HOUR 6 - "SANCTUARY: PART ONE"

(note: Here's a link to TNT's official website for FALLING SKIES):

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE -  THERE ARE SPOILERS CONTAINED HEREIN!YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

FALLING SKIES – WEEK 5 – “SANCTUARY: PART 1"

Hey - for all you going to the San Diego Comic-Con, FALLING SKIES will be there with a panel.  Sadly, I won't be there as I'm working on a project out of town right now.

The following is a rundown of TNT’s Falling Skies activities at Comic-Con:

Falling Skies Panel: Friday, July 22, 3:15-4:15 p.m. in Room 6BCF – Series stars Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, Will Patton, Drew Roy, Colin Cunningham and Sarah Sanguin Carter will join executive producers Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank and co-executive producer and writer Mark Verheiden for a Q&A panel session to be moderated by TV Guide Magazine editor-in-chief Debra Birnbaum. The panel discussion will include never-before-seen clips from upcoming episodes.

Falling Skies Autograph Session: Friday, July 22, 5-6 p.m. at the Dark Horse Comics booth – All six Falling Skies cast members and co-executive pro ducer and writer Mark Verheiden will be on-hand to sign autographs following the panel session.

The story so far

Tonight’s episode is interesting because it was always conceived my Graham Yost, Mark Verheiden and the writers as a two-part story.  The first aired last night.  The second comes next week.  Sergio Gazzen, the director directed both parts.

It was one of the first episodes that the writer’s conceived of – and I heard the basic story at my very first meeting with the writers.  But the story got pushed back in the series, because a lot of other things had to be established first.

It examines a very interesting idea – what would you do if – in a situation like the one the second Mass. faces where your children were in constant danger – someone came along and said that they could keep your children safe if you just turned them over to them.

This is, obviously, something hard to conceive of doing.  And when Noah Wyle, who is a father, got the script – he wanted to really address this issue and worked with the writers to build up that story, and the discussion until it felt to him that he, as a father, was at the point where he felt he could give his kids up.

Of course, the idea was that the skitter attack, which almost kills Jimmy was the selling point (by the way, did you like the moment where the skitter picked up the globe of the earth and crushed it?  I did.  It was in the very first outline for the script and it just seemed… cool.)

Of course, the story Terry Clayton of the 7th Mass tells doesn’t unveil as he says. The ending on the page is chilling to me.  On a "How could anyone do that level?"  Well - more will be revealed next week.

Two things I loved in the script, that just seemed smart to me – (1) is how we reprise Eli the kid from the beginning of the episode.  And (2) How Pope re-appears at the end in a very unexpected way.  I think most of us thought he was gone from the story when he rode off that motorcycle a few weeks ago - it's fun to have him back.

I discussed at length with the director that the audience had to recognize Eli.  I made sure we open with a big close-up of him – and we decided to put him in a strong red coat to catch the eye (we don’t use red a lot in the series and I thought it would make him stand out.

The second to last scene were the creepy skitter girl, Meagan, takes Eli away was eerie on the page and I think Sergio, the director, did an excellent job of presenting it.

One of the keys was casting Megan.  This was a new concept for us that the skitters can communicate through harnessed kids.  Rick had done it a little, but now this was with authority and command.  Needless to say, we auditioned a lot of young girls for this part and worked hard, experimenting with what speech inflections and cadence and tone of voice worked.  The skitters seem pretty unemotional, and after some trial and error it seemed that Megan should be played casually, not-robotic, but still basically with and even cadence and a calm tone of voice. It seemed appropriate for a little annoyance and authority to come out when Clayton second-guesses her.

But beyond all the mechanics we had to have a girl who naturally had an ethereal, other-worldly quality to her.  That came when Niamh Wilson walked in.  She’s a young lady, I think thirteen-years-old, from Toronto who has a little acting experience.  But for me, starting with her cool Gaelic name – she just embodied this part.

Anyway – if you liked tonight’s episode stay tuned because I think next week’s conclusion is one of our very best.

Tonight’s director:

For last night’s  “SANCTUARY: PART 1” and next week’s “SANCTUARY: PART 2” we brought in Sergio Mimica-Gezzan as director.

Sergio had directed two episodes of HEROES for me (although one, only half-completed during the writer’s strike, never aired.)  Besides being a great director, there is an especially interesting aspect to him, as regards FALLING SKIES – because for many years he was Steven Spielberg’s first assistant director.

If you don’t know what a first A.D. does, they are the director’s right hand man (or woman)- they take the written script and break it down, organize it, schedule and plan how to shoot it and in general help actualize the director’s vision. 

He was the assistant director on eight Spielberg movies beginning with Schindler's List, including Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park and many others.

Here is his resume: 

Sergio Mimica-Gezzan 

Steven Spielberg gave Sergio his first break as a director on the TV series TAKEN.  But between then and now, he had never worked for his old boss. 

Now, when working with him before, during HEROES, if found that  Sergio is a very intense and focused guy – and he stays extremely on point on his script.  I, on the other hand, am a goofy and always cracking joke.  For me, Sergio always represented a special challenge – because not only could I never get him to laugh… I could never get him to do anything besides think about and talk about whatever episode he was prepping or shooting.

But finally, on this series, I got him to open up a bit about his experiences on all of those movies and I gained a little insight into Mr. Spielberg’s thought process and approach to film making.

According to Sergio, when Steven Spielberg was about to do “Schindler’s List,” he made the decision to hire an all-European crew.  He interviewed Sergio (I think in Croatia or Czechoslovakia) and hired him because he had done a European movie involving Nazi concentration camps in World War II.  Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski was hired in this same process, and both went on to be long-time collaborators with Mr. Spielberg after that.

This gave Sergio a unique opportunity.  He worked side-by-side with Mr. Spielberg for many years and got to learn from him first hand.

One of the key instructions Mr. Spielberg gave me upon being hired was “No TV close-ups.” 

This was a bit new to me because, first of all, I like big close-ups (If you know my previous shows SMALLVILLE and HEROES – both were known for their big low-angle close-ups, which filled the frame from just above the actor’s eyebrows to just below the frame.)  In fact, before this show my mantra, which I impressed upon other directors, was “See the faces.  See the spaces.”  I always preferred a mix of big cinematic wide-shots with big fill-the-frame close-ups.  (Both those series were also notable for being shot almost exclusively in very low-angles!)  My other mantra has always been “Move the camera!”  Now as a producer/director I’ve had to accept that some directors can follow my instructions better than others – its just part of the game… But I digress.

I was excited to try a new approach on this series and have tries to implement both long takes, and looser shots and less traditional, more documentary-style coverage.  But with Sergio I tried to get a sense of why Mr. Spielberg feels this way.

He said that, Mr. Spielberg believes that believes that the audiences need to become partners in the filmmaking process.  That he wants them to have to choose and decide where they want to be look and what they want to look at.

This, of course, goes against all television convention.  Most shows out there use the occasional wide r medium shot and then a relentless series of close-ups to control and direct the script and make you look only wherever the creators choose.  Frankly, to direct this way is quite dull.

I’ll tell you, though, it is very tough to do it the other way.  When you’re doing long takes and shots with multiple people in the frame at the same time – it means everything has to be working in the shot all at the same time.  Every actor has to ‘on” as do all of the technicians behind the scenes.

Ben and Rick:

We had an interesting problem with both Daniyah Ysrayl and Connor Jessup who, respectively, play, the strange de-harnessed, Rick and Tom’s middle son.

Normally, when it comes time to cast an actor we producer/directors bring them in and they read the scenes from the script we’re about to make. But both of these actors appeared in very early episodes, but only in a harnessed, zombie-like state.  Because the writer’s had outlined the season for us early on, we knew that, eventually, they would both be playing important roles with lots of dialogue and acting required.

So, knowing this, I asked the writer’s in L.A. to mock up a scene – one that would have varied emotion in it.  The writer’s wrote a very interesting scene between Anne and Ben, where he displayed conflicting emotions about being back and missing his skitter family.  It’s interesting in retrospect because this exact scene never ended up in any script, but certain “Rick” lines and certain “Ben” lines did end up scattered throughout the season in various places.Any way – by this episode, both of them are doing a lot more and, I think both are doing well.  Both are really nice kids, by the way – with very nice parents.

And Now - Part 3 of "How to Make A Skitter" (narrated by skitter-maker Todd Masters)

SERGIO GEZZAN and COLLIN CUNNINGHAM

NIAMH WILSON PLAYED THE SPOOKY SKITTER GIRL AT THE END OF THE EPISODE

SEYCHELLE GABRIELLE AND CINEMATOGRAPHER CHRIS FALOONA

DREW ROY 

TRES AMIGOS

THE SKITTER-LAD DANIYAH YSRAEL

WOUNDS ARE APPLIED TO MR. WYLE

THE NAME'S POPE - JOHN POPE

GOOD PALS MOON AND SEYCHELLE

THE ACTION IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!