Casting Rumors

So Peter J has now confirmed that he's signed for the second batch of stories

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I know Peter J said that he was going to be in the second batch, but I don't think he said he had actually signed . Are we in danger of getting ahead of ourselves here?

Has a casting call for the supporting actors been issued yet? It must be getting close if they are going to be filming in 4 to 5 weeks time.

Has a casting call for the supporting actors been issued yet? It must be getting close if they are going to be filming in 4 to 5 weeks time.

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That's exactly what I'm thinking... Hasn't any one heard any thing??

Casting calls? We haven't even heard what country they'll be filming in yet!

Jan

canda most likely I mean that is where rangers was filmed and its a good bet if any of the sets were saved from that they would still be up there. to say nothing about that fact it seems like everything is a being filmed in canada. I think in the very least we can rule out a return trip to the spa factory.

There's pretty much zero chance that any sets from Rangers still survive. (Who'd pay to store them? Warner Bros.? I don't think so.) And even if they did they'd be useless for The Lost Tales since they were for ship interiors not seen elsewhere in the series and locations on Minbar, ditto. (The Ranger Council Chamber, a copy of the Gery Council Chamber, doesn't count, since it wasn't a constructed set. It was just a big, dark room with some lights and FX.)

Where they shoot will depend on where they get the deal that works best. It might make more sense to shoot in L.A., despite the higher costs, than to schlep actors and other key staff back and forth from the States - some of whom might not want to commute between the two countries or have to take up residence in Canada for months at a time. (People have spouses, kids, other professional and personal commitments. If you want person "A" badly enough, you just might stay in L.A. to get him.) There are just too many variables for us to guess about at this point. The October start for shooting was itself a guess on JMS's part, pending the availability of certain key personnel.

About all we know for sure at this point is that he's writing scripts. For the rest, we'll just have to wait. But hey, we're B5 fans. We've been here before.

Regards,

Joe.

The question of sets is an interesting one. Do any of the original B5 sets still survive? I'd be kind of amazed if they did, but still, worth asking...

The question of sets is an interesting one. Do any of the original B5 sets still survive? I'd be kind of amazed if they did, but still, worth asking...

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No. JMS said that they did manage to save a few bits and pieces so that they could visit the station on Crusade, but those would have been destroyed along with the Crusade sets when it became clear that that show was not coming back. I would imagine some individual wall panels and bits of set decoration went home with some of the cast and crew, but no real sets. But that isn't a big deal. Sets are (comparatively) cheap elements in a series, mostly plywood and paint. As long as someone hung onto the original blueprints it shouldn't be very expensive or difficult to reproduce them. (On 2010 they discovered that the blueprints from 2001 hadn't been kept, because nobody thought they'd ever be needed again, and they ended up going through the film frame-by-frame using the actor's hieghts, one of the few "known" values, shadows and trigonometry to figure out how big everything was and come up with new scale construction plans. )

Regards,

Joe

Sets are (comparatively) cheap elements in a series, mostly plywood and paint. As long as someone hung onto the original blueprints it shouldn't be very expensive or difficult to reproduce them. (On 2010 they discovered that the blueprints from 2001 hadn't been kept, because nobody thought they'd ever be needed again, and they ended up going through the film frame-by-frame using the actor's hieghts, one of the few "known" values, shadows and trigonometry to figure out how big everything was and come up with new scale construction plans. )

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It's pretty sure that there are plenty of blueprints available someplace. I once had a set of prints I bought from a crewmember. I'm sure that wasn't the only set to survive. In addition, with some scripts I've purchased from crew, there were 'Stage Plans' which appear to be small versions of the blueprints in the script books. Heck, I've got three of Iacovelli's 'white models' if they need 'em!

Something to take into account, though, might be comments that JMS made when asked about the look of B5:TLT:

Q: Do you imagine that the look and feel of the show will be the same or reimagined?

JMS: I want it to feel the same but not be exactly the same. We have tools available to us now with CG and virtual sets and environments that we had a little bit of in B5 but not that much. I want to try and … if I were starting B5 now without the prior show behind me, but keeping the same cast…what would it look like? What tools do I have now that I didn’t have then? I want it to be fresh but still be of that same universe so it feels like B5 but [as an example] When I saw Simon and Garfunkel in concert, it was the same songs but they did a good job at reimagining how they were put together so that kind of thing.

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Given his earlier remark about there being a lot of CGI, I think it's likely that there'll be a goodly number of virtual sets used.

Jan

Given his earlier remark about there being a lot of CGI, I think it's likely that there'll be a goodly number of virtual sets used.

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Oh, I'm sure there will be and almost mentioned that point. But given the actual question, I though it might be a litte confusing. Even with virtual sets the actors are going to have to have some physical objects to work with - control panels, chairs monitors. You could certainly do a lot of corridor shots as blue-screen/CGI now, which means having to build a lot less "real" set, but I don't think you could do something like C&C with its two levels and multiple work positions as a virtual set. Nor do I think you'd gain much by trying to do so. (It would be much cheaaper to actually build the thing.) On the other hand virtual sets could be used to "open up" the interior of the station much more. Today's programs and hardware could really make the central corridor "work" as it never really did in the series, same with the Zen Garden and the view out the window in the captain's office (which always looked like the diorama that it was.) Hell, with the lower cost of CGI maybe they can finally blue-screen the main viewport in C&C and finally do a properly rotating starfield.

Regards,

Joe

Hey ... don't diss the blanket, man!

JMS gave Dreamwatch magazine an interview. It is published in Issue 145 on page 10.

{snip}

Dreamwatch: Have you had any talks about the project with the actors?

JMS: We've just started talks this week. Which actors are in the first three episodes will depend on availability and other factors. Ideally, I'd like to rotate through the whole cast, preferably in a thematic fashion. One episode would concern itself with issues of command, and thus feature Sheridan, Lochley and Garibaldi; another would concern the Psi Corps, and we'd have Lyta, Bester, and someone else; another would be a strong Minbari theme, so we would have Delenn, Lennier and Sheridan (in his role as head of the Interstellar Alliance); a Centauri sequence with Londo, Via and someone else; and we'd mix it up a bit.

Dreamwatch: Do you plan to adopt one common storytelling format for the 30-minute tales?

JMS: The first one is set to pick up in real-time after the events of [penultimate episode] Objects at Rest. But the others may move forward or backward in time. This would also give us the ability to do a Sinclair or a Marcus story.

{snip}

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Given his earlier remark about there being a lot of CGI, I think it's likely that there'll be a goodly number of virtual sets used.

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According to JMS in Dreamwatch Issue 145 the effects budget is "over a million dollars...".

JMS: We've just started talks this week. Which actors are in the first three episodes will depend on availability and other factors. Ideally, I'd like to rotate through the whole cast, preferably in a thematic fashion. One episode would concern itself with issues of command, and thus feature Sheridan, Lochley and Garibaldi; another would concern the Psi Corps, and we'd have Lyta, Bester, and someone else; another would be a strong Minbari theme, so we would have Delenn, Lennier and Sheridan (in his role as head of the Interstellar Alliance); a Centauri sequence with Londo, Via and someone else; and we'd mix it up a bit.

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Based on this comment, and the comments from Peter J. about the first batch focusing on the humans, I presume the leading contenders for the first disk would be Sheridan, Garibaldi, and Lochley. (It's always possible that not all of them would be available or interested, but I think those are three that JMS is interested in using.) He mentions the three by name as being a set that could be used, and the only other set of three that he names in full are Sheridan, Delenn, and Lennier, and PJ specifically mentioned that the first set would focus on humans.

It also makes sense that they would lead off with some of the more major characters like Sheridan and Garibaldi. I would presume that that would be a bigger draw than, say, Lyta, Bester, and an unknown telepath.

Now I'm jazzed again!! I just needed a little something to keep going!

Indeed. When this materializes, it shall be quite fun.

I'd love to see another Morden story.

If the first set focuses on command, perhaps the last set could focus on villainy.

Why do they all have to be on the same theme? I got the impression he was using old stories that he just didn't get around to developing into an episode.

Well, scraps of ideas of story ideas, perhaps. I know he didn't have the full stories written (yet).

Why do they all have to be on the same theme? I got the impression he was using old stories that he just didn't get around to developing into an episode.

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1. He may want to give some coherence to the presentatoin - if they're still aiming for broadcast as well as DVD release, he may want to be able to put some over-all title on each "TV movie". It is one way of selling such a concept to both the network and the eventual audience.

2. Although JMS has said that the unused "B" and "C" stories from the series gave him the idea of an anthology about the unexplored by-ways of the B5 universe, I never took that to mean he was going to limit himself to those pre-exiisting ideas or the time-period covered by the series.

3. There may also be production reasons for doing this. Although each mini-story will concentrate on one main character, it may make sense from a story point of view to one or regulars appear in one another's stories. So if JMS does the command trilogy he suggests, Garibaldi might logically appear in both the Sheridan and Lochley segments, while either or even both of them might have cameos in ghe Garibaldi segment. OK. Cheaper and easier to get Bruce, Mira and Jerry together and shoot all three segments in the same week (especially if they do end up shooting in Canada) than to grab them in pairs and shoot each with a different batch of stories.

Regards,

Joe

According to JMS in Dreamwatch Issue 145 the effects budget is "over a million dollars...".

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Wonder if that is for the first three or if they're budgeting beyond that? (Seems high for just the first three, even given "start from scratch" costs and inflation, that's more the whole budget for most of the hour-long episodes.)

Are there any other facts and figures you can give those of us without ready access to the magazine?

Thanks,

Joe