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Tracker was a Lionsgate series headed Kevin Beggs and was created by Gil Grant, a talented writer who had created the idea and was also responsible for running the show. The stories revolved around an Alien Tracker “Cole” who had come to earth to capture escaped alien convicts inhabiting human bodies. From the get go we had a little time to waste. Participating in selling a show to networks is an interesting experience. Gil, Kevin and I sat in on many of the pitch meetings to networks all the while visually creating the show the more we talked about developing the look and style. There were a lot of technical ideas we wanted to bring to Tracker. A pace for the action sequences, a certain look to the visual effects and of course its own brand of style. It was the first time I was officially a Producer on a project and the job showed me how different a project can be from conception to creation.
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The Tracker’s alien name was Daggon but Gil had written a great entrance for him in the pilot episode, seeing him clad in only underwear walking along in the middle of nowhere. Finally running into Mel, Played by Amy Price Francis, whose car has broken down. Mel sees he resembles the model in the Benetton ad, (from which he actually got his image) so she calls him Ben. Gil knew he was probably going to have to change the name once we started because of copyright restrictions to the name “Benetton” so, we had to find another name. After going through several we narrowed it down to only but a few, They all sounded feasible so to make the final choice we decided to first find out what these names meant. That together with the fact that the name had to sound like a men’s fashion line Cole came out as the obvious choice. |
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Ethan
Cole
Miles
Alex
Axel
Max
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firmness/steadfastness
Victory of the People
Soldier and Merciful
Man's defender
Father of Peace
(doesn't mean anything although Maximillian means greatest) |
CLICK HERE to read Gil Grant's original concept notes. |
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There were other elements that changed as we developed the series. Mel’s younger brother Taran was thought to be too close to the Highlander format of Tessa, Richie and Duncan. So we decided to have a young girl instead. The orginal idea was that she was supposed to be Mel’s half sister but then that changed into our sexy barmaid Jess, played by Leanne Wilson. Once Mel’s story changed from being a hard luck reporter to owning a bar frequented by cops, it was easy to add Jess who attempts to turn Mel’s bar into a hip Chicago hang.
 There were two other recurring characters who brought other element to Tracker. We were looking to infuse some humor into the show and so the role of Nestov was born. This Desserian Convict description was that of a “Joe Pesci” type, who later Cole decides to “work with” but who always causes him problems of one sort or another. When we began casting we decided to go broader with the idea and saw tape on Richard Yearwood. We loved his energy and take on Nestov. So our Desserian “Joe Pesci” convict became more like Eddie Murphy, an African American Desserian with his own style of comedy.
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The one character who stayed pretty much the same as when he was created to actually filming was the Police detective Vic Bruno played by Dean Mc Dermott, a Chicago cop and Mel’s ex flame who never comes to trust Cole fully believing there is something “odd” about this guy and tries to find the truth about him.
CONCEPTS
Writing a sci fi series is perhaps harder than a more conventional story since there are many variables that have to be invented. Gil formed a great team of very competent writers headed by Peter Lenkov, Grant Rosenberg and Charles Heit who created well written stories. All of us were passionate about making a good series and that was why we occasionally knocked heads later on, since we sometimes had different views as to how scripts should be developed or how certain characters should react, but then again, who doesn’t when you want it to be the best you can.
Since we were dealing with Alien beings one of the first things we had to look at were backgrounds of the Worlds they came from. We all agreed that we didn’t really want to see the aliens walking around since it would start to make the concept a little cheesy but it was important to know what each species looked like since throughout the series there were times that we could catch a glimpse of their true form when they were captured by Cole and his soul retrieving device “The Collector”.
The first character we looked at, was that of The Tracker himself. |
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Gil had written in the pilot episode that he was a Cirronian, an evolved species who had moved to a higher plane of existence, a “light being” if you will. So firstly we discussed the idea of having an interesting visual concept to depict this. So, Hyper-speed was born. Hyper-speed was a design element of the show that we used in every episode. An effect whereby the Tracker was able to move while time around him stood still which was created by having the background people not move or by filming a separate image of the extras and then superimposing the Tracker moving between them. In post production we then added sound and a light change to finish the effect. It was something that took time to perfect and went through several incarnations throughout the season. |
Then there were Cole’s movements of getting into and out of Hyperspeed and how he would fight. Together with Vernon Rieta (my Martial arts Sifu who we brought on as a consultant) we came up with the idea that Cole would fight with a sparse amount of movement. Direct actions that had little flourish but got to the point since Cole was able to move faster than light, a theory based in all martial arts that once you have learned the physical elements of fighting the esoteric spiritual ones come into effect.
Once we had finished with Cole we started with each of the Aliens. We decided that the best way for us to identify each different character was through human traits. Traits which would help Cole to track and capture them by knowing their strengths and weaknesses. Once we had done that Vernon and I created different types of movements for each of the different species so that we could differentiate them during the action sequences. We would then be able to use different techniques, camera speed, wire work and visual effects to portray each different species an element that on the whole was partly successful as it was a challenge to make sure that this was kept consistent in each of the episodes every week. |
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One of the elements that was difficult to make work was Cole’s Kryptonite, the cold weather. Cole could move extremely fast and electricity regenerated him, so likewise we needed something that would be his weakness and came up with the idea of extreme cold, making him slow and weak. This originally was the reason why the series had been set in Chicago because the mastermind of the escape Zin, played by Geraint Wynn Davis, had chosen it because it would slow the Tracker down. However shooting in Toronto weather did not always support that theory and we found it difficult at times to visually explain it. Although it was used in a couple of episodes, such as in the Breach on the whole we never got around to really exploring this. |
During the evolution of the series we were always searching for new elements to try and make it better whether it was in the visual effects or the scripts or the characters themselves. I realized after the first few months that this was a huge task and it gave me a better insight as to what producing a show was all about. Did I make any mistakes? Yes one fundamentally. I chose as an actor to try and make Cole explore the world around him growing with the information that he received from week to week. A process that in looking back was too slow for an advanced species like a Cirronian and so I wish I had evolved him quicker. Once Cole got into his stride, he was a better and funnier character. As for the series itself I wish we had opened up the general idea of catching the bad guy each week to include a peek into the human condition so that we could have had more fun watching human beings from a totally different perspective.
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Original concept drawings of aliens
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