CMU School of Drama


Saturday, May 02, 2015

How The Creators Of "Orphan Black" Manage All Those Clones

Co.Create | creativity + culture + commerce: The second season of the BBC America show Orphan Black moved with such breakneck speed that it's hard to remember everything that happened. Allegiances were switched, motives were made clearer, people who were good guys were really bad guys and vice versa. Fans also found out a lot more about the nefarious DYAD Corporation and the experiment that brought Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) and her clone sisters to life. Oh, and in the finale we were introduced to an entire new set of clones, who were militarized males that all looked like creepy cult follower Mark Rollins (Ari Millen).

2 comments:

Alex E. S. Reed said...

I watch this show and let me tell you it can definitely be a rollercoaster of emotions, plot twists and deaths, all at break neck speeds. How they manage to pull all of this together for every new show astounds me because nothing is predictable in the least bit. I know a lot of it is rooted in the talents of the actors, especially KKKKK because to manage that many personalities has to be physically and emotionally taxing but she does it fluidly and beautifully. The way the described the down time parts in the series, as precluded to getting slapped in the face is perfect because that’s exactly what happens. The person that you’ve built a rapport with, that character you trust to make everything better? Oh, he’s actually a bad guy who wants nothing but money/power/his own advancement etc. Applauds to the creators of this show and the cast and crew, because they are pulling off something epic.

Olivia Hern said...

This show is artful. It takes what could be a stilly sci fi concept and makes it rich, layered and human. A lot of that is the talent of Tatiana Maslany, the woman who plays the clones, and a lot of that is the mastery that goes into stitching the images together. Sometimes when shows try to stitch images together in this way it ends up obvious, forces and clumsy. Take the most recent season of American Horror Story for example. One actress was playing identical conjoined twins. While the shots in which the girls appear conjoined were well done, the shots in which they were clearly trying to avoid the special effects involved weird craning single-face shots, and felt far too obvious that they were trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Orphan Black does this subtly and to great effect. I have every confidence that using 2 clones will be just as well done.