We interview director Michael Nankin about some of the great episodes he’s done on BSG and Caprica. He discusses how he approached filming the deaths of notable characters, as well as bringing new characters and locales to life (Vergis, Barnabus, New Cap City…).
He also provides a behind-the-scenes look at some of the production decisions for several key episodes, including some scenes that didn’t make the final cut.
The interview was done by Brian.
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Comments 2
Great interview. Really interesting to see how much input Michael Nankin and directors as a whole, have in bringing an episode to life. With BSG and Caprica, a lot of attention has tended to focus on Ron D Moore, David Eik and the other writers.
Thinking about Caprica, which I love, I do think the city is too small looking. At night time, cities look bigger, but we rarely see Caprica city at night. We also never see it rain, I’ve noticed. The reason for thinking about this, is Blade Runner is an influence on BSG and Caprica, yet the latter, as a city based science fiction drama, hasn’t so far made any use of those two key visual elements from Blade Runner, the city at night and perpetual rain. I wonder if this will change as the series goes on?
The other thing of course, is that unlike BSG and Blade Runner, Caprica doesn’t have ‘skin jobs’ though you could say that Zoe and Tamara are the first digital skin jobs, ie humanoid cylons. In the physical world though, the only cylons are the mechanical variety, which I assume is more expensive to film, and doesn’t allow for the distinction between human and machine to be explored in the same way that it is in BSG.
Looking forward to Caprica’s return in the Autumn, and to season two and beyond…and to the second BSG spin off being planned, whatever it may be.
Also wanted to say this was a great interview. Went deep into the craft in a way some fan podcasts don’t usually do. Who else thinks Brian needs to produce a sci-fi show?