Podcast:The Face of the Enemy

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"The Face of the Enemy" Podcast
[[Image:{{{image}}}|200px|The Face of the Enemy]]
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Posted on: 2008-12-12
Transcribed by: DrWho42
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Length of Podcast: ~4:11
Speaker(s)
Ronald D. Moore
Ronald D. Moore
Ronald D. Moore
Terry Dresbach
Comedy Elements
Scotch:
Smokes:
Word of the Week: kairon(?)
Legal Notice
All contents are believed to be copyright by the speakers. Contents of this article may not be used under the Creative Commons license. This transcript is intended for nonprofit educational purposes. We believe that this falls under the scope of fair use. If the copyright holder objects to this use, please contact the transcriber(s) or site administrator Joe Beaudoin Jr. To view all the podcasts that have been transcribed, see the podcast project page.


Episode 1

Jane Espenson: Espenson. Welcome to my podcast for the Season 4 webisodes The Face of the Enemy. These were co-written by me along with Kevin Fahey also known as Seamus Fahey. One of the other writers on Battlestar Galactica. I should point out these episodes were his idea. It was- we all enjoyed the original webisodes that were written by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson and Kevin had the idea that we would do another set and he took the idea to Ron Moore and he liked the idea and so the two of us wrote these together. I'm watching them with the sound- with the audio turned down so you're not going to hear my audio, but I will tell you that right now I'm watching the little sequence of images that are Gaeta's memories that also serve us of a preview for what you are going to see in, in the webisodes. It's beautifully cut together. A little kairon (?) just came up three days earlier and we're seeing our beautiful fleet looking very very nice. This was an extremely difficult project for a number of reasons one of which was that we had very limited access to the Battlestar sets. This was being filmed at the same time that the movie was being filmed and so the the sets were being torn down as the movie "The Plan" finished with each set cause the series had been - completed its run. So they were literally coming in with bulldozers and sledgehammers and tearing these sets down. So the scene you just saw uh with Gaeta and Tigh was filmed on a set that was torn down as soon as they were done shooting that. This corridor was also one of the last things that were standing of of Galactica if I recall. There there were really literally by the time we finished the webisodes nothing was left but but the little Raptor on which we were filming this. This decision to make Gaeta and Hoshi a couple is one that I’m very pleased with. I think it plays very well. It was Wayne Rose who directed these who did this fantastic job and he was the one who in a production meeting as we were- we already had the script- we were all ready to begin shooting and he pointed out that he was having a very hard time scheduling these scenes because we were spending so much time on that one set: the Raptor, and and wouldn’t it be interesting if we could cut back to some other location and he suggested that what if someone were out looking for Gaeta and that made my wheels turn and the first thought was that we could cut to a Viper in which Narcho would be looking for him. Narcho’s one of our established pilots, and I thought that would be an interesting couple if: Gaeta and Narcho. That ended up- we couldn’t get Narcho, and we ended up uh going with Hoshi which means of course we were still cutting to from a Raptor to another Raptor, but at that point we had- we were committed to the idea and I loved the job that Hoshi did I have no regrets that we lost Narcho. I think either either combination would have worked well but in terms of story-telling for Season 4 this actually worked out better, and I think Hoshi does a fantastic job. I could not ask for better. Looking here at our two Eights, these in script these are Pilot Eight and Sweet Eight and in a production meeting I suggested that maybe the makeup team could do a slightly different effect uh with Sweet Eight’s makeup than they were doing with Pilot Eight’s to sort of emphasize the softness of one character and the hardness of the other and everyone sort of laughed and said: “With Grace Park, you do not need to do that. That you will be able to see from just the way she holds her face which character she’s playing.” And and it is true. It- everyone commented on it. It’s absolutely true. That you can just- she just makes her face sweeter or harder or whatever. She’s really really incredible. I’m very please. That was the end of Webisode 1. Where is the fleet?

Episode 2

Webisode 2. Here we go. By the way these were not written as a thirty page script in which I artificially went through later and put in the act breaks. These were written as ten little scripts as the ten little webisodes. So each of these act breaks was sort of agonized over from the earlier stages to give you a satisfying act break-type feel every three pages which is a challenge. You write a very different story depending on the number of act breaks- the number of times you have to turn your story. This is one of the reasons that I don't like the fact that many- most hour long dramas have gone to six acts instead of the traditional four. More act breaks means your story has to turn. More often you end up with a very different type story. Part of the thing that gives these webisodes a different feel than a similar thirty minute chunk of regular Battlestar is because the storytelling is different when you have so many act breaks. So you know write your congressman tell him you want four acts in your hour long drama but for webisodes this works very well with these little three minute chunks. They’re wearing- some of the characters here you’ll see Finn and Esrin wearing the helmets and I was against originally using the helmets in so many scenes and having Finn and Esrin in their helmets for so much of the story because I feared that it would- these are new characters we don’t know them very well to obscure so much of their face I thought would be confusing or at least you know hard to watch but in fact those helmets are so fantastic and so beautifully lit that once I saw how they looked I had no hesitation to. Well, put a helmet on all of them! They look fantastic. Here’s Hoshi again doing a fine job. This originally all these scenes back on Galactica were going to be with Admiral Adama instead of with Colonel Tigh with Michael Hogan here but we couldn’t get him because he was busy directing and acting in the movie which is I say was shooting at the same time. So it was a question of who we had available and thank goodness! We had Colonel Tigh, our other authority figure and he does- Michael does a fantastic job here. The characters of Finn and Esrin and Brooks who are three new characters- there’s Finn- on the ship. That was an interesting thing. We didn’t have time to do a separate casting session for all of these characters but we were very fortunate that we had just cast a number of roles in the movie The Plan which I also was producing at the same time so we had audition tapes left over from the role of the Coach and the role of two of the Pyramid players from that movie. So I was able to go back and look at the tapes and pick three actors who hadn’t been cast in the movie but who would be right for these roles and this is- that’s how we got Finn and Brooks and Esrin and they’re very good. It makes me feel confident that even if we had made different decisions casting the movie we would have ended up with very good actors.

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

Episode 10