Interview: Author Mark Cotta Vaz on STAR TREK The Art of the Film

by Tony Dayoub



Earlier this week, I reviewed the lavishly illustrated STAR TREK The Art of the Film, which was released yesterday. I had the opportunity to ask its author, Mark Cotta Vaz, a few questions about what it takes to put a book like this together.

Interview: Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore on Virtuality - Part 2

In Part 1 of this interview, Ronald D. Moore described how Virtuality (an unsold pilot airing at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX) differs from the show that was his claim to fame, Battlestar Galactica. Today he goes further, expanding on some of the details that set Virtuality apart from other well-known science fiction series. In terms of how Virtuality's virtual reality and reality show aspects comes into play, Moore wondered, "What would NASA or the space confederation do at that point to keep them from going crazy? They’d probably have a really advanced virtual reality program to help them while away the hours, and there’s interaction between those two worlds. "Somewhere in those discussions we started talking about when they would be broadcasting pieces back to earth, obviously, like astronauts do today, and hey, what if they made a reality show out of that? Then it all kind of started to come together. You had these three layers of storytelling going on in the show where you had what was happening in the real world on the ship, what was happening in the virtual space, and then what was the reality show that was seen back on earth. Were the needs of the reality show starting to impact what was happening on the spacecraft? Were people being manipulated in order to make better drama for the reality show? The astronauts themselves would start to wonder about, 'Are they telling us the truth about what’s happening back on earth, or is that something to just get us to be upset for the cameras?' It did sort of become this really interesting sort of psychological crucible that they would all be put in." Concerning the similarities to Caprica's virtual reality subplot, Moore says, "They do have different purposes and different sorts of constructs to them. They both involve putting a set of goggles on your face, so they’re similar in sort of that perspective. In Caprica it’s really much more akin to the Internet where you go out and the virtual spaces are practically infinite and they intersect with one another. On Caprica you can go from the V-Club where we establish in the pilot is sort of a hacked world and then, presumably, there are Worlds of Warcraft type of worlds, etc., etc. It’s all sort of interconnected into their version of the Internet. "In Virtuality we’re looking at something much more discrete, much smaller, much more of a gaming type of environment where an astronaut has a specific virtual reality module that they go into and play whatever game or have whatever experience they want, but there is no expectation that you can cross from one module to another." Moore also gave an intriguing taste of what one could expect in Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, a movie that reframes the events of the defunct series through the Cylons' perspective. "I think there are definitely surprises. It’s really a piece for people who love the show. If you love the show you’re probably going to be really intrigued by The Plan, because it’s going to have all of these little bread crumbs and throw away lines and indicators and suggestions from other episodes. You’ve seen the show. You’ve watched the finale. You know how the story ends. Okay, here’s like an additional slant on some things that you didn’t know about." But Moore really hopes his fans tune into FOX tonight to try Virtuality. "It certainly does not resolve itself in two hours. I mean it sets up for a [series], so it’s got some pretty heavy things that go down in it and kind of leaves you going, 'Whoa! Where is that going?' by the end of it." Virtuality airs tonight at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Interview: Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore on Virtuality - Part 1

Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the late, great Battlestar Galactica, is an ambitious man. In addition to two Galactica follow-ups—TV movie The Plan (which airs this fall), and prequel series Caprica (airing in 2010)—Moore is hoping the new science fiction pilot he co-created, Virtuality (airing Friday, June 26th, at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX), will prove popular enough with viewers to go to series. Virtuality follows Earth’s first starship, the Phaeton, and its crew of 12 astronauts who embark on a 10-year journey critical to the survival of life on Earth. They have reached the point of no return where the crew must commit to traveling to a distant solar system millions of miles away. If they commit, they cannot turn back. Tensions are heightened even further as surveillance cameras capture their every move for The Edge of Never, a reality series back on Earth. To give the crew a vital recreational outlet on the long journey, the ship has been equipped with revolutionary virtual reality modules. Each crew member can assume avatar-like identities—from a war hero to a rock star to secret lovers—as they explore self-created worlds in the ultra-life-like simulators. These are their psychological lifelines, and each module’s unique setting was chosen by the crew member before departing Earth. But there is a bug in the system. As crew members go in and out of reality, they realize that a virus has entered their private world. Is someone on the crew responsible? When the intruder crosses a violent and disturbing line, Commander Frank Pike (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) makes a difficult decision to shut down the modules. But before he can, a tragic event threatens the mission. Is it an accident or a crime? Real or virtual? I spoke to Moore about Virtuality, asking him how the idea for sci-fi thriller came up. "It was an unusual situation in that [executive producers] Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun had wanted to have a sit down—a general meeting with me—and then separately they wanted to have a sit down meeting with Michael Taylor, who was one of the writers on Battlestar. So I sat down with Lloyd and Gail, and in that conversation Lloyd had this idea of, 'I would like to do a show about the first long-range mission to Mars.' We kind of talked about that a little bit in just a get-to-know-you meeting, and kind of expanded on the idea of what a long-range mission would be. "They had a similar meeting with Mike Taylor. The same kind of topic came up. He sparked to it from sort of a different angle, and then Michael and I started talking about it separately. Then the three of us started talking, and it all kind of became this sort of 'Here’s a show.' Then we just took it to FOX. We went into FOX and pitched it to [entertainment president] Kevin Reilly and his team—and they really liked it—and it kind of went from there." When asked how it differs from Galactica, Moore says, "It’s a much less serious situation than Battlestar was dealing with. Battlestar was literally a post-apocalyptic show where the future of humanity rode on their every decision, and death was stalking them continuously. So it’s not set up in the same way. The crew aboard Phaeton signed up for what just seemed like a very straight-ahead mission of exploration and they were chosen with that in mind. They were also chosen to participate in this sort of reality show that’s being broadcast back to Earth. "So there was a conscious attempt on the part of the people who put the crew together to sort of have an interesting mix of people. There are debates within the crew themselves who was chosen just for sort of their demographic content and who was legitimately supposed to be there. Now, you’ve got a group of 12 people stuck in a metal tube going in a straight line for a decade or so, and that’s going to just sort of produce a lot of tensions and frictions and manipulations and sort of cross problems between the characters. It has a stronger element of fun and suspense, and sort of interesting plot terms in terms of what characters will do with one another than did Battlestar. Battlestar was very driven by the internal pressures of the huge weight that was on all of their shoulders from the beginning of the miniseries." In Part 2 of the interview (which will be posted on Friday), Moore will discuss some of the more unique aspects of Virtuality that set it apart from other science fiction series, and give us a taste of what to expect from Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. Virtuality airs Friday, June 26th, at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Director Steven Soderbergh on Che, Part 2

In Part 1 of this discussion, Steven Soderbergh spoke of the logistics of making and presenting his latest film, Che, starring Benicio Del Toro as revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. The full question and answer session covered a lot of ground. Here in Part 2, we conclude the discussion, as he gives us his take on the real-life Che and his ideology. On Soderbergh's impression of Che before he took on this project: "I think like most people in this country, I first heard Che’s name in history class at school, when you would get that sort of quick sketch of the history of Cuba. One of the great things about having this job is that, more often than not, I get paid to educate myself. A lot of the details of the Cuban Revolution, obviously, were not known to me. I thought that it was basically all Fidel. I didn’t know anything about these other groups that were trying to do the same thing. "My idea of Che was from those images of him, near the very end of the Cuban Revolution, with the beret and this cast on his arm. I had no idea about this transformation from being the medic to becoming a leader. I think the thing that I learned about him that was interesting to me was what a hard-ass he was. Talking to the people that fought alongside him, one of the doctors that he fought with also had a great quote. He said, 'You had to love him for free.' He just described how uncompromising he was. Most people wanted to be in Camilo [Cienfuegos]’s column, because he was fun. Che was just a very, very strict disciplinarian, and there was no moment where he sort of dropped the ideology, even in a certain personal one-on-one situation. A lot of people found him sort of cold and distant. So Benicio and I talked about that, a lot. That he really only reserved the warmer side of his personality for when he was in the doctor mode. When he was in the sort of leader-comandante mode, he was really, really harsh. I can understand why. The stakes are pretty high." On research regarding Che: "If you’ve read about Che at all, if you go to the bookstore, there’s an entire wall of Che material. There’s a lot to go through. We tried to get through all of it. We spoke to everyone who’s still around, and willing to talk, that fought with him, and knew him. And research can be… I think J.G. Ballard once said, 'Research is the refuge of the unimaginative.' There were times when I thought he was absolutely right. We were just overwhelmed with information. "As Jon Lee Anderson [author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life], who was one of our consultants, said at the press conference in Cannes, 'Look, there’s a billion Ches. He means something different to everyone.' And at a certain point, we, the core creative team, just had to decide what to use and what not to use. Frankly, a lot of it was by exclusion. I went in with more of an idea of what I didn’t want to do than what I wanted to do. At least that’s a start. I mean, you can begin to shape it a little bit. "I was trying as much as I could to avoid scenes that I thought were too typical. I didn’t want to have the scene where somebody says, 'Hey, why do they call you Che?' Or, you know, him in battle and his hat blows off, and he runs over and picks up a beret. I didn’t want to do that, so that helped, too. "We’d find these crazy little stories. One of our favorites we found very late in one of the memoirs written by the Acevedo brother, who we see at the end of the film driving the car to Havana. Che stops him and says, 'Turn around.' We found that story very late in the process. It’s such a perfect Che scene, a perfect expression of who he was, so I was always on the lookout for scenes like that." On Che as a political film: "I believe that any movie that accurately presents anyone’s life, or any situation; any movie that’s not a fantasy; that isn’t just a pure entertainment; any movie that makes an attempt to show things the way they are, is to me, by definition, a political film. Whether you’ve made a cop movie or whether it’s Erin Brockovich, any movie that attempts to look at things in a straightforward fashion, and not polish it up, I think you could argue, is a political film. Obviously, these are political films, in the sense that there’s an ideology that’s being expressed. But that isn’t what drew me to it, ultimately. "I’m obviously not a communist. As I said to someone a couple of weeks ago, there isn’t even a place for me in the society that Che was trying to build, literally. In Man and Socialism in Cuba [sic], he says, 'There is no great artist who is also a true revolutionary.' He didn’t have a lot of use for the kind of stuff that I do, and I think personally, he probably would have hated me. But again, I can still look at him, and find him one of the most compelling political figures of the last century. I do think the ideas are fascinating to debate, and to look at in the context of the world we live in now. "One of the things that was interesting to me about the Cuban Revolution is that is the last time you’re ever going to see a revolution like that, fought. That’s what I call the last 'analog' revolution. Today, that would have been over in two weeks. Technology just makes it impossible to fight a revolution the way they did, as we see even seven or eight years later. That doesn’t mean revolutions don’t happen. I’m just saying I don’t think they’re ever going to happen that way again. That was kind of interesting, to make a period film about a type of war that can’t really be fought anymore." On Cuba today: "As far as what’s going on in Cuba now, I think that the relations between [our] two countries… I don’t think we’ve been very smart in how we’ve played this. I think there are other moves that could have been made, on our part, to make a dialogue more inevitable. I’m still stunned that this embargo is still going on. It’s just shocking. It doesn’t seem to make much sense. It’s my personal belief that if you wanted the embargo to end, and you wanted to see some change there, you should flood them… There’s nothing like exposure to new ideas to get people thinking about new ideas. So in fact, our policy is the opposite of what I would be doing." On Che's ideology: "I don’t think the economic policy that flows from Marxist-Leninist doctrine works. I don’t think it works. That’s a core principle of his belief system... I don’t think you can build an economy that’s going to function when you base it on this ideology. It’s an ideology that worked in a very specific place, in a very specific time, in an industrialized situation. Mostly it works on paper because as soon as you start adding human beings to it, it falls apart. Do I support his ideas when a system is in place in which profit is only possible through the exploitation of the weak and the poor? I’d say, yeah, I want to see that eradicated. But his methodology, and his economic belief system, I don’t think work." Click here for Part 1 of Soderbergh's discussion. Still provided courtesy of Getty Images.

Director Steven Soderbergh on Che, Part 1

After the recent press screening for Che, starring Benicio Del Toro as revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, director Steven Soderbergh gave a captivating discussion of the film. This was no easy feat given that we had started seeing the film at 10 a.m. and hadn't finished it until about 3 p.m. with only one 20-minute break for lunch. His discussion was so interesting, I've left most of it intact. Today, I present Part 1 in which he discusses the logistics of making and presenting the film. On what interested Soderbergh about the story of Che: "The making of this film was so extended. We started talking about it when we were working on Traffic… Producer Laura Bickford, Benicio and I started talking about it. That’s eight years ago. And what I found… why you said yes... That reason changes… during the course of the film. "It really wasn’t until the films were finished… around the time of Cannes, that I realized what they were really about to me, or what they really meant to me, was this issue of engagement versus disengagement. That every day in our lives, on a personal level, on a community level, on a local level, we are making a decision about how engaged we want to be, or how disengaged we want to be. Do we want to participate, or do we want to observe? I realized that what was compelling about Che to me was once he made the decision to engage, that he engaged fully... You have to remember he also was an atheist. A lot of times when you have figures that can sustain this sort of level of engagement, they attribute it to a higher power, or there’s some other element that they can call upon. He didn’t have that, or at least he expressed it in terms of only being concerned with what people are doing to each other here." On financing Che: "All I can say is I’m glad I’m not looking for money right now. It was complicated, but we knew it would be. I mean look at it. It took a couple of people sticking it out for a long time, and just believing in the ultimate commercial viability of the brand of Che. That’s the weird paradox about this guy. "Here is the icon of Marxist-Leninist economic ideology, and you stick his face on anything and it sells. It’s a very weird situation. And I believed if we could just get this thing made, that ultimately it would find enough of an audience to get its money back. The amount of money we had dictated a pretty strict shooting schedule. "We had 39 days for each part. To put that into context of something else that I’ve made, that’s fewer days than it took me to shoot the first Ocean’s film. So we had to move very, very quickly. There are aspects of that I really think are great. And there are aspects of it that are difficult to accept. But we didn’t have any choice. "Wild Bunch, which is a French sales and production company, and Telecinco, which is a very large Spanish television and film production company, both came in. Wild Bunch has been there since the beginning, and Telecinco came in a couple of years ago." On the logistics of shooting Che: "We had a ten day gap between the two shoots. We shot part two first, and we shot it backwards, so it was confusing. As far as casting goes, look, I was trying to stack that thing with as many well known people as I could. I put a lot of calls out. I think a lot of people see the movie, and don’t even know it’s Matt [Damon, as the American missionary]. I wasn’t really worried that it would pull them out of the film, because they were supporting characters. They didn’t carry the film on their shoulders. I was absolutely looking to cast it up. I had to. "Unfortunately, as an American, I’m not allowed to shoot in Cuba. We made many trips there that were licensed through the state department. So at least we got a look at where events actually took place. Bolivia, we were able to shoot in. Part one was shot in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and New York, obviously. Part two was Bolivia and Spain. We shot all over Spain in some very remote areas. As it turned out we had somebody working on the film who grew up in La Higuera [the Bolivian town where Che was executed]. We built that La Higuera set in the top of this mountain in the middle of nowhere. When he came to the set he was stunned. He said, 'It’s exactly where I remember growing up.' Our production designer, Antxón Gómez, did a really great job." On the aesthetic differences between the first part, The Argentine, and the second part, Guerilla: "I was trying to find a very simple way to create a different sensation for each part. The wider frame, what I consider to be a more 'Hollywood' format, I felt was more appropriate for the Cuban Revolution because it really had the trajectory of the classic Hollywood war film. 82 guys start out. Then they’re down to 12. It looks like they’re not going to make it, but they do. Everything that needs to go right goes right. They get all the breaks, and I obviously wanted it to have more of a traditional Hollywood aesthetic, including the music and the cutting. "In the second film, I want it to feel less settled where you felt that the outcome was not clear, even from the beginning. So I use the 1:85 frame which is a little less wide, and went all handheld. Gradually through the second part, the camera finally starts to get closer to him, until he’s in the schoolroom, and we end with the biggest shot of him in the film, which is the last time we see him. It seemed to me a very simple way of sending a different message to the audience about what each part was going to feel like." On the English dialogue voice-over used over Del Toro's Spanish dialogue in the New York sequence: "It seemed organic to me, because we used the actor who was his interpreter following him around in New York. It seemed appropriate to use that idea to continue hearing this guy translate Che. More importantly, there are sequences in which he is speaking, in which I do not want an English speaking audience to be reading. I want them to be able to watch the images, and hear the words, without having to read, especially during, for instance, the Battle of El Uvero, where he does the Tolstoy quote. I’ve seen the film with English subtitles. You cannot watch both things at the same time. You just can’t. That’s the reason I did it. I felt by bringing in his New York interpreter at least it was in line with this conceit of the interview, or the idea of this series of interviews that Che is doing throughout his New York trip." On Che's time in Africa, which is not covered in the film: "If this film makes a $100 million, I’ll make the third one [tongue-in-cheek]. We talked about it. The story of Che in the Congo is absolutely fascinating. We actually sort of sketched an idea for a very small film that would take place in the Congo, and in Prague, where he went after fighting in the Congo, to lick his wounds, and write a very self-critical book on what happened in the Congo. The answer is that we didn’t have enough money to do that. Also, it’s a fascinating chapter, but it didn’t really fall into the kind of bookend idea that we ended up with. "When the film was first being developed, it was only about Bolivia. And it was a little more than halfway through the process of working on that, that we decided Bolivia doesn’t really make a lot of sense unless you’ve seen Cuba. Because you keep wondering, why doesn’t he quit? It’s going so badly. You have to see what happened in Cuba to understand why he still thought they were going to pull this off. "So it grew from one manageable film into one giant film. Overseas it’s going to be split in half. So we just couldn’t fit that in. We read all that material, and in fact, there was a quote from one of the African rebels that fought with Che, Victor Dreke, which was fantastic. He said, 'Che would rather face a bullet than reality.' And that’s a perfect description of him I think." On the 268-minute roadshow version vs. two films: 'Here’s our plan, currently. Whenever the movie enters a specific market, New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, that for one week, on one screen, you can see it like you just saw it. There will be a specially printed program with the credits for both films. We’re referring to that as the roadshow version, the way they used to do in the fifties and sixties. "Yeah, sure, I think that’s the ideal way to see it. It’s a lot to ask of someone to throw away an entire day. I guess my only argument is, cinematically, we’re making a demand on the audience that’s very similar to the demands that Che made on the people around him [tongue-in-cheek]. It’s a big commitment, and it requires a certain kind of personality to want to experience it like that. It was certainly designed that way, so that you could get the full effect of the kind of call and response between the two parts." [Update]: Part 2 of Soderbergh's discussion has been posted. Still provided courtesy of Brooklyn Bridge.

Interview: Shirley Manson on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

by Tony Dayoub

If you're a fan of the Terminator movies, then you might be looking forward to the newest entry in the franchise, Terminator Salvation. Scheduled to open in the summer of 2009, it's the first of a trilogy starring Christian Bale as the messianic John Connor, savior of Earth's future. With McG (Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle) helming the latest entry in the resilient franchise, however, the film is a bit of an unknown quantity.

Far more dependable, fans have found, is the TV spinoff, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, currently in its second season. Creator Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds) has won geeks' hearts by adhering closely to the Terminator mythology, despite the challenges of keeping plots straight with time travel in the mix. He's also supplied us with some notable casting surprises including the career redemption of Brian Austin Green (Beverly Hills 90210), who has finally joined the regular cast this year as Derek Reese, brother of the time-traveling hero Kyle played by Michael Biehn in the first film. But this year's biggest surprise has to be the casting of rock star Shirley Manson, lead singer of Garbage, as Catherine Weaver, CEO of ZeiraCorp, and as revealed in the climax of last week's episode, a T-1001 model Terminator.


Manson is excited to add actress to her resume, but keeps it all in perspective. "I know there is a lot of criticism whenever a musician steps into acting, and whenever an actor steps into music, and I understand where that comes from. I’ve certainly been guilty of being very suspicious myself of people who have done crossovers." Regarding her fellow actors, she says, "They all have their different styles and techniques they bring to their craft and they’ve all been very helpful. Richard T. Jones [Agent Ellison on the show], in particular, is sort of my main man on screen because we spend a lot of time together, and he’s been incredibly patient and generous with me. He’s given me some tips along the way, and I really have been very blessed by having him around because I’m sure it must be very annoying to have some upstart musician come in who really knows very little about the craft of acting. I’ve been very lucky."

When I asked her if she's had any scenes with the rest of the regular cast yet, she said, "We have not crossed paths yet, on screen." But she looks forward to doing so, maybe in a stunt scene of some kind. "I have noticed that all the terminators on the show want to meet the other terminators, we’re always making hints that it would be great fun to have us all take our super powers against each other."

You wouldn't think that being the most advanced Terminator out there is a drawback.But for an actor, it might be limiting. "I fear that I am so sophisticated that I don’t even need to fight. That’s my problem, that’s the problem with being at the top of your series, a top of the range model, I don’t know if she needs to get her hands dirty, which might be the only downside to my character." Like any good actor, though, Manson is doing some extracurricular prep, just in case. "I’m sort of … action and I would love to do something like that, but whether I’ll get to, I don’t know. I do know my trainer has started having me box a lot more in the off chance they’re going to ask me to do some stunts. Who knows?"

Is Manson going to give up music to turn to acting full time? "I feel like I’ve really been bitten by a bug, and I find it really exciting and very challenging. It reminds me of being little, when you get to play in the sandbox, or in your Wendy house or playing with dolls, there is something really innately childish about it, but also as a result, really thrilling and exciting." Fans of the singer don't have anything to worry about, though. "I’m still working on music. Obviously, I’m not a huge lead in the show so I have plenty of downtime too, despite some of the crazy hours we work. I’ve been working all year on stuff and continue to do so. I have a lot of material, I’m intending actually to go in and start recording some of the songs live, next month, so we’ll see if I manage to pull it off."

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs Mondays at 8:00 p.m. on FOX.

Stills provided courtesy of FOX Broadcasting Company.