Kenneth
Thomson Jr.
Talks
About His Work On "Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming"
And Explains His Involvement On The New Richard Hatch Production "The
Great War Of Magellan"
15 July 2002
Recently Sci Fi Pulse accidently met Ken Thomson via the revival message baords forum. Ken is a long time revivalist and worked on the Richard Hatch 2nd Coming project and is presently working on the new 'Great War Of Magellan' Project. Sci Fi Pulse recently caught up with the writer and 3D visual effects artist.
Ian: First and foremost what led you into the world of visual effects and who out of any effects artist inspired you enough for you to take it all up.
Ken: Well, a few names come to mind immediately: Ray Harryhausen, John Dykstra, Douglas Trumbull are some of the biggest ones I remember from childhood. I read a lot of books about early filmmaking, including George Milieas (SP?) and all of his ground-breaking techniques. I learned how to make someone disappear by reading about his experiments in early films. Of course, there’s also Willis O’Brien, Matt Jeffries, and more recently Rick Sternbach, and a lot more that have inspired me too. I loved all the old horror movies, and read about them as soon as I learned to read. Dinosaurs and monsters and UFOs were my early reading.
I also watched tons of Star Trek, and read all the novels in those days, and watched tons of scifi films like Forbidden Planet, The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, and of course, there was Star Wars and then Battlestar Galactica. But I also LOVED all the old stop motion films that Harryhausen did. I always wanted to do that, but ended up in computer character animation rather than physical effects work, even though I did learn to do foam latex masks with some friends I formed a company with in Austin, Texas, called Art of Illusion Special Effects Group. That was in 1991-1992, and we did a really cool haunted house for charity called Frightline III. It was obviously third in a series of spook houses but it was done by the United States Air Force at Bergstrom Air Force Base. I did a little work on foam latex original masks for that and did some soundwork, too, but the real guys behind it were Bryan K. Brown and Josh M. Logan. They did the bulk of the makeup work for that project. John P. Funk also did some great costume work for that project. Practical FX are so fun! You can touch your artwork, and it’s not just on a monitor, it’s real, and you can really interact with it in a different way than with a computer. CG is hard enough sometimes, but stop-motion is really tough to keep track of every single frame of action, and if you make one mistake, it can destroy days of effort. I actually met Mr. Harryhausen when I was seven or eight years old at my very first scifi convention. He had some of his original stop-motion models on display, including the Cyclops and the Beast from Twenty-Thousand Fathoms, among others. I would have spent more time studying the models except for a gorilla from Planet of the Apes picked up my little brother and carried him screaming off to my mom, just to play a gag. Try that these days and it would get someone in real trouble!
Ian: We actually briefly covered this in our chat the other night, but I am going to ask you this question anyway. How would you envisage Richard Hatch's Second Coming movie promo if you were asked to be a part of a team making it into a computer game? I.E. story ideas and how far you think you would take it?
Ken: As a computer game, IF it were up to me, and IF it were happening, which to my knowledge it IS NOT, I’d use the trailer as the opening intro to the game, and then have a role-playing/combat sim/first person game that put YOU in the role of a colonial warrior who has grown up since the exodus from the colonies. YOU never knew anything but space travel aboard the fleet, and planetside is actually unnerving for you. The cylons make a return, and you have to take your skills and save the fleet from complete and utter destruction, but along the way, you are coached and led by veterans, Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Sheba and the rest of the warriors from the series. Make that the ORIGINAL series.
Ian: How did you get involved in the production of the Second Coming Promo.
Ken: Well, I'm a 3d character animator by trade, and I had done a lot of 3d high resolution characters for game work, (see the "Might and Magic" series from 3DO/New World Computing) and so I had a portfolio and demo reel and some ideas. I’d seen Richard’s novels, and read “Armageddon” so I had an idea what he wanted to do with the characters. I was so happy to see a rebirth of Battlestar Galactica after the dreaded Galactica 1980 fiasco, that when I saw he was going to be at the Pasadena Grand Slam Convention, I figured I’d take a wild chance and see if he had any interest in doing an animated series based on his novels ala Starship Troopers: Roughnecks.
First, a little background....
This wasn't the first time I'd approached a well-known sci-fi celebrity to work with them, either. In fact, my very first time to meet a sci-fi celebrity is actually infamous…. In 1975, I met Leonard Nimoy while he was performing "Caligula" in Austin, TX. I was only ten years old, and a huge Trekker (yes, I LIVED it!). Anyhow, he was walking out to the stage, fully in character as Caligula the Mad Emperor, and I said to him, "Hi, Mr. Spock." He flinched and paused momentarily, then the Vulcan control re-emerged and he went on to perform the play magnificently. (I should say, the play wasn't anything like the film. If it had been, my ten years wouldn't have let me in the door!)
Anyhow, in 1995, a friend of mine and I were discussing Star Trek, and I mentioned that I’d met Mr. Nimoy at a play in Austin when I was in the third grade. He proceeded to tell me where (St. Edward’s University Mary Moody Theatre, and when, 1975, and I was flabbergasted, because he hadn’t been there himself. He just told me I HAD to read a book he had had for years. He brought me a copy of "I am Not Spock," by Leonard Nimoy. The incident above was the punchline of his book. How cool is that?
So, in a really weird kind of way, Spock's death in "Wrath of Khan," might be attributable to me, and might have spawned the success of that film, in turn spawning a successful rebirth of Star Trek. Or, maybe not! LOL! But, it's a true story, and I did meet up with Leonard Nimoy in the summer of 2000, and told him the story, and we shared a good laugh about it. He wished us well with our Battlestar Galactica revival.
George Takei was also an interesting guy. I'd read in Starlog and its companion magazine Cinemagic, many years ago, that he'd done an appearance as Commander Sulu in a student film, "Yorktown 2" (which I'm dying to see one day!) This inspired me to see what kinds of things these actors would do.
So, when I met him in Austin at some conventions, we talked briefly on a couple of occasions and I got to do an interview with him, pre-Star Trek VI. I'd asked him about the adventures of Captain Sulu if he'd go for that, and of course he was all for it. (I have this on video, and may post it one day, at least as an MP3 audio file or something.) He was very surprised I knew about "Yorktown 2." He hadn't even seen the finished film at that point. It would be interesting to see it someday, and I thought then that the guy who made that film was probably the LUCKIEST guy around to actually get SULU in his film. Got me to thinking.
Anyhow, back to meeting Richard....
I thought he'd be a tough sell, like all the other attempts, but he had already done the filming of his Battlestar trailer, (forty-five minutes of footage!) and had photos from it at his booth. I talked to his girlfriend at the time, Sophie LaPorte, and told her I was a 3d artist, and she told Richard, and he asked me if I could create 3d cylons, and if I wanted to go to the meeting at his house on the following Wednesday. Are you kidding? Like I was going to say "no?" COOL! Now, I was going to be the lucky guy working on a "Yorktown 2" of my own!"
Ian: One thing you are very proud of is the work you did on the Cylons in the Promo. Could you take us through what you can remember of the creative process, and tell us ignorant people that have not seen the promo yet of the different types of Cylons that you created.
Ken: Well, since I'd read "Battlestar Galactica: Armageddon," I knew Richard had an idea for a Human-chip cylon, programmed to think more like a human. So, after rushing to create the original chrome centurian and the gold centurian for the Wednesday meeting, I started on my mech ideas until we met at Richard's house. There, I got some feedback on how he envisioned the Human chip cylon. He described it to me as being black chrome, with a blue eye, and pointed me to the Ralph McQuarrie paintings that were early designs for the cylons. I did that one based on the body armor of the original cylon centurians I made, with a hybridized head from the cylon in the paintings. Both paintings were different, so I used a lot of artistic license to create one that looked like both of them. I also combined the lower body armor from my mech design, to create the body armor for the MK-1 Human chip cylon’s legs.
I created two mech designs, one, my Cylon Mech Type 1, more like a bulky but streamlined robot with large claws for hands, and lasers mounted on it’s shoulders. This one was designed for boarding ships in space, or for heavy assault, where the target was heavily fortified, and debris would have to be moved quickly and efficiently. I envisioned these mechs attached to a cylon transport and dropped off over the Galactica, and attaching themselves to the hull exterior and cutting right through the ship’s armor and boarding her. This could be done right in the middle of an attack, while the raiders were engaging the vipers, and could allow the cylons to capture the Galactica intact, or to destroy her from within, depending on their orders.
My Cylon Mech Type 2, would be more of a drone/terminator T-800 style assassination droid. Tough and relentless, often working alongside the Type 1’s, these were capable of finer motor control, and could actually interface with computer equipment and run controls designed by humans, because they had fingers capable of fine control. They weren’t infiltrators by any means, as both the Type 1 and Type 2 were about 10 feet tall. They weren’t designed for corridors, but rather for attacking key control areas like the bridge, landing bays and engineering sections. From there, they would soften defenses for the standard centurians to board and take control of a ship, and be tough enough to keep control, once they achieved it.
The Flying Drone was also my idea. Standard cylon brain without the constraints of an android body, mounted into a flying gunship about 4.5 feet across. These would seek out hidden prey after the Mechs soften the defenses of the humans (or other enemies of the cylons). They could also operate as sentient ships in space.
Ian: Must have been great to work with Richard Hatch, is there anything you care to share with us about having worked with him.
Ken: Well, it's sort of weird to have a childhood icon, live and in person in your home. I'd have never imagined that as a kid watching Battlestar Galactica, that one day, Apollo himself would be hanging out at my house! Once that wore off, it still was (and is) really a unique experience. Every once in awhile, I expect the Candid Camera guy to come out and tell me it's all a joke! LOL! But, he's just a regular guy. I like him a lot, and have enjoyed working with him for the last three years on both BSG and "The Great War of Magellan." I've even done another film that he stars in, "Unseen Evil." That film was directed by Jay Woelfel and produced by Johnny Young, both of whom were top of the food chain in "Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming," as director and producer, respectively. "Unseen Evil" was also written by Scott Spears, who was the principle cinematographer for the BSG trailer. It's been one project after another with this team.
Just yesterday, Richard was at my place to work on "Great War of Magellan," and a funny thing happened. My two and a half year old son brought Richard a toy of a cylon raider which I've had for eons. He always pulls the cockpit off, and gets me to fix it. But, this time he asked Richard to fix it. It was probably the only time ever that Captain Apollo actually FIXED a cylon raider!
Ian: What software and tools do you like to use to create all the CGI work that you have done over the years.
Ken: Well, my main tool of 3d animation has been 3D Studio Max, and before that, the DOS version of 3d Studio was my favourite tool. I also like Adobe After Effects when I get to use it, and recently have taken some courses at Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood, in Alias Wavefront’s Maya. It’s probably the best tool on the market for 3d work, and has just become affordable to home users. Almost every film you see nowadays has effects done in Maya, or its predecessor, Power Animator. Just take a look at Final Fantasy or Lord of the Rings (not to mention Star Wars EP 1 & 2), to name a few that use it extensively.
In the late 1980s, I started out on Amigas, which were really great computers for video work in their day. Lightwave started out on Amigas with the Video Toaster, and those were the early workhorses at Foundation Imaging for “Babylon 5.” Between that and “The Last Starfighter,” I was inspired to really get into computer animation, because it made models on fishing line obsolete. LOL! That’s how I used to do effects when I was a kid in fourth grade with my old super 8mm movie camera. In fact, while Battlestar Galactica was on the air, I did a Star Wars home movie that is 45 minutes long, and has more FX in it than the original Star Wars film. Not as good by any means, but there were tons of frames of film that I scratched and colored with permanent markers to create lasers and lightsabers. These frames are only 8mm across diagonally, so it wasn’t easy to see where the plastic tubes of the lightsaber toys were in the frame, so occasionally I lost registry, and it looks really odd. But, that was a really fun and challenging project to put together as a kid, and I’m really glad I did it, because I learned a lot about filmmaking from it. Stuff that’s on FANFILMS.com is a lot better when it comes to realism, but my film was done with stone knives and bear skins in 1978.
Ian: What are you favorate Galactica episodes.
Ken: "War of the Gods", "Living Legend", "Saga of a Star World", "Lost Planet of the Gods", "Hand of God" and "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" are my favorites. The only one I don't especially like is the episode with Red-Eye, because it was too much like Dukes of Hazzard. I mean, there was a Boss Hogg kinda character in it, dressed almost exactly the same way. It just blew my willing suspension of disbelief. If it weren't for the costuming in that one, it wasn't awful, but the costumes just made it horrible. I liked the one with Starbuck's father, Chameleon (Fred Astaire) and the Borellian Nomen, and I enjoyed the episodes with Terra and the Eastern Alliance.
Ian: I believe you have also worked on Richard’s new as yet unsold series 'The Great War Of Magellan'. From what I have seen of it on the website it looks really exciting, and am hoping that Richard finds a buyer for it because I want to see it. What did you contribute to this promo movie?
Ken: I'm still working on this one. So far, I've done a lot of animation and models for it, and provided models to other people to animate. I've done a LOT of video capture and file backup to get people raw footage to work with. I've even been a stunt guy, getting a chance to be on film and fight Jason Carter.
Jason Carter As Markus Cole In B5
Ken: I've composited greenscreens like crazy. EVERY shot in this one is an effects shot. This thing is LONG. It's already fifteen minutes edited. We're fine-tuning it for a hopeful premiere at Dragon Con in Atlanta in August, so we're frantically working to finish up our last few shots. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more than one version that gets done. After all, the Battlestar trailer went through five incarnations before its final version, and even that M-A-Y get a facelift after GWoM is done (no promises). I have already done some new Battlestar material since the trailer was completed in 1999, including the Battlestar Galactica Technical Journal for Realm Press, which unfortunately didn't get published. All hope is not lost on that front, however….
Ian: I believe that at present you are working on a movie called "Demonslayers." Would you like to tell us a little about it.
Ken: "Demonslayers" is an original creation of mine that came about in 1984. At that time, I had done my Star Trek and Star Wars home movies, and Battlestar Galactica had been destroyed by Galactica 1980, so my script for that home movie never got made. In it, I had Apollo and Starbuck land on earth right after "Hand of God." Of course, in my story, it was not really earth, but had been modelled after transmissions from earth, and was in fact, a cylon trap planned by Baltar after his rescue by Lucifer a short time after the events in "Hand of God." While this makes little sense now because there would never be enough time for the cylons to lay this trap, it was just a way to get an inexpensive Battlestar movie made. Don Post Studios made some great Star Wars masks, but there were never any cylons made, so it was impossible to do what I would have liked to do. So, I just blew it off. Never thought I'd get the chance to actually do a Battlestar Galactica project, but I finally did when I least expected it!
Anyhow, back to "Demonslayers." I was really tired of doing films based on other people's ideas, even if I wrote an original story. It was just not as rewarding as it should be. I was into a lot of different role-playing games in High School, and reading a lot of fantasy stories, including my all-time favourite fantasy character, Conan the Barbarian. Now, I like the movies, but they aren’t quite true to the books as Robert E. Howard envisioned Conan. Conan, though savage, had honor, and in many ways was the epitome of common sense, unshackled. He could take on the world and win, despite all odds, by sheer will and determination. I also loved the Elric stories by Michael Moorcock. He's an anti-hero with an evil soul-stealing sword called Stormbringer, and tragedy follows him everywhere. I read all six books in that series in six days in high school! I'm a big-time comic book nut as well, Spiderman being my favourite hero. He's an everyman, with a sense of responsibility that is borderline crazy. He gets himself into all kinds of ethical dilemmas. I think that my story has reflections of what made all these characters great, and it's still original, and my characters are different, but have flavouring like these. Things are never what you expect. I wanted something that would be epic like Star Wars but set in a medieval fantasy world.
In college, I did a student film with a group of my friends that was a prequel to the main novel I wrote. As we weren't really actors, it's not the best execution, but I did get it done, and I got an A on the project. My film was 22 minutes long, and I had hundreds of armoured knights in it, thanks to kind people in the Society for Creative Anachronism. I went on to create another short film with those characters I created for the novel, and it was smaller in scale, more of a character dialogue piece. This was because my instructor didn't think I could pull off my ambitious script, so he forced me to only do a portion of it. Once again, I just got friends together to make a movie. None of us could act, but we still did it, and got it done. I learned a lot from these two projects, as they were the first ones I did with sound, and needed a lot of dialogue. There were a lot of technical issues too. These were done in 1987 and 1988. Later, I did some more short clips, never another finished piece, but rather just ideas that were in my head I wanted to try to see if I could do them. All of these were very helpful to me, as a learning experience. In 1997, I did some 3d animation in the "Demonslayers" world, part of a demo reel that got me my job at New World Computing. I cringe when I look at the animation now, though. I was quite the beginner then.
Now, I've had many years to hone my 3d animation craft, and I've got some films and cinematic animations under my belt, I'm re-visiting my world of "Demonslayers," and have given the story a major re-write and face-lift, making it truly epic. I originally wrote it to be something I could shoot on my own and do in-camera effects, and practical effects, so my story was less ambitious. But, as time moved on, my ideas and visualizations continued to expand, and now it's a trilogy with a prequel that begins a thousand years in the past, and has a complete history of the world included. My current plan is to do my trailer as high quality as possible, combining live action actors with cg monsters and effects, using bluescreens and various other techniques. I've got great costumes, and this time around, I'm going to get real actors to play the roles of the characters my friends and I portrayed in my student films. I'm going to create cg doubles of my actors to do wild stunts that would be way too dangerous for real people to try. Now is really the time for my idea to unfold. With "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy out there, and "Harry Potter," the fantasy realm is getting popular again. Funny thing is, I created a fantasy world because it was less expensive than a set for a spaceship interior would have cost me, and now, it's actually easier to do sci-fi than fantasy, because creating a convincing forest in cg is harder than creating a bridge set. But, I don’t want easy, I want something really cool, so that is my goal. And, Richard Hatch has agreed to be in it, so that's awesome news for BSG fans! There may be other surprises as well, but it's too early to tell yet.
Until I get the film into full-scale production, I'm going to start publishing an RPG Campaign game set in the "Demonslayers" world, based on the D20 system published by Wizards of the Coast. I really admire them for creating open licensing for their AD&D system rules. They are conducting an experiment, and I sure do hope it’s a successful one. So far, it seems to be. There are a lot of D20 system products out there on the market now. You’ll find information on my "Demonslayers" D20 Campaign in the gaming section of my website: http://www.demonslayers.com/ as it gets finalized. I'll probably release some material for free, and some for a modest price, if there is enough interest. My focus is my film, so the rest will be of more interest as the film is finished and available. The game tie-in is all in development, and won't be available for [some time] yet, but the material for the campaign setting is written, and is based on my story bible for the film world, along with an incredible array of storyboards that are being produced even as I write this. I anticipate that this film will be direct to DVD, rather than theatrically released. I'm a garage filmmaker, with a garage budget, so unless some patron saint of the arts loves my trailer and funds a huge film, I'll be taking the same route as Richard Hatch and doing it over a long period of time for less money, but with some really talented and motivated artists.
Ian: As you know Ronald D. Moore is currently working on the Sci Fi Channels Re - Imagining of 'Battlestar Galactica. Now as a writer and FX designer what advice would you give to Ron about the Galactica universe, and what elements of the classic show would you like to see remain in the Re - Imagining and what do you think could be discarded in order to bring it all up to date.
Ken: Ouch. My first reaction. I've been a revivalist since it got cancelled in 1979 and I circulated a petition at my junior high school. I really don't want a remake. I want a continuation, at the very least SIMILAR to Richard's ideas, even if he's not in charge of it. Tom DeSanto gave me a few hints to what he had in mind, and it could have been pretty awesome. But, he was going for the continuation, and doing his best to get as many stars from the original series to return to reprise their roles. I had a few chances to meet with him, and even met Bryan Singer when my animation partner Mike McAdams and I were invited to show them our Battlestar Galactica Technical Journal and chat at their offices on the Universal Lot. We even had a chance to pitch effects for the show. I'm exceptionally proud of the scramble we made to get our FX reel done for Mr. DeSanto. We had eleven days to put something together, and what we did was far and above our work on the Battlestar trailer, as it was two years later, and we'd both learned a lot since that time. Sadly, nothing came of that work, but it was fun, and great exercise.
I've been writing for at least three years, all over the Battlestar Galactica forums about what I'd like to see in a new Battlestar series, but it's all sort of a moot point if it's getting re-invented from the ground up. That, in my humble opinion, is the worst case scenario for bringing back the show. Thousands upon thousands of fans have agreed, via online petitions, and years of posts, and letter writing campaigns that Battlestar Galactica should return in a continuation format, just like Star Trek did in the first six films, then, ease their way into a next generation.
Twenty years after the destruction of the colonies, the Galactica is nearly hopeless for finding the mythical earth, and the people are ready to settle somewhere hospitable and forget Adama's insane quest. A new generation of warriors has grown up alongside of the veteran warriors who are now moving into command positions on the Galactica, and the young warriors have never faced a real cylon, only simulations. It's not real to them. But it will be when the cylons return to attack again. That's what I want to see. That's what I worked on with "Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming." For all intents and purposes, I've got my continuation already. I just wish everyone could see it whenever they wanted to, not just at conventions.
If you really want to know what [I told] Mr. Moore, I posted it at http://www.battlestargalactica.com/ in the feedback for Ron Moore section. It’s way too long to reprint here.
Ian: My final question as one writer of fiction to another, is what type of things entertain you best when writing Sci Fi or Fantasy.
Ken: STORY! Characters you can identify with and find a commonality with, even if they're villains. Three-dimensional characters are essential. I like to find a hook in a character that makes them move from stereotype into reality. Turn them around sometimes, when things don't go there way, put them to the test and see where they break, if you will, or how they grow. It's hard to find that hook sometimes, and sometimes it's hard to make it come across when you translate it to film. Mostly, I think that it's because film special effects have become so in-your-face, that filmmakers have to top other FX laden films and it's usually at the expense of a good story, but most important, good characters and good acting. What I hate to see is some films with great stories and acting get slammed for not enough action or effects. I liked the original Star Trek, because it was really melodramatic to a large degree, and the characters were larger than life heroes, but each had tragic flaws to make them human. Picard became human AFTER he was a borg. Before that, he was just too uppity for my taste. After that, he really had much more dimensionality, and seemed better written, as well.
I did my best in my home movies, but I'm certainly no actor, at least if I have to open my mouth. But, casting is so important. A good actor can make or break a script, just as a bad script can challenge the best actors. Give me good drama, and make the effects complement that, then I'll be happy. But, don't give me actors telling me what is going on, show me that stuff! I really hate offscreen battles being narrated!
To read more
about Ken's projects and his pending movie "Demonslayers" check
out his website here.