RydraWong
06-09-2004, 09:26 AM
SFX magazine (July 2004) has interviews with Ben Browder and Brian Henson about the Farscape miniseries.
Here's the one with Brian (there's one tiny reference which I think doesn't give away anything people won't already have heard, I think, but don't say I didn't warn you):
"IT'S AN EPIC!"
Farscape mini-series director Brian Henson makes some exciting promises about what we can expect when it airs.
Brian Henson, son of Jim and heir to the great man's Creature Workshop, is happy to be able to put two years of backroom shenanigans behind him and get back to the creative side of his job. Recent years have seen The Henson Company bought out by a German media company, then bought back, and the Muppets being sold to Disney, all of which has taken up much of his time. Finally, though, he got his hands dirty again, directing the new Farscape miniseries.
"We're quite a few weeks into the editing and visual FX," he tells us. "It's a long post production process. We have a huge amount of FX shots." Including, he adds tantalisingly, the opening of a Scarran/Peacekeeper war that's going to kick off the miniseries. "This is going to be the most epic thing you've ever seen on TV," he enthuses.
"I desperately wanted to see it made," he continues. "I've always been involved behind the scenes, although not directing - I was an executive producer. And it's always been a huge passion of mine. It took a few years to set it up and sell it initially. And to direct it as a mini-series? Well, I wanted to direct it, but also it was part of the deal we set up to get it made - I needed to be the director.'
He thanks the fans for the support they gave the show, acknowledging their pivotal role in getting it back on the screen. "Really, it was the fans. It was the fan clubs and the online fans and the stuff that they were doing. They were keeping the word out that they missed Farscape and that they desperately wanted it back. And they did that worldwide in a very big way. They got the message to everybody who was in any way involved in television and the result was that there was financing opportunities that came to me that I would never have found on my own."
Ask him what he enjoyed most about directing the mini-series, and he doesn't miss the opportunity for a bit of huckstering. "Just the sheer ambitious nature of it. Everyday we would go in and the call sheet would look like one week of shooting. Every day. And that's exciting. It's such an impossible production standard. But after four years, to just see it humming along, where you have 20 creatures arrive on-set ready to perform, plus 20 actors, and then shoot four scenes in a day; that sort of thing was hugely exciting. But I also loves the whole 'science fiction with no rules' approach that Farscape is famous for. It's not emotionally sterile; it's emotionally amped up. And so therefore the action gets a little more aggressive and a little more brutal and primitive, and so do the emotional interactions."
He also promises that the mini-series will be more accessible than the series, which, after four years of complex storylines, was hardly inviting to casual viewers. "I put the pressure on us to make it more accessible. Enough time has gone by that to just pick up where we left off a year and a half ago - and if you don't know where we left off, then it's your fault - and then present four hours of the biggest, best television ever made just seemed so wrong to me. So, I'm trying to make it welcoming to a new audience."
Here's the one with Brian (there's one tiny reference which I think doesn't give away anything people won't already have heard, I think, but don't say I didn't warn you):
"IT'S AN EPIC!"
Farscape mini-series director Brian Henson makes some exciting promises about what we can expect when it airs.
Brian Henson, son of Jim and heir to the great man's Creature Workshop, is happy to be able to put two years of backroom shenanigans behind him and get back to the creative side of his job. Recent years have seen The Henson Company bought out by a German media company, then bought back, and the Muppets being sold to Disney, all of which has taken up much of his time. Finally, though, he got his hands dirty again, directing the new Farscape miniseries.
"We're quite a few weeks into the editing and visual FX," he tells us. "It's a long post production process. We have a huge amount of FX shots." Including, he adds tantalisingly, the opening of a Scarran/Peacekeeper war that's going to kick off the miniseries. "This is going to be the most epic thing you've ever seen on TV," he enthuses.
"I desperately wanted to see it made," he continues. "I've always been involved behind the scenes, although not directing - I was an executive producer. And it's always been a huge passion of mine. It took a few years to set it up and sell it initially. And to direct it as a mini-series? Well, I wanted to direct it, but also it was part of the deal we set up to get it made - I needed to be the director.'
He thanks the fans for the support they gave the show, acknowledging their pivotal role in getting it back on the screen. "Really, it was the fans. It was the fan clubs and the online fans and the stuff that they were doing. They were keeping the word out that they missed Farscape and that they desperately wanted it back. And they did that worldwide in a very big way. They got the message to everybody who was in any way involved in television and the result was that there was financing opportunities that came to me that I would never have found on my own."
Ask him what he enjoyed most about directing the mini-series, and he doesn't miss the opportunity for a bit of huckstering. "Just the sheer ambitious nature of it. Everyday we would go in and the call sheet would look like one week of shooting. Every day. And that's exciting. It's such an impossible production standard. But after four years, to just see it humming along, where you have 20 creatures arrive on-set ready to perform, plus 20 actors, and then shoot four scenes in a day; that sort of thing was hugely exciting. But I also loves the whole 'science fiction with no rules' approach that Farscape is famous for. It's not emotionally sterile; it's emotionally amped up. And so therefore the action gets a little more aggressive and a little more brutal and primitive, and so do the emotional interactions."
He also promises that the mini-series will be more accessible than the series, which, after four years of complex storylines, was hardly inviting to casual viewers. "I put the pressure on us to make it more accessible. Enough time has gone by that to just pick up where we left off a year and a half ago - and if you don't know where we left off, then it's your fault - and then present four hours of the biggest, best television ever made just seemed so wrong to me. So, I'm trying to make it welcoming to a new audience."