Giotto

hosted by the lovely

SojournHeart11

Thank you for opening this new thread, Daggi. And the OP looks fantastic, too, good choice of images. Wow, I have so much to share.

Giotto

then lets start Denise

SojournHeart11

Stay tuned...

Giotto

so excited

Dlyn

Looking SO forward to hearing new stories!!

SojournHeart11

Will post my report in the morning. Too tired tonight.

Giotto

I think we will have an active discussion here soon

SojournHeart11

QAF Binge Club Recap 1

The first ever QAF Binge Club webinar session was held this past Sunday, June 22nd, at 12PM EST/9 PM Pacific Time, and was slated to be 3-hours long. Of course there was an initial trial run back in June, on the 10th & 11th, to get fans familiarized with what the event would be about. However, this time, the discussion was more focused, touching on a set of episodes that make up the pilot episode.

Opening

The session started off with Kate Zenna, the moderator of the event, making her introduction and checking to make sure all fans were secured and ready to go. After the introduction, Scott joined in. As we all know, Gale got food poisoning, which is why he couldn't make it on. Kate and Scott explained that if fans were only joining in for the sole purpose of seeing Gale, they could get their money back. From what I gathered, that was just a few people, and mostly everyone stayed to chat. Scott said that before Gale got sick, they had been discussing what they wanted to talk about, and had a different topics lined up about the music and his portrayal of the character Brian. He would have been on for 15 minutes discussing all of this.

Scott was his usual self, being your funny, witty, and gracious host. He had a bottle of kombucha on stand by to sip on... and was getting started. He said he had to put on face powder because he has oily skin. Scott was sporting a scruffy appearance... he joked that because he knew Gale would be on, he wanted to make Gale feel comfortable being in his natural habitat... which is BEARDED! I thought that was so funny.

Scott proceeded to go over some of the topics he'd be discussing, and explained that instead of going scene-by-scene format, he'd chosen, instead, to break the discussion down into themes or categories instead, as all 3 episodes make up the pilot, and were closely related. Some of the themes that were discussed included what defines sex as being the central component of the show, and also, the element of family.

The guests were Stephen Lynch (make up artist), Sean Jensen (camera operator), actors Dean Armstrong, and Sean Baek.


Technicalities

The pilot, which spans 1-3 episodes, took 2 months to film.

Within the first hour, Sean Jensen came on to chat with Scott about his experiences of being behind the lens, capturing everything. For many years, he worked on the show as the camera operator, and also shot some of the most intimate sex scenes there was. He and Scott further discussed the process Sean had undergone to film scenes. Sean explained to the audience that he worked with the show's creator, Russel T. Davies, on various scenes throughout season 1 and beyond. Sean also gave insight into what it was like working with Russell Mulchahy. Scott and Sean provided insight into his background, revealing that Mulchahy directed music videos by acts such Elton John and Duran, Duran... he also directed the movie The Highlander. His involvement explains why at times QAF felt stylistically akin to that of a music video, especially in the club scenes.

They delve deeper into the creative process, exploring the camera set-up process.
Where usually it would take a 10-20-camera set-up to achieve the desired effect, Russell (There are two Russell's they're discussing, and I'm not quite sure which one they mean) would require up to 106 cameras! Said they would start out with wide lens, in a wide-panning shot, and would gradually replace it with a narrower view.

Ramping shots were discussed. Ramping is a kind of method used on a camera to give scenes a certain fast-paced feel. Ramping is essentially the camera making rapid zooms...giving way to the flash effect we always see on the show. They compared it with the camera work done in the film, The Matrix...then calling it the Gatrix or something. It adds a dramatic effect. It's frankly one of my favorite things about the show.

QAF was shot on 16 MM film -- as opposed to 35 -- which is why sometimes it would appear to look grainy in some spots. The aspect ratio for on which the show was filmed was between 16:9 & 4:3.

Scott said all of what is shown in the club (including the lasers, strobe lights, etc.) were real. It wasn't fake.

Sean goes into further detail about what filming the sex scenes were like for him. He said when he filmed Brian and Justin scenes for the first time, he was a tad bit put off when Russell (Davies?) would direct him on sexually explicit scenes. States that he was raised as a Mormon, so he wasn't accustomed to that sort of thing. After a while, though, he'd grown used to it, and became desensitized... he saw it as a job.

QAF at the time pushed many limits in terms of explicit depictions of nudity and sex. While Showtime allowed for such liberal amounts of sexual situations, there were still limits the network imposed on content creators to prevent it from coming off as looking completely pornographic. As a result, actors' naughty bits were obscured by moving a piece of clothing, thigh, a leg, or another extremity into place thereby preventing too much from being shown on camera (booo! ).

Scott says he's got peculiar footage somewhere that shows dance floor patrons halting and stopping the dance moves whenever the director would yell "SLOW!... Okay, "FASTER". Scott cheekily makes a remark about hearing the same whenever he's making love. I was like.... what?? Because I'd just barely caught that little remark. I was so busy trying to take notes when that came out of nowhere. So funny.

Sean remembers he accidentally knocked a woman over with the camera trying to get one of those ramping flash shots discussed earlier. Before this happened, he'd warned her that once she was done contributing to the take, she should get out of the way soon after so he could spin his camera around quickly. Well, she didn't take heed of his warning, and as a result, got hit in the head with said camera and tumbled to the floor. Scott goes "Woman down... woman down" twice. Luckily, though, she turned out fine and wasn't too injured.

Getting to know Baek

I have to admit, Katsuo wasn't one of the characters that stuck with me, but I always thought he was a total cutie, despite him breaking Emmett's heart. I don't know, he's just one of those characters from the show I didn't think to look more into. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to find out more. Sean Baek, the actor who portrayed Katsuo in episode 3 of season 1, came on to chat with everyone about his experiences of being apart of the show. It was so pleasant getting to hear his thoughts on playing the role and providing further glimpses into the audition process that got him playing Katsuo. He shared a few behind-the-scenes pics that shows him posing with Scott, Gale, Randy, and a few others on set. Baek continues sharing his memories of playing Katsuo. Baek is a Japanese-American, and he reveals before landing the role of Katsuo that he wasn't fluent in the language... someone had to teach him the language. I thought this was a very interesting piece of information to learn about. Another interesting thing to have found out is the fact that he came up watching Cagney and Lacey when it was on, and was starstruck by Sharon when he was on set. I thought that hearing that was so sweet.

Scott asked Baek if there could possibly be any racial stereotypes attached to the role of Katsuo, given the fact he played a Japanese hustler... and what his general thoughts were on the subject of racial insensitivity. Baek said he didn't quite see that as being racially insensitive, and just saw it as a role he wanted to portray. He perceived it as comic relief to further the character development of Emmett.


Pre-recorded Interviews with Dean and Stephen

Stephen Lynch ~ Makeup Artist

Stephen Lynch is the make-up artist that worked on the show. His interview was pre-recorded. Unfortunately, I don't have much on his interview with Scott, because I'd stepped away from the tablet to do something and missed whatever he was talking about. But from the little bit of conversation I could pick up on upon returning was geared towards semen. Apparently, they held meetings in the parking lot of the studio to go over the different kinds of synthetic semen that would make appearances on the show. #DEAD I was like... what??? Nonetheless, it fascinating to hear about.

Dean Armstrong ~ Actor, Played Blake

Due to his busy schedule, Dean pre-recorded his interview with Scott. They discussed the character of Blake. Dean said he chose to see the good within his character, despite his character's very flawed ways. Dean believes that when is character was cruising Ted in the in Babylon that time, he was sober. Dean was originally supposed to play Justin, but subsequently became Blake (thankfully!).



That's all I have for now... I've definitely got more to share. I'll post more as it comes to me.

Giotto

Denise you are amazing.. very impressive and taking notes surly helped

Did you get that little story that Sean Jensen shared of Russel ( I'm sure he was talking about Mulchahy here) sliped his thumb inside the bum of on of the dancers trying to position him? the boys were all oild in to look sweatty and he wanted to turn him a bit and slipped. Sean turned so read telling this story and laughing about it. I guess those are moments you only get to see as a cameraman

♥ Gale's Fragile Beauty ♥

Thanks so much for this wonderful new thread and your report Denise. I promise to read it fully when I get my new reading glasses.

Dlyn

Denise~ thank you so much for taking notes throughout the webcast and for typing all of that out for all of us to enjoy!! I LOVED reading all of it and it was cool to learn some of the behind the scenes stuff. I never knew what that fast paced camera thing was called~ ramping~ who knew! I always loved how that technique added drama to the scenes so that was really interesting to read about. Also interesting was the info about the camera man being embarrassed at first~ I can imagine as they had to get really close to the actors at times. Also found it interesting that the strobes and everything at Babylon we’re real.... I’ve always loved when the confetti comes down. I wish I could go and dance there too~ haha. I somehow thought Babylon was a set and not a real dance club. Thank you again for all of the effort, Denise! That was fun to read

Giotto

I have to think a bit over the weekend for some bits and pieces

SojournHeart11

I'll post some more of the report tomorrow. I'm happy everyone could get something out of the last one.

Daggi I can definitely understand why he blushed a little! I have a strong feeling some wild stuff happened behind the scenes. That story about the accidental slip into the bum and the oil may just be the tip of the iceberg. Which is not to say that the working environment wasn't professional. I'm just saying that there were probably some crazy moments to highlight those times.

Dyln So glad you liked it.

daggerrose

Aww this sounded like so much fun!! I think I might do the thing where you can rent it.

And umm the accidental bum slipping thing haha wow