Matt Price, Assistant Features Editor
Web show gains TV audience
By Matt Price
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Published: October 20, 2009
Monsters, aliens and creatures now have a sanctuary. In the Syfy series "Sanctuary,” airing at 9 p.m. Fridays, Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping, "Stargate SG-1”) leads a team of scientists seeking out often-grotesque creatures. If possible, the team, which includes daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup) and psychiatrist Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunn) will help these strange creatures in the vast Sanctuary, a repository for the supernatural and otherworldly.
The show is shot primarily on green screen, using virtual sets.
"Building sets the size and the scope of the Sanctuary is nearly impossible,” said Tapping, who is also an executive producer of the show. "It gave us so much more freedom in terms of where we shot and how we shot, and places that we could go.”
Tapping said using green screen allowed for many more locations to become part of the show.
"In Season 1, we were everywhere from the
Bermuda triangle to the
Himalayas to the catacombs under Rome,” she said. The first season of "Sanctuary” came to DVD last month.
"Sanctuary” had its origins as an Internet show. The original conception of "Sanctuary” was to merge an internet program with gaming and social networking.
"Lofty goals to be sure, and a great idea,” Tapping said. "But unfortunately I think we were quite a few years ahead of our time. And in terms of figuring out how to monetize it on the Web, that’s the biggest issue that we had. We had a lot of eyeballs watching ‘Sanctuary,’ but not a lot of eyeballs were paying for it.”
So while the Web show didn’t make money, it did lead to new opportunities.
"Out of the ashes of the Web series rose the phoenix that is the television series,” Tapping said.
The "Sanctuary” creators rewrote and re-shot most of the pilot once the show was picked up for television. But even so, the groundwork helped.
"We knew the characters, and we knew the creatures, and we knew the Sanctuary ... so it definitely gave us a leg up rather than starting from scratch,” Tapping said. "Having the Web series as a starting point was a huge help.”
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