Editing Podcast:Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I

RDM: The other major plotline, of course, that's getting established in the tease is [[Kara Thrace|Kara]] returning to [[The Twelve Colonies of Kobol#Caprica|Caprica]]. This was something that essentially since "[[The Farm]]" was something we had promised. I mean, once Kara laid down that mark and gave [[Samuel Anders|Anders]] the dog tag, she has to go back for him, and it was a question of how and when and under what circumstances, and how we could justify it, and make it plausible, and what would be the outcome of it. And the key idea in that sequence is that they found a way to link up the [[Heavy Raider|Cylon Heavy Raider]]'s computer system into a [[Raptor]], and that we had established- sort of established that the Raiders had abilities to jump f- a lot farther than any [[:Category:Colonial Craft|Colonial ship]] did, and could get back to Caprica in just a few discreet jumps, and by slaving that computer... blah blah blah [[technobabble]] technobabble to the Raptor technobabble technobabble they had a way of making it happen, especially if [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon]] was working with them. In initial drafts, in fact, right up until we were shooting it was going to be that they were going to take the Heavy Raider itself, and that the other Raptors would be slaved to the Heavy Raider, and we were going to build a Heavy Raider interior, and put the characters piloting the Heavy Raider back to Caprica. At the last minute we had to- we were way over budget on this episode, on thes- this two-parter, just monstrously over budget and then som- we had to make some hard decisions and started cutting sets, and visual efffects, and the interior of the Heavy Raider was something that I cut at the last minute. Said "Okay, you know what? Let's just lose this- this set. It's not that important. We'll put 'em all in Raptors and we'll just move the computer off the Heavy Raider onto the Raptor and just go with it." And you know what? You don't miss it in the story at all. So it was actually a good decision.

The [[Raptor]] mission back to [[The Twelve Colonies of Kobol#Caprica|Caprica]] was something that I thought would be a primary cord going through "Part One", sort of provide- there's very little action in part one, as you might have known by now. The only really action you have in part one is at the end, 'bout when they do get to Caprica. But I like the laying this bit of pipe in here of the mission back to Caprica, gives you that military tension and impending conflict all the way through the show, because part one is very talky. "Part One" is a lot of setup. And I typically like "Part One"'s better than "Part Two"'s because they're- they are more setup and they are more character and they are more dealing with where people are, where they're going. And "Part Two"'s are usually all about resolution and getting things tied up in neat little bows and they're not usually as interesting, to me personally as a writer, as the beginnings. I'm interested with how things began, how one thing leads to another, seeing how the threads are interwoven.  

Meanwhile, back in the nebula... There was a point where this was an act-out. I think it was scripted as an act-out, actually. When they find [[New Caprica|the planet]] was supposed to be the "Duh, duh, duuuh" sort of act-out of act 2, or even act 1, it could have been, I'd have to go back and look at the script, and Mike Rymer made the observation that "Well, we've had this act-out. We've done this same act-out last season." And indeed we did. "[[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I|Kobol's Last Gleaming]]" has exact same moment, where [[Crashdown]]- Crashdown and Sharon find [[Kobol (RDM)|Kobol]]. And it's a similar, "Hey, is that a planet? Oh my god! Hey, it can support human life! Oh my god! Isn't that cool?"  And it was- it was hard to come up with a diff- a way to spin this differently because they're still going to have some of the somewhat same basic reactions, and I took several passes through, and the closest I could come to making it truly different was just that they felt that they were fuck-ups and that they had completely screwed up their mission, and then they find this plan, they kind of feel like, "Oh, hey! Maybe we aren't such frak-ups, after all." But once you went that direction, it ends with a whimper and not a bang. It didn't really feel like an act-out any more. And as we were restructuring this in the editing room, I was also realizing that the multiple storylines and plot-threads in this episode were a blessing and a curse. They were a blessing because they were exploring all these different things that I was in love with and they were providing energy, 'cause whenever you're intercutting different storylines it provides just a different dynamic and more energy and you're just caught up in things more, but you als- the other side is that- is that you run the risk of losing audience and getting confused, like trying to remember wh- where we are in different storylines and what's going on. So when we- I was restructuring this in editing, I decided to marry up all these scenes in a row, that you go from [[Margaret Edmondson|her]] finding the planet, straight into the [[Galactica (RDM)|''Galactica'']] scene, straight into the [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] scene, straight into the next one and so on, and make this like a run of scenes, instead of interspersing these in and among other storylines. This is always intended to kind of, like, telescope the time frame and get them down to exploring this new planet and getting some initial reports back because the important thing was to quickly get a sense of that everyone in the fleet is excited about the planet, and everyone is starting to go, "Hey, I can't wait to get down there. I'm looking forward to shore leave." And everybody's starting to have dreams of what it is to stand on- on solid ground again, and have blue sky above your head, and get out in the open air, because up until now the only people who've really been down on a planet are the people who were either back on [[The Twelve Colonies of Kobol#Caprica|Caprica]], no fun, or the people who were on Kobol, no fun, for the most part. And everyone else in [[The Fleet (RDM)|the fleet]], the vast majority of people, have been cooped up and stuck in these metal cans ever since the miniseries. And the thought that, "Here's a planet, hidden in a nebula, that the Cylons haven't found, that can support human life," would prove to be an irresistable pull, so I wanted to telescope all that very quickly and get to the place that they are in this scene. Word has gotten out, everyone is excited about the planet, and what do you do with it? That [[Tom Zarek|Zarek]] comes up with this notion that permanent settlement on the planet- well actually it's not even really Zarek who comes up with it, truth to tell, it's really something [[Number Six|Six]] says to [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]], then Baltar offhandedly says, "Oh, I was just thinking about what it'd be like to live here," that then makes Zarek come up with the idea. So one could say it's the angel of [[God (RDM)|God]] at- at- at- at work again. But I like that it's Zarek's political acumen that does actually, like, give Baltar this campaign. That he realizes that this has touch- that the thought of this world has touched a chord out there, and that if you could give voice to that in the campaign, if you could actually, like, grab onto that issue and put yourself in opposition to [[Laura Roslin]] that maybe, just maybe, you would turn enough people to- to come down on your side.

And then of course I like this little bit, of the spin afterward, and [[Tom Zarek|Zarek]] is spinning the debate but Laura knows the truth of it. And then back to [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon-occupied]] [[The Twelve Colonies of Kobol#Caprica|Caprica]].