User:Bignole/Smallville season 3

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also: User:Bignole/Smallville season 2, User:Bignole/Smallville season 4, User:Bignole/Smallville season 5, and User:Bignole/Smallville season 6

Simpson, Paul (September 2005). Smallville: The Official Companion Season 3. London: Titan Books. ISBN 1840239522. 

Make sure to pull some info on how they try to switch up the episodes in tone, to give the audience a breather.

Contents 1 Production 1.1 Exile 1.2 Phoenix 1.3 Extinction 1.4 Slumber 1.5 Perry 1.6 Relic 1.7 Magnetic 1.8 Shattered 1.9 Asylum 1.10 Whisper 1.11 Delete 1.12 Hereafter 1.13 Velocity 1.14 Obsession 1.15 Resurrection 1.16 Crisis 1.17 Legacy 1.18 Truth 1.19 Memoria 1.20 Talisman 1.21 Forsaken 1.22 Covenant 2 References

[edit] Production

Going into season three, the Smallville crew wanted to establish two main themes, that of consequences, Clark running from his destiny, and Lex stepping steps toward “the dark side”.^[1]

In order to get better performances from the actors in each individual episode, the crew would often limit the detail an actor new about their character. Meeting just at the beginning of the year to discuss the plans for the actor’s respective roles, usually the actors would only find out precisely what their characters were going to do when the scripts arrived. Other times, an actor might be given a specific piece of character development and told to keep it a secret from the rest of the cast.^[1]

[edit] Exile

• Gough and Millar wanted to set up Lex’s “mental illness” early in the season, as it would be something that Lionel would take advantage of in future episodes. In order to accomplish what they wanted, Gough and Millar introduced Lex’s imaginary friend “Louis”, who appeared on the deserted island with Lex following his plane crash in the season two finale. They had Rosenbaum pull what they referred to as the "Fight Club gag", where he believes that he is fighting Louis, but in reality he has been fighting himself the entire time.^[2]

[edit] Phoenix

• The final scene in “Exile”, which extended into the opening act of “Phoenix”, was the establishment of a storyline that would run the course of the third season, and even extend further into season five. The storyline involved Jonathan making a deal with Clark’s biological father, Jor-El, to be given powers strong enough to bring Clark back home; the result was a heart attack for Jonathan later in the season, whose body could not handle the powers, and a change in behavior on Jonathan’s part that eventually all revealed itself in the third season finale.^[3]

• One of the largest stunts for the season was performed in this episode, where two stunt men were dropped from 300 feet down to eight feet above the ground. The effect was used for the scene where Jonathan and Clark are fighting and fall from Lionel’s office at LuthorCorp. Producer Bob Hargrove petitioned for the scene to be shot with real stuntmen, as opposed to using computer-generated effects, which was an idea that was being tossed around at the time of filming.^[3]

• The matte painting that is used to establish the Metropolis background is comprised of buildings from several modern-day cities in addition to Vancouver; they include Singapore and Hong Kong among others.^[3]

• As always, the cast is more than willing to take on some of the stunt-work themselves. Welling and Schneider performed a lot of their own stunts for the scene where Clark and Jonathan, who now has the powers to take on his son, battle over Clark’s use of the red kryptonite. This lent to the filmmakers being able to show more of the two actor’s faces during the scene, which also lends to the audience believing in the effect more.^[3]

• Joey Bratazani and Brian Harding worked on the computer effects shots of the Kryptonian tattoo, which was burned into Clark’s chest at the end of season two, disappearing at the end of his fight with Jonathan. John Wash describes the effect as being similar to a time-lapse, where you would watch a flower grow, but in the reverse. Bratazani and Harding had to track the effect to Welling’s chest, in order for it to look like his skin was really being burned from underneath; otherwise, the shot would have appeared to be just a 2-dimensional light being broadcast on his chest.^[3]

• Mark Snow added a “thick darkness” sound to the episode, because of the addition of Rutger Hauer as the episode’s villain. Snow characterizes the sound as something similar to John Barry’s composition, which is “slow and ponderous, with deep sounds and a sense of importance”.^[3]

[edit] Extinction

• The use of kryptonite bullets was an idea that bounced around during the first season of the show, but was shelved for a later date because of the limited number of episodes there are able to produce each season, as well as the writers finding “the right moment” to use this particular plot element.^[4]

• John Wash and his team discussed ways to make the kryptonite bullets unique in their own right, so they decided that since the bullets were made of kryptonite that they might have some kind of reaction to the atmosphere as they flew through it; so, the computer effects team created a “green aura, with a little plasma envelope around the bullet” as it flew through the air, in slow-motion, toward Clark.^[4]

• This episode featured a tie-in with a season two episode; Van McNulty’s reason for killing meteor-infected individuals is based on the fact that his father was killed by the bone-morphing Tina Greer in “Visage”, when she impersonated Whitney Fordman. Van’s father was the military personnel that came to the Fordman house to inform Whitney’s mother that he had been killed in action.^[4]

• As part of the opening scene for “Extinction”, which involved Lana being attacked in the school pool, Kreuk had to spend thirteen hours in the water as they filmed the scene.^[4]

• Ken Horton pulled a scene in “Phoenix”, where Chloe tells Lionel that she will no longer help him dig up information on Clark, and placed it in “Extinction”, which he felt was a better location for it given the events that transpired in “Phoenix”.^[4]

[edit] Slumber

• ”Slumber” became an episode where producer Ken Horton wondered if they could get a single band to provide all the music for the entire episode. During a breakfast meeting with the music department at Warner Brothers, the topic band R.E.M. rose up, and Jennifer Pyken and Madonna Wade-Reed immediately saw an opportunity to connect the episode’s featured band with the episode’s story, which happened to revolve around REM sleep.^[5]

[edit] Perry

• ”Perry” was created to answer a few questions from the mythology, namely, why Perry White would hire Clark Kent when he comes to the Daily Planet and Clark learning that he gets his powers from the Earth’s yellow Sun.^[6]

• In one of the final scenes of the episode, Clark throws a bale of hay into the second story of the barn and speeds up the stairs to catch it. To pull this off, Welling threw a real bale of hay, which was connected to a wire, into the air and then runs at normal pace up the stairs to catch a new bale of hay that was thrown to him by a crew member off-screen. The event is then sped up, to give the illusion of Clark superspeeding up the stairs, and the wire connected to the original bale of hay is digitally removed.^[6]

[edit] Relic

• ”Relic” was another episode that featured an element first thought up back in the first season, the use of doppelgangers for the characters when featuring their relatives in a flashback sequence. It was not used because the crew felt that the audience needed to have more time to become involved with the characters that are featured on the show on a regular basis.^[7]

[edit] Magnetic

• Since season one’s heavy use of the “monster-of-the-week” formula, succeeding seasons have relied more on season arching storylines, but there are the occasional “monster-of-the-week” stories that riddle each season. “Magnetic” was one those stories, which dealt with the aspect of “what happens if you become attracted to the wrong person, and they start to change you?” It was clear by the end of season one that the “monster-of-the-week” stories were generally more criticized by the fans of the Superman mythology. As Gough explains, each season has to please both the fans of Superman and the general audience of the studio; in the case of The WB, the general audience consists of teenagers who prefer the “monster-of-the-week” stories over the episodes that focus more heavily on the Superman mythology.^[8]

[edit] Shattered

• Rutger Hauer was supposed to reprise his role as Morgan Edge for this episode, but he had another conflict that prevented him from returning. Instead, the crew hired Patrick Bergin, and rewrote the episode to feature a Morgan Edge who had recently undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance and voice. One of the reasons for casting Bergin is because the two actors have the same build, lending to the realism that these two actors could portray the same character.^[9]

• Mark Verheiden explains the episode as something out of Gaslight, where the audience believes that Lex is being driven insane.^[9]

• Writer/director Ken Biller and Michael Rosenbaum worked in tandem to develop an arch for Lex, where you could see him transition from believing he really was insane, to questioning whether or not he was being framed, and then finally reaching the point where he could not think straight.^[9]

• Fake horse hooves were used to stomp on Kristin Kreuk for the scene where Lana is trampled by a horse.^[9]

• Gough wanted to use Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” for the final scene of the show from the moment he first read the script for this episode. As Madonna Wade-Reed was trying to get the song cleared for use Cash passed away; believing the use of the song for the show would honor his memory, Cash’s heirs cleared the rights for Smallville.^[9]

[edit] Asylum

• The Vancouver YMCA served as a stand-in for the Smallville Medical Center.^[10]

• Mat Beck had the opportunity to improve on the computer-generated effects for the character of Ian Randall, who can duplicate himself. For “Asylum”, Beck and his team used 3-dimensional strands for Ian’s separation, which gave the team more control, as well as make the strands appear “gooier and grosser”.←Check Season 2 for how they did it originally→^[10]

• This episode also served to remind Clark that he cannot save everyone. Like season two’s “Ryan”, Clark is faced with the reality that he is not God, and that he will fail to save people from time to time.^[10]

[edit] Whisper

• Clark’s superhearing was originally to be revealed early in the season, but The WB informed the Smallville team that Tarzan, the main character of the studio’s update of the classic legend, also had superhearing so the team decided to delay the introduction so that the ability could be used in a manner that surpassed what was shown on Tarzan. Luckily for Smallville, The WB’s Tarzan was canceled before “Whisper” originally aired, allowing Smallville to be the only show on the network with a character who has superhuman hearing.^[11]

• As an in-joke to the audience, the team wrote in a gag where Clark wears a pair of eyeglasses, a staple of his disguise later in life while working at the Daily Planet. In the episode, an accident with Clark’s heat vision causes him to go blind; later while trying to save Pete’s life, a blowtorch is set off in Clark’s face, breaking away some scar tissue and allowing him to regain part of his site. To compensate for the rest, Clark is forced to wear a pair of prescription eyeglasses.^[11]

• In the original script for “Whisper”, the thieves who try and rob the jewelry store were going to be father and son.^[11]

• Welling consulted John Glover, whose character had spent a portion of season two blind, on how to best portray someone with sight impairment. Welling tried to focus on what he was hearing, instead of what he saw, while filming his scenes so that he could more accurately portray someone who was blind.^[11]

• For the effect of showing Clark using his superhearing, Mat Beck and Entity FX decided that they wanted to zoom into Clark’s ear and see all the different parts working together to create the sound he is hearing. The task proved difficult to achieve, and Beck asserts that changes will be made to perfect the look of Clark using his superhearing. Beck explains, “When you talk about someone flying, it’s something we all know, but this is superhearing and we need to see a visual for the hearing.”^[11]

• The robbers were not the only thing to change in the script; Clark was originally going to be blind until the end of the episode. The team decided that “it wasn’t going to be too satisfying to watch”, so Clark received his sight back midway through the episode. In hindsight, Gough believes that the episode would have been better if they had split the two plot elements—blindness and superhearing—into separate episodes.^[11]

[edit] Delete

• Max Taylor, a reporter for the Daily Planet, was created specifically for the Verizon tie-in commercials that aired before the third season. The character was brought into the show for “Delete”.^[12]

• ”Delete” was based on the idea of being attacked through your PDA, similar to the film Telefon. The episode also served as a means to provide punishment to Chloe for working with Lionel to dig-up information on Clark.^[12]

• Kim Chang and Lorelei Connelly stepped in for Allison Mack and Kristin Kreuk for some of the more dangerous stunts required to film the scene where Lana and Chloe get into a fight at school. The scene took two full days of shooting to complete, and involved many different angles to be shot. Close-ups of Mack and Kreuk were filmed of them fighting up to the point that a big fall would take place, and then Chang and Connelly would shoot the same actions from a further distance away and continue through the fall. Then, Mack would continue the fight scene with Chang, where they filmed just Allison Mack’s side of the fight. When Mack flipped over Chang filming stopped and everyone froze in their place; Kreuk would replace Chang in the scene and filming would resume.^[12]

[edit] Hereafter

• The concept of “Hereafter” came from an idea that sprouted after season one’s “Hourglass”, the idea that Clark might never die. In “Hourglass”, when Cassandra Carver, a blind elderly woman who can see the future of the person she touches, show’s Clark a future where he is surrounded by the tombstones of everyone he loves. For “Hereafter”, Jordan Cross can see the moment of death for anyone he touches; when Jordan touches Clark he does not see Clark’s death, only a billowing red cape. According to co-writer Mark Verheiden, “We were exploring the idea that Clark is an alien, and being what he is, is different on an almost cosmic scale. He has no death, so that takes him outside the metaphysical reach of this kid’s ability. It also enabled Clark to prevent the things from happening that the kid was seeing.” The idea to use Superman’s cape, which came from Miles Millar, to represent Clark’s “cosmic lifespan” came after much discussion on what to actually use. Ideas were thrown around, including a shot of Lex dumping kryptonite on Clark, as he is lying down, killing him. Ultimately they went with Millar’s idea, which they saw as this “great iconic moment”, because the audience finally sees their first glimpse of Superman’s costume.^[13]

• Instead of just shooting a red cape flapping in the wind, the scene was created entirely by a computer. Created primarily by John Hahn, the idea was to show the cape but not so clearly that it would be obvious to the audience what they were looking at. As Mat Beck explains, “you get a hint of the ‘S’, but not quite.”^[13]

• Gough and Millar are always trying to provide answers for the things that occur in the Superman mythology; in season three they answered the question of Jonathan Kent’s failing heart. In the season premiere, they established that Jonathan had taken on superpowers in order to bring Clark home; those same powers weakened Jonathan’s heart. As Miles Millar sees it, “The sacrifice of the father is that he’ll sacrifice anything to get Clark back – so he sacrifices his health.” According to Mark Verheiden, the idea of having Jonathan suffer a heart attack appeared as early on as season one, then with the story almost being used in season two’s “Fever”, before they finally settled on the concept that Jonathan made a deal with Jor-El to save his son.^[13]

[edit] Velocity

• Like other episodes this season, “Velocity” began its life as an idea being tossed around during season one. The team thought about having an episode devoted to small town drag racing, as it was problem in the Vancouver area while they were filming season one. The story was eventually used in season three, when the writing staff was looking for a reason to exploit the changing friendship between Clark and Pete. According to Verheiden, they wanted a moment where Pete could release his feelings to Clark, and the jealousy he has over Clark spending more time with Lex and Lana. The episode featured the moment when the friend between Clark and Pete “fractured a bit”. The original script had the two playing basketball at the end of the episode, as if nothing had happened; this was revised to have Pete apologizing to Clark for forcing him to abuse his powers, but having Clark question whether the two could ever have the same friendship they once had.^[14]

• The writers had hoped that having Pete know Clark secret would make him more of a fundamental piece of the show, but it did not, which ultimately lead to his character becoming increasingly alienated from the other characters and his exit from the show.^[14]

• (For the music section of the main page) "Velocity" provided the music editors with the opportunity to use a style of music that they would normally not use on the show. As the episode was similar to The Fast and the Furious, as well as being primarily focused on the only black character on the show, Pete, Madonna Wade-Reed was able to use a more hip-hop sound, which worked well with the story. Reed had heard of a British hip-hop artists named Dizzee Rascal, and became the first person in the United States to secure the licensing rights to use Rascal’s album.^[15]

[edit] Obsession

• The scene where Clark and Chloe attempt to use lead paint to trap Alicia was originally conceived for season two’s “Visage”, where Tina Greer traps Clark in the storm cellar with Lana’s kryptonite necklace. Originally, Clark was going to use an old can of lead paint to cover the necklace and escape, but the scene was rewritten to have Clark’s spaceship save him.^[16]

• (for the filming section of the main article) – Templeton High School doubles as Smallville High when the crew needs to shoot a scene inside the school. Over the course of season one, the production team repainted most of the school in Smallville High’s red and yellow colors, and stuck large Smallville High Crows logos everywhere. The team painted over so much of the school that the school eventually adopted them as their official school colors. The students became so accustomed to the filming crew, which had to shoot during the school semester, that when class was released the filmmakers would stand aside and the students would casually move the filming equipment aside to get to their lockers, and then venture to their next class without paying the crew much attention.^[17]

• (music section) – Season three saw a change to the music that plays during the closing credits. In the first two seasons, the music playing was one of the potential theme songs for the series, before Remy Zero’s “Save Me” was selected. The melody was more “heroic” and “in-your-face”. Mark Snow was told during season two that the closing credits needed new music, as the current tune no longer represented where the show had evolved to. Snow created a new score, which was toned down, and featured a more “melodic” tune.^[17]

[edit] Resurrection

• One qualm among the crew with season three was how the season devolved into a science fiction, “secret lab” type of stories, with “Resurrection” epitomizing those types of episodes.^[18]

• ”Resurrection” originally featured the character of Garrett bonding with Clark over Jonathan’s heart condition, as Garrett’s father—later changed to his brother—was dying. As the episode progress, elements of the story were changed and Garrett drifted from being sympathetic and into a darker character, who was eventually killed by a police sniper.^[18]

• (Music section)—“Resurrection” used “Infatuation” by The Rapture during a scene involving Lex and Lana. The point of the song was to symbolize the idea of, “Are we ever going to figure out what these two people think of each other?”^[19]

[edit] Crisis

• The final scene in “Crisis”, of Lionel preparing to kill himself, was added at the last minute. John Glover and the crew filmed the scene during the filming of “Memoria”, which occurred a week before “Crisis” was going to air. While filming, Greg Beeman, James Marshall and Miles Millar all sat behind the monitors to come up with the cliffhanger ending that was going to be attached to “Crisis”. Beeman added the moment where the phone rings, interrupting Lionel from completing his suicide; this was used as the opening for “Legacy” and it all eventually set up Lionel’s terminal liver disease.^[20]

• To make sure the special effects matched the set the actors were filming on, Mat Beck left his office in Los Angeles and travelled to the Smallville set to work alongside John Wash and John Hahn in constructing the scene where Adam shoots Lana in the back as she is running away. Producer Ken Horton wanted to be able to see the bullet travelling through each of the raindrops as it made its way toward Lana. To accomplish this, the team made the digital bullet larger than normal, for better visibility. For filming, a flash zoom was created that would track around Kreuk as she was running, achieving the effect of watching the bullet get fired from the gun, fly through the raindrops, and then as the camera rotates around you see the bullet just as it about to hit Lana before Clark runs in an stops it. This moment in the scene is done in a freeze frame shot, and the moment Clark stops the bullet everything returns to real time.^[20]

• The scene used a lot of computer-generated imagery to accomplish the look that the team needed. The entire alley, which was setting of the scene, had to be tracked by the computer in order to make sure that the computer-generated raindrops hit all the objects in the frame, including dumpsters that were visible. In order to achieve the effect of time freezing around Lana just as she is about to get shot and fall to the ground, Kristin Kreuk had to lean against a structural support and hold her body still while filming. Beck and his team had to digitally remove the support from Kreuk, as well as the lower half of her body. The inserted a computer-generated lower half, as well as some hair trailing behind her in order to show that she was in the process of running when time stops. When time returned to normal, what the audience sees is a completely computer-generated body fall out of frame, as only Lana’s lower half is in frame when time returns to normal.^[20]

[edit] Legacy

• (Get info on where they shot Reeve’s scenes in season two) – Christopher Reeves shot his scenes in the rotunda at the New York Public Library. Reeve’s schedule forced the production crew to shoot his scenes a month before the script for the episode was finished and finalized.^[21]

• (For Dr. Swan) Reeves was directing Yankee Irving when Smallville was gearing up to film the fourth season opener. As a result, Reeves could not reprise his role as Dr. Swann, which was the intention.^[21]

[edit] Truth

• In the original script, Mrs. Taylor did not reveal that she had been part of an activist group that done some illegal activity years earlier, but that she was having an affair with a student. As Alfred Gough sees it, using the affair storyline would have created more scenes that would need to be shot in order to effectively tell that part of the episode, and using the concept that Mrs. Taylor had been on the run from the law worked easier for the crew.^[22]

[edit] Memoria

• ”Memoria” focused on character pasts, specifically those of Lex and Clark. Gough explains that they had known the story of Julian Luthor back in season one, when character was first mentioned in “Stray”, but they wanted to find the right time to explain the situation. The creative team wanted the audience to think that Lex was responsible for Julian’s death as an infant, before finally revealing that Lex was merely covering for his mother.^[23]

• Instead of using the same techniques that were employed in previous episodes for transitioning between the present and the past, Millar decided to shift between the two time frames by transitioning between the older Lex and the younger Lex. This required Rosenbaum to rely more on Millar’s direction, so that the emotional level was matched between himself and the young actor portraying Lex, Wayne Dalglish.^[23]

• Given Millar’s background writing for all the characters on the show, Welling believes that it gave Millar the ability to film scenes in a more succinct manner, creating the same effect with fewer words to do so. Millar’s visual style leaned more to applying “extreme lighting” to the scenes, to create silhouettes of the characters.^[23]

• The interior scenes of Summerholt Institute were shot in train-car washing building, so that they had enough room to create and film the tank of kryptonite solution. The exterior shots were filmed at an abandoned building owned by the Sierra Wireless Company.^[23]

• The tank that was built held approximately 400 gallons of water; it was designed by David Willson and constructed by Rob Maier, alongside Mike Walls, and his crew.^[23]

• Millar was inspired by the Ronald Reagan film Kings Row, which featured a birthday party for a young boy where no other children showed up. The Luthor Mansion set was packed with food and gifts for Lex’s twelfth birthday party, where no other child shows up.^[23]

• ”Memoria” would also bring back elements from the show’s past, including the lead box that Lex gave Clark in the second episode of season one, as well as the video footage of Clark in Belle Reve Sanitarium a few episodes prior.^[23]

• The nursery scenes were shot underneath the St. George’s Preparatory School, on a specially designed set by Rob Maier. St. George’s Preparatory School also doubled as Lex’s childhood prep school.
• Producer Ken Horton fought to keep the scene of the dead body of Lex’s brother, which they used a prosthetic doll to simulate with. Millar made preparations in case Horton failed, and filmed close-ups of the baby who portrayed Julian.^[23]

• Scenes involving Allison Mack and Kristin Kreuk were cut from the episodes—with the exception of the opening teaser where Lana finds Lex on the balcony and then informing Clark—as the team felt they were inappropriate for the episode, which stood well on just the story arc involving Clark, Lex and Lionel. This also directed the episode into more of a “mothers and sons” feel that departed from the usual “fathers and sons” tone the show had come to use.^[23]

• The scene of Jor-El and Lara placing baby Kal-El into his ship presented its own problems. At the time, Warner Bros. was working on a new Superman film, and it was going to be an origin story. This affected how much Smallville could actually show, and in the end the audience does not get to see Jor-El and Lara’s face. Instead, Millar used the retelling of Superman’s origins from Jeph Loeb’s comic book as inspiration, where the reader only sees the hands of Jor-El and Lara as they lay their son in his ship.^[23]

• (Music section) – Gough came up with the idea of using Evanescence’s ‘My Immortal’ for the final scene of the episode. Gough informed Wade-Reed as soon as he began working on the script what song he wanted to use for the closing scene, as he saw it as being symbolically about mothers.^[24][23]

[edit] Talisman

• Gough wishes they could go back and redo “Talisman”, because the episode failed to provide an “entry point”. He believes that if someone had not been watching the show previously, they would not have been able to follow the story; to the random observer the episode was simply about two men, Lionel Luthor and Joseph Willowbrook, searching for an ancient dagger. The episode lacked elements that would bring in a younger audience. Simply speaking, it was “too mythologized”.^[25]

[edit] Forsaken

• ”Forsaken” was designed to set up many of the plot points in the season finale, particularly those dealing with Clark’s feeling of isolation. Specifically, it is Pete and Lana’s departure from Smallville.^[26]

[edit] Covenant

• John Glover came up with the idea of cutting Lionel’s hair for the season finale. Glover was busying preparing for a play they he was going to be acting in, and he needed his hair cut for the part. Glover made the suggestion while the crew was filming “Memoria”, as well as the idea of setting the scene in prison. Gough admits to needing some kind of device to cut back to while all of the other cliffhangers are occurring—Clark being taken away, the Kryptonian symbol burned into the barn, and Lex being poisoned—and he felt that Glover’s suggestion would be able to pull off the effect they wanted.^[27]

• (For Season 3 Review) – The creative team reflected back on the season to discussed what worked well and what did not work at all. There was agreement that the Adam Knight story-arc failed to achieve the outcome they had originally intended, and that the science fiction aspect of the show only worked when it accurately reflected the Superman mythology, or the concept of the show itself. Gough felt that the episodes that dealt heavily in science fiction became “very mechanical, to the detriment of the show”.^[27]

[edit] References