Jack Bender - The Lost Years

Jack Bender and Nestor Carbonell in Spain

Thanks to Victoria from http://www.psicocine.com/ for the videos.

The Official LOST Video Podcast: May 6th, 2010

Executive Producer Jack Bender takes us to the Temple & shows off the pool.

Sky One Interview with Jack Bender

Source: Sky One

The Lost Initiative Special With Jack Bender

Paul Terry hosts the second instalment of our Lost Initiative pre-season special. This week Paul talks to Lost Executive Producer and Director Jack Bender about the enormous challenge of shooting a show such as Lost.


Source: Sky One

Article Snippets from the Latest Lost Magazine

I hope to have some scans shortly.

Visual effects Supervisor Mitch Suskin reveals to The Official Lost Magazine, the challenges of bringing Smokey out to play in series four's episode The Shape of Things to Come.

The Shape of Things to Come really gave the audience its first long look at the smoke monster and what it's truly capable of doing. What were your marching orders in terms of how to portray it?
Well, for this episode the producers were pretty upfront from the beginning that Smokey, as we call it, was going to be in your face and we’d be seeing him. We had the cover of night, which we've never really done before. So we were more concerned, not about how much we were going to see him, but how we were going to make him visible – a blackish, smoke monster in the dark, in the forest, is tricky to see.

How much creative leeway did you have on establishing the details of Smokey's big entrance?
Jack Bender was fairly precise about what he wanted out of this. We scouted locations at several times and we talked about where Smokey might be entering from and what he might be doing. The script was clear on what was supposed to happen in the scene and it was clear that you had to see things. Sometimes we all have rough ideas and it's an evolving process. In this case with the script, what Mr. Bender requested and what he got, we had a strong idea of what to do but how to get there was hard. I mean its just smoke!

What was the most challenging shot?
The one shot that was most subject to interpretation was the shot where Smokey first appeared over the trees. We didn’t know what direction he was going to come from or how much interaction there was going to be, so that evolved over time. It just so happens the way it was shot there was a hole in the trees that made a nice place for him to coil into the shot.

It's a very menacing entrance, so did that evolve or was that clear from the start?
We tried a couple of different ways for him to enter but it wasn't clear if he was supposed to be pouring through or looking around, more cat-like. Then it was very clear from Damon and Carlton that they wanted it to come in like a rollercoaster or a freight train. They wanted it to be forceful and somewhat frightening. We had to spend a lot of time trying to get the smoke to look like something other than smoke in the sense of it moving and how it was lit. A lot of that was just trial and error. That shot, as far as performance, gave us the most to play with and the other shots were a lot of shots of him in the forest.

How were the forest shots different to create?
We were trying to strike a balance between how much we wanted to see him and how much we didn't want to see him and which was going to be scarier. A lot of those shots we were shooting in the forest at night with nothing out there, so there were lots of branches and leaves and we were trying to figure out how to put Smokey in the background. In this case, we didn't use digital trees. We used real trees from the forest. We spent a lot of time trying to come up with ways to separate the leaves and the branches from the background so we didn't have to paint mattes for every single leaf so we could put the shot together. The compositor came up with some mercifully clever techniques that allowed us to put Smokey way in the background. The digital tools we are using are getting better and better and we did do a little bit of rotoscoping [where animators trace over live-action movement frame-by-frame] to separate them, but there was more compositing magic to separate the trees and the branches. It's all about trying to define the foreground and putting Smokey in the background.

Lost actor Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond Hume), talks exclusively to The Official Lost Magazine about series four.

Did The Constant episode help you connect the dots with Desmond's time-jumping and let you know that he wasn’t just having these weird mental episodes – that there was a powerful reason for those visions and issues?
I think that, in the other episodes, I always played the scenes just as they were written. In the earlier episodes, I was playing it that I was seeing events that either hadn't happened or could happen. So yeah, the whole time-travelling thing just explained it. But that explanation happened after I did it [laughs] so I am still essentially playing Desmond from scene to scene.

There was a new revelation, however, about Desmond's time spent in prison, which was another mysterious element revealed in his past...
Yes! They haven't explained that one just yet...

Does that unexplained incarceration pique your interest at all? Do you conjecture that it might be tie to why Widmore accuses him of being a coward?
It's interesting to me that Desmond has been called that. Nobody knows why. However, just because he's been called a coward doesn't mean that he is one. Whether that's explained or not, we’ll see... I mean you could argue that Widmore called him a coward for leaving Penny and that's just his opinion as her father. Other than that, there's nothing remotely cowardly about Desmond.

Series four was a huge year for Desmond, so were there any moments that really stood out for you or that you were particularly proud of?
Not really – I'm a really tough critic on myself! There are so many things that I hate about my scenes when I see what I do on TV. But then I'll watch it again and see that it wasn’t that bad [smiles].

As a fan of the show yourself, were there aspects of the fourth series that you really enjoyed watching?
You know, I really enjoyed Matthew Fox's work a lot last season. He gave some truly great performances. I think he, in particular, had a really great season.

Executive Producers of “Lost” In Los Angeles on November 19

MEDICOM TOY JAPAN AND DIAMOND COMIC DISTRIBUTORS PREMIERE “LOST” BE@RBRICK AND KUBRICK LINE

Signing Event Will Feature Executive Producers of “Lost” In Los Angeles on November 19

WHAT
Medicom Toy Japan and Diamond Comic Distributors unite with Meltdown Comics to host the world premiere and signing event of the BE@RBRICK and KUBRICK collections based on the hit television series “Lost,” in Los Angeles, CA on Wednesday, Nov. 19. Fans will have the opportunity to buy one event exclusive BE@RBRICK per person, and have it signed by the show’s creators and executive producers. Series-one Lost KUBRICKS will be sold (no limit) until Meltdown sells out.

Also showcased at the event, will be a limited edition (three made in the world) 1000% BE@RBRICK which includes signatures from the cast and producers of “Lost.” This 1000% BE@RBRICK will be auctioned off at a later date with proceeds going to The Children's Defense Fund.

Exclusive Lost art by executive producer Jack Bender will also be featured.

WHO
Scheduled to appear at the event are “Lost” co-creators and executive producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, and executive producers Bryan Burk, Jack Bender, Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz and Carlton Cuse. Also scheduled to attend are writers Elizabeth Sarnoff, Paul Zbyszewski, Melinda Hsu Taylor, Kyle Pennington, and Brian K. Vaughan.

WHEN
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 7:00 – 11:00 p.m./PST
Line for purchase and signing will start at 4:00p.m./PST
Only one Lost/Meltdown event BE@RBRICK per person may be purchased and signed, no exceptions.

WHERE
Meltdown Comics & Collectibles
7522 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046 www.meltcomics.com

Source: ABC

Lost earns 2 Nominations in DGA Awards

Thanks to UNI from http://www.sl-lost.com/ for the heads up.

The Directors Guild of America announced yesterday the nominations for its 60th Annual DGA Awards, and Lost was nominated twice: Jack Bender was selected for the third-season finale "Through the Looking Glass," and Eric Laneuville was recognized for "The Brig".

Source: DGA

Jack Bender to direct first 2 episodes of Season 4

Thanks to Lyly for letting me know that Jack Bender will be directing the first 2 episodes of Season 4

'Lost' Snares a New Executive Producer

Frequent Lost director, and fan favorite, Stephen Williams has signed on for the duration of the show, and received a new title as well. The director of twelve of Lost's most pivotal episodes, the auteur has risen to the role of Co-Executive Producer on the show. The new deal means Williams will be continuing to cast his directorial magic on the show right through to Lost's final season, which will air in 2010.

Williams joined Lost during its freshman season as a director, helming the episodes “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues,” and “Do No Harm.” He rejoined the production in Lost's second season as a producer, and directed another seven episodes that season including fan favorites “One of Them,” which introduced the character of Henry Gale (Michael Emerson), and “Lockdown,” which unveiled Lost's greatest Easter Egg ever the blast door map.

It was Williams that fans can thank for ridding the series of the embattled duo of Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) and Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro) in the episode “Expose',” where they were symbolically buried alive. Allegory sensitive fans decoded the episode as an expression of creative angst in the face of bowing to the fans will. Williams even appeared, by name, in the episode as the director of the fictional television series “Expose'.”

Collectively, Williams has directed sixteen episodes of Lost, four times as many as his nearest competitor and just five episodes short of co-executive producer and director Jack Bender. Most recently, Williams was responsible for the touching “Greatest Hits,” which foreshadowed the death of Lost regular Charlie (Dominic Monaghan).

Prior to working on Lost, Williams worked with Lost show runner Damon Lindelof on Crossing Jordan where Williams was a frequent director and Lindelof, along with Heroes' Tim Kring, was a writer and co-producer. Williams' previous credits include work on sci-fi favorites such as Dark Angel, Odyssey 5, Psi Factor, and Earth: The Final Conflict.

Source: BuddyTV

Carrie Preston (Emily) Interview

Thanks to Sawyer840 for the info.

Below to hear an interview with Carrie Preston who played Emily, Ben's mom, in Lost episode 3x20, The Man Behind the Curtain.



Download

Source: From Bonnie Covel@Lost.Com

TV Q&A: ‘LOST’—JACK BENDER

Thanks to Andreas over at the Lost Blog for finding this very interesting interview with Jack Bender. Here is a small snippet from a much longer article which you can read in full at the link below.

We’ve heard that next year you guys will have a later kickoff in the season to help wrangle some of the scheduling problems early on.

BENDER: That’s the word. Although we haven’t heard officially, the word is it’s going to be more in the formula of “24” and those shows where we come on later and we’re on straight through because everyone was so pissed off that it happened like it did last year. I have to say that our first few episodes…look, any show where you’re doing 23 episodes, it’s difficult to keep the bar as high as we keep it on every single episode, and certain episodes will satisfy the mythology sci-fi people and certain episodes, like the Hurley episode that was just on, will satisfy the feel-good people who just want our people back on the beach triumphant. So every episode isn’t going to satisfy everyone, but in order to keep the bar up, we certainly feel like the episodes this year have been good, even though the rap critically was that they were inconsistent, the first six.

I think one of the reasons we ended up getting hit with that was that a lot of it was the fact that we only had six and then we were off, which meant they could only look at those six. So there is no question that that idea was not a great idea. The network, ABC and other networks are scrambling these days, I think, figuring out how to keep their audience, how to keep the television business going because these shows are expensive. And even though they sell worldwide and we’re the biggest show in the world in terms of worldwide sales and all of that, they no longer have to wait for a hundred episodes to syndicate. But it’s still the network game and advertisers and ratings and the demographics still kind of rule everything.

So next year…that was a long way of saying that the plan next year is for us to come on later and to go straight through, and I think that’ll be probably good for everybody.

Source: Wizard Entertainment - Full Article