Filming Episodes Out of Order

 Posted on 9/30/1993 by jmsatb5@aol.com to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated


There's absolutely no problem with the actors in terms of continuity
because of shooting the season finale midway through the run. First and
foremost, again because this is a novel for television, the basic stories
for the whole season are already written, and thus all of our actors know
where they're going for this season. Much as this is a straight line,
everything in TV is out of order. You generally don't shoot an episode
in sequence, for instance...you often shoot the last scene first, the
first scene in the middle, and the middle in the beginning. Actors have
to be able do adjust to that sort of thing, and they do so.

Also, in terms of being familiar with their characters...again, that
is very much at their disposal. We don't have the luxury of taking a
full season to start to establish our characters. We have to hit the
ground running right from ground zero. We'll be expanding our characters
as we go, but again, nearly all of that currently exists in the B5 season
one bible, which goes into considerable background history on all of the
characters, and spells out in broad strokes what will be happening to them
in this first season. As a result of all this, our actors have been able
to hit their stride almost from the first frame.

It ain't no kind of problem.

jms