PART ONE....
Millennium Fans are a tenacious, creative and passionate bunch of people. A bunch of people who are prepared to go that extra mile to support the franchise they care for. If anyone is under the misapprehension that there is neither the audience or the passion out there to support a Millennium movie adaptation then allow me to show you one example of the passion that exists. Myself and fellow co-coordinator, James, had the opportunity to talk to Jason D. Morris, Shoni Alysse Cook and Jeremia Draper. Three contributors to 'Millennium: Apocalypse', a fan created series, and now DVD, that kept the story of Millennium alive for its countless fans. This extremely popular and well received project lead to bigger and better things for the team but we go right back to the beginning of their success and talk about the blood, sweat and tears they shed to keep Millennium alive.
BTFB: Am I right in thinking you guys cut your teeth as independent film-makers on Apocalypse?
JASON: Yeah as far as features go, so to speak, since it was actually really shot as a bunch of shorts and then edited together for the DVD but I still consider it a feature because of the length and the amount of time and focus the project took as a whole. We had done a bunch of short films in the past but this was by far was the biggest and most ambitious project.
BTFB: Did you produce it with both short and full length in mind?
JASON: Yeah, from the beginning it was the idea, I wanted to make something that would translate to both mediums. Unfortunately I was not up on the copyright laws nor did I care at the time but that quickly changed.
BTFB: Was the whole 'Apocalypse' Team assembled from within TIWWA [Millennium's largest and most active fan community]? Or did you already have at your disposal associates who could edit, write a score, create the titles, film it etc.
JASON: Most of the entire crew came form TIWWA and everyone over there was really great to work with, they gave us our own message board and development threads to iron out the project. As we gained steam we reached out to the members and brought on Mick Moreau to help score the project, Erin, Mellissa, Joe and everyone else was almost all on board from the beginning of the project since our initial post on the forum. There was outside production crew that shot the project and acted in the project but the development and pre-production was all from within the TIWWA circle
BTFB: There seems to me to be some misconceptions regarding 'Millennium' fans who are often perceived as less visible in their support of the show than 'Philes' are with regards to the 'X-Files'. Do you share my contention of this assumption and hold 'Apocalypse' up as a strong argument against it?
JASON: Absolutely, I think the bigger issue with that though is there are many more x-philes then there MM fans and the fact that X-Files received 9 years on the tube and now two movies and MM only received three years makes a difference. I think the smaller number of fans is a factor but we are a ravenous bunch that are really, really big fans that runs deeper then just making sure we tune in when the show is aired.
BTFB: When you decided the focus of the show would be on Jordan were attempts made to go back to the source material and see if anything could be drawn from Brittany’s performance that could inform an adult portrayal of the character. Or was it concluded that it is impossible to extrapolate from a child what their adult persona will be?
SHONI: I took a lot of time and watched scenes with young Jordan, some key things I took from her. One being that she always looked like she was thinking about something and or pondering a question and I think that would remain the same into adulthood.
JASON: The curiosity of the child I would think was still a part of Jordan's persona particularly having gone through the things she had and seeing the things her father went through.
BTFB: Was it always going to be Jordan's story? Was wanting to tell her story the reason why you decided to do a film or did the desire to do a film come first with the story evolving from that?
JASON: Yeah for me it was always going to be about Jordan...no question
SHONI: I think that it needed to focus on someone close to Frank for any of it to make sense.
JASON: If we picked up where it left off I do not think the audience would have accepted new actors taking the place of ones in the original show. As to setting the project in the future it helped with that aspect, people could believe another actress playing Jordan because Brittany was not even old enough at that point to play the Jordan that we portrayed in 'Apocalypse'.
JEREMIA: Not following Jordan in the future would have pushed away a lot of fans in my opinion. The only person in MM that didn't have their story told that people would actually want to see and follow.
As always please leave your thoughts and comments, I am sure the team behind 'Millennium: Apocalypse' will appreciate them as much as we do and don't forget to check us out tomorrow for part two of this interview!
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