Podcast:Scar
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RDM: Hello, and welcome to the podcast for episode fifteen of the second season, "Scar." I'm Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica and this week I'm joined by the writers of this particular episode.
Weddle: I'm David Weddle.
Thompson: And I'm Bradley Thompson, and we were very happy to work on this one.
RDM: This is a good one. This is my- one of the standout episodes of the second season, I think. And I'm trying to remember how we- where this episode began in our- our- on our conversations.
Thompson: There was- well, you had come up with feeling that you wanted to get into the world of the fighter pilot.
RDM: Right.
Thompson: You wanted to see what it was like to sweat down on the deck, and what were their lives like. And David Eick came up with an idea that he wanted to see a mano a mano between Kat and- and Kara. That Kara's been out of it for a while there may be a new top gun.
Weddle: That's something that Brad and I wanted to do-
RDM: (whispers) A little closer to that.
Weddle: -in some ways Act- Act- in some ways "Act of Contrition" was a first stab at that. I know from the day we came on the show Brad and I were talking about we wanted to see the life of the Viper pilots almost from the day they get- time they get up in the morning to around the clock.
RDM: Which is really weird we started also with last year's "Act of Contrition" which you guys wrote as well, which was all about the first group of new- new "nuggets" that would come into- into basic training on Galactica after the Fleet was- was on the run. And I think I was- I- I shared their interest in this arena as well. It felt like one of the key aspects of the series, right from the beginning, was, "Ok. This is an aircraft carrier in space." And we went to great pains to try to delineate all the- the markers of what it meant to be on an aircraft carrier, how the squadrons were organized, how the ship was organized, how the pilots were treated and interacted, more or less as accurately as we could portray it. So the thought of doing a show that was all about th- the fighter pilots and all about the squadron, really getting into their lives, was always very appealing.
Weddle: I know one of the the things that Brad and I talked about, one of our favorite World War II movies is "Battleground" because it's the life- the war from the perspective of the grunts. Which in this case, Viper pilots are. And they're part of a larger mission, but they don't always know the big picture of what's going on and they're caught up in just what their tasks are.
Thompson: One of the toughest things about setting this- this up so that it would be- there was one other aspect to this which was, we needed the enemy because Ron got this idea that he wanted only one battle in space. We weren't going to do a series of battles.
RDM: Oh, right. Right.
Thompson: Or a scorekeeping thing and there was- so we had this box to work into. So the question was, "Ok. How can we set this competition up in the framework of one fight that's going to determine everything?"
RDM: Now this scene- the scene that you're seeing here in the tease of them gathering all the- the possessions of the dead pilot together into a box actually lead to a scene that ultimately we cut in editing. We shot it and cut it. Where they auctioned off the pos- the possessions of the dead pilot, which grew out of something I remember from history and fictionalized history as well where in the- in the Royal Navy back in the Napoleonic War era when members of the crew died, officers or enlisted men died, they would take all their possessions and they would take them up onto the deck after the battle and they would auction them off to the other members of the crew, and it was a way of saying goodbye and it was al- or carrying some pieces of their memory forward and also in a practical sense there was gear to be had. And there extra shirts and there were buttons and all kinds of- of things that people actually wanted.
Thompson: Especially in a- in a civilization such as we've got here in the rag tag fleet, a skin magazine or-
RDM: The skin magazines, yeah.
Thompson: That would be a very rare thing. They're probably not making a whole lot of those anymore.
RDM: And we did shoot that aspect of the- of the sce- sequence. This scene was going to then cut to Lee holding up the skin magazine from Beano and it was like, "Ok. How much do I have for this?" And there was a big rowdy scene. I think when we cut it together and put it in the show my feeling was that it f- it was too big. That the- that the- the energy was too up and it didn't quite read as a quasi-memorial Irish wake kind of an event. It was a little bit too much of a- of a balls-out party. And it felt- we were so early in the show that it pulled you out of the fact that these guys, these new guys, are stepping into a situation where people get killed all the time.
Thompson: What wasn't really obvious with that- with the scene that was cut was that these guys are really overcompensating for that loss. They're- they're really- their big partying and all of that stuff-
RDM: Yeah...
Thompson: -was really to hide their grief from one another. (beeping in the background)
RDM: Yeah.
Weddle: What I love is- is we're really focusing on those bunks are being emptied and filled on a- if not daily basis, weekly basis, and this is an ongoing atrophy that's eating at these people day in and day out and other episodes we would never normally focus on that. It's great to take the microscope down to these pilots themselves.
Thompson: One of the nice things that Michael Nankin brought to this- many nice things he brought to this show was the- the little moment you saw earlier with the- putting the tag of Beano on the new guy-
RDM: Oh, yeah.
Thompson: -Jo-Jo-
RDM: Yeah, I love that.
Thompson: -which is... *grunt like being punched*. It's almost like that moment in- in- in- when the- whey they bring the- when the guys climb into the body bags in Apocaly- not "Apocalypse Now". The Kubrick film.
RDM: Oh, "Full Metal Jacket."
Thompson: "Full Metal Jacket."
RDM: Oh, yeah yeah yeah.
Thompson: They get there and they're in the body bag and you go, "Oh. Wait a minute. Oh. I'm in a dead guy's bunk."
RDM: Yeah. (zippo lighter) In fact there's Hotdog's- Hotdog's got the skin magazine in the background-
Thompson: Mmmhmmm.
RDM: -that was theoretically auctioned off.
Weddle: Michael Nankin did just an incredible job of bringing the scenes to life and we knew we were writing a dark show when we wrote it but when we got on the set and he and the actors just made these moments come viscerally alive it was very exciting for us and that we also realized, "Wow. This is even darker than we- we knew." S-
Thompson: One- one of the things that happened especially was there was a- there was a lot of really good material and- bringing this down to something that fit within the forty-one minutes or so that we've got to tell a story was a masterful job by Ron and David and the editing people.
RDM: Yeah, this was a big editing challenge. We had actually two editors on this show. It was ver- very complicated and Annette, who's edited several of our shows, and then Mike O'Halleran who was an assistant editor who actually this was the first professional full-on editing gig that he did. And it took a lot of hours, a lot of playing around with the structure of the flashbacks, what was your transition in and out of the flashbacks. Probably the biggest change was that the fighter- the actual combat that we show, the duel between Kat and Kara and Scar had many more conv- permutations and convoluted stuff that was- that was scripted. It wasn't convoluted by accident, it was, like, we wanted a very complicated maneuvers and a lot of fighter pilot stuff back and forth. But it was hard to make it a coherent, easy to follow, narrative in this structure where you're going in and out of the- of the- the k- present day fight and going back to all these pieces. And so we winnowed it down to the bare essence of the fight against Scar.
Thompson: This- this thing that you just saw Kara do, this- this- crash landing, this carrier landing actually comes from astronauts that we interviewed for another- another project we were on where they would go to bars and literally dive across the tables.
Weddle: Do "carrier landings" and "naval shooters" of tequila, which you're seeing right now.
Thompson: Yeah, the belly-button shooter.
Weddle: Yeah, the what's interesting, Ron, about this show is this was a difficult show to make work. This- if I'm right-
RDM: Yeah. No, this wasn't-
Weddle: -It was not easy to make work, but- but and often that's a sign of a show that's in trouble, but ultimately turned out to be o- a very strong show.
RDM: And I think part of that was we all were in love with the show. We all, everybody, top to bottom, really liked this episode. And so, it was just a- such a big, complicated piece of material. We really worked overtime to make this thing work. Like that shot right there of the reflection of the Vipers in the visor of Scar is something that actually Gary Hutzel threw in. He- this- it wasn't scripted and it wasn't in most of the initial pre-vis that they showed us and it just cropped up as a shot that he wasn't even going to put in the show at one point and then we- he hi- he alluded to it. We had him show it to us in the editing bay and we fell in love with it. And now it's like this great moment.
Thompson: The visual effects on this deserve some special mention 'cause this was- when we originally called up Gary Hutzel when we were thinking about what we were going to do and how this was going to be one dogfight, Gary had said, "Ok. This is something. We gotta got to start working on now. Long before we shoot the show. We've got to start making this happen." And he had a- lined up all these people for- for the big- for the big visual effects show and this was the time to call in all of the markers.
RDM: I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think they delivered the last visual effects shots on this episode, like, this week. (chuckles)
Thompson: It was actually delivered after the mix.
(everbody chuckles)
Act 1
Weddle: Actually even after the layback of the soundtrack going onto tape there were still shots that weren't in yet.
RDM: They were wor- They slaved on this and slaved on this. This whole thing of- of flying through the debris field, and the contrails, and the lighting scheme. All that was stuff I believe that Gary came up with.
Thompson: Yes it is.
Weddle: Yeah I remember him taking us up and showing us a preliminary sequence in his shop and we were just- with Michael Nankin-
RDM: Mmmhmmm.
Weddle: -We were just blown away but what it- why- what he what he wanted to do.
Thompson: Use of light in it is so great.
RDM: Mmmhmmm. And the- the thi- oh, well this is one of my favorite beats of the whole show.
Weddle: Brad scripted this. And then Gary delivered it.
Thompson: That actually comes from a- a thing that Pappy Boyington used to do in the Second World War when he was flying with the Flying Tigers. And the enemy- the bad guys were always in the sun, and he just at one point put his thumb up there and realized he could see around the sun, and he assumed that everybody else had already-
RDM: -figured that out-
Thompson: -twigged to that particular thing.
RDM: -Well that's interesting.-
Thompson: Nobody had.
RDM: Well that's great. That's a great book, too. Is that in "Black Sheep Sq-"?-
Thompson: -Yeah.-
RDM: In the book?-
Thompson: "Baa Baa Black Sheep."
RDM: "Baa Baa Black Sheep", which is a great, great wor- wor- work.
Weddle: Gun camera footage. They actually has this all set up and put it out on the set.
RDM: Yeah, that was an impressive achievement. I remember talking about this and it being in the production meeting but I was- it was one of those areas that I really wasn't focused on, for whatever reason, and then I didn't see it or even really think about it again until I was catching up on dailies and saw Kat standing in front of the gun camera footage and I was really impressed, 'cause it was like, man, they had to pull that together and get it done and put it on the stage in like no time at all.
Weddle: Though, one of the great things you did in editorial, was inter- intercutting these two scenes because-
RDM: Yeah, these were separate.
Weddle: If- if they're s- if they play separately they- they have a certain lethargy to 'em but the way you cut them, they're- they- really-
RDM: -Well and then the first cut of this, because the episode was so long, the CIC scenes in the episode were cut completely. They weren't even in- in the show. And I felt that you- we needed a break from the pilot world and we needed to go up to the top a little bit and get an overview of what was really happening. And that- that gun camera scene and- and the briefing room and the ready room just kind of went on a bit. So by intercutting it with CIC you got it all. It was like you got to see what was really happening in the Fleet and you als- but you s- were still back in the room with the pilots in short order.
Weddle: The other thing is that when we were doing the- the fighter- the actual fighter tactics and the things that Kara says about- or that Kat says about you'll have only two seconds to actually blow this guy away so you've gotta get close. This all comes from real fighter pilot concerns.
RDM: What I remember telling you guys at the outset this- ha- I want- I just want to know what it's like to be a fighter pilot. What are the tactics? What are the things they talk about? What a- what is- what is the lifeblood of being a fighter pilot mean in this- in this world?
Weddle: And then the- the challenge was how to not make it like an industrial film, but-
RDM: Yeah- (chuckles)
Thompson: Yeah- (chuckles)
Weddle: -we found the Kat and Kara conflict in "Scar", it galvanized the whole thing and we were able to do that in a dramatic context.
RDM: It's interesting just in the- sorry- it's interesting just to see the- the- the development of Kat-
Thompson: -yeah-
RDM: -who started as just a day player in- in "Act of Contrition." I don't know that any of us anticipated that we were ever going to really do anything with that character again. And then bit by bit over the course of the first and second seasons writers just started dropping her into shows and using her as another fighter pilot.
Thompson: That's one of the wonderful things about working on this show is that you never know who's going to step up front and- and be great.
RDM: Yeah.
Weddle: That's something we learned from working on "Deep Space Nine" with- with Ira and you and-
RDM: -yeah. Oh, yeah.-
Weddle: -there would be a little bit player that would come into a scene and everybody would like them, and then we start to expand them-
RDM: -yeah, you'd want to play-
Thompson: -and they would suddenly, in a season or two, they'd be a major character.
RDM: Yeah.
Weddle: And we actually, like, we'll watch dailies and watch shows and when we see somebody we like we do bring 'em, purposely bring 'em back into our scripts and start to build on what we see.
RDM: Well it's nice is it creates a reality of the world. It really makes it feel like a continuing story with familiar faces and the world just keeps expanding.
Thompson: One of the guys that we really enjoy in this show and when we- and when he was brought in was- was Duck-
RDM: yeah (unintelligble)
Thompson: -the red-headed guy who's got attitude.
Weddle: Yeah. He's got a wonderful presence.
Now this is a scene that you did a final pass on, Ron, that's a great...
RDM: Yeah, I did- yeah, I did a final pass on this scene pretty late in the process.
Weddle: Yeah.
RDM: This is one of those... they... I can't remember why I took the pass and I think the director or somebody and we were talking about taking another take on this scene and I just sat down and dove in and wrote it. And it was interesting 'cause it literally just happened on the page, what the conversation was about. It seemed like an interesting moment where we had these two in isolation and they, the other Sharon had been friends with Kara and they had shared this life together and they would have been fighting the same enemy together if things had turned out differently, and now here she is, and she's a Cylon, and that there's a strong part of Kara that still can't quite get over that notion that sh- "You're not real and you're a machine and does it matter to you that we're all out there dying? What do you think about that?"
Weddle: And-
Thompson: One things- one of the things I really love about this scene is that- that Sharon will say something and the conversation will go on and Kara's still thinking something-
RDM: -Yeah.-
Thompson: -something from what she said before and- and they're not on the same parallel track.-
Weddle: -It's-
Thompson: -It's not A then B then C, it's like A, B, C and then Kara comes back to A. Well what about... this downloading thing? What a weird world.
RDM: It's a very nice piece of acting from the two of them-
Weddle: Wow, yeah.
RDM: They're- they're both really good in this scene.
Weddle: I can't say enough about Katee in this show, in general, the way she carries it. She's just a phenomenal performer.
Thompson: -or our cast-
RDM: It's a great episode for the character too.-
Weddle: -Yeah.-
RDM: And- and Katee really s- steps up and just delivers an amazing performance in this- in this episode. Which is pretty standard shoot for the cast, but, in this episode it's interesting that we take Kara down a significant peg here. She's really fuckin' up in this episode. She's not on her game. She's- she's getting blinded by this competition with Kat and she doesn't know why. She's- she's confused, she gets drunk, she sleeps- she tries to sleep with Lee for all the wrong reasons. She's con- really confused, flawed character, and she's the top gun character on the show. And she's supposed to be perfect and she's supposed to have all these abilities and this is really one where we really went- put her through the ringer.
Weddle: And- and being that Brad and I are both the sons of war veterans who were very conflicted and self-destructive it's very personnel for us writing for char- for a character like this.
Thompson: The- the other thing that's really nice is that flying a Viper doesn't look like fun and games the whole time. It's not like a great little video game. I mean, you can see the stress on her face and it gets even worse as the show goes on.
RDM: Yeah, I like this scene coming up where they come back from the mission and Kara's sweatin' in the cockpit and- and the other guy pukes when he gets out of the cockpit-
Weddle: -yeah. That was Michael Nankin's little touch there.-
RDM: Now talk about this scene. Where did this scene come from? This was the chair, originally, right?
Thompson: Yeah. This- this was originally a chair that I- I went to Edwards Air Force Base and I was put in their- their altitude chamber and their aerobatics chair that they have, which simulates vertigo. And you- you spin around in the chair with your eyes shut and then they say, "Point to the back wall with your finger." And your finger points to the side chair, it points to the floor, it points to anyplace. You just cannot keep that thing on target.
Weddle: It also grew out of the challenge of the story because we had to have a competition between Kat and Kara, but we can only have one dogfight.-
RDM: -Mmhmmm.-
Weddle: -So what are the venues of competition between them? So it became the briefing room, it became this, it became-
Thompson: -And it's really nice in- what- while we may hate it because there are limitations by budget and what we can actually do or- it does force us to think outside of the box. We-
Weddle: -Yeah. First we start out with the sitting alone in our office going, "God damnit. Why can't we have more than one dogfight?" (Chuckling in the background.) "This is impossible what they're asking us to do."
Thompson: "What kind of people are we dealing with?"
Weddle: Then we- then we suck it up and start coming up with ideas like this.
Thompson: Which is, like, totally insane. Who gives somebody a loaded gun that cannot keep their hands still-
RDM: - I know. It's such a wacky idea.
Thompson: Don't try this at home, folks.-
RDM: -Yeah. (laughs)
All this stuff in the cockpit was- was done sp- we built this cockpit for this show. We didn't really have a full blown Mark VII cockpit that was easy to shoot in. The- The cockpits were always very difficult on the stage to manage. Very confined. It was hard to get the cameras in and out of them, just to shoot stuff on the dash and this episode required a lot of interior cockpit stuff and when they were doing "Flight of the Phoenix", right? Was when- when we were doing the stealth fighter w- laid the groundwork for building this cockpit-
Thompson: -Mmmhmmm.-
RDM: -in some way that is, I don't even understand and missed, but somehow the produce- the line producers and the production designers figure out ways to move money around that basically bought us this cockpit because we had built the stealth fighter. I think they did it at the same time, or something.
Weddle: I can remember going down to the- to the shop where they were building it and looking at the preliminary and the fun thing is like everybody even when you go to see the guys building the cockpit how devote-
RDM: -It's ok.-
Weddle: -devoted everybody is to the show.
Act 2
Weddle: The cockpit itself of the- of the Viper that you saw was actually laid out based on, I think it's either the F-16 or the F-18-
RDM: -Oh, is that right?-
Weddle: -or something like that. They were explaining that to me and I was all excited because I like cockpits. They had it- they were showing us the drawings of where the- "This is the throttle components and here are the- your navigation instruments," and so on.
RDM: I like this runner a lot between Helo and Kara. There's something very nice about it and it is born out of a throwaway line in f- back from "Kobol's Last Gleaming" because, you know, Helo was separated from the entire cast for the- for the whole first season and when he and Kara hooked up back in "Kobol," or maybe it was in "Scattered." I take that back. It may have been in "Scattered." Essentially I was working on the script and I just had a line where Kara said, "Helo- Helo you and I go back a long ways." Blah, blah, blah, the scene went on. But it was nice to say that there was a history between the two of them, and it's interesting that in the show she's revealing herself or is in an intimate way with Helo instead of Lee. That there's this other person who is more of a friend and that there's a camaraderie between the two. That- that's really nice.
Weddle: And there-
Thompson: That's one of the-
Weddle: -there is a great chemistry between those two actors-
RDM: -Yeah.-
Weddle: -and it really made those scenes alive.
Thompson: That's one of the things that I really enjoy about this show, as well, is that Ron will come up with- he'll come up with the little line like that, which is, "Ok. There's- there's some backstory between these people. They've been friends." Then you just run with it. It's like-
RDM: -Yeah, you just go with it. And it all just keeps building the- weaving the tapestry of- of who these people are and their lives. And it's intere- this is a very interesting scene. It's just- it's so interesting to see how Kat responds here. I mean, yes there's a competition going on between the two of them, but Kat's genuine concern for the pilots and Kara's more jaded approach to how she deals with them. The fact that Kar- Kat is listening in and then pulls this guy aside. I mean, it's a really interesting dynamic.
Thompson: The thing is that Kara really cares too, but she's also lost so many it's like,-
RDM: -Yeah.-
Thompson: "Oh goth(?), don't be another casualty."
Weddle: Well I think also, like the underlying anger is just that people are dying and they can't stop it and Kat is picking Kara as a target because who else is she gonna get mad at.
RDM: It's a nice bit of staging, too, they way he used the mirror very nicely. The-
Thomspon: Ditto. Wonderful staging on this.
RDM: These two play really well off of each other. And it's an interesting show when that- the gender roles are so completely-
Thompson: Well all the men are, "I can't go on. Try to stop this.(?)" (laughs)
RDM: I know, all the men are afraid and all the women are strong. It's like a really-
Thompson: (deep voice) "Be a man."
RDM: It's just- you just- and you just acce- at this point in the show I just- accept the way that this world works. That there is not even like the hint of there being any real differences between the genders, and if anything the roles are completely reversed. And this is a mano a mano show, between two women.-
Weddle: -Yeah.-
RDM: And there's a lot of heavy-duty competition, and there's a lot of animosity and complicated feelings and- and Lee is the- the softer one in this- in this particular epsiode. The one whose feelings are little bit more in jeopardy. It's just a really interesting the way the show approaches the- these sorts of traditional roles.
Weddle: And this is how we cheated the only one dogfight rule. We put it on the radio.
RDM: Yeah- yeah, we cheated here.
Weddle: Which was all very difficult wha- when you were putting the show together-
RDM: -there was no (unintellible)-
Weddle: -how do we not make them think that the- the- the future- the shots of the dogfight with Kara and Kat and Scar are not related to scenes where we see them suiting up and-
RDM: -Yeah, we put- we slid this scene around quite a bit. It lived on in different ang- places. When they came back we kept changing, and how do you explai- how do you explain that very issue, that you're not- they're not coming back from the mission you saw at the top of the show.
Weddle: Michael Nankin did this bit and what's nice is there's very little footage about- with these nuggets and yet you really feel they're individuals and you feel something when they die.
Thompson: In a lot of cases in- I've- that I've read, I haven't personally experienced it, but, that going through this kind of trauma and the- the fear and all this other stuff means those cockpits are often very unpleasant to clean up.
RDM: Really?
Thompson: I mean, people bleed in them and they get sick in them.