Eric Buchman fills in for writers Patrick Massett and John Zinman in the latest installment of NBC’s Knight Writers Blog. The duo also write for Friday Night Lights, and were unable to contibute to Knight Writers.
“[Knight To King’s Pawn] hopefully answered a few questions for you,” Buchman writes: “What Mike had ‘forgotten’ in Iraq and why, what has Torres been secretly up to, and even what happened to one of the trademarks of the original series (F.L.A.G.). For those of you who are new to the Knight Rider universe, The Foundation for Law and Government is the organization that operated the original K.I.T.T. in the 80s series.
“Our effects guys worked around the clock these last few months on the showdown between K.I.T.T. and K.A.R.R. I’m writing this right now at 7:30pm on the west coast, and I can’t wait to watch it all in high definition when it airs a half hour from now over here. Our effects are done by a company called Master Key Films that formed to do this show. They started as just two people last spring, and they’ve grown into a small army today. In the video section of this site, you can see highlights of their work from season 1, and you can go to MKVFX.com to see even more.”
On the subject of visual effects, Buchman also reveals a few trade secrets: how they shoot the satellite images, and how they achieve the effect that K.I.T.T. is driving by himself. “The original series had a variety of tricks they used,” he says. “We added one more trick. If you look in this photo, you’ll see a driver wearing all black. In the final shot, we’ll use computers to simply erase him, a luxury they didn’t have back then. This works for distance shots, but for close-ups of the seat, well… we still have to use some of the old tricks.”
Buchman also pays tribute to departing actor Yancey Arias, who is pictured with writers Rachel Mellon and Teresa Huang (I Wanna Rock & Roll All Knight).
Next week sees another change to the running order — Exit Light, Enter Knight the last episode filmed for Season 1, preempts I Love The Knight Life.