I wanna ask you a favor, to just give a
great hand to our amazing crew here who...
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING & CHEERING]
Thank you very much to the crew.
My relationship
with the department heads is interesting...
...because as a director,
I have to deal with all of them.
There's just a lot of interaction
that goes on every week.
Well, we start Wednesday morning,
we'll have a production meeting at 10:00.
At that point, the sets are standing
and they are mostly painted.
The production meeting can be crazy...
...because there's questions
flying around.
We talk about how best
to integrate all our efforts.
Two o'clock on Thursday,
we have a run-through with producers...
...where they change things.
On Friday, we get to see the lighting
that we did on Thursday...
...and whether it's working.
And, by then, I have to be
done, done, done with the set.
We reassure everybody that it will be done.
It's gonna be okay.
You got it. You got it. That'll work.
Monday morning,
we'll come in and we'll be shooting.
We do all the camera blocking
and we get to make all the final adjustments.
Tuesday, come in, rehearse everything again,
do a producers' run-through at 3:00...
...and shoot the show
at 6:30 with the audience.
It's such a finely-tuned instrument,
this show, that it all comes together.
And, as I say, we make a sandbox and then
we stand back and let the cast play in it.
- You wanna know my opinion?
- Oh, boy, do I.
The reason you're fixated
on a good-natured simpleton like Penny...
...is that she's the exact opposite
of your first romantic attachment.
- Your brilliant-yet-intimidating mother.
- Where on earth did you get that from?
It's in her book, Needy Baby, Greedy Baby.
We are standing in front
of Sheldon and Leonard's, uh, apartment...
...their living room,
their main living space.
Here in Pasadena somewhere.
There isn't a single light in here
that doesn't have a purpose.
Somebody once said to me,
"Do you need so many lights?"
I said, "Tell me which one to turn off.
I'll be happy to do it."
You'll see soft lights. You'll see hard lights.
The hard lights are projected lights.
This China ball, uh, is just ambience.
On this other side, we have a lot of fill light.
I use fill light to set the mood.
We have lights that are under counters. These
are great, uh, highlights in our backgrounds.
Over here, we have the stairwell.
It was the producers Bill and Chuck's concept to
have, uh, Kaley's character live across the hall.
And we really had the opportunity, then...
...to make a nice little space
between the two apartments.
And Bill and Chuck were very interested
in having a space...
...that they could tell the story
while people were walking.
Do you wonder
how humans would be different...
...if they evolved from lizards
instead of mammals?
LEONARD:
Okay. Let's talk about that.
SHAFFNER: But I had this extra wall
in the middle between the two stairs.
I'm going, "What can we do
that would be interesting?"
So I said, "I'll put an elevator in there."
And I took the model
in to show it to the producers...
...and they said, "But we want them
to walk up and down the stairs."
I said, "I know, because
the elevator's broken, right?"
The object of Settlers of Catan
is to build roads and settlements.
To do so requires wood.
Now, I have sheep, I need wood.
Just about every week,
something revolves around a prop.
Whether it's videogames,
the games they play they came up with...
...that I have to manufacture myself
or have someone do it.
I try to get inside the head
of the characters...
...and I choose everything
based on what I think they would choose.
Believe it or not, I get so many emails
and letters of people asking me what this is.
This is a vintage fuse strip. To me,
it was just a cool thing to put on the wall.
And we have this DNA sculpture over here,
which I was so excited to find.
Of course, there were
no giant DNA models anywhere...
...and so I basically had to buy two...
...and we had to have our metal shop
make an armature to hold this up...
...and then, you know,
my fantastically talented set dresser...
...sort of put it all together
and made the two, one.
We've got this, uh, terrific backing, uh,
that you see behind us.
It's, uh, Caltech in Pasadena,
and, uh, it's lit for night.
And I'll show you, uh...
Okay, you guys, take it over to day, please.
And then the exact same shot
was shot for day.
That's a photograph on...
It's called digital backing.
And we add extra light to it
to get that nice sunburst in the sky.
And go ahead and raise your night.
You get a bit of more depth for day...
...and then we'll cast lighting
that comes across the set.
And we'll have lower source lighting
coming through the room...
...that will give you,
uh, different times of day.
RAJ: Cool.
- Oh, dear.
During the live show, we mainly watch
for continuity from take to take.
We've done some pre-shootings,
so we have to match what we've done.
We're always watching for the stray
or the hair that was in front or in back.
It's always a constant.
It's really important. I mean, you know,
a bottle is here in one take...
...and we don't put it back
in that same place...
...and they start editing back and forth
between takes...
...you'll see the actor one time
the bottle's here then the next...
...flip to go back to another actor...
...they'll come back
and the bottle's here.
And we have to work really quickly.
We don't wanna keep the audience waiting.
You can see the relationship
of the audience to the set.
It's quite close, and it's all about making sure
that the audience can see at all times...
...and what that means to us
is this is an area in which we don't light...
...and make sure that the audience
can always see the actors...
...because their response
to what the actors are doing...
...is the most important thing
that we're doing here.
Remarkable. In just under a half hour,
200 metric tons of fuel...
...will ignite in a controlled explosion
right beneath Howard's keister.
Well, this final episode of the season
was a real challenge.
This episode was so challenging
in so many ways...
...we were outside
of our comfort zone...
...and doing things
that we don't normally do at all.
It was a lot of different things.
The authentic space capsule...
...a real astronaut and a wedding.
This has been a riot to shoot because
it's kind of a single-camera episode for us.
There were quite a few curve balls.
One in particular was there was
a specific kind of lens that we needed.
LONDON: Every week, I look at
Steve Molaro or Bill and say:
"What do you got for me this week?"
And sometimes they'll give a little smirk.
MAN [OVER RADIO]:
That's ignition.
- I love this part.
- Me too.
I have strongly-mixed feelings.
I got word about three weeks before...
...that we were gonna have to come up
with a replica of the Soyuz space capsule.
And I went, "Oh, no."
I just thought, "How on earth am I ever
going to figure this out or pull this off?"
Because I've been
around the decorating block...
...and I knew that there were no
Russian rocket parts out there to decorate with.
So I'm like, "Okay, what can we do
with some wood and some fabric, et cetera."
You start with the research.
We got a lot of help from NASA and
they took a lot of pictures of the Soyuz...
...and sent them to us.
I went online and looked at
whatever I could come up with...
...but I found the Kansas Cosmosphere
and Space Camp in Hutchinson, Kansas.
And I called, just out of the blue,
and spoke to this really nice guy...
...and they happened to have
a capsule there from Russia.
And so he was very generous,
and he went and measured it...
...so I could get the exact dimensions...
...because I had to start with something...
...so that everything else
could build down into it.
And we did drawings and construction
and upholstery.
A set decorator and her staff went out...
...looking for the buttons and things
that we put inside of it.
And thank goodness, I was so lucky
that we live in Los Angeles...
...and we have
an aeronautical scrap yard here.
It's this enormous warehouse that's filled
from top to bottom with rocket parts.
This is a Russian spacecraft
that they replicated.
So it's not that easy
to get everything correct.
You know, a lot of shows,
a hundred and what?
Eleven, 117 episodes in...
...would get a little lazy about such things.
And this crew does not.
Hey, Froot Loops,
wanna hit your fan switch?
Check.
Of course, when I went
to the aerospace scrap yard...
...they did not have
Russian rocket parts there.
And so I just got the closest things possible
to what I saw in our reference photos.
CENDROWSKI: I really tip my hat to our
Wardrobe Department, the set designers...
...because it looks absolutely real.
In fact, Mike, an astronaut, came in...
...and as he got into it, he goes,
"Okay, this is a little bit like a flashback."
They really wanted to make sure
that everything was correct...
...that all the detail was right.
Hey, Mike, quick question,
I missed it in the briefing.
How much urine do these suits hold?
- And that's a cut.
MAN: And out it, please.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING & CHEERING]
It's a very, very small set for us.
We had three big gentlemen
all smashed together in this little rocket...
...and the shooting of it
had an incredible amount of challenges.
Three people in a capsule,
you think one camera, couple of lights...
...I mean, you've got 100 people standing
around trying to make that thing work.
We've been doing trips to the mill
to make sure how we can shoot it.
We've been doing camera tests,
building extra pieces...
...and just watching it
layerandlayerandlayen
The window of opportunity for us
to get lighting and camera in here...
...was as limited as any other set
that I've ever shot in my life.
The wide-angle lens is so wide
it almost sees behind itself.
So any lighting that we put in there was
gonna either be seen by the camera lens...
...or by the hoods
that they were wearing.
One of the hardest things to put on a set
is, like, a round glass...
...like, say, a flower bowl or something...
...because it's reflective
of every single light in the studio.
And the way we got around that was
we used something called black silk.
And it doesn't pick up
any reflection in the hood.
We were able to shoot a very, very hot light
right through this black silk.
And it's able to fill up the whole inside
of this capsule with this ambient light.
So after lighting this about 10 times, we found
a way to basically light inside this tin can.
LEONARD: Come on, Raj, we're ready to start.
- We're ready when I say we're ready.
- Well, it's a rooftop wedding.
- Yes.
Um, so we're exposed to the elements,
although they don't figure into the scene...
-...I don't need to bring that up.
- It's the rooftop set...
...you guys have used...
...for launching all sorts of fun things
and doing fun things on the roof.
We've been to the rooftop before...
...and at that time,
it was full of equipment.
So now we had to go up
and decorate it for a wedding.
Okay, now we're ready.
Everyone is using their own ways to, uh...
Their own expertise
to make this wedding happen.
SHEA: The only thing that was significant
about planning for the wedding...
...on the rooftop, for me, is that,
I think I wanted to make it cuter...
...than really was character appropriate.
We know it's short notice,
but we'd love you all to come with us.
No, no, no.
This is not the wedding I wanted.
Sometimes you cheat a little and make it
a little nicer than it really would be...
...and I was hoping to cheat
a little bit this time...
...but the director
and some of the producers thought...
...that Koothrappali would not
have had quite enough time...
...to make it cute and nice,
even though he had good taste.
I keep telling you, if I wasn't an astrophysicist,
I would have been a party planner.
It was always a coin flip.
We talked about it and said, what could he do
with a few hundred dollars in about two hours?
So they had to rein me in a little bit
to make it sort of a little more casual...
...and a little less decorated.
I just wanted it to be cuter because
it's Bernadette's wedding and she's so cute.
"When I look at the two of you
starting your lives together, it fills my hear...
Okay, I'm gonna need a minute.
Because it was thrown together,
it was to be kept quite simple.
Problem?
No.
Kaley's hair, we thought would look pretty up
because she had a great dress on.
And my Penny blossom?
It gave her a chance to wear her hair
a little fancier than she normally does.
Mayim's character loved that tiara,
and that tiara had to be incorporated.
- And then Melissa had the beautiful veil.
- Hi.
Well, I'm very excited with this dress.
I think they did a beautiful job.
I may steal it at the end of the day.
My job was actually relatively easy
this week with that. It was just the rings...
...the five-by-six cards for the actors
to read their little speeches from...
...and, uh, the bouquet for Bernadette.
It's, um, complicated because it's, again...
...not a very typical multi-camera,
four-camera scene.
We've got a jib going on.
We're gonna have to do some reverses.
We have a lot of people involved.
And so we've pushed walls out.
I've added walls in the back.
I've added camera ports on the side.
We're gonna be shooting from above,
down below and all around.
And that's been the biggest challenge,
not so much speed bumps...
...as, uh, just little hurdles
that we've had to deal with.
SILVER: It was one of those network moments
where you're running around...
...and everything came together
15 minutes before it needed to.
It was so gratifying
to see that it did come together...
...and it did look so great
and everyone was so happy.
By the power vested in us
by the state of California--
And the Klingon High Council.
--We now pronounce you husband and wife.
Getting to work with the most extraordinary
cast and crew is just unbelievable.
SHAFFNER: It's so wonderful to be involved
in a long-run show...
...that continually surprises us
and engages us.
Every week, every different prop,
every episode, you learn something new.
SHEA: It's been such a gratifying, wonderful
season, and definitely one of my favorites...
...but we definitely work very hard.
Yep, starting on B,
here we go and action.
The cast may go home
after a couple of hours...
...but, oftentimes, the crew is here
for 12 hours doing stuff.
SILVER: I have to say, the most fun part
of this episode, as well as my entire job...
...is when the producers come in
and they step to the monitors...
...and they see all the hard work
come to a head.
I get this look over Bill Prady
and Chuck Lorre's face...
...like, "Oh, this is gonna be good."
That, to me, is really fun and rewarding.
Really rewarding to watch everybody doing
theirjob, and it's really a great experience.
That's been the most enjoyable part of it,
is just sort of seeing...
...everyone really, after five years,
still enjoy themselves...
...and not look at this
as drudgery and go:
"Oh, another day, let me just get through
this and then we can worry about next year
There's no feeling of that at all.
And I can't wait to find out where
we're gonna start out in the next episode.
