Babylon Podcast #201: Interview with Leslie Erganian
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I haven’t had a chance to listen to this yet, but it sounds cool. Great picture.
Just listened to this–I have to say, I think the comments about budget were a little exaggerated. My best recollection is that B5 had a budget of a little under $1M per episode, maybe $.9M, as opposed to ST-TNG which had a budget in the range of $2M to $2.5M per episode. $300K is way low, whereas the $25M figure that was is way high except for stuff like the Lost pilot.
Tim, you should be ashamed. When someone who seems to know something and willing to talk about it says, “What do you know about the O’Hare thing?” you don’t wax on about what you know, that’s an invitation to find out what she knows. Good thing we love you. I haven’t growled at my car radio like that since ya’ll had Morden on and Summer *didn’t* ask why he appeared to Lenier in the day of the dead episode
My belated congratulations on your 200th episode. Having heard them all, I don’t feel I’ve heard it all, so please, another 200 if you will.
Tremendous interview.
I know the podcast hit on the problems in production a few times, but it was really interesting to hear the personal effect it had on the crew.
Sad to hear, but glad that the podcast expressed how thankful as fans we all are.
Thanks.
Loved the interview with Leslie. Props were always my favorite place to visit. Bear Burge used to take things apart to create some masterful items — like the medical headband which took a light out of ring you get in a bubblegum machine and glued it to a piece of plastic to give you a dramatic visual effect. I never met Leslie but appreciated her comments about how frugal they had to be about props.
Many of the furnishings they used were from IKEA and some were made by Nancy in the Art Department. She would get a chunk of wood or someone would bring her in a piece of driftwood and she would create some amazing items.
I think the gentleman she was thinking about when she was talking labels was Alan Kobiashi. He did labels for a lot of Ivanova’s beverages – including Brevari. I had one of those labels somewhere!
Sandy
Awesome interview. That’s really messed up how she got let go though. >:(
As far as the budget – it is probably in Asked And Answered, but I found it by doing a simple search:
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Subject: Attn JMS: Typical Episode Budget
To: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: 9/22/1999 1:17:00 PM
The average Trek budget was about $1.4 million, sometimes going to $1.6.
The average B5/Crusade budget was about $920,000 per.
jms
Maybe I misheard, but I thought Leslie meant that the $300k was the budget for the special effects, not for the entire episode.
It always struck me how the brevari beverage label (Which I believe is in the security manual, or the cookbook) is written in Narn, not Centauri.
Excellent interview. I know people like Leslie … creative types who want so badly to fit their creativity into the system and improve it. The worst part of the system is that it always uses, grinds, and spits back talented artists like her. How did Jeffrey survive? He’s never claimed to be creative, but surely he has seen this come and go. Incidentally, why does Leslie have such a vivid memory of things from the time when Jeffrey’s just umms and uhhs and says he doesn’t remember? Drug of choice?
Gary,
Why do you think the Centauri colonized Narn? Everybody knows the Narn have the best stills this side of the Rim! (Or is it the best vintners? I never could get that straight.
)
Be seeing you,
Edmund
Take your pick. We’re pretty much the best at everything we do. Including egotism.
I thought it was because Narn’s land grew the best hops and the Narn equivalent of agave to make brevari.
Kinda makes you wonder about the real reasons for that planetary bombardment… I’m thinking one of the Houses wanted to increase the values of their 5-year and 15-year stock by affecting how much brevari one of their competitors might have still been making with products from Narn.
@ Michael – I think most of those moments that Jeffrey umms on, are when we ask him questions about things he wasn’t directly involved in. Sometimes we assume that because he was the Producer’s Assistant that equates to Knowing Everything That Went On. There are plenty of examples where Jeffrey’s memory has been razor sharp – like The Brawl In The Hall, or the embarrassment of when he was suspended in a body stocking to portray the “revealed” Kosh in “The Fall of Night” (which sent me into a fit of giggles).
With a guest like Leslie, we naturally focus on her area of expertise. We’re not likely to ask about the makeup trailer. She was the one asking us about Michael O’Hare’s departure!