Battlestar Galactica 31st Anniversary Gift for all TOS ries fans still out there

[MAD]

September 17th 2009, 31st anniversary of the Battlestar Galactica series

For years we've been collecting unique Battlestar Galactica items: photos, scripts, paperwork, concept art, etc. we've spent thousands of $ to obtain most of it and treasured it in our private collections (like so many big collectors out there)! That's going to change! We'd like to set an example we hope many collectors will follow by publishing all we have, so EVERY Battlestar Galactica fan out there can now enjoy it. Feel free to copy all (please link us when copied online to spread the word)!

This is by far the best spread of NEW images and stories any original Battlestar Galactica series fan has EVER seen. We’re publishing art by Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, Andrew Probert, Dan Goozee, Frank Frazetta, Martin Kline and many more. We have original storyboards, visual effects budgets and we wrote an unique article on the creation of the Cylon Centurion costume, with dozens of images no one has ever seen before. Plus we did hour long interviews with some of the original directors like Chris Nyby and Alan Levi and we talked to writer/story editor Terrence McDonnell for over two hours.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!



Check: GALACTICA.TV - 31st ANNIVERSARY EDITION to see the goodies...

Marcel Damen & Mike Egnor
GALACTICA.TV

[BST]

Thanks for the very generous offer, MAD!!

I'll PM you tomorrow or over the weekend... I've got a question for you.


BST

[peter noble]

If you're a Galactica fan, I can't recommend what the guys have put up highly enough – stuff never seen before.

I also recommend the Terence McDonnell interview. There are some nice stories from behind the scenes on the show.

[TwoBrainedCylon]

I concur. Some very nice material and a very nice gift to the fanbase.

Russell

[MAD]

I've had several requests for the storyboard. I've uploaded the PDFs for the storyboard, the budgets (saga and ultimate weapon) and the Dykstra contract to https://www.galactica.tv/vfx. Should be on there in an hour. Simply right click the file and SAVE (no idea how how to do it on a MAC, but I guess the people who have one know how to save the file).

I'll try and put up even some more stuff later. It simply costs time to at least type out all the interview audio. I now first have to concentrate on the Alan Levi one that's still lacking and I'm almost done typing out the transcript of the Lorne Greene audio. I found most people still rather read than listen to an interview (mostly because people like to skim over the stuff they don't find interesting rather than listen to some 60 minutes audio file)... but there's plenty on the shelve where all this came from.

[peter noble]

I made the storyboards into a movie and put it on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ5ZodV0CVc

[David Kerin]

Cannot thank you enough for sharing all of this! Amazing to see how many hidden treasures are still out there for the Battlestar Galactica fans! After 31 years of being a fan it is great to see things for this show that I have never seen before. Really incredible stuff.

[Athene]

Thank You so much for posting these treasures.
I can't believe it's been 31 years or I should say 'yahrens'.
I too have been a fan for 31 years(yahrens)
I also agree it's incredible stuff.

[LZaza]

Thank you, Marcel and Mike. What a generous gesture in sharing so many treasures! Much appreciated!

[Damocles]

I add my own admiration for the generosity and the work.

[peter noble]

MAD, if you want to use my production report on your site:

https://www.colonialfleets.com/forums...ad.php?t=14391

Or season 2 document : https://www.colonialfleets.com/forums...ad.php?t=13976

You're welcome.

[MAD]

Thanks all for the compliments!

I have that Season Two script too. I simply haven't got around publishing it. The images in that document have nothing to do with Battlestar Galactica. I believe they were added by chris Larson to make the document look more interesting (and resemble the preliminary pilot script with the McQuarrie paintings/images).

I love your production report. Let me see where I can add this in a future publication. I might publish a whole bundle of that sort of paperwork soon.

I also call upon anyone that has set used scripts with call sheets. Please send in all call sheets that you have (info [at] galacica.tv). I'd like to make the the call sheets sets for each episode as complete as possible (I have like 50 in total from various episodes). Often the set used scripts only have a couple of call sheet and very rarly a complete set. I have like 20 (out of 40?) of the pilot now from the like 7 different pilot scripts I own. I luckily have a complete set from The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, since I own the original script from Roy Thinnes (Croft) which had all of them.

I'm currently writing an article on the creation of the Ovion. It won't be as good as the one from the Cylon, but it will come close. I have like two dozen of images (including the ones I got from Phil Tippett recently which are already on the website). There will also be many of the costume creation and fitting. some of them also have Evie (the chimpanzee in the daggit costume) since they obviously wanted her to get used to the creature and not panic when she encountered them on film.

So I do plan on adding several more article this coming month to celebrate it even more. I found there is also great interest (in a positive way) from the Star wars community for the artwork of Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston and Phill Tippett (who all worked on the old Star Wars films)

[dilbertman]

Originally Posted by MAD

Thanks all for the compliments!

I have that Season Two script too. I simply haven't got around publishing it. The images in that document have nothing to do with Battlestar Galactica. I believe they were added by chris Larson to make the document look more interesting (and resemble the preliminary pilot script with the McQuarrie paintings/images).

I love your production report. Let me see where I can add this in a future publication. I might publish a whole bundle of that sort of paperwork soon.

I also call upon anyone that has set used scripts with call sheets. Please send in all call sheets that you have (info [at] galacica.tv). I'd like to make the the call sheets sets for each episode as complete as possible (I have like 50 in total from various episodes). Often the set used scripts only have a couple of call sheet and very rarly a complete set. I have like 20 (out of 40?) of the pilot now from the like 7 different pilot scripts I own. I luckily have a complete set from The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, since I own the original script from Roy Thinnes (Croft) which had all of them.

I'm currently writing an article on the creation of the Ovion. It won't be as good as the one from the Cylon, but it will come close. I have like two dozen of images (including the ones I got from Phil Tippett recently which are already on the website). There will also be many of the costume creation and fitting. some of them also have Evie (the chimpanzee in the daggit costume) since they obviously wanted her to get used to the creature and not panic when she encountered them on film.

So I do plan on adding several more article this coming month to celebrate it even more. I found there is also great interest (in a positive way) from the Star wars community for the artwork of Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston and Phill Tippett (who all worked on the old Star Wars films)

Looking forward to seeing your next update.

Jim

[MAD]

I've added the transcript for the Lorne Greene set interview and repaired the Dirk Benedict set interview audio, so it's now working (hope to add a transcript for that interview later today). These are actually two interviews with Dirk Benedict combined into one. One is an interview with him filming the episodes BEFORE the pilot was aired, the second part is an interview of him lookiing upon his new found fame. It's nice to hear Dirk having ambitions as a stage actor one day playing Hamlet after BSG finally stops after many seasons. Little did he know back then.

There's something not going well on the Alan Levi transcript, but the first 32 minutes of the 80 minutes total are added (I'll try and add the audio, since it's a great interview), with at least on cool backstage story of Alan Levi from the time he was filming the pilot. He was first seduced by Glen Larson to join (with limo rides and set visits for his parents) and later got into a fight with Glen for not getting his credit. More interesting stories later!

As for the other NEW material. Cleaning up images already takes up a lot of time (many are in horrible quality, both the negatives and the vintage prints I have), but to keep you all excited of things to come, here's a teaser image of the Ovion article I'm currently working on:

[LZaza]

Ah, how timely. I tried to listen to the Dirk Benedict interview last night. Glad to know it's up and running now. Thanks for all the hard work!

[MAD]

Originally Posted by LZaza

Ah, how timely. I tried to listen to the Dirk Benedict interview last night. Glad to know it's up and running now. Thanks for all the hard work!

You still missed me adding the transcript just now.

[LZaza]

Going to check both out tonight. Thanks, Marcel!

[MAD]

About half year ago I tried contacting Dick Durock to get his story on how he played a Cylon and the Imperious Leader. Sadly Dick didn't feel well and postponed the interview. Two months ago Dick sadly passed away before I could talk to him. Many of the cast and crew are in their 60s and 70s, some are well in their 80s and even 90s. Every year pieces of knowledge and unique material die with the people who own them (cast/crew AND fans!). Please share your info and images now. This too is part of the continuation of our beloved series! (don't just hold your breath for some new movie which probalby will never happen; trust me: I KNOW it's further away than ever!)

I'm sad to say (besides Bishop37) I've had no one contacting me with new, never published material to put up on the GALACTICA.TV website. I know (especially here), there are some big collectors who can help solve some pieces of the puzzle I still miss: more costume art from Dorleac, the Cylon sketches from Johnston, information on the making of the Imperious Leader, Ovions, Daggit or whatever, storyboards, callsheets, any concept art we haven't seen yet, backstage photos on set, costume fittings, etc., etc..

I plan on doing a special on the models too and I know you all have plenty (I have have like 500 backstage photos but on this board I often see images I've never seen before!) So if anyone out there feels like sharing his knowledge please contact me. If someone likes to write an article/analysis on his favorite model (screenused, not his own ) or cares to explain how all the models came about (history article on the Dykstra or Universal Hartland group), let me know. I'd be more than happy to publish it and you'll be of course credited as the writer. Most articles I have up now were visited over 150,000 times these past two months, so there's a serious audience.

Let me (AGAIN) share some of my recent buys/finds (and I know all you model builders will LOVE the second one).

The last thing I recently bought was this concept art:



It's a communicator proposal for the left Cylon gauntlet. The sketches are made by Andrew Probert.


I also bought this excellent dyeline of this unused ship proposal:



This concept art was made by John Shourt under guidance of Joe Johnston. Until I bought this dyeline I didn't even know John Shourt did art for the series since he's credited as a production assistent. Luckily I also managed to track him down, soon after I bought this art. During the interview we did he told me he also worked on the breathers/snow mask from "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" (together with Martin Kline), he helped on the model of the Livery/Mining ship (flat, 3 disc ship), painted the name "Galactica" on the big model and also painted the mask/head of the Imperious Leader.

That's the kind of knowledge I'd like to get from you too! Visit GALACTICA.TV, use the contact form or email me at info [at] galactica.tv

[MAD]

Oh, it took a while to type out, but the Alan Levi interview is now completely up on the website. I'm sure you'll enjoy reading his stories about him directing the pilot and The Gun on Ice Planet Zero and what more.

As for new interviews, I recently talked to:

John Shourt: See post above (Mike talked to him for over an hour)

Phil Tippett: See Ovion clay model on our website. He also worked on the Cantina scene on Star Wars and he animated the Imperial Walkers. He also did the dinosaurs on Jurassic Park with Dennis Muren (talked to him for about one hour)

David Stipes: He filmed the matte paintings and worked at Universal Hartland (also on Galactica 1980/Buck Rogers) plus he was the SFX supervisor on Star Trek TNG, DS9, Voyager and what more for many years. (very long, two hour interview)

Jack Gill: One of the stunt guys who was in the Cylon Centurion costume. he also stunt doubled for Dirk Benedict in TOS and Barry van Dyke in G1980 (talked to him for an hour)

Marneen Fields: Stunt woman on the series. She was one of the female warriors and also stunt doubled for Jane Seymour, Maren Jensen and Brett Somers (talked to her for like 45 minutes)

And we have many, many more coming up or set up already. If anyone here would like to help type out this stuff, so we can put it up for all to read, please contact me. We can only do so much. One hour of audio takes 10+ hours to type out (for me and Mike). It takes us almost two weeks to type out one interview in our spare time. If anyone likes to volunteer to type out just one single interview, it would already help.

(FYI: we tried putting up just the audio, but found the interviews were visited by like 75% less people in comparisson to a typed out interview; people still like to read and skip parts, I guess)

[KJ]

Sweet stuff there Mad, thanks for the BG love and hard work. Much appreciated!

I've gotta go over there and read it all.

Question though? that unused ship proposal. Was it for the 'Beta Pirates' episode that was scripted but not filmed. I ask cos off the top of my head, i remember one of the series writers (Carlson or MacDonnell?) saying online that they had an idea of how thew ships of the Space Pirates should look, and they they would've been unique in how they traveled through space and whatnot etc.

Or it could be Jasper's ship from the script 'I Have Seen Earth'; "The Golden Queen" or "The Golden Hind"?

Either way 31 years later, its just so incredible that so much was created for this series that only lasted a season, and its all turning up now! Guess when it cost a million or so dollars and so much development work went into it, so much was left unaccounted for both during its run and after it was all finished. Quite possible this was a design meant for an episode that that wasn't filmed eventually, but was on the production schedule (as was the scripts 'Showdown' and 'Two For Twilly') but for seperate reasons were changed and cancelled and replaced with another script that was filmed in their places.

Thanks for sharing all this.



KJ

[MAD]

John Shourt who made this only worked on the Saga of a Star World pilot and The Gun on Ice Planet Zero (which were made almost simultaniously at one point), so that's when it was made. This was just one of the ships in the fleet. I have another one called "Moebius" which also wasn't used and I believe was done by either Joe Johnston or Marty Kline.

But even when it was passed on at that time it could very well have been picked up later. Nothing was really thrown away when it comes to art. One of the old viper designs from McQuarrie for BSG, later became the Starfighter on Buck Rogers. The flying motorcylces from Galactica 1980 were actually from a BSG TOS episode (could even be the Beta Pirates if I remember correctly) that was already very far into producing props and all when it still got cancelled/passed on.

I know I'm now really going on a lim here, but I recently interviewed concept artist and illustrator Ray Lai who's sent me some amazing images. He was a huge fan of TOS as a kid and when he heard Singer/DeSanto were doing their version in 2001 he practically begged to become a part of it. He worked on the new viper, but also on some symbolism like the colonial symbols. When it got cancelled he moved on, but when he found out Moore was doing his version he applied again and actually reused all of his old work from the DeSanto version on the Moore version (Studios USA had the rights to the art work for both series). That's why the viper in Ron Moore's version some what resembles the ones in Singer/DeSanto. The colonial symbols and the logo with the phoenix (which was based on TOS symbolism) were made by him for the DeSanto version but reused on the Moore version. He said the use of the phoenix and the TOS symbolism was used to symbolise the rebirth of the Battlestar Galactica series.

Just wanted to say a lot of this stuff does get reused later on other series or episodes, so who knows: this art could have been used on other episodes (plus that's why we have fan fiction, right? I bet someone will like it enough to make a new fantasy story about it... please feel free to use the image to illustrate, make 3D models of, use in fan art, etc.). I thought it looked awesome and couldn't believe they even passed on this design in the first place. I thought it looked way better than some of the ships in the fleet.

[KJ]

Wish my skills as a former art student were good enough to get me to ask Bryan Singer to be apart of the Battlestar Galactica - Movie conception artists crew, lol. And apply for a job on the movie as a storyboard artist or conceptual artist etc.

Very early days yet. But who as a fan wouldn't want to be apart of that if they were fans of the classic series. I believe it was Vincent Guastini's comments in that 2004 issue of Cinescape that also spoke of how he wasnted to be apart of the Singer/DeSanto BG revival with his conceptualised concept designs, blowing things apart with a whole F-**king (Fracking) Cylon army etc.

IN ACTUAL SUITS



Yeah John Shourt wasn't alone in that mission to be involved with the earlier revival attempts. Hope there's some kind of 'leeway' with the upcoming movie? But we'll all wait and see how all that goes won't we, eh?

Far as the flying Motorcylces/Land Probes go, they were originally planned for the BG episode Showdown! And 3 were made according to the rebel characters who used them in that story. But only 2 were used for filming in G80 episodes for Troy and Dillon from the Galactica though. When they were used for that 'spin off' series instead. One can only wonder how they would've looked and been used in the original BG series in hindsight? G80 had a much less budget and used a front projection screening technique with actors on the props before the actual cameras.

The TOS BG series, might have made the flying cylces more dynamic by comparison, who knows for sure as its only a theory. As to how they'd have gone about filming those missing 'first season' episodes looking back.

KJ

[KJ]

Say Mad, since your in Holland and i'm in the U.K. were practically neighbours, lol.



Really nice to know that there are BG fan everywhere's who appreciate the classic series and can share in the memories etc. Haven't been to Holland in years, but recently i was thinking of going there. Well i can't lie, mainly cos i'm into video games and i heard of the recent (Virtua Fighter 5) VF Gathering in Amsterdam back in August. And i've talked with alot of VF players here in the U.K. and Dutch players online and such recently too.

(Gotta get a router and register on XBox 360 Live pretty soon!)

But yeah i'd like to take in the culture again of Holland as i've been there more than once in my childhood, just don't know when is all as adult is all?

Anyways players laters and thanks for sharing all this info and stuff. Will need to check up on the site and read many of the reviews posted, god willing.

Laters

KJ

[MAD]

New interviews with visual effects artist David Stipes, animal trianer Boone Narr and the art of Jerry Gebr are up at GALACTICA.TV

More coming soon. Lots of heatlh, luck and happiness in 2010!