User:Bignole/Smallville season 2

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See also: User:Bignole/Smallville season 3, User:Bignole/Smallville season 4, User:Bignole/Smallville season 5, and User:Bignole/Smallville season 6

Contents

[edit] Production

[edit] Writing

[edit] Filming

[edit] Special effects

"As a writer, you only have so many tricks in your bag. It's always about expanding the world and deepening the relationships."
— Gough on having a writing staff[1]
  • Gough and Millar brought in Ken Biller to run the newly formed writer's room. For the first season, Gough and Millar would typically right the final draft of every episode, because they felt they were still trying to find the show's voice. Gough and Millar understood that a writing staff would help "expand [the] show".[1]
  • Comic book writer Jeph Loeb joined the writing staff during the second season, and he spent his first two weeks trying to come up with fresh ideas for new episodes.[1]
  • "Redux" finished principal photography shortly after filming for "Tempest" ended, which was just before the crew went on their summer break.[1]
"Dr. Swann provided the first tantalizing answers to the quest that had been plaguing Clark for all of his young life. 'Where am I from?' 'What happened to my parents?' 'Am I truly along?"
— Gough and Millar on Dr. Swann's significance[2]
  • The scene in the sexual education class, in "Heat", was originally scripted for the pilot, but was cut when the budget became too large. It became the inspiration for an entire episode.[2]
  • Pete learning Clark's secret was a way to examine the "power of friendship and loyalty", and "the price of having to keep a secret".[2]
  • Dr. Virgil Swann was created when Christopher Reeve guest starred; Gough and Millar believed it was "natural" for Reeve to be the one to educate Clark about his past, and help him see his future.[2]
  • Because of the expense of flying Reeve to Vancouver, Greg Beeman and Tom Welling flew to New York to "bring Smallville to him."[2]

[edit] Vortex

  • Gough and Millar used this episode to "[set-up] the dynamics...for season two: Lana's distrust of Clark; what happened to the spaceship, which became Clark looking into his origins; Lex protecting Clark and killing the reporter; and the Lex/Lionel dynamic, with Lionel being blind."[3]
  • The first five minutes of the season opener, where Clark saves Lana, was shot on a handheld camera.[3]
  • Mat Beck, and his special effects team at Entity FX in Santa Monica, took over special effects duties in season two.[3]
  • For the scene of Lana's truck spinning around in the tornado, Mat Beck used "animated sprites of real smoke that flew around following particles"; "the interior of the tornado was created by Tom Smoller". "John Wash, our visual effects guy on the set, shot a bunch of debris hanging in front on a green screen, so we had straw and mailboxes we could swirl around." "Jon Han built the truck on the computer." "But not just a truck – he built an engine block and fenders, which all had to rip off. We shot the real Clark and Lana on a partial truck with tracking marks on it, and then tracked a computer generated truck around them, so we could drag it off piece by piece."[3]
  • In order to help develop the character, Rosenbaum requested Greg Beeman to shoot a close-up of him after he shoots Nixon, in an effort to open a window into Lex's darker side. Rosenbaum intended to leave the interpreation of whether Lex enjoyed killing Nixon open to the audience. Beeman stated, "...either Lex is horrified and appalled, or he liked it, and it felt good to him".[3]

[edit] Heat

  • Heat vision was originally going to be introduced in the pilot, but because of budgeting Gough and Millar decided to "save it".[4]
  • The visual effects for heat vision evolved over the cource of the first season, until Gough and Millar agreed on one that reflected their vision of what heat vision should look like. They did not want the usual "red beams" or "laser vision". The visuals evolved from the idea that they wanted Clark to be able to use it in front of people, and those people would not be able to see it. What emerged was a "heat ripple" from "distorting the frame".[4]
  • John Wash: "[Gough and Millar] wanted to be fairly accurate in terms of what you might see from something that was searingly hot travelling through the air, like a disturbance of the atmosphere. We keyed our research off the little ripples that you see if a light goes past a hotplate and reflects on a wall. We used a computer to create a conical version of that effect that could emanate from Clark's eyes, in combination with a little effect."[4]
  • They used "blobs of heat vision" instead of "constant rays" for the first instances of Clark using his ability, in an effort to simulate Clark's attempts to control it.[4]

[edit] Duplicity

  • The decision to let Pete learn Clark's secret was a choice made so that the character would have a function on the show, and allow Clark someone to talk to who was not his parents.[5]
  • To save money, the Kent barn was redesigned as Hamilton's lab for the final climax.[5]
  • While filming the shots in Hamilton's lab that involved kryptonite, the special effects team had to go in during post-production and make the kryptonite glow, because the source used in production, to make the kryptonite glow, was not photographing well.[5]
  • For season two, John Wash would apply prosthethic veins to Welling's hands, which would move when he moved. Then, in post-production, Entity FX would add the green hue to them. They would digitally hide the presethetics when Clark was not affected by the kryptonite.[5]
  • Sometimes the digital effects are not necessary, even when they are expected. For the scene where Joe Morton suffers a fatal seizure, the crew used an under-crank shooting technique, to speed up the movements of Morton's character, coupled with Morton's own shaking.[5]

[edit] Red

  • Loeb bridge, where Lex hit Clark with his Porsche, was named after comic book scribe, and television writer Jeph Loeb.[6]
  • The red kryptonite ring was meant to act as a metaphor for drugs.[6]
  • Jeph Loeb, who signed on as a consulting producer for season two, was given the task of writing "Red" by Gough and Millar. Gough and Millar wanted the red kryptonite in the ring, and Loeb decided that the pay-off would be Clark kissing Lana.[6]
  • Ken Biller know that everyone would have to embrace the idea of a "bad Clark", and by the end Clark would have to be the "the villain of the story".[6]
  • Production designer David Willson emphasized a "red theme". Working with director Jeff Woolnough, Willson tried to make sure there was something red "popping-out" to catch the audiences' attention. This would include red objects in the foreground and background, as well as red lenses added to the cameras.[6]
  • To create the effect in Clark's eyes, which illustrated the red kryptonite tkaing over, the special effects crew started with the basic effect used to create heat vision. "Brian Harding made it a little devilish, hellish red flicker that happens in the iris of his eye when he puts on the red kryptonite."[6]

[edit] Nocturne

  • It was meant to be "an extreme version of the Clark story". Gough explains, "Here's a kid with a condition, whose parents literally lock him in the basement. It's an extreme parenting episode—contrasting how these parents deal with Byron, and how the Kents deal with Clark." "Clark's a teenager and he doesn't have all the facts. He's doing what he thinks is right, but ultimately unleashes the kid, and he causes damage. Just because you have the power and you think you're right doesn't always mean you're taking the right course of action."[7]
  • To demonstrate Byron's strength, the stunt team did a fifty-five foot "chuck", where Bryon throws Clark across the front lawn. To accomplish the task they connected a wire to the stuntman's back, so when Bryon hits "Clark" they can use a crane and hydraulic system, positioned one hundred feet in the air, to pull the stuntman. Twenty-five feet into the pull the wire is released and the stuntman flies the rest of the distance to the landing pad.[7]
"We couldn't track it to the exact action of his hands on the live-action footage. I guess he doesn't have a lot of experience hanging onto a Bell Jet Ranger."
— Mat Beck on tracking Faris' hands for the CGI shots[7]
  • Another sequence involved Byron attacking a helicopter. Mat Beck didn't want to "cheat" the audience by using a cut technique to show Byron holding the helicopter; instead, they used computer generated imagery to create an entire helicopter. From there they decided they wanted the helicopter blades to cut-up the hedges. The special effects team tried to track Sean Faris' hands, as he was holding onto a crossbar that represented the skid, to find a spot wher ethey could make the helicopter roll toward the hedge. Unfortunately, Faris didn't move in a manner that they could use, so the effects team created their own CGI hands on the skid, and performed they action they needed.[7]
  • Part of season two was about expanding the lives of the adults away from Clark. "Nocturne" saw the beginning of the Lionel/Martha relationship. This allowed for more situations of Schneider and O'Toole doing scenes together that were not about the kids.[7]

[edit] Redux (p.34-37)

  • "Redux" was filmed directly after season one's finale "Tempest", which required the cast and crew to film to forego the immediateness of their summer break; it was not aired in season two until the sixth scheduled airdate because of complications that arose after filming had ended. During the summer hiatus, after director Chris Long finished working on his cut of the film, it was decided the episode needed more visual effects. Because the shots were not originally planned, Entity FX, the show's special effects contractor, had to create completely new shots.[8]
  • Ken Biller explains the trouble with television limitations, and how it specifically impacted storylines:

    "[In season two's "Redux"], the idea wasn’t to do something soap opera-y. As Clark was finding out about his origins, [Lana] was finding out about hers, and trying to forge connections with [her father]. And what would that be like? That was another storyline where there were several episodes where we shot three or four scenes, and by the time it was cut for time there'd be one scene that might seem to come out of nowhere. That can be frustrating. That's just the limitations of TV. If an episode comes in at fifty-four minutes and it’s got to be forty-two minutes, you end up chopping lots out, particularly character stuff that focuses on guest characters—we always keep the Clark/Lana scenes!"[8]

[edit] Lineage (p.38-41)

  • "Lineage" was one of the original stories Gough and Millar pitched to the studio when they were trying to get Smallville off the ground.[9]
  • It was meant to explain why Jonathan hated Lionel Luthor—having made a deal with him in order to be able to adopt Clark—as well as set up the character of Lex's half brother, Lucas, in the forthcoming episode "Prodigal".[9]
  • Per Millar's suggestion, Biller drew inspiration from John Sayles's Lone Star when writing the flashback scenes for the episode. In Lone Star, to illustrate the moment of flashback, the camera would pan around until it revealed the past.[9]
  • Beeman worked off the same inspiration, and tried to shift from the present to past without any effects shots; this included changing night to day in the same shot, and removing/inserting actors from shots when they were out of the view of the camera.[9]
  • Entity FX stepped in to assist with the cornfield scenes. The script called for "corn flattened as far as the eye could see", but Executive Producer Ken Horton wanted a defined stopping point for all the destruction; a wall of corn was erected surrounding the area of trammeled corn stalks.[9]

[edit] Ryan (p.42-45)

  • Since his initial performance as Ryan in season one's "Stray", Gough and Millar had hoped to be able to bring Ryan Kelley back to Smallville. The intention was to kill off the character, who was suffering from a brain tumor, but Gough and Millar had apprehensions about how audiences would react to the death of a young teen whose age was representative of the target demographic. For the episode "Ryan", the creative team wanted to show that Clark, even with all his powers, cannot save everyone; in this case, Clark's speed and strength are no help against the tumor growing in Ryan's brain. The episode is about Clark's trials of learning that life is not easy, and how those trials change him.[10]
  • Even though the episode was built around the acting and writing strengths of the team, there were still visual effects shots that were needed. For instance, Entity FX created a computer generated needle, which was used in place of the real thing when Dr. Garner inserted the syringe into Ryan's head.[10]
  • To help illustrate Clark’s super speed, Mat Beck and his team would slow down and speed up background settings in a single shot. For example, in "Ryan", when Clark speeds up to the camera everything else slows to a stop—leaves stop blowing and birds are frozen in mid-flight—then everything begins moving normally as Clark races away from the camera. Entity Fix also adds a blurring effect to Clark's body, as well as a distortion to the background to help further illustrate the speed at which Clark travels.[10]

[edit] Dichotic (p. 46-49)

  • "Dichotic" began, in its early stages, as a story about a news reporter who had the ability—thanks to kryptonite—to split himself in half. The reporter would create the news at the same time that he was filming it. Ken Biller and Mark Verheiden discussed a teaser that involved the reporter pushing someone out of a window and as the body plummeted to the ground the audience saw the same person reporting the news as it happened. The main story would focus on the reporter attempting to assassinate Lex Luthor, but it eventually evolved into what Biller refers to as "a metaphor on trying to super-achieve at high school".[11]
  • With Jonathan Taylor Thomas playing the over-achieving student with the ability to split himself into two copies, the character of Ian Randall was used to stir up the Lana-Clark-Chloe triangle. Beeman explains that a problem exists in developing new storylines involving the characters: "We want the characters we're familiar with, and on the other [hand], you have to search for ways to change them up."[11]
  • Kristin Kreuk performed her own stunts for the bridge scene, which involved her character hanging 500 feet above the river. Her willingness to perform her own stunts saved the team money on greenscreen effects, or stunt doubles that would have been used in her place. Though the cost of using a greenscreen was saved, Entity FX still had to digitally remove all the wire harnesses from the scene, which is a typical effect that goes unnoticed in the final product.[11]
  • To create the effect of Ian splitting himself, Entity FX used three difference techniques. First, the primary shot of a CGI face pushing its way through a CGI back in three dimensions; second, the team used "shadowplay", which is a two dimensional shot appearing on a wall as though the audience is seeing Ian's shadow as he splits himself; last, the team applied another two dimensional effect to the final moment of separation, when strands of CGI flesh snap back to each body.[11]
  • In the original ending, both copies of Ian fell over the bridge; as the two Ians fall they touch each other's fingers slowly fusing together before hitting the ground. In the end, the team was so impressed with Thomas's performance they opted to keep the character alive.[11]

[edit] Skinwalker (p.50-53)

  • Smallville's stories do not alwways come from the writing staff, but anyone who presents the team with "a good idea". In the case of "Skinwalker", the story was crafted by Mark Warshaw, who was head of the internet team that wrote the online Smallville articles for the Ledger and Torch, which interwove the television episodes with online, fictional newspapers that continued the stories from the show. Warshaw's story was about a Native American girl who falls in love with Clark, while at the same time revealing Clark's destiny to him. Warshaw’s story was bought and given to Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson on the writing staff to work up a screenplay. The episode had a significant role in the series, as it introduced the Kawatche caves—which held the Kryptonian language written on its walls—and explored Clark's origins, while also posing the question that people from Clark's homeworld may have visited Smallville before.[12]
  • The Kawatche caves were built on a soundstage in Vancouver, with movable pieces added to give the effect that it was larger than it really was. The production team used sandstone to give the impression that it may have once been a riverbed, and thus allowing them to leave the ceiling open.[12]
  • A last minute change in the storyline required Entity FX to digitally adjust the opening teaser. In the original scene that was filmed, a wolf watched the aftermath of an explosion at the LuthorCorp construction site. It was decided that the wolf would watch the explosion as it happened, so Entity FX had to go back to the scene and recompose it. Hiding the head of the trainer who was holding onto the wolf, Entity FX digitally corrected the color composition and the lighting around the wolf so that it appears as though the explosion was occurring right in front of the wolf.[12]

[edit] Visage (p.54-57)

  • The original idea for Whitney's departure from Smallville was to kill the character off, but sending him to war seemed like a better idea.[13]
  • To create "Visage", the creative team decided to combine two of their favorite characters from season one: the series regular Whitney Fordman, who left Smallville to join the Marines, and Tina Greer, the shape shifting teen with a fixation on Lana. The result was Whitney's return from war with amnesia, and subsequent revealing that Whitney died overseas and Tina Greer has been impersonating him since his return.[13]
  • Lizzy Caplan, who played Tina Greer in season one's "X-Ray", was appearing as a series regular for the sitcom The Pitts and was unable to portray Tina during the regularly schedule time. To keep continuity, director Bill Gereghty filmed the entire episode, sans all the scenes involving Tina Greer, without Caplan. Two weeks after filming wrapped, Caplan arrived for a two day shoot of her scenes as Tina Greer.[13]
  • The episode held lesbian undertones between the characters of Tina and Lana, as well as with Tina and Chloe. As Greg Beeman points out, Tina’s ultimate goal was to take over Whitney's life and live forever with Lana; the character also "lusted over Chloe" during a portion of the episode.[13]
  • Pitt Meadows, in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver, subbed for the Indonesian landscape the crew needed for the sequence of Whitney's ultimate demise during battle. This location presented its own problems for the crew, as the swampy waters of the river slowed production as well as the limited daylight available—in November, there is only six hours of daylight in the Pitt Meadow's region. The crew had to return eight days for the scheduled airdate for the episode in order to shoot close-ups of Whitney and the rest of the soldiers.[13]
  • The fight sequence between the two Clarks originally had more choreographed shots, but had to be cut down to five actions, as the fight sequence was pushing twenty minutes. For the scene, Welling performed all of his stunts alongside his usual stunt double, Christopher Sayour, who double as the "second Clark" in the sequence.[13]

[edit] Insurgence (p.58-61)

  • "Insurgence" initially began from a simply aspect of Superman's original incarnation, his ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. After their Thanksgiving break, the Smallville writers were in the writers' room when Miles Millar walked in and exclaimed, "I think it's time for Clark to leap a tall building." Jeph Loeb and the other writers had already been trying to develop a story that involved a hostage situation, and after Millar made his announcement the team suggested that they pay homage to the Bruce Willis action film Die Hard. The setting for the hostage situation was LuthorCorp Plaza; the team introduced the Daily Planet, a pivotal piece of Superman lore that will one day employ Clark Kent and his alternate identity of Superman, by using it as the building that Clark uses to execute his "first leap".[14]
  • "Insurgence" was actually written before "Visage" and "Suspect", but not filmed until after both of those episodes because the team was having difficulty figuring out the logistics of producing the episode. Afterward, the episode would be scheduled to air between "Visage" and "Suspect".[14]
  • It was Jeph Loeb who requested the introduction of Superman’s future ally, Metropolis Police Lieutenant Maggie Sawyer. As Loeb recalls, "Ken had written a hard-bitten, crusty kind of cop. I asked him if he minded if it was a woman, and explained who Maggie Sawyer was and the role she would play in the future."[14]
  • Metropolis was given a "glass and steel and blue wash of color" as the look of the city. The crew found a new building in Vancouver, which was not occupied, that became the LuthorCorp building. By coincidence, the building sat neighboring the Marine Building, which Gough and Millar had always seen as becoming the Daily Planet building to be for the series, as the Marine Building held an "art deco structure from the 1930s".[14]
  • The Metropolis background was created by using a computer to combine CG buildings, matte paintings, and real elements from the Vancouver streets. These elements were then reflected in the Daily Planet globe, which sits affixed the roof of the building, as the camera moved past it down to the roof as Clark walks out from the access door in preparation for his leap into the LuthorCorp building.[14]
  • For the actual stunt of leaping from the Daily Planet to the LuthorCorp building, the production team hooked Welling to a "parallelogram" on the studio greenscreen stage, and then filmed him running across a platform and leaping into the air. The parallelogram rig floated him in midair as he went over the building sill and began his downward trajectory. Welling's stunt double took over the chore of sliding through the glass as it explodes on contact.[14]
  • Entity FX took over the rest of the visual element of the shot. Performing their usual slowing and quickening of the timing elements, to give the effect of Clark’s speed, they also created a reflected version of Clark in the LuthorCorp building to illustrate Clark’s impending crash through the glass.[14]
    • This shot won the team a Visual Effects Society Award.

[edit] Suspect (p.62-65)

  • "Suspect" was the first "cracking the mystery" episode for the series; it was influenced by the Japanese film Rashomon, just like season one's episode "Zero", which is told from different people’s perspective of the same event.[15]
  • It was originally decided that Lionel's assistant, Dominic Santori, was going to be the person who attempted to kill Lionel, but ultimately it was decided that Sheriff Ethan would be villain of the episode. Although Jonathan Kent was also a suspect, it was clear to at least Greg Beeman that they could not pin the crime on a series regular, so they decided to try and surprise the audience by making it Ethan.[15]
  • Mark Snow supplied all of the music for this episode, with no soundtrack songs being applied.[15]
  • Mitchell Kosterman, who plays Sheriff Ethan, was a little distraught over his character’s fate, having grown comfortable with his place on the show. The original ending of the episode featured Ethan taking a nurse hostage, which Kosterman felt was out of character; subsequently, the final version had Ethan giving up the second it is revealed that he was caught. To Kosterman, this ending allows the character to stay sympathetic, by showing that he was "pushed to a bad place", because Kosterman feels, "that whole dynamic of good people being pushed to do the wrong thing by bad people like Lionel Luthor is a pervading theme in the whole show".[15]
  • In his directorial debut, Ken Biller was met with the challenge of creating flashbacks for all the scenes that retold the event of the attack on Lionel. Biller had already seen Beeman’s take on flashback scenes from his work on "Lineage", but Biller wanted to do something different. Alongside director of photography Glen Winter, Biller opted to shoot all the flashback sequences on 16mm color reversal film, which would give the flashbacks a "grainy, dirty look", which Biller thought was an interesting quality for the flashback scenes.[15]

[edit] Rush (p.66-69)

  • "Rush" was intended to expand on the mythology within the show, explaining that Kryptonians had been to Smallville before and left things in the Kawatche caves as protections.[16]
  • After the good ratings "Red" received, the WB requested more episodes with red kryptonite. Unfortunately, Gough and the crew did not like using red kryptonite as "Clark turns bad" with it, but the team asked themselves, "what if a friend slips something in your drink and you don’t know it?" This became the basis for Pete slipping a shard of red kryptonite into Clark's pocket, and gave the network a single act of red kryptonite, instead of the entire episode.[16]
  • To attain the shot of Clark catching Pete’s car, as he and Chloe drive it off a cliff, required the crew to suspend the car from a crane with Sam Jones III and Allison Mack inside the car. The scene was filmed in a rock quarry, as there are not many cliffs in the Vancouver area, with segments of the scene created digitally. The car was then filmed as it was being pulled into the air backwards—the footage was then reverse to give the impression that it was falling. Initially, Mike Walls and his crew tried to pull the car straight up, but it was not working. The movement of the car had to be tweaked to give a sense of reality.[16]
  • Dr. Walden, played by Rob LaBelle, was characterized as "scruffy" and with a "disdain for people, without a lot of formality".[16]

[edit] Prodigal (p.70-73)

  • When creating the alley scene where Lucas Luthor is attacked, Mat Beck had to "cheat" the special effects. First, the length of the alley is exaggerated in order to create enough time to show Clark stopping the bullets from hitting Lucas. Based on the calculations of how fast an Uzi 9mm fires, and the muzzle velocity, they estimated that the bullets would be approximately twenty to thirty feet apart; four alleys would have been needed for Clark to catch up to all of the bullets in time. Second, the bullets themselves were enlarged so that audiences would be able to see them.[17]

[edit] Fever (p.74-77)

  • Entity FX worked on the scene where the audience follows the kryptonite particles down into Martha's lungs. Mat Beck and his team wanted to be as realistic as possible when digitally crafting the anatomy of the lungs, but they also decided to take certain liberties with the structures in order to "make [them] look cool". The camera follows the green kryptonite particles down Martha's throat, until they attack the alveoli, which subsequently begin turning green.[18]
  • Entity FX was also required to create the Talon marquee that hangs outside of the building, something that they typically do not do, but time constraints would not allow the production team to physically change the marquee for the shot.[18]

[edit] Rosetta (p.78-81)

  • Gough and Millar always had intentions of bringing Christopher Reeve onto the show, and when they found out that he enjoyed watching the show himself Gough and Millar decided that they were going to bring him on for season two. They had already crafted a character, Dr. Virgil Swann, they knew would reveal the truth about Krypton to Clark, and they decided that Reeve would be perfect for the part. As Gough describes it, the scene between Clark and Dr. Swan is a "passing of the torch" moment for the series.[19]
  • The creative team decided to fly to New York to film Reeve's scenes since he is confined to a wheelchair and requires much assistance when he travels. Although James Marshall directed the episode, for Reeve's scenes in New York the Smallville crew sent Greg Beeman as a stand-in director. Gough, Welling and Mat Beck travelling alongside Beeman to New York, and John Wells, who had previously lent his White House office on The West Wing to the Smallville crew for season one's "Hourglass", allowed the team to use the production offices from the Third Watch for Reeve's scenes.[19]
  • There was initial concern about Reeve's stamina for shooting the scenes, as his particular scene with Welling was six pages long, which translates to approximately twelve hours of work day. Beeman tried to design the scene so that it was as simple as possible, but Reeve quickly readjusted the scene. Beeman originally had Welling walk into frame and stand in front of Reeve, and then make a single move behind Reeve. Beeman was told, by Reeve, that the scene needed more dynamic between the characters, and if Welling only made a single move then the dynamic would be lost. According to Reeve, "Tom moving around me will hide the fact that I'm unable to move." Beeman's fear of overstretching Reeve’s stamina, because of the added shots to the scene, were put to rest when Reeve himself stated that it did not matter how long it took to finish the scene, as long as it turned out great.[19]
  • Reeve's seal of approval for the show:

    "I was a little bit skeptical when I heard about [Smallville] at first, but I must say the writing, the acting, and the special effects are quite remarkable. In 1977, a big stunt scene would have taken us a week to film – it's pretty impressive what they are able to do with computers and effects technology today on a weekly TV show. It gives it a lot more production value and inventiveness than I thought I was going to see when I first heard about the series. I think the show is doing a really good job following the mythology, and Tom is doing a good job following the tradition."[19]

  • Reeve's on his experience filming:

    "I thought it would be fun; it’s a very welcome relief from politics and medical research. Butting heads with politicians and the whole establishment in terms of advancing medical research is a very difficult job, and time-consuming and energy-consuming, and this is a very welcome change of pace. [...] I read the last page of the scene, and the door seems to be op [for me to return]...let’s see how I do on this one first. If I bomb on this one, that'll be the end of it!"[19]

[edit] Visitor (p.82-85)

  • The genesis of "Visitor" came from the idea of, "what if someone showed up and Clark began to believe that he wasn't the last person from his planet."[20]
  • David Willson, and his production crew, built a "practical, functioning" tower for the scene in the woods where Cyrus attempts to call for his alien transport. Willson's inspiration came while working on Love Field, starring Denzel Washington and Michelle Pfeiffer. While working on the project, Willson met a man named Bowler Simpson, who had built a ten-acre memorial, to his deceased daughter, out of old license plates and STOP signs. Willson used this image when constructing Cyrus's tower. Even though the tower was physically built, Entity FX still stepped in to create 2-D light beams located on the tower.[20]

[edit] Precipice (p.86-89)

  • By "Precipice", the writers had already been deciding on Helen's fate on the show. Initially, the character was going to be killed off at the end of the season, on her wedding day, but Emmanuelle Vaugier was turning in such good performances, not to mention the chemistry exhumed with Rosenbaum, that the team decided to keep her around for a little while longer.[21]
  • To achieve the effect of Clark X-raying the SUV as Andy Connors sits inside and removes his neck brace, John Wash had all the actors in the SUV sit on apply boxes to get them at the representative height they would be in the SUV. The actors then went through all the motions they needed in order to "sell the X-ray effect".[21]

[edit] Witness

  • The original idea behind "Witness", though not far from the final outcome, was about Clark witnessing a crime and then wondering how it was going to come forward and explain that he witnessed a crime while standing in the middle of the road at 2 o’clock in the morning without a car. Clark would make an anonymous tip, and the tension would be built around Clark testifying in court. This eventually translated into what was filmed, which was three kryptonite powered thieves who beat up Clark in the process of stealing more refined kryptonite.[22]
  • David Willson found an abandoned warehouse to use for the scene where Clark is thrown into a furnace by the three kryptonite-powered thieves. In the warehouse, Willson built a forty foot square, thirty foot tall blast furnace.[22]
  • The first episode of Chloe's Chronicles debuted the night "Witness" aired, featuring Chloe investigating the death of Earl Jenkins.[22]

[edit] Accelerate (p.94-97)

  • The idea for "Accelerate" came from a conversation the writing staff was having about what Lionel was doing with the refined kryptonite he kept in his vault. What developed was the concept of Lionel cloning people and using kryptonite as an accelerator.[23]
  • The location that was scouted for the river scene, where Emily pushes Lana off a bridge and into the river, became problematic on the day of shooting. The river itself became too dangerous to shoot the water scenes, so they simply tied Kreuk to a safety line and had Jodelle Micah Ferland (Emily) push her over the edge, but without her actually going into the water. They moved the set to a soundstage where they filmed Kreuk's remaining scenes—where Tom Welling dives into the river to save her—in a water tank.[23]
  • "Accelerate" is also the episode where Gough and Millar were able to accomplish one of the visual elements they had wanted to do "for some time"; Gough and Millar had wanted to see Clark superspeeding through a rain shower, but "the opportunity, [and] money" never presented itself, until now. Entity FX had an extended period of time to research the kinetics of the cemetery scene, where Clark would speed through rain drops, because there were limited effects done for "Precipice" and "Witness". Using HoudiniTM, Mat Beck and his team began creating their digital raindrops.

    "Each raindrop can be thought of as a lens, as a mirror, and an object in itself. The entire backdrop is refracted through it like a lens, and the area behind the camera is being reflected in it. By adjusting those parameters, we were able to give it a brilliant jewel-like magical quality.[23]

  • When trying to decide on the shape of the raindrops, Beck explains: "We figured that round drops weren't that interesting, and teardrop ones looked a little silly and over the top, so we settled on this round diamond shape." Entity FX created "collision events" as Clark ran through the raindrops, breaking them up. Beck remembered watching the cars on the freeway, during a rainstorm, "throwing up these loose trails of spray". Eli Jarra added a similar mist trail to Clark as he ran through the cemetery to give a more realistic effect, although Beck admits to taking a few liberties with the final look of the mist.[23]
  • This scene would go on to win a VES award.

[edit] Calling (p.98-101)

  • The original opening sequence in "Calling" written as Clark and Lana staying up late to watch a comet through Clark's telescope. Through the dialogue exchange between Clark and Lana, there was supposed to be a correlation between the arrival of the comet and Clark and Lana's relationship status. The comet also signified the arrival of Jor-El, Clark's biological father, and Clark's departure from Smallville. Unfortunately, the effect for the comet was expensive, and if they cut the comet they had to cut the dialogue because it would have made no sense if you could not see the comet. Instead, the scene was rewritten to be about Lana visiting Clark at midnight to celebrate his birthday.[24]
  • Terence Stamp's name was deliberately kept out of the opening credits in order to keep the secret that he was voicing Jor-El. Stamp has originally played General Zod in the first two Superman films, starring Christopher Reeve.[24]

[edit] Exodus (p.102-115)

  • Tom Welling: "To have two very strong father figures telling you different things is a lot to handle, and Clark has to take this information, put it to the test and come to his own conclusion, and it’s not an easy one."[25]
  • According to Gough, they had a specific intention for the ending of the second season: "Season one ended with the height of heroism, with Clark running into a tornado to save Lana. For season two, we wanted to see the nadir of that, which is Clark running away [...] from his problems."[25]
  • The Smallville team wanted to get rid of Clark spaceship in the finale, because they felt that the characters would not realistically travel to the storm cellar that often. With the introduction of the Kawatche caves, the creative team had the Kryptonian connection they need in order to safely rid themselves of the spaceship.[25]
  • Gough likened the finale to the ending of The Empire Strikes Back, in that Clark leaves Smallville and everyone he loves because he is scarred.[25]
  • The season premieres and finales are known, among the crew, to be the biggest episodes of the season, so plans are always made in advance concerning the preparation of the show and securing the necessary budget to ensure that the episode is big.[25]
  • They wanted someone with a connection to the Superman mythology to voice Jor-El, and Stamp was eager to come onboard.[25]
  • Because of Stamp's role as Zod in the two Superman films, and the message that Jor-El carried for Clark in the season two finale, Gough and Millar were met with fan theories that Jor-El was in fact General Zod at the ComicCon that met two months after the episode aired. Gough assured the ComicCon audience that the character was Jor-El, and not Zod in disguise.[25]
  • For the scene where Jor-El, through the spaceship, informed Clark that he had to leave Smallville to fulfill his destiny, Entity FX created a completely computer-generated model of the ship. Because the ship had to transform into multiple objects as the scene progressed, creating it digitally was the best option.[25]
  • John Williams' musical score for the Krypton sequence in the opening credits of Superman: The Movie was used in both "Rosetta" and during the scene where Clark tells his parents about Jor-El talking to him through the ship. In order to save money, Mark Snow recorded his own version of John Williams' score, as using the original version would have required the team to pay the Williams' orchestra as well.[25]
  • Brian Harding worked on the Kryptonian tattoo that is placed on Clark's chest by his biological father. The idea was for the tattoo to look like it was being burned onto his chest from the inside.[25]
  • Beck and his team had to digitally create a bare chest for Welling's stunt double, who had to wear a shirt to hide the safety harness he was wearing when they dropped him for the moment Clark is released from the ship's hold.[25]
  • Beeman is known for direction episodes, and sometimes specific scenes, with particular songs in mind. For "Vortex", it was the Coldplay song for the final scene; Beeman directed the scene where Lana shows up at the Kent barn, just before Lex's wedding, to the Matthew Good’s "Weapon". In the song, the lyrics speak of an angel and the Devil by my side, and Beeman had directed Welling and Kreuk in a way that timed specific shots with specific moments in the lyrics.[25]
  • When Clark puts the kryptonite key into the spaceship, Beck and his FX team tried to create a "virus/fungus" growth from the key slot to simulate "some sort of fractal decay". Mike McCormick worked specifically one the process of destroying the ship, giving the ship the appearance that it has a "nasty skin infection" that is spreading as if it is caught in the circulatory system. Next, Beck had to tackle the problem of the ship's final destruction. Originally, it was intended to have the ship explode, but no one wanted to have to rebuild the Kent farm. Instead, they settled on a giant EMP wave given off by the ship the moment it is destroyed. Entity FX created a beam of light that shot vertically up from the ship's location and then fell back down expanding into a "ripple that spread across the land". This beam of light would create a crater where the storm cellar was, which was dug prior to filming and digitally covered up so as to keep the illusion.[25]
  • In order to get the Kent truck to roll for the moment where Jonathan and Martha encounter the wave of EMP, two stunt drivers drove the truck toward a collapsed telephone poll, skidding into it. Then, with mannequins in the truck for safety, the effects team wrapped some cables around the truck and launched it off a ratchet to make it roll. Unfortunately, this did not go as smoothly as planned the first time, as the telephone poll did not fall when they set off the explosive charge to break it. Since it would be too hard to strap John Schneider and Annette O'Toole into the truck while it is upside, and too dangerous to flip the truck with them already in it, Mike Walls and his team built a rotating truck seat, which allowed them to strap Schneider and O’Toole in, then rotate the seat so that they are upside down and slide that into the overturned truck.[25]
  • According to Ken Biller, the moment Clark goes searching for the red kryptonite is the payoff they had wanted with that piece of Superman mythology. The show had established, in "Red", that red kryptonite removed Clark's inhibitions, and in the season finale when Clark is rummaging through Chloe’s drawers looking for more red kryptonite he is to the point that he is willing to "go 'on drugs' to salve his own pain and [...] guilt about what he's done".[25]
  • First assistant director Bryan Knight stepped in for Greg Beeman, who was directing a few scenes for James Marshall on the episode "Accelerate", to film the scenes with Lex and Helen on the LuthorCorp jet; the scenes were filmed on a gimbaled to all for the movement the camera needed.[25]
  • Mat Beck and his team at Entity FX paid homage to Robert Zemeckis's Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, when they created the final shot of the LuthorCorp jet crashing into the ocean and seawater rushing through the cockpit.[25]
  • For the final shot of the episode, where Clark is on the motorcycle heading toward Metropolis, Entity FX had to remove the forests and mountains that occupy the Vancouver landscape and digitally insert hills, extend the road into the distance and create a digital version of Metropolis in the background.[25]
  • Mark Snow again used John William's Krypton theme, in combination with his own original score, for the closing scene.[25]
  • According to Gough, in order to do "the character justice", you have to take his journey through the darkness, with him failing along the way.[25]

[edit] Reception

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Paul (March 2004). Smallville: The Official Companion Season 2. London: Titan Books, 10–11. ISBN 1840239476. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, Paul, pp.8–9
  3. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, Paul, pp.14–17
  4. ^ a b c d Simpson, Paul, pp.18–21
  5. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Paul, pp.22–25
  6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, Paul, pp.26–29
  7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Paul, pp.30–33
  8. ^ a b Simpson, Paul, pp.34–37
  9. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Paul, pp. 38–41
  10. ^ a b c Simpson, Paul, pp.42–45
  11. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Paul, pp.46–49
  12. ^ a b c Simpson, Paul, pp.50–53
  13. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, Paul, pp.54–57
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, Paul, pp.58–61
  15. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Paul, pp.62–65
  16. ^ a b c d Simpson, Paul, pp.66–69
  17. ^ Simpson, Paul, pp.70–73
  18. ^ a b Simpson, Paul, pp.74–77
  19. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Paul, pp.78–81
  20. ^ a b Simpson, Paul, pp.82–85
  21. ^ a b Simpson, Paul, pp.86–89
  22. ^ a b c d Simpson, Paul, pp.90–93
  23. ^ a b c d Simpson, Paul, pp.94–97
  24. ^ a b Simpson, Paul, pp.98–101
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Simpson, Paul, pp.102–115
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