In any event, I am encountering a real stumbling block finishing up everything I want to say about the miniseries, there is just SO MUCH there. But, enough already, I think it's time to move on. Before moving on to "33" I just want to write a little about the way characters and events are filmed. A lot of these techniques or whatever are used in the miniseries and show up consistently throughout the entire series.
For example - I didn't pin this one down right away, but I noticed that a lot of time THINGS or PEOPLE seem to be in the way preventing me from getting a good look at what is going on or who is talking. I finally started making connections in the "Collaborators" episode when Gaeta was about to take a one-way rip out the airlock. When Chief Tyrol is talking to Gaeta someone's leg is in the way, obscuring vertically about 1/4 (maybe more) of the screen. I was like, don't these people know what they are doing? I can't see all of Gaeta's face. But I also felt that I was part of the scene, as if I was seeing things from Tyrol's viewpoint while he is crouched down talking to Gaeta, who is kneeling.
So I went back and started looking consciously for this, especially in episodes I really like, and I found that they do this all the time and have done it since day one of the series. The perspective is often like looking over someone's shoulder (and seeing that shoulder, btw) from the back of the crowd.
For example, in the miniseries, right before the nuke hits Galactica (scene 11), there are actually three times, one right after the other, where someone walks in front of Adama as he says, "Brace for contact my friend." Try stepping through the scene and you will see that I'm right. I noticed this when I watched the scene at full speed, but I had something of a visceral reaction. It was only when I started thinking about the way I perceived these scenes that I started to try and figure out how they did it. In any event, this is what happens in real life, you look at someone or something and someone walks in front of you. It gives a real "you are there" feeling as you watch the action.
I would have loved to see them rehearse the scenes in the CIC when the nuke hits, because I think they are really well choreographed. Now, I am assuming that they didn't shake the whole set (as if), so the entire cast must have rehearsed falling and jolting at the same time, because it is really convincing. Moreover there a lot of different shots of the scene so that you view everyone falling from different angles. I kept trying to find a snippet where someone's timing is off, but there just didn't seem to be any. The same thing happens on the hangar deck, when the arm and then the body of a figure off-camera falls into the frame. The result is pretty convincing.
It's fun to compare this to the original Star Trek, when a siren wails and everybody pretends to be jolted side to side. Even back in the sixties it looked pretty silly.
Galactica also uses a lot of hand-held camera type stuff (hey, I am not terribly astute about what these things are called, I just know the effects that they achieve), which creates something of a documentary feel to the show. They are taking a completely artificial environment in a place that is not quite like ours, and giving it a very strong sense of authenticity.
I learned a lot about this approach to filming by watching an excellent, extremely underrated film called "Children of Men" (directed by Alfonso Cuaron), which, coincidentally, is about a speculative not-too-distant future when the human race is on the verge of extinction. That movie has a LOT of scenes with handheld cameras, and I really felt pulled in to the action and the experiences of the characters (the opening scene of walking away from a coffee bar that is suddenly blown up by terrorists is riveting).
Towards the end of the film there is a really long, unbroken sequence where the lead character, Theo, is running through a firefight to get to a building that is under siege. They filmed it with the cameraman running alongside the actor (Clive Owen). Sometimes you can see Theo, and sometimes you can't see him but you can hear him breathing while he is running and you can can experience some of the terror and confusion directly from his point of view. The net effect is to break down the barrier between spectator and participant.
It was pretty interesting to learn how they filmed this scene. Apparently they did a lot of rehearsals because it was so expensive and difficult to rebuild the set after every attempt. I think it took 3 or 4 tries, and in one of the unsuccessful attempts the cameraman actually fell while running (please don't quote me, I just don't have the energy to re-locate the reference for this information). On the last try something red splashes on the lens of the camera when Theo is running through a wrecked bus filled with people trying to hide from the shooting. Cuaron was like, "oh no, we have to do it again," and everyone else said no, this is really great, so they kept it. It adds a lot to the documentary feel.
In fact, as I write this, it suddenly occurs to me that Galactica and "Children of Men" are both about apocalyptic "what-if" situations, and they both use the same techniques to add verisimilitude to what is otherwise a totally artificial construct. The effect of all this camera work is to give an element of gritty reality and draw the viewer in to the action. The setting of Galactica, while not entirely unfamiliar, is nevertheless sufficiently different so that we recognize early and often that this is NOT our world. These effects mitigate the difference by conveying a recognizable documentary evening-news type feel to the series. I think it works really well and, in a lot of ways, Galactica feels more like news than like a television show.
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