It's hard to believe the Power Rangers have been on for twenty-two years. There have been different variants and themes but the core of the show remains the same. The current season is under the title of Power Rangers Dino Charge. The story here is a dinosauroid-like alien was on the run from the evil Sledge across the galaxy while trying to protect the Energems that could be used to conquer the galaxy in the wrong hands. The alien crashed on Earth and millions of years later, a new group of Rangers is formed to protect the Energems and fight the evil forces that come their way.
We had the chance to talk to Camille Hyde and Brennan Mejia, the Pink and Red Rangers, about what it's like to work on the show and what we can expect in the rest of the season.
COMIC VINE: What’s it been like so far working on the show?
BRENNAN MEJIA: It’s been incredibly life changing actually. It was my first time out of the country, getting to shoot in New Zealand. For me, that was just a major life goal. Being able to do it with Power Rangers, which was a childhood goal as most teenagers in America wanting to be a Power Ranger, I actually got to do both. A kill two birds with one stone kind of thing.
CAMILLE HYDE: Yeah. For me it was also an amazing experience being out of the country and being able to call yourself a local in such a different place. It’s something that not a lot of people get to do in their lifetime. It was great to be able to do that and also to be on a show that reaches so many different demographics. We have young fans. We have middle-age fans that have been fans since the beginning. It’s really awesome to be a part of that legacy.
CV: So you’re filming in New Zealand?
BRENNAN: We do. We do.
CAMILLE: Yeah.
CV: How long did you guys spend filming there?
BRENNAN: We shot both seasons kind of back to back. It was eight or nine months. Something around there.
CV: What sort of training routines do you have to go through? How much action do you see compared to footage that is brought in from the Japanese series?
BRENNAN: We were actually fortunate because our executive producer, Chip Lynn, he came back to head our specific season. He wrote a lot of original content we got to shoot compared to some previous seasons, which were more Japanese heavy footage. We still had that blend of course. We trained with the Japanese stunt team for the better part of a month, three hours a day, doing a bunch of different fight sequences, tumbling, and falls. We learned all the ropes and they were a great team to work with. They got us into great shape to be able to do a lot of our own action. It was a blast.
CV: And you have to spend time in a recording studio doing voice overs?
CAMILLE: We spend about 60 to 90 minutes per episode doing voice over just to capture some of the moments when we’re fighting inside of our costumes. A lot of the magic happens inside of the recording booth, which is pretty cool.
CV: What’s it like when you see the final version when you hear your voice over the action?
CAMILLE: It’s awesome. We see the footage that took us so long to film and it took a village of people to put it together. When it comes to life on screen, it just makes it all worth it. It looks pretty awesome, actually. It makes it easy for a mid-twenties to enjoy a kids’ show.
BRENNAN: Definitely. We also get a sneak peek before the episodes go on air, on account that we have to lay down the voice over track. When we’re on set and we’re looking at a tennis ball on the end of a stick as an eye-line for something and to be able to see it on screen as a hologram projector or a giant monster is so cool to actually see.
CAMILLE: “Oh, that makes sense why we did that now!”
BRENNAN: “Why was I scared of this tennis ball? Oh, it was a fifty foot tall monster.”
CV: You mentioned your thoughts on becoming part of this iconic series. What was it like once your first put on your costume?
BRENNAN: Leveled up from wanna-be to getting-to-be.
CAMILLE: You wake up early, do your job, and for the most part, it was fun. Sometimes it was trying and difficult, but I feel that made all of us grow as artists and also as responsible young adults. Having such a huge first job kind of set us forward as far as being young and going into the workforce because now, we’re vets.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CAMILLE: We came out of there as warriors.
BRENNAN: Power Rangers has been on since 1993 so we’re part of a legacy that already has this awesome dynamic fan base. Being able to be on a show that already supports so many people, it’s incredible. I mean, most people when they go on a new show, they’re not sure if the fans are going to like it or not. There’s no one that even knows what the new show is. For us, we’re filling shoes, although it’s a new story, the story is connected through decades of other stories. It all just bumps together and it’s really incredible.
CV: When you go out in public, do you try to avoid wearing red or pink to avoid getting recognized?
[laughs]
CAMILLE: Brennan wears red at any opportunity that he gets.
BRENNAN: I feel like it’s just become a part of me so I have to have something red on.
CAMILLE: Yeah. Oddly enough, I was a huge tomboy growing up, which is funny because my character, Shelby, was a tomboy. I never wore pink. I always wore blue or green. After this show, I actually, without paying attention to it, always find myself with pink. When people see me, like my friends, they’re like, “Oh, you like pink now?” But I really promise you, it’s just a coincidence.
BRENNAN: We were forced…well, not forced, but our characters wore it every day for the better part of a year…
CAMILLE: It became natural.
CV: What can we expect in the second season? How will it compare to the first?
BRENNAN: Amazingness. I mean, not that the first season isn’t amazing on its own. The second, we’ve come into our own as Power Rangers, as leaders, just fleshing out our characters. We’ve got a grip on who we are.
CAMILLE: It gets pretty intense.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CAMILLE: I feel like the writers kind of eased into the first season and this next season, they’re just letting it go. They’re letting all of us just maximize our potential. Each Ranger is good at a different thing. In the second season, you really see all of us flourish into whatever we’re supposed to be.
BRENNAN: And not to mention, you meet a bunch of other Rangers as well.
CV: That was my next question. Can you tease any of the new Rangers or characters that we’ll see?
BRENNAN: Uuuuuh…not at this time.
CAMILLE: Well, on the last episode, we actually revealed the Gold Ranger.
BRENNAN: This is true.
CAMILLE: He’s played by Davi Santos. It was really funny because he joined us about a month and a half after we were all already in New Zealand. We couldn’t talk about him at all or even mention he was around. It’s great now the fans get to see the Gold Ranger because he’s such a cool addition to our team. He has this really really cool weapon.
BRENNAN: Definitely.
CAMILLE: What is it? That…
BRENNAN: Ptera Saber?
CAMILLE: Yeah. It’s really cool. That’s one exciting thing. The rest, you’re just going to have to watch out for.
BRENNAN: Speaking of Davi, one of the fun little things, behind the scenes, whenever we wanted to take a group picture, Davi couldn’t be in it. We wanted to post it to social media so we’d do a “with Davi picture” and “without Davi picture.” Now we have to go back and find all those “with Davi” pictures to be able to release them because we were never allowed to.
CV: With the monsters you fight in the show, have you ever seen anything in real life you can’t explain?
BRENNAN: Hmm, you mean like paranormal things?
CV: Sure, anything.
CAMILLE: Actually, I have this one incident when I was about nine years old. My family used to go up to Cape Cod every summer. I would go to a barn to ride horses everyday (because that’s all I really cared about). I would work at the barn after my riding lesson. Out in the field, in this old country town, in Cape Cod in Massachusetts, I was out there alone, filling up water for horses. I hear this thud and feel this push. I fall onto the ground and I’m nine years old filling up water in the middle of a field with no one else around me, just horses. I can’t look around and ask anyone if they saw anything. I just fell to the ground. I stood up and just silently ran away. I dropped the water and ran away. I didn’t talk about it to anyone for like a month because I couldn’t explain it and I didn’t want to sound crazy.
BRENNAN: And now that she’s a Pink Ranger, ghosts don’t mess with her anymore.
CAMILLE: Exactly! They don’t mess with me anymore.
CV: The show has prepared you now if anything strange happens.
CAMILLE: Yes. Every spirit or ghost, they all know we are not forces to be reckoned with.
BRENNAN: We are forces to be reckoned with.
CAMILLE: We are forces.
[laughs]
CV: It sounds like you guys are having a blast. The show’s fun to watch. I’m glad the shows still going on, for so long.
CAMILLE: Oh yeah. It’s an amazing experience and I’m sure it transcends on screen in just how much fun we have the entire time.
Power Rangers Dino Charge airs Saturdays on Nickelodeon at 12/11C. Here's a clip from a previous episode.
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