Mark Savela and his son Eddie on the Echoes set. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
For the past 15 years visual effects guru Mark Savela has helped entertain TV audiences by providing dazzling eye candy for a variety of made-for-TV movies along with episodes of numerous series including Poltergeist: The Legacy, The Visitor, Relic Hunter and Stargate SG-1 as well as most recently working as the visual effects supervisor on Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe.
Not too long ago, he joined forces with some of Vancouver, British Columbia’s other creative minds to sow the seeds for a brand new Sci-Fi drama called Echoes. It follows a band of humans as they fight for survival while caught in the middle of a war between two extraterrestrial races on Earth. The Echoes cast and crew recently filmed a short pilot presentation for a proposed TV series, and co-creator/executive producer Savela graciously took some time out of his busy schedule a couple of weeks ago to chat about the shoot as well as events leading up the process.
Mike Dopud (Nolan) in Echoes. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
“There seems to be a buzz already about the project, which we’re thrilled about, and what we have accomplished so far,” says Savela. “As of this week [mid-April 2011] we’ve locked the cut on a 13-minute presentation, which consists of scenes from the pilot script. It was produced by me, Ken Kabatoff, Andrew Karr, one of the owners of Atmosphere VFX, and Craig VanDenBiggelaar, one of the owners of Darkroom Digital Effects. Andrew and Craig have both been involved with the Stargate franchise from the very beginning and were part of the [Emmy] nomination last year together with myself, Shannon Gurney [visual effects coordinator] and a few others for the Stargate Universe episode Air.
“The process for the Echoes pilot presentation began back in early January. We brought everyone together and started hammering out ideas. Ken and I finished writing the pilot script at the end of January and we then wanted to shoot a little scene here and there from it. We actually kind of wrote it with a location in mind, which is the set that was built here in Vancouver for [the 2009 feature film] Watchmen. It’s used a lot on the TV series Supernatural and Stargate Universe also shot there this season. We’d kept in touch with Heather Vedan, who was the locations manager on Stargate Universe, and one day she called us up and said, ‘If you want the Watchman set I can get it for you in about two-and-a-half weeks.’
Victoria Pratt (Karen) in Echoes. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
“So we had two-and-a-half weeks to prep for a two-day shoot, and it was really quite an experience. Everyone volunteered to do it, which was outstanding. When we began writing the pilot, we realized that one of the characters reminds us of Mike Dopud [Varro in Stargate Universe and Nolan in Echoes], so we actually started writing specifically with him in mind. Then we called Mike and asked him, ‘Are you free two-and-a-half weeks from now to do this?’ and he said, ‘Sure.’ So that’s how we got him, and Mike is just a rock star. He’s fantastic. And then Mike suggested Lochlyn Munro [Richard] and Victoria Pratt [Karen], who are amazing. The three of them flew up from Los Angeles on the weekend to do our little shoot, which was incredible of them and I cannot thank them enough.
“Funnily enough, Mike was working on another project at the time, which was an Ethan Hawke/Tom Sizemore pilot called Exit Strategy. He called me the Thursday before we were set to start work on Echoes and said, ‘Mark, I think we’ve got a problem. I’m supposed to be shooting a nighttime rooftop scene but it’s raining and windy here in LA, so they’ve pushed it until the next day.’ So Mike ended up shooting all Friday night, then hopped on a plane at six o’clock Saturday morning, arrived on our set around 10:30 a.m. and shot all day Saturday as well as Sunday with us. Mike was working on no sleep and was in every scene we shot. I couldn’t believe he did that. I can’t say enough good things about him. The first time I worked with Mike was in the Atlantis episode Tracker, and he had a big Stargate Universe episode in The Hunt a few weeks ago. A lot of people love him as Varro on Universe, and Mike is such a wonderful guy and terrific to work with.”
Lochlyn Munro (Richard) in Echoes. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
As the Echoes cast came together so did the crew, and prep for the presentation shoot soon followed. “When you’re doing a show like this with no money it becomes a lot about creatively solving problems,” notes Savela. “If we were a studio show or one that was already up and running, there are times when you can solve problems with money. In our case, though, instead of Plans A and B, we had to come up with Plans A through F for a number of things.
“Fortunately, everyone really came through for us, like Will Waring, who directed the pilot presentation and did a fantastic job. We also had Mike Blundell – who along with Will worked on Stargate – as our DOP [director of photography], so the presentation looks amazing. Wray Douglas [Stargate special effects coordinator] did all the SFX for us, too. As far as for prepping the shoot, Andrew, Ken, Craig and I did that, which is typically done by 8 to 10 people on a regular TV show. What’s great about working with so many people from the Stargate world is that we all have a shorthand when it comes to communicating with each other. We also have enough trust in one another where we can say, ‘OK, I need this and that,’ and you know it’ll show up on the day of the shoot and just be fantastic.
Jarod Joseph (Tracy) in Echoes. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
“Andrew and Craig and both their companies are working on Echoes as well, so it’s going to be super-solid when it comes to the VFX. We want to get across the fact that this is a human story with very human characters that is kind of set against a Sci-Fi backdrop, and one of the things I don’t like and hope people don’t expect from me being a VFX supervisor is for the effects to take over the story, because I’d never agree with that. I always feel that effects should be used to enhance a really good story instead of becoming the story, and I honestly believe that we have a really great concept and a story that has some amazing effects in it.”
Another of Savela’s goals with Echoes is to showcase an extremely strong female lead character. “I’m trying to bring back the days of a really cool female lead character, like Ripley [from the Alien movies] and Sarah Connor [from the Terminator feature film/TV series franchise]. The thing is, some of today’s female lead characters in action/adventure type stories can go a little too far and become kind of cartoon-like and unreal. They come across more like superheroes as opposed to real people who rise to the challenge and kick ass, do you know what I mean?
Jennifer Spence (Stargate Universe's Dr. Lisa Park) plays Sonya in Echoes. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
“I’m interested in seeing the journey that a character goes on to become a Sarah Connor or Ripley. Something I think they missed out in the Terminator movies is not showing what took place with Sarah Connor between the first film and Terminator 2 and how she became the way she is in T2 as opposed to the first movie. How did she get to know all the people in Mexico? What did she do down there? How did she learn all about guns? Who trained her? You want a character that an audience can identify with and root for; a little bit like an underdog and someone who the viewers can throw their support behind.
“I think we have that in our lead female character, Sonya, who is played by Jen Spence [Stargate Universe]. She’s such a pro and, like Mike Dopud, Victoria Pratt and Lochlyn Munro, was a total rock during our shoot. The other main actor you see in the presentation is Jarod Joseph [Tracy], and he’s just stellar. You might not have seen much of him yet. He recently shot an episode of The Killing and is just begun work on a movie. Jared is a real talent, a true find, a great guy and quite the trouper, but then again everyone who worked on Echoes was a trouper. All these people have their own lives and yet were so giving of themselves. It was overwhelming to see, and it also really proves how close-knit a community like Vancouver is, where people will volunteer their time and show their support.”
Lochlyn Munro (Richard) and Victoria Pratt (Karen) in Echoes. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
As Savela already mentioned, the Echoes pilot presentation was filmed over two days, one being an exterior shoot while the other was an interior, and both presented their own challenges. “The exterior day was a big one,” he recalls. “Our characters are in the middle of a war zone, so there were plenty of SFX, courtesy of Wray Douglas, and stunts, which James “Bam Bam” Bamford [Stargate stunt coordinator] was there for. There was a lot of set dec, too. The Watchmen set is totally empty – there are no parking meters, mailboxes, nothing – and Mike Molson, who is from Stargate Universe as well, did an amazing job. When we walked onto that set on our first day it was full of stuff and looked incredible.
“Our other big challenge was an interior scene we shot on the second day, which was a fairly long scene. It was, I think, five or six pages long and it had the entire cast in it. There was lots of moving around and continuity to deal with. We had about six hours to shoot it and it was the last scene that we shot over the two days. Doing all that on a schedule and making it work was difficult, but, again, all the credit goes to Will, Mike Blundell and the rest of the crew as well as cast. Even though we didn’t have a full crew and every department filled, we ran things like a regular TV series, which was very cool and a tremendous accomplishment for everybody.”
Mike Dopud (Nolan) and Jen Spence (Sonya) in Echoes. Photo by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela.
Looking back, how did the original idea for Echoes come about? “Like I said I wanted to create a female character on a journey, and I also liked the concept of beginning the story in the middle,” explains Savela. “The pilot begins in the middle of all the action. I also really liked the backdrop of having a story set on Earth with two alien races at war. With every other alien invasion show, it’s us versus the aliens. In Echoes, these two alien races are already at war with each other when they end up on Earth. They carry on fighting one another and humankind is more or less insignificant in the picture. We can’t fight them with the technology that we currently have at our disposal, so we’re basically trying to survive and stay out of their way as they have this battle.
“We come into the story two years after the war started between these two races, and when we were writing the pilot, the story got so big that we decided to split it into two parts. At the moment, besides working on the effects, sound, color correction and everything else for the 13-minute presentation, we’re also writing the series bible and the episode synopsis for the first season. I think it’s going to make a nice package for people to visually see where we want to go with the series and what the potential is for it.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photos by Lawren Bancroft-Wilson and courtesy/copyright of Mark Savela, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
I am so looking forward to seeing this, any idea on whether they will share with us the 13 minutes shot so far for the presentation when it is ready.
An I love the idea of the Human race being stuck in the middle, it something I thought about my self.
Was just wondering if they cant get a full TV series together is there any probability of them shrinking down the story to something more manageable like a film which they could fund and make themselves like the people that made Skyline or Monsters.
Posted by: David Knowles | 04/30/2011 at 06:07 AM
Could this show make me feel a little better about SGU being cancelled?
Yes. Yes it could.
I like the idea of humans trying to survive in the middle of an alien war. It hasn't really been done, and suggests lots of interesting possibilities.
I only see Jen Spence and Mike Dopud of the SGU cast, but Spence was one of my favorites. Looks like she might be more in the forefront here, which would be a great thing (Carlyle/Blue/[Young] were good in SGU, but some of the others were either acted or written badly).
Posted by: sam | 05/18/2011 at 06:57 PM