Article Interesting tidbit about "The Graduation Day"

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In the PopMatters interview Harry Groener says that season 3 finale was shot without a script


PM: As a professional actor working with Joss Whedon as a professional writer/director, what can you say you learned from Whedon while on the set of Buffy?

HG: I wish I could say I learned a lot. I don't know what I learned from [Whedon] specifically. What I learned about the business through him was interesting. He's so brilliant in his work"”in his writing, his mind, and his imagination. You think that everything in television is fairly controlled, and it is. Pretty much. Things don't go so crazy. Yet for the last two episodes [of the third season], we didn't have a script. We were given synopses at the end of the evening about what they were going to film the next day. But no words, no script, no anything. They just said, "Come on in, and when we have it, we'll give it to you."

PM: Sounds a little scary to me! [Both laugh.]

HG: Yes, I've always had a script. There's never been just a synopsis. You go to work, you get ready to work. What Joss was doing was actually writing it as we were traveling, getting there. And we'd wait. Finally, they'd say, "We have the first scene." You'd get the scene; then you'd go and rehearse it. They'd light it. And while they were lighting it or rehearsing it, Joss was over there in the corner on the set, literally over in the corner, writing the next scene. You think, Well, that I've never seen before. You're amazed that that can happen, especially now when you have a room full of people deciding on one little thing. That's fascinating. You learn more about the business and how the mechanism works. [Whedon] did behave like a director sometimes. He'd say, "Don't do the obvious. Go the other way, go the other way." That's something a director can always show you. No matter how old you are or how much experience you have, you can always fall into that trap [of doing the obvious]. It's always good to be reminded [not to do that].
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Wow... That's pretty crazy, and I can imagine it would be stressful on everyone, having to learn their lines so damn quick.
 
Ha funny. That stuff happens all the time, especially with TV. It's the worst. Even walking into auditions the assistant will ask, "Did you get the new sides?" Uhhhh, no. "Oh, well, here they are."
 
Joss is just plain brilliant, end of story. It's surprising they could work without a script, but at the same time, not at all out of character for Joss - he does crazy things, but they always seem to turn out to be the most amazing thing he comes up with. Kudos!
 
PassionBecoming said:
Crazy! Especially those are two of the best eps in the series!
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For some reason I've been thinking about those 2 episodes a lot lately & I agree that they're two of the best in the entire series. There's just so much going on: Faith hits Angel with the poison arrow; the mayor getting ready for the Ascension; Willow & Oz get it on; the big fight between Buffy & Faith; The Bite; The Dream; the final battle ("we attack the mayor with humus"); Angel leaving. It's just packed full. Sigh, I love BTVS. I'm just such a crazy fan. 🙂

I really enjoyed the Harry Groener interview. What a class act.
 
T
ticonderouga
He'll never see it coming
It wasnt shot without a script; they just didnt get the script until the day of shooting. It happens often. Sometimes the scenes are rewritten while filming the very scene being rewritten.
 
I guess it's one of those things that actors have to deal with sometimes. Must have been stressful to learn the lines at such short notice, though seeing as it's one of the best season finales it must have worked out alright.
 
I suppose you could describe it as semi-improvised in that the actors didn't get to work out how they were going to deliver their lines until the day- but then again that cast had been together for 6-9 months at that point and some of them had been working together for two and a half years, so there's an element of trust involved.
 
That episode always seemed a little chaotic and improvised so that actually makes a lot of sense. Don't get me wrong I loved the ep, and having a little chaos in an episode about a big battle seems to me very appropriate. One thing James Marsters has said about working on BtVS was that if Joss didn't scare the actors to death on a very regular basis then he wasn't doing his job.
 
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