Hello, my name is Rod Hardy and I directed the episode 'Vienen' of X-files that you're looking at right now. I see that fabulous oil rig sitting out there in the middle of the water and it reminds me of our first visit out to that thing for a location scout. Big waves and trying to get on board this particular thing made it very difficult indeed.
[The crew quarters.]
This particular scene was in the studio. We in fact made, it was made up of three different places. We built an interior, Cory Kaplan, the production designer, who was a fabulous production designer, created the interior of the oil rig. We then used a location in south central LA which was a gas company, an old oil refinery, and at first some of the scenes with pipes etc, and then we also used the oil rig out on the Pacific off Santa Barbara.
This episode, for me, was probably one of my favourites of doing, because it entailed the mythology and I've always found these episodes of X-Files the stuff that really draws me in.
Again, here we are on a studio set, still in the studio, and there was a lot of planning went into combining both the studio and the two different locations. Bill Roe, director of photography, some of the best-looking television I think, creating an atmosphere.
Trying to establish the set-up of the story here. We have our supposed worker on the thing, he's about to lose his life to a bad guy, we think, but the thing you'll discover about this episode is that nothing is as it seems. Very clearly the who-can-you-trust-in-life theory works pretty well here, and in this world you can't trust anybody.
We took some time in casting of these extras too, as the story unfolds, and we discover that the whole crew have been taken over, their bodies now being used as hosts, and the black oil which is being mined here, so to get the right faces and to make them interesting a lot of time was spent in casting of the extras.
The visual effects also on these shows are terrific, you can see that crawling worm-like thing under the skin. Very realistic.
This young man, playing the one that's being strangled as we speak, terrific young actor, you know, no dialogue at all but was able to show the fear and the terror in his face.
There's classic X-Files. You've got to love this stuff! Again, great visual effects and a really terrific teaser for any X-Files fan.
As I hear this music, I might say it reminds me of the, I actually was lucky enough to be involved in three of the episodes of season 8, and this particular one was the first one that David Duchovny came back into, having spent some time out of the series, and so his arrival was filled with much anticipation, the dynamics were interesting, Doggett was now in the series, David had been out of the show for some time, and so I kind of felt there was a sense of anticipation and wondering what David would be like, and I might say it was an absolute delight to work with the full cast, they were all professionals and everybody worked extremely well together.
A tricky one for Robert, I might say, because you know David had been, set the series up, and had certainly been there as the leading player and then when he left Robert took over that role and suddenly there was the leading player back into it again, but the ever-pro, old Robert, he's a terrific actor, he really carried it off extremely well.
This scene was one of the first scenes to be shot in this episode and there's the good stuff too, there's the gory bits of X-Files. The makeup was always a treat to do and in this particular one when anybody was affected by the oil or they were burnt, there were bodies all over the place as you'll see as the story unfolds.
This information coming out from Robert now, I remember it was such a, it's a very, if you listen to the dialogue:
[Doggett: Five years ago, you and Agent Scully investigated a case of a World War Two plane salvaged from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, where a substance was brought to the surface which you describe as a highly contagious virus of extra-terrestrial origin, that has radioactive properties and can take over a man's body, and it's part of an alien conspiracy to colonise the planet, if I'm not mistaken.]
What a mouthful, and what a way he delivered that line. I might say it wasn't a simple one for him to do first up, but it was only a couple or three takes maybe before we were able to get the whole thing in one take.
Great chemistry on the screen, these two. I would have loved to have done more episodes with both of them together, I think they play off each other pretty well.
Miguel Sandolver is the Spanish gentleman that was here to tell the story of how the oil well was having problems and bodies were being found, etc. I worked with Mitch on a series after this, in fact just recently, called 'The Mountain' up in Vancouver. It was nice to see him again playing a totally different role.
This was actually the very first scene of the episode and you have every player of the series in the one room. David's very first scene. It was interesting dynamics.
The X-Files was the first episodic television production that I did in the United States, having been a director in Australia for some years. I had moved to the United States to work in movie-of-the-weeks and mini-series. Having had the opportunity of working with some terrific actors like Angelica Houston and Michael Cain and Peirce Brosnan and Kris Kristofferson and a whole bunch of others, Melanie Griffiths, etc, that to come to this show and work with a cast of this calibre was just terrific. But I'd never done episodic television in the States before, I'd done it in Australia, so I was surprised after having done an episode, sorry, a remake of 'High Noon', the classic Western for TBS that somebody saw it at X-Files and I was then offered a couple of episodes to come and do. As I said, it was the first television I'd done and what a great opportunity to work on a series as large as this one was. Maybe later in the series, but it was still, every episode was like a little movie, and the attitude of everybody working on the production, after eight seasons, was absolutely fully professional, from Bill Roe, the DP, right through the whole thing, it was as if they'd just started making the series, and I think that's what shows on the screen very clearly, the professionalism of everybody, and trying to achieve the very best. You know, an episode of this was being made for the same amount of money they were about to make a feature film for in Australia, so, you know, that's an interesting challenge for a one-hour episode.
So here we are, arriving at the oil rig. We did one day's filming on the oil rig, which started at first light and finished at last light. There was a lot to be done, a lot of preparation went into it, including the chopper-to-chopper shooting and storyboarding sequences, etc, and it was quite a challenge to take on that we were going to get all this done in one day. Hopefully the weather wasn't going to turn on us, because that would make it extremely difficult. You're right out in the middle of nowhere, and I might say standing up on this helicopter pad was probably the most scary thing I've ever done in my life, and going down those steps, just prior to these steps, I've got to tell you I looked over the edge of that thing and it's like about three, four hundred feet down. It brings the chills to the back of my spine as I speak right now, and particularly when the wind picks up you really are very vulnerable out there.
The challenge was always trying to find ways of making this thing work, as I said there were three different locations, the studio, the oil refinery/old gas place down in south central, and then the oil rig out on the water, and people were walking in and out of shots so trying to keep that continuity going and not just the normal continuity, but the continuity of performance, etc, it seems to flow very well.
Nice tension between the two characters here and I think that's what kept this stuff alive, that you're watching a story about the unknown but in fact you really care about each of these characters and how they feel about each other.
Gillian spent most of the time on this episode back at base, so there were very few scenes where they were able to all be together in it, apart from that first scene I mentioned which was in the office.
When you looked at the episode with the full dialogue without me, I'm talking over the top of it, that you got the sense, at the beginning did you know who was the bad guys, hopefully that unfolded very slowly so you were able to be drawn into the story, but I thought this guy's face and his whole persona was something really interesting that we were able to turn him into, in the beginning he seems the very supportive foreman on the oil rig but at the end of the day of course he's one of them.
These were my favourite moments too. Watching those eyes, watching those eyes change and turn. So once again here we are out on this oil rig. We had two cameras operating and to try and get a sense of the whole thing, we took dialogue scenes like this and just got them to walk around the thing so at least you got a feeling of the whole location.
Steadicam was used quite a bit on this particular location because you can appreciate it's quite a dangerous place to be, out on one of these oil rigs, and because of the oil, etc, the floors can be fairly slippery. But Steadicam seemed to sort of fit and blend in quite well, and some of the shots we were able to get I thought were quite amazing considering the fact that we had to rehearse them probably once and maybe twice at the most and suddenly have to shoot them.
That's one of the great lines: 'You could find a conspiracy at a church picnic.'
[Skinner and Scully in an autopsy bay.]
I'll tell a story about this particular dummy here that, here's a secret, underneath that sheet is a rather large rubber penis. (Laughs) Practical jokes were regular on the set of X-Files, which was terrific, because they were just like one big family, the crew, they'd been together for so long, but they would tease and play on Gillian quite a lot. I remember when it was first revealed, this rather large rubber device, the look on her face was very funny and she dealt with it extremely well. (laughs) I'll leave it at that.
That question is always there in X-Files, isn't it: why? Keeps the story driving forward. That shot you just saw then was something we shot first up in the morning as the sun was coming up. We took advantage of every moment of light to get something because, as I said, we only had the one day to achieve the whole shooting on the rig itself.
So we're about to see the oil drip from his body, molasses, chocolate syrup, all used to at least start the journey of the oil coming out of the mouth and eyes, mostly out of the eyes, the rest of it is put in by visual effects at a later stage. I might say the guy that had the oil dripping on him had to put up with a hell of lot of that stuff pouring down his throat, I can tell you, it was like about, I think, nine takes to get the oil to spill in the right places.
You think about the fact that this oil rig is set supposedly in the Gulf of Mexico, and is some distance off the coastline, a hundred miles, two hundred miles off the coastline, where people actually do live and work on these rigs. A pretty lonely place and a fabulous type of place to set a horror story like this one, because the isolation alone sets up many things.
We're on a set, we're in the studio right now, all these, this is all still in the studio.
Just while this scene takes place, I'm sure you're probably, on other DVDs about the X-Files, the series was made with a seven-day pre-production phase and then a nine -day shoot with main unit, and then up to two days with second unit, some episodes went on much longer because of their involvement and complication, but this particular episode was done in the eleven days. And there's a lot involved in doing this much work in those eleven days. The work day was probably between 13 and 14 hours and so we'd start very early in the mornings and work till very late at night, and sometimes the locations were an hour and a half out of town, so you'd be on the road for 16 hours a day, which was quite a feat. The crew who did the series, I don't know how they kept doing it episode in, episode out, but they did it with a smile on their face.
[Scully, Ortego and Skinner in the autopsy room.]
I'd love to see a reel of shots put together of all the special effects makeup that was done on X-Files over the nine seasons, there's some stunning stuff.
[Back on the oil rig.]
It may not look like it in this particular shot but just even coming up and going down these steps was pretty hairy, and the actors on this particular shot, probably did this four or five times. It's a good hundred foot drop down there. To be on board one of these things during a big cyclone or something, I would imagine would be quite an experience. Keeping the crew together and making sure that everybody was safe and in the right place so that nothing happened, we had safety and security people with us. But there it is, everywhere you look it's water, although there is a part of it which is coming up very soon, just on the right hand side of this shot, that's in fact the mainland, so we had to keep moving the camera around so that we didn't see any of that land, so we just kept getting the impression that we're out at sea. Of course, the occasional speed boat in the background that we didn't want to see, all those things. Now we're back at the oil refinery down in south central so as you can see the whole thing sort of blended together quite well.
[Doggett wipes his fingers over a nearby pipe and picks up some oil.]
Of course if that's black oil, what's going to happen to him?
[Fire alarm.]
So special effects department were brought to the fore here and in the studio we created the fire, obviously we couldn't have any naked flame out on the oil rig itself, so all this sequence was filmed in the studio. The set did almost burn to the ground but we had to keep as much as possible so it wouldn't burn down because there were scenes to follow that we would shoot in subsequent sequences.
Another great face.
[Scully and Kersh.]
This kind of character development in X-Files, it works extremely well too. Each of the characters have a story and a relationship and as much as we're looking at the science fiction, the horror, the whatever else goes on in X-Files, you really care about these people. They've spent a lot of time together, you can tell that.
Doing episodic television is always quite interesting, the shoots are usually around 7, 8 days, X-Files having an extra day, the 9th, and then the second unit being two days, 10 and 11, but getting these shows shot on time is really the key issue, but X-Files in particular because of the all the visual effects, etc, usually uses that time up quite efficiently.
Here we are after the fire. Art department came in, it wasn't just a matter of burning the set, the art department had to come in and spray black paint, etc, to create the illusion because we couldn't allow the sets to burn because they would eventually, they're not real, it's not metal, it was made of wood and various other substances, so the art department come in and make it look like it's been burnt out.
[Doggett finds Garza.]
I was saying before about these episodes done, and the times that they're done, it always is quite surprising that there's no rehearsal time allowed actually, the rehearsal's done exactly prior to shooting the scene, so I think the level of performance works out extremely well. And this is all about performance, I mean the scripts are very solid and then the next thing is performance and this cast I think worked together extremely well but more importantly they make something of these scenes, they keep drawing the audience into it. Some of the favourite bits of working on X-Files for me was the script meetings one would have with Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz and the writers where you could see that this team that had been working together for a long time just knew how to solve some of these problems of what's this all mean. I would ask the question, what does it mean, and there was always a solution to something. Chris would sit on the floor in his office at the coffee table with his computer and every time there was a question that you had a difficulty, suddenly he'd be there typing away and up would come a solution to the problem. Chris and Frank worked extremely well together and I had the fortunate opportunity to work with Frank Spotnitz on a follow-up series, called Robbery: Homicide Division, produced by Michael Mann, starring Tom Sizemore, and Frank was a producer on the first part of the season of that series, it only lasted one season unfortunately, but it was nice to work with Frank on Robbery: Homicide Division, and Bill Roe, who also was the DP on X-Files. X-Files is done on film, of course, Robbery: Homicide Division was 24p which is digital images, and it still is early days with this technology and it's getting better all the time, but Robbery: Homicide Division was certainly up there as being one of the early shows to do 24p and Bill's abilities to go from film to digital was quite extraordinary.
Leading up to the big finale of the story. They're now on the oil rig and they now have to find their way off the oil rig and of course the cavalry is on its way but will it make it in time. This part of the sequence I think they quite enjoyed shooting because it revealed, as you'll see now, that the whole crew basically were already taken over by the black oil. The conspiracy grows.
That would be the last shot we ever shot on this particular story was the sunset shot you just saw then. As I said, we started at first light and finished at last light.
David has the wonderful ability at delivering lines like that one. He has a great sense of humour and I think that's one of the reasons why the character was able to be so appealing to an audience. It's that sense of irony, etc.
[Mulder destroys the radio.]
That classic X-Files' lighting, the smoke, the backlit smoke, really is a sort of signature of the production, and you've got to love it, it's just... and now we're moving into a sequence that was completely storyboarded because we were shooting between the three different locations once more.
[Doggett finds Diego, but he's dead. The chopper approaches.]
The oil rig is about to blow up and our heroes have to get off the thing as best they can. The helicopter has arrived but they can't land because if they do these guys with the black oil will obviously take them over, so our heroes now have to find a way off it. And as the oil rig slowly but surely gets destroyed. Visual effects are creating the flames of course because you couldn't set naked flame on the oil rig. Props men in the foreground rattling pipes to create the illusion of the thing about to blow up.
Greenscreen shots, actors in studio in foreground with the greenscreen, and then of course we add in the chopper afterwards.
[Mulder and Doggett leap off the rig.]
It's almost like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as they jump off the cliff. The effects that you see happening now, a number of them were there on the night when we shot this sequence and then of course like in this shot they were added in. The oil rig falling apart, etc, all that added in at a later stage.
[Mulder and Doggett in the basement office.]
So Mulder is back and then Mulder is gone. Of course, the following episodes he found a way back in again and was able to lead the story to its conclusion.
My opportunity to work on X-Files I was very grateful for, and I did three episodes, this one being one of my favourites as I said because of the mythology story, but a great opportunity to work on a great series and I am pleased that I had that chance.
So thank you for listening.