"The Hour of the Wolf" (original) (raw)

• When I can announce the overall year 4 title, I will. Filming starts August 26th. The writing is coming well. Actually walked the sets today for the first time since we wrapped in May; it's just too depressing to walk on a dead set. Lots of work going on now, new sets being built, noise and energy and enthusiasm...much better now.
• Re: vacation...I wish. We're still doing post production, still editing, mixing, spotting for music and sound...it's a long process that will take us right through the prep time for year four, assuming renewal. I can grab a day here or there, that's about it. And even while awaiting word, I still have to begin working on year four scripts. (The tentative title for the first episode of year four is "The Hour of the Wolf.")
• The Hour of the Wolf is that hour around 3 a.m. when you can't sleep because you're worried about one thing or another....
• Well, just finished the first (writer's) draft of "The Hour of the Wolf," the first episode of year 4, to be directed by David Eagle. It was a tough one, like all first-episode scripts...but quite interesting, in its way. Once again the show takes a somewhat different tone, I'm using some tools I somewhat developed in the background in year 3 and am now trying in foreground, very interesting mood change...a good start.
• Did you know what was going to happen to Sheridan when you wrote "Z'ha'dum?"
  Well, I think you can't do something like that without knowing how you're going to pull the character's fat out of the fire, and it has to make sense. I think people will be satisfied with what they see.
• "In "The Hour of the Wolf" there are two scenes -- you know which ones -- that seemed quite a departure from what one usually sees on TV. Did you write "Wolf" before or after your revelation that you were not bound by Standards and Practices. 'Cause if you wrote this *before*, then we're in for quite a ride."
  Aside from the desk scene, which was the other you're referring to?
  Oh...and the answer is...before.
  Hang on. It's going to be a bumpy night.
• "Have you ever contemplated doing an episode of B5 that unfolds in real time (i.e. one minute of screen time is one minute of plot time, as done in the movies "Miracle Mile" and "Nick of Time"), or would that be counterproductive to the sorts of stories you're trying to tell?"
  Actually, yeah, I have considered doing that...it can be a very limiting structure, and the story has to be just right for it to work. Haven't quite worked out all the snags yet.
  "Or is "Hour of the Wolf" a story of that particular variety?"
  Nope.
• How was the first day of filming?
  It's frenetic, nuts, lots of running around and little fixes, we all get a little crazy on first days...but it'll be okay.
• How do the actors get back into character after a long summer break?
  Usually they just pick up the script...and get right back into it. They've got the characters down now, so there's not a lot needed to get back into it. Some of them run lines with each other, like Stephen and Peter, since that relationship is something very special, but mostly they just learn the lines and come in. Some of them want to see the final episodes, but some don't. The only one to see most of the last two episodes thus far is Bruce, who was just totally knocked out by them.
  Peter has said that whenever he needs to get back into character, he just straightens and says, "MISter GARiBALdi," and he's right back into it.
• John Copeland and I just got finished with the main title for year 4, which is, again, different from last year's. This time I wanted a whole new approach, on just about every level, and designed the thing myself, working with John and the editors to get the best shots and pull it all together. It's *majorly* cool. We showed it to some members of the crew, and they're all jazzed by it, they think it's our best main title ever.
• The B5 story is told from everyone's point of view, and they're all a part of it, so the opening now reflects that. And it gives me the chance to do an opening that's sort of a prose poem, which is a nice touch.
• Why the new music?
  We change the theme every season to reflect the tonality and direction of that season's story. Every season when it butts up against the previous season's intent, a lot of folks ask why change it, it was better before...and then, by the end of the season, when people see how it fits in, generally they like it a lot...and then ask why it got changed for the *next* season....
• Today John Copeland and I did our producer's cut on the first episode of year 4, "The Hour of the Wolf." Granted my opinion is subjective and biased...but of all the first-episodes we've had each season, this one is the best. I was searching for the right word after looking at the director's cut, and finally came to it...maturity. It has a depth we've only skated through before, all meat, no filler. This one and the next batch are also all over the map, literally...B5, Narn, Centauri Prime, elsewhere...so it's a real challenge. But it looks great.
• Everybody's just cooking on this one, it has a very filmic, grand look to it. I love it a lot.
• It's a terrific episode. The music now echoes season one because in some thematic areas, we're starting to bend back on ourselves, and close some circles, as you'll see soon.
  That it affects the emotions is, for me, the goal. If you can make an audience *feel* something, in a medium as cold as TV, you've done your job right.
• Wortham [Krimmer] came in to audition, same as everybody else...and we thought he was great.
• Wayne Alexander plays Lorien, a character you'll see throughout the first six episodes of season 4. We wanted to give him more to do.
• Lorien's eyes look odd.
  The eyes have metallic gold contact lenses; you can't see them as well in the red light, but later, you'll see them better.
• There's more to Lorien than meets the eye.
• I'll string out the Sheridan info for a while; as for Morden, as he said, his associates can repair flesh, replace flesh (though where they got replacements from is something I don't want to know)....
  It's definitely a packed episode. I still find myself realizing that the end of act one feels like two acts. And the next three are every bit as intense, if not moreso. I love it....
• Why bother with the Sheridan scene at all?
  To not do so would've been vastly unfair. And it nicely replaces one mystery, is or isn't he, with "who the heck is THAT?"
• Sheridan dropped his insignia during Kosh's lesson in"There All the Honor Lies." And he dropped his stat bar here. Was Kosh preparing him to see Lorien?
  I think it was a more general sense than preparing him specifically for Lorien.
• It's not a captain's bar it's a stat bar (gold for command, gold and silver for command/administrative liaison, red for medical, green for security), and it's Sheridan's.
• This is a pretty bleak episode.
  Yeah, it's deliberate...take 'em apart, separate 'em, see how they react, and make everything as dark as possible in anticipation of some kind of dawn, though getting there will be a struggle.
• Season 4 definitely starts in dark mode. Bigtime.
• Did you have Londo put on his old coat so there wouldn't be the costume mismatch there was with Delenn in "Babylon Squared" and "War Without End?"
  I never make the same mistake.
  I just learn how to make new ones.
  (And I'm very pleased with that scene...it's kinda goofy, with the minister in particular...he's just nuts. Well, not as much as Cartagia, obviously....)
• The non-moving Centauri Prime shot is an original Foundation shot; the one where it's moving (with the cruiser fly-bys) is the new one, and there's a lot more detail now in the surface of the planet and other stuff.
• "The first S4 episode (Hour of the Wolf) doesn't have nearly as many FX as the later S3 episodes, and what is there is mostly stock shots of the station rotating, etc."
  There are as many CGI shots in "Wolf" as in most of our episodes, and more than in "Rock," a later S3 episode. There's also the new establishers of Centauri Prime the planet, the revised Palace shots, new establishers of the station, a big new shot of the interior of the Garden that pans down, the beside-Z'ha'dum sequence...there's a LOT there. So a) your latter observation is, I gently point out, factually inaccurate, and b) most station shots have been recycled stock since year one, adding new ones each season then dropping them into rotation (so to speak).
  We always balance big EFX shows with smaller ones, building up to some big stuff. We're doing the same thing here this year as we've ever done.
• About the visual of Kosh leaving Lyta
  The streams were done on a flint, and there were not two takes edited together, there was just the one continuous take.
• The streams aren't technically considered CGI as we use it. That's roto work.
• CGI is specifically graphics generated on a computer, usually 2d or 3d animation. Roto work like the streams from Lyta's eyes are done by hand, frame by frame.
• The events in 401 take place roughly 7 days after 322.
• The alien ambassadors' English has improved.
  Ambassadors have been learning as they've gone along; I took the notion that the higher ups didn't have that much contact with humans, so their grasp of english was halting at best, but over 4 years, they've gotten better. The grunts/lower echelons, though, are still marginal at best.
• About Cartagia looking up women's dresses
  "best I can tell from my (admittedly limited) knowledge of Centauri physiology, he would have been looking in the wrong place - kinda like looking down a human woman's socks, or something."
  Tell that to a foot fetishist.
• It's fun and interesting to see Londo now having to deal with being in a sense on the same side as Sheridan, but for vastly different reasons.
• By building up Cartagia offscreen, it helped pave the way for what we do finally see.
  And the only reason to not hold back Sheridan for one more ep was my feeling that if I held him *and* Garibaldi back, it'd be a bit much.
• Why did Lyta refer to the White Star as if it hadn't been destroyed?
  The ships provided by Delenn are White Star class ships, hence the usage.
• Why am I here?
  Yes, the last piece there is kind of the key, isn't it?
  I've always kept the minister just that, no name, for the reasons you cite. This is someone who's a survivor, who bends with the wind, and somehow keeps going by not being noticed, or taken seriously.
  And yes, this season I was noticing that eyes have become a predominant image, from Lyta to the shadows to Lorien to some stuff coming in the next few episodes...funny, how this stuff creeps up on you.
• Check out "Voices of Authority." You've seen those eyes before.
• The eyes were a projection of a shadow face, as you can note in the main title.
• Any connection between the Shadows speaking with a father's voice and Kosh appearing to Sheridan as his dad?
  I figured that they would both tend to use a patriarchal influence, which would tie into so many races having that system.
• Actually, the ship was what technically saved them... Lennier also began to fall under the influence of the shadow voice, as we saw. There was some forethought on his part, but the ship activated itself on timer.
• "After watching Z'ha'dum and "Wolf" (No spoilers here), my main thought was basically, who the hell are these old races who assume moral superiority based on technical superiority? How dare they interfere with our development as a species just to suit their own petty needs? I wonder if any character on the show will take that same line of thought and expand upon it?"
  Well, until now, that's been primarily unknown to the other species. Now, thanks to Sheridan's trip to Z'ha'dum, and stuff coming up, that information will start to get out.
  So yeah, you may find someone or someones picking this thread up....