With the news that the 2016 Botcon exclusives would include show inspired versions of the Tripredacus Council – based on their cameo in the Beast Wars season 2 finale, The Agenda Part 1 – TFW2005 member Verno reached out to Cal Shumiatcher, who directed the episode. Cal was kind enough to share a very detailed answer on the origins of the scene – an answer which we have reproduced here for the enjoyment of our fellow fans of Beast Wars, and all those curious about how things worked behind the scenes on the show.
Read on for Cal’s full response.
Original message from Cal Shumiatcher
Wow – this really came out of the blue. And you’ve picked one of my favourite scenes from the point of view of innovation on a limited budget. One of the great things about Beast Wars was the creative freedom afforded to directors on the show. And of course the amazing scripts made working on this show so rewarding.
This scene was a typical production challenge and I’m very proud of the results.
Here’s what I was given:
1) the design of a massive spaceship – exterior only. Because this was the only scene that ever takes place within the ship, no interior set was ever designed.
2) Three rough character models that had virtually no moving parts.
3) a three page dialogue scene that was important but virtually all exposition. no action.
Hmmm. How to keep the audience awake? As I recall, the Tripredacus Council were essentially putting a hit out on one of our good guys. So I decided to play them like film noir gangsters, sitting in a smoke filled room under a swinging ‘china hat’ lamp. The swinging lamp was supposed to be the only light source in the room and there was to be virtually no ambient light. I was looking for the super high contrast, film noir look – partially because I love the look and partly because there was no set! So I decided that we’d play the interior of the spaceship like a huge cavernous empty space – almost a bottomless pit with the council members floating in space.
So we set it up, and everything was great, except you couldn’t see the character’s faces. The overhead light was casting such hard shadows. So the supervising animator, Eric Reynolds – (who has gone on to supervise animation on movies like Avatar, The Hobbit and The Hunger Games), suggested the Council kind of ‘sign in’ when they arrived at the table by touching a palm reading pad that would illuminate when their identity was confirmed. The glowing pad provided a soft red light on the bodies. Now you have to remember that these were very rudimentary models that were quickly finished and textured. So I can only imagine that some parts of the characters were more reflective than others. We didn’t really plan it, but it looked really cool when parts of them glowed with red, so we went with it. Sorry, that’s pretty much all there is to it.
I love how the scene ends – one character grabs the lamp to stop it swinging and delivers a line I still remember well – “Terminate, with extreme prejudice”. It was so camp, and so cool all at once.
Thanks for your enquiry – and for picking a scene that I remember so well.
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