Interview with Marc and Shannon Parker of "Dream Machines" on Syfy - Primetime TV Show Articles From The TV MegaSite
 

The TV MegaSite, Inc.  TV Is Our Life!

Happy Valentine's Week!




Click here to help fight hunger!
Fight hunger and malnutrition.
Donate to Action Against Hunger today!





Quantcast

MainNewsReviewsOur ShowsEpisode GuidesBuy!CommunityPolls
AutographsPhotosWallpapersPuzzles & GamesLinksStarsVideosOther


WELCOME to The TVMEGASITE.NET
Primetime  Articles & Interviews Page

We Love TV!

This is just an unofficial fan page, we have no connection to any shows or networks.

Please click here to vote for our site!
Click Here to Visit!

By Suzanne

By Krista

Marc and Shannon Parker

Interview with Marc and Shannon Parker of "Dream Machines" on Syfy 4/3/12

Syfy DREAM MACHINES Q&A
with Marc and Shannon Parker
April 3, 2012 12:00 pm CT

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Syfy conference call, Dream Machines. During the presentation all participants will be in a listen only mode. Afterwards we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time if you have a question please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at anytime during the conference you need to reach an operator please press star 0. As a reminder this conference is being recorded, Tuesday, April 3, 2012.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephen Cox from Syfy. Please go ahead sir.

Stephen Cox: Hi everyone and thanks for joining us today. We’re very excited to have Dream Machines stars Marc and Shannon Parker with us to answer your questions. Just a reminder Dream Machines premieres next Tuesday at 10:00 pm only on Syfy. And Press Kits should be hitting desks tomorrow. So without further ado we will turn it over to your questions for Marc and Shannon.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen if you would like to register a question please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. You will hear a three tone prompt to acknowledge your request. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press the 1 followed by the 3. You will be limited to one question and you may requeue for follow up. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before entering your request. One moment please for the first question.

Our first question coming from the line of Jamie Ruby with Scifivision.com. Please proceed with your question.

Jamie Ruby: Hi guys, thanks for talking to us today.

Man: Hi, how are you doing?

Jamie Ruby: Good. So can you just kind of start by telling us, what kind of vehicles and that we’re going to see on the show this season?

Man: What kind of what?

Jamie Ruby: What, vehicles whatever they’re going to be like. Can you tell us a bit about that because we haven’t really seen anything yet as far as that?

Man: Well the vehicles that we build are really kind of out there I guess is the only way to explain it. We don’t really prescribe to the standard build the same stuff that everybody else is building. We try and challenge ourselves every week to build something that supposedly can’t be built or shouldn’t be built. And we definitely have a lot more of a sci fi edge with the things that we build. So it’s a perfect match for us to be with the Syfy channel, we have a lot of stuff that’s inspired by science fiction movies and comic books and things of that nature.

So, we build everything from cars, motorcycles, I know there was a few, I think there was a submarine actually proposed at one time. I don’t believe that will be in Season One but, anything that they come at us with, we like to build the strange and unusual. So it won’t be just a motorcycle show or just a car show, it’ll be, every week we’ll be building something different.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Tim Holquinn with The Outhouse. Please proceed with your question.

Tim Holquinn: Hi guys, nice to talk to you.

Man: You too.

Tim Holquinn: I have multiple questions but I’ll just ask the first one here. You didn’t mention any flying cars although the - I hear that in the first episode you do go up in jets and 50 cent has a jet car built. So I was wondering if you’ll ever be getting involved with like kit copter cars. I don’t really think that the Moller or (Terepegia) is going to happen anytime soon. But a lot of people are into this kit copter cars. You know what I’m talking about? Will that come up?

Man: We have actually dabbled with the idea of, flying type vehicles. It will come up because it’s something that we’re passionate about. We want to push the envelope with vehicles and it doesn’t necessarily have to be on the road. So you will definitely see at least our attempts at making things work that you wouldn’t normally think could work. I won’t always say that they will work out perfectly but it is because it’s a prototype and these ideas don’t always work out but we’re willing to go there and push the limits and at least try.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Beth Beecham with Hollywood Junket. Please proceed with your question.

Beth Beecham: Hi, thank you so much for your time today. I was curious, what do you guys think about the self driving cars? Do you have any of those that you’ve created?

Shannon Parker: We have yet to do a self driving car but things like that are definitely up our alley. I men, those are the things that we like to pursue as, the things that haven’t been done, radio controlled or computer controlled or, we’re looking into a lot of the alternative energy source things. We’re doing electric vehicles, we’re doing gas powered vehicles, anything like that is definitely what the show’s going to focus on.

Like I said we definitely want to try and push and the envelope every chance we get to do something that hasn’t been done so that, when people are watching the show they’re like oh, what are they going to do next because it’s not going to be the same thing every week.

Beth Beecham: Okay thank you, I look forward to seeing the show.

Man: Thank you.

Man: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen as a reminder to register for a question press the 1 followed by the 4. Our next question coming from the line of Krista Chain of TV Magazine. Please proceed with your question.

Krista Chain: Hey guys, thanks for talking to us today.

Man: Sure.

Krista Chain: My question was I was just wanting to know if you could maybe talk about - a little bit about how the concept for the show came about?

Shannon Parker: I would say the concepts come, from all kinds of places. The idea for the show came from us, we started out making vehicles for ourselves but we were making things that were really out there. And I guess it just kind of took off from there that people saw that we could build these outlandish vehicles. And, they wanted to see if we were interested in doing something like that on a fulltime basis. And, next thing you know here we are.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is a follow up question coming from the line of Jamie Ruby with Scifivision.com. Please proceed with your question.

Jamie Ruby: Hi again. So out of everything you’ve created so far what’s been kind of your favorite after, you finish the creation?

Man: Our favorite build?

Jamie Ruby: Yes.

Marc Parker: we’ve been asked that so many times and honestly it’s almost impossible to answer. We get so passionate about each one of these builds because they’re so unique and so different that every time we build something it’s our favorite until the next build. every - every one that we’ve built we’ll go ah, we’ll never be able to do anything cooler than that. And then the next thing we build we’re like oh yeah, we just blew the last one out of the water. So I don’t know if it would be possible to give a definitive this is absolute favorite because I couldn’t really choose. I’m not sure Shannon, how do you feel about that?

Shannon Parker: For me it’s like we love what we’re doing at the time so each build is our favorite at the time. And then, once we - once we realize that we can actually build that one, I think, then our passion goes to the next project, what is the next thing that people think can’t be done and let’s try to tackle that. So for us I think it’s - we love what we’re doing at the time. And after that we want to move onto the next thing.

Jamie Ruby: All right, thanks, thank you.

Man: It’s the power that drives us.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is a follow up question coming from the line of Tim Holquinn with The Outhouse. Please proceed with your question.

Tim Holquinn: Hi guys, me again. Last week there was a clip that hit the Web of two Batmobiles racing, the classic ‘60s and the Tim Burton version. And I don’t imagine that the majority or even many of your builds focus on speed but I was just wondering to what degree they do and if you ever like quarter mile time your - have records of how fast or what is your fastest creation ever?

Man: I would say, we don’t necessarily focus on speed but there are plenty of builds as you’ll see this season there are things that go really fast. We don’t really test to the limits because they are prototypes and one offs, we don’t want to - we build show vehicles but they are capable of doing a lot. One vehicle in particular has upwards of 750 horsepower. This season that you’ll see, there are plenty of them out there that have speed capabilities. It’s just a matter of who wants to take them out and test that?

Tim Holquinn: Are they street legal by and large?

Marc Parker: Almost all of them are street legal. We’re doing one for Universal Studios for a new movie they have coming out this summer called Battleship and it’s kind of an alien vehicle. And unfortunately there are no headlights or taillights on it and it’s kind of - I think it would scare the hell out of people if they saw it coming down the road. So that one won’t be street legal but pretty much everything else this season is street legal.

Shannon Parker: And we try to make these things street legal to a point just because we want people to understand that these are drivable, rideable vehicles and most of the time people think if it’s not street legal then it can’t actually be driven. These - all of these vehicles can actually be driven and driven, to a point. But a lot of times the design doesn’t bode well for, headlights or turn signals or things like that. So for the look, we would keep those off for the overall look of the vehicle to look what it needs to be.

Tim Holquinn: Okay and if I just fit in one last question. Being a child of the ‘80s I grew up loving vehicle centric shows like Blue Thunder and Knight Rider and then my brother who, a younger age group after me loved Transformers and a cartoon called Mask. And I was just wondering if you guys had any inspirations that (unintelligible) in your childhood -- that’s my phone beeping, sorry. But what - who were your childhood inspirations that first got you thinking about vehicles?

Marc Parker: I think you just - you just named about half of our inspirations right there. I mean, Shannon has always been a big comic book buff. You’ll see in the show his entire office is covered in comic books and he’s always been more into the - he was into Knight Rider and things of that nature and comic book based stuff. And I’ve always been more into the science fiction things like Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica and things like that. So yeah we’re definitely from the same era and we’ve always been really interested in the things that are more fantasy based.

Anything that’s a - that people are into because they look at it and go oh, that’s so cool, I wish it was real. That’s when we kind of step in and go hey, let’s see if we can make it real.

Tim Holquinn: Right. And what about like battle cars like James Bond -- this is my last question I’ll get off after this -- but do you do any super cars that have like fake weaponry, smoke bombs and oil slicks, stuff like that?

Man: We would gladly take on stuff like that if someone approached us with one of those kind of builds. I don’t think we have anything like that in this season. Although the thing that we’re building for Universal Studios is pretty much a battle - a battle ready vehicle that would pretty much take out a building if you wanted it to. But it’s just - like I said, every episode’s going to be so different that it’s hard to just say oh they’re all going to be like this or they’re all going to be like that. Anything that people want to approach us with we will gladly take on.

But yeah, I would love to build like a spy car that, had all the cool gadgets and everything on it. I mean, yeah James Bond, I’m all over that.

Tim Holquinn: Thank you so much for talking with us today.

Man: No problem.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is a follow up question coming from the line of Jamie Ruby. Please proceed with your question.

Jamie Ruby: Right. This season what’s been kind of the hardest creation that you’ve worked on (unintelligible)?

Man: Anything that I have to work with my brother on is pretty difficult to begin with so all of these have been pretty tough. But I would say...

Man: Filming a TV show is definitely the hardest part.

Man: Yeah, yeah, filming around some of these builds was pretty difficult but, there were several that have serious issues as far as making it reality. I would say probably the Shredder which is the final episode is probably our most time consuming, tedious process. But I think it’s going to - I think it’s going to overwhelm people when they see it so it will be worthwhile.

Jamie Ruby: Okay great, thanks so much.

Man: Absolutely.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is a follow up question coming from the line of Beth Beecham with Hollywood Junket. Please proceed with your question.

Beth Beecham: Hi, hello again. I notice in the trailer you had built something for 50 cent. I was curious as can you give us another example of a machine that you built for another celebrity?

Man: For this season’s builds, we do a car for 50 cent, we do a vehicle for John Cena, we’re doing the thing for Peter Berg’s new movie for Universal Studios.

Man: We built a vehicle for Autotrader.com.

Man: Yeah. We’re building or we just built a vehicle for the Susan G. Komen Foundation so that they could auction it off to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness. So, pretty much we kind of cover a lot of spectrums there from music to television to movies to charities. anything that - anything that anybody wants that’s not normal, we’re into it.

Beth Beecham: Okay, I’m also curious what your backgrounds are. How did you get into this? One - I know you both worked together on different aspects of building the cars.

Marc Parker: Yeah, we pretty much just grew up - we’ve always been interested in building things and tinkering. So stuff that we liked wasn’t available on the market, you couldn’t go out and buy the things that we were interested in having so we kind of had to learn from an early age how to create (unintelligible) that hadn’t been created before. And so, it was kind of necessity thing. When we were kids, Shannon would want to do different stuff (unintelligible) go karts or things like that. And so we just had to learn to do it on a small scale and as we grew up we continued with it and I don’t know, it just kind of evolved.

Beth Beecham: So there’s no education or formal training? Is it just something you learned on your own?

Man: Yeah, we’re self taught. We’re graduates of the University of Hard Knocks.

Man: We kind of have to, figure out things on our own and a lot of times on a budget as well which always made it, there’s no school out there that would teach you the kind of things that you need to learn for - for these builds. It’s just an every day learning process. And we had to do it on a budget when we were growing so we figured out that there is no - no that can’t be done kind of thing. Which, you would run into that a lot if you had plenty of money and you were just going to big companies asking them to do things for you. They’d say oh, that’s not possible.

Well what we realized was when we did it on our own and we just found a way to do it, it made it to be possible when everybody else said these things are impossible to do.

Beth Beecham: Okay great, that’s quite impressive. Thanks guys.

Man: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We have a follow up question coming from the line of Jamie Ruby. Please proceed with your question.

Jamie Ruby: So, you two mentioned obviously you worked together and you’re brothers. How do your techniques (unintelligible) different from each other?

Shannon Parker: I would say I’m obviously more into the design. Marc is more into the functionality. And somehow or another, we have to find a middle ground on all these builds to where they look like, what I envisioned to begin with and they actually function so that Marc’s happy. So it’s a little, give and take on both our parts to make things that actually work and look good at the same time.

Jamie Ruby: And have you guys - you ever create things for yourselves and then you keep them or has there ever been maybe one you made for somebody that you really wished you could have kept because it was so cool?

Man: All of them.

Shannon Parker: Yeah, there’s a lot of times, that we would love to keep some of these things for ourselves. Honestly, we can’t afford most of things that we make for other people. I drive a Honda Civic, Marc drives a Ford Focus so we’re not, we’re not wealthy by any stretch and most of these things are just way out of price range for us. But we enjoy the build more then we would enjoy actually having the vehicle anyway. So it’s, it’s good for us and it’s good for the client.

Jamie Ruby: Okay great, thanks so much.

Operator: Thank you. Mr. Cox there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to you.

Stephen Cox: Thank you much. Thank you again everyone for joining us today. Marc, Shannon we really appreciate your time. And just a reminder Dream Machines premieres next Tuesday, April 10th at 10:00 pm. Hopefully you’ll all tune in. Thank you very much. Have a great day everyone.

Man: Thank you.

Man: Thank you.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day.

Back to the Main Articles Page

Back to the Main Primetime TV Page

We need more episode guide recap writers, article writers, MS FrontPage and Web Expression users, graphics designers, and more, so please email us if you can help out!  More volunteers always needed!  Thanks!

Page updated 4/14/15

ComedyDramaSci fi and FantasySoap OperasCompetition


Google
 
Web SEARCH THE TV MEGASITE
Bookmark this section!
 
HomeDaytimePrimetimeTradingSite MapBuy!What's New!
Join UsAbout UsContactContestsBlogHelpCommunity