Original subtitles

Hi, I'm Evan Katz, one of the show's executive producers. And this is...

(Brad) Brad Turner. I directed this episode. I'm also producer on the series this season.

- First time. - Cos Brad did such a fantastic job last year.

- (Brad) Why, thank you. - We brought him back as a producer-director.

(Brad) It certainly was a delight working with Sean Astin. I think he did a greatjob.

He's a consummate professional and it was exciting to be involved with him.

(Evan) He was an interesting choice. I think the premise was to fight expectation here,

and he comes in in a prior episode and he seems like an annoying young kid,

but he actually ends up being extremely good at what he does, and unfailingly polite.

Like the writers and directors, as the episodes went on, his character got less polite.

(Brad) That's right. This scene was an interesting story.

This was actually reshot because we originally shot Sean really dishevelled

after the previous episode, and we actually shoehorned this in.

And if you watch carefully you'll see

that he's a little more dishevelled in the next scene coming up.

- (Evan) We moved the earlier scene, right? - That's right, yeah.

(Evan) With the key card, where he's mugged.

(Brad) This is a set that was brilliantly designed by Joseph Hodges to play as the...

- (Evan) Loft. ...loft area.

And that phone call was also a pick-up shot.

We shot at the back of the stage, which was interesting, as we'd lost the location by then.

(Evan) Now, I remember writing this. This was a very odd situation,

in that we wanted Jack to go out undercover to meet Bierko's people.

But because in a prior episode

Bierko had seen him at the airport, we were backed into a corner.

So we came up with this conceit that Jack intuits that Bierko's not going,

and that's why he can go.

So hopefully, if you get past it quickly,

people won't question the questionable logic of it,

and if you do it with conviction.

But we just got past it.

(Brad) But that supplies tension. Whatever I can find in this show to supply tension,

whether it's legitimate or even false or suggested,

it seems to work great for this series

because itjust seems to go from one shot to the next.

And even if the audience anticipates that's where we're going with it,

that he's going to be discovered and taken hostage or whatever it is,

we can always use that to supply more tension.

(Evan) I remember this was the first episode of this season

that was a "classic 24 dilemma",

and designed as such.

I'm talking about where we're going with the mall, giving Jack an impossible situation,

and I guess I'll wait to talk more about that when we get there.

This guy, Mark Sheppard, really interesting actor. He's worked for me on other shows.

Sweetheart, but very scary on screen.

(Brad) He's got a very dark edge. I liked that.

It was always an unpredictable kind of character.

You didn't know if he'd take it over himself, or if he worked for someone else.

You never really got that feeling as to exactly what his duties were.

That was an automotive repair shop,

but we thought the motorcycle look was a little more interesting and fun,

and we needed to have the right machinery and that seemed to justify it.

(Evan) These two guys are always so great.

We were very lucky with Greg ltzin

and Martha Logan, Jean Smart.

They're just electric to watch.

I like to think they're better than the script.

They make it better than it has any right to be. He tells such a story in everything he does.

(Brad) Again, this is a set, and a lot of people don't realise it when they watch the episodes,

because of how they have the interior-exterior feel to it.

Rodney Charters did a greatjob of lighting this and making this sell,

but it's a set that we go back to a lot, and it always has a change of feel.

It's really great to shoot, because there's all kinds of stuff to shoot through.

And all the actors that work in the retreat are wonderful to work with and look at.

It's really played well.

(Evan) Yeah, a special shout out to Jude Ciccolella,

who's been on the show now for God knows how many seasons

and he's always so interesting to watch.

First he was an advisor to Palmer,

then he was an advisor to Logan last year and now he's back as an advisor to Logan.

(Brad) Yeah, the tension that I talked about earlier works really well in Logan's retreat

because of the behaviour of the first lady

and the way Logan's so easily manipulated

by his staff and people around him.

It's really interesting to watch them interact, and I'm sure it's great fun to write for.

(Evan) Well, there's...

He always tries to avoid a decision and he always takes credit where it's not due.

He's actually a bunch of really despicable character traits,

and it took us a while to realise this, but it's really his love for his wife,

which we're playing as very genuine, that really is his redeeming characteristic.

If it wasn't for that, I don't know that people would lock into the character.

(Brad) The history behind Logan's retreat

is that it was modelled after a location that we used in the beginning of the season,

which was like a sort of a...

Impractically, we had these stables and a big horse barn

and beautiful, beautiful grounds that we did the original arrival of the Russian president,

and then the retreat came out of that, so this building actually doesn't exist.

There's stables and beautiful grounds, and we go back there quite often,

but the actual building is fictitious,

so the interior scene doesn't actually have an exterior.

(Evan) Yeah, it's this great sort of mid-century architecture and d�cor.

I wish my house looked a little bit more like that.

As Brad said, even the exterior area

with the little pond or lake or viewing pool is a set.

(Brad) It's given us opportunity to do press conferences

and give a sense of the outside to the inside,

which you usually don't get on a home set,

a set that you go to a lot to try to bag page count and make your days.

This shot of Curtis, actually, when you look at it...

These shots we did on location, but when we cut to Curtis in the truck,

he's actually on stage in a poor-man's-process stage

and the background is being projected with video cameras,

so we do a lot of that on this show.

It's interesting, cos it helps balance our days.

Shooting on location, we go slower and we can't move quite as fast, so that helps.

- (Evan) Do we defocus the background? - No. It's completely in focus. It's a natural...

(Evan) Camera.

(Brad) It naturally goes out of focus cos the focus plane is soft,

but we found it better to keep them in focus.

- (Evan) So you use a shallow depth of field? - Long lenses, shoot through the windshield.

(Evan) Oh, that would be a wide depth of field.

Wouldn't you want to... No, shallow depth of field. That's why I'm not directing the show.

(Brad) You're welcome to. Please come and join us.

(Evan) Someone asked us at the press conference this year:

"How do you feel about these other shows who are trying to do real-time thrillers?"

I said, "I hope they have an easier time."

(Brad) That's very true. It's something we always have to keep in mind.

I'm constantly shooting what we would call in other episodic television "shoe leather",

where we drive up to a building, drive all the way up,

and then I drive them all the way up this parkade,

because when I put it together in editing I'm never really sure

whether we're going to need to actually see the person make his way all the way to there,

or whether we're going to cut away.

We do a lot of restructuring in editing, taking scenes from here to there,

which, in theory, for a director and producer would be... you can't do that.

Once you're committed to a time line, that's what you want to do, but we do move it.

(Evan) This was an interesting attempt

to write Kiefer playing a character who's fearful.

So it was a nice colour for him to show,

since Jack Bauer is not a terribly fearful person.

I remember trying to untangle the logic

of what chip and what timer controls the canisters and it was...

it took us about ten tries to make it as simple as possible, and that's not all that simple.

(Brad) No, it's as complicated as it gets, so what were you doing?

- (Evan) The characters understand it. - That's what important.

I thought Kiefer did a greatjob of making this character submissive.

I mean, these guys are... Jack Bauer's nothing.

He knows he has to play their game and move in the right direction to make it work for them.

(Evan) Our first little twist is coming up here. "You're coming with us."

(Brad) How many takes it took to make that happen, the hits work, the slug and throw-in,

and then we actually, which we don't do very often,

we actually kept the camera in the car

and practically drove out of the parking structure.

So we're actually driving in the vehicle.

There's a sound man behind us and we're picking up the sound,

so it was a pretty cool moment, productionwise.

You can see here, Sean is a little more dishevelled than he was in that scene before,

because there was still some residual stuff from the way we shot the scene originally.

But it's interesting, it still works.

(Evan) You're talking about his sister having him mugged for his key card.

- (Brad) Right. - Did that take place...

(Brad) That took place in the previous episode. It was pretty brutal, pretty big.

But itjust was a bit too much.

It was one of those things where you make the judgment call.

If you came into this clean, this episode, and hadn't seen the previous,

you'd probably be hung up on that too much.

(Evan) We also had to be careful, when you wound series regulars,

not to give them permanent cuts or gashes on their face,

cos you're stuck with them.

(Brad) Which we've experienced and seen.

(Evan) The characters have miraculous healing abilities.

(Brad) That's, again, that time line,

that if you actually obeyed to the letter of the law,

you'd end up with everybody limping by the end of the year.

- (Evan) And being stuck in traffic jams. - Correct.

Somebody once told me there's no way you could do this show in LA,

cos you'd spend the whole entire episode in a traffic jam.

The first lady this year has added a really interesting dynamic to the White House.

Not that we didn't have that with Sherry.

There's something about the way Jean plays this role that's made it really interesting.

(Evan) I always describe Charles Logan, Greg ltzin's performances,

like waiting for a train wreck.

Now it's like waiting for two train wrecks.

You never know when these characters are going to snap.

(Brad) She's so unpredictable because of her mood swings and medication and whatever.

- It's just been a delight to direct. - But, you know, she's generally been right.

That's the great, you know, irony of the character.

You know, her accusations are pretty correct, ultimately.

(Brad) That's true.

(Evan) They've worked very hard on the fictitious back story for their characters,

between the two actors.

(Brad) They haven't gotten into that too much.

(Evan) Yeah, they have a whole... they have a whole...

- They decided they lost a child. - Ah, I was going to ask you about children.

(Evan) Yeah, and that's sort of underlying their relationship,

the trauma, and the tragedy of that.

(Brad) Interesting. I hadn't heard that.

We hit the ground running when we shoot this stuff. We do it in 15 days, two episodes.

So we're, you know, just trying to get the stuff done.

(Evan) This was a neat turn. Nothing is so black and white.

You know, she's all high and mighty, "You have to tell the truth."

He says, "Well, the widow's coming, you tell her the truth."

We're always eager to explore everybody's flaws, hypocrisies and layers.

Layers is a more positive way to look at it

and these two characters sure have a lot of them.

(Brad) That's another example

of our "poor-man's process",

where we're actually in the stage and we're projecting the driving.

This is another example of it. That background is projected against screens.

I'm sure other directors have talked about that on the narrative here.

But it's amazing, because when I first saw this show when I wasn't involved in it,

I was sure that you didn't...

you drove everywhere and you towed the car and did it in the traditional sense.

It's a tribute to the grips and electrics and everybody that set these shots up.

(Evan) And it really can look terrible when it's not done right.

(Brad) And the thing from my point of view, as a director,

is shooting this way helps me work with the actors.

When we're on a tow car and we're driving around Los Angeles streets,

and there's police all over the place and cars are stopped,

there's no freedom to work on performance and nuance.

It's very difficult. And it makes... it helps everything.

As soon as you buy into it, it helps sell everything,

because then you can concentrate on the narrative alone, and not anything else.

This is a practical shot. This shot that we're coming towards the mall

is a shot that we shot inside the car.

What I did was the same thing I did at the parking structure.

When we move into a location, I can practically put the camera in the vehicle

and move in, and it helps cutting it all together and making it work.

(Evan) Have we used the Steadicam on shows you've directed?

(Brad) It's a point-of-view show, it's a show that we try to do without a Steadicam.

- We've never used one. - (Evan) It's interesting.

And we have some brilliant hand-held camera operators.

(Brad) Both of our operators are really well-versed in doing that.

Also, they listen on headset to the dialogue.

They pay attention to who we want to be on and when we want to be on,

and also pay attention to who's reacting to what.

(Evan) Those guys are telling a story as well.

- Guy and... - Jay.

Jay's on B camera. Guy's our A-camera operator.

(Evan) It's always great on our show when we have these different levels of understanding.

The audience understands Jack is trying to dissuade them,

so it doesn't happen.

Jack's trying to convince them that he's really trying to do it to save his own ass.

And this show is kind of rife with that dynamic.

Whenever we can get there, sort of letting the audience in on the "reality",

I think it works really well, it sort of involves them in a different level.

(Brad) Exactly. And technically telling this story, CTU is listening to Jack,

hearing everything he's saying and monitoring his situation.

And he, in theory, is getting them to tell... give information to CTU,

so he's setting them up for all of that.

And it's great because as much as this is difficult to play -

everybody listening to everything, you need more shots, more setups, more time -

it really creates rhythm and tension thatjust flies along, yeah.

(Evan) You know, if we didn't shoot it this way with the split screens,

a lot of this could be very flat.

(Brad) Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And the conceits that we've created with the technology really helps too.

They can mute it on and off when they're talking so Jack doesn't have to listen to it all.

It's like a newscaster with a producer talking into his ear as he's doing the newscast,

and updating him on stuff... They can listen...

(Evan) I didn't hear what you said. You were talking into my ear while I was watching.

(Brad laughs) Exactly.

We're experiencing that now. We are in the movie.

(Evan) Everyone in the show always looks so worried and distraught.

It's so interesting that that works as entertainment.

(Brad) This is like taking a break out of your life and seeing, you know... stop terrorists.

It must be very relaxing for the audience.

(Evan) It's a ride. So we're getting up on our mall sequence here,

where Jack will be asked to help release the gas in the mall.

And one of the keys here is this kid's birthday party,

to identify...

visualise and identify innocent victims.

And I have small children, so it was one of the first things that came to mind.

"Kid's birthday party."

So that's sort of in the back of your mind here.

(Brad) Everybody can relate to that that has children. That was important to up the stakes.

(Evan) At a certain point, I did something different with the...

I'll wait till it plays out.

(Brad) This scene - while he's thinking - this scene is split between location and on set.

And, again, I think it's totally seamless.

(Evan) Oh, absolutely.

I originally had Jack knock out the guard to avoid him being shot.

It was a little secret hero moment - before the guy can shoot him, Jack knocks him out.

But unfortunately it ended up feeling like a loose end

since Jack is later going to be knocked unconscious and handcuffed.

So he was killed.

(Brad) Yeah, and those are the sacrifices Jack Bauer makes.

The... we did shoot in the mall during mall hours. It was a great location.

They were very cooperative and we were quite surprised.

The stuff you saw earlier we shot when it was open and people were wandering around,

cos there were just people walking in.

But when we see the panic, that was done early in the morning before the mall opened.

(Evan) So we didn't panic people in a real mall?

(Brad) It kind of dovetailed. It did open while we were still shooting.

- (Evan) Which mall was it? - The Northridge Mall here.

(Brad) No, it was the Sunrise Hills shopping mall.

(Evan) Here's the dilemma, and I think a surprising one,

which is that CTU and Lynn McGill...

argues for letting them release the gas.

And you don't generally see these kinds of dilemmas.

And...

Audrey functions as the conscience here.

And there's a neat moment here where Logan gets angry -

not at the terrorists,

but at the decision he's being forced to make.

(Brad) And our hero, the one we rely on, is completely handcuffed and can't do a thing.

And that's a cool scenario.

(Evan) Yeah. And, you know, we know that Jack has been involved in situations

where innocent people have had to die.

You know, so you always try to say, "OK, so what really wouldn't he be able to do?"

(Brad) And the beauty of Kiefer's performance here is that he maintains that,

whereas people would play the hero moment saying, "I know what I'll do."

Kiefer's looking around trying to figure out what the hell he can do.

I think that's how our audience relates to Jack, is that Kiefer never plays the end game.

- He plays getting there. - The process. Look, his mind is racing.

(Brad) Exactly. And obviously he knows. He's read the script, so he knows.

But it's great that he plays the moment, and he develops his ideas on screen, which helps.

(Evan) His take on this character is extraordinary and very disciplined.

You know, I think a more superficial actor or performance

would just make the decision and want to be macho about it.

And the layers and the ambivalence and the tortured nature of the character,

Kiefer really delivers on every... week after week.

(Brad) It's interesting here, because of the real-time thing -

when the bad guy says, "Are you ready?"

I had to have him run away because I needed more time

to stretch out them turning the gas on, because the scene's playing in the meantime.

So I realised that they cut it open and hit the switch.

But I couldn't do that. So I sent that guy to do something, and we didn't know what it was.

- (Evan) Whatever it was, it was important. - These guys are still debating the situation.

But we know they're there and almost ready to go. That's what's important.

So we felt we had to do something. You see in the next scene he'll be coming back.

I love this delivery.

I'll go along with your assessment. Let them release it.

But you'd better find those other canisters...

(Evan) There's something very drama-queenish about Charles Logan,

which just is really interesting.

- And, you know, politics kind of is drama. - Exactly.

So he's back now, so he's ready to go.

(Evan) All right, so here Jack has been clearly placed in this impossible dilemma,

being told by his own government to kill all these people.

And it was very difficult to get this to be a clear dilemma to the audience.

It's kind of a tortured arrangement.

"Well, they've got the gas and this is the code, but not the right code and..."

We did it, because people were affected by the episode, but it is a little twisted.

(Brad) What really, really helps is the crosscutting to the situation room.

- They're playing what Jack's thinking. - Right. Interesting.

Here's an example - we had an act end coming up...

that we needed to buy some time for,

and we hate to do it, but we knocked Kiefer out.

And we try not to do it very often, but sometimes there's just nothing else to do

to explain why he hasn't made any progress in the three to five minutes of commercials,

but we try to take that pretty seriously.

Here's a little... what I would call a push -

the notion that the episode is predicated on this code and how important it is.

And yet, because we set it up in the beginning,

you're also buying that the terrorists have another way to release the gas,

which kind of doesn't bother you, but if you stop to think about it,

it sort of makes what Jack has gone through slightly moot.

But, you know, I think because the show is experienced in the moment,

and the dilemma feels real for the moment, it works.

(Brad) What I tried to do was play the fact

that with the one guy who's working on the workaround the whole time,

and they don't really know if it's going to work...

and the tension of the fact that the guy in the auto shop could have the same result.

If he put the wrong wires together,

it could kill the mastermind behind the plan.

So I was trying to play that tension on both sides, that:

"Do you put this in there? Do you do this? Are you sure this is the right one?"

And we tried to build that so it's a workaround, but it's not a sure thing.

I made this guy really nervous, the guy that's experimenting at the bike shop.

We tried to play that this is not... the sure way is to get the code from Jack and make it work.

This is the backup plan that's just there in case...

(Evan) It's just very jury-rigged.

I think this piece of business was critical to how you had to construct the set.

Jack had to be in another room, but out of sight.

He had to be able to see these guys and follow things,

but out of sight enough so that he could get out, so he went through the window...

(Brad) We designed the table so that it could bend a little bit, and he could get the keys.

And it was invented partially on set and was invented a little bit in advance too.

But the room that they dragged him into is on the stage,

and the room that they actually cut the hole in is on location.

Again, it feels totally seamless.

(Evan) You know, all these visual elements, the mall surveillance cameras, the kids,

it was part of the conception of this episode - you had to personify these people -

but I'm sure it makes shooting everything just drastically more complicated.

(Brad) It does. When I went on the location survey,

where we take all the technical departments to look at the mall,

I took a video camera with me and did, like, 60 different angles ofjust the mall functioning.

And that's what we used as the plates, because if you actually tried to stage all that...

- (Evan) Oh, it'd be crazy. ...it'd be a nightmare.

So a lot of that playback is actual footage ofjust generic mall activity.

So we see that they're successful.

And this whole action sequence was shot in the studio.

- On a totally different day. - Right.

We're coming up on a broken neck.

So it's interesting, we have this scene taking place in all these different points of view.

The bad guys listening, the good guys listening, Jack.

(Brad) And as much as this seems to come off, I mean, this is so hard to do.

We had to do every one of these shots practically.

Kiefer is strapped to that leg, he can't move.

He's doing all the stuff, and it becomes a nightmare when you're shooting it,

because you actually have to do all of that in real time.

(Evan) Kiefer's very serious about keeping it real, or making it real.

(Brad) So the conceit here is that a little bit has been let out, but not the entire amount.

Now we're gonna pinpoint exactly where that vent goes

and head in that direction, try to get it evacuated.

(Evan) We're about to experience the place

where my favourite shot would have been,

which became a running joke with the production people.

When the gas starts to get released, I'd written a scene where Jack walks past a pet store.

There's birds in the window and, kind of the canary-in-the-coal-mine thing,

the birds die, all fall off their perches at once,

and Jack knows that the gas is actually getting out.

I was particularly in love with this image.

I was told that there was just no way to do it without actually killing real birds.

So unfortunately I had to abandon it. No way to do it believably.

(Brad) Everybody that owns a bird will never watch the show again because you said that.

(Evan) We don't generally kill house pets. Just people.

(Brad) It was a good idea, because it would demonstrate visually exactly what we want.

There was no pet store. We would have had to dress a complete pet store.

(Evan) It would have been a $100,000 shot with the birds.

(Brad) This was hard enough - this panic.

This was first thing in the morning before the mall had opened.

We figured this would be the scariest for somebody just coming to buy doughnuts.

If they walked in and didn't understand the scenario,

it might be a little hard for them to take, on their doughnut-buying trip.

- (Evan) Is this a practical location? - This is back on the stage now.

He ran right into our stage and we built this with all the fan controls.

- And now he's running back out into the... - Selling it with sound as well.

(Brad) So we're back in the practical mall again.

(Evan) We're coming up on a part where my wife actually started to cry

when I watched the show with her.

She doesn't read the scripts or know anything.

It's really interesting to watch with her and see a layman's reaction.

Little girl.

(Brad) This replaced the birds. Is that OK?

(Evan) I would have preferred to kill the birds as well, but we don't need to dwell on that.

I plan on dwelling on it for many years to come.

All right, so here's just one of our horrible, gruelling, real-time,

this-is-very-painful-to-watch- and-we-hope-it-turns-out-well sequences.

I think my wife... Yeah, she...

And there we go, and this was a very nice moment, Brad, right here,

where suddenly, you know, suddenly her eyes open.

(Brad) The little girl did an amazing job, cos a girl that age trying to grasp the concept...

- (Evan) Death. Near death. - That's big, and she did a beautiful job.

(Evan) One reason why these sequences work well

is we really do kill people you don't think we'll kill,

including our own regulars.

I think it really adds to the sense that anything can happen on this show.

- (Brad) This one turns out good. Thank God. - Here we go.

And there's... We gave that moment to her and to Jack and it's great.

- And then he moves on. He's a hero. - Yep.

It sure felt good when we were shooting it. We were... It was... It's a big scene to do.

We did all of the mall stuff in one day,

which on a feature would have been two or three weeks to make that work.

And it's a credit to how fast we can move technically

and how great our lighting department and our camera department is.

(Evan) This guy had a great face.

(Brad) It was really interesting...

This is a breaking-into-a-car scene, which we do a lot on this show,

because we need to go from one place to another fast.

In the opening episodes, I was noticing that when Jack broke into a car,

he broke in the back window,

then reached through and unlocked the door so he didn't have sit on the glass.

So I had the bad guy break the window this way, so he had to sit on the glass.

- (Evan) Serves him right. - Exactly.

Even though I learned from Jack how to break into a car

and not sit on the broken glass when I do it.

(Evan) He hadn't seen that episode.

(Brad) Being a bad guy, he can sit on glass and walk on glass and do anything he wants.

But again, this is, like, our PMP process, and I really it believe works so well.

I defy anybody to think we're not actually driving in the car.

(Evan) Once in a while I'll catch something, or notice it.

It kind of depends on what you're paying attention to and...

(Brad) It's important that the actors watch where they're going,

look in the rear-view mirrors and don't start to just get into the scene and start talking.

That focus really helps a lot.

(Evan) And for those of us listening,

part of the poor-man's process is there are lighting people flashing lights on his face,

and, you know...

Do we put that car on gimbal? Move it up and down?

(Brad) No. Our cameras are constantly moving on dollies,

to give a sense of motion.

The set is really fun to shoot on, the CTU set.

- It's big, there's lots of room. - It's Bond.

(Brad) Anything goes on that set,

in terms of choreography and camera movement.

And I really enjoy shooting there because it's a blank canvas.

You can do anything you want.

(Evan) It's an interesting situation - people are saved, thank God,

but we virtually had signed their death warrants. It's very odd, but very real.

It's the emotions you would feel.

(Brad) Most episodic TV shows would be...

the whole episode would be just that moment at the mall,

and we do it in two acts and move on.

That's how fast we burn up story, and you guys have to supply more and more beats

and keep us moving in the forward direction.

- (Evan) I get tired just hearing about it. - Exactly.

(Evan) One of the revelations the creators of the show had was for a real-time show,

you needed more story, not less story, to keep it feeling real and interesting.

- (Brad) That's true. - So it's kind of counterintuitive.

(Brad) We do the big production pieces with the mall,

and it comes down to two people in a room, and the tension and emotion involved in that,

and that's what's been the success of the show.

We were able to do both well. We're not an action show. We're a performance show.

We tell a great story, we keep the tension high.

The performances are always first-rate.

- (Evan) Bring it down to people. - Exactly.

It ain't all about the action, it's not all about the fourth-act action beat.

Action can be anywhere if it's where the story's taking us...

(Evan) We've done shows where the action is the first act, and that's it.

There's... It's interesting, I'm watching this and realising,

there's a lot of people watching and listening to other people.

There's a lot of multiple points of views

in our show, and that's part of what it is.

(Brad) And that's all about layering, about keeping everybody involved in everything.

I mean, it isn't only Jack Bauer that has a really busy day.

It seems like everybody, including you and I, have very busy days on this show.

(Evan) Well, as Brad and I are doing this commentary,

we are finishing the last two scripts of the season.

Brad is prepping the...

about to direct the... 21 and 22,

the penultimate pair of the year.

We shoot and prep the episodes two at a time.

So the directors are actually shooting little two-hour movies every 15 days.

(Brad) Sure feels like it.

- (Evan) It's really quite something. - Yep.

It's appropriate cos I did episode three and four,

and I'm doing 21 and 22 and it feels really good to be in that position.

And, of course, Jon Cassar

starts a season and finishes a season,

and does a brilliantjob, and I just love to be his set-up man.

(Evan) Sometimes the less said the better.

I mean, there's a moment where she could have had a pithy line

he could have had a pithy comeback, and we just do it in looks.

(Brad) Exactly. We do enough...

There's enough pace in this show that when it does slow down and take a moment,

it's really earned, it's always an earned moment.

(Evan) Interesting. I've never written a show

where cutting dialogue is such a powerful tool, as opposed to adding it.

(Brad) Exactly.

(Evan) We had to carefully design the mall sequence, as well as this,

to keep the gas masks off our leads as much as possible,

because, frankly, the only thing less interesting than watching a guy in a gas mask

is watching a guy in a scuba suit.

- You can't get emotion and depth to it. - Exactly.

(Evan) The audience has a hard time getting in.

Did you shoot material on the suicide, or was it always completely off screen?

(Brad) Completely off screen.

(Evan) A very brief, cryptic, practical conversation.

As little said as possible.

- "You were followed? You know what to do." - Yep.

That's great. And it's always great when the trail goes dry for Jack. It's always...

- (Evan) Which it has to 23 times a year. - Exactly. (laughs)

No, I couldn't see shooting that suicide on camera. Itjust didn't feel right.

- It felt it had to be on Jack's reaction. - Even I don't want to watch it.

(Brad) Exactly. It's close enough.

We originally didn't have the bad guys watching at the end.

We added that all because we felt like they needed to be right in the vicinity.

- (Evan) All right. Our date is over. - It was good.

I've never talked to you this much. Thank you, everybody.

Visiontext Subtitles: Sarah Johnston

ENGLISH SDH