First of all, hopefully everyone is watching the new episodes! FRIDAY NIGHT at 10:00PM on the Sci-Fi Channel! 7:00PM Friday night on the SPACE CHANNEL in Canada! We like good ratings!
I'm still in Canada as I write this, supervising the episode known as "415." So, you may be asking yourself, what exactly does the co-executive producer do while on set of an episode? You've got a director, you've got a line producer, you've got all sorts of very talented people doing very talented things. So what's up?
Well, among other things, you are there to help everyone understand the intent of the script (not always as obvious as the writers would like to think) as much as the dialogue. It's as simple (and yet complicated) as explaining the intent of a line of dialogue like, "Follow me. Please." One read is as a simple command. Another might have urgency, "Follow me. Please", like you're begging the other person to come. Or it could be a warning. "Follow me. Please." Because if you do, bad mojo awaits.
It's also about making minor (usually) changes in the script to reflect the reality of the situation. On a show like BATTLESTAR, with many sets and few exterior locations (i.e., "New Caprica"), you'd think that wouldn't be a problem, that we'd have the geography of things down cold. But I'm still surprised by nuances... this corridor is actually wider than I imagined, this room only has one door (could have sworn there were two), etc. Sometimes the adjustments are very minor, a word or two, and sometimes the actual, hard geography can alter an entire scene.
We're also here to enjoy Tim Horton's FINE coffee... but that's another story...
