Sadly, I was not able to take pictures, as that was part of the deal. (Same could be said for the Universe sets that I visited when up there. Destiny‘s sets are truly magnificent, even if it wasn’t fully lit up when I and a few others went to visit it.) With that in mind, I give you a brief insight into the world of Caprica.

Graystone's Living Room (Courtesy of UGO)

While not Galactica‘s CIC, the Graystone mansion is magnificent. Pictures of it can be seen on various science fiction news websites, from Syfy’s Digital Press Tour last year. It is a recreation of the original house that was used in the pilot, and is indistinguishable from it; a testament to the construction and set decoration team on Caprica. The thing has two levels to it (upstairs and downstairs) and you could literally live there, with the minor exception that the “basement”—where Daniel’s lab-office can be found—isn’t really down below the main level at all. Furthermore, I’m not sure where the bathroom is, but I know what’s in their walk-in closets! The view of the water and mountain range from the massive living room windows is tremendous… and a fake backdrop that is, itself, completely impressive in its detail.

All the major standing sets, including the Graystone house, are housed only in one stage. I had visited this stage once before when working on the Battlestar auctions, but at the time it had the Café Diem and other minor locales from another Syfy show, Eureka.

The show uses more CGI than one would assume, and there’s a section of Caprica‘s main stage set aside for that (V-Club and other locales that you’ll see are mainly shot here). Much in the same way that Stage I—I believe it was “I,” I’m not sure though until I review my pictures and notes—that housed Galactica‘s Hangar Deck also had a section for CGI, where they would place the Raptor or Vipers when shots needed to be done.

Serge, the phallic one-eyed Caprican droid, is completely CGI.

The show uses CGI in ways you did not expect either. A notable instance that took me aback was being told that Serge, the gray and white Apple-esque phallic rolling droid at the Graystone house, is a complete CGI construct. I had assumed that they had a full-size electronic version, like they have a full-size electronic version of the U-87 Cylon prototype. Of course, I know now that this is not the case: the production uses a cardboard stand-in when they need a visual marker for the actors and digital effects team, which is the same thing they did for the Centurions in BSG. (They also have a cardboard stand-in for the U-87 for the CGI sequences.)

I would say more, but most of what I’ve seen is stuff that hasn’t been aired yet, so I’ll keep that to myself until the time is right.

Look for Caprica to begin airing on January 22nd. It’s not Battlestar, but this piece of “blue-sky” science fiction should prove interesting… and it does pose this question: Does BSG have the ability to become its own little science fiction franchise or not?

And when I call it crap, I use the word “crap” in lieu of the word “pure garbage.” The other crap is good crap. However, the axiom of “one man’s garbage being another man’s treasure” applies here. If you like your crap, then I don’t begrudge you your tastes. You did buy it after all and I hope it means something to you!

Now when we geeked out, we still did some pretty creative things. We had a photo shoot of us in uniforms, with the photos taken by our SoCal local photographer, Lee, who is awesome. If I can find those photos, I’ll post a few; we shot them very late at night, so we had the “33″ effect going on, which fitted nicely into the gritty feel of the series.

Regardless, what prompted this entry was a photo I was sent by my friend and former Propworx co-worker, Erin. Steve, Thom, Erin and I had devised this little thing before my little dance with temporary insanity. It’s a graphical chart depicting the whole “all this has happened before” junk that Ron Moore stole from Peter Pan.

The "cycle of time" illustrated on a white board.

I’m quite proud of it. Even if there should be another red arrow between “colony” and New Earth… Or maybe we added that later?

Yeah, we added that later. Just assume we did.

Addendum: See? We even expanded upon it! I knew I wasn’t imagining this!

The expanded special edition of the whiteboard layout. Oh, and Roslin, our whiteboard was bigger than your puny one. How do you like those New Caprica apples?

See the following one-sentence paragraph? Not an addendum. Just a carry over during the revision process:

So, ahem, enjoy!