THIS
WEEK ON THE PLATEAU
Editing is complete for the last two episodes
of the season. CGI
effects, however, are still underway for all
new episodes to come
(Ever wonder what a "shifting plane of reality"
actually looks
like?), together with the final sound mixes
and music scoring.
Although post production is winding down and
the last of the TLW team
will soon be off for a well-deserved break,
all in the Lost World
family are looking forward to Season Four.
FAN MAIL
Please see last week's Treehouse News (03 07
02) for the new fan mail
address to use during hiatus.
When TLW's in production, there's always a big
stack of fan mail on
the mail-sorting table in the main office, and
the mail is always
passed along to whomever it's addressed to.
Also, some of the
letters - especially illustrated ones from kids
- are pinned up close
to the office entrance for everyone to enjoy.
Picture requests have their own route. Sometimes
they are
individually answered from Coote-Hayes at the
Movie World Studios in
Australia, and sometimes a group of them are
bundled up and shipped
to New Line in New York for individual mailing.
But everyone on the
production is aware of the mail TLW gets, as
well as the terrific
comments that are posted on this board.
Speaking of this board, the cast, crew, and
production staff often
hear about the number of posts that come in
for various topics. Some
people on the production do check in unofficially
from time to time,
though producers and writers have to be very
careful about which
topics they read. The Story Department for TLW
takes great care to
avoid any discussion of fan fiction or any threads
about story ideas,
so we always appreciate it when those topics
are clearly indicated in
the thread titles.
THE FIRST LOST WORLD CONVENTION?
We passed on to Jeff Hayes this board's discussion
about the
possibility of holding a one-day TLW gathering
in Chicago this
summer. He's very pleased and thanks you all
for your support. He did
caution that if all goes according to schedule,
though, that he hopes
the cast will be hard at work on Season Four
in July. However, please
keep posting TLW convention details as they
develop, because Coote-
Hayes is already starting to look into what
materials they can
contribute, perhaps along with organizing a
special programming event
or two. We'll keep you posted.
SHOP TALK
This week's episode, "Fire in the Sky," is one
of several this season
with a multiple writer credit. TLW does follow
the Writers Guild of
America conventions on writer credits, so when
an ampersand (&) is
used between writers' names, it indicates the
writers wrote as a
team. When the word "and" is used, it means
the listed writers did
not work together. The first writer wrote a
first draft, after which
the second writer wrote the subsequent draft/s
which contributed 50%
or more new material.
BEHIND THE SCENES ON THIS WEEK'S EPISODE: "FIRE
IN THE SKY"
Though "Fire in the Sky" is a Season Three episode,
its story was
initially developed in the latter part of Season
Two. (Another
episode that saw its first glimmerings in Season
Two was "Eye For an
Eye," though in the earliest version, Roxton
was hunted by raptors
under the control of locals.) Now that TLW is
between seasons again,
there is another group of as-yet-untold stories
from the third season
that the Story Department hopes will come to
life in Season Four.
Like most TLW episodes, "Fire from the Sky"
was shot at multiple
locations. The interior Treehouse scenes, as
always, were filmed on
Stage Two of the Warner Movie World Studios
on Australia's Gold
Coast, about an hour's drive south of Brisbane.
Exterior scenes were
shot in a variety of spectacular outdoor settings
- some of which are
used regularly, and some which appear only in
this episode.
One of the recurring TLW exterior locations
is a privately-owned
section of ancient rainforest where the base
of the Treehouse is set
up. Another key exterior location is adjacent
to a local farm
populated by those inquisitive cows we've mentioned
before. This
location is particularly versatile, with acres
of grassy fields,
hills, and jungle, plus room for the Windmill,
the London Street, the
Big Cave, several smaller caves, and the Western
Street (which used
to be the Outlaw Village, which used to be the
Zanga Village).
Close inspection of the dungeon scenes in "Fire
in the Sky" reveals
the legacy of an earlier episode - the dungeon's
curved stone ceiling
was once the underside of the London Street
footbridge from "The
Knife." The Lost World construction department
built two walls to
seal the area under the footbridge, so that
all the dungeon scenes
could be filmed in the middle of the London
Street. Then, when the
episode was completed, the walls came down and
the street was
restored, ready to be used again for "Phantoms,"
as well as for one
of the new episodes still to be aired.
"Fire in the Sky" is also memorable for being
the first episode in
which Marguerite sings in the shower (and that
shower will make a
reappearance before Season Three ends). The
choice of song was simple
once the Story Department uncovered the tale
behind "She's Only a
Bird in a Gilded Cage." Here's a great link
to the song's fascinating
history.
http://www.tombstoneaz.net/birdcage.php3
Now the question is: Did Marguerite sing this
song because it
reflects an experience in her past, or just
to needle Lord Roxton?
One last note about "Fire in the Sky." Though
the term doesn't come
up in the script, the stone arch that Malone
encounters in this
episode is known on TLW as a story tablet. We'll
be seeing another,
even more significant one before the end of
Season Three
More news next week.
J&G
