Still Squeeing Over Farscape DVDs.
Jun. 19th, 2010 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatStill being blown away by Farscape and the commentary. This has got to be the best DVD commentary I've ever listened to (and yes, that includes ALL the Whedon commentary on DVDs as well as quite a few art films.) I'm surprised. I gave up on DVD commentaries...finally. Because they are so self-congratulatory and chatty, and tell you little about the process. But this baby is incredibly informative. The only other one that was this informative was for the film The TV Set.
They discuss what it is like to do a different accent than your own, wear heavy prostectic makeup, the writing and directing process, how to act a scene with a puppet or no one else in the scene but a ship - which you are supposed to be talking to. They also discuss tv and film history, particularly science-fiction oriented.
So far learned:
1. Apparently tv shows shown to a EURO market and an American market - are different lengths.
Bowder kept pointing out the extra scenes in A Human Reaction that were on the Euro release and hadn't been seen in the US until the DVD's were released. And some of these scenes are really important, damn them. Which makes the Farscape DVDs a surprise. Episodes that I thought were okay when I watched them on Sci-Fi channel back in 2004, I consider good to brilliant on the DVDs. (Makes me wonder how many scenes were cut out of the BBC America and Syfy versions of Torchwood, Hex, Being Human, Merlin, and Doctor Who - because that would explain a lot. It also continues to bolster my view that the US is being run by evil marketing and advertising folks.)
2. Australia doesn't have the ability to create a tv show of the scale and scope of a Farscape.
Anthony Simco explains this in the Bone to BE Wild commentary - stating how small a country they are in both population and economy, and the idea of throwing millions of dollars into a tv series or film blew their minds. So when big US companies such as Hallmark, Fox and Henson Studios come to Australia to film and set up shop - cast and crew were thrilled!!
3. Already sort of knew this - but it was interesting to have people who have acted in a lot of tv series to mention it. Unlike the Buffy/Angel crew - Black and Bowder actually have lengthy
flim and tv bios. Both did Stargate, Black did Hercules, Bowder did several episodes of Party of Five, and numerous other things. And they bring that knowledge to the commentary. Discussing the pitfalls of working in tv - from a professional and story angle. That 80% of tv is really formulaic (god yes, unfortunately) - the characters don't change, you go solve a problem each week, and the leads don't sleep together or get together in any way until the end. And how as an actor - it gets stale after a while. But on a series such as Farscape - which started out one way, the sort of formula and immediately became something else - it is incredibly interesting when characters get to evolve. (They compare it to Star-Gate - a tv series that they both ended up on towards its final seasons... and Hercules.)
And so much more. I'm enthralled. And, hmmm, I may need to go hunt down the Farscape fandom.
Are there any serious fans of Farscape still on Flist? Because, am tempted to write meta on this series, but not sure it makes sense to do it if no one is interested. Then again, what the hell.
Also incredibly impressed with Ben Bowder - who is amongst the few leads of a tv series, specifically a sci-fi series that devoted himself to every bit of it. He wasn't an executive producer, but he wrote episodes, tweaked dialogue, discussed storyline, and worked hard on the series. His wife guest-starred in numerous episodes (wearing a lot of make-up) and did conventions with him. Was mature and not diva-ish. And has kept his personal life and children private and out of the public eye. Kudos.
They discuss what it is like to do a different accent than your own, wear heavy prostectic makeup, the writing and directing process, how to act a scene with a puppet or no one else in the scene but a ship - which you are supposed to be talking to. They also discuss tv and film history, particularly science-fiction oriented.
So far learned:
1. Apparently tv shows shown to a EURO market and an American market - are different lengths.
Bowder kept pointing out the extra scenes in A Human Reaction that were on the Euro release and hadn't been seen in the US until the DVD's were released. And some of these scenes are really important, damn them. Which makes the Farscape DVDs a surprise. Episodes that I thought were okay when I watched them on Sci-Fi channel back in 2004, I consider good to brilliant on the DVDs. (Makes me wonder how many scenes were cut out of the BBC America and Syfy versions of Torchwood, Hex, Being Human, Merlin, and Doctor Who - because that would explain a lot. It also continues to bolster my view that the US is being run by evil marketing and advertising folks.)
2. Australia doesn't have the ability to create a tv show of the scale and scope of a Farscape.
Anthony Simco explains this in the Bone to BE Wild commentary - stating how small a country they are in both population and economy, and the idea of throwing millions of dollars into a tv series or film blew their minds. So when big US companies such as Hallmark, Fox and Henson Studios come to Australia to film and set up shop - cast and crew were thrilled!!
3. Already sort of knew this - but it was interesting to have people who have acted in a lot of tv series to mention it. Unlike the Buffy/Angel crew - Black and Bowder actually have lengthy
flim and tv bios. Both did Stargate, Black did Hercules, Bowder did several episodes of Party of Five, and numerous other things. And they bring that knowledge to the commentary. Discussing the pitfalls of working in tv - from a professional and story angle. That 80% of tv is really formulaic (god yes, unfortunately) - the characters don't change, you go solve a problem each week, and the leads don't sleep together or get together in any way until the end. And how as an actor - it gets stale after a while. But on a series such as Farscape - which started out one way, the sort of formula and immediately became something else - it is incredibly interesting when characters get to evolve. (They compare it to Star-Gate - a tv series that they both ended up on towards its final seasons... and Hercules.)
And so much more. I'm enthralled. And, hmmm, I may need to go hunt down the Farscape fandom.
Are there any serious fans of Farscape still on Flist? Because, am tempted to write meta on this series, but not sure it makes sense to do it if no one is interested. Then again, what the hell.
Also incredibly impressed with Ben Bowder - who is amongst the few leads of a tv series, specifically a sci-fi series that devoted himself to every bit of it. He wasn't an executive producer, but he wrote episodes, tweaked dialogue, discussed storyline, and worked hard on the series. His wife guest-starred in numerous episodes (wearing a lot of make-up) and did conventions with him. Was mature and not diva-ish. And has kept his personal life and children private and out of the public eye. Kudos.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 05:43 pm (UTC)As for Farscape fandom, it's not really big from what I can tell. It's so small, that they can guess each other's writing styles even in anony memes. I foudn this out that because I drew a Farscape ficcer for my Remix. She told me that she knew it wasn't someone in her fandom because when first read it she didn't recognize the writing style.
Then she landed on my LJ through some link or another during the anon week and realized that my writing style and her remixed story were similar.
Yeah, that's how small Farscape fandom is. I think a lot of it is because Farscape was aired before the big explosion in online fandom. So it's there, but you do have to look for it.
If you're looking for some good Farscape fics, go over to "Archive of Our Own", there's quite a lot of stuff over there, most of it good or above average.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 11:15 pm (UTC)I love everything about this show and the DVDS are great - so glad they came down in price. Also, a big thank you - for alerting me to them going down in price, or I'd never have gotten them. Best DVD buy ever! They are even better than Buffy DVDs.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 04:31 pm (UTC)I know there are people on lj that are fans - because every once and a while I'll catch their icons. But didn't realize it was that small. Although when I think about it - not overly surprised - the DVDs were so expensive that no one could afford them for the longest time.
Confused now about air dates - in part due to the commentary, which kept saying 2002, but acting like that was the first air date, when I'm guessing now that it actually was the end date?
Which means it started in 1998-1999 or thereabouts?
I know the Buffy fandom exploded around 2002 - when the internet took off. Although most fan boards were established in 2000. The net really exploded around 2000-2003.