A Tribute Site to: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World

SUMMER HIATUS
The lonely Lost World outpost of post-production will close in
Australia in just a few weeks with the delivery of the final episodes
of Season Three. (On a positive note, last week's e-mail update for
TLW's production team referred to the next few months as a "break" in
production.)

SEASON THREE BROADCAST SCHEDULE
Each week, Treehouse News lists the next four episodes to air in the
U.S.

A run of six all-new episodes begins this week.
04/08/02 - 04/14/02 Episode 317 "The Imposters"
04/15/02 - 04/21/02 Episode 318 "The Elixir"
04/22/02 - 04/28/02 Episode 319 "Tapestry" (Veronica returns.)
04/29/02 - 05/05/02 Episode 320 "Legacy"

Two more new episodes will follow before summer repeats begin.

The status of Season Four remains the same: Still completely
unofficial and subject to change-Season Four is currently expected to
begin the week of September 30.

CHICAGO CONVENTION
As mentioned last week, Jeff Hayes is working on ways to support the
first Lost World convention. Details re the involvement of
Coote/Hayes and New Line will be posted as they become available. In
the meantime, is there any consensus on what Lost World fans are
called, and on what the name of the very first convention will be?

CHANGE IN TOPICS
Over the Northern hemisphere's summer, Treehouse News will continue
to post behind-the-scenes background pieces for previously-run
episodes. But the First-Look comments for the new episodes will be
much briefer, so as not to spoil the fun by giving too much away
(especially concerning the symbol on Summerlee's mask and what it
means to Veronica!).

SHOP TALK: THE CONCEPT MEETING
In a perfect world, in which everything is done on schedule, a TLW
script begins life as an "unnumbered first draft." This simply means
it's the writer's first draft, based on an approved and detailed
outline, and that the script's scenes have not yet been given the
production numbers necessary for scheduling.
-A scene is typically an extended piece of continuous action which
takes place in one location. The term includes everything from a
quick establishing shot of the Treehouse, over which we hear the
gramophone playing, to an extended dinosaur chase through the jungle.

-In a script, scenes are indicated as being interior or exterior,
written as "EXT. TREEHOUSE - DAY," and "INT. TREEHOUSE - NIGHT."

-A TLW scene number is three to four digits long. The first one or
two digits indicate the episode number; the last two digits indicate
the scene number. For example, the scene numbers for Episode
314, "The Secret," ran from Scene 1401 to 1439.

-When scenes change after a script has been "locked" (meaning that,
for ease of scheduling, no scenes or page numbers will be allowed to
change from this stage onward), deleted scenes will appear in
subsequent drafts of the script as "OMITTED." New inserted scenes
will be numbered 1410A, 1410B, and so on.

The first step in the long journey to final script is when the
unnumbered first draft is circulated to the cast, department heads,
key production personnel, and everyone else on the show who's
interested to know what's going to happen next (especially to Arthur
the Beetle). This is when the Story Department receives its first set
of reactions to the story's structure and requirements. These
reactions usually deal with broad issues such as casting
possibilities, scheduling and budget concerns, and, of course,
overall story logic.

Sometimes the schedule is such that the Story Department has a chance
to address these initial concerns before the first formal production
meeting - the Concept Meeting. If this is the case, the Story
Department replaces the unnumbered first draft script with
the "numbered white production draft." (This script is called
a "white" draft because it's printed on white paper.)

More often than not, it is this numbered white draft that is the
focus of the Concept Meeting.

The TLW Concept Meeting takes place at the show's production offices,
right beside the open kitchen, where four or five large conference
tables have been pushed together into a square to make room for
between twenty to thirty people. Attendees include the episode's
director and assistant director (the A.D,, who usually runs the
meeting), along with all department heads - make-up, hair, wardrobe,
stunts, locations, casting, special effects, digital effects,
continuity, art, props, writers - and the key producers, including
Executive Producer Jeff Hayes, and those who're responsible for the
budget, logistics, and post-production.

The meeting starts with everyone opening his or her copy of the white-
draft script to page one, scene one. And then an intensive production
analysis begins. (Interestingly enough, story content is rarely, if
ever, discussed at the Concept Meeting. That occurs at smaller,
follow-up meetings with the Story Department, the producers, and the
director.)

What follows next is a big brainstorming session. The art and prop
people have read the script using highlighters to mark every prop,
set, and scenic element. Make-up has begun tracking the characters'
physical conditions through the story. Wardrobe has made notes about
any new costumes that have to be designed and sewn for guest
characters, and at the same time has begun to calculate how many
versions of the regular casts' costumes will have to be sacrificed
for bullet hits, knife wounds, or other specified mayhem.

Meanwhile, the stunt coordinator has marked every physical
interaction in the script, from Roxton having an all-out fight with
one of his abductors in Episode 315 ("Finn") to Marguerite being
pushed aside in Episode 316 ("Suspicion"). The stunt and safety
coordinators mark the script for action the cast can safely
accomplish, noting any shenanigans that will have to be assigned
(usually over the casts' objections) to stunt doubles. (The number of
stunt doubles and the type of action they'll have to perform will
directly affect the plans of wardrobe and make-up, as well. The
messier the stunt, the more frequent the make-up applications, and
the greater the number of duplicate costumes.)

At this first discussion of the script, the special effects and
digital effects coordinators often speak with the director about the
best way to achieve what the script has called for. For example, in
an upcoming episode, there was a long discussion about whether to
present a massive explosion by actually firing off explosives in a
set (looks great, is potentially dangerous, can only be done once),
or by using a CGI flame effect (can also look extremely realistic
with the proper editing and sound effects provided by post-
production). In the end, several techniques were combined: The CGI
element was used at the apparent source of ignition, while large air
cannons were used to blast debris into the air. The final arrangement
involved input from special effects, digital effects, the stunt and
safety coordinators, and the construction team, as well as careful
planning regarding cost and schedule.

At the end of the Concept Meeting, which can last anywhere from just
under an hour to more than two hours, depending on a script's
technical complexity, everyone usually walks away with areas to
investigate.

Another example: After the Concept Meeting for Episode 305 ("The
Knife"), the props department began work on a prototype "soft" knife
that could be treated with a new finishing compound so it would gleam
like polished steel, yet still be completely safe during fights. The
director, Michael Offer, set off to film some test transition
sequences to see how to get into and out of Malone's visions. Casting
had to come up with a selection of actors who would be suitable for
the guest roles of Gull and Anderson (and who would be available at
the time the episode was scheduled to be shot). And wardrobe had the
fun assignment of researching Victorian clothing to create new
costumes for actors Rachel Blakely and Jennifer O'Dell in their dual
roles.

Meanwhile, the episode's writer - in this case, Executive Producer
Guy Mullally - headed back to the keyboard to expand some scenes and
decrease others to address technical issues. (When a writer revises a
script, the resulting revised draft will have an asterisk in the
margin to the right of any lines that have changed. The asterisks are
used to alert readers to a change between the new script and the one
that preceded it.)
If only a few pages of the revised white draft have changes, then
these pages are printed out as "pink" pages (on pink paper) and are
placed in the white script. The changed white pages are pulled out
and replaced by the new pink ones, so at a glance, the readers can
tell which pages have changed.

However, at this first stage of reworking the script, there are
usually so many changed pages that often the next script that is
distributed for review is not a pink and white script but a "full
pink" with changes on virtually every page.

For subsequent revisions of the script, many times only the changed
pages (each new revision having its own particular color) are printed
and distributed. So when a set of changed pages comes in, everyone
takes apart his/her script, tosses out the old pages, and slips in
the new ones. By the time a script is actually in production, it is a
veritable rainbow.

On TLW, the script order of revisions runs: white, pink, blue, green,
yellow, then repeats with 2nd white, 2nd pink, and so on,
occasionally reaching even into triples. It's no wonder that scripts
are bound with easy-to-remove brads or other removable connectors.

But, before that colorful bunch of pages goes into production, it
must first survive the Production Meeting. More on that next week.

A FIRST LOOK AT THIS WEEK'S EPISODE: "THE IMPOSTERS"
"For two days each year, two different worlds are brought together by
a freak of nature. But when the earth has moved just a little, and
the sun no longer hits that cluster of sparkling rocks, everything
returns to normal.. Last year it was a frozen wasteland. The year
before, a desert. Every year, it's something different." - EDGAR
GRAY, in "THE OUTLAW" (Episode 216)

Which brings us to Episode 317: Even when things looked darkest last
summer, Jeff Hayes thought positively and asked the Story Department
to start thinking of Season Three stories. And one of the first story
areas to be considered was: What if the Explorers returned one year
later to the "Outlaw" cave to see if the strange phenomenon would
repeat?

And the answer? Well, let's just say that this year, with Finn
around, it's not the landscape that does the changing.

NEXT WEEK: More news, and A First Look at "The Elixir."

J&G