What can I expect from Dark Operations as an original series?
Certainly some elements of
traditional Sci-Fi will be present: space battles, a war, and so on.
However, some of the traditional elements “Dark Operations” were purposely
employed to initially involve viewers in story, so that we can evolve into some,
what we feel, are groundbreaking story elements in future episodes. After
a few episodes, you will start to see the difference.
What IS different about Dark
Operations?
To begin with, we don’t
believe in ‘perfect people’ the way most Sci-Fi does. So you can expect
the characters to be flawed in different ways. Some are more obvious than
others, such as overweight people or the use of glasses for those that have
difficulties with their sight. Others are hidden, such as an outwardly
really nice guy that brutally beats his wife in private. Expect to see the
classic element of ‘seven deadly sins’, along with huge story arcs, flashback
episodes, and some surprises. Ultimately, since we are fans, we are trying
to answer the wishes of the fans. So…we are listening.
Are there things I should NOT expect?
Don’t expect CGI to drive
our story. Our use of special effects is simply to help tell the story.
Overall, we don’t have that many effects shots or CGI sequences in the film.
We were much more concerned with getting all the information to the audience
that they needed in the pilot episode so we could ‘go crazy’ in writing the
series. Also, don’t expect a totally innocent environment. Viewers
will hear and see things here that you wouldn’t see in other established
franchises.
What will the rating for Dark Operations be?
>As an independent film, we
are not bound by the MPAA’s rating system. We imagine that the pilot
episode would likely carry a PG-13 rating for language, brief violence, minor
gore, and adult themes. As we get in to future episodes, some will be
worse than others. The bottom line here is that while we would like to
make every attempt to produce something we would show our children; the reality
is we won’t compromise the story by taking a short cut. If the language or
situations in a particular episode are going to be something extreme, you can
expect a disclaimer at the beginning of the episode.
Is the teaser what the final film will look like?
No. Many of the elements that you see in the teaser is a low quality file
that was produced in order to facilitate it being added to the website.
Also, our CGI team was JUST STARTING to put things together at the time we made
the teaser, so what little CGI is there was culled from the low-resolution test
footage we were receiving.
Are you using sets
?
Yes we are. You saw
one of our larger sets (the bridge of the Armstrong) in the teaser. The
bridge that you haven’t seen yet is bigger still. While it was expensive,
we were dedicated to giving our cast a world to play in, and our audience a
tactile world they could touch as much as possible. We do have some
composite shots and locations shots, but most of our scenes are shot on a set.
Why an original franchise?
At the time we were creating
the story and the pilot episode, we toyed with the idea of using an existing
franchise and adapting what was ‘canon’ to suit our concept. After doing
some research, we felt that there were already plenty of ‘fan films’ being
produced for most of the major Sci-Fi franchises. Also, given the scale
that we wanted to do this on, we didn’t think it would be affordable if we
wanted to make it look like a certain world. Instead, we created our own.
While doing an original franchise has its share of headaches, it ultimately
allowed us to be more creative with the characters, Earth’s history, the future,
and what everything looked like. It also gave us the ability to put the
end result in your hands in a variety of ways (DVD’s, Videos, etc.) that, thanks
to copyright law, would be frowned upon if we used an existing franchise.
Ultimately, it was a win/win situation.
Who does your costuming and make-up effects?
Both costuming and make-up
are handled in-house at RPP.
What made you decide to do this?
This is a difficult question
to answer as all of us working on it have different reasons. In short, we
all believed that Sci-Fi fans have been ignored by studios for far too long.
We decided to take matters in to our own hands and see what we could do if we
started writing our own adventure. When you see the final result, keep in
mind that we are going to constantly evolve the series based on how much our
audience is willing to tolerate in terms of dramatic story vs. normal Sci-Fi
fare. Some things we do are done because they are expected, some are done
for whimsy, and other things are done because we want to push the envelope.
As folks become more comfortable with us doing that, we will push it harder and
further.
If you have a question that you would like
answered, please feel free to email us at
info@risingphoenixpro.com
