re: Wheel of Time TV, Full Trailer Oct 27, show premieres Nov 19

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Q: What balance are you striking between recreating what's in the books word for word and letting the artists have creativity?

A: What's really important to me is that when we're diverging from the books, that we KNOW we're doing it. So, every piece of production design from shoes to swords to the White Tower itself begins with pages of quotes from the books about that place/thing... The designer then takes it from there to build something that makes sense in our world, with our production concerns, our cast, our aesthetic, etc. But at the end of the day, it all stems from that first document and it's something we can always go back to

Q: Have you filmed any of the preproduction, design, manufacturing of props etc for a behind the scenes program. I have to say I really hope so!

A: Of course! An amazing team has been picking up as much as they can of the process so that after the show's aired you can see all the work and love that went into creating these details large and small :)

Q: Since we are on the topic of swords, what are some of the inspirations for armor design? Is there quite a bit of variation between the Andorran and Shienrnian armor??

A: Yes. Our costume team, lead by the amazing Isis Mussenden, started by building a map of the entire Wheel of Time world, carving out what each nation/culture looked like to make sure they're differentiated (and honoring what's in the books) and then diving back into Two Rivers

Q: How do you decide what needs to be physically made (like the sword) and what's going to be effects?

A: I want things to be as real as possible, so in any place that we possibly can, we've built things instead of trusting to effects. Our show could be all green screen, all CGI, but I think you'll be surprised by how much of it was actually built, and touched and held by our actors

Q: Weapons and their individualistic characteristics are integrals to particular characters, especially with Mat, Rand, and Perrin. Will the show give a similar focus or will the weapons mostly just be *there*

A: You can not even imagine the number of hours that goes into each person's weapon. I was in at least 20 meetings about the dagger that Egwene has, and that's not even a major weapon in the books. There's a whole team of people (and we have a few BIG book fans on the props team)... ... looking at every item held by an actor on the show. I'd be shocked if less than 10,000 woman/man hours were spent on the design and creation of the Heron Mark sword

Q: Will there be different styles of swords and heron marked swords? Or all of them will be in katana style?

A: many, many different styles

Q: Will Moiraine still have a staff at the outset? I know she says it helps her to "focus," but seeing as how she just tossed it aside after it was charred coming out of the Ways and she never replaced it, it doesn't really seem necessary.

A: We're approaching this as an adaptation of the entire series, not just each book individually, so hopefully Season One will feel more like the entire book series of Wheel of Time than it does like Eye of the World. With that in mind -- no Moiraine staff. Let chaos ensue, ha.

Q: How is the set for the Two Rivers designed architecturally? It would seem easy to make it homely and Medieval, but because of it's location and history are there any other inspirations coming into play?

A: When the books came out they felt so blazingly fresh and different and new, so we want that same thing to be true of the show, and if you see us leaning away from certain elements in the books, often times it's because audiences have now seen them before! Unfortunately sometimes even in cases where the book-to-screen adaptations are from books that cribbed it from WoT! ha

Q: The music, how is that related to the show? Did we just get a glimpse of a theme?

A: This is not music from the show itself. When it is, I'll make sure you know it, and it will hopefully feel very uniquely "Wheel of Time" :)

Q: How are the sword forms going to be presented? Is the style going to be pulled from a specific region of sword fighting, or are they going to be spread out over many regions?

A: We have a fight time and swordmaster on the show who has built a fighting style unique to each weapon and culture. So, if you see a Borderlander fight with a heron mark blade it may feel different than a Seanchan. That's merely hypothetical of course ;)

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