PRIME DIRECTION "Tomorrow's Enterprise" with Chris Fisher

[00:00:00] This is Chris Fisher and you're listening to Open Pike Night's Prime Direction, where I'll explain how I really could have used another me to help give birth to this episode. Is this thing on? Hello, hello.

[00:00:35] Welcome to Open Pike Night's Prime Direction, the series where Strange New World directors in the future try to remember what they did in the past to keep everything from blowing up in a spray of glass and console rocks. I'm your host John T. Boulds, here today to talk with the director of Season 4, Episode 10, Tomorrow's Enterprise. Joining me as always, the man who has a hidden message in every piece of collectible memorabilia on his walls, Cameron Harrison. Uh, yeah, but not many musical notes.

[00:01:05] And the man who's been looking at fashion magazines lately and he's thinking next year might be more of an up-do style year for him. He's investing in Aquanet. It's Jesse Bailey. It pairs really well with my collection of plunging necklines. So, I figured, you know, go more vertical. Today we welcome a man who we last spoke to 10 weeks ago about an episode filmed 18 months ago about a story that starts 200 years from now and ends 65 million years ago.

[00:01:32] And now we're talking to him about an episode that takes place at the same period as the start of the last episode and also a year later, but still 18 months ago. It gets confusing. Please welcome back Chris Fisher to Open Pike Night. Thanks guys. That was, uh, that was a, that was a nice welcome. I got a little, there's a little extra jazz in there tonight. I like this. I like that. That's a good omen. That's a good omen for tonight, guys. We're going someplace. I don't know you just fried our guest brain before we ask him questions, Sean. I don't know.

[00:02:00] He's going to be working on that for the whole hour. It's a good puzzle for everybody. So, Chris, welcome back. It's great to talk to you here at the close of the season. We talked to you at the opener and man, uh, I got to say it has been a hell of a journey for this season. And, uh, it's, it's weird to think there's only six episodes left after this.

[00:02:22] Yeah. Well, thank you guys for doing this podcast and giving our directors the well-deserved opportunity to talk about their experiences and what they do on the show. It's really been awesome. Uh, they've all enjoyed their time with you guys. So, uh, this is great and, uh, can't wait to do it for those final six. Yeah, they're good. They're, they're good ones as you can imagine. And, um, we'll be, we'll have some fun, uh, fun next season. Excellent. Yeah.

[00:02:50] I mean, thank you for helping us get in touch with all of them and thank you for what it sounds like really giving them the, the space and freedom to make their movies. Like that's what I took away from all these interviews is like, they are really allowed to make their own individual little piece of star Trek with each episode. Yeah. Well, they all got the check in the mail then. Right. So, um, uh, that's glad to know I'm glad to know. I don't, you know, I didn't know if FedEx delivered on weekends, but, uh, no, I mean, look, it's a, it's a hell of a fun show.

[00:03:20] And I think it's one of the few shows where the pitch lines up with the reality, right? Like, you know, we've all heard it before. It come to your thing. And, you know, we got this, uh, you know, we really want a director to come to direct. And then you get to set and then they don't like, they, they, we have a formula. You got to fit the formula. And look, a lot of shows work better that way. Like you're making a procedural that's on a, you know, you're doing 24 for example, and minute 37 has to look like minute 36.

[00:03:48] Like it, you know, there's, there's a good reason for continuity and formula, you know, and we don't have that. So it's a, it's an opportunity for directors to shine and directors know that directors in town know that, Hey, look, I can actually go to strange new worlds and I can hit one out of the park. You know, I can, I can hit a ground ball too, but I can hit one out of the park. So I, you know, there's that competitive nature of every single director. I don't care how much they couch it myself included. You know, it's a competitive spirit that we all have.

[00:04:15] Uh, and everyone wants to come in and hit a home run. How does that work? Do you get directors reaching out to you guys saying like, Hey, we're, we're free. We'd love to do star Trek. A hundred percent. Uh, like, and not just, you know, us like secret, how that gets, you know, everyone, the agents and directors are reaching out to everyone they know. So, you know, even like sometimes other guest directors, Oh, Hey, you know, fish, you know, you know, you're at the DGA the other day and you're talking to blah, blah, blah. You know, he would love to do your show and blah, blah, blah.

[00:04:45] So yeah, no, there's a lot of that, you know, that isn't how anyone's gotten a job on our show though. I mean, I, I, and that's just because, you know, Akiva and Henry have such a strong vision for the show and we get the episode break, you know, our show's very unique because of the virtual production volume. They have to break the 10 episodes very early, much earlier than most shows, because we need to get started building. Uh, it takes 12 weeks to build each virtual production environment.

[00:05:12] So we need to start building those because those have to be ready by day one. So they break the 10 episodes and then they go off into the writer's room. And then I go off with my virtual production team. Uh, and we're sort of these two pipelines that are running like this. And of course they don't run parallel. They intersect and crisscross because as they're writing the stories, they're continually to break them and develop. And then the studio is giving notes and they're getting notes. So the script keeps changing as we're building the environment.

[00:05:40] Anyways, that's a long winded way of saying we kind of make directing choices very deliberately, very early. We don't like it. Uh, when a director, you know, and it's only happened maybe I think once when a director kind of backs out because we spend a lot of time and energy to find that right director for that right episode. And you guys, I've said this before. And so I don't want to repeat myself too much, but you know, it's 10 star Trek movies by 10 star Trek directors.

[00:06:05] So like we really spent a lot of time and a lot of effort to find that right director. And I think it's been the, the, the, the most fun of my job is watching these directors come in and do their thing. What a cool group. Like it has been super fun talking to every one of the directors, the ones we've talked to before you, Jordan, and this whole new crop of folks.

[00:06:28] We've got to speak to like, man, it has been just a fantastic season to learn about the creation of this, this season. And, uh, yeah, I can't express enough. My gratitude with your help for bringing it to us and helping get the other directors here. So with that, as a producing director, did you get to choose your episodes this season? Yeah. You know, I mean, again, again, like everything, you know, I, I'm always at the service of her majesty, right?

[00:06:57] You know, I, I, everything goes through a Keevan Henry, you know, that's the way, you know, TV is not a democracy for good reason, but yeah, every, you know, I can't, I come to them with the list. Uh, here's, here's how I think it should work out. So yeah, I had pitched myself to do the premiere and we had talked about this a little bit earlier, but the back half of the season, the breaks changed a little bit. It got adjusted. I wasn't planning on doing the finale, but when things got kind of rebroke and re moved around, it made a lot of sense for me to do it. Okay.

[00:07:27] And the reason was, is that, as you know, I did, you know, uh, quality of mercy and also Val's Marineris, both heavy time travel shows, lots of the very technical side of shooting the same character in different timelines, different ages. It's very, very complex. It's really a math problem. And it also requires additional shoot days sometimes.

[00:07:51] So knowing that I'm up there full time that I can, you know, cause you're, you're, you're going back and forth from different looks to the same character on different timelines of the same ship, all which needs to be hair, makeup, dress and stuff like that. And you're going back. So it just takes a little bit extra time. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a very complicated puzzle, which I had a lot of experience in, you know?

[00:08:12] And then also there's just sort of like the motion control rigs, um, the technical side of blocking an entire scene with one actor. And then four days later shooting that exact same scene with the other version of that actor. Like it just requires this sort of, you know, I, I, I, and not to humble brag here, but like, it's like the lawyer side in me almost as much as the director. Like the, the math that goes into creating this episode, uh, is challenging.

[00:08:40] So we had looked at some other directors, but, uh, it just made sense from my perspective for me to do this one. Would you say that the technical side of that was the biggest challenge of this episode or was there something else where you were like, oh, this is the beast? Oh God. Yeah. No, not at all. I mean, that was the fun challenge. And I mean, that's like, I'd say like, that's kind of like, you know, time and space that's director heaven.

[00:09:04] I mean, like that is, that is director catnip. Uh, that is poetry in space. You know, I, if you, I don't care if you're Chris Nolan or whoever it is like time and space. Like, I mean, that is what we all dream for. So those were the fun problems and they're all fun problems, but the challenging problem really was keeping our cast and crew aware of all the constant changes. Cause we didn't just do SNW enterprise and SNW or her and SNW chapel and SNW Scotty.

[00:09:33] And then TOS versions. We then, of course, as you saw in those cruel split screen shots on the bridge, we freaky Friday this shit. And suddenly we're on the dead on the wrong ship. So, and then you're shooting multiple scenes a day. So like, we had to come up with this very coded shorthand, which is like SNW her on TOS enterprise with SNW chapel and TOS Scotty.

[00:09:58] And like, it looked like gibberish, right? It looked like, uh, it looked worse than gibberish. It looked like, uh, in an insane per, like it's, it's red room, red room, red room. You know, it was like somebody, somebody had gone insane with the typewriter and was going to be like axing down bathroom doors. It wasn't a technical side of shooting. It was the techno side of making sure my cast and crew knew exactly what we need to do because each ship was lit differently. All the costumes were different. The hair was different. And then most of all, the performances were different.

[00:10:27] And like, you know, poor Celia was in every single scene of every single day. She never had a break. She's always there, you know, and she's always playing two versions of herself and very different versions of herself. And of course that's the whole, the theme of the show is that, you know, this, in front of this beautiful thing of quantum mechanics and quantum physics that it's actually not as different as you think you are. We're all together, but you know, you don't get to that. You don't get to that to the end. So for the most part, she's playing very different versions of herself, very complicated.

[00:10:54] And it was just finding that in the time pressure of production to have that shorthand with our cast and crew to make sure that we had the right lighting scheme, the right shots. And of course, I, of course, you know, added, added fuel to the fire by deciding to do this very complex mirrored imagery. So, you know, not to cut to the chase too much, but you know, obviously it's a show about opposites.

[00:11:19] You think, you know, you know, a white hole and a black hole, two different timelines, two different versions of Uhura, but ultimately it's about them coming together. So I wanted to use mirror imagery throughout and, and I, I almost went fanatical about this and it plays most of all in those split screen shots that you see. But like every time TUS Uhura moved left and reached with her right hand, SNW had them, had them move the mirror side and use her other hand.

[00:11:46] And it was all timed perfectly because you see it. They see those scenes playing together in the split screen and all the staging and the timing that, you know, so you're talking about not just, you talk about measuring the camera distance, focal length, lighting, actor distance to the camera. Like there's so much analytics to go into this to make that work. It was just, you know, it was crazy fun. Uh, you know, again, like I said, director Katnick.

[00:12:10] So in one of those shots, how much time would there be between getting like the TOS Uhura shot from the SNW Uhura shot? Sometime many days. Wow. Yeah. You know, you're also talking about the end of a season, you get, you know, those sort of actor availability and stuff like that. Like, you know, she's not, you know, someone's not available that day or hair can't turn that you almost always never do it the same day. Cause the turnaround just on hair, just on her as hair was three hours. Hmm.

[00:12:38] Right. So, so, but you have to do it some days and like pretty, I'd say almost every day of production, we left the day with a locked off camera with all these cones and do not touch tapes because we wanted to get one of our specialty shots, you know, of the two versions in the same time, uh, in the same frame. And the only way to do that without motion control, which is a very time consuming and expensive tool using a techno dolly, which, which we do, which we've done.

[00:13:04] You know, that's how I shot a lot of the, um, pan far sequence with the two Spocks. Uh, that was something I shot season one. And of course the two pikes and again here, but, but, uh, the sort of poor man's version is just to do a lock off camera. Uh, then you can add some movement in post, which is something we did. And like I said, I'd say there wasn't a single day where we didn't leave set with a, a hero locked off camera and we'd come back to that scene the next day. Mm-hmm man.

[00:13:30] So, I mean, you were kind of talking about it, but in general, would you shoot all the TOS sets and then the S and W sets or all of TOS or her and then all of S and W or her? Or was it like scene by scene? It was scene by scene and set by set. Uh, it just depended on, you know, some of it depended on even the hallways were different, you know? So we had to redress the corridors, redress sick bay, redress the bridge, redress the ready room, redress pikes quarters.

[00:13:57] You know, you name it, we're redressing all these sets, relighting them, doing all the, you know, all the technical stuff. And then that doesn't even get into the HMU stuff, you know? So Henry talked about writing the, the difference between the past enterprise or the present enterprise and the future enterprise. Directorially, how did you approach those two different settings? You know, in a very layered complex approach, the general approach was S and W was a warmer set and TOS enterprise was a cooler, colder set.

[00:14:27] That's more a little bit traditionally how the original series was lit also kind of leaning more into that palette. And then of course, you're talking about your characters, right? You know, Pike is a captain who leads like an orchestrator. He's out there and he's leading the orchestra and he's hearing, he's listening to his performers and, and, and trying to create camaraderie and community and his leadership. Whereas Kirk is a much singular force, right?

[00:14:53] And he, you know, he's, he's clearly sort of in charge and, and, and not as interested in a cacophony of different opinions. You know, then of course the two different versions of Scotty, which were super fun to play. And then Chapel just did a great job with the two different versions of Chapel, but the bravado performance, the real difference was Celia, right? She, she, I tip my hat to her, bow down to her. What will, you know, you name it.

[00:15:20] And I will say the, the secret hero of the episode, uh, her is hair. I mean that hair, it like instantly told you where you were. I almost felt like after watching it, like, Oh wow. Like we did so much work to make these ships look different, but like, all we really had to do was her hair. Like that was it. Like we could have got away with that. Uh, it just told the story because of her as hair on to us was so iconic. Uh, and they really captured it.

[00:15:46] Right. So like anyone who loved the original series is like, Oh my God, that's my uh, her. And like, you didn't, you didn't have to think about it. Like you were there. It kind of transported you. So then all these other kinds of story things that are usually are earned. We're kind of gifted. Chapel's hair too, but a hair was amazing. Yeah. There were shots where I was like, Oh, did they digitally make her look more like a Michelle? And then she turned her face. I'm like, Nope, it's just the hair doing all that heavy lifting. Yep. Look, Celia.

[00:16:14] I mean, she really dug deep, like it's mannerisms. It's the way she walked differently. She held herself differently. She worked this backwards all the way. I did a movie one time with John Hawks and, um, and John was supposed to be shooting like on a Monday and he came out to shooting in Utah. He was like two, two weeks early. And he said, I'm coming here. Cause I want to find my boots. And I was like, you know, whatever. It was like great, crazy actor. Like whatever, uh, go find your boots, you know? But then it's Monday and everyone's on set is panicked.

[00:16:42] And like, we've spent all of our costume. People spent the entire two weeks. We've gone through the entire state. We can't find his boots. I'm like, what do you mean? He can't find his boots. Like none of the boots speak to him. Like he couldn't start talking to me about the character until he found the boots. He thought the character would wear. Like, so Celia did that the opposite. Like she, she dug into every single detail, every single detail. And it shows when you're watching her and you're, you're thinking there's something else.

[00:17:12] It's really just that subtext, that story behind her eyes. That's kind of transporting you. Yeah. Don't worry. I'll take every story you ever have about John Hawks. I mean, come on. That's gotta be a fun guy to work with. So yeah. That was a cool. Okay. I've been so blessed. Yeah. I mean, like, yeah, I didn't move it. Independent from why I did John Hawks, Ray Liotta, Sam Jackson. I, you know, I had them all. Uh, but John was, John was phenomenal. I always wanted Ray Liotta as a bad Merlin Star Trek. Oh man.

[00:17:42] Oh, he would have been great. Yeah. He would have loved it too. I'm just picturing John Hawks running like an indie starship now. And, you know, it's like, why is your view screen? So gritty, John, what's going on? It's a CRT. Why is the contrast so high? Well, I mean, obviously our characters were amazing in this episode, but I, I fixated on so many of these background aliens. Oh man. You said that earlier.

[00:18:10] Like I, I was, I was beside myself. I'm like, there's a score there. That is that. I think it's the Jihad is like one of the weirdest episodes of animated series ever, but I love it for that. And I'm like, okay, we have these aliens here. Everything is canon. Is this just like, is this finale budget that you're like, all right, throw some aliens in, or is this, you know, kind of consciously working toward like, Hey, we know they're going to be

[00:18:40] there eventually. Let's plant those seeds now. So this is a great story. When we first started this show, there was another creature prosthetics company that was pitched to us for budget reasons. It made more sense to use them. We ended up going with legacy effects. Uh, and Alan is the lead over there. And Alan turned out to be probably my favorite person on our crew.

[00:19:06] Just he loves his art form, which, you know, some people would say like stop motion animation, like puppeteering and handmade prosthetics is, is, is fading. And I would highly disagree with that in many ways. Uh, and you can see it just from the dinosaur that gets punched in my premiere to, you know, like I love his work and we just created like a bond over the seasons. I fought for them and they fought for me. And it was just one of these really great relationships that developed and someone I consider a very good friend of mine.

[00:19:36] Now, Poppy and I go down to the legacy. My poppy's my daughter, my 11 year old daughter. We go down to the legacy factory in Hollywood. She loves to build models and do models. And we go there and we hang out and they did baby Yoda. They, you know, they do fallout. I mean, they don't, they do everything, but they're just, it's the most joyful, coolest place. Alan runs the best company. And again, it's just like a bond that's developed. And, you know, we were just talking early on.

[00:20:05] Cause we didn't have that budget. And he, when I were just talking, I was like, you know, like one of the big, big differences between SNW and TOS is that, you know, they've just explored more. Right. They've, they've had more time to explore and, and they've met more different civilizations and species, and there's more aliens involved. And I'd really be great to have some cool ones. And, you know, and this is just Alan literally is going above and beyond. This is someone just, you know, just saying, Hey, I want to deliver. I love the show.

[00:20:35] I want to do something that I'm proud of that blows people away. And he did. Right. And it was just sort of next level. You know, it's a, it's really a testament to hiring people that love something as much as you do because yeah, we all need to pay our bills and, but none of us are doing it for money. And Alan is a testament to that. And so, I mean, like we found ways to do what we could to help them out.

[00:21:02] But like, this is really just legacy effects, the best in the business flexing a little bit and showing like, Hey, we really care about this and we're going to do something special. And they blew me away. And it's like, I, I saw those, you know, every day, like on that, on the TOS set, like I was just watching those background care, you know, creatures. And just, I, it was just phenomenal. It was a friendship that I'm very grateful for. And something that really made the finale special.

[00:21:30] It did. And like, I I'll tell you right now, I didn't know that those were practical effects. Like that's insane to me and they are gorgeous. Like you're right. It's just the, the craftsmanship is crazy good. And I'm, I guess now legacy is my favorite effects place. I mean, like when you get into the end of a show and a lot of people, I mean, I, it's not just Alan and legacy effects, like the, the VFX on this episode, the virtual production on

[00:22:00] this episode. I mean, there's so much we can talk about. I mean, that incredible shot, the shuttles headed towards the, I think I can't forget to the white hole or the black hole. And you have this huge space shot wrapping around the black hole and you come down into the shuttle and you land tight on Ortega's flying this thing. Like you go from like that most epic grandeur of space to the most tight emotional shot. And then we do a similar shot at the end where we catch a, her, a walking on the saucer section where we wrap around to find her walking.

[00:22:30] And, you know, there's such beauty in that, you know, if you kind of like think about that, it's like these best shots take this cosmic scale, but then they return us to one human being. Um, and those are like, again, like that is VFX really just going. And they are calling in favors. Everyone is doing extra work. This is people like the, Hey, like I really want this to be incredible. I want this to be epic. And it, and it was, so that's a testament to Jay Z and the VFX team, Alan and the prosthetics

[00:23:00] creature team, you know, so many people really stepped up here. So one, uh, alien that we do see on the strange new worlds enterprise throughout the whole season, I've noticed this teller right popping up a lot. What can you tell me about this teller right? What's his deal? Does he have a name? Where'd he come from? No, we just like him, you know, no, there's no good answer there. You know, um, it's like our closest thing we have to hobbits.

[00:23:29] They're just the fun to have around, you know, he's got a name. Every, every background character in Star Trek has a name. Well, uh, then I have the dick who can't remember it because I can't. Well, you can name him right now. We're letting you name him. Oh God. Frodo. Yes. I'm like, there you go, Cam. You've done it right up there with. I am so happy right now. Even if it's just my head. There you go. I'll say before I get to the next question, like we talked about Uhura's hair and chapel's

[00:23:58] hair, uh, Ortega's hair is hugely different or take his his story. Like this is an Uhura episode, but Ortega has had a year and something has like lots of things have changed in Ortega's his life because yeah, it's like the post military type hair, the post, uh, enterprise service going on dates. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I, I was thinking about thinking about her hair, you know, you know, right now there's

[00:24:27] that fat on, uh, AI. It's like, here's what I looked like in the eighties. You know, like someone, someone did that with Ortega's, you know, it's so cool. Yeah. I mean, it's so, I'm gonna fun. Like, like I said, director catnip, like time travel, taking your characters, watching where they grow and which was like, in some ways this, this episode, so meta, right? Because that's the joy of doing a prequel to TOS. Like we actually got to go back in time and relook at these characters before who they were the people that everyone knew them to be.

[00:24:56] And like, we kind of took that fun of the macro sense of the series and the kind of took it and played with it and flipped it more inside this episode, which was really cool. Yeah. So I do love the gratuitous coffee shot in this episode. Was that just a fun way to get into the scene or was there more of a story there? There's been a lot of coffee talk this season. So, well, I mean, I thought it was like the most clear way to kind of put the theme of the show together, right?

[00:25:25] Like at that point we hadn't seen the white hole and the black hole together. So like the one, the black coffee, the white coffee, and one stirring it. So that it was really, it was, it was thematically the show. And then also, I mean, like, obviously there's a lot of similarities with yesterday's enterprise. Yes, I have experience riffing off, you know, hero canon Star Trek episodes on quality of mercy. And some ways I riffed off this less, but, but there's a lot of Easter eggs.

[00:25:52] Guy again has those, those really cool scenes where she's drinking like some, like, I forget what they call it in yesterday's. And I'm like, there, there's a scene in, in, in their, in their port galley where there are two people are drinking and having this conversation. And this was a very similar conversation. So I framed it in the same way. And I kind of tripped pay. There's a, there's a mirror to yesterday's enterprise in the staging, uh, and the shot selection of that, you know, I did it again with that kiss in the transporter room. Uh, that's also a yes, the big kiss in yesterday's enterprise.

[00:26:21] So I'll take a big step back. So, and I think I said, so my, I had two real mentors in this business, one on the creative side and one on the producing side. And both of them come from the Star Trek family. My creative mentor was a guy named Marvin Rush, who was a DP cinematographer for over 300 episodes of Star Trek. And this, and he, he was the DP on this episode and he and I back and he, I hired him. He did a bunch of movies with me. We did TV shows together. He was one of the DPs on the magicians with me.

[00:26:49] And he and I used to talk about yesterday's enterprise a lot. And for him, that was a groundbreaking episode because in order to create the other enterprise with no money at that time, all they could do was turn off all the lights. Like that, that was, that was it. Right? Like, and you have these great scenes where like people are lit half face, you know, like half their face, like there's, but it's, but of course the beauty of is that in doing this, they actually discovered the look for deep space nine. Right?

[00:27:19] Like this is what Marvin, like, and deep space nine is my favorite of the original series and, and Marvin's too. Anyway. So I tried to like pay homage in the lighting a lot. Like there's a, there's a scene. My favorite scene of this show is that Pike and Uhura conversation in Pike's quarters. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a beautiful scene in the original with Picard and Tasha. And that's also lit the same way. And it's kind of staged and lit the same way. And I did stupid little things when Scotty dies, there's glass in his head.

[00:27:47] When the captain dies, uh, in yesterday, there's a glass in his head. So like, why is there glass on a ship? I don't know. They had it in yesterday's enterprise, you know? So like, I did like my, I had my Easter eggs and there's plenty more than that, but, but big picture. I don't even know how I even got, how I even got on this. What was the question again? I don't know, but I'm loving the Easter eggs. Oh yeah. Fantastic. It's so good. I mean, I, I didn't like study it, you know, I knew it fairly well.

[00:28:13] It wasn't like a quality of mercy where I really studied, um, um, yeah, where I really kind of went into it. I literally created a scene that was shot for shot, uh, remake of it. Like literally we shot for shot at it, but we didn't do anything like that here just because I felt like, Hey, I already did that. But yeah, it was huge, huge influence for us. I would just like to say like in the last few weeks, my girlfriend and I have finally got to season four of DS nine and I've watched the hooks set in.

[00:28:40] And like, now she's like, want to watch DS nine? Like, yeah, here it is. I mean, it's like, you know, people talk about how groundbreaking, you know, how, how, well, not great. It broke the mold. Right. Uh, and it did something totally new, but, but, you know, especially for like lighting, it really was the first time they, they allowed star Trek to be dark and moody. And, uh, except for this episode, this was the experiment for that. And again, I don't know if that's official or not in Canon.

[00:29:09] That's just what Marvin told me. And, oh, I didn't say, but so I had two mentors. One was Martin Rush creatively. And then, uh, Mary Howard, who's also a producer at UPM on yesterday's enterprise. When I first got into TV, I directed 10 episodes of a show called cold case and she was the producer on it. Uh, and she really taught me how to be a TV producer. You know, my, uh, paying respects to two of the star Trek, uh, family members who, who got me here and who both made yesterday's enterprise.

[00:29:36] So it was fun full circle for me to, to make our, um, thematic version of it. Obviously they're very different stories. Uh, ours is much more intimate and character driven, uh, less of a, obviously a war story, but, um, but yeah, lots of, obviously very, a lot of similarities in the setup. Mm-hmm. My head cannon is now that the guy in the score suit was definitely Christopher McDonald so that I can keep Castillo alive in my heart. Yeah.

[00:30:06] Well, speaking of alternate versions of things, uh, I mean, we understand that originally this episode was conceived as before you knew that you had a season five and that as you got closer production, you learned there was a season five and Henry and probably were able to make some adjustments. Are you without spoiling anything for season five? Can you talk about some of the things that got changed in that period? If this was the series finale, which at a, there was a time when we thought it was, it

[00:30:34] would have been directed by Akiva, right? Um, so, and it would have been different and it would have been a different break when we realized it wasn't the series finale. It was on the season finale. Well, what happened there, if you just look at outside the show is that even Henry suddenly had to break six more new episodes and go and write them. So, uh, you know, Akiva's day job didn't really allow him to become moonlight as a guest director.

[00:31:00] So, so that's the backstory there, but no, I don't think adjusting this finale and I never saw the original break. Um, so just like, so like what it was before this, I don't know. Obviously they were there. A couple episodes changed season four, you know, they were trying to get a couple of episodes trying to, um, I'm not speaking out of school cause they were already talking about it. They were, they were very close to getting Shatner back this year. Uh, and then that didn't work out. Uh, so that episode, that was an episode that adjusted.

[00:31:26] Uh, we, we had gone very far down a road of making that episode. Um, and then this, this one adjusted to part of kind of that adjusting, but I don't think it's set up season five any differently. Like there wasn't any ripple effect in the season five. Season five was very much, I'd say all six episodes are exactly what I'm doing. That our show runners wanted to say. Mm-hmm . And they would have said, regardless of, of, of where season four ended. Mm-hmm .

[00:31:53] Well, so speaking of that, we see a year into the future in this episode. Is that future that we see, is that relatively locked in? Or can we say Erica is safe and off teaching and alive a year from now? Or did this, the events of this episode butterfly that? And we shouldn't take much stock in any of that? No, I think they, no, I, I think they are careful about that sort of stuff. Hmm. Yeah.

[00:32:19] I mean, again, I would, I, that, you know, starting to veer into like showrunner territory where I don't want to step on them. And I'm not, I'm not looking for spoilers. I feel like Henry thought we were like fishing for spoilers when we asked this, but I, as a storyteller, like when Kirk has that reaction about La'an is that storyteller saying like, Hey guys, you know, follow this thread into season five, take this as, as canon.

[00:32:42] I, everything I know of that I, as in four 10 is there purposefully and meaningfully and won't be, um, uh, won't be overruled by anything that happens in season five. Understood. Yeah. Okay. So if anything happens to Ortegas, I will be writing you an angry letter. But I, but I, but I appreciate that. I really do. I mean, let's say she's safe. Well, now I'm scared.

[00:33:11] Did we just hear her thousands of fans breathe a sigh of relief? Okay. I mean, yeah, she's great. So did you have, I mean, I know that, you know, you have your episodes, but you get to see all of the AR sets, all the virtual sets in a season. Right. Did you have a favorite? Well, so that's part of, again, like there's so many joys in my job, but I'd say that one

[00:33:41] of them is, so I get to design them with our team. The head creatives are Jason Zimmerman from our VFX team, Jonathan Lee, our production designer, Glenn Keenan, our DP and me. Right. So we all, there's the kind of four pillars, you know, Jonathan is sort of does the concept that, you know, the big picture, like, Hey, you know, this is the, this is what the world's like. Glenn lights it. Jay Z executes it. And I make sure it works for the story, right? Where's the camera going to go? Where the actors go this block of this book.

[00:34:09] So that's very much my job is to design and build these sets with a very talented team, all of which are doing most of the heavy lifting, but, but ultimately the buck stops with me, right? Like the sets have to work for the guest directors. You know, my job is to also prep the guest directors for their virtual production environment that was designed before they came to set. Right. So I need to make sure they understand that, uh, and they know how to shoot it and they

[00:34:38] know what the bells and whistles are where, what it looks good and what doesn't look good. So, so that's, that's a big part of the producing directing of this show is, is taking authorship for the strange new worlds. Uh, so I, I, you know, do, is there a favorite for me? I mean, I mean, they're also, I think we did such a great job this season. It's really a high watermark. Um, but you know, selfishly, I think I like mine. I mean, I, I, I like, I like, I like dinosaur world.

[00:35:07] Uh, and then also, I mean, look, it here's where virtual production is so helpful. Imagine standing on a green screen set and like trying to understand the feeling of what it looks to stare out into a black hole turning in front of your face. Right. All those scenes on the shuttle bay where we had both a black hole and a white hole and our characters standing there looking out into this abyss, you know, like that's all real.

[00:35:34] Like everything that there's nothing post VFX there. Everything that you're seeing on the audience is saying the actors are saying the crew was seen. So we're all moved by it. You know, uh, her walking on the saucer section and leaping into the air to enter the fourth dimension that all happened. Uh, that's not post VFX that is in camera VFX made in pre-production.

[00:36:00] And the actors are experiencing that real time with the cast and crew. It's tremendous. Unfortunately to really fully understand it, you actually have to come see something like that. Um, but it's, it's phenomenal, but they were also gorgeous. I mean, just in this last episode directed by Sydney Freeland, like the castle, the entire castle, all that was virtual production. Those paintings, like it's not just giant spaces. It can just be very difficult to build places or difficult to go to places like castles.

[00:36:30] Right. I mean, you know, my job is to execute this show to the highest cinematic production value possible. And I think all 10 episodes absolutely accomplished that. And they're all just phenomenal to, to, to experience. Wait, so was the interior of the castle in 409 part of virtual production? Yeah.

[00:36:54] So like the chair that was real, like anything that an actor in touches and sits on that's real, but like the windows, the paintings on the wall, the candles on the wall, all that's virtual production. Dude. I, I thought you guys found a castle. Oh, you know, the Toronto castle. Yeah. I mean, well, they found like the mansion for the space adventure. So I was like, we did, we, we, we, we, we did because back then we weren't as good. Right.

[00:37:21] Like, um, no, like, Oh my God. We can do anything. That is. I know you didn't get up there, Jesse, but Mississauga does not have castles. It does. Maybe they flew somewhere. I don't know. So there's a place called castle Loma. So this is my second long-term show I've done in Toronto. I did a show called warehouse 13 for five years. Yeah. And back then castle Loma was abandoned. So we, that was our castle back then whenever we needed one, but it's now been turned into condos like the rest of the world.

[00:37:51] Yeah. Well, we can't wait to talk about all this with Sydney Freeland, who will be our last director interview and is coming a little late, but, uh, keep an eye out for that episode coming shortly after this one. Yeah. She's awesome. She's a, she's a dear friend. And I know I have my pitch for all of our directors for her really is she's our, our most complete package. Like, you know, she's a gunslinger that can shoot in every single direction. Right? Like there's not a, there's no weakness to her armor.

[00:38:20] And you know, so she often gets tasked with very complex episodes, like the one she had like 409. Well, let me ask you one question Chris. There's something that confused me about this episode. Speaking of the hair and everything, clearly the two of hers did swap places. It's not like a quantum leap situation because everyone keeps commenting on her hair change, but they don't comment on the uniform. Did the uniform swap places or is that just there for the audience to keep track of them? No.

[00:38:49] So they didn't only because, so we purposely made the uniforms and the badges very similar. Uh, and, and here's the conceit that we are saying the state, like you're in a, you're in a red alert emergency situation and there's a lot going on and you've already commented. Someone's hair is different, but you're worried about them. Right? They just hit their head and there's something going on. So we, we, we just felt like that's extra exposition shoe leather that we didn't need.

[00:39:18] And then of course, like, it's not like the, the gag goes very long, you know, Kirk and Chapel come in and say, fuck, and you're not her. Pike does the same thing and you're not fucking her. Like, it's not like, it's not like we're milking that to the, the, a degree of sort of, there's a, look, the audience has a certain amount of suspension and disbelief. Um, and I think we wrote that fine line there. Mm-hmm . And I think those scenes coming when they did, where the crew said, you're not the person

[00:39:48] came at exactly the right time. Cause we were able to have a little bit of fun before it happened. Right. You know, and then there's a lot of people like, you're not going to have like a red shirt, like walk up to her and tell her her badge is different. Like, you know, like this, like I said, TV is not a democracy. Neither is neither is a ship. Right. Like there's a, there's, you know, there's a, there's a chain of command here. So, but look, it's up to the fans to decide, uh, not me or anyone else to fans to decide what's too much, you know?

[00:40:16] And if like, someone's like, you know, that's a different, her neck collar is different on like, it's not like her, like it would have been a thing if she had changed rank. Right. Like, or like she'd gone suddenly from engineering, like her costume color changed. Then, then I, I think, you know, everyone would have pulled the bullshit bell or ring the bullshit bell. Um, but, um, where's that button on the bridge? But honestly, it was like one of those things. I didn't even notice it. Like, I, like they told me that the badges are different. I'm like, they're different. Like, okay, well how, you know, like, uh, but very subtle. I didn't know.

[00:40:46] Yeah. Yeah. Well, plus the crew has just been through doppelganger training after last week's episode. Right. This is not captain Pike. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously not Mr. Spock. How did all of you miss this? They didn't turn into fucking Muppets again. So I got everyone's like, as long as they didn't turn into Muppets again, I'm good. They're not black and white and wearing a cricket hat. They're not a Muppet. They're not high. Like they're, they're just wearing a different badge.

[00:41:15] I'm okay with it. They're not a zombie. Yeah. 98% is good enough. Let's go. They're not a werewolf. They're not a dragon. Yeah. Yeah. I cheered. Going back to just the animatronics. I cheered when the practical werewolf showed up, I was like, oh God, we're going to get a bad CGI where we're no, we're not. We're getting an amazing physical effect. Okay. Hold on guys, guys, legacy effects. That's not a CGI. That's not a CGI. Right. So a werewolf. So, so there's a, there's a really big backstory here.

[00:41:46] So Henry and I, of course we worked together on the magicians. He was my boss on that show as well. And we did not have the budget that we did. And we did not have legacy effects doing our creature effects. And we had a werewolf that did not meet expectations. And we tried to fix it in the effects, you know, that's kind of like lipstick on a pig in some ways. So Henry was like, you know, I really want to do a werewolf, but we're just not going to do it good. And I literally like, and, you know, if Henry's listening to this, he's going to, he can come punch me later.

[00:42:15] But I literally like, I literally called Alan and said, you got no, I'm like, Alan, Henry really wants to do a werewolf, but he doesn't think we can pull it off. And, oh, Alan's like, he got that look in his eye. He's like, I'm going to give these guys a werewolf. And it turned out so good. It looks so great. It's so good. Yes. Sydney's got a great, uh, video of it. Just walking around the halls of the stage on her. Oh yeah. Is that a great behind the scenes? I love that. Yeah.

[00:42:43] So, uh, last time we talked to you, you were a producer director writer, all those good things. Now you are also a published author. Uh, how's, how's the book been received? How's it going? I have no idea. Uh, I I've done some press for it a little bit, but yeah, I mean, I, this is my first time doing it. I maybe I'm not doing it the right way. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing with it, but I, you know, I think it, I don't know. I think people like it. I, I, you know, I, I, here's the good thing.

[00:43:12] Uh, is that virtual production was an emergency fire pull for the pandemic, right? Like how do you make a show called stranger worlds inside of warehouse in Mississauga without, you know, spending $40 million an episode and virtual production was the answer. Hmm. What we've also realized over the last year. And I, I hope more people realize it. Virtual production is also an answer to AI.

[00:43:40] It's also better, cheaper, faster, maybe not as cheap and fast as AI, certainly better. And certainly human made. It's a great way to save time and money on production and not use AI, but save, you know, and also make production greener. It's also a tool to keep production in LA, right? So if you can bring every location in the world into your stage on the Warner Brothers lot, then you don't need to go around the world to get a meager tax incentive.

[00:44:08] You can, you don't, the actors already live here. The directors live here. The writers live here. The executives live here, make the show here in LA. Make it with virtual production and save whatever you're going to get for those tax incentives. You're more than going to make up in savings and location fees, travel, you know, waiting for the right sunlight, you know, and what we've realized is that you can make any stage, any, any setting you want.

[00:44:35] You could do Machu Picchu in the morning. You could do outer space in the afternoon and you could do Dodger stadium at night, all without ever leaving the Warner Brothers lot. Right. And so it starts making shooting in LA a lot more feasible and starts making the back lots that are pretty much empty right now because, you know, no one's shooting on them. You know, it could give them a second life. So that's like, it's the, the funnest thing about the book is, is that it seems to be getting

[00:45:02] some traction as you know, people are saying, Hey, maybe AI is just a stinking pile of shit. After all, you know, that said, it would be great to do things faster and cheaper. Uh, where else, what else do we have? God forbid if what would happen if AI was where it was today, when we launched the show in 2020, my guess is we probably would have gone there. Um, or some, some, at least there have been that conversation, but yeah, so the, the book

[00:45:31] has sparked some interesting conversations and, and look, and I hope it's doing great. I mean, I, I'm, you know, I'm going to start trying to reach out to a bunch of film schools and universities and see if they'd want me to come do a guest lecture, if that's something like that. But, um, those, I think, I think all the things that you're kind of supposed to do as an author, which just quite frankly, I haven't been doing. You wear a lot of hats. I think it's really interesting and pertinent that you bring up the savings because it, like

[00:46:01] you used to be able to see where they saved money in star Trek, right? Like that was one of the hallmarks of star Trek is you go, oh, they saved money here because that is clearly a cardboard rock or that is clearly probably made of asbestos the entire cave. Right. But here it's, it's the opposite. It's like, this looks insanely expensive and gorgeous and it's saving money.

[00:46:27] Like that's, I mean, our show really cost a fraction, a fraction of what the Lucas shows costs, right? Right. It costs a fraction of what a show like foundation costs, costs a fraction of what silo costs. Like our show is not cheap, but in the world of high end world building science fiction, we are by far the best price show. Uh, and that is because of virtual production.

[00:46:57] That's really cool. And Jesse, part of the savings is that the volume is all asbestos still. So yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, they kept it old school for start. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was shocked when I heard that learned that season four costs less than season three, like season four just seems there's so much going on. It seems so big, like well done. Well, very efficient in how you used your space. Well, and we like, we're very, we wanted to be good partners.

[00:47:26] You know, we love working for, for Paramount CBS. I've spent by far the majority of my career, 20 years of TV working for them. Uh, they're incredible place to work. And so we wanted to be good partners. We, and we also, every season we finished under budget, you know, and, and, and, and a lot of that is the efficiencies of our directors. You know, we have a very efficient prep plan, which includes intense storyboard and shot list, which makes our shoot days go quicker. Right.

[00:47:55] Um, and all our directors buy into it. Well, looking back at season four now, I know you're probably like, well, you're done with season five. So looking back to season four, like what, what are you thinking? What stands out about that season specifically? It was so much fun. Uh, I think it was the most, I, I, and I've heard the actors say it too. Uh, it was the most fun episode for us to make fun season for us to make.

[00:48:21] Uh, we took, you know, we took really big swings and I think it's like, okay here. Like, you know, I'm also very aware of this conversation that's going on, you know, about, you know, and look, a sizable amount of the fan base didn't like what they call these gimmick episodes, these, these gimmicky episodes, you know? And I think I don't want to be tone deaf to that. Cause that's part of my, like, that's part of my job is to listen to that and to hear this stuff. But like this show has always taken really big swings with genre, right? You know, and this season certainly does that.

[00:48:50] And there are episodes that lean into comedy, fantasy, puppetry, noir, heightened version of our characters, you know, and, and the, some fans haven't bought into those, but I think the intention behind those episodes is critical. They're not simply doing something different for the sake of being different. The idea is to use genre as another way into character and to put people we love in circumstances where we can hopefully discover something new about them that we wouldn't discover in

[00:49:18] their normal day-to-day science solving selves. Now audience get to say, like I said this earlier, now audiences get to decide for themselves if those stories connect with them, but that's part of the relationship with Star Trek and it's fans. And that's why like you can't simultaneously say we love our very intelligent, critical fan base and then get mad when they're intelligent and critical, right? Like they're going to have different opinions of it. But from my perspective, and I'm not speaking on the key of Henry's behalf or anyone else.

[00:49:46] From my perspective as a producing director, my response is to take every story we're telling and execute it to the highest level. And I'm enormously proud of what our cast and crew has accomplished this year. The craftsman on this show is simply extraordinary. And I love these fun episodes. Personally, I love them. Do I wish, and like here's a caveat, do I wish we had 20 episodes a season where these funner episodes were surrounded by more of the traditional science fiction episodes? Yes.

[00:50:16] And I would happily direct this show for 20 episodes a season. And this is something I thought about. And there's an important note underneath that note. Because I think what the fans are saying when they see a puppet and they don't like it, or they see people dressed black and white and wearing hats tilted and they don't like it, or they see our actors on inhaling air that makes them a touch and they don't like it. What they're really saying is that I want more Pike. I want more Una.

[00:50:46] I want more Lon. I want more Spock. What they're saying is they love our show. What they're saying is they love our characters. And what they're saying is they want more time with these characters. They want more time with them on the enterprise. They want to understand the more that, and I want that too. You know, like I've always felt frustrated with this show, these 10 episodes. And I think it's the worst part of, there's so much great things about this golden era

[00:51:11] television and these, these great episodes, you know, these production value, but 10 episodes a season is not enough. You know, and I think ultimately that desire though is a testament to what this cast and crew and Gene Roddenberry created 60 years ago that, you know, people aren't asking for more because they don't care. They're asking for more because they love these characters and they want to spend more time with them. And look, that's a pretty wonderful problem for a show to have.

[00:51:38] And I wish I could say we solved it by having a 20 episode fifth season. And I got like, I like, this is like, this is a bad business. I was kind of thinking like, they were going to give us that, like, Hey, why don't we go out with a bang? Why don't we go like, let's give them a 20 episode final season. And like, I like, I'd, I'd lay in bed and like, yeah. You know, like, I'm like, like, you know, cause I really wanted that. You and us both. Yeah.

[00:52:06] So look, not every swing is going to be everyone's favorite swing. I love season four. I especially love the two episodes I directed, but I'm wildly proud of my bosses. I would do anything for those guys. I love the stories our writers wrote and the episodes are directors directed. I want more too. Likewise. You're here. Likewise.

[00:52:30] Well, for this episode, this, uh, for tomorrow's enterprise, do you have a favorite shot for this episode specifically? I, I'm a big world building guy. Um, that shot that wrap around the enterprise defined a hura walking alone on the saucer without knowing that the other hura will be there only knowing that it makes sense in a leap of faith that trust between two people.

[00:53:00] There's so much going on emotionally, thematically in that shot. You know, it's the shot of like a, you know, a climber on El Capitan or something like that. Like to see this one person walking out the saucer to this black hole. Like it just, it's, and it's so epic and wide and it comes in lands. It's just a, our VFX team just killed it. And those are very hard, right? Cause I shot the practical side. So there's a Mary, there's a, there's a seam, right?

[00:53:29] So you have to take pure CGI VFX and marry it to the practical shot. Easier said than done. Trust me. I'd say that's my favorite shot. Cause I think that says so much about her hura as a character, the bravery, her faith in herself. And yeah, that's my favorite. I think you could also argue like, that's the pinpoint moment when she becomes Uhura of legend, right?

[00:53:59] Like this, this is TOS Uhura now. And it's like, don't, don't, don't worry so much about the future. Just be in the moment. Just go for it. Trust, trust your gut. That that's her arc. And that's, yeah, you're right. That's the perfect, you know, that's the, that's the full circle of her arc. Yeah. I love it. My favorite shot is anyone with vacation in it. But I mean, vacation. Oh my God. Come on. How great was that?

[00:54:26] I mean, you guys should have seen the vibe on set when those guys walked out. I mean, like people have fucking stopped working. I'm like, okay, come on. And Alan's, Alan's just sitting there. So fucking smug. He knew he killed it. Everyone's like, come on. Like, you know, they were so, we were so stoked to have those characters. No, they were all on different days or they, you know, we didn't see them all together. Did you, do you have any behind the scenes? No, I spread them out. All of them together?

[00:54:56] No, no. Oh, we should have. Like when he first made them or something? No. You know, we're all stressed out TV people. We don't, we forget, we forget half the time we forget to have fun. You know, that's a, there's a lesson. That's why you gotta invite podcasters on and we'll do all that stuff for you. Right? Where were you guys taking the behind the scenes? You know? Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts before we close out our season of Prime Direction? No, guys. This is awesome. Can't wait to do it again next year. Yeah.

[00:55:25] Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you for joining us. Thanks so much.