I can be a bit annoying. You may find that hard to believe bu
t it is true, seriously. Try watching Blade Runner with me sometime…or Wrath of Khan. I can quote almost every word and I do at each viewing. Another annoying trait I have is that when I am watching something and I see a location I have visited I say, “I’ve been there!” It can be annoying to some but I am just sharing my excitement about seeing the world. So the other day when I was watching Defiance with my friend, during the scene at the Need/Want, I was very quick to blurt out, “I’ve been there!” The response was a very exasperated, “Shut the frak up!”
I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to many places on the globe but back in October I got the chance to travel to 2046. Actually it was a back lot in Toronto but for all intents and purposes I was in Defiance. Defiance is the not just a television show, it is a multimedia event. As you know by now; you can play the Defiance game while you wait for the new episodes to air. Events in the show will affect events in the game and vice versa, which is amazing. I didn’t know what to expect when I went to the set but from the first moments of the tour I knew that I was witnessing the beginning of something great.
Having now seen the show I am amazed at the VFX on the show. When I stood at the town center of Defiance and looked up I saw an empty sky but when Nolan (Grant Bowler) stood in the same spot the St. Louis Arch was in the background and it looked so real. For a moment, just a millisecond, I thought, “How did I miss that?” Movie magic at its best and it blew me away. During the presentation we were able to see some of the other green screen shots and it is movie quality.
I hated having to follow the group during our tour because I wanted to play. Imagine if you will being on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise before Star Trek was on the air, or watching them film the pilot of Battlestar Galactica before it was a worldwide phenomenon; that is what I felt. I was seeing something that would soon have a global following and I was there at the beginning. I was there first. Now that I have seen the pilot and the first 2 episodes I really want to go back and play but I don’t think that I will ever get back to the set.
We were able to sit down with the actors and production people and hear about the show. Even without seeing a frame of film I became so excited about the show. Just listening to how much the people involved were passionate about what they were doing. No one sounded like it was just a job for them; they knew they were making something that was amazing.
The press was given the freedom to take as many photos as we wanted which was a great thing since on most sets pictures are forbidden. We were not only able to take photos of the sets but actors came out in full makeup, giving us a look at some of the alien races. I took pictures like a tourist on vacation. Check out the photos and don’t forget to tune into Defiance on Monday April 15 for the premiere.
