Riese is an exciting, upcoming steam-punk inspiredweb production set in a land named Eleysia. The cast includes Christine Chatelain (SyFy’s Sanctuary, Supernatural, The Collector, The L-Word ). Ben Cotton (Harper’s Island, Stargate: Atlantis, Stan Helsing), Sharon Taylor (Stargate: Atlantis, Smallville), Patrick Gilmore (Stargate: Universe, Battlestar Galactica, Intelligence) and Ryan Robbins (Sanctuary, Battlestar Galactica, The Guard). We recently interviewed series co-creator Ryan Copple to talk about the series.

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How did the idea of Riese first come about?Has anything inspired the production or story?

The story first originated as an idea for a short film, actually. The original concept detailed a young girl, who was traveling with a wolf, visiting a strange and anachronistic town with morally questionable customs. We wanted to parallel the idea of innocence that was captured in the Little Red Riding hood stories, while also paralleling it to the conflicts and moral dilemmas and ambiguities in our own, something we still hold true to in the series as it is now.

As for the production, once we decided to convert it into a series, the real fun began with fleshing out the world that this character was inhabiting. That’s when we borrowed from a variety of historical patterns and genres for inspiration. Aesthetically, we’ve been heavily influenced by the steampunk genre as well as dark, textured works such as “City of Lost Children”. For story inspiration, we drew from both traditional fables, like Little Red Riding Hood, as well as Norse mythology.

One prominent villain in the show is a group called The Sect, which works in conjunction with Eleysia’s new ruler, Empress Amara. For this relationship we really dug deep into the histories of our time, all way the back to the era of inquisitions. Historically, there was usually a dichotomy between the rulers and religion, so it seemed appropriate to incorporate this into our show. Plus, it sets up conflict between the villains themselves, which we believe will be more interesting than just a black and white ‘bad guy’.

Have any of your intitial character story lines changed since working with the cast because of their abilities or input.

Definitely. When we first introduced the character Trennan, he was fairly small in relation to the other players in the story. Once we saw what Patrick could do with him, however, he quickly blossomed into an incredibly dynamic and multi-faceted person in this world, which is awesome. That’s been the best part of getting to work with our actors so closely ahead of shooting. By really getting to see how they experience and take on the character, it shows us the depths we can go with them.

Can you tell us about how & where you filmed the series? Were there any specific locations you used?

For our first episodes we used a few big locations – one pretty famous one that many shows use is Crease Clinic at Riverview, an abandoned hospital in Vancouver that’s been out of use. It’s probably the creepiest building I’ve ever been in, mainly because of its strange history. We also filmed a great deal of the show in the woods surrounding Vancouver, which turned out absolutely beautiful.

All in all, it was really important to us that our shooting took place in real, tangible locations. While green screen shooting is definitely one way to get the set you need, we thought it’d give the audience and the actors so much more to experience if we took the time to hunt down and find the places that you’d really see if you were in Eleysia. And we’ve got even more awesome places lined up for the next batch!

Did you have any of the cast members in mind whilst writing the scripts?

I”d have to say ‘yes and no’. When writing, certain actors came to mind as inspiration for the look and feel of the character, but I don’t think we ever had anyone specific in mind that we were writing for. We had our wish list, definitely, and we’ve been lucky enough to get pretty much all of them so far. It’s great too, because the more buzz we get, the more people want to be a part of it, so we’ve been having a lot of great actors want to be a part of it, which we’re very grateful for.

Is there anything you would like to use in the series that you haven’t used so far?

I’d love to see more of the technology that’s in this world – airships, for example. We have these great designs for how they’re constructed, their operational capabilities, all sorts of fun and nerdy stuff. As we progress further into the show you’ll begin to see more and more of those types of elements appear.

What can we fans expect to see?

Lots of drama and ass-kicking. Because of the caliber of actors we have, they’re really able to pull off some very powerful and emotional scenes, which makes the story that much more compelling. And let me just say, the s*** is going to hit the fan in the next set of episodes. That’s when we really begin to enter the depths of these characters and their own interpersonal drama and histories.

And yes, lots of fighting. We’re really fortunate to have an incredibly talented stunt and fight coordinator on board who’s worked on a lot of the big shows shot in Vancouver. I know in the next set of episodes there are going to be some really epic battles.

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