Interview with Caprica location scouts

L.A. Times talked to Anand Kanna and Scott Firth, who are location scouts for the show. You can read the article here.

Grand designs: Caprica City is fictional, but it was largely designed by a real Vancouver architect. "Arthur Erickson buildings totally suit the style of the show," Firth said. "He's one of our favorite Vancouver architects, and you'll see quite a few of his buildings in 'Caprica.' He did some buildings at the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Public Library. They're quite striking. They're really sexy buildings."

Neighborhood watch: "We used different parts of the city for different challenges," Kanna explained. "In Vancouver, there's an area called Coal Harbour, which is very modern. That was perfect for establishing Caprica City itself, the steel and glass look of downtown Caprica and its really modern-looking buildings." Added Firth, "And then there's another area of town in the series, and it's called Little Tauron, which is a little bit backwards. It's more of the run-down, '40s feel. So we would go to Chinatown for that."

City limits: At any given time, parts of Vancouver appear on a municipal "hot list," published quarterly. "We usually get a list from the city of locations where it's dicey to move into," Kanna said. "It's a list of sensitive areas that have had a lot of filming, and it's to give everybody a bit of a rest from having a film crew in their neighborhood. And a lot of the stuff on the hot list is construction -- not to film on a road that has a big pit on it with no water main in there. So the hot list is there just as a guideline, but the city works with us, and everything ends up working out fine in the end."

Place holders: Since the "Caprica" writers cast their imaginations far beyond Vancouver's brick-and-mortar reality, the location scouts follow suit. "You have to be pretty creative in a lot of ways," Firth said. "The farthest we've been away is about 50 kilometers from the studio, and it was a 40,000-square-foot mansion on a farm. But it was scripted as something else. A location doesn't have to be exactly what's in the script, as long as you can make it look like what you need, whether you have to augment it with some set decoration or a sign.

New Caprica trailer, with James Marsters

A new trailer for Caprica has appeared on YouTube. It includes previously unseen footage and a first look at James Marsters' character, terrorist leader Barnabus Greeley.



Also, io9.com has several new pictures from the Caprica set here.

Another report from the Caprica set

HitFix.com posted a report from the set visit yesterday.

They also have a bunch of pictures of the main sets and of the cast at the Q&A in their gallery.

Caprica set tour reports, interviews & pictures

Several TV sites have posted their reports from SyFy's Caprica set tour earlier this week.

SpoilerTV has a bunch of pictures here.

CinemaSpy has an extensive report with behind-the-scenes pics and information about the sets they got from production designer Richard Hudolin. Beyond that, they also have the highlights from the Q&A session with Sasha Roiz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson, Eric Stoltz, Alessandra Torresani, Magda Apanowicz, Polly Walker and Mark Stern.

IESB.net will be posting their report in the coming days. Here is a preview:

Caprica is the real estate sci-fi geek dreams are made of. Graystone Manor was shot on location for the pilot, which left the set designers no alternative but to recreate a $12 million West Vancouver home on the studio set once the series was given the go-ahead. Cold, austere and impeccably accessorized, Graystone Manor is the perfect environmental foil to the warm, personal and cozy space of the Adama residence. The cast members recognize their set as "like a whole other person" as Magda Apanowicz (Lacy) put it during the Q&A, informing their scenes, setting the tone, and infusing new meanings to the personalities of the series' families and relationships. Building on the history and lore of Battlestar Galactica has been both daunting and invigorating for this cast but Paula Malcolmson is quick to point out that they, Caprica, come before and, therefore, it is a whole other world and existence from BSG. Like BSG, Caprica's story begins in tragedy but these characters are given time to mourn and choose their paths of recovery which leads to a much more intricate and internally-motivated story development than the refugee Colony Fleet was allowed.

In related news, the rumours about production delays resurfaced this week when CinemaSpy posted an update on the story that the delays were caused by problems with the scripts. They quoted SyFy exec Mark Stern as saying:

"Trying to find [the] journey with these characters has been really interesting. I know for the writers — in terms of where you think you're going to go — turns out to be, not exactly where you ... there are things that have been pitched out ... this, episode 8, we're going to do this, and it's going to be a whole torture sequence on this other planet, and it's like 'no, actually that doesn't work in terms of where the stories have taken us'. And we actually took a break. We shut down for a few weeks so that we could, at the mid-point ... so that we could regroup and say, 'OK, what have we learned from the first ten; where do we want to go from here?'"

AirlockAlpha promptly dismissed their report as an exaggeration. A few snippets from the article: :

Where most other Syfy shows get a decent-sized hiatus during the mid-point of its production schedule, "Caprica" didn't get that luxury because of the Olympics, and had been pushing work at break-neck speed to be done ahead of the Olympics. (...)


"Some people want to make more out of this than what it is," the source said. "We're talking about a brand-new series with a concept we've never really tried before. It's something that would normally be worked out slowly, but 'Caprica' never got that luxury. Even with the break, this show has burned through production far faster than most other 20-episode orders, and breaks are sometimes part of the game. Syfy isn't even dreaming about canceling this show yet, not before they even have a chance to air a single episode." (...)


"Production in general is really just laying track ahead of a train," [Mark Stern] said. "What you see in this show is something that's really working and special. If it weren't for the Olympics, there wouldn't even be a discussion. But because of the Olympics, we have been really up against that, and we really have to be out of production [by then]. What would be an easy decision of 'let's take a hiatus' became a very difficult and expensive proposition, but we did it anyway because it was worth it."

TV Guide's exclusive sneak peek

Next week's (July 14-20) issue of the TV Guide features a short article about the Caprica pilot and a picture of the two leading men - Esai Morales (Joseph Adama) and Eric Stoltz (Daniel Graystone) on the set.

Executive producer Remi Aubuchon is quoted as saying:

“Caprica is a sweeping, highly emotional relationship drama – a Rich Man, Poor Man set in a science-fiction environment… The look is nostalgic, almost 1950s, with the men in hats, ties and stylish suits. It’s not about hardware and space battles.”