I’m super stoked about tomorrow nights Episode 1 of “Stargate: Universe”. I’m going to have to find a place to watch it, since I’m a Canuck and we don’t get the SyFy station. We have our own Sci-Fi channel and I’m hoping they’ll have it. Probably not in the hi-def though, which sucks.
ComingSoon has a nice interview with Robert Carlyle, a man with a fine Scottish temperament. Faithful readers of the Cool will know that I am a big fan of Robert so kidding him about his crankiness is all in good fun. Let’s take a small look at a highlight or two of the big interview.
CS: Tell me a little bit about the way they’re shooting the show. I understand a lot of the footage is being shot almost in a pseudo-documentary fly on the wall kind of way?
Carlyle: The thing is that even a normal shooting, we’re working with two or three cameras, but everyone’s moving all the time. The marks are movable. You can go where you want, that’s the wonderful thing about it. When you go on set in the morning you just plop where you want to be and they’ll find you. You don’t sit or stand there where there’s a lot of light. The light is kinda 360 in a way. So, this is very, very fluid and then they added what I think is a brilliant idea, they discover it on the ship, the Destiny, this thing which they call Kino it’s a ball, it’s a camera and it floats around. One of the characters, played by David Blue, he kind of takes this thing under his wing and he says, “Well, I’m gonna document this whole experience that we are having here.” So, a lot of the scenes are shot on one single shot on this Kino camera, which again, I’ve never seen anything like that done in a science fiction show. Everything’s generally sleek and pin sharp. This was hand-in-hand with the Destiny Ship which has been floating around for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s rustic, it’s ancient. There’s nothing comfortable about it, so this Kino style is used to great effect particularly in an episode called “Time” where they actually go onto an alien planet. I would say 75 percent of the action takes place on the alien planet. It’s all shot on Kino, all of it. It’s very brave. They’re taking a lot of chances with us, but it’s a brave kind of thing the way they’re trying to take it.
UPDATE: SPACE! the Canuckian SyFy will indeed have the premiere. I say wOOt! to that. No HD though. The HD experience is so superior I never watch television other than news in the low def. For Universe I will make an exception. ComingSoon also has an interview with Robert’s costar Ming-Na. That is also more than worth a gander. Two hour premiere of Universe starts up at 9Pm Eastern tomorrow night.
