FYI:
I guess the main
style I was trying for with this episode was The Matrix.
The orange hood Nic
is wearing is the same as the one Ghost wears in Part 11.
Oh my God, Kahn the
bad guy is Marshella, the guy we thought was the good guy. We kept
it a secret for 13 episodes. If this was a surprise to you, I
guess you weren't watching close enough.
I've always wanted
to see a bad guy sing and dance before he killed someone. I'm not
sure if I saw it in another movie, but I just like the idea.
We weren't sure of
the lyrics, so we listened to the song on Nathan's computer and then
went out and film Nick singing it. The problem was that the
version I had was a little different, that's the only reason why Nick is
off beat with the song. I think it almost makes it better though.
I love the second
shot of Nic's face when Blough is singing because it almost looks like
Nic is really liking the song and dance that Blough has. I also
liked the scene where Nic turned is head to listen, not even paying
attention to Blough, but Blough is so into the song that he doesn't
notice.
I also really like
how after we know that Tim and David Igby are going to save Nic, and
that a lot of stuff is about to happen, when we cut back to Nick, he is
still dancing, but with even more effort now.
All of the sound
effects for this episode were either re-dubbed or specifically made.
Jordan, Emu, and
Nick all got hit in the balls while filming, Eric was hit by Blough on
the first scene, and then he hit himself trying to demonstrate a move.
Nick racked himself while performing his first move with the stick, and
Jordan just about impaled himself.
Nathan fighting Nic
and the Jordan and Emu fighting Nick were both filmed at separate times,
like a couple of weeks apart. Even Nic and Nathan's fight was
separated into two scenes that we filmed separately. So the
continuity was challenging. You should notice that if you watch
the background carefully, you will see that at the beginning, there is
some vegetation, in the middle, there is a little more, during the duel
there is very little, and at the end there is a lot. This just
shows what order we filmed the scenes in.
A
good-old-fashioned duel was something that I wanted to do early on.
It was not intended to be the last main fight though, there were about 2
or 3 major scenes left to be filmed, but due to a lack of time and
enthusiasm, we all agreed to cut them out. We did film most of one
of the scenes, and we did save it.
With the duel, I
was mainly looking to film something that was almost symmetrically
perfect.
The inserts we have
of the coin were filmed at least a month and a half after we filmed the
original scene.
The final montage:
A remembering the old times before Nathan became evil. I really
like that scene just because the footage is from the first couple of
episodes and it helps to put the whole series into perspective,
especially for us since we filmed it almost a year ago. I'm not
going to cry when I watch it, but I think it is kinda sad to see what
happened to Nathan.
The main reason why
I had Nic have the flashbacks was to show that he wasn't just another
hero, that he was a regular guy and that he did have feelings. He
was sad when Josh died, and he was also sad about Nathan as well.
At one point, I
though it would be cool if instead of fading away, Nathan disappeared in
the pixelating way with the electricity sound effect, to suggest that he
may or may not be dead, and that he is being transported somewhere.
But I thought the audience would need at least a little closure with the
character, so I just had him fade away, he's dead forever.
The end of the Saga
seems to confuse some people. Basically, after Nic says there's
been enough fighting and leaves Jordan and Emu, I wanted the viewer to
be a little confused. The next shots are of Jordan and Emu (still
working together) making a deal with this guy for some guns. It's
obviously an illegal deal since they are dealing in the middle of
nowhere and out of this guys trunk. So at this point, I wanted the
viewer to think that maybe Jordan and Emu became somewhat bad guys
because they didn't have anything to do, and Tim is obviously a bad guy.
Next, Tim pulls a gun and Emu jumps right in, which should suggest that
both Tim the tennis pro and David Igby are at least prepared for some
bad stuff to go down. Jordan then says he's got to check it with
the boss who we find out is Nic. Jordan asks him if he is ready.
When they pull the guns out and point them in the direction of Tim, I
though it was clear that the whole thing was basically a sting and that
they really are going to continue to fight. Since nic is the
ultimate good guy and Jordan and Emu are still working with him, I
though that people would understand when the good guys point the gun at
the bad guy, it turns out the whole thing was just staged, but I guess
it just went over some people's heads, which is my fault.
We started filming
The Saga at the beginning of June of 2004, just shortly after
graduation. It took us just over a year to complete it. I
had a lot of fun and The Saga was a good creative outlet for me.
Nic, Nathan, Andy,
Nick, Jordan, Pat, Taylor, Emu, and Tim were all a lot of fun to film
with and I miss not filming The Saga with them.