money to film makers hadn’t worked. So between 1977 and 1979, the Canadian government gave a tax credit to film investors. This began the great Canadian tax shelter boom. Canadian film production skyrocketed from a small handful to dozens of features and hundreds of shorts. The sheer volume of Canadian film production almost rivaled Hollywood. In one year, there were 66 Canadian feature films in production, compared to 80 in the United States.

    Many of these films fell apart or were never finished, and a great many of the ones that did get made were just awful. The films had been commissioned as tax shelters, convenient and exciting places for middle class investors to hide a few dollars, and it showed in the quality. The technical infrastructure to make good films simply didn’t exist.

    “They were looking for cameramen,” Les Krizsan laughs, “they were pulling them out of Ryerson, after the first year. If they could look through a viewfinder, they were cameramen. They didn’t care about the film. Some of them were pretty bad.”

    As it became clear that most of these films were simply unwatchable, the money began to dry up. The government became embarrassed at the nation’s developing reputation for crap, and began to look for other ways to get things going.

    Of course, most of this was going on in Canada’s urban centres, particularly Toronto and Montreal. Out in the Maritimes, the Donovan brothers pretty much had the field to themselves. They were far enough from the center that they didn’t really have to compete with anyone and they could present themselves as fresh and unique.

    South Pacific, 1942 was shot in four weeks. “We used an old brewery,” Les Krizsan, DOP, remembers. “Keith brewery, on water street. It’s been renovated since then, turned into a market area. It was just huge cavern back then, and it had a big drain in the floor so we could flood the area, because eventually in the film, the submarine sinks and explodes. The submarine, they took a huge oil tank and cut it in half, separated the two sections, and it became the hull of the submarine. We put all kinds of equipment in, cabins, radio parts, and whatnot and dressed it up like a real sub would be. People were amazed when they walked inside. It was like a real submarine. It was the first time people in Halifax had seen a movie set.”

    They watched the rushes in an actual movie theater because they didn’t have a screening room, in fact, the Donovan brothers didn’t actually have an office, they didn’t even have a car. It wasn’t an unusual sight to see one of them riding around on a bicycle.

    Toronto actor Jeff Pustil was also in the cast. “It was a no budget non union film,” he says. “The major problem was they built sets, a mock set, without thinking of putting a camera in there. They built it to reality, in terms of the smallness of a submarine. They didn’t design it with a view towards how you’d move a camera around freely. Then we got cramped with shooting. You couldn’t put the camera in certain areas, you had to compromise a lot. We improvised a lot.”

    “For the exteriors we shot in Belize,” notes Krizsan. Donovan’s first film featured location work. “We did all the surface shots, the rescue operation down there. Basically the lead actors survived. They pull them into the boat and that’s the end of that.”

    “South Pacific got distributed fairly well in Europe,” Krizsan notes. “It was shown in Holland in six theatres,, sold to other countries. The investors did get most of their money back, Paul and Wolfram (Tichy) go back to the days of ‘South Pacific, 1942.’ Wolfram had a small distribution company in Germany, and a few theatres, and he actually bought ‘South Pacific, 1942.’”

    I checked this with Wolfram, by the way, and he didn’t remember it. For him, his business association with Donovan effectively begins back in 1993 when he was visiting Halifax.

    Here in North America the film generally seems to have been regarded as a flop. It’s very hard to find, even people close to Donovan, like Bill Fleming haven’t seen it, so it’s difficult to assess the merits of the work. But, they’d managed to pull together the money and more amazingly, they’d managed to get it finished and released, which is an accomplishment. Emboldened, the brothers decided to try again.

    #68783
    mandara k
    Participant

    UH….. cadavers……. the original Mort. You go boys; you come a long way baby. Well, just for Halloween the Donovanstein; Yeesh. Hide your dearly departed or near dearly departed 😯

    Well, let me be a nuisance…. aw c’mon I’m so GOOD at that!!!! 😉

    Next, on the menu of curiosity; was there ever a time that the crew tried to slip something into a set and no one knew it was there until the scenes were shot.
    Or if there was a time that they tried and it got caught and the director or the in charge guy said,
    “WTF is that and get it off off OFF my set!” I just have a feeling we are not dealing with a static group here. I mean that guy who put his head in a can of …what… paint on the blooper reel. We are not talking a line of marching workers that punched a time clock here.

    Thanks for the info on the early years; well we know they gots the mojo charm workin’ in dey favor; where do you go from an Oscar though. And how do you mind warp from war flicks to Sci-Fi.

    Hey, with Arnie as a politician; the skies the limit. I want to to see them running the whole Canadian entertainment smack. Could you see that?

    #68785
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Remember Girltown, where they throw Pearl out of the city, and on the way down he bounces off these two giant steel globes.

    Well, I thought ‘testicles’ and that it was ironic that a city of lesbians would have testicles. But really, it was probably just an artifact of design for the cities. The balls were water condensation reservoirs or something practical like that.

    So I asked Alex Busby, who had helped to do the CGI for that season.

    He said, “No, they’re testicles.”

    I said, “was that in the script?”

    He said, “No we were just being bad. We thought it would be cool and funky to have this city have a couple of big steel balls between splayed legs. So we went ahead.”

    “What did Paul say when he saw it.”

    “He liked it”

    So there you have it.

    #68792
    sgtdraino
    Participant

    [quote=”Valdron”]Hmmm. I don’t know. Tell you what. I’ll ask Mark Asquith.
    Last time I talked to him, they still had it.[/quote]

    Hey, is that the same guy who co-wrote the DC comic book sequel to The Prisoner?

    Hrrm. I see that guy’s name is spelt “Mark Askwith.” Different guy?

    #68793
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Actually, you might be right. Mark used to manage a comic book store in Toronto called Silver Snail, and he and his partner actually made a documentary film about comics called “Comic Book Confidential” which you might have seen or heard about.

    So, I don’t think its out of the bounds of possibility that he might have done the Prisoner comic.

    Just for the record, he also did a long running SF writers TV series called Prisoners of Gravity for TV Ontario which discussed Sci Fi literary topics and interviewed all sorts of SF writers.

    These days, he’s a documentary producer for the Canadian Space Channel.

    #68794
    Anonymous
    Guest

    [quote=”mandara k”]
    Next, on the menu of curiosity; was there ever a time that the crew tried to slip something into a set and no one knew it was there until the scenes were shot. [/quote]

    Isn’t that what happened early in S4 with the change from tennis balls to hockey pucks on the bridge set?

    #68795
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote=”sgtdraino”][quote=”Valdron”]Hmmm. I don’t know. Tell you what. I’ll ask Mark Asquith.
    Last time I talked to him, they still had it.[/quote]

    Hey, is that the same guy who co-wrote the DC comic book sequel to The Prisoner?

    Hrrm. I see that guy’s name is spelt “Mark Askwith.” Different guy?[/quote]

    Same guy… I’m somewhat familiar with Space Channel producer Mark Askwith mainly because he’s a regular poster at Space’s [url=http://community.spacecast.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi]spacecast.com forums[/url] (member #45) where I’ve sometimes posted.

    #68796
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Well, tell him I said hello. I’ve got some weird brain fart going on that forces me to mispell his name.

    #69143
    lizard
    Participant

    Here’s a special effects question that someone might know the answer to. I noticed during the making of segments that Lexx used “green screens” as opposed to the “blue screens” that you see used in movies like the Matrix. Is there a difference? Does one come out better than the other??

    Also does anyone know what kind of computer’s the effects crew used? It looks like Mac’s (just curious, I am not startin up my own computer animation company!)

    #69150
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Greenscreen is just the version of blue screen that works better on video. Neither green nor blue contain any natural human flesh tones, so basically, that’s why. As to why green, apparently there are complicated computer logarithms.

    As for what kind of computers, I’m not sure. Definitely not a home unit. The original software was a package from Softimage for the Demo. After that they went to CORE Digital in Toronto, which had proprietary software and as part of the co-production, they set up CORE Berlin. Core Berlin was bought out by Salter Street and TiMe and became the Effectory, which formed the core of their CGI work. They also outsourced work to other Effects companies, such as Cage Digital and Blink.

    As to what kind of computers they were using in hardware terms, don’t know. If it’s really really important, I could call up someone and ask.

    #69154
    theFrey
    Participant

    Woody mentioned that when they were down to the wire on ‘The Game’ they had some freelancers come in and help. He was pretty disgruntled that the new Apple systems the freelancers brought in were kicking the hiney of their ‘Super Duper Systems.’ 😆

    #69159
    iStan
    Participant

    [quote=”thefrey”]He was pretty disgruntled that the new Apple systems the freelancers brought in were kicking the hiney of their ‘Super Duper Systems.’ :lol:[/quote]

    No surprise there. Heh, heh, heh. 😉

    #69162
    lizard
    Participant

    [quote=”Valdron”]Greenscreen is just the version of blue screen that works better on video. …

    As to what kind of computers they were using in hardware terms, don’t know. If it’s really really important, I could call up someone and ask.[/quote]

    No, it is not important at all! Just curious. I went to a lecture the other day that involved a discussion of image compression and a little computer animation, something that someone was able to do with highschool students.

    NERD ALERT:
    Next semester I am teaching a course in Linear algebra, and it is always nice to have some “practical application” of the subject to show the students. Generating an image that resembles a fern, or a picture of Lincoln from very little starting data is one such application.

    #69284
    lizard
    Participant

    More sidways Lexx:

    Does anyone know if there will be more “deleted scenes” on the S4 DVD’s. I ordered the S4 with Fluff daddy (a fab epsiode btw) because everyone was talking about the deleted scenes– and they are pretty interesting! It is especially nice to see more interaction between Xev and LiveKai. But where are the deleted scenes of Stan as a fluffer!! Heh heh!!

    It is too bad that there doesn’t seem to be many other clips, but I only have three S4 dvds. I am almost certainly going to order the one with Yo Way Yo on it when it comes out.

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