Howdy all –

Sorry about the delay, I have just recently returned from a vacation and have finally recovered long enough to sit down and attempt this missive. So as you chug down beer, hot dogs and watch fireworks to celebrate our nation, I hope this adds to your patriotism.

Well, I hope I gave you enough warning about how good this episode was. We here at I-man strive to top each previous episode in some way shape or form. Most of the time we succeed in a lot of areas, occasionally we stumble at others. I think this one we hit it out of the park. When we received this script everyone associated knew that we had something that was really special (craig need to be cast in bronze!). I think the hard work that we put in to it really paid off and we’re all proud of it. I hope you liked it as much as we did.

But enough backslapping and felicitations! Let’s get down to some tidbiting! Now to be honest, there are three reasons why there aren’t that many this week. First, it’s a great episode and the less I pick at it, the better. Second, I didn’t do as much in this one (hooray, a break finally!) so I wasn’t around as much. Finally and most importantly my VCR didn’t record it this Friday and so I’m going off of a version I saw about three weeks ago. So with those excuses in mind…

Hats off to Vince on this one. New scripts are thrown at him about once every nine days. Sometimes you forget exactly which script you’re working on and what you’re doing in it. Not Vince for this one. He really poured every bit of his time and experience to craft not one but two completely believable performances. He especially watched tapes of David Burke to try to figure out his mannerisms. I think his choice to emulate rather than imitate Kevin was the right one. Vince was worried about BK (terrible acronym) but his performance made the show.

Also special kudos to Paul, Shannon and Eddie. Their interactions with Kevin truly sold the transformation.

Rain in San Diego? Yeah I know, a downpour in SD is a little bit of a stretch. The funny thing was that it was written in the script for rain and most of that week it was raining. A rain machine was used despite the chance of real showers because the flow is easier to control between takes and shots.

Greg did a fabulous job directing this one. He’s known for his remarkable camera work, but he knew that this episode was all about story. His simple but effective shots told story with force and passion.

Tiny cut: When I blurt out about the RNA The Official tells me to shut up. I do, but Darien pursues it. He reminds me that he saved my life. I look to The Official who grunts acceptance and I proceed to tell him about the samples. Not really necessary and probably a good choice from out expert editors.

The worst moment for me in I-Man history: Like I said, I didn’t do much at all in this episode. My two functions are to tell Darien about Kevin’s RNA and then put a chair behind him to fall into. Easy enough, so I thought. The scene was a little complicated with Darien/Kevin running in with me in tow. He paces about the room and then he starts to swoon at which point I pulled the chair to him. We were given marks, strips of tape on the floor, to remember where we were to stand. We ran through a couple of rehearsals and it all went well.

Vince was totally engrossed in his performance and so had become a little quiet and focused. I tried to give him his peace because of the great job he was doing. We waited out side and then heard the call ‘action’. Vince bolted into the room with me trying my best to keep up. I looked for my mark and it was gone!

Let me explain. Most of the time you get large bright pieces of tape in the shape of a ‘T’. With this you walk in, glance at your big landing area on the floor and then plant your shoes in on either side of the ‘T’. Pretty simple. Occasionally, the camera can see the mark and so they have to remove all of it but a tiny speck. It’s called ‘dotting’ and it’s a fairly common practice (try to find the little dots next time you see a floor on TV). Not a big deal except nobody told me they had removed my mark!

So I entered in a rush and couldn’t find my mark. Rather than look all over for it and ruin the shot I simply stayed planted because it was a wide angle and placement wasn’t incredibly important. The moment came for me to grab the chair and place it under Vince. Unfortunately, because I had moved, the chair was now too far away for me to grab. As I reached for it, Vince began to swoon. I had thought that he would wait for me to place the chair behind his legs so that he wouldn’t risk the chance of missing it. No such luck. Vince, the complete actor he is simply did what Kevin was doing and started to sit down.

I missed getting to him by about 5 inches. The landed flat on his butt in on the floor.
Vince didn’t miss a beat. It was actually an incredible shot of Kevin fallen to the floor in pure shock. Vince continued the scene. I, professional that I am not, didn’t. I immediately blurted out "Vince, are you okay?" Vince as Kevin looked up at me. I then apologized again and Greg cut the scene. Vince got up and everybody rushed to him. I explained that I couldn’t find my mark but I still felt terrible. Making matters worse was Vince’s concentration. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at me or merely so focused that it didn’t bother him (later I discovered it was the latter). For the rest of the day I apologized to him and to anyone I could find. Of course, Vince wasn’t mad, but for me, it not a fun time. As a postscript, every time Raul, who places the marks, shows me that the "T" mark has been dotted I simply warn him that doing that will make Vince. Even if he’ not in that scene.

Now a fun thing from GP that I forgot. The scene where invisible Darien pushes the mail cart into was not accomplished by expensive, time consuming special effects but by Danny, our set decorator. Danny is blessed with just the right dimensions to crouch behind the mail cart and on ‘action’ run it at me. It worked great in rehearsal and as soon as it hit me I was to turn and fire blanks. On one take I’m standing their screaming "you better not try anything, Darien. I’m smart!" The Cart starts to take off towards me on cue. As Danny gives it one last push it instead whirls off to the left and smashes into a wall, not touching me a bit. As the crew started to bust up, I tried my best to keep in character. "Whoa!" I shouted, "That almost hit me Darien. All right, I let that one go but anything else and they’ll be REAL trouble!" Of course they cut after that, everyone composed themselves and we reshot that sequence.

Well, I said this would be a short File and once again I am proved wrong. See, you just can’t get me started on this stuff. So I’ll end here and let you prepare for "Insensate", featuring Sci-Fi everyman, Armin Shimmerman. So until then, thanks for tuning in. You guys are the best and we can’t ever let you forget that!

Thanks

Mike