January 26, 2015: Behind the scenes on Dark Matter! Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone!

Director Paolo Barzman humoring me.

I spent much of the weekend going over the two week’s worth of dailies we’ve amassed to date. ��For those not in the know, “dailies” refers to the collected footage from the previous day’s shoot. ��It’s always a good idea to familiarize yourself with the available material – especially when it comes time to do your edit. If something isn’t working for you, it’s a simple matter of requesting that brilliant��alternate take or delivery that didn’t make the director’s cut. ��What’s leftover finds its way into those outtakes, blooper reels, and deleted footage extras the fans love so much while so much more is lost to time. ��Somewhere, in the crawlspace of my Vancouver home sit two boxes of videocassettes containing dailies from Stargate SG-1 seasons 4 through 7. ��Highlights include unaired scenes, serpent guards stumbling about in unwieldy oversized helmets, and Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson) dancing a jig in that unas episode.

Akemi presents…our shuttle: the phantom class marauder. Much more impressive on the inside, trust me.

Wall to wall meetings today for episode #103: VFX/Playback (nebula!), stunts/SPFX (shirtless bo staff training alert! ��Don’t tell Alex!), props (light up elements), and a tone meeting with director Paolo Barzman during which we discussed the characters, the “big picture”, and went through the script scene by scene.

Akemi prepares to interrogate the prisoner.

I spent most of my free time going over the schedule, assembling the scenes by set (the bridge [FTL, star field, blast doors, and emergency lighting], the infirmary, the mess, the airlock, the corridors and quarters), and playing mix and match with the allotted times to create nice, full – but not overly taxing days. ��I’d broken it all down nicely and was in the process of mixing and matching when I mistakenly pressed “do NOT save” – and lost everything. ��Sigh.

Director Paolo Barzman strongly urges me to reconsider that second act break.

In honor of my pug, Jelly, Natalie Cooper presents this awesome “sock of the day”:

And our screen grab of the day:

Heads up!

Tagged: Dark Matter, Dark Matter t.v.