Podcast:Faith

Teaser

Hello, and welcome to the podcast for episode 408 [unintelligible] "Faith". I'm Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica [unintelligible]. Sorry about the [unintelligible] audio. [unintelligible, something about the audio level]. I'll never make that mistake again. Anyway. This week's- the Scotch is [unintelligible] twelve, and unfortunately the smoking lamp is out.

"Faith" is actually one of my favorite episodes of the season. I like the show a lot, for many different reasons. [unintelligible] but this is Kevin Fahey's first episode for us. Kevin was our production assistant and then graduated and became a staff writer this season. This is his first time at bat for us and he did a great job. And there were post production [unintelligble] after the first draft and the second draft. Remember, that's par for the course in television.

Let's see. The first thing we talk about is where this episode begins. This episode, as I noted in last week's podcast of the episode prior to this, 407, was actually going to end much later. It was actually the end of the previous episode was actually pretty much the teaser of this episode, with Gaeta getting shot. All this [unintelligible] the teaser in the first off- in the Demetrius bridge. This is all shot to be in the prior episode. And essentially this was the sequence that was gonna get us all the way to the end. That episode was going to end with shots being fired and Gaeta going down, and then this episode was going to open with the aftermath, the crazy aftermath. And a couple of reasons argued to make all the changes that we did. [coughs] Sorry. One of them was just that the prior episode was just way full, and was running wildly over time as so many of our episodes are, and the second episode there were places that I wanted to tighten up at, some of the scenes with Cottle [unintelligible] so there was a natural overflow from one into the other. And also there was something about- as I watched the first episode, this sequence in Demetrius, it felt like we had passed the dramatic climax, that the point of him saying, "I hereby relieve you of command of Demetrius," felt like that was the high point of the scene, and then the rest of this was eroding on that dramatic moment and it just felt like it just kept going, and it didn't feel like it had a natural out, on some level. Like, I think we were gonna cut it here someplace- I'm trying to remember exactly the actual end point is in here somewhere on the chaos, it's like the shooting, and then the second episode was gonna pick up with the madness still going on. And I didn't think that was quite as satisfying as being able to play the tension of what was gonna happen next. So that argued [unintelligible] pushing over into this episode.

Oh, there's this whole business with Gaeta's leg. It's something we talked about in the writers' room, and it's like, well someone's gonna get shot, let's have 'em really get shot, and I believe in the early drafts of this, the first couple drafts were done in Helo still isn't aboard Demetrius- it was a much later break of the storyline. Initially the mutiny was sparked by Gaeta. Gaeta was the XO and Gaeta was facing down Kara, and I think what happened in the standoff in the draft was that Kara and Athena were actually pointing guns at one another, and I think part of what we were playing in those early drafts was the interesting idea that the crew of the Demetrius, the [unintelligible] crew of the Demetrius was backing the Cylon against Kara. That they had actually bonded with Athena over the course of time to the point where they would follow her even into a mutiny. That ultimately they trusted her, the known Cylon, and that's more than they trusted whoever and whatever Kara Thrace was at this point. And it was indicative of just how far Kara had gone, and also indicative of how far Athena had gone in [unintelligible]. Once we moved Helo over, it became a different storyline. The storyline was a little bit more [unintelligible]- it was little bit more influenced by The Caine Mutiny in the sequence of events that played out over there, the difference- there are noticeable differences [unintelligible] scenario you want- but I like the idea that the XO is the last one to turn against the captain, that all the other officers were united in doing all that they had to do, but the XO was the last in [unintelligible].

When we shot Gaeta's leg, question came up right away, "Well, how bad is he shot? How bad is the wound?" And I felt like, you know what? If we're gonna do this, if someone's gonna get shot over this, let's have some real consequences. Let's have s- let's have a problem that's gonna last a while, that's not gonna just get over real quickly. I think that one of the things that I dislike about television is that when people get gunshot wounds on tv typically it's a flesh- it's just a flesh wound. It's a bit of blood on the shirt, and it's usually on the same [unintelligible]. The character puts their arm in a sling and life goes on. One of the things I'm proud of in the series is that we generally- speaking, we haven't been pure about this, but generally speaking if somebody gets shot or hurt, it hurts, and the consequences of their wounds stay with the character for an extended period of time and we've tried to play [unintelligible], play how it would impede them, we've tried to play the pain most of all of how bad these- getting shot with a gun actually hurts and affects you. That's the end of the tease.

Act 1

And back. This scene actually was going to be originally- Laura was going to- with Tory and they were picking out a wig to wear. There were various wigs that were on little mannequins or styrofoam heads [unintelligible] were sitting in the corner of a room and she was trying to decide which wig she was gonna wear, and then [unintelligible] she says, "Fuck it. I'm gonna go with the scarf." I think Mary- I believe it was Mary's idea. I could be wrong. I believe it was Mary's idea that it's just more shocking to see her in the bald cap. Mary and I had long conversations before the season began about how far we were gonna with the cancer this year, what we were going to show, how far we wanted to do, and Mary is very fearless in that regard. She just wanted to go for it. She didn't want to hold back. She wanted me to play it, to go all the way. And right up to point of shaving her bald. Of course, she didn't actually shave her head [unintelligible] for the show. We wouldn't ask her to do that, really. I didn't think [unintelligible] anyway. This is actually a bald cap. Now, when I first saw it on camera, it didn't look as good as it does now, because the trick of the bald cap, of course, is that you have to plaster down the hair and then fit the cap over the top of the head. And Mary has a lot of hair. So as good as the makeup people- hair and makeup people are, and as long as she spent in the makeup chair, I think she spent like three or four hours in a makeup chair to get that bald cap on, it still bulged. In fact, the problem was, when you saw it on camera in that shot, she looked a bit like the Talosians from Star Trek. And those of you who are not dyed in the wool Star Trek original series fans, I encourage you to go out there and expand your vocabulary. [unintelligible] but do some research and find out who the Talosians were. 'Cause she looked a bit Talosian in a bald cap, initially. So what we had digital effects come in and visual effects reshaped the curvature of her head so that it became a little bit more to a natural shape and contour so that it didn't pop and you wouldn't be like, "Oh my God, what's that?" when you first saw it. So just another way that digital effects is helping it all to [unintelligible].

I like that little beat right there with Helo and this is Sharon before she goes. I think it's- I would say that Nankin on the day- on the Demetrius, we were talk- he asked, "Doesn't-" he felt like it was missing a little something between Sharon and Helo and we talked about it and I think- I can't remember if it was his idea or mine, but they have a little- just a little quiet moment for the two- husband wife. I really- like the way we play Helo and Sharon in that scene there. That they are a committed, loving, married couple and they're not driven apart, they're not cheating, they're not an angst-ridden marriage. It's an interesting thing, and that's a rarity in television.

For those of you who keep track of such things, this is the first time, I believe, we've seen a jump looking out the window during the jump itself. This [unintelligible] sequence is really great. Going through the debris field. Moving the Raptor through the wreckage of a battle. In the initial drafts I think that the- what's coming up is that of course they're gonna be attacked by- not attacked, they're gonna be hit by some ordnance popping off, but in the initial drafts I believe there was a Raider that actually attacked them, and it was leftover from the battle, and it was one of Cavil's Raiders, but I think I felt that it was unnecessary and suddenly these like action, action, and I didn't think we needed to do something [unintelligible]. And I also thought it was a little confusing. Like you didn't quite- it's like, "Huh? Who's Raider is that? Wait? Who's side are the Raiders on?" It just confused things in the moment that [unintelligible] extra confusion.

I really like this little beat with Helo and Gaeta where Gaeta is looking for- to Helo for- The standard hero moment here is, "Tell me I won't lose my leg. Promise me I won't lost my leg." And hero would say, "I promise you I'll do whatever I can." And Helo doesn't give him that. Helo just looks him right in the eye and says, "No, I'm gonna stay here until the last second. [Unintelligible]." Gaeta kinda knows what that answer probably means. And it's a tough answer. It's an honest answer. I like the truth about it. I like the fact that [unintelligible].

There's some nice little [unintelligible] notes here in this scene, in the Raptor, watching Anders as Leoben starts talking about hearing things that nobody else can hear. And [unintelligible] musical references [unintelligible]. Anyway this scene is as much about Anders as it is about anybody else. I love the stuff that the ordnance going off. This is something we worked over again over in visual effects and they- guys always came through. And I like the notion that ordnance is just popping off from this wreckage. And that that random piece of ordnance was what slammed into the Raptor and take 'em down. It's just- There's something about it that's just kind of interesting, 'cause it feels like one of those random battlefield events that do occur and that people are taken unaware of and that even after the battle is over there's still dangerous things [unintelligible] and shit happens. And that flying these aircraft and participating in these kinds of events carry with it an underlying danger at every turn, that I think it's interesting to play, especially when it just pops up and hits you out of nowhere.

There was a lot of discussion back and forth about Kara's vision, and how we were gonna realize that. Obviously we had to- we actually had to paint the vision- her painting of the vision on her bulkhead in Demetrius before we actually did this visual effects sequence, so there was actually a lot of conversations with Gary Hutzel and Richard Hudolin and the director about the painting, and how the painting was gonna work, and what the colors were, previzzing out some of the shots. There was a lot of coordination to make that thing happen. And when we watched the cut, I think it was there was a flash, we played around with it in the cut of Kara looking out and flashing back to her painting, and then there was also a version where she was flashback to the image [unintelligible] and flash down. And it's more effective not as a flashback, but as a dissolve. It would dissolve in and dissolve out.

Act 2

Interesting little thing on this water. See? Like there's this slight image of water there as Kara comes to consciousness. One of the things that Michael Nankin did in his cut, in his director's cut for this episode, is on the Laura story, Laura had images and flashes of the ferry, the ferry that eventually takes her across, in her dream, across the river and she sees [unintelligible] on the shore. Well, Michael had us playing those a little bit more- not quite objectively, they were still subjective, flashes of Laura-

[unintelligible] I have to mention. That whole gate coming down and all that stuff in the baseship was all added- that's all just a big CG effect, that it's just a green screen right there.

But anyway, Michael had all these flashes and cuts of the ferry streamed all the way through the ship, and I took most of them out, which I'll discuss later, but there was a remnant of that idea- one of the only remnants is that thick little come into wake them as Kara, with just the out of focus water, which was actually shot from the same material that was later Laura's ferry ride.

This kind of scene with Sh- no, Athena talking to the Sharons is one of those things that drives production insane because it takes forever and it's complicated because you have- it's doing this take a lot of different times, a lot of different passes, as they call it, it a lot of blue dots on the walls, it's getting Shar- getting Grace to stand on different marks, different times, it's listening to the playback. It's timing your dialogue accordingly. It's a lot of lighting things up. It just takes forever. It's just one of those things that drives production nuts, is when you do all the multiple Cylons- multiple Cylon scenes. Even though we've gotten- we don't usually leave much control when you wanna do that kind of stuff. That saves a tremendous amount of time. It's still- you can do [unintelligible] the old school way [unintelligible] with the dailies, just different passes on the same plate and it still takes a long time.

The Laura story- actually, in its initial conception was much more political. It was much more about- had a lot more Baltar in it. Actually, in this version Baltar's not even in the show, except you hear him over the wireless, but it was much more about what he was saying in his broadcasts and how he's affecting law, and actually Zarek and Lee were big in this show in the early drafts. Zarek was maneuvering to have Laura declared unfit to be president 'cause she was clearly getting too sick and he was trying to manipulate Lee into doing so, and- having to do with what Baltar was also saying on the tapes and he was starting to be convinced that there was actually some kind of backroom dealing going on between Zarek and Baltar, and Lee trying to figure out his duties to the Fleet. Laura really is sick. What does he owe to the people and what does owe personally [unintelligible] Zarek. And he's very, very [unintelligible]. But the stronger piece of it, I thought, emotionally was the story between Laura and the cancer patient that- it was a little bit more in the early versions, it was a little bit more of a sense of Laura getting drawn directly into what Baltar was saying. They discussed what Baltar was saying a little bit more overtly. And I think I- through the rewrites and as we massaged the story and I kept coming back to the idea it was much more emotional than that. That it was much more about Laura's personal relationship with a woman who is nearing the end and Laura facing her mortality and looking in the eye a little bit more strongly, in a very literal sense, that she could put herself into that woman's shoes much more readily than almost anyone else that you've experienced.

Back here on the Raptor- on the baseship. There's Barolay. It was interesting to bring- Barolay's been on- with us for a while. This whole little sequence here, this little scenario where Barolay is recognized by one of the Sixes and that leads to Six killing Barolay and then Anders almost killing the Six, and then ultimately Natalie killing the Six for him.