#which is the funniest part becuase HOW AND WHY DO YOU KNOW THAT | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starry-blue-echoes · 1 year ago

Text

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I love the idea of Risotto having the power of Spiney. If I can throw my own two cents in, my first idea was to make him some kind of sea urchin, just to give him a little bit of poison, but the idea of combining that with some pufferfish is too goo to pass up. Maybe for some Extra Fucked Up Horror Bits, the spikes just kinda..... slide out of his skin. He doesn't puff up very much because of his size so just looks like hundreds of needles are sliding out of his skin (it wrecks absolute hell on his clothes though, which is why he prefers to wear loose fitting clothes if he has to (cough skirts and capes cough)). Maybe to get away with more bits of transformation, he could have some mer blood in her? Not enough to full transform, but enough to give him some of the abilities, and to explain why he's So Goddamn Tall

For Prosciutto, technically Fugo's already a reef stonefish, but the sea has no shortage of poinsonous animals to pick some, or we could even just. Make him a different kind of stone fish. And Ghiaccio is just one big fucking Y E S. This man is basically immune to any kind of cold and he's living for it. With Melone, I personally have a..... h u g e bias becuase I Fucking Love Manta Rays, and for shits and giggles I lowkey wana give him little antenae nubs Just Because. He's also the team naviagtor, but it took some time to figure out how to explain his Vibes to everyone else

With Formaggio I just had. The funniest idea, but in order for it to work he's going to need to be at least a half blooded mer: what if his mer transformation makes him smaller. With almost every other mer of his age, they would grow to at least some amount, but because of the kind of fish he turn into he ends up shrinking down instead. It's super helpful for sneaking him into places, but also a bit of a sore spot for him

And while I'm similarly lost to what to do with Illuso, you read my fucking mind with Pesci. Maybe he and Prosciutto were part of a family that specialized in hunting mers, but for some reason or another the two brothers ended up breaking off (Prosciutto thinks it's very ironic how things turned out for them). And despite his nerves and fears, Pesci is actually really good at hunting and knows a..... concerning amount of things about the subject

you know that one friend who knows Way Too Much about how to kill a person? Yeah that's Pesci but specifically with mers. For shits and giggles I like to imagine that he's surprisingly Calm whenever he talks about the best ways to hunt, corner, and secure various kinds of mers. Like, he knows the best ways to hunt one with spines vs snake like ones vs very fast ones, etc etc, which leads to exchanges like:

Pesci: *explains something or other about the specific of dismembering a mer to maximize how much you can carry back while still priotizing the best parts*

Risotto and Formaggio, the only blooded mers on the team who didn't know that there was a specific set of glands in their bodies that was worth more than they made in a year that MANY people would kill for because it makes really nice perfume: well okay then :)

okay so I went on a walk and my brain started rotating the Merstars AU SO hard so I'm just going to yeet a bunch of random bullet point thoughts that I came up with and see what comes out of it-

the "world" the AU takes place isn't really like "real" life and is instead a super huge archipelago with hundreds of thousands of islands of varying sizes and kinds

Mers and other various Sea Magics are pretty well known as A Thing That Exists. Is it accepted? Depends on the location and the people, and Mer Hunters are unfortunately a pretty common thing, but it's slowly started dying out. This is actually thanks to Speedwagon since after Jonathan's death he started trying to use his influence as a Very Important Wealthy Merchant to change public opinion, and it's actually been working

Jonathan was a pretty well loved and very social member of the mers. He wasn't their leader by any means, but almost every mer in the archipelago knew about him, and his murder pissed a LOT of people off. Luckily thanks to Speedwagon, since then relations have gone from "it's on fucking sight" to "don't approach me and I won't approach you"

Morioh is one of the more isolated islands and a bit of an exception to the above thing, being the most accepting island in the whole archipelago. Honestly, at this point like half the town has at least a little mer blood in them, but they are primarily human passing. There are a couple of full blooded or half blooded mers that hang around, but Josuke was one of the first ones born in the town in a long while

currently debating how exactly the Morioh Trio are gonna be, since I want them to be a "full blood, half blood, human" trio for the funnsies, but other than Josuke I don't know which should be which. My current thought process is 1) Okuyasu is the full blooded and when he was younger he had a run in with Hunters which is where his scars came from since his dad more or less just fucked off and left him at their mercy at which Keicho had to save him which led to the two of the moving to Morioh, Koichi is the human and is Their Little Guy, is super familiar with how to work around mers and climbs them like a god damn jungle gyms, or 2) Koichi is the full blood and a really small mer but still Big for humans, he's a cuttlefish, got separated from his family when he was little which led to him being adopted by the Human Hiroses and Okuyasu is human and the resident Normie Guy, he's recently moved to Morioh and is getting used to how Positive human mer relations are here

still trying to figure out how the Stand Arrows work, since Stands..... aren't really a thing now. Probably some kind of super powerful Sea Magic thing going on, maybe turn partial mers/humans into full blooded ones?

the "Italy" of this world is a collection of islands that are under Passione's control, aka a group of pirates that have a literal fleet. Diavolo and Doppio are brothers, with Diavolo being a half-mer (maybe lion fish? I'm still deciding tho) and Doppio being a full human. Doppio is the face of the operation, but his brother is always lurking in the depths below the ship and even makes a couple appearances as the True Boss in human form. Trish is by extension 1/4 mer and they want to kill her so the truth about Diavolo won't get out

Passione, despite all the shitty stuff they do, is actually a surprising area of Human Mer teamwork. There are a lot of hybrids and even full blooded mers to the point they're almost the majority. For the most part people don't care what you are as long as you get your job done, and honestly if what they did wasn't drug trade and trafficking, they'd be pretty cool

the Bucci Gang don't have a whole lot of mer blood, and any they do have is pretty distant to the point they're almost human save for a couple little features (they also don't get full transformations), with the exceptions being Trish and Giorno. Trish I've explained, but Giorno is...... Really Really Weird with what he is. His birth mom was a mer, but Dio had mostly been using her to try and lure other mers so by the time Giorno was actually born she was killed. Giorno was then taken in by the Shiobana's, which obviously sucked ass, but he was able to pass as a human for a shocking amount of time because Sea Vampire Genes fucked with his aging, so he also looks a lot smaller than he should be. He's also been forced to stay in his "human" form for much longer than is strictly healthy which ALSO fucked with his size and health

Giorno is gonna be a giant sea snake, because I think it'll be funny because That's The Traditional Sea MonsterTM. Maybe during the final fight with Diavolo he gets shot with the arrow and falls off the ship all dramatic and everyone thinks he died but SIKE he suddenly grows to full Absolutely Fucking ENORMOUS Size And Kicks Ass

Jolyne is a siphonophore, I don't make the rules, she's Really Fucking Long

#merstars #jjba #jojo’s bizarre adventure #golden wind #jjba part 5 #jjba risotto #risotto nero #jjba prosciutto #prosciutto #jjba ghiaccio #ghiaccio #jjba melone #melone #jjba formaggio #formaggio #jjba pesci #pesci #la squadra #headspace tales

61 notes · View notes

cookiedoughmeagain · 5 years ago

Text

Haven DVD Commentaries: 4.11 - Shot in the Dark

Notes on the DVD Commentary by Nick Parker (Writer for the episode) and Brian Millikin (also a writer on Haven). In which both men talk at a gazillion miles an hour and with much enthusiasm throughout the whole episode. And we learn that the Darkside Seekers are partially inspired by Supernatural’s Ghostfacers. And all kinds of other fun facts.

Both Brian and Nick were previously script co-ordinators for Haven (“the most junior member of the writing staff”) and this is Nick Parker’s first ever episode of TV he’s written. NP is really modest about his writing throughout, balanced out by BM being very enthusiastic about how well written it is and what a great episode it is. And they are both so enthusiastic in general and have so much to say, I love them.

[I haven’t necessarily quoted everything word for word and I have paraphrased sometimes. And they refer to all the full names of the guest actors and the director etc. but I haven’t put the names in (except the ones I already know) because I didn’t stop to figure out how to spell them because … I am lazy :p]

NP: We got to do something really fun here with this hand-held camera, found-footage look. Both Brian and I are big fans of X-Files and one of my favourite episodes was X Cops ... and one of my favourite television writers wrote a couple of episodes of Supernatural called Ghostfacers in this kind of style. And I always thought those were really cool episodes and break the mould of the show a little bit and particularly in this case allow for outsiders to come in and comment on Haven. BM: The found-footage documentary crew thing was something from the get-go that we were always going to try to do at some point in the series. [Brief interlude while they laugh at Seth falling over the pile of trash :) ] And my favourite thing about it is how funny it is. This is not only the funniest episode of the season, but is crucial to the season because it has been so dark that we knew that we needed (particularly before epsiodes 12 and 13 which are like a two-part season finale) a little bit of levity. And because our characters have so much going on, you sort of need that to come from guest characters. And this is easily the funniest episode of the season and I think one of the funniest ones we’ve ever done. NP: You’re being very sweet. I think a lot of that humour actually comes from our guest cast for this episode. Chris who plays Seth is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. And he and Danny (who plays Anderson) - Seth and Anderson are named after my two brothers by the way, and I based the back and forth teasing between them on my brothers, because that’s how brothers are - are friends in real life and were able to play the humour really well. BM: I remember when we were casting this episode we reached out to Danny (who is good friends with Shawn Pillar) who was interested in the role, but felt that he was better suited to the cameraman role and suggested Chris for the role of Seth. And it couldn’t have worked out better. NP: It could not have worked out better. When Danny made the suggestion and I watched a movie him and Chris did together called Alter Egos - if you haven’t seen it, go and watch it - and as soon as I saw Chris in that and the style of it and the tone that he brings; this very dry humour .. he was perfect for it. He is more perfect for the role than the version I had in my head when writing it. BM: We so enjoyed Chris in this role that Seth is making a return appearance in season 5. They’re shooting that episode right now and from all reports on set, it’s awesome. He’s doing a great job once again. BM: We always knew from the get-go that there was going to be a lot of found-footage and the camera pov in this. And we just hoped that the director for the episode would be on board with it. You know, you hope that your vision and the director’s vision line up. And as it happens, with the director for this epsiode we got crazy lucky. NP: Yes. She is amazing. It was incredible the way everything came together. In the concept of the script, the original drafting of it, there were all kinds of limitations on the script for a variety of reasons but when we started to get on set and look at locations and I was meeting with the director and everything - it all started to fall into place. I was so impressed by how everything came together; from the casting, to the prop department making Seth and Anderson’s props, to the art department and the sets. It really just came together well.

NP: I love this moment here when Gloria goes to flick Anderson off. The timing of that shot where Seth steps into the frame in front of her took us maybe 5 or 6 takes to get the timing just right, but when we did we knew we had it. That parabolic microphone that Seth has there - there was something wierd about the plastic that whenever it would heat up stank like old vomit. It smelled so bad. So Chris was an amazing sport for holding that. BM: This is a small thing but it’s something we’ve never been able to do before; Adam Copeland looking right into the camera. This is something you never usually want to do, and there’s something unsettling and hilarious about our characters finally being able to look back out at us. It’s great, I love it.

BM: Just boucing back to a line earlier, we had a shoutout to the Haven Herald when Seth is mentioning all the crazy coverup stories and he’s like “How many gas leaks can a town have beofre they just buy new pipes?” and that was a line I had always wanted to work in. BM: Yeah and we need to throw in those types of lines once in a while to add some level of groundedness. Because while this is fiction, it is set in the real world. BM: This is the first episode since Fraudrey in season two where we have the outside world arriving in Haven and threatening to expose it. Which is something we always talk about and which is why Vince and Dave - and even Dwight when he was the cleaner - do what they do. And I love it like in this episode when we can make it more than just an intellectual threat that they are forced to protect the secret that is Haven. NP: Yeah, it puts it in context. BM: And it’s something we talk about in the writers’ room that Haven has been like this, with the Troubles, for hundreds and hundreds of years, but keeping the secret of the town is getting exponentially harder and harder in the 21st century and the information age. You know, when the people who made the Barn at the time I don’t think they expected things like the internet or cell phones. NP: Yeah, Sarah wasn’t having to worry about high-tech recording devices being pointed at her or camera phones carried in people’s pockets. BM: Exactly. We talked about it a ton back when we were doing the pilot and conceived the show, and we all knew that Audrey Parker - Emily Rose Audrey Parker - was not the real Audrey Parker, that she had the borrowed memories of a real FBI agent. So one of the questions that we always got was; Why doesn’t anyone try to friend her on Facebook? Why doesn’t anyone google her and look it up? Becuase they would see, clearly, that there is an Audrey Parker and she doesn’t look like Emily Rose, she looks like Kathleen Munroe. And we sort of had to just fly past that for the whole first season and just hope that people didn’t really do that. NP: And I think generally the show has done a good job of cleverly skirting those questions. And I think that’s part of what gives it a bit of a timeless feel, and a feeling that Haven has always been this way. And I think it works well. Ah I love Richard here, playing Vince, he’s amazing. BM: He is so one of our favourites on the show, he is so good. And this [as Vince talks to Audrey in her hospital bed after Nathan and Duke have left to investigate the Trouble] is one of several big emotional scenes about Audrey and who she really is that the two of them have had. There’s that one outside the Gull after he was tortured by Tommy, that was terrific,. There’s that one at the end of season two when she comes to Vince and Dave asking for answers when she’s found out about the existence of Sarah. And now this. And it’s almost like every season we get a chance to have this kind of conversation between the two of them. Because he knows previous versions of her, and here she is beginning to lear more about herself - to learn things now that even he doesn’t know. NP: Yeah, and I think the reason we always end up using him for those scenes - it’s not necessarily a conscious thing - is because he so well represents what Haven is, and the history of Haven. He embodies Haven in an interesting way, and so it just makes sense that it’s always him. BM: Absolutely. And he’s also such a deeply felt actor. He can say a lot without saying anything, which is one of my favourite things about him.

BM: I love how this all looks [as Duke and Nathan confront the Seekers in the warehouse/store room where they are talking to Jemma]. I think this is one of the best directed episodes of Haven that we’ve ever done. They totally nailed it. NP: I was really impressed. It was way better than I could ever have conceived it. And that it all down to the director and the DP Eric Cayla. They did an awesome job. The sequence here after the lights go out, after this was shot, Eric Balfour came over to the director and I and said he thought this sequence was the most dynamic and energetic thing we’d ever shot for the show. NP: There’s one moment here that we buried for Gingersnap fans where Seth repeats the line ‘I think it’s gone’ right before the monster busts through the door. Which is exactly what happens in Gingersnaps so we wanted to bury that for Gingersnaps fans. And there’s the monster, which was a very very nice, and very very tall man in a suit. And this is a very scripted and choreographed sequence to get all this in. We rehearsed it a bunch of times and we were shooting this for the majority of the day. And there’s a couple times where the camera sweeps over the ground [so all you see is darkness] and they would use those moments to match and morph different takes together. So it looks as though it’s one continuous shot but it is actually several different takes stitched together. So we shot several takes of each section, knowing exactly where we were going to sweep to the floor so that we could stitch it all together. And i think it looks great. BM: It does look great. And the director really embraced this approach from the beginning and ran with it. NP: And what I love about her is she’s this really energetic spitfire running about the whole time, so when we were talking about this sequence she’s running up and down the aisles acting like she’s got a gun and everyone else was just trying to keep up with her becasue she was moving so quickly. She was so enthused and really energetic about the entire sequence and I loved it. She was awesome. BM: She’s my hero.

NP: Eric Balfour and Danny [who plays Anderson the cameraman] are good friends in real life so it was nice having them all there together. BM: I could be wrong about this but I don’t think they’ve ever acted on screen together before, despite being really good friends.

NP: So the guy in the suit, is a man in a werewolf costume, which the wardrobe department did a great job of modifying to make it look spooky. And the guy who played that role was probably about 6’10”; he was really tall. And he was so nice to come in because that suit was a lot of plastic and a lot of fur and it was incredibly hot. And he did take after take and was awesome and never complained once.

[As we see Gloria talking to Duke and Nathan in the morgue] BM: I’m jealous that you got to write some Gloria scenes. I didn’t get to do any of that. NP: I love writing for her. And the actor was also in Dawn of the Dead and she is awesome. BM: She was great in Dawn of the Dead. NP: Her energy and her really dry and biting sense of humour is great. And I love the dynamic she has with Duke. They’re kind of oddly flirty, in a way.

[As Dwight is threatening Seth in the corridor outside the morgue] BM: I think Adam Copeland is one of my favourite parts of this episode. He is so good at being frustrated and angry at people. And he seems like he really relishes it. And he is also really good as Dwight, but it’s like with epsiode 9 where he got affected by the paranoia Trouble, where he gets to step out of the usual thing and show some attitude, he dives into it. NP: He nails it. I loved this moment where he’s threatening Seth; I think this is the closest we’ve ever got to representing Adam in his former career as WWE’s Edge. He goes full wrestler on Seth right now. We did a bunch of different takes where he was getting really intense and almost screaming, or a more quiet and controlled threat. But this was a super-fun sequence to shoot, just because we got to see WWE Superstar Edge coming out. BM: Who is in reality the nicest person on the face of the planet. NP: Incredibly nice. BM: I aspire to be more like him one day. NP: That is a goal we should all pursue. He is just a super-nice really good person. And so seeing him act like this is what makes it so terrifying. BM: I would have wet myself. NP: Yes! BM: He is huge. NP: And in incredible shape. I always feel bad that he has to wear this bullet-proof vest all the time, which makes him about 10 degrees hotter than everyone else in every scene. BM: Ardent fans might notice that his vest has changed from the one he was wearing last season. They made one specifically for him; fitted to him and as light as possible but still using bullet proof vest material. Just to give him some relief, even though it is still hot and constricting. [Some back and forth about how hot and humid it can get in Nova Scotia in the summer.]

[As Duke is asking Nathan if he’s OK] NP: So this is the big emotional scene between Duke and Nathan where Nathan reveals his fears about this connection between William and Audrery. BM: Back from when we were first talking about the details of this season, we always knew that was the one where we were going to learn who Audrey really was, and that we were finally going to meet someone who was like her, whatever she is. So that was why we had William in the Barn and he hitched a ride with Lexie to come to Haven and now we’re learning what his ultimate plan is that he wants to turn Audrey back into Mara. But we always knew that we would have Colin Ferguson in the first four episodes, and in episode 9 and 10. And because he’s the Big Bad for the season we knew he’d be in the two-part finale episodes 12 and 13 - and that left out episode 11 which we did not have Colin Ferguson for. And yet he is the main topic of conversation for the episode. NP: Which worked out interestingly. It was a restriction that we knew about and it made things difficult at first but in the end we were able to talk directly about what he was doing. BM: It kind of allowed our characters some space, which we don’t often have, to talk about what’s going on. And how they feel about what’s going on. NP: And the same is true for Jennifer. We only had Emma Lahana for two days of filming for this episode, so that was also a restriction. BM: This location here, the back room of the Haven Herald (which is a real location that we own in the middle of Chester) is the exact same layout as the Gun & Rose diner, which we outfitted this room to be, back when we had Jordan at work. NP: And what a great job the art department did with showing the effects of the rougarou trashing everything. BM: Oh it’s amazing. NP: Every time that I walked onto a set that they had set up as a post-crime scene, I was just blown away. BM: As an example of how good our art department is, when Duke was kneeling down just now [where he found Jennifer’s phone on the floor] there was a golden vase over his shoulder, I’m pretty sure that’s the exact same vase that Dave picked up in 3.12 and knocked Vince out with when they were interrogating Arla. NP: They’re smart about it. BM: They do their jobs well.

[As Duke Dwight and Nathan find the Seekers at their van] NP: So we always knew that we wanted to do this found-footage style, and we knew we wanted to tie that into the Season Four Digital Initiative. So if you happen to follow Haven on Facebook or Twitter you will know that the Darkside Seekers supposedly took over the Haven accounts and were reporting that Haven was this place with this massive cover up and all these supernatural things. BM: And it wasn’t just a few tweets, there was also footage shot for this with Chris and Danny. NP: Yep and it was a lot of fun to be able to do that and tie it in to the episode, which you don’t often see so we were lucky to be able to do that. BM: And we had that pitch from the get go and you were overseeing a lot of that digital stuff. And it was always going to be the Darkside Seekers (though we went through a thousand different names for them before we got that one cleared) and the pitch for that was always that those guys were eventually going to show up on screen in the show in Haven. And it made sense to slot it in to episode 11 because we knew that William wasn’t going to be in this episode so it gave us a bit of a pause for the series arc. NP: Right, and we also needed to build a mouting threat; it needed to be something more than just a normal Trouble of the Week.

NP: Ah Stan the Cop; one of my favourite characters. And Glen who plays him is nice as can be. BM: He’s been around since season one and he’s a bedrock of HPD. NP: Absolutely. Everyone knows Stan. BM: And he has a little bit more to do every year. We love Stan. I’m always wishing that we could do an All Stan episode, but we’ve only got 13 episodes a season and so much other stuff to cover. There’s unfortunately just not enough room. If this was a 22 episode season show, we would absolutely have had a Stan episode. It could have been called Stan the Man, and Stan would be in every scene. And you know, he saves the day and the rest of the characters have no idea what he’s doing. NP: Like that Xander episode [in Buffy] BM: Yep, ‘The Zeppo’

[They discuss the restrictions in terms of actor availability becasue as well as Emma Lahana only being available for two out of the seven days of production, they also only had Emily Rose for a few days becasue she “was also due for a break” because she had been “working like a dog” having been in every scene in episode 10. And also they didn’t have Colin Ferguson, so when we see a glimpse of William in the hospital - that is not Colin.] BM: So there are all these various restrictions and you have to write your scripts within these painted lines that are set out for you. NP: Which is why Chris as Seth ended up with such a big role, and this is one of the biggest guest actor roles we’ve had. It’s good that he’s so good. BM: And it’s not a co-incidence that this has a lot of humour. Not that our cast aren’t often hysterical, but there’s not always a lot of humour just because our characters, after four seasons, are saddled with a lot of emotional baggage and weight. NP: Yeah and the nice thing about a role like this [Seth] is that they can comment on the ridiculousness of the situation. BM: Jennifer and Lexie were examples of the same thing; they were able to bring some of that lightness because they were yet to be weighted down.

[As Seth is telling Dwight how he spent his summers in Haven as a kid] BM: This hill I think is the same spot that William brings Audrey to in 4.09. NP: Yes, I think it’s one of their favourite places to shoot just becasue it has such a beautiful vista and it’s close the production office as well. The prop department did an amazing job building Seth’s equipment here. BM: Everything looks fantastic.

[At the Teagues warehouse where Jennifer is hiding out] NP: This all looks fantastic. We shot a lot of this at this place called the Aspotogan Spa, but if you try and look it up online you’re not going to be able to book tickets for becasue it was this huge multi-million dollar spa idea that they had, up near Chester? BM: Yeah from Chester if you head up eastward up through Hubbards where the Grey Gull is located, around the corner on the tip of that peninsula is this big abandoned structure with parking lots and everything but it’s this half-finished spa that they started building years ago and the economy fell through and they never finished it. NP: It’s actually incredible because the whole thing is built, there’s pools, the windows are in. We filmed in the basement. BM: We filmed there before in 2.08; Friend or Foe. NP: Oh yeah. BM: And we always wanted to go back because inside it was fantastic. And this was the perfect opportunity. NP: But it’s crazy when you go in there, it’s like all of the worker’s just suddenly disappeared. BM: We do a lot of on location filming for Haven … and we could not have possibly built something this big to film in. NP: There are hallways upon hallways and it worked out great because the place was big enough for us to run two units at the same time. Shawn was off with one of these handheld digital cameras with Lucas, Eric and Chris running around the hallways while the main group [Audrey etc] was here. And Eric Cayla, our DP would do a lot of shooting with these handheld cameras, or one of our camera operatives. So they would run around with Danny on their shoulder giving the diagloue, and then they would hand the camera off to Danny and he would do the same thing again for a different take.

BM: I would like to talk about Unstake My Heart for a second, which wound up being extraordinarily important. We always knew that it was going to be. We knew that it would be useful when it turned out to be Fraudrey’s favourite book - oh poor Dwight! NP: Yeah Dwight is knocked out there because Adam had to go do a WWE event. BM: Ha! Amazing! NP: This was a change the day before when we found out that Adam had a chance to go promote Haven at a WWE event. So we wrote him out of the last day. BM: That’s right because the season was about to start airing. So anyway, Unstake my Heart wound up being this important thing that Agent Howard had used, and so here we needed Agent Howard to have left Jennifer something that was going to help her personal journey. And it seems like it’s a magical book but really we always thought of it more that it’s more like a placebo effect that allowed Jennifer to realise some of her capabilities. And this was always how we intended the episode to wrap up, that Jennifer was going to realise a little bit of why she was the target of Williams’ creatures. And sort of end up saving the day as a result (with an assist from Seth). NP: Yes exactly. The guy who plays Sinister does a lot of our stunts and he was Seth in that moment [attacking the monster as Jennifer grabs the book off the floor] knocking the rougarou off his feet. We had so much fun up there saying that word especially with so many French Canadian, they love saying ‘rougarou’; [rougarou in a French accent!] BM: A rougarou if I’m not mistaken is a kind of European werewolf. NP: Yeah, it’s a French werewolf legend, kind of a cousin to the werewolf. Way back in the day I used to play this old role playing game called Werewolf of the Apocalypse, and in that all werewolves call themselves garou and so I suppose ‘le garou’ is what a werewolf is in french. BM: And do they actually eat your hearts? NP: That is a thing that we created for the Haven version, to give them a signature. BM: Like a serial killer calling card.

[As Seth and Andersen get ready to leave and Seth is talking to Nathan] NP: This scene originally was not Nathan saying goodbye, it was Dwight because Dwight had had that moment with Seth before. But because Adam had this great opportunity to go promote the show, we reworked this scene the day before it was going to shoot, to be Nathan instead. BM: That’s crazy. And initially there was also a third Darkside Seeker. There was going to be this host of a reality show and two other guys as his back up. It was crazy because we were initially writing it for (we can’t tell you who) a bigger nam- or I guess a different kind of actor who was going to do the role. He fell through really close to production. NP: Days before. BM: And so we - or rather Nick - streamlined and reconceived the episode and made it just about Seth and Anderson. And it turned out far better. NP: I definitely like this version more. It was always one of those things were I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. BM: And the amount of restrictions we had on what we could and couldn’t do and who we could and couldn’t use, was more than I’d ever seen in four seasons of the show. But they say in TV you embrace the limitations, and it’s like why a bottle episode can end up being the best eipsodes. Those are the episodes you do to save money because you’re shooting the whole thing on one set; but they can end up being the best. And it’s the same thing here. This is one of the best epiosdes of the season and in many ways it’s because you had these parameters to work in. NP: That’s very nice of you. But I always think whenever you’re writing with restraints, whether they’re self imposed or due to what you’re working on, you’ll often end up with a better product just becasue you have to focus. Having everything wide open and being able to anything and everything doesn’t always turn out as good as you think it will in your head. BM: Yeah absolutely.

[As we see Jennifer joking about being Hermoine] BM: This is a big moment for me in terms of the Duke/Jennifer relationship which going into the season has always been a big deal for us. And here she is starting to learn that she is more than just Troubled. That there is clearly a major stake in what is going on in Haven tht involves her. It’s not just this book; it’s her. And that is going to come to bear on herself and her relationship with Duke. We had always known where we were going with her character when we introduced her and that it was going to get a little bit heavy in the next episode or two. And we love Jennifer and Duke, and we’re really happy that we earned their relationship.

*cell phone rings* NP: Oops that would be me. BM: That was the Game of Thrones theme? NP: In like old, midi form.

BM: Oh this is so sad with Nathan and Audrey too we knew what was going to happen at the end of the season. We knew what William’s plan was going to be for her. And it’s kind of a bookended season in that we started with introducing Audrey as Lexie and then now we’re going to learn who she really was; the original person.

[As Jennifer tells them about the riddle in the book] BM: How many versions of this cryptic message were there? NP: it’s funny, this was being changed up until the moment that we shot it. And actually Emma was nice enough to do a couple different takes with different versions of what she was saying. BM: There was a lot of debate about this. And that was my favourite version!

#i love these guys #theirs are the only commentaries where they don't forget anyone's name and always know the name/number of any other episodes they mention #questions welcome if any of my notes don't make sense #haven dvd commentaries #haven season four extras #haven syfy #long post

6 notes · View notes