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Regular readers of Starburst will remember our interview with "V" writer/director/producer Kenneth Johnson back in issue 66. At the time, the first "V" mini-series had not been scheduled for airing on British television and there were no signs from either of the TV networks that it would be. The sequel, "V II" came and went on American TV--and still no sign of the show on domestic television. Then, when Britain's commercial network channel pulled out of covering the Olympic Games last August at the last minute, something had to be found to fill the suddenly vacant air-time. What they found was "V"… Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier visited the "V II" set, interviewed members of the cast and crew and delivered their article which we intended to print after "V" was aired here. But ITV out-foxed us and transmitted the shows consecutively--so much for our planning! So, better late than never, Starburst presents a feature on the making of "V II." Last May, NBC aired in the United States a highly successful, four part mini-series called "V." The show told, in realistic detail, the story of the arrival of alien Visitors on Earth, and of their eventual domination over Mankind through the use of media manipulation and terrorism. Towards the end of the program, the Visitors' true nature and purpose were revealed: they were reptilian creatures masquerading as humans and they had come to Earth to steal our water and use the human race for food! Fortunately, a group of resistance fighters, led by actors Marc Singer and Faye Grant, had sprung up. "V" ended leaving many unanswered questions for the viewers to ponder, including the fate of one of the women characters who had been made pregnant by one of the aliens… "V" was the highest-rated show of the NBC-TV season and, although there was talk of packaging it as a movie for overseas release in Europe, nothing happened. Meanwhile, NBC toyed with the idea of turning it into a weekly, hour-long series. However, that idea was scrapped due to the high production costs that such a program would require. Last summer, NBC, Warner Brothers and "V" creator Ken Johnson came up with a concept for a second mini-series to fill in the blanks left by the first broadcast. Johnson wrote a first set of scripts, but, according to Warner Brothers sources, let go of the project when the burden of preparing it for its scheduled May release date became too much. Johnson was unavailable for comment. To fill in for Johnson, Warner Brothers asked the team of Daniel H. Blatt and Robert Singer to become the executive producers of "V II." Their previous credits include Cujo, The Howling and the recent Sadat mini-series. "V II" had a $14 million budget and utilizes over 90 speaking roles and more than 300 crew members and technicians. A visit to Sound Stage 24 of the Burbank Studios confirmed the importance that has been placed on "V II ." The entire stage was transformed into the interior of a Visitor mothership. In unused corners of the set, large groups of orange-garbed Visitors sit around, waiting for their shooting calls. Director Richard Heffron talks about his part in the series. "I got involved only about six weeks before we started. I'd seen the first "V" and liked it very much. I'd been struck by its contents, and thought it would be fun to do the sequel. I'd done one other science fiction picture called Futureworld, and I've always liked the genre. I loved the idea of doing this kind of metaphor for the Nazi occupation in WWII, changing it to people from outer space who were lizards, but who used the same techniques of divide and conquer. I thought it was very clever." Marc Singer, who plays free-lance cameraman and rebel Donovan, strongly believes in the message behind the series. "It is a show that is based upon some values and some realities that we all should remember are important. One of the things that Ken Johnson, the original writer/director/producer, really wanted to stress was how a society could be subverted, and its standards changed from something good to something evil through coercion, propaganda, enticement and fear… We saw Americans, in a time of national crisis, doing things that we don't like to think we would do. Turning their backs on their neighbors, etc… Then, there are those who act in just the opposite way and set a good example by trying to set society on a normal course." Obviously, Singer was pleased with the reception of the first "V." "I was very thrilled. On one hand, action-adventure is what I want to do most of all in my career. That makes me excited, makes me happy and keeps the adrenaline flowing. On the other hand, everybody wants the work that they're involved in to have substance and dignity. I believe that we did achieve that in "V." Frank Ashmore, who plays a "good" alien, Martin, and Jane Badler, who plays the part of beautiful Visitor Diana talk about their surprise and delight when "V" became a ratings hit, while relaxing next to the darkened, mothership corridors. Badler is sitting next to an eerie sculpture of herself, that later on will be used for a close-up of Diana swallowing a whole rabbit. Both actors love their characters, a departure from the types of roles they have usually played. "I loved playing Diana!" says Badler. "It's probably the most fun part I've ever played. I like the fact that my character is an alien. It's so nice to have the freedom to be able to show all those feelings that in real life you have to suppress because it's not acceptable--and get paid for it! Besides, who really knows what lizard people are like? So, I can set all the rules." Ashmore too feels very strongly about his character. "During World War II, there were many Germans in the underground who assisted the French and the Americans in the resistance efforts," explains the actor. "Because, they knew what the ultimate outcome of Nazism would be, and they couldn't condone it. Martin is essentially, metaphorically speaking, that type of a man. He sees that this is--the word inhuman is probably not correct when you're talking about an alien!--but he can see that what they're doing is evil. Especially after he's had the emotional exchange he has with his friend Donovan. I was born in 1945. My father was in the airforce and paid a heavy price, being a young man involved in that whole scene, so I feel very strongly about the series and my character. I respect anybody who would stick their necks out the way the resistance people of the Forties did." With shooting having been started in October, for a six-hour program that was to be broadcast the first week of May, time is the enemy to conquer. "Since most of the cast were people that had been in the first "V," it was possible to cast the picture very quickly," says Heffron. "That was the only part of filming "V" that was easy. I had no idea it was going to be quite as enormous as it has been. This is a very complicated, difficult and expensive piece. It's probably more complicated than the science fiction feature I did, and there's a good deal less time to do it in, because we have only a 65-day shooting schedule for six hours of television. Fortunately, I have some very good people to work with, people with whom I've worked before." One of the people involved is Martin Rabinowitz, the Production Designer. An artist and sculptor who lives in New Mexico, Rabinowitz confines his motion picture work to one project a year. In the past he has worked on fantasy projects, such as the ill-fated television version of Logan's Run and Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot. "I was called by the director at the very beginning of October. I had worked with him before. I worked it out with the studio and came in within days and began working on the film. The first episode showed the scale of the mothership. When we measured it out on the matte shots, it came to three miles wide. But it had never been reflected in the interiors. Most of them, like Diana's chambers, were shown to be very tiny. Mr. Heffron's idea was that we had a chance to correct that, and reproportion the audience's ideas as to the magnitude of the interiors. We also had the chance to see out of the spaceship, down to Los Angeles." To enhance the image of the ship's immense size, Rabinowitz designed a new, elaborate Master Control Room and Communications center, as well as a high-tech "conversion chamber" where uncooperative earthlings are made to see the error of their ways. "In designing the control room/communications center," explains the production designer, "we used some of the modular and design facets that already existed. I couldn't go totally far afield from where they started. The rest of the design comes out of my own sculpting background. We started shooting within three weeks of the time I started on the show. They didn't know the progression of what was going to come first, second, third or fourth. We had no shooting schedule. We had to begin preparing everything in the entire show at the same time." Director Heffron admits that "V II" has been under continuous time pressure. "We've been shaping the picture as we go," says Heffron. "Actually, it's three pictures. Sometimes I forget about that, six hours is a long time. We're using all the tricks that we have to get it done. For example, we're trying to do all the photography for the first two hour movie early, so that it can be almost finished by the time we're done shooting the rest. We had to change the way we scheduled the movie, so that those shots that needed optical special effects were done first. It is fortunate that we've shot the picture more or less in order. As the story evolves, and we see the way the characters are relating to each other, we can continue to make changes that make sense. It's a way of really improving the movie." "Another trick that we used," continues Heffron, "was to reduce the number of opticals, which really means to reduce the number of times that Visitors' ships fly through the air of Los Angeles. The opticals require so much advance time, that there really wasn't any way to do that in time for a May screening. Unfortunately, central to the plot that we started with, was the story of the rebels stealing the Visitors' ships and flying around the world in them. But, basically, I feel that the central theme of "V II" comes from the story of a group of amateurs who try to resist these very powerful people from another place. It's not so bad that they didn't get their hands on all these twenty-first century vehicles, that they're stuck with their own talents, hands and small weapons. I think it makes good drama." Singer, who does many of his own stunts in the film, talks about an experience with a decidedly un-twenty-first century type of transportation. "We did a horse riding sequence. The horses performed beautifully, and, as usual, the stuntmen were professional perfection. Then, we had to do the close-ups. That required riding on a different horse, behind the camera car. The car was traveling at about twenty-five miles per hour and I was galloping on a less comfortable animal that was very skittish. At one point, the director said, 'Ride on past the car.' So, I dug into the horse a little bit, it picked up its gait, and we rode up alongside of the car. We were on this very narrow road, with hardly any room to get past. Yet, we passed the front end of the car and, as we did, the horse suddenly got frightened of something, and began to fall beneath the front of the truck… "I managed to control the horse and pull him back out of it, but in doing so, I lost both stirrups. Meanwhile, the driver of the truck hadn't noticed all this, because he was watching for the crew in the back of the truck. The horse then threw me to the side, and I almost fell under the truck. But, fortunately I managed to stay on." The actor adds philosophically, "Another day, another dollar. The bottom line is, if I weren't doing that, I'd be bored!" When asked about what she liked the most in the sequel, Badler pauses before answering, "I think what happens to Robin, the girl who has been impregnated by a lizard, and the child she ultimately creates, is absolutely fascinating. I think people will really love that. There's a lot of special effects with it, and then it takes on a whole new story with the child. The ending is really neat. It doesn't just end it, it also addresses the real problems of our world--that people are all fighting each other. Because of the situation of the Visitors, they've had to join hands and fight an alien force. The end makes you aware that if we could all band together, life would be much better." Ashmore agrees, "It is not only an allegory, but it is also timely," he says. "I don't think that Ken Johnson, or Dan Blatt, realized at the time that they took this on, that the program is going to air in 1984. It has a tremendous Orwellian overtone. This three-mile wide space craft hovering over a major city like Los Angeles--essentially it is Big Brother." |