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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


Hi Chris,

OK, this is my fifth and final question…hopefully.

One of my favorite movies is The Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp. However, as much as I love that movie, I feel that Polanski dropped the ball in several places. The best example of this is when he depicts the girl literally flying down the stairs. In my opinion, this turns a deep and complex supernatural mystery into a two-bit fantasy. One of the things I like about "The Lost Room" is that you do not seem to make any similar mistakes. You seem to prefer leaving something unexplained than to “over-interpret” it in the aforementioned fashion. Were you ever under any pressure to “dumb down” certain scenes? Could you possibly elaborate on that whole aspect of editing?

Yes…of course…you will be wanting to return to your sequel.

Thanks again.


Last edited by Spikosauropod, 8/31/2007, 1:29 pm
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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


Ok…I thought I could quit, but apparently not…and this time I won’t even bug you about making a sequel.

For some reason everyone I talk to thinks that “The Lost Room” was a marketing failure. Yet, my research indicates that it was a tremendous success. What does this mean? How did it happen? Can you tell us anything?

Thank you all again.
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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


Six questions are unlucky, so I have to ask a seventh.

The actors you used in the miniseries are perfect for their parts. Did you have trouble recruiting them? Did you have trouble getting them to even look at the script? I suppose that Julianna Margulies had not been working much recently, but how did you talk her into making such an unconventional and probably risky production?

OK, I think this is it for me.

Thank you all one more time.
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four more questions


Here are four more questions:

Nearly everyone who has watched “The Lost Room” for the sixth or seventh time has noticed that some of the objects change. For example, the glasses Ruber wears in the Reunification temple and the glasses he wears in the final scene with Lee are not the same. Also some of the pictures used by characters in diagrams and databases are not the same as the actual objects. For example, the scissors that The Weasel has taped to the wall of his study and the actual scissors are not the same. Is this important to the plot or is it just a case of props getting mixed up, having to be in two shootings at the same time, getting lost or broken, etc?

The Sood’s office is a remarkable set. There are pictures taped to the bookshelves that are obviously objects and all sorts of odd things hanging on the walls. How much time and effort was put into creating this set? Is the set much more complicated than it even appears to be, or is the apparent complexity something of an illusion?

I was very impressed by the writing in this miniseries. The way different characters invoke Joe’s status as a police officer in different ways at different times depending on what they want from him and who has the upper hand particularly caught my attention. When I see writing and scripting this detailed I always wonder how a person or group of people can think of so many details and put them together. Such detail suggests a production that is meant to be seen twenty or thirty times; yet, it is improbable that any large audience will actually do this. What goes into creating this kind of detail? Why do you do it?

Many people who might attempt to write a story like this would begin it with the “event”. However, your story picks up over forty years after the event and creates the clear impression that quite a lot has happened in the mean time. Did you create a timeline for the developments from the event up to the moment when your story begins? If so, how detailed is this timeline?


Last edited by Spikosauropod, 8/31/2007, 10:26 pm
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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


Chris,
Good Hello.

After several searches, it seems that The Collectors is the only active forum and prop group on the Internet. What are your thoughts of us (The Collectors) being the only fan group since the December broadcast and the Dvd sales?

Much Appreciated.
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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


Ok, the questions have been sent to Chris.

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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


All right, here are the answers to your questions from the three creators of THE LOST ROOM: Christopher Leone, Paul Workman, and Laura Harkcom. I'm going to have to do this in multiple posts because the runboards only like so many characters per entry. It's very complicated, hard to explain. Let's just say I will divide this into two posts of nine questions each and leave it at that.

Here it is.

Part I.

This is the moment you've been waiting for.

FEAST YOUR EYES ON THESE:


1. Is there any word on continuing the series? If not would you consider another venue to continue telling the story? Perhaps a book or online series?

CHRISTOPHER LEONE: Well, there’s bad news and good news.

The bad news is, we just heard that we won’t be doing any more episodes of THE LOST ROOM for the Sci-Fi Channel. We always got a tremendous amount of support for the show at Sci-Fi and they were very proud of it, so I don’t think it was a decision they liked making. It’s a shame though, because we created a ton of new material for the show that I think everyone involved really loved and I think you guys would flip for.

The good news is, Lionsgate is committed to keeping the project alive in some form or another, possibly including novels. When we have something to announce, we’ll announce it here in the Collector’s forum first. We also have some new projects in the works so we’ll announce those too when we can.


2. Some writers might attempt a story like this beginning it with the “event”. Your story however picks up forty years after the event and creates the impression that quite a lot has happened in that time. Did you create a timeline from the event up to the moment when the series opens?

CL: We always had a rough timeline in mind, but we firmed up a lot of the major events as we developed the series this year. We always knew there were three Cabal Wars, for instance, but now we know exactly when they happened and what they were about. Our goal was to establish a timeline that would be consistent throughout the series, but also one that left room for more invention as THE LOST ROOM went on.

As far as the story picking up forty years after the Event, that was a natural choice for all of us, I think. First because what’s interesting to us about THE LOST ROOM isn’t just the Objects themselves but peoples’ reactions to them – what they believe the Objects are, if they choose to join a cabal or form a new one, etc. It’s easier to illustrate that sort of thing when there’s already a history. When we start the miniseries, the Order and the Legion already exist, Suzie Kang and The Sood have businesses up and running, etc. Plus, personally I know I’m fascinated when stories have a deep, layered history, even if they’re just hinted at.

PAUL WORKMAN: One reason we chose 1961 was that it's long enough in the past to be historical, but not so long in the past that it becomes abstractly historical. One might be tempted to set The Event a thousand years ago to make it feel more epic, but how would a person relate to that personally? We were always trying to find a balance between the fantastic and the mundane, and 1961 is recent enough that many of the trappings of our ordinary lives were present, although in forms that nowadays may look slightly exotic (like wind-up clocks). So by setting the Event forty years ago but setting the story in the present day, the Objects are both familiar, and slightly foreign.

1961 feels like a year just out of our grasp, something we just barely missed. Or, for audience members over 45, something they lived through but is now kind of fading away.


3. It seems the person who originally gathered the objects was in love with vintage “things.” Moreover, they seem to have been somewhat of a connoisseur of such things. Not just any pair of scissors would do, but only a pair of scissors that had a certain appealing shape, for example. Would you care to comment on this?

CL: Well, remember those things weren’t vintage in 1961 – they were just ordinary belongings from that period. Everything in the room was something from the motel decor or something Eddie brought with him. Not everything was brand new, of course. The newspaper was probably fresh that day but the table lamps in the room might have been 10 or 15 years old, for instance. What’s interesting about these things for me is that they originally were so mundane, but now are imbued with strange power and meaning. And now, 46 years later, as vintage things they have a unique look, slightly out of place in the 21st century.

PW: The Objects are pretty representative of the time. The Travel Alarm Clock, for example – my dad used to have a clock like that.

LAURA HARKCOM: I would add that our prop master, Ben Lowney, had an amazing knack for finding props that were of the correct time period, yet distinctive in very visual ways, such as the Flask, or the Deck of Cards with that joker. That still gives me the creeps.


4. What can you tell us about the room itself? If you were in the room and opened the window (we know you probably couldn’t, but hypothetically) and go outside, would you be in Gallup in 1961?

CL: We always wanted to show what would happen if someone tried this, but never had time for it in the miniseries. The short answer is no, you would not be in Gallup in 1961. Room 10 does not exist in 1961, nor does it exist in history at all. It was erased from our reality by the Event. But in whatever future editions of THE LOST ROOM exist, you will see someone try this and what happens.

PW: What you see outside the window of the Motel Room is Gallup in 1961, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Gallup 1961 is outside the window.


5. What can you tell us about Eddie's background? Was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time or is there more to his story?

CL: I am tempted to say “both.” I don’t want to reveal too much about Eddie, because his story is so intertwined with the origin of Room 10. I will say that Eddie was just an ordinary man, the same way that all the Objects were ordinary before the Event.


6. Can you explain the Gallup Polaroid? Did Eddie have an undeveloped Polaroid with him, was it a picture of something else that was changed by the event or did someone take a picture of him in the room?

CL: The Polaroid was undeveloped. No one else took a picture – Eddie was the only person in the room.


7. Can you elaborate and describe any object’s powers we do not yet know? (i.e. the shoe polish, the foot powder, the iron, etc.)

CL: I’ll give you one good one. There’s an Object that Paul made up that deconstructs things down to their component parts. So if you used it on a car, you’d end up with a bunch of neatly arranged rows of car parts. But it works on all sorts of things.


8. Some of us have noticed that some objects change during the series. The glasses Ruber takes from the mechanic and gives to the Order and the glasses he wears in the hospital scene with Lee aren’t the same. Was this just a case of props getting mixed up, lost or broken?

CL: I’m stunned to discover that you’re right – the Glasses are different in the last scene! This was not intentional, this was a production error that I’ve never noticed. Great, now I won’t sleep tonight. I guess someone grabbed the wrong glasses for that last scene.

I would like to point out though that pictures of Objects cannot always be trusted. Remember that the Sood deals in Object “science” – pictures, videos, and evidence of Objects. But the vast majority of these materials are fakes and hoaxes. This is why the Sood’s reputation matters so much to him – he deals (usually) in the real McCoy.

It was always a crucial idea to us in the show that no one has a perfect understanding of the Objects. Everyone has part of the truth, but no one has all of it.

PW: An ongoing theme of the show was how people deal with weirdness, with stuff that they cannot explain. They produce theories, best guesses, and all of these guesses are likely to have some basis in fact or at least are somewhat reasonable. But nobody is sure, and they can’t be. Some people deal with that uncertainty by faking certainty. So don’t trust anything any character says, no matter how sure they are.


9. Did you know that in tarot cards, 9s represent the best that can be hoped for while remaining in balance with other areas of life while 10s represent obsessional pursuits that destroy other life areas and cannot be realistically attained? I see strong parallels here to rooms 9 and 10. Was that intentional?

CL: This was not intentional, but it’s a perfect match. I don’t know anything about Tarot cards.



I'll post the rest of the answers tonight!

Last edited by Christopher Leone, 9/11/2007, 11:40 am


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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


quote:

Christopher Leone wrote:

The bad news is, we just heard that we won’t be doing any more episodes of THE LOST ROOM for the Sci-Fi Channel. We always got a tremendous amount of support for the show at Sci-Fi and they were very proud of it, so I don’t think it was a decision they liked making. It’s a shame though, because we created a ton of new material for the show that I think everyone involved really loved and I think you guys would flip for.

The good news is, Lionsgate is committed to keeping the project alive in some form or another, possibly including novels. When we have something to announce, we’ll announce it here in the Collector’s forum first. We also have some new projects in the works so we’ll announce those too when we can.




So how will they do it I wonder ?? A Movie ?? another Mini-series on another network ?? novels ?? (novels are nice but I need visuals with this...)

Hopefully its not 5 years away........



Thanks so Much Chris !! I love the answers you gave !!






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Last edited by Chucklbunny, 9/11/2007, 1:23 pm


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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


Thank you, Thank you.

All tremendously enlightening so far. I hungrily await the rest of the answers.
9/11/2007, 1:29 pm Link to this post Send Email to Spikosauropod   Send PM to Spikosauropod
 
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Re: Collectors Exclusive Q&A With Christopher Leone!


Cool, I'm glad you guys liked those answers.

Believe it or not, the remaining questions are STILL too big for a single post, so I'll have to do a third part.

Here's Part II:


10. As you know, this forum is dedicated to collecting the objects depicted in the TLR. When you were creating the series, did it ever occur to you that it could lead to a real-life scavenger hunt like the one we are on?

CL: I have to admit I always hoped that fans of the show would become obsessive about it. Back before we even sold the show, I used to describe the show to friends of mine. For the first 60 seconds they looked blank, but five minutes later they would be riveted. Then days later they would come back to me with a whole bunch of questions and ideas. So I knew we were onto something. But it never dawned on me that fans like you guys would start collecting Objects themselves and start forming cabals. It’s genius, I love it.

PW: I remember as a kid watching The Prisoner on PBS, and after each episode there was an apparently fan-produced documentary dissecting the details of the episode. I think we all always wanted to produce something that would lend itself to that kind of depth of discussion. Actually forming cabals and gathering Objects carries on the show in a really cool (and unexpected) way.

LH: The phrase “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” comes to mind – I’m totally psyched!

11. In TLR you seem to prefer leaving something unexplained rather than over-interpret it. Were you ever under any pressure to “dumb down” certain scenes?

CL: Fortunately no. I think everyone involved – the cast, everyone on the production, and the network and studio – loved the fact that the show was weird and smart and dense. Even if anyone wanted to dumb it down, I’m not sure how they could have. I think the only debates we had were very minor ones over the clarity of certain lines in certain scenes – as we’re editing it we never knew how much of the plot the audience would be able to follow from night to night.

LH: To expand upon what Chris said, not only did the network, studio, cast and crew appreciate the show’s complexity, they actually challenged us to push the envelope! We were thrilled to have such creative freedom, a luxury we probably would not have been afforded at a major network.


12. TLR is a very dramatic series involving magical house wares that do amazing or ridiculous things. Was this a difficult balance to achieve? Did you have any trouble getting the actors to take it seriously?

CL: This is exactly what I talk about when I talk about how badly wrong the show could have gone. You can easily imagine a horrendous version of a show about magic pencils and bus tickets and egg-boiling watches. It would be very easy to be jokey or tongue-in-cheek or else really campy and terrible. Somehow it worked out.

Early on, when THE LOST ROOM was just a short treatment called MOTEL MAN, we struggled for a while to get the voice of the show right. The characters were there, the mythology was there, but it hadn’t quite all gelled. Finally I rewrote the entire treatment in maybe late 2002 and suddenly it just clicked. We had the voice of the show as this kind of weird, hardboiled, sometimes spooky and sometimes funny story.

The beginning of the show was deliberately slow, so that we’d introduce the Object concepts bit by bit. If we started off with one guy going, “I’ve got the towel!” and another guy going, “I’ve got the underpants! Let’s pop a hole in the time-space continuum!” the audience would have revolted, you know? So we rooted the show in the real world, and introduced the Key concept by concept. It’s not until 30 minutes into the show or so that you realize there even ARE other Objects.

Our cast was phenomenal, so if they had any problems buying into the reality of the Objects, I couldn’t detect it. But what do I know? They could have fooled me. Maybe Peter Jacobson had sleepless nights trying to figure out how he’d invest so much emotion into a bus ticket. Whatever he did he pulled it off brilliantly – the whole cast did.

PW: Ultimately the show isn’t about Objects, it’s about how people react to the Objects and let them affect their lives. I think the actors all recognized this and built their performances around it. Actually I seem to recall Peter Krause saying something like this in an interview.

13. How would one use such objects as The Pack of Cigarettes, The Matchbook or The Bar of Soap? They are all sealed shut and indestructible so how do you smoke a cig if you cannot rip open the cellophane? You can’t rip out a match and strike it so how do you use it? the bar of soap is sealed too so how do you use it to activate its power? Can you explain these Objects and their use?

CL: Well, activating the Object does not necessarily have anything to do with the way it is used in real life. The Comb is activated when you run it through your hair – that makes sense – but the Quarter is activated when you swallow it, which doesn’t. Also not all Objects need to be activated – some are always “on.” There is an Object that turns iron into manganese for a twenty foot radius, and it never shuts off. You can’t get near it or else it destroys your red blood cells.

LH: A little bit of trivia to add: we didn’t get to explain this in the mini series, but there are actually TWO bars of soap, and one of them is not sealed. At the time of the Event, the Occupant was using it (this would be the soap in the bathtub, not the soap on the sink, which remained wrapped). He had thrown the wrapper into the Waste Basket, so the Soap Wrapper is its own Object, seen ever-so-briefly in the mini series as one of the Objects in the Collector’s Vault.

14. Some aspects of TLR seem familiar. Mabel for example reminds me of Mary from It’s a Wonderful Life. Were there films you would say influenced you?

CL: Well, first to address the Mabel story specifically, that one is ironic just because is only similar to Mary from “It’s a Wonderful Life” by accident. Mabel wasn’t written as a librarian – in the original script Joe and Wally went to her house and stood on her porch. During production, the library location was scouted for a different scene that got cut. But the director loved the library location and wanted to shoot there, and production time was so insanely tight at that point it made sense to shoot there. So, at the last minute, Mabel became a librarian. Which turned out just fine, the scene turned out really well. But the connection to “It’s a Wonderful Life” never dawned on me until I read it online, although in hindsight it’s obvious. Even the name is Mabel is oddly close to Mary! I suppose without the librarian angle there’s some similarity been Mabel and Mary – they both have an alternate life with a husband they don’t remember. But alternate timelines have been done a million times -- I don’t know if people would make the connection to “It’s a Wonderful Life” without the librarian detail.

As far as influences, the biggest influences on me were crime novels by Jim Thompson and David Goodis. Bleak books about screwed-up people in tight spots. For me, THE LOST ROOM is a cross between those novels and, somehow, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK which is a movie that has obsessed me since I was 10.

PW: For me anyway, influences were The Prisoner (the British TV show in the ‘60s) and to a degree The Fugitive, the David Jansen series with a dark, brooding, oppressive feel. Also – and I didn't think of this until a while after shooting finished – the movie A Simple Plan is a good model: a collection of ordinary people, stuck in a situation that seems hopeful yet also hopeless, struggling to make it just work out.

LH: This is probably an obvious one, but the TV show “The Twilight Zone” has profoundly influenced me ever since childhood. You couldn’t compare it to THE LOST ROOM on an episode by episode basis, but on a global level, I think both shows manage to juxtapose the surreal with the mundane in entertaining and thought-provoking ways. I also always admire any movie or TV show that can successfully juggle elements of lots of different genres – action, comedy, sci-fi, drama, mystery. I think/hope we did this successfully in THE LOST ROOM.

Also, I’m a nut for any film by Stanley Kubrick. A slight homage to the SHINING appears in the show when Kreutzfeld’s son Isaac runs into Joe and the Weasel as they’re breaking into the mansion. Ironically, this was not something I wrote into the script, but the director’s choice on how to shoot the scene.


15. The actors you used in the miniseries are perfect for their parts. Did you have trouble casting them in such an unconventional story?

CL: I have to give major kudos here to our casting directors, Mary Jo Slater and Steve Brooksbank, who pulled together a dream cast for us. The script seemed to get a really great reaction from the actors who read it, so that helped. Peter Krause was into the show from the get-go. When we first met him I was stunned at how much thought he’d already given it, especially about some of the bigger conceptual concepts to the whole show.

I would say the part that we thought would be hardest to cast was Wally, because he was everyone’s favorite character in the script and it’s such a strange part. He’s funny on the surface but has something dark going on underneath. He’s a nomadic misanthrope, but he comes to be friends with Joe. But then Peter Jacobson walked in and just killed it, just blew us away.



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