One of the I-Man directors that I like to keep track of is Greg Yaitanes. Back in 2003, Greg did a SciFi.com chat with fans for his movie Children of Dune. During the chat he graciously acknowledged The Invisible Man and all the dedicated and hopeful I-Man fans (myself included) who came to the chat with “Save I-Man” in front of their handles. Some of you old timers might remember that.
In addition, Greg has hired Paul Ben-Victor for an episode of Alias and Fastlane, Vincent Ventresca for an episode of Cold Case and, of course, who could forget when he put Vince and Paul together for an episode of Las Vegas.
But it doesn’t end there. Tonight is the premiere of Greg’s new show Drive and Paul has a guest role as a truck driver. The show has a (very unusual) two-night three-hour premiere, with the first two hours airing tonight at 8:00 p.m./7:00 p.m. central and the third hour airing tomorrow at 8:00 p.m./7:00 p.m. central on FOX (check your local listings).
Greg not only directs the pilot in this series, but he also steps out of his usual director role to become one of the executive producers of the show. During tonight’s premiere, Greg will be twittering live a director’s commentary while the show is airing. I can’t say I’m familiar with how twittering works, but it appears that you can access Greg’s comments via text messaging on your phone, instant messaging, or the twitter foxdrive web page. If you’re interested in participating and new to twittering, it would be a good idea to get signed up early and explore the website to get familiar with the service and how it works.
One of the things I find fascinating about this new series is that most of the action is done via visual effects. Greg, along with the Visual Effects Supervisor, Loni Peristere, takes us behind the scenes in this interesting video interview at ifilm that explains how the visuals effects are done.
Articles, Reviews and Interviews
Zap2it From Inside the Box – “Review: Fox’s Drive”
The Chronicle Herald – “Computers driving force behind series”
Movieweb – Drive Races Into High Gear on Fox!