| 21/5/01 - Niall: How long has the Host's role in the trip to Pylea been planned? Was he always going to be there, or was he written in when it was obvious how popular he'd become? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TM: From early in the story conception of the Pylea arc. We knew we wanted The Host along for the ride whatever the tale, but once we hit upon the idea (and when I say "we," I mean Joss) of the dimension in which the gang plays out their season long psycho dramas as being the Host's home dimension, it all sort of fell into place. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 21/5/01 - Niall: Why did you go for a medieval-fantasy dimension, as opposed to, say, a technological-fantasy dimension? Was giving it the feel and look of so much cliched sword-and-sorcery deliberate? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TM: Wanted to do this as a fairy tale. And the "no moral ambiguity" thing seemed logcially to play out in that kind of storybook setting. Also, cheaper. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 21/5/01 - Niall: Is the language in the book used to open the portals the language of Pylea? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TM: No. Answers to follow in episode 22. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
29/5/01 - Helen: Who has the
ultimate say in production issues?
| TM:
"Production issues" is a rather wide-ranging subject. But Joss has
ultimate say. But, for example, on my last episode, "Through The Looking
Glass," We had planned for the Grossalugg to be gold -- as in gold body
paint. It looked horrible. So Joss requested silver. When the guy
turned up on set (I was directing), I thought he looked as if he'd been
under a frozen lake for a month. I called Joss and Greenie and told them
I wanted to just make him Braveheart guy and lose the body paint. They
instantly agreed, trusting me and not having to see it for themselves. I
also have the latitude to re-write my stuff on set as I shoot without
having to "check in." We all produce the show and Joss and David have
come to trust me enough to let me stand or fall without constant
supervision. The same can be said of the writing. For instance, (more
spoilers here, but there's already a space, so there), when I was writing
"Reprise," all we'd really discussed was that Angel would find a couple of
guys sacrificng goats for W&H. There was no talk of the "by the numbers
sacrifice kit," I was just trying to entertain myself as I was writing it.
Also, at the end of act two, Angel was supposed to go to "ooga-booga
expert guy" to learn of the ring and glove, etc. I took it upon myself
to, er, reprise the character of Denver. Of course, any of these things
could have been tumbs-downed by my betters. They weren't, that's
all. | 1/6/01 - Mattia: What do
you think about the cutting of the 'Previously on..' segments for the
Buffy Season 2 DVD release? OK, so that's not your puppy, but basically it
boils down to whether or not you consider the 'Previously on..' segments
to be part of the episodes or not, I guess. I mean, they're scored, on
Angel you've even got different people doing the VOs, so...would you be
annoyed at Fox leaving them out of, say, and Angel DVD boxed set release
(please, Joss, let it be soon!)? | TM: We do cut those ourselves, and I do
think they're important. I generally try to slip in important information
without spoiling the episode. For instance, in "The Trial" I'm pretty
sure I included footage from a Dru flashback -- but in context it appeared
we were setting up Angel/Darla's relationship with the information, and
that Dru was merely on the edge of the scenes. Of course, that was a way
to present Dru for the final moment of the story but without giving away
that she would play any part in the story. | 12/6/01 - Niall: I've heard it said
several times that 'Angel' episodes and 'Buffy' episodes are written so
that if one is overly 'dark', the other is 'light'. 'The Body'/'Epiphany'
is supposedly one example. How much truth is there to this, and if there
is some truth to it, did it alter your writing of 'Epiphany' in
any way (or was the type of episode it was going to be settled before you
ever began to write it)? | TM: There is some truth to this.
However, "Epiphany" was shaping up to take a turn toward the light on its
own -- though Joss did mention that Buffy's mom's death would be the
subject on Buffy the night Angel made his attempt to reconnect with his
crew and Joss felt that was of the good. But I want to point out that the
stunning reveal of Buffy's mother's death came the week before when our
"Reprise" aired, which is possibly the most despair-filled ep of the
season. | 12/6/01 - Niall: If you could change any
one thing about S2, would you? | TM: Yes! | 12/6/01 - Niall: If you would, what would
it be? | TM: The time I went on the internet and
blabbed about what I thought were my failures... oh, wait...
nevermind. | 19/6/01 - Tafka: Tim, following Willow's
appearance at the end of "TNPLG", and of course without giving away
concrete plot ideas, what kind of resoultion could be shown for Buffy's
"death" in Angel? Due to the network changes in the US, Angel's now being
shown before Buffy - something which probably wasn't anticipated at the
time of filiming these finales - and therefore will Joss make an executive
decision to resolve the issue in Buffy before Angel or is it going to be
seemingly left alone/brushed off due to the problems which may arise of
the Angel cast appearing in Buffy/Buffy in Angel? [A bit vague, that :)
Basically - how can you see it being resolved/Buffy before Angel or Angel
before buffy? Etc] | TM: Without giving anything away -- at
present it doesn't appear that we'll be able to do any actual "tonight,
guest appearance by" type crossovers. But Angel will deal.
| 23/6/01 - Tafka: Seeming as we ended
Series 2 with Willow already in LA, would you think that if Willow can't
appear in Angel Series 3, Ep 1 and they dealt with her abscence through a
simple, spoken, explanation it'd suffice? | TM: If you look back on each end/start
season of Buffy, and also the now two seasons of Angel, you'll note that
there's always a 3 month time gap between the end of a season and the
start of the next. Unless Willow oddly decided to spend the summer with
Angel, it shouldn't appear odd at all her absence. | 27/6/01 - Mattia: The
shooting script for 'Darla' has the following exchange...
| ANGEL: I've been... thinking. That's all.
| WESLEY: Thinking? | ANGEL: Yes. It helps me sometimes to
think with my hands. | Wesley has picked up a nude drawing of
Darla. Admires it. | WESLEY: And occasionally... just the one
hand? | Mattia: ..part of which was cut, which is
too bad because it's quite hilarious, although admittedly perhaps not too
fitting in the context of the rest of the episode. I (actually, several of
us. Strange things come up in this group's IRC channel..) was wondering if
this stuff actually was shot, or if it was cut out pre-shooting? For some
strange reason I feel the need to know. | TM: I did shoot this (along with the cut
right after "the one hand" joke, which was Lindsey's plastic hand knocking
on Darla's door.) When putting the episode together, I cut many things (I
was about 7 minutes over time), and it seemed the best way to tell the
story to soft cut from Angel looking at what he'd drawn to Darla sitting
alone. So that was a choice. | 27/6/01 - Mattia: Have you
had episodes where you were forced to cut things that you really, really
didn't want to cut, but basically HAD? | TM: Yes, yes and yes! "Are You Now..." was a full nine minutes over. Joss was loathe for me to cut a thing. But I actually didn't mind losing some of what I did. If you go to Rayne's shooting script site you can see how I did a slight restructure to trim for time. There were, I think, two Cordy/Wes scenes that went away. The gist was Cordelia was speculating that whatever Angel's dark secret from 50 years ago was must have had to do with a woman. Now, I also knew I needed Wes/Cor beats where they did fall, so I took (Shawn Ryan's suggestion) what was the last scene of act two between Cor and Wes and snipped it in half and put the first half where one of the cut Cor/Wes scenes went and used the second half of that scene as the end of act two. Is anyone following this? Also there were a few couplets between the paranoid hotel residents I had to lose (there was a whole exchange about "Death Of A Salesman" at the top of the scene where the screenwriter is telling the actor about the "death of the candle salesman") What I most hated cutting was a moment between Angel and the detective at the door of Angel's room where the detective leaned in, sniffed Angel and asked, "that your lilac perfume I'm smellin'? Didn't think so." It just felt so James Ellroy to me. I loved it. But I had to trim, cut, trim, trim, trim to get it to time. Also the whole end of act one where we see the candle salesman put the gun to his head, then a shot of blood pooling out next to his limp hand with the gun, then back to Angel as he switched on his radio and drowned out what was happening next door with cool, cool jazz. But, more often than not we're short instead of long. Example: the Wolfram and Hart scenes in 'Sanctuary" where L,L and L are hiring the bug assassin and the whole "the first assassin didn't assasinate anyone until the second assassin..." scene I wrote later to pad for time. 27/6/01 - Mattia: I haven't had the time
to read through all the shooting scripts yet, but I've seen some mentions
of cuts and edits to AYNOHYEB. Probably here, natalie posting some 'cut
scenes' or something. | 28/6/01 - Stephen: Plus Sky did some
trimming for their broadcast: http://www.cuts.freeserve.co.uk/Angel/aynohyeb.html
| TM: Bastards. | 29/6/01 - Stephen: Can I quote you on my
website please? | TM: Sure. | 4/7/01 - Niall: It never hurts to ask, right? I'm taking that at face value. This is a very optimistic question, you see; he 'optimistic' part is that it's not really a question for you, it's a question for david greenwalt that I'm hoping you'll either already know the answer to, or not mind asking him. Long shot, I know. :-) Anyway, the question: Is the use of a frame-job involving Darla in 'Dear Boy' a deliberate attempt to draw parallels (and highlight differences) with the 'Buffy' S1 episode 'Angel'? TM: No. | 28/7/01 - Niall: Wolfram and Hart wanted
Angel gray. They were prepared to accept Lindsey and/or Lilah's deaths,
at least, as acceptable losses to achieve this end. So - was Holland's
magical mystery tour planned in advance for the time when Angel would
assault W&H, or was it a last-minute arrangement to take advantage of
Angel's actions? | TM: Well... | Niall: Hmmm. Actually, I can see why you
might be reluctant to give a definitive answer to that
one | TM: I am reluctant. However, I think it's
fair to say that in my tiny mind, anyway, the Senior Partners may have had
a kind of foreknowledge that Holland would not. Slippery enough for
ya? | Niall: so here's a simpler one: How much
time is meant to elapse between 'Redefinition' and 'Epiphany' (ie how long
are the A-team on their own for)? I'm also assuming that the largest
time-gap between episodes is between 'Happy Anniversary' and 'The Thin
Dead Line'. Is that accurate? | TM: You think that's simpler? Hey, I was
graduated from the Joss Whedon College Of Advanced Mathematics.
Hellifknow. | 2/8/01 - Harper: If you don't know this,
no problem. But do you know who wrote The History of Angel on the WB website? Was it any of
the writers? | No and no. Unless you count the fact that
the details that are being culled were created by the writers, but the
actual "History Of" on the website? Dunno. | 11/10/01 - Niall: I think I remember reading
somewhere that you directed all the China sequences - even the
ones in 'Fool For Love'. Is that right? | TM: Well, no. I directed all of "Darla" and
the exterior China sequences that overlapped in both episodes.
| Niall: Also, who wrote the shared flashback scenes? |
TM: Doug and I wrote those together. | 21/10/01 - Andrew:
| As a follow-up question - how much work went into making the two versions so subtly different (and how much direction did you need to give the cast)? As I wrote at the time: "The two versions of the China scene were truly brilliant! The differences between then - especially in DB's delivery - are minuscule; but the feel and meaning of the two scenes is quite different." 28/10/01 - TM: It's mostly about context and
editing choices. In terms of context, we're coming out of a scene that's
Spike's POV in FFL, and a different scene (Angel saving the family in the
alley) in "Darla." We're planted in those characters' points of view
before we get to the common moment. Also, in "Darla," I cut close to
Darla looking somewhat suspicious which adds to the "Angel's not jealous,
he's really uncomfortable" take on the scene. And I'm pretty sure we
used different takes of Angel's reading of "Let's get out of here, this
rebellion's starting to bore me." Which may be considered a cheat of
sorts. In the version I used in "Darla," I recall the direction I gave
David right before that take was "just say it as though what you're
really saying is 'I gotta find some new friends.'" | Andrew:
| Also how much input did you have in establishing the superb look of the cinematography in those scenes? TM: I designed the shots. But all real
credit for the look of those scenes, the exteriors, goes to Herb Davis,
our DP the first two seasons. | |
This page was written by Niall Harrison.