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.
This particular scene was in the studio, we, in fact, made...
It was made up of three different places, we built an interior.
Corey 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,
for some of the scenes with pipes, etcetera.
And then, we also used the oil rig
out on the Pacific, off Santa Barbara.
This episode, for me, was probably one of my favorites to do
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 in a studio set.
Still in the studio. 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 setup of the story here.
We have our supposed worker on the thing,
who is 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 are 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 in 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,
no dialogue at all, but was able to show the fear and the terror in his face.
Now, 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 that...
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 David had 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, our Robert, he is a terrific actor.
He really carried it off extremely well.
Now, 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
was such a, it's a very... If you listen to the dialogue...
Damn, 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, three takes maybe,
before we were able to get the whole thing in one take.
Great chemistry on-screen these two, too.
I would have loved to have done more episodes with both of them together.
I think they play off each other pretty well.
Miguel Sandoval was the Spanish gentleman
that was here to tell the story of how
the oil well was having problems and bodies were being found, etcetera.
Here 's Mitch Pileggi. 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 movies of the week and miniseries.
Having had the opportunity of working with some terrific actors
like Anjelica Huston and Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan and Kris Kristofferson
and a whole bunch of others, Melanie Griffith, etcetera.
That to come to this show and work with a cast of this caliber 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 The X-Files
and l 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 had 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
that we’re about to make a feature film for in Australia.
So, 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, but a lot of preparation went into it.
Including the chopper to chopper shooting, and storyboarding sequences, etcetera.
And it was quite a challenge to take on
that we were gonna get all this done in one day.
Hopefully, the weather wasn't gonna turn on us
’cause 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 gotta tell you, I looked over the edge of that thing,
and it's like about 300-400 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 at South Central
and then the oil rig out on the water.
And people were walking in and out of shot.
So, trying to keep that continuity going,
and not just the normal continuity, but the continuity of performance etcetera.
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 we 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
talking over the top of it, did you get the sense...
At the beginning, did you know who were 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...
At 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 favorite moments, too.
You know, 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 used quite a bit on this particular location.
'Cause you can appreciate
it's quite a dangerous place to be out on one of these oil rigs.
And because of the oil, etcetera, 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. "
I'll tell a story about this particular dummy here.
Here 's a secret.
Underneath that sheet, is a rather large rubber penis.
Practical jokes were regular on the scene of X-Files,
which was terrific ’cause they were just like one big family, the crew,
they had been together for so long.
But they would tease and play on Gillian quite a lot.
And 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.
I'll leave it at that.
That question is always there in X-Files, isn’t it? "Why?"
Keeps the story driving fon/vard.
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.
And 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 a lot of that stuff
pouring down his throat, I can tell you.
It was about, I think, nine takes to get the oil to spill in the right places.
And you think about the fact that this oil rig
is set supposedly in the Gulf of Mexico,
and is some distance off the coastline.
You know, 100 miles, 200 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.
This is all still in the studio.
Just while this scene takes place,
I'm sure you've 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 11 days.
And there's a lot involved
in doing this much work in those 11 days.
The work day was probably between 13 and 14 hours.
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.
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.
They 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 100—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 speedboat
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 blended together quite well.
Of course, if that's the Black Oil, what’s gonna happen to him?
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 six subsequent sequences.
Another great face.
This kind of character development in X-Files works extremely well.
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 seven, eight days.
X-Files having an extra day there, the ninth,
and then the second unit being two days, ten and eleven.
But getting these shows shot on time is really the key issue.
But X-Files in particular because of
all the visual effects etcetera, 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.
Art department had to come in and spray black paint, etcetera, 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 with wood
and various other substances.
So, the art department would come in and make it look like it's been burnt out.
l was saying before about these episodes done in the times that they’re done,
it always is quite surprising that there 's no rehearsal time allowed actually.
The rehearsal is 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 favorite 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. "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.
Frank was the 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.
We 'd shot... The X-Files is done on film, of course.
Robbery Homicide Division was 24p, which is this... 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 earlier shows to do 24p,
and Bill's abilities to go from film to digital is quite extraordinary.
We 're leading up to the big finale of the stories.
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 quite enjoyed shooting because it revealed
as you'll see now, that the whole crew
are basically 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 that wonderful ability at delivering lines like that one.
He has a great sense of humor 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, etcetera.
That classic X-Files lighting.
The smoke, the back-lit smoke
really is a signature of the production.
And you got to love it.
And now, we’re moving into a sequence that was completely storyboarded
because we were shooting between the three different locations once more.
So, the oil rig is about to blow up
and our heroes have to get off the thing as best as they can.
The helicopters arrive, 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 we couldn't set a naked flame on the oil rig.
Props men in the foreground rattling pipes
to create the illusion of the thing about to blow up.
Green screen shots, actors in studio in foreground with the green screen
and then, of course, we add in the chopper aften/vards.
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, etcetera,
all added in at a later stage.
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.
I did three episodes, this one being one of my favorites 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.