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cookiedoughmeagain · 4 years

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Haven DVD Commentary, episode 5.19 - Perditus

Commentary with Lucas Bryant and Adam Higgs (co-writer for the episode) - and also occasionally featuring Josh even though he is theoretically not part of the commentary.

AH: I haven’t seen this since writing it a few months ago so this is going to be interesting LB: I haven’t seen this either AH: So this was a bit of a battle to find out what we were going to do with Gloria as the ME in terms of how is she able to keep bodies cold in this new post-apocalyptic Haven? And we came up with the idea of an ice cream truck and we just fell in love with it. And we brought back this Benji’s brand that had been in previous episodes. LB: Right. I wish that some of that would have been explained to a guy like me. Because I remember rolling up that day. And I was like; What the … what? What is happening here? And then I got it. Now I get it. But for a moment there I was a little distressed.

LB: It was pretty sad, but then hilarious at the same time, because Charlotte is lying there on the counter of the ice cream truck. AH: Yeah we’ve started this commentary pretty comedic, but this is fairly heavy subject matter here. Poor Dwight. And I remember writing this, one of the things we always had to keep in mind was just the idea of having to deal with grief. And to make sure that what’s happened in terms of Charlotte dying is reflected in the emotions of the characters in the script, and keeping an eye on that in the dialogue throughout, in terms of how they’re dealing with things. LB: Yeah. It’s sad everytimes, because it’s inevitable, on Haven, that almost everyone dies at some point. So you meet these new people, in this case Laura Mennell joined the cast this year and got on very well with everyone. But we knew that inevitably at some point she was probably going to meet some kind of gruesome end. AH: It is sad, because we love the characters, we love the actors. What’s interesting those is that we loved Laura so much - she was originally scheduled for her last episode to be the previous one, 18 - we wanted to give her one more farewell and have another episode to have that time to say goodbye to her. And so that’s where this episode came in and we were able to re-negotiate and get Laura for one more episode. But it’s like you say, it is sad to always have to say goodbye to these characters and actors that we grow to love. LB: Well we should tell her that - does she know that she eeked another episode out of her existence? AH: I don’t know. I remember it was sad, we were doing the tone calls with the actors - as the writers it’s a tool we use to communicate what we were trying to do. Which is where we should have talked to Lucas about that ice cream truck. And it was a sad tone call at the end with Laura, just like … OK bye! LB: Right, I know! And you don’t know what to say because you read the script - we get the scripts a couple days before we start shooting - so you know it’s coming but you read it and then it’s like; Oh there it is. And then the next day you see the actor and what do you say? Like, Hi so that sucks that you’re dead, now?

[Duke on screen] LB: Oh Balfour.

[Nathan looking through Charlotte’s journals] AH: Someone’s really nice handwriting there. LB: Yeah. Whose really nice handwriting? That really nice hand writing is not what I was reading then. AH: I love when you and Vince are in a scene together. You have great chemistry. It was always fun to write these scenes especially where they’re a little quieter. One of the things we tried to do in this second half of the season was pair up some of the actors and characters who hadn’t been together as much in the first half of the season, and we’d missed that report they have.

[Miss Fortuna’s Occult Shop] AH: Oh this is Gabrielle Miller, Canadian treasure. LB: Yes. And she was totally awesome, and game. She came in, and we had this one day where we were in this occult shop, and so we had all these scenes and she had so much to spit out. I think she’d just come the night before, she’d slept like 3 minutes and then been sent to wardrobe and brought to set, and she was totally pro and game and cool. AH: That’s awesome. We drop a lot of actors in and they have to just hit the ground running. There’s not a lot of time to get caught up on what’s going on, especially when you get dropped in the middle of a serialised show like this. So big credit to those actors and to the directors, as well as the existing cast who make them feel at home. LB: But totally to her too. I remember for some of those scenes thinking; this is some of the weirdest, hardest stuff, I have ever had to do. Because the danger and the intensity that’s happening with the Tarot cards that we’re dealing with. AH: And the mythology that she’s putting in there too, and this is the first time she’s heard of any of this, she hasn’t been living with it for five seasons like the viewers have.

[Dave on screen] LB: I love John and Richard AH: They’re awesome. LB: They are just awesome. Any time that any of us got to work with them, I know we all loved it.

[Ona on screen with the failed/faked seance] LB: And this was hard, as a guest actor, this was really hard to do. I remember thinking; What the …? And it’s so stationary, so still - and you know the music is going to build the tension, but all of that music is not happening at the time.

Josh: Hey Adam, do you want to talk about where you came up with the episode name, Perditus? AH: Yes, oh my goodness. We could not - Gab and I - for the life of us could not figure out a name for this episode. And we went around in circles on it. And finally, we both have great love for the West Wing and Aaron Sorkin and his titles are often in Latin. So we wondered could we do the same thing and just put something cool in Latin. And I think we had Josh look it up … what does Perditus mean Josh. Josh; I think it’s Time. No, Lost. AH: Yes, because the theme of the episode is lost; trying to regain what you’ve lost. LB: I like that.

[Dave on screen] LB: Some of you may know John Dunsworth’s work from Trailer Park Boys, where he spent a lot of time being very freaking drunk. AH: It’s a kids show, right? LB: It’s a kids show *laughs*, So I mean the guy can do it unbelievably well, but I thought it was very cool to see Dave drunk. Because Dave drunk was not like Lahey drunk. AH: It was not.

[Duke’s vision] LB: Look at that, that looks very cool. AH: It does, and this was fun. The post-apocalyptic portion of this episode is something that we had wanted to do the whole season on Haven. We had been sliding this epsiode from the very first day I started working on this show, we were talking about a whole episode to be set in the future, and we put it all over the place, we were thinking mid-season finale, finale, all sorts of options. We wanted to see these post-apocalyptic scenes to give stakes to what’s coming, this Croatoan mystery. But we couldn’t find the perfect spot for a full episode and then we figured well what if it’s just a portion of an episode? And that’s how it was finally able to see some life here in 5.19. And I think, the Trouble we were going to use to send everyone to the future, we ended up using to send everyone to the past. And I’m sure that will part of that commentary there in that episode. Josh: That’s the next one. AH: Yeah so stay tuned! I don’t know why I keep trying to sell these, since anyone listening has already bought the DVD. LB: Yeah, if you haven’t - go out and purchase the DVD that’s currently in your DVD player. AH: You should have two, just in case. Accidents happen. LB: That’s right.

[Audrey and Nathan on screen] LB: My aether ball. AH: Did you get to keep the aether ball? LB No. AH: Did you take anything from the set? Any souvenirs? LB: I took all sorts of things, inside. Like, emotions. AH: And you left some things behind as well, in other people’s hearts. LB: Um .. I have the slate from the episode that I directed. AH: Fantastic episode by the way. LB: Thank you. Everyone signed it and they gave it to me at the end after the last shot, and it was very special. So that is my cherished memento. AH: Did you find that you changed any way in which - I should not be talking over Adam Copeland’s incredible scene here [picking up Charlotte’s body] LB: They will watch it without the commentary AH: This is some powerful stuff here. But yeah, after directing did you find that your approach to acting had changed at all? [Dwight and Audrey taking each other’s hands just before Charlotte comes back to life] LB: That’s beautiful. I really like that shot. AH: Great shot. LB: Um, yes, definitely I have changed. I think I used to be much more of an ass hole. AH: I wouldn’t agree with that. LB: But now I am just much more open to … anything, I guess. I realised how helpful it is for people to … be helpful, when you’re trying to get stuff done. So just getting on board with what ever was going on, just quicker and more easily, I think was something that changed in me. But then also I realised too, I was talking in the last commentary about how different it was being a director and seeing how actors work and having such a different feeling about being an actor. But then when I went back to just being an actor, again it was hard to do anything besides just be in that actor headspace.

[Charlotte remembering] LB: This is very cool AH: I like these flashbacks. I don’t know who the editor was on this episode but - fantastic job.

Josh; Do you remember, there was such an ordeal, we weren’t allowed to use the word ‘zombie’ anywhere in the script? AH: Ah yes. Josh; We changed it to ghouls. LB: Why weren’t we allowed to use zombie? Josh: There’s so much zombie stuff out there; Walking Dead, Z-Nation, LB: But if there were dead things that were walking around, wouldn’t we call them zombies? Josh: But they don’t on the Walking Dead either, interestingly. They never use the term zombie

[Vickie drawing on the paving stones in Duke’s vision] AH: Oh this is a cool scene. This is one of the first things that came to mind when Gab and I were putting these future flash-forwards together. LB: This is great. AH: Did they have a wind machine? Josh: I think it honestly was just that windy. I could be making that up - I wasn’t there. LB: It could very well have been. AH: It all looks great. I think Shawn Pillar might have shot some of these scenes. Great job Shawn. Josh; I believe that’s true. And by this stage, I think it was starting to get very cold up in Canada, because this is longer than the show was usually in production. People start to wear overcoats towards the end of the season, which never happened before. LB: Right, because they were back in Chester [for those flash-foward/vision scenes]. This is when we’d moved now to shoot in Halifax [Dwight punches a hole in the police station wall] AH: Wow, love that LB: Yep. That’s Adam’s old life as a computer programmer coming in handy, smashing shit up - get that code right. But yes so we were in Halifax at this point and they were sending out another unit to Chester to go back and shoot that apocalyptic stuff. AH: This was also a fun part of the episode, putting Emily and Adam together, it’s good to see them play off each other. And you and Emily have great chemistry together, even though you’re not actually talking to each other for this phone call here - little know fact they are not actually on the phone with each other and we are not actually shooting these two scenes at the exact same time. LB: Right. I have Joanne *attempts impersonation and gives up* reading out lines.

[Dave getting his stuff together] AH: So here we have the ather detecting device, and this is an intersting story as well. We had written this episode or were breaking it, and I was down at comic con visiting the Haven booth were fellow writer Nick Parker was doing a signing and I looked in the booth and there was a box of props from the set that was going to go on tour with the booth through a bunch of other cities. And we kind of needed it, in a week’s time, back in Halifax to shoot this episode. LB: *laughing* What? AH: So I saw it and I was like - Isn’t that …? I just wrote that, I need that. We need to get that back. There was a slight level of panic for about ten seconds.

[Audrey finds Herb eating Lainey in the occult shot] LB: There were a lot of big laughs here. It was yucky and gross; he was eating her. But we were like; this is, mental. And they had all sorts of tests of Herb coming up with different sized and shaped things in his mouth. There were certain skin flaps that looked like giant tongues. AH: I just want to give props to Emily for that whole chair routine [backing Herb into the cupboard]. That was a topic of conversation for many weeks of how exactly to do that. That was the original idea but we also went through so many others just because there was some concern as to whether that would look good. I think it looked fantastic and Emily did a great job. LB: She did. Emily kicks ass. AH: She’s a bad ass LB: She’s awesome. I’ve been talking all these great things about all these other people, but Emily is perpetually fantastic. She is the whole glue that makes this whole thing work. AH: Yes, we are very lucky with the cast on this show. It’s a pleasure to write for.

[Audrey talking to Ona] LB: I think this is one of my favourite lines, where Audrey is like; Herb was eating Lainey. AH: Yeah that was one of my favourites. And here’s the [Crocker] journal again, very happy to keep using this prop. We have some great props. And like the aether detecting device, we love the look of them .And when we can go back and use them again we love it.

[Dwight finds Charlotte out at ‘their spot’] AH: Ah and here’s Adam Copeland. This was a heart wrenching scene to write, I’m very curious to see how it came out. LB: I am too. AH: I like the contrast of this with the darkness of the scenes with the ghouls. It is so sad that this is Charlotte’s last episode. But we were really happy because we wanted to give Dwight some more depth this season, and have Adam stretch his acting abilities too, and that’s why we were really happy to bring in a love interest for him. And to see him get to play that kind of thing, and I think this was a great success, this relationship that’s built through these last few episodes. LB: Yep, I agree completely. And I said it in the last commentary but, Laura is fantastic and brought some excellent new colour to the show as Dr Cross. AH: Who we named like nine times. LB: She was Olivia for a while. Carly before that. But I was so … maybe everyone’s going to know I have a big crush on the computer programmer but … Adam was really - you threw him all sorts of new stuff this year and he did an exceptional job.

[Vince to Dave: Together until the end of all things] AH: I love that line, I had to put that in there. LB: It’s beautiful

AH: Oh here we are again in freaky future Haven, I’m excited to see what this looks like LB: This is very cool AH: Hey the cricket bat! Anyone see that cricket bat? A little nod there to one of my favourite … *gets distracted by watching* [Vince with his white eyes] LB: I think Balfour is really good when he doesn’t know what the hell is going on AH: He’s playing it very well LB: One of my favourite episodes of all time was the time travel back to 1955 AH: He does a great job with that stuff, where he’s in a situation where he’s just like; What the hell is going on? And this was fun to send him, because we were planning this future apocalyptic episode for a while and working out who would go - at one point it was going to be Nathan. And one point Nathan was going to be this kind of despot in the future, actually, we had played with that for a while. [Duke picks up the cricket bat] Cricket bat! Shaun of the Dead! Yey!

[Dwight and Nathan on screen, getting in each other’s faces as they argue] LB: This fucking guy … AH: You can see that they just want to go computer programme right now LB: Let’s get through this, and lets go sit at our two-man work station and get through some code AH: That’s the spin off. If you’re wondering what happens after

[Ghouls trying to get into the station] AH: Oh that looks great! Look at all those hands. So were you method in this scene? Just going all out smashing arms? LB: No, I wasn’t, sadly. The cricket bat that I had there was not - well there was a real one and a not-real one. A foam one. So you can swing that hard, but the problem is that you can’t hit things too hard because it will just bend and look ridiculous. But the background performers that were playing the ghouls did really go for it, and were having to reach through these scratchy doors in this not-comfortable space for … hours at a time. They really went for it.

[Duke coming out of his vision] AH: What a pleasure to have Seth here. Kris Lemche is amazing LB: Yep AH: And this is the fun of doing a genre show like Haven, where you just get to really dial in on the characters and using metaphor and stuff and you can really visualise it using flashbacks and all these things. It’s a joy where you can carry these character arcs to fruition but you get to do it in a more exciting way than a scene where just two people are talking.

LB: She - Ona (Meredith) - was fantastic. Hilarious, and ridiculous. One of those examples of someone who has to come in and go for it out of nowhere. We had a really good time. She’s a great actress and she was stupid funny. AH: She’s a comedic actress I think. LB: Yeah.

[Charlotte; I hate the fact that I'll never see her again after this, but that hate, it doesn't outweigh the love I gained in getting to know her.] AH: And I think that’s how we feel about Laura Mennell Josh; Who wanted to be here by the way. She wanted to come and do commentary, but she’s stuck in Vancouver. As is Adam Copeland.

[Zombies start falling over dead] AH: Ooof. There’s no matts there, either. That’s impressive stuff. LB: It was. They really went for it. AH: Props to the extras, and casting. And the directors too LB: Props to everybody. But I remember, that was a long day and that was one of the things they shot at the end. And they did a couple takes where they just crumpled out of frame, but they needed to get a shot of the zombies actually hitting the ground. And I remember cringing as I watched, and not being sure if they would get up again, But they did. AH: They’re all alive. No zombies were hurt in the making of this film.

[Audrey talking to Nathan after she’s said goodbye to Charlotte] AH: And this was something we worked on with you and Emily in crafting these scenes between Audrey and Nathan, because they’re in a point in the relationship where you can understand one another but at the same time give her the space she needs. And I thought you pulled this off really well LB: Oh goood, thank you. I remember this was where I had to say void, shroud, thinny in the same sentence. Josh: And controller crystal LB: Right. AH: That’s a bingo LB: 17 points for me

[Dwight and Charlotte saying goodbye] LB: Aw that’s nice. Really nice AH: That’s a nice scene. It’s not easy having to do so many things in an episode. One moment it’s a love scene, then you’re killing somebody, you’re in pain. We really throw you guys through the wringer LB: Well but it’s not easy for you either, to tell these stories, all of those stories in one. AH: And there she goes. Poor Dwight Josh: He’s been through so much AH: Yeah we just … can Dwight catch a break? And look at that - turning on a dime there from rage to anger. LB: So good, Adam Copeland!

[Duke stealing a car to part ways with Seth] AH: And here’s another goodbye. A lot of relationships breaking here. I tried to get Eric a muscle car in an earlier episode and it got changed. But we had to give him one at some point LB: Damn these guys are good. Really nice. AH: I’m just watching, they’re so good. Josh: And what I also love about this is that there’s no need to explain that Duke hot wired the car. You just know that’s something Duke can do. AH: That was fantastic. Well done guys. Lemche great to have.

[Vince and Dave walking through a rubbish strewn Haven and into the Herald] AH: Look what’s happened to Haven here Josh: It’s so nice to see all the trash here, because there are so many shows and movies where somewhere is abandoned for months and yet the town looks perfect and pristine. AH: I think this is one of the last days we were in Chester LB: Ah they’re so good. If I can be half … half of them

AH: So there we go, episode 19. A pleasure to have worked on LB: A pleasure to have worked on too. Very well done, congratulations AH: Well done to you, and to Josh.

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