Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming Production Notes
This is the best-known project I’ve been involved with, covered in both TV GUIDE and PEOPLE MAGAZINE. It was shown all over the world at conventions to thousands of people, though it remains officially unavailable to own. The producer of the new series told me that this trailer was responsible for ultimately getting a new series going. That was the goal of the trailer so it achieved what it set out to do.
Richard Hatch wanted to try to bring back this show and, as it turned out, had found a number of actors and crew people who had the budget know how to get it done. He first brought on producer Johnnie Young and not long after I joined Hatches’ crusade.
Hatch had met a number of CG people and also had help from fans with costumes etc. This was a great benefit and a large hassle of keeping things focused toward a common goal and keeping people who were not used to production not feeling totally left out of the process. For me this was a bit frustrating but there was much to be learned here about dealing with process shots and animatics of scenes. Much of what I’d learned from working on Titanic with computer artists I used here. It’s a whole different world in computer generated imagery and I learned that what one person says is impossible, the next will be an expert at. You have to somehow make your vision clear in the face of the occasional false technical limitations thrown up in your path.
The rest is history, current history as the new series begins its third season. The story the media wanted was “has been star makes trailer on his own.”
It was unfortunate the story wasn’t, “indie filmmakers prove they can make a trailer slick enough to rally the fans around forgotten show and bring it back.” There are however, a growing number of people who worked on the trailer working on the current show itself.
Regardless of all the controversy, I am pleased with what I learned and executed working with the omni dominant form of special effects these days, CGI.