“We would usually shoot way more material than we could cram into our forty-minute box. The network did start going, “We’re wasting an awful lot of money.” They would call it wasting. It hurts you later, in fairness, when you ask them for extra money for big shows, when you’re doing a bigger show like the New Caprica storylines or the finale or something. You go to them and ask for extra money, and they’re like, “Well, maybe you’d have more money if you hadn’t spent all this other money on footage that didn’t even make it into the show,” which is a fair argument. […] I just think it helps to cut down. It helps to figure out what works and what doesn’t later. I’d rather shoot it all, put it together, and then realize, “Oh, this section doesn’t work” or “I’m having problems with this one and I’ve got material. I like having more than enough to play with and don’t like making the final decision on stuff at the script stage.
I’d rather shoot all this stuff knowing it’s not all going to fit in the show and, yeah, it’s going to be wasted footage. Yeah, it’s too much money, but you know what? So what. It’s just money. In ten years when I’m having conversations like this one, no one’s going to give a shit. No one will care. We don’t care today, and we’re not going to care tomorrow and it’s just going to make the show better, so just shut up and leave me alone.”
— Ron Moore on Battlestar Galactica (via)