Dean Devlin, co-showrunner/EP Jonathan Glassner, writer, director, EP- "The Ark"

The Arc: A Must-Watch for Sci-Fi Fans

With Devlin's experience in producing blockbuster films like "Independence Day" and "Godzilla", and Glassner's background in producing and writing for hit shows like "Stargate SG One" and "The Outer Limits", this dynamic duo brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to create an immersive space world with intricate plotlines and compelling characters. "The Arc" has gathered a dedicated following for its imaginative storytelling and stunning visuals, making it a must-watch for all Sci-fi fans. Special recognition was given to Production Designer, Randall Groves, who did an excellent job designing the show's world. With the finale airing this week, catch up on all episodes on Peacock, where you can binge it all. Also, exciting news for Sci-fi fans, as "The Arc" has just been picked up for a second season. Congratulations to the team!

The Arc: A Must-Watch for Sci-Fi Fans Designing a Post-Apocalyptic Future World: Insights From Hollywood's Top Creators

But after seeing the sets up, did it make you want to write more to any particular sets?

Dean Devlin: I think the biggest influence was just when John and I were walking on the set when it was first built, is we both became, like, 13 years old.You're on the spaceship and it's cool. And all the hallways, they had ceilings. And as you know, most sets don't have ceilings. So usually you'reon a set, you're very aware you're on a set. But when you're on a set, like these hallways where everywhere you look, you're seeing reality, youstart to feel like you're on a spaceship. It was really cool.

Can you talk about the balance of Sci-Fi elements versus the human drama in the show? Like how you interact all thestoryline?

Jonathan Glassner: Well, for me, it's human drama first. For me, the science fiction is almost an arena to play the human drama in. It shouldn't be the forefront of it.We come up with some really cool Sci-Fi ideas, but it's always with an eye to how will our characters react to that. Right. What would be themost impactful for Garnett? This or this? And we do it that way.

How did you come up with the premise of this show?

It started with a lunch I had with a man named Michael Wright who used to run TNT when I did the leverage in the librarians there. And we werejust reminiscing about the type of science fiction shows that we really loved. And Michael was saying, I would so love to see another showabout a group of people all confined on a spaceship, going to some destination with a hope of a new beginning. And then we just startedreminiscing about all the shows that made us want to make television. And after that meeting, I kept thinking, yeah, I've always wanted to do aspace show, but if I were going to do one, what would be the take that would make it different? Why should you watch this one if you've alreadyseen all the others? And that's when this idea came about of, okay, but what if the people on the ship are not the people who are meant to runthe ship? That all the people that were meant to run the ship. All the teachers, all the engineers, all the scientists. What if they were all killed ina terrible accident in the first scene, and now everybody who's left has to step into these roles that they weren't really prepared for? And thatbecame really kind of exciting. And when I pitched that to John, that's what he jumped on. And then we just started rolling with that.

Listen to the full interview for more!

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Transcript

Kim Wannop [00:00:07]:

Decorating Pages is a podcast dedicated to taking you behind the scenes of the designs of your favorite TV shows and films. Each episode, I'll be sharing design stories from some of Hollywood's most famous sets.

Kim Wannop [00:00:20]:

Interviews from set decorators, production designers, directors and actors about creating the look of.

Kim Wannop [00:00:26]:

TV and films, about their design inspirations and stories that take steps from page to screen.

Kim Wannop [00:00:40]:

Hello there and welcome to Decorating Pages. I'm your host, Kim Wana. How are ya? Hope you had a good holiday. It's Easter passover spring break with the kids. Hope you survived. I get it. Yeah, I went away. I went back east, Philly, south Jersey, and met new cousins, new babies. Had a wonderful holiday through my mama's surprise party. It was great. Had a really great time. And I'm back. And double prizes. Both of my American airlines flights had WiFi working, which hasn't happened in a.

Kim Wannop [00:01:21]:

Long time, I would say.

Kim Wannop [00:01:23]:

So I actually got to watch something while my kids watched all their stuff. But I hit the fablemans finally, which I know I've seen really bits and pieces, and I've seen Rick Carter's work and Karen O'Hara's work, and I think it's phenomenally done, just the style of it and every nook and cranny of that is so lived in and so layered and aged, and the palette is great. It's just a beautiful film. I didn't really like it, to be honest. I don't really like Michelle Williams. And I don't really like Paul Dano. I think Paul Dano's best performance was little miss sunshine when he was quiet through most of the movie. I don't know. Well, no, he was actually really good. And there will be blood. I got to give him that. Not a big fan of it. He's so, like, restrained, and I understand he's playing someone. I think I just wanted more film excitement. Spielberg being a kid in films, and I know how many times can we watch a kid make a film, but I don't know, carry it into college? I don't know. And the whole thing with the mom, I just wasn't into it.

Kim Wannop [00:02:44]:

And I know a couple of my friends really like that movie, and I.

Kim Wannop [00:02:47]:

Feel bad, but no. I got to see a little bit of a man called Otto production designed by Barbara Lang and three decorators jessica Anderson, Frank Galene and Michael Amato. I only got to see about a half hour, 45 minutes of it, and.

Kim Wannop [00:03:09]:

I think I'd continue on. I don't know.

Kim Wannop [00:03:12]:

Did anybody see that? Is it worth it? I don't know. I haven't heard a peep about that movie, but it kind of interests me. And Tom Hanks being a cranky old man is kind of fun. It's not too heavy, although a little bit of the subject was heavy. But yeah, I don't know. I'm sure all anyone can talk about right now is secession and poof. That third episode was extraordinary. I just think extraordinary writing and directing and the camera work of how you follow these people and these actors really portraying finding out that your father has died, it's just fantastic. It was fantastic. I'm recording this before Sunday, so I guess I should wait to talk about episode four. But I'm sure it's going to be great anyway. But I don't feel like anyone was super surprised that he died. I mean, the show is called Secession. We all knew it was going to happen, right? I think we all thought maybe first season an awful episode when he was in the hospital. The most boring hour ever. But no, it's so good. Secession is so good. And the helicopters in the yacht and like, so good.

Kim Wannop [00:04:42]:

We actually talk a little bit about.

Kim Wannop [00:04:43]:

It in this interview, but just loved it. I love secession. I'm watching Perry Mason. I think it's better than the first season. Production designer Keith Cunningham and set decorator Helena Swab. I just think the story is better. I think Matthew Reese has lightened up a little. And that's his name, right? Matthew Reese? Yeah, I do. I like Perry Mason. And this past week or so, the Marvelous Miss Maisel is on Amazon in its final fifth season with production designer Bill Groom and Seth decorator Ellen Christensen. It's just perfect. Everything about that design of that show is just perfect. I love it. I just want to eat it up and just I'm dazzled by it every time. And the costumes and the hair and the makeup, those are all my favorites. And I'll tell you, and I've said this before, I'm not a big fan of Miss Maisel because I feel like her dialogue is like that whole singing songy way. I just can't stand it. But I was never a fan of Monk and Tony Shalube is so funny to me in this show that I laugh out loud at least once every episode because of one of his lines. I just think his delivery and everything is so good. Their first episode, they're in the TWA terminal in New York and they make that look amazing even though it is already in the second episode, they unveil these like a late night show office, comedy offices and almost like a production office, really. And I thought those were done fantastic. It's kind of like a more lighter, brighter, Mad Men type of office, which is nice. I don't understand. They do this flash forwards. Now they're trying to tell you the end of the story where she ends up and everything during the episodes. So they had her on the 60 Minutes interview and I cannot for the life of me understand why it's in, like some shipping yard. I don't know. Maybe they'll reveal that later. But it's completely odd to me. And then as they go on, they do Israel. So there's a whole storyline how she's kind of a bad mother, which I have been saying since the very beginning. And what a horrible mother she is. So I'm glad that they're acknowledging that in the storyline and making light of it at least a little, because she's a horrible mother. Anyway, I think it's going to be.

Kim Wannop [00:07:31]:

A good farewell season, so I'm excited. I'm three episodes in.

Kim Wannop [00:07:34]:

I think they released the first three all at once. So dive into that if you can. I'm really enjoying that one.

Kim Wannop [00:07:41]:

On this episode.

Kim Wannop [00:07:43]:

I'm talking to Dean Devlin and Jonathan Glassner, who are the creators of the Sci-fi Network show The Arc. It's a drama that explores a postapocalyptic world in space. Devlin is an accomplished filmmaker with experience producing movies like Independence Day, Godzilla, and while Glassner has produced and written for popular Sci-Fi shows like Stargate SG One and The Outer Limits, together they bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise into the Arc, creating an immersive space traveling world with compelling characters and intricate plotlines. This show has garnered a dedicated following for its imaginative storytelling and stunning visuals, making it a must watch for all Sci-fi fans. It was an absolute pleasure to speak with them. And I am glad I got to tell them that their influence on me and other people in Sci-fi, I'm just kind of in all that and well done job to the production designer, Randall Groves, who I have worked with and didn't realize when I got the invitation to talk to these two, that Randall had done this series. And I having just done Sci-fi, or I guess it's not Sci-Fi frol mankind isn't Sci-Fi. But having done Space, I really appreciate his designs, and I think it was just really well done design wise. The finale is on this week, so check that out. So then you can binge it all on Peacock. It's a Sci-fi Channel. It's a Sci-Fi network show, but you can binge it on Peacock if you want. And I find out in this interview that they were just picked up for season two. So bravo and congratulations. So I hope you enjoy.

Kim Wannop [00:09:55]:

I see you and I hear you. That's perfect.

Jonathan Glassner [00:09:58]:

That's all that matters.

Kim Wannop [00:10:01]:

No, I can't usually I have some sort of audio issue, so Ace is already this is fantastic. Thank you so much. I know all of our time gets a little crunched up, so thank you so much for getting this together. I really appreciate it. How are you? Good.

Jonathan Glassner [00:10:18]:

How are you?

Dean Devlin [00:10:19]:

We're in a good mood today.

Kim Wannop [00:10:20]:

Oh, good. Well, there you go. I just discovered I know. Randall Groves. I know.

Dean Devlin [00:10:27]:

You do?

Kim Wannop [00:10:28]:

I do. I did the Player with him, like some part of a pilot years ago, and I have kept in touch with him because he is a gem.

Dean Devlin [00:10:39]:

He is a very special human being. Yeah, I try to use him on everything.

Kim Wannop [00:10:44]:

Yeah, he's a gem. He's such a kind person. And just I think coming to from construction, he has such a knowledge of what's possible and what what materials to use and and how he can make the best of it. I really appreciate working with him, and I've tried to work with him again, so I was so glad to see his name, and I reached out to him and told him how great I thought the sets were. Just fantastic.

Dean Devlin [00:11:10]:

He had a busy year that year because he was doing this because he set this thing up in Serbia, but then he was working with us every day in New Orleans on Leverage Redemption. So he was burning the candle on both ends.

Kim Wannop [00:11:23]:

That's what he said. He was like, I had so much jet lag in prepping for those sets, but they turned out fantastic. So I think the look of the show is just fantastic. And the special effects, I feel like, are really good. I feel like I have a little bit of knowledge just coming off of raw Mankind, what it takes to do all of that Sci-Fi design and everything. So it's a lot.

Dean Devlin [00:11:50]:

It's a lot. It is a lot.

Kim Wannop [00:11:52]:

I found that costumes and the design and the decor, there's so many questions that would come up in meetings that might not have been thought of, of like, well, how is their air system? Or how are they really communicating? So how was that on the show? Just discovering how this ship really works?

Dean Devlin [00:12:16]:

Well, there's the kind of Uber from 35,000ft idea of it, but 35,000 light years. Exactly. But when you make a Sci-Fi show like this, it's literally every single thing on front of the camera has to be manufactured. So it's what does a flashlight look like? What do shoes look like? There's so many things that you have to start thinking about and having discussions about that you would never have to on a normal show.

Kim Wannop [00:12:43]:

Yeah. No, I know. So many things came up, and I feel like our showrunners would be like that's a good question. Let me get back to you. Let's go back and think about that, and we'll get back to you on that. But it is and it's not that you guys can think of everything, and that's why the other departments are there to help and create and all be in on it. So I loved it. I've always wanted to do space, so I loved it. I did want to thank you guys because of your creativity and history in the business of so many pieces of Stargate, like, so many references that we all have because of you guys, because of you two independence.

Jonathan Glassner [00:13:37]:

Although I think it goes ahead of before us, actually, we were referencing a.

Dean Devlin [00:13:41]:

Lot of the ones that we grew up on.

Kim Wannop [00:13:45]:

Of course. But I think that's one of the ultimate tributes is someone referencing your work. And I know that stargate has come up many times in conversations through the Sci-Fi world and the design of it and everything. So I have to thank you for that. Hold on, I got my dog out. I just got a puppy. And he's the worst idea I ever had, too.

Jonathan Glassner [00:14:14]:

I know how it is.

Kim Wannop [00:14:16]:

I needed that.

Jonathan Glassner [00:14:16]:

They need your attention all the time.

Dean Devlin [00:14:18]:

You don't leave your shoes on the floor anymore when you have puppies.

Kim Wannop [00:14:21]:

No, I have Toddlers. I should have known better. But the puppy is a whole different situation. But how did you come about with this storyline? Because it has a lot of twists and turns. I mean, I'm only up to episode ten, which aired last week, so I'm like, what is going? It's a fantastic storyline.

Dean Devlin [00:14:45]:

Well, I can take credit for the initializing it, but these great story twists and all these surprises is this man.

Jonathan Glassner [00:14:54]:

Right here and a room full of writers. Yeah, I can't take full credit for it.

Kim Wannop [00:14:58]:

Yeah. How many writers do you have in.

Jonathan Glassner [00:15:01]:

The room this year? We have five, including me, six including him.

Kim Wannop [00:15:08]:

Wow, that's nice.

Jonathan Glassner [00:15:12]:

Four and five. I'm sorry? Four, including me, and five, including five.

Kim Wannop [00:15:16]:

So then do you have writers, all of those writers write the episodes or do you have anybody come in?

Jonathan Glassner [00:15:22]:

Because some shows you have it's just us.

Kim Wannop [00:15:25]:

Oh, that's nice.

Dean Devlin [00:15:26]:

The thing is, with a serialized show like this, it's kind of one big episode.

Jonathan Glassner [00:15:33]:

It's really hard to have freelancers write.

Dean Devlin [00:15:35]:

For it if you're not the whole time, and having the endless discussions about a million different aspects. It's hard to kind of bomb in and just do one episode.

Kim Wannop [00:15:46]:

Do you find that working and writing for streaming services is different than writing for regular network?

Jonathan Glassner [00:15:56]:

Well, we're writing for a network that we're writing for Peacock. For Sci-fi.

Kim Wannop [00:16:00]:

Oh, it's sci-fi. But it's on peacock.

Jonathan Glassner [00:16:03]:

Right. It starts on Sci-fi and then they air it on Peacock the next day.

Kim Wannop [00:16:06]:

Oh, I'm done.

Jonathan Glassner [00:16:09]:

Not at all. These days, half the people in the world only watch streaming. They don't even have cable.

Dean Devlin [00:16:17]:

And the truth is, there was a poll done recently where the majority of people who could name the show that they like to watch couldn't name where they watch it because it's so confusing.

Jonathan Glassner [00:16:27]:

Because they just DVR it.

Kim Wannop [00:16:29]:

Right. I actually had to start making a list of what I'm watching, what it's on, because then I would think it was on Hulu, and it's not. And I'm wasting five minutes trying to find what I wanted to watch, and I feel like I'm pretty smart about these things, and I still couldn't. Or when you're when you're working, like, I just did a show. Like I did a show. It's Sony for Apple, who's my boss here.

Dean Devlin [00:16:55]:

But that's why in the beginning, we were so hoping that we would set this up at Sci-fi Channel because we thought, well, at least that's really intuitive Sci-Fi show we got Sci-fi Channel. It kind of makes sense, right?

Kim Wannop [00:17:08]:

It makes a lot more sense that you say that now, because I was like, this is Ballsy of Peacock, to put all this money and effort into this. Sci-fi, are there challenges, like logistically bringing this up, having it being done across halfway across the world? Or were you there the whole time? What were you doing?

Jonathan Glassner [00:17:33]:

Well, we were back and forth. I mean, Dean directed the pilot, so he was there for sort of the setup of the whole show, setting up the sets and designing them and everything. And I directed the finale and so I was there for probably three episodes of shooting because I was prepping. So we were there a lot of the time. Yeah, but not all of the time. And we have a great team there who we trust and they nail it 99.9% of the time.

Dean Devlin [00:18:03]:

We had done another series there with this same group of people and we had done three seasons in Serbia with them. So we had a real good rapport with them and we trusted them and they trusted us. I think had we not had that experience, this might have been more difficult.

Kim Wannop [00:18:20]:

And you're talking about some of the key people, like producers and not location.

Dean Devlin [00:18:31]:

Everything guys who drove the trucks with the same guys. I mean, it was the whole team.

Kim Wannop [00:18:35]:

Oh, that's fantastic. I noticed that you had some of the same actors as in The Outpost and that's always nice. That's always like, you know their limits and you know their abilities and you can write to that. It's fantastic.

Jonathan Glassner [00:18:49]:

Yeah. Although what's interesting is that they're all playing completely different characters when they play it on The Outpost and doing it really well. It's like you never know if an actor, just because they can play X, that they can play Y also.

Kim Wannop [00:19:03]:

Right.

Jonathan Glassner [00:19:04]:

These guys have been great.

Kim Wannop [00:19:05]:

Yeah. I would think as an actor having such a vast difference, but having being comfortable with the writing and your style and everything would help them so much. I'm sure it's very helpful to them. Trust.

Dean Devlin [00:19:20]:

It's kind of like a rep company at some point. You all know each other so well and it really does become this it's so overused in television. But you do you become a family.

Kim Wannop [00:19:31]:

Oh, yeah, you do. There's no more hugging, but exactly. Not really allowed to hug anymore. Although some people do. I feel like 80s they still like to get some hugs. I don't know what that's about, but.

Jonathan Glassner [00:19:49]:

It'S a little different there. They're more European, so they still hug.

Dean Devlin [00:19:53]:

Eckiss on the cheek.

Jonathan Glassner [00:19:54]:

Yeah.

Kim Wannop [00:19:57]:

There you go. Can you talk anything about how when writing this, I wonder, do you ever fear, like, we're never going to be able to afford this, but you keep writing.

Jonathan Glassner [00:20:16]:

Yeah. We've bitten off more than we should have, chewed a few times and barely made our delivery because we were doing so many visual effects. But we do write, thankfully. I know enough about production and about postpression visual effects that I kind of know what we're capable of and don't write beyond that. But we've had a couple of episodes that we got pretty big. Yeah, the Comet episode was like, yeah, could have had our head examined before we wrote down.

Kim Wannop [00:20:51]:

Well, funny enough, there's some similarities in the storyline for All Mankind, too. So when I was watching it, I was like, hey, that's crazy. Everyone's doing the same research here. This is fun.

Jonathan Glassner [00:21:09]:

I've heard wonderful things about it, but I haven't seen it.

Dean Devlin [00:21:11]:

I've heard it's amazing.

Kim Wannop [00:21:12]:

It's fun. It's fun. For me, it was my first season, fourth season, and you get to jump ten years every time. So creatively. The sets are all new, so that's nice, but it's the same storyline but new sets. And then they were on the moon and now they're on Mars, so it was fun. But I was so obsessed with all of the chairs in the ship, and I know how hard it is to have the set designer design them and have them all made and then everything on the desks and the lab and then the cafeteria. I get it. I get all of that and making sense of it all.

Dean Devlin [00:21:55]:

When we were shooting the pilot, a lot of it takes place with them in full space outfit with the helmets on.

Kim Wannop [00:22:04]:

Right.

Dean Devlin [00:22:05]:

We didn't have a lot of time to test this stuff, to have it manufactured and ready in time. We literally got them off the truck and started shooting. And in the pilot episode, the Shield, the masks kept popping off in the middle of take. Luckily, after that, we solved that issue. But it was so frustrating. You're literally in the middle of your favorite take and the glass just goes.

Jonathan Glassner [00:22:30]:

That and the actors couldn't hear each other. We had to hide earphones in there for them to hear each other.

Kim Wannop [00:22:38]:

Well, I took one look at that helmet room and I was like, that costs a lot of money. We were, like, moving our helmets around behind camera because we didn't have enough. There's got to be, like, 20 helmets in that room. I was like, wow, this show had a lot of money. Look at all those helmets. Well, that's the thing that you start to fake it a little bit and then it's just believable of what you can get away with. How many stages did you guys have for all of these sets and all.

Dean Devlin [00:23:11]:

Of your there were four stages altogether, but the the dome that had the plants yeah. That was actually outside.

Kim Wannop [00:23:20]:

Oh, wow.

Dean Devlin [00:23:22]:

Because we weren't using plastic plants, we were using real plants. So in between the chute, we had to take off the fabric covering it so that the sun could keep the plants alive. Otherwise it would have all died.

Kim Wannop [00:23:32]:

That's really smart, because we had one and we take them in and out.

Jonathan Glassner [00:23:40]:

The truth is, a lot of them died anyway. It got really hot in there when we were shooting.

Kim Wannop [00:23:46]:

Oh, right. Yeah. The lights kill it. But after seeing the sets up, did it make you want to write more to any particular sets?

Jonathan Glassner [00:24:02]:

Not really. Because when you're writing a show set in a spaceship, you're going to spend a lot of time in the bridge. Yeah, the bridge better be good.

Kim Wannop [00:24:11]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [00:24:13]:

I would love to write a whole lot more stuff for the Observation Room, for example. But we didn't just because there wasn't a whole lot of stories that would happen in there organically.

Dean Devlin [00:24:27]:

I think the biggest influence was just when John and I were walking on the set when it was first built, is we both became, like, 13 years old. You're on the spaceship and it's cool. And all the hallways, they had ceilings. And as you know, most sets don't have ceilings. So usually you're on a set, you're very aware you're on a set. But when you're on a set, like these hallways where everywhere you look, you're seeing reality, you start to feel like you're on a spaceship. It was really cool.

Kim Wannop [00:24:56]:

Yes. The hallway situation in space is a real problem. Sometimes you need more hallway, but where is it going? Can we move this hallway around and shoot it the other way? Can we have them come this direction? I mean, it's a lot because you're also thinking realistically, how much hallway do we have here? We got gigantic ships, but we can't build all that. But how much of the show is time for post, like, from ending the episode? I mean, I know that they start post, like, that night sometimes just to get it going, but do you have, like, a couple of months?

Dean Devlin [00:25:35]:

No, our plan always is six weeks of post per episode.

Kim Wannop [00:25:42]:

Oh, yeah.

Dean Devlin [00:25:43]:

We don't always make that because some of these effects take longer. Right. But yeah, from the moment we finish shooting until we're having an episode that's maybe not completely finished as far as color correction and final mix. But it's six weeks.

Kim Wannop [00:26:00]:

It's six weeks. And then how much I mean, writers and you are on first, but how.

Kim Wannop [00:26:06]:

Much prep time did you have before.

Jonathan Glassner [00:26:08]:

Shooting before the whole series or each.

Kim Wannop [00:26:12]:

Episode before the first episode?

Dean Devlin [00:26:16]:

About twelve weeks.

Jonathan Glassner [00:26:18]:

Yeah, something like that.

Kim Wannop [00:26:19]:

And then did you block shoot?

Jonathan Glassner [00:26:22]:

Sometimes some of the episodes are block shots, some of them are in Arsenal episodes, depending on the content of the episode and if there's a guest star.

Dean Devlin [00:26:31]:

And also if we had a director doing two episodes back to back, then it was easier to block shoot.

Kim Wannop [00:26:35]:

Right. I kind of like it because then you might get a little bit more time to do a specific scene or set. You could push that to the end, and instead of it being ten days out, it's 20 days out. And that's always any time we don't go out. No, I mean out of the schedule, but yeah. No, I know. We were still on.

Jonathan Glassner [00:26:58]:

It's harder on the actors because they're shooting a scene from one episode, and then five minutes later, they're shooting a scene from another episode.

Kim Wannop [00:27:05]:

Right.

Jonathan Glassner [00:27:06]:

It's hard for them.

Kim Wannop [00:27:08]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [00:27:09]:

Got its pluses and minuses.

Kim Wannop [00:27:13]:

In the episode. Is it nine? I think they're on arc 15, and I think it's evelyn says that she saved all these beautiful creations of man, and there's, like, beautiful paintings on the wall and some pink flamingos, and then there was the neon pink flamingos. And I thought, it's got to be a joke somewhere that somewhat in 100.

Jonathan Glassner [00:27:41]:

Years from now, the pink flamingo is going to be remembered as one of the works of art of our time. The neon pink flamingo.

Dean Devlin [00:27:47]:

Yeah. Remember, in 100 years from now, it's an antique.

Kim Wannop [00:27:50]:

Of course, I was thinking, that's pretty funny. But it is like neon. You'd have to save neon. Who would know? Was there a lot of discussion of what went into what you want to see? And especially in the bridge, you made it into a living room, and everybody's room had more personal effects and more decor to them.

Dean Devlin [00:28:15]:

I think it's a combination of the ideal of what we want and what can we get.

Kim Wannop [00:28:23]:

Right.

Dean Devlin [00:28:23]:

You have to kind of balance it between john and I are very ambitious guys. We always want way more than we can do. So we start off with, okay, the entire universe explodes. And then it's like, okay, the glass explodes.

Kim Wannop [00:28:38]:

Right.

Jonathan Glassner [00:28:40]:

And you know how it is. We get it with clearances on art. No, there were a lot of pieces of art we couldn't clear.

Kim Wannop [00:28:49]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [00:28:49]:

So will that painting clear? Okay, let's get that one.

Kim Wannop [00:28:54]:

Yeah. You're talking about trying to get, like, a Mona Lisa or something, and you're just not it's just not going to happen. It's such a sad thing to me because I talk about clearance a lot on this, of how it hinders us so much. Sometimes, like, you just want someone sitting at a table playing a board game, and it has to be like, Nd, and it can't be life anymore. It can't be like Monopoly. It's just such a bummer of the clearance issues everywhere. Talk about it. I hate it.

Dean Devlin [00:29:24]:

But you see these lawsuits that are just crazy, and you go, well, I don't want to get involved in that.

Kim Wannop [00:29:29]:

No, I was working on Bones, and this guy called my office once, and he was like, hey, I watched the episode last night, and my artwork is hanging in the diner. And I was like, Hold, please, everyone stop what they're doing. I want to know where the paperwork is for that artwork. And then I was like, I'm so sorry. I rented that so you could contact these people. They have your clearance or whatever. But it was, like, total panic of, I'm going to cost this show, like, thousands and thousands of dollars if you.

Jonathan Glassner [00:30:07]:

Show we've had to cover tattoos because they're copyrighted by whoever did the tattoo.

Dean Devlin [00:30:13]:

Well, you remember what happened with what was it? The hangover with Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson $15 million lawsuit.

Kim Wannop [00:30:23]:

Yeah. Graffiti. Like, if we shoot out you're shooting in downtown La. You got to cover up all that graffiti. God forbid someone who tagged there is going to get a lawyer up and get some dough out of it. It's insane. Which is nice in space. You don't really have to think about.

Dean Devlin [00:30:41]:

That, which is nice until you put artwork in.

Kim Wannop [00:30:45]:

Artwork. Yeah, that was nice about it. And I think in the beginning, too, of doing streaming, there was less like, Netflix didn't care as much, and now they do. It's kind of a bummer anyway.

Dean Devlin [00:31:00]:

Well, you don't usually care until you've been sued a couple of times.

Kim Wannop [00:31:04]:

Until your name gets brought up in that lawsuit, and then you're like, I'll never do that again.

Jonathan Glassner [00:31:11]:

With commercial supported television. That's why Netflix didn't care as much as you want to have a Pepsi can on there if Coke turns out to be your sponsor.

Kim Wannop [00:31:19]:

Right.

Jonathan Glassner [00:31:21]:

Pepsi is not going to sue you for having the can there. But you got to worry about products.

Kim Wannop [00:31:26]:

I did work with some producers who had a logic of like, let's just do it and pay for it later. Let's not ask for permission, because if they say no, then you're screwed. But if you just do it and show it in a good light, I'm.

Dean Devlin [00:31:42]:

Pretty sure that those producers didn't own the show.

Kim Wannop [00:31:44]:

No, true. Maybe they were gambling another show next season.

Jonathan Glassner [00:31:53]:

That's 20 century foxes.

Kim Wannop [00:31:54]:

Probably. Let me see. Can you talk about the balance of Sci-Fi elements versus the human drama in the show? Like how you interact all the storyline?

Jonathan Glassner [00:32:13]:

Well, for me, it's human drama first. For me, the science fiction is almost an arena to play the human drama in. It shouldn't be the forefront of it. We come up with some really cool Sci-Fi ideas, but it's always with an eye to how will our characters react to that. Right. What would be the most impactful for Garnett? This or this? And we do it that way.

Kim Wannop [00:32:43]:

Yeah, there's such an element, too, of loneliness. I find when you do space storylines, because you're the only one here or we're the only ones around. And I always find that in good storytelling with space themes, it's so essential to grab onto that. Like, we have to band together to stay alive, or we have to do this to keep you safe and everything. And I find that really well done in the series.

Dean Devlin [00:33:16]:

Well, that was a big part of how we designed the spaceship because we wanted a show that was about a group of very different people who are forced together in a contained space. That's a pressure cooker. Right. But at the same time, we also knew we were going to be on the spaceship for the entire series.

Jonathan Glassner [00:33:39]:

So.

Dean Devlin [00:33:40]:

We didn't want it to become Das Boot. We didn't want to become overly claustrophobic.

Kim Wannop [00:33:43]:

Right.

Dean Devlin [00:33:44]:

So we had to design some areas where you felt claustrophobic. But then, as John was just saying, the observation deck, we wanted to open it up, or in the dome, we wanted to have something more organic so that we could do maybe a romantic walk or just a different feeling. So a lot of the choices of what we decided to put into the ship was based on thinking ahead of, all right, if I'm eight episodes into this, am I going stir crazy, or is there enough visual differences that I don't feel claustrophobic?

Kim Wannop [00:34:17]:

Yeah. And to the viewer, too, you see that how the relationship of where they are and what the scene is, whether it's a fight scene or an intimate scene, the surroundings have to lend to that, too. It does help to have some difference, I think, especially that greenhouse being so open, but so alive. There's such life in there and such hope that it's such a good set, really. I really like that one.

Dean Devlin [00:34:49]:

And yet it's a set that, in the context of the story, was never supposed to be what it is. It was supposed to just carry cargo, and then that was going to be jettisoned onto the planet. And it was the creativity of the survivors on the ship who came up with the idea of turning it into a farm. And I think that is the hope of our show. The hope is, are these people going to rise to this occasion and meet the moment and survive? But to do that, they have to become the best versions of themselves.

Kim Wannop [00:35:17]:

I like the characters, too, that they're all different, like the ethnicities and they're coming from the world is being destroyed, and we're all together now. We're not American, we're not Soviet, we're not anything like that. And I feel like that came through, too, a lot of, like, we're people trying to survive. And I really like that aspect of the story.

Jonathan Glassner [00:35:38]:

The advance of shooting in Europe is we could actually use people with different accents and different ethnicities.

Kim Wannop [00:35:45]:

Yeah. And mystery. I think there's just that one flashback to Earth, but with the bar fight. Right. Or is she at a station?

Jonathan Glassner [00:35:55]:

I forget. There's one other one or a series of other ones that take place outside of Trust Industries.

Kim Wannop [00:36:01]:

Oh, right, yes.

Dean Devlin [00:36:04]:

But we never wanted this to become like Lost, where there's a whole parallel flashback story. We want to be on the ship with these people, but there was a few times where we felt like, okay, there's some things we have to explain. We've got to jump back onto Earth just to make the story clearer.

Kim Wannop [00:36:18]:

Yeah.

Dean Devlin [00:36:19]:

But we wanted to be very judicious of when we did that.

Kim Wannop [00:36:24]:

Do you have any good behind the scenes or antidote funny stories besides that mass falling off? That was pretty fun.

Dean Devlin [00:36:35]:

Well, to be outside of Trust Industries, for instance, this was a thing where we knew we wanted to do that, but the idea of trying to do a shoot outside of the stages on this show was almost, like, impossible. And there was actually a facade left over from a miniseries that was shot. So I showed it to John. I said, John, do you think this kid, he's like, yeah, we could do it. So we literally was directly across the street from our sound stage oh, that's fantastic.

Jonathan Glassner [00:37:06]:

Paint on it and put a green screen for the other side of the car window, and there we were.

Kim Wannop [00:37:12]:

That's what I was thinking. Well, they don't really need location managers.

Dean Devlin [00:37:17]:

We save on that.

Kim Wannop [00:37:18]:

Yeah. How did you come up with the premise of this show?

Dean Devlin [00:37:24]:

It started with a lunch I had with a man named Michael Wright who used to run TNT when I did the leverage in the librarians there. And we were just reminiscing about the type of science fiction shows that we really loved. And Michael was saying, I would so love to see another show about a group of people all confined on a spaceship, going to some destination with a hope of a new beginning. And then we just started reminiscing about all the shows that made us want to make television. And after that meeting, I kept thinking, yeah, I've always wanted to do a space show, but if I were going to do one, what would be the take that would make it different? Why should you watch this one if you've already seen all the others? And that's when this idea came about of, okay, but what if the people on the ship are not the people who are meant to run the ship? That all the people that were meant to run the ship. All the teachers, all the engineers, all the scientists. What if they were all killed in a terrible accident in the first scene, and now everybody who's left has to step into these roles that they weren't really prepared for? And that became really kind of exciting. And when I pitched that to John, that's what he jumped on. And then we just started rolling with that.

Kim Wannop [00:38:40]:

The element of you're not supposed to be here. You didn't really have this much responsibility, and now you're in charge is terrifying. And flying a ship through space and that is thrown at you. That first episode, it really is such a set up of, what are these people in for? It's fantastic.

Jonathan Glassner [00:39:04]:

Yeah.

Dean Devlin [00:39:04]:

I mean, there's this moment in the pilot where they're trying to debug the system to figure out why the air is being lost. And Garnett yells at Bryce, and Bryce is like, I'm a navigation guy. This is not my area. I have no idea how to run this thing. That's really kind of the whole show. But they're educated people. They're talented people. They were meant to one day become this. But I can play tennis, and when I'm playing with some friends, I can play. Okay, but if you threw me into Wimbledon yeah. No matter what, I know it'd be worthless. So these people, they're not dummies, but they're also not prepared. And not just intellectually, but emotionally, because the pressure of the situation there's so many times you'll watch tips and, well, why didn't they think of this? Because they can't even believe they're in that chair, is why they didn't think of this or that. And that's, I think, the Achilles heel of these characters, which makes it scary to watch their adventure, but as they come up with their solutions, that's also what makes it hopeful and uplifting.

Kim Wannop [00:40:10]:

And I really like that. It's like time goes by. It's not just like, oh, this is a week of their life. This is like time going by, trying to figure out this problem. It's not having the Doctor have an addiction problem in the middle of all of this is very like, that probably happens. The stress probably gets to a lot of people, and that probably happens on.

Dean Devlin [00:40:35]:

A lot of these serialized shows on streamers. It's a very slow peeling of the end. It's a very slow rollout of the plot and the story. And John and I made a very conscious effort to do the exact opposite on this. We wanted every episode to be so filled with twists and turns and energy that you're exhausted after each episode.

Kim Wannop [00:40:58]:

Yeah, thank you for that. Because sometimes there are some shows I don't know. I know my tension span isn't as long as it used to be or something. I don't know. I stayed with Er for 14 years or whatever, and now I get, like, two episodes into something, I'm like, I can't do it. Yeah. This show definitely keeps moving, which is nice. And problems get solved. And problems occur and problems get solved. Is it twelve episodes or it's twelve?

Dean Devlin [00:41:34]:

Tonight is the penultimate episode, and next week is the finale.

Kim Wannop [00:41:39]:

I know. I thought it was ten and then I was like, oh, good. I'll have seen the finale when I talk to you. And now I'm super bummed that I don't get to talk to you about it.

Dean Devlin [00:41:51]:

Have to invite us back.

Kim Wannop [00:41:52]:

I know. I'll be watching. I want to try to get Randall to talk and then have this kind of split together just so he can talk about it. And maybe after the finale, I'll get to chat with him about it.

Dean Devlin [00:42:05]:

You should.

Kim Wannop [00:42:06]:

Yeah. How do you see I know this is a big question, but I thought since I had two of you here, how do you see science fiction, the genre evolving in our future because we're not where we are with the Jetsons. The Jetsons had us way advanced of where we should be now, but with what you can do digitally and how you can write and how you can write these big arcs of shows and everything. How do you see Sci-Fi evolving with that?

Jonathan Glassner [00:42:40]:

Well, what's interesting is a lot of what was science fiction has become science fact now. I guess it's probably what's always been true with science fiction. If you go back and look at, like, 1950s science fiction, they were predicting things that would be happening in 2000, and it happened probably sooner than 2000. And I'm sure that what we're saying, what we're writing is going to be dated, but I still want my flying cars. Yes. Things are moving so fast now that when we started our mission to Proxima B, while we were shooting, the Web telescope found more planets that are closer.

Kim Wannop [00:43:26]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [00:43:26]:

So we're like, yeah, what are you going to do?

Kim Wannop [00:43:31]:

Yeah. The James Webb telescope is, like, amazing. And I feel so lucky only just getting into this Sci-Fi. I follow every astronaut, I follow all these Mars. I'm so into it now. I just love that it's all there and accessible to us. And I feel like that must be so inspiring as Sci-Fi writers.

Jonathan Glassner [00:43:58]:

It is, but it also makes it challenging. I wanted to write a story, maybe, where the computer becomes intelligent, then Chat GPT comes out and I'm like, that's dated. That won't work anymore.

Kim Wannop [00:44:12]:

Right.

Dean Devlin [00:44:13]:

But I think the real fun of science fiction is not really the science. It's to take the issues that are difficult to talk about today over your dinner table at Thanksgiving and to put it into a context where suddenly you can have that conversation with people because it's more theoretical, it's more about the ideas as opposed to the specifics, which makes things very difficult to talk about. My mother was a guest star on the very original Star Trek, so I was watching that as a child. And when I look back at it now, I realized every episode was either about the Vietnam War or it was about race relations, but I didn't realize it at the time. It was just a cool Sci-Fi show, but it tribbles.

Kim Wannop [00:44:58]:

Tribbles? Yeah. Well, that guy I heard the story about the guy just making that up. I don't know. I'm a governor in my peer group at the committee, and we're making up 75 most impactful moments of television for the last 75 years because it's the Academy's 75th anniversary. And one in my group. We're trying to think of sets that influenced and everything, and one that keeps popping up is like, well, it's Star Trek, or you have to bring on that Sci-Fi element, what influenced that?

Kim Wannop [00:45:39]:

And you're like, well, Star I mean, Deep Space Nine.

Kim Wannop [00:45:42]:

Like, you think about all of these great sets that influence from Sci-Fi. So we're definitely trying to get those in there because it's impactful. Those sets are impactful, and they've been copied and copied and copied.

Dean Devlin [00:45:57]:

It's true.

Kim Wannop [00:46:00]:

How did you guys start out? How'd you get into this?

Dean Devlin [00:46:07]:

I'm the son of a movie producer and an actress. So I grew up on movie sets. When my friends wanted to be cowboys or astronauts or firemen, I just wanted to make movies. So that's kind of just been my whole life.

Kim Wannop [00:46:21]:

You're into it.

Jonathan Glassner [00:46:23]:

Like him, I started out as an actor was terrible. He was good. I was terrible. So I quickly moved behind the camera and studied that in film school and just kept pursuing it. So I eventually sold my first script and kept going that way.

Kim Wannop [00:46:40]:

I could never be a writer. It's hard enough just to write these questions that they don't sound stupid.

Dean Devlin [00:46:49]:

Writing is like being in space. It's a lonely job.

Kim Wannop [00:46:54]:

Well, I think, too, with writers, you sit around that production table and they hand out the scripts, and then everyone just dives in and kind of tears it apart in a good way of like, well, what does this mean to costumes? What does this mean to me? And when you're writing the stories, I know that you're thinking about these things, but you're not really. You're thinking about maybe the acting and the directing and how is this scene going to take place and what is it leading to and what is in my storytelling? So I always think it's hard when we sit around the table and we're kind of like, what? Why does she get a raincoat? Or like, why is she but I.

Dean Devlin [00:47:38]:

Think those are the discussions, though, that really help you, because so often as a writer, you'll write something, and in your mind, it makes complete and perfect sense. And then you'll get to the table and people go, well, wait a minute. And in your ability to defend what you're doing, you start to see it more clearly, or you realize that you.

Jonathan Glassner [00:47:56]:

Need to change it.

Dean Devlin [00:47:57]:

Exactly because you can't defend it. I think that process is enormously helpful. And you're right. In the beginning, it's, what's the most important thing for the character? What's the most important thing for the plot? What's the most important thing for the emotional resonance of the story? But then the practical realities start to show up. It's like, okay, well, I can't do the thing I wanted. What can I do that still has that emotional resonance? And then suddenly your costume person says, well, what if we went a totally different way and did this? Oh, that's actually a better idea than what I thought. So that evolution. It's a cliche that filmmaking is a collaborative business, but it is, and that's what makes it great.

Kim Wannop [00:48:36]:

I think I can't agree more. I think we're all spokes in the wheel, even grips, you got to give them some props. They cannot have a grip.

Dean Devlin [00:48:46]:

On our show. When we were originally talking about the spacesuits, obviously, our head goes to the NASA bulky, big, giant thing. And it was our brilliant costume designer, Ivana who called us up and said, have you seen what they're working on at MIT and she showed us these things that are constriction suits that are supposed to be lighter and more flexible. And she goes, Well, I was thinking of doing a variation of this. And then not only did we like what she was doing visually, but it changed how we wrote it.

Kim Wannop [00:49:14]:

Yeah, that's the thing, too. When we do our homework, it helps you in a sense of writing and story and everything, too, because you can't do it all. I can't do it all. I have people in my department also who come up and look at this. Look at this plant holder I found that hangs or whatever it is. And costumes, I know that they went through many variations and everything about what is it going to be and getting away from the bulkiness. And they're at a point now where it's not as Sci-Fi because they're only in the ten s or 2004 sorry, so they're not up to cool shit there. It's still like a base of reality. So they have to limit themselves a little bit, which is a bummer, because I can't wait to see this show. I don't want to work. I can't wait to see season seven, but it's going to be really hard. No, I would love to do it.

Dean Devlin [00:50:17]:

So deciding design versus the reality of the world you're trying to create. One of the things early on, we started to have very much sci-fi looking designs presented. And Jonathan and I talked about it and we said, in the reality of our show, which is only 100 years from now, they're on spaceships because Earth is about to die. Which meant that they knew that probably 2030 years earlier, when you know the Earth is about to die, you're not really designing the next cool iPhone. You're not designing all ingenuity goes to, can we save the planet or can we get off the planet? And so things that where we spend a lot of attention on now, fashion or things like that would fall to the wayside when there's this worldwide fire that has to either be put out or you've got to get out. So when we were making choices, we kept thinking, well, would the energy have gone there if it weren't for something other than a practical reason? Would energy go there just for design work? And we leaned against it. So there was some design work, but we really tried to make it more about where they put their focus and what their particular priorities were.

Kim Wannop [00:51:33]:

Because you got to live. If you're leaving your planet, your goal is to live.

Dean Devlin [00:51:43]:

When we think of space travel today, or air travel in general, we're thinking about a very highly regulated industry where you can't build something unless NASA approves it or the government. But in the reality of our show, we thought, okay, this is 100 years later from today, where all of space travel is controlled by billionaires. So all the choices are done by the billionaires and their sense of priority, not by any regulations or any government telling them what they can or cannot do. So in one regard, there'll be enormous innovation in areas that might get suppressed, but in other areas where it would be so simple to just protect someone the billionaire might not have thought it was important or didn't want to spend the money on.

Kim Wannop [00:52:23]:

Right. Well, it's so funny you say that, because I rewatched Stargate yesterday, and I was like, Wait a minute. These archaeologists found us stuff, and then the government just took over? You can't work on that anymore. You can't say that. He's not top secret. He doesn't have clearance. I was like, that's real bullshit. No wonder Elon Musk does his own shit now. Wow. We did all this work finding this.

Dean Devlin [00:52:50]:

And you kick it's the pluses and minus. Like, on our ship, they can go across the galaxy and travel farther than anyone else in history, but they also don't have simple alarms when a door brush open.

Kim Wannop [00:53:03]:

Right.

Dean Devlin [00:53:05]:

It wasn't something that this billionaire thought was important.

Kim Wannop [00:53:09]:

Yeah, it is a give and take. I don't know which ship I'd feel safer.

Kim Wannop [00:53:20]:

God, I wish you could tell me the ending.

Kim Wannop [00:53:24]:

No ending. No, I want to watch it. No, I want to watch it. I want to watch it.

Dean Devlin [00:53:30]:

Ending is really good.

Kim Wannop [00:53:32]:

I'm sure it is.

Dean Devlin [00:53:33]:

I wrote it. He directed it. Oh, JC is a wonderful writer. But I'll tell you this I had seen because we're working on the show through editing and effects. I'd seen the episode, I don't know, ten times.

Kim Wannop [00:53:46]:

Right.

Dean Devlin [00:53:47]:

And just a little over a week ago, I finally saw the final final version with the final music, the final effect, and it hit me like a punch in the gut. It was so much more powerful than it had been up until every stage until then. And I immediately called him up and cursed him out for being a better director than me. It's really good. I'm really proud of the finale. I think you're going to get a big kick out of it, and I think there'll be some good surprises in it.

Kim Wannop [00:54:15]:

Okay. That must be such a fulfilling feeling, too, because from concept to the final episode of the season, having all the layers on top of it, it's got to be so exciting.

Jonathan Glassner [00:54:29]:

You know what? I'm such a cynical guy. I don't know if it's cynical is the right word, but it's not relieving for me, because then I'm like, okay, so we set that up. Now what are we going to do next season? That worked really well, but it kind of wrote us into a corner. Now what are we going to do? Which is what you want to do, but it's still you want to point where the audience is wondering what we're going to do next.

Kim Wannop [00:54:52]:

Are you picked up for a second season?

Dean Devlin [00:54:54]:

As of 15 minutes ago, it was just announced.

Kim Wannop [00:54:57]:

Really? Congratulations. Well, then you better get to work. You got to yeah, we are. That's fantastic. Congratulations. Not know is always, like, terrifying. Just tell me yes or no. Like, are we coming back or do I clean up my office or not?

Dean Devlin [00:55:20]:

It was a very happy celebration for us. And with the actors, they are so excited to get back in space again.

Kim Wannop [00:55:25]:

Oh, that's fantastic. I'm happy about that. As a viewer, I'm really happy that I'll get to continue on with them. Let me see. Do you have a favorite aspect of working on the show? Is it delivering the script? Is it directing?

Jonathan Glassner [00:55:46]:

It's all fun for me. I love seeing what the actors are going to do with what we've written because they always do something a little different than you'd expect because they're good actors. I love working on the visual effects, stressful sometimes because we're in such a hurry, but I love seeing when, you know, when they send us that shot and it's like, wow, that's what we imagined. That's so cool. That's always fun.

Dean Devlin [00:56:20]:

I think, for me, my favorite part is when we're here at our office in the screening room, watching pretty close to a final version of an episode and just feeling like, wow, we did it. We like that show.

Kim Wannop [00:56:34]:

I wrote that sentence and somebody said it, and somebody did it, and somebody lit it and somebody designed that's. Fantastic.

Dean Devlin [00:56:44]:

Again, we were talking about this earlier, but the first time you walk on a set of something that you had imagined, it's like walking into a dream that became real.

Kim Wannop [00:56:53]:

Yeah.

Dean Devlin [00:56:54]:

Because you dreamt something and you dreamt it was going to look a certain way, and suddenly you walk in there and it's like, this looks even better than my dream.

Kim Wannop [00:57:01]:

Well, that's always good.

Dean Devlin [00:57:02]:

It's a very exciting feeling.

Kim Wannop [00:57:05]:

Have you ever walked into a set and said no?

Dean Devlin [00:57:09]:

Lots of times.

Kim Wannop [00:57:10]:

Yeah.

Dean Devlin [00:57:11]:

John and I go, all right, what do we do? How do we put some stuff on the wall? Can we do some harsher lighting?

Kim Wannop [00:57:18]:

Yeah. It doesn't always work out.

Dean Devlin [00:57:23]:

There's how much time you have there's, how much money you have when something didn't work out or the contract materials didn't show up. And now you're trying to do something on the fly, or sometimes we had had this original idea on how the sleeping pods in the pilot were going to open, and we thought, for sure it's going to be great. Then the first day we went to do it, and it was like, all right, put some fishing wire on it, and we're going to pull it like this.

Jonathan Glassner [00:57:50]:

Often.

Kim Wannop [00:57:51]:

Lead astray I was actually going to ask about that. How many were there? Was there 16? And then that was and then they and then they yeah, those were great.

Dean Devlin [00:58:02]:

Those are cool, right?

Kim Wannop [00:58:03]:

Yeah. Didn't look creaky at all. It looked fantastic. I enjoyed that. And I also enjoyed that. I feel like you kind of know, like, oh, they're on the different ships, but you guys are using the same ship and the walls are a little different, or whatever. They're the same. But I also felt like with the episode, when they go and they find all those dead people, it had a different feeling. I felt like the lighting was done really well to capture that this is a different ship, this is a different situation. Shit's gone wrong here.

Jonathan Glassner [00:58:41]:

Our director of photography came up with a whole new lighting plan at set, and it really helped, really made it work.

Dean Devlin [00:58:50]:

He's a very special guy.

Kim Wannop [00:58:52]:

Yeah. There's just enough atmosphere. The shadows are really good. Intense. In those scenes, I didn't feel like I was on the same ship, which is good. Yeah. I also felt like the design with all the lighting wasn't like Star Wars replica. It's hard to get away from that. Let's be honest. Everything you want to design gets away from it. I thought it was integrating all those light panels and everything looked really well, and people were well lit.

Dean Devlin [00:59:27]:

It's very hard to, on one hand, make it familiar enough that people know what it is and yet make it original up. That doesn't feel like you've seen it a million times. One of the things that I was fighting for very early on in the design was this idea that the air tanks would actually be part of the helmet. And we went through, like, 30 different designs before we got one that we fell in love with. But the early designs was like, what are we doing? Just put it on the back, make it like everybody else. But when we got it, we felt like, okay, you can look at it, you can pretty much guess what that is. And it made sense. And it made sense for our story that they needed the helmets for air.

Kim Wannop [01:00:01]:

Right. I think those helmets are really good because there's enough that you're seeing the actor and it still looks functional. I thought that they were really well done.

Dean Devlin [01:00:18]:

Yeah, our costume designer really was in charge of that. I mean, normally that would be under production, but she took it on. And like I said, we did many designs until we got it, but when she nailed it, we were jumping up and down.

Kim Wannop [01:00:32]:

Yeah, I bet.

Jonathan Glassner [01:00:34]:

Now we have three weeks to manufacture them all.

Kim Wannop [01:00:37]:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I'm sure she was really glad when you said yes, because now we got a race to get them done.

Dean Devlin [01:00:45]:

I know you have to manufacture everything. You can't just go to the Sci-Fi store and pick up little Sci-Fi props. It's like every single thing has to be made and designed.

Kim Wannop [01:00:56]:

Chairs. I had many chairs made and tables. I ripped off some Ikea designs, but then we still had them made so they would be intricate into our world.

Dean Devlin [01:01:09]:

You start with a base of something that you can buy and then you have to augment it.

Kim Wannop [01:01:12]:

Yeah. I love it, though. I think it really pushes us all to design and think about function and form. And you can't just have something hanging out. And it's hard too, because then there's like dead space and you don't usually want that, but people only bring up a backpack. Like, what else are you going to put there? I thought the design and the palette and everything and very well lit. Again, I thought it was done really well. Is there anything, Dean, that you do you have any sort of, like Easter eggs that you put into your shows from other projects?

Dean Devlin [01:01:59]:

All the time. You do all the time. There's a really great little community that has popped up around the Arc and some of my other shows, and they're like, detectives for those Easter eggs. Find them. It's great on this one. This was not an Easter egg I made, but from Jonathan but the name of the Clampkins disease. So many people were like, dying to know where did that name come.

Jonathan Glassner [01:02:28]:

That season? We had to write on Zoom because of COVID And you know how right on the bottom of the screen, like we have right here are the names. And one of our writers name was Kendall Lampkin. And it always came up as Kay Lampkin. And then at the joke, I started calling him Clampkin. And then when we needed a name for the disease, I said, do you mind if we call it that?

Kim Wannop [01:02:54]:

See that? That's creativity right in front of you. You just grab it and go do you think that the Arc can spit off into like, just Arc 15 show? And just because you because Stargate has so many elements to it now in how many years and how many I mean, the series went like ten seasons, right? The longevity of the storylines are amazing.

Dean Devlin [01:03:24]:

Well, again, that's the fun of genre entertainment is you can create a universe in which your concept exists in and then not only does that spur stories for that show, but it also spurs stories for other shows where it feels organic. I mean, that's why the Marvel universes work and the Star Wars universes work. There's so many different aspects of that fantasy that you'd love to see from different angles, different perspectives.

Kim Wannop [01:03:53]:

Yeah.

Kim Wannop [01:03:54]:

Are you watching anything right now that you love and adore and isn't inspiring?

Jonathan Glassner [01:04:03]:

Picard, for me, could be the Sci-Fi show right now.

Kim Wannop [01:04:06]:

The card.

Jonathan Glassner [01:04:07]:

Season three. Season three is amazing.

Kim Wannop [01:04:09]:

Oh, wow.

Jonathan Glassner [01:04:10]:

And succession.

Kim Wannop [01:04:13]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [01:04:14]:

Episode was probably the best hour of television I think I've ever seen.

Dean Devlin [01:04:17]:

And the last of us. I like to, but yeah, the same prices.

Kim Wannop [01:04:23]:

Secession. Let me just say, don't you think we all knew he was going to go because it's called secession, but you kind of just didn't.

Dean Devlin [01:04:33]:

Think he was going to take this.

Jonathan Glassner [01:04:33]:

Many seasons, but I thought the way they did it was brilliant.

Kim Wannop [01:04:38]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [01:04:40]:

I said to the writers in the restroom, I said, a hack like me would have written. They're at a board table and he goes, and they didn't even show him die. They didn't even show him on camera.

Kim Wannop [01:04:51]:

I know.

Jonathan Glassner [01:04:53]:

It was all from the perspective of the kids. It was just amazing.

Kim Wannop [01:04:56]:

And then didn't you kind I kind of thought, it's not real. He just wants to hear how they feel. Yeah. That was really well done.

Dean Devlin [01:05:08]:

It's a brilliantly made show.

Kim Wannop [01:05:10]:

Yeah. The style of it is fantastic. I can't dream about it.

Dean Devlin [01:05:15]:

I'd like to have that budget.

Kim Wannop [01:05:18]:

I don't think they have one.

Dean Devlin [01:05:19]:

If you're impressed with that spaceship map, give me the budget of succession you ever saw.

Kim Wannop [01:05:24]:

I'll tell you what, I don't think they have one. I think they just do what they want and get it going. I think it's fantastic.

Dean Devlin [01:05:31]:

I think super yachts, helicopters shoot all over the world.

Kim Wannop [01:05:37]:

Is there anything in all of TV history that you wish you worked on that you wish you could have written?

Dean Devlin [01:05:48]:

Oh, for me, it's Doctor Who.

Kim Wannop [01:05:49]:

Dr. Who?

Dean Devlin [01:05:51]:

Yeah. That's the show. I wish I came up with it. I freaking love that show.

Kim Wannop [01:05:58]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [01:05:59]:

Well, I became a writer largely from watching the writing on St. Elsewhere, which is probably before your time.

Kim Wannop [01:06:07]:

No, not really.

Jonathan Glassner [01:06:10]:

That was the first television series I saw that. I thought, that's poetry. I mean, that's real writing. That's not just the guy pulls a gun and shoots the bad guy was heavy stuff and really interesting, and I really wanted to write on that show, and right when I got out of college, but it was gone by the time I got out of college.

Kim Wannop [01:06:35]:

That and Hill Street Blues felt like it was dirty or something. Like when you watched it, it was like, oh, this isn't pretty and glossy like Dallas or whatever. It was gritty. Yeah, it was gritty. And then you get the NYPD Blue.

Jonathan Glassner [01:06:50]:

And then you died. They didn't cure everybody. There was never came in there. People had arguments and had problems. They weren't all perfect doctors. They screwed up.

Dean Devlin [01:07:02]:

I was actually a gang member on Till Street Blues.

Kim Wannop [01:07:06]:

Were you really? Oh, my God.

Jonathan Glassner [01:07:08]:

Can't you tell? Doesn't he look like a gang member?

Kim Wannop [01:07:10]:

That's fantastic. That should be number one on your IMDb. Forget that. Independence Day. Well, I was going to ask, do you have anything coming up? But I guess you're going to start writing season two. This is what I want to ask you. So are you in Serbia? Are you in La?

Jonathan Glassner [01:07:34]:

Yeah.

Kim Wannop [01:07:34]:

You're in La.

Dean Devlin [01:07:35]:

Right? We're in La, and then a few weeks before we'll head off to Serbia and set up the new season.

Kim Wannop [01:07:42]:

That's fantastic. And then how long do you think you'll be there?

Jonathan Glassner [01:07:47]:

We commute. We don't stay there. You don't stay patrol shoot for what, five months?

Dean Devlin [01:07:51]:

Yeah, about five months.

Kim Wannop [01:07:52]:

Wow, that's so exciting. Well, I won't spoil it for Randall. I'll let you tell him. I just said to him, we'll have to do some happy hour. And he's like, I'm in Seattle. It's like we'll drink over zoom. I don't care. I'm going to see you.

Dean Devlin [01:08:12]:

Yeah. Alcohol in Seattle, I think.

Kim Wannop [01:08:14]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Glassner [01:08:15]:

Do they?

Dean Devlin [01:08:15]:

I'm not pretty sure of it.

Kim Wannop [01:08:17]:

It's like a distillery and the sky just comes down and they open their mouth. I kept you an hour. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate you just giving me stories and fantastic Sci-Fi for all these years to reference and to be a.

Kim Wannop [01:08:41]:

Great viewer for your work.

Kim Wannop [01:08:43]:

I really appreciate it.

Jonathan Glassner [01:08:45]:

Well, thank you.

Dean Devlin [01:08:46]:

It was fun talking with you.

Kim Wannop [01:08:47]:

Yeah, thank you. And good luck and congrats.

Jonathan Glassner [01:08:50]:

Thank you.

Kim Wannop [01:08:52]:

Take care. Bye. Bye.

Dean Devlin [01:08:54]:

Bye.

Kim Wannop [01:08:59]:

I wish I could have had, like, another hour with both of them because I really wanted to discuss more of their backgrounds. I wanted to discuss Independence Day and Stargate. And I feel sometimes when you ask people about older work, some people ask me about older work and I'm like, yeah, I want to talk about it, but you kind of don't because you want to focus on what you're doing now. But those movies and all these huge blockbusters that they were part of SG One, like I said, there's so many spinners off that show that they have created and developed and directed and written. It's crazy. Had so many questions written down. Like, I had a column for Dean and a column for Jonathan and then about the arc and then about being showrunners. So I had way too many questions. I got lost in my notes.

Kim Wannop [01:09:53]:

So you hear that in there.

Kim Wannop [01:09:55]:

But I think it is important to know about this creative writing side of the business because it's where it all starts. It's an idea that becomes a story, that becomes real to people making it and to people watching it. And it's just an amazing process and definitely part of this magic of working in Hollywood. So him telling the story of meetings and ideas coming out and then developing that idea is just that's creativity at its finest. I mean, you take something and you develop it, and then you put words to it, and then I'm on the set decorating it. It's crazy. It's crazy. So I can't thank them enough for giving me their time. And congratulations on getting a second season. I hope to talk to Randall Groves, the production designer. I didn't get him in time for this interview, but hopefully I'll get him on here at some point. He is fascinating. He is one of the nicest men, I swear, and just super down to earth and good guy. I hope I get to work with him again in the future. So, yeah, if you are not getting my emails about upcoming episodes, please subscribe@decoratingpagespodcast.com. Check out the site. Got some informative blogs on there. And I have a link to the Etsy Shop, the Amazon shop, to see what I purchased on other shows. And that then you could purchase through Amazon and what else I got on there. Cool. Shit. Instagram. The Instagram is doing well. I am super happy with my social media person, Hannah Hall, who has been taking over and just, I think, making it much more colorful and interesting.

Kim Wannop [01:11:55]:

And bravo to her.

Kim Wannop [01:11:58]:

I think she's doing a fantastic job. And it's weird because I have to tell her what I'm watching and how I thought and this and that, and she just has a better way of putting it. And it's visuals. I think she's doing a fantastic job. So check out the Instagram.

Kim Wannop [01:12:16]:

And she's doing some reels on there.

Kim Wannop [01:12:18]:

I've been lacking on my TikTok. I know I've barely been on TikTok, which is kind of a bummer because I really like it. But I've been busy and I start work next week, so so, yeah, busy, busy. And I just had so much time.

Kim Wannop [01:12:38]:

Off and I feel like I'm tired.

Kim Wannop [01:12:42]:

So yeah, there's always that, I guess. So I hope you got an earful. I'm Kim Wan up for decorating pages.