The Smallville

Smallville is an American television series developed by writer/producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, and was initially broadcast by The WB. After its fifth season, the WB and UPN merged to form The CW, which is the current broadcaster for the show in the United States.[1] Smallville premiered on October 16, 2001, and completed its seventh season on May 15, 2008.[2] An eighth season was officially announced by The CW on March 3, 2008.[3] It is filmed in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The plot follows the adventures of a young Clark Kent's life in the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas, during the years before he becomes Superman. The first four seasons focused on Clark and his friends' high school years. Since season five, the show has ventured into more adult settings, with some characters attending college and an increase in the introductions of other DC comic book superheroes and villains.

Smallville inspired an Aquaman pilot, which was not picked up by The CW network, as well as promotional tie-ins with Verizon, Sprint, Toyota, and Stride. In other media, the show has spawned a series of young-adult novels, a DC Comics bi-monthly comic book and soundtrack releases. The show broke the record for highest rated debut for The WB, with 8.4 million viewers tuning in for its pilot episode.[4]

Development

Originally, Tollin/Robbins Productions wanted to do a show about a young Bruce Wayne. The feature film division of Warner Bros. had decided to develop an origin movie for Batman, and because they did not want to compete with a television series, had the series idea nixed.^[5] In 2000, Tollin/Robbins approached Peter Roth, the President of Warner Bros. Television, about developing a series based on a young Superman. That same year, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar developed a pilot based on the film Eraser. After watching the pilot, Roth approached the two men about developing a second pilot, based on the young Superman concept that was brought to him.^[5] After meeting with Roth, Gough and Millar decided that they did not want to do a series where there was lots of flying, and a cape.^[5] It was here that Gough and Millar developed its "no tights, no flights" rule, vowing Clark would not, at any point, fly or don the Superman suit during the run of the show.^[6]

Gough and Millar wanted to strip Superman down to his "bare essence", and explore the reasons behind Clark Kent becoming Superman.^[5] They felt the fact that they were not comic book fans played into their favor; not being familiar with the universe would allow them an unbiased approach to the series. However, this did not keep them from learning about the characters, as they both did research on the comics and picked and rearranged what they liked.^[5] They returned and pitched their idea to both The WB and FOX on the same day.^[7] A bidding war ensued between FOX and The WB; the latter won out with a commitment of 13 episodes to start.^[7]

Roth, Gough, and Millar knew the show was going to be action-oriented, but they wanted to be able to reach that "middle America iconography" that 7th Heaven had reached. To help create this atmosphere, the team decided that the meteor shower that brings Clark to Earth would be the foundation for the franchise of the show. Not only does it act as the primary source behind the creation of the super-powered beings that Clark must fight, but it acts as a sense of irony in Clark's life. The meteor shower would give him a life on Earth, but it would also take away the parents of the girl he loves, and start Lex Luthor down a dark path, thanks to the loss of his hair during the shower. Roth loved the conflict that was created for Clark, in forcing him to deal with the fact that his arrival is what caused all of this pain.^[5]

Another problem the creators had to grapple with was the question of why Lex Luthor would be socializing with teenagers. To address this, they decided to create a sense of loneliness in the character of Lex Luthor, which they felt would require him to reach out to the teens.^[5] The loneliness was echoed in Clark and Lana as well.^[8] Gough and Millar wanted to provide a parallel to the Kents, so they created Lionel Luthor, Lex's father, which they saw as the "experiment in extreme parenting."^[5] They wanted a younger Kent couple, because they felt they needed to be able to be involved in Clark's life, and help him through his journey.^[8] Chloe Sullivan, another character created just for the show, was meant to be the "outsider" the show needed. Gough and Millar felt the character was necessary so someone would notice the strange happenings in Smallville.^[5] She was not meant to act as a "precursor to Lois Lane".^[8]

The concept of Smallville has been described by Warner Brothers as being a reinterpretation of the Superman mythology from its roots. Since the November 2004 reacquisition of Superboy by the Siegel family, there has arisen contention regarding a possible copyright infringement. The dispute is over ownership of the fictional town of Smallville, title setting of the show, and a claimed similarity between Superboy's title character and Smallville's Clark Kent. The heirs of Jerry Siegel claim "Smallville is part of the Superboy copyright," of which the Siegels own the rights.^[9]

On April 3, 2008, after seven seasons with the show, Gough and Millar announced that they would be leaving Smallville. The developers, after thanking the cast and crew for all their hard work, acknowledged that they never stopped fighting for what they saw as "their vision" of the show. A specific reason for their departure was not given.^[10]

Filming

The show is produced at BB Studios in Burnaby. Initially, production was going to be in Australia, but Vancouver had more of a "Middle America landscape". The city provided a site for the Kent farm, as well as doubling for Metropolis. It also provided a cheaper shooting location, and was in the same time zone as Los Angeles.^[5] "Main street" Smallville is at a combination of two locations. Portions were shot in the town of Merritt, and the rest was shot in Cloverdale.^[8] Cloverdale is particularly proud of being a filming site for the show; at its entrance is a sign which reads "Home of Smallville."

Vancouver Technical School doubled as the exterior for Smallville High, as the film makers believed Van Tech had the "mid-American largess" they wanted.^[8] This kept in-line with Millar's idea that Smallville should be the epitome of "Smalltown, USA".^[11] The interiors of Templeton Secondary School were used for Smallville High's interior.^[12] Over the course of season one, the production team repainted most of Templeton in Smallville High’s red and yellow colors, and stuck large Smallville High Crows logos everywhere. The team painted over so much of the school that the school eventually adopted them as their official school colors. The students became so accustomed to the filming crew, which had to shoot during the school semester, that when class was released the filmmakers would stand aside and the students would casually move the filming equipment aside to get to their lockers, and then venture to their next class without paying the crew much attention.^[13]

The Kent farm is a real farm located in Aldergrove. Owned by The Andalinis, the production crew had to paint their home yellow for the show.^[7] Exterior shots of Luthor Mansion were filmed at Hatley Castle in Victoria.^[8] The interior shots were done at Shannon Mews, in Vancouver, which was also the set for the Dark Angel pilot and Along Came a Spider.^[8] Movie house Clova Cinema, in Cloverdale, is used for exterior shots of The Talon, the show's coffee house.^[14]

The show is told from Clark's point of view, so the color scheme and camera selection of the show is an illustration of Clark's interpretation of his environment. When he is safe at home the colors used to illustrate the environment are "warm and gentle", with an earth tone; the camera movement is also "very gentle". When Clark is keeping his secret, but there is no danger around, the lighting is more neutral and the camera moves around more. When there is danger the lighting becomes colder, and the camera shifts to a handheld to allow for more "extreme angles". With Metropolis, the crew attempts to instill the image of a "clean, hard-lined architecture", with blues, purples, and reflective metallics used as the dominating color of the scenery. That same concept is used for the characters. Lex is usually given a "glass, steel background", while Lionel receives a white or "clinical blue" background. Lex typically wears a lot of black, grey, and "cool tones" like purples and blues. Clark is represented by red, yellow and blue, like the traditional Superman costume. He is also represented by the colors of the "All American", red, white, and blue.^[15]

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallville_(TV_series)