59 THE LIVE LIFE Orbital Redux
SPACE INVADERS Kit included five Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pros and a series of Blackmagic Pocket Cameras
outside making this happen. If it had been completely flawless, then I don’t think people would’ve bought the concept.” Diaz-Przybyl explains to us that instead of relying on big CGI effects or moments of larger epic drama, it was all about the performance carried by the characters. “This was a great opportunity for the actors because they were able to make a choice about the shot right in front of camera, which is not usually the case. Whatever happened on Thursday night at 6pm, that was the show, and those were the choices that would have to reflect the narrative of their character moving forward.” ONE GIANT LEAP AHEAD Each week, Diaz-Przybyl and her team would try to introduce a new element that upped the ante in some way.
“In episode one, all five cameras were outside the ship. In episode two, there was a Steadicam that followed Tommie through the ship as she explored it for the first time. In episode three, we introduced the black box. In episode four, we built a new pocket set. In episode five, we had a special effects stunt where the ship got hit by space debris. We had explosions and sparks hit, blowing out parts of the wall and this was all live on camera.” Diaz-Przybyl continues through the episodes, listing the array of outlandish yet spectacular stunts that, when you think about the fact they were also done practically and live, in itself sort of sounds like science fiction. Episode six even sees a Technocrane brought into the already crammed set. It’s actually one of the series’ most emotional episodes, so it made sense
not to have a camera operator present in the scene. “Tasking the crew and the actors with a new challenge each week was exciting, because it enabled them to learn new things and it made each episode feel special. A lot of our team had done live work before, but doing a live narrative was completely different,” explains Diaz-Przybyl. The secondary goal was to make Orbital Redux cinematic, because when you think about live television, you envision a proscenium, a three-camera sitcom where everything is shot from the front. Calcote wanted to give the audience a sense that the ship was a character itself, to keep things dynamic. “We wanted to be able to move the camera operator into a spot where we could achieve that Tarantino-style shot
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