Post by Dex Macleod on Jan 13, 2014 10:26:14 GMT
As you may or may not know by now, Caydem Falls will be returning to Compass with its Second Season on February 16th!As you may or may not know by now, Caydem Falls will be returning to Compass with its Second Season on February 16th! With a date set I figured that meant it was time to open up the Season Two Thread and I also decided to launch the Thread with a nice little, spoiler free, Q&A I've put together. I'll probly be releasing at least one more of these before the season airs, but if you have questions of your own, please feel free to ask.
What are Some of the Key Differences between Season One and Two?
Season Two’s going to be a bit more action oriented. Due to the fact that the series didn’t start off with a full blown “zombie invasion” it took a while for the shit to truly hit the fan. Well, now we’re picking up about two weeks after the events of Season One and the invasion is in full swing.
If Season One was about the Family Unit then Season Two is about Society and its effect on that unit. The Military plays a much larger role in Season Two than it did last year which means a lot more Zombies getting shot in the forehead. There’s also a story arch I’ve been internally referring to as “The Community Conspiracy” that kicks off in Episode Three and will more than likely last into season four.
All in all, I think Season Two’s just a bit more intense in every way. Better action, and just more tension overall this year.
What Lessons Were Learned from Season One?
For everything I disliked about the first season there were very few things I could think of a way to do differently. I wish there had been a bit more excitement/action in the early episodes but that just didn’t really fit with the story I wanted to tell. Zombie movies so often start with little warning. The Main Character just wakes up one morning and seemingly the whole world’s gone to hell. So when coming up with the basic building blocks of this show I knew I wanted to show the “Zombie Invasion” from the point of view of a group of people who know it’s coming.
I didn’t just want to show the impact, I wanted to show the characters bracing for the impact first.
I think what I learned most though was to not be married to my original concept. I’d been pretty good about being as organic with things possible. There were quite a few big things that happened in the writing that I just wasn’t planning on, but at the same time, there were a couple rather large elements in the first season that just weren’t working at all but I’d convinced myself I could make them work.
In the end, I didn’t make them work and luckily, thanks to the Compass reboot, I’ve been able to go back and work a lot of the junk out of it.
With Season Two, even though the cast size goes up a bit and the stories get a lot more intricate than “we’ve got to go there”, it feels a lot more streamlined just because of the fact that every person and every action they take is feeding into the overall narrative. There’s really no B-Plots anymore.
There’s still multiple stories going on in every episode but what I mean is that everyone’s story effects everyone else’s story in one way or another. No man is an Island, I guess.
I assume we can look forward to more Heart Wrenching Death Scenes?
It’s a Zombie Show at heart so death will always play a big part. The trick is to find that invisible line between too many deaths and too few. Because if you’ve got a major character dying in every other episode, well, it just starts to lose its impact after a while. But on the other hand, if you go too long without anyone dying you start to lose some of the built in tension all the same.
Season One had three really big death scenes scattered about and I think that’s a pretty good number. I honestly can’t say how many season Two has. There’s at least three deaths that will have a pretty big impact on the stories but whether or not they’ll get you choked up is anyone’s guess. Without getting spoilery I will say that there was one death that surprised the hell out of me and one planned death that ended up not happening.
Is Season Two a good “jumping on point” for new readers?
I guess so. I don’t think it’s too difficult to quickly get a sense of who everyone is and what they’ve been through. It was written in a way so that people who had read Season One a while ago could jump right back in without being confused.
But, why would you want to jump in late? It’s not like Season One’s hard to find. I suppose if you tried Season One and couldn’t get into it, jumping ahead might change your mind.