Max Headroom

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Thu Aug 19 12:41:05 1999

At 07:06 PM 8/19/99 +1, Hans Franke wrote:
>
>mildly cool ?
>_way_ cool.
>On of the best serials ever made - I'll love the scenes where
>Amstrad and Sinclair parts are used as props - in most
>cases well disgused, but still visible enough for geeks.
>Being an intelligent and sophisticated series, it was,
>of course, cancelled after one season. AFAIK Max Headroom
>is still the only real cyberpunk serial.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Max Headroom set to interview
Richard Lewis for Amazing Computing magazine, an Amiga magazine.
Stop me if I've told this story here already.

Amigas were used to generate all sorts of low-rent video effects
for the show: Videoscape for 3D-ish effects, Deluxe Paint anims
for others. I think I interviewed the teen who played Bryce.
Amanda Pays wasn't around, sadly. :-)

I did get to play on several of the sets - Reg's bus, Theora's
apartment, Bryce's hangout, the network board room, a fun
false-perspective hallway. I watched them shoot a few scenes.
I think I still have the press kit around here Somewhere.

It was my first exposure to Hollywood. What struck me was how
utterly tenuous it was. In a few weeks after my visit, the show
was cancelled and everything disappears: people, sets, props.

Techies like Lewis were whipping up effects in the most meager
digs that gave me the impression they were temporary buildings
erected in the 1940s but that had been fortified only by layers
of paint over the years.

I think those sound stages were once part of MGM, so perhaps Max
was filmed on the same stage as the Wizard of Oz. (Extra credit
given to anyone who can name the connection between the movie and
my teen hometown of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.)

- John
Received on Thu Aug 19 1999 - 12:41:05 BST