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516 lines
21 KiB
516 lines
21 KiB
JMS on GEnie
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July 1996 postings
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 374 Mon Jul 08, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:43 EDT
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If GEnie should go away -- and I haven't heard anything either
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way on this -- I'd just stick with the other services I'm on already, mainly
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CIS, AOL and rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 381 Tue Jul 09, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 22:27 EDT
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I've said it before, I'll say it again: this show was born under
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a black star.
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Starting from the debut of the pilot in New York, where we were
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literally blown off the air by the World Trade Center blast, which took out
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WWOR's antenna, until now, anything that can go wrong, does.
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After 3 years, we're finally, FINALLY, going to get a good sized
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article in TV Guide (July 27th) as part of their SF round up. They sent a
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photo crew out to do the shoot. Very difficult and elaborate, cast came
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in on breaks and cut short time away to do it.
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So today WB calls to say that after Federal Expressing the
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original negatives, transparencies, everything, to NY in time for the
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article, the truck carrying the art was hijacked at gunpoint, and
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everything inside went with it. So now it's too late to redo the shoot,
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and they'll have to go with older art provided by WB.
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We can't catch a break on this show....
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 390 Wed Jul 10, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:49 EDT
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No, the driver was fine, only the stuff was taken, driven off.
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Boy, those Paramount boys'll stop at nothing....
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(the preceding was a joke, for the jocularity deficient)
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 2
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Message 234 Tue Jul 09, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 15:50 EDT
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Yes, the UK will be getting the final 5 starting in August. WB
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Int'l had agreed to the run straight through, and C4 held them to it. To
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change it would've caused problems.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 2
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Message 241 Tue Jul 09, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 22:31 EDT
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Allen: yes, that's a correct statement.
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Trys: why can't they change us? Situation is this: the UK
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doesn't have ratings periods. The US does. They check their ratings all
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the time, and determine their rates for advertising, and don't generally
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have rerun periods. So they play straight through.
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If WB plays the shows in July, August, or September, those aren't
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sweeps periods. Also, those months are when TV viewership figures (they
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call them HUTs, Households Using Television) are at their lowest, because
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people are away from home, on vacation, at the beach, whatever. The
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November sweeps are *crucial* to keeping a show on the air. So WB wants
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to air the final 5 in October, to ramp up the ratings in November, for
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that reason. (It often takes weeks for people not online to discover
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there ARE new episodes on.)
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If they play us out of sweeps, we're a less valuable commodity to
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the stations, and thus it's more likely we'd get canceled. Pick your
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poison.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 427 Fri Jul 12, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 16:37 EDT
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I think part of the disagreement here comes over how you define
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what a STORY is. A story is the connotation of consequences, and
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context, as opposed to a PLOT, which is the series of events in which the
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story takes place, A, B, C, D. "The king died, and then the queen died"
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is a basic plot. "The king died, and then the queen died of grief" is a
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story.
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I preface this by saying I haven't seen ID4 yet, so take what
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follows cum granus salus, but....
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As I understand it, ID4 is an incident/plot driven movie. Bad
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aliens come to Earth. Bad aliens smash. Good humans smash back. Good
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humans win. The aliens are there to shoot and be shot at, and we don't
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really know much about who they are, where they come from, their
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cosmology, any of that. It's a series of incidents.
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With Star Wars, you got the sense of things happening outside the
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plot, and you got the sense of context and consequences. It delved into
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matters of belief, the use of the Force, the Zen notion of letting go of
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the conscious self. It carried with it a sense of history, the notion
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that there had been prior wars, and the whole history of the Jedi
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Knights, which carried with it a sense of mystery and wonder. There was
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a fairly well realized political framework, with Imperials and rebels and
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other planets that chose not to get involved. You got the sense that the
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events in the story came from somewhere, and would lead to something.
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There's not much question that Star Wars contains more actual
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story than ID4. Which isn't the same thing as saying that one is
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*better* than the other. That's a mug's game, because whatever's better
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for us is a purely subjective decision. But one can point to the two
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movies and say, with a fair amount of objectivity, which one contains
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*more* story than the other, which involved the most creativity and
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world-building.
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Just to try and clarify the argument a little....
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 33
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Message 278 Fri Jul 12, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:46 EDT
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So given that all of season 3 has only one author, given that you
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can easily define a season (apparently there was some confusion about what
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a season is) as Year 3, episodes 301-322, given that this year they're
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MUCH more directly linked as one dramatic unit...what d'you think the
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odds would be of getting all of season 3 of B5 considered as one dramatic
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unit for Hugo consideration next season?
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(Heck, we gotta compete with ID4 *somehow*....)
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 33
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Message 281 Fri Jul 12, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 16:51 EDT
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But is it really an exception? You have two books as potential
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nominees. One is 100,000 words long, the other is a huge 300,000 word
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potboiler. But they're both written by one author, so they're both
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eligible. If a two-part episode can be considered a dramatic unit
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because it has one author, and a single episode can be considered because
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it has one author, then why not a 22- parter with only one author? Just
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because the unit has more pages shouldn't mitigate against it any more
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than the 300,000 word novel should be disqualified.
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If you stop and think about it dispassionately for a moment, the
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exception would be in NOT allowing a whole one-author season be
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nominated. The committee has already allowed the notion of multiple-part
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nominees by accepting two-parters. You've crossed the one-episode barrier
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already. So logically if you've accepted that, why suddenly change it to
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just one episode?
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Conceivably, I could take all 22 scripts, put a huge binder on
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it, and slap a cover page on it reading SEASON THREE, WRITTEN BY J. MICHAEL
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STRACZYNSKI, and drop that one single unit on the desk of the
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committee and say, "Here, here's one dramatic unit."
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On one level, it's really kind of an intellectual exercise; I
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like to feather around the rules and see what things mean when little things
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get changed, and what the *sense* of the rule is vs. how it's applied
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sometimes.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 458 Tue Jul 16, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:14 EDT
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I was in college when Star Wars hit, first year or so, I think,
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and had somehow managed to utterly and completely miss ALL of the hype
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and PR about the movie *for the entire duration of its run*. (I was, by
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turns, studying heavily, writing heavily and dating heavily.) I finally
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wandered in to see it on the last day of a screening run at a small
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theater in Chula Vista, about the last place on earth still playing it by
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that late date. Sat down to watch it, figuring it'd be another cheesy
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awful film like the (I think) Star Invasion movie I'd seen just before,
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with Robert Vaughn, I think, and Christopher Lee....
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No expectations, no knowledge. Tabula rasa.
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Two or three other people in the theater as it went dark.
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That first shot pinned my ears to the back of the room and never
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left.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 467 Wed Jul 17, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:20 EDT
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I'd say Sinclair and Garibaldi both caught traces of that future.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 26
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Message 448 Sat Jul 13, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 02:14 EDT
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The videos were the same, in the case of "Requiem," but the
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projection system wasn't really up to snuff.
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Now, I toss out a philosophical question for general
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consideration.
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When they first showed "Requiem," I was watching from the back,
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as is my wont. I always try to make sure *everybody* can see and hear
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stuff as well as conceivable. The lights were on low in the middle of
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the room, which washed out about 60% of the video; there were whole
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sections where you couldn't see squat.
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I was very bugged about this, and when I went to the stage, and
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set up things to show, I said bring the lights down *all the way*. One
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person with the con said "We can't do that." This seemed remarkable to
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me, as I understood that most electrical devices had on and off switches.
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So I cupped the mike and indicated that if the lights didn't go down I'd
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shoot them out. They went down.
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The second time we went dark, I found out what was going on sub
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rosa. There were, I think, 3 or 5 deaf people in the front of the room,
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and had someone signing for them to tell them what was being said on the
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clips. The person doing the signing was very upset with me, to say the
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least.
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So here's the dilemma: you keep the lights up, and 2,400 people
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can't SEE the screens. If you lower the lights, they can, but the 3-5
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people with hearing problems can't hear what's being said.
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The logical solution, I believe, was what I did: the lights go
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down, on the theory that the 2,400 outnumber the 3-5. But at the same
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time, I'm sensitive to the problem. I know that the signer was
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upset...but at the same time, I figure, if you knew you were going to be
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signing in a room where a SCREENING was going on, which therefore would
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get dark, you'd bring a low-level light or flashlight for those periods.
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Comments? Discussions?
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I think I made the right decision...but it's a tough call, y'know?
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 26
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Message 463 Sun Jul 14, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:26 EDT
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Unfortunately, my master copies aren't closed-captioned, only
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the broadcast copies, because that takes 'em down a generation.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 33
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Message 297 Mon Jul 15, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:16 EDT
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Actually, I'd mitigate *against* the 5-year story being
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considered as a whole dramatic unit because it has multiple writers. I
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think that would tend to violate the spirit of the Hugos.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 501 Fri Jul 19, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 20:14 EDT
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For those with questions about the fan club, or who haven't yet
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received some of the material, B5FC head Jim Lockett now has an email
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address: JPLB5@AOL.COM.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 532 Mon Jul 22, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:44 EDT
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Peter: well, as you note, if the response hadn't been as strong
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as it is, we'd likely be off the air and it'd be a moot point. (Or, if
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the show were swallowed into silence, maybe that'd be a mute point.) But
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for the sake of argument, let's take a middle ground...sufficient ratings
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to stay on the air, but zip in the way of direct response: no B5 forums,
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topics, web pages...a silence vast as space.
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I'd do exactly what I'm doing. I can't work any other way. I
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believe in this show, in the story I'm telling, right down to my socks.
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Not to be grandious, because I'm not even within 50 light years of this
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class, but...in his lifetime, Van Gogh sold exactly 1 painting, for (I
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believe) 40 francs. Everyone considered him a failure. He lived with
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his brother, who paid his bills, kept him in food and clothing, which he
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felt VERY guilty about...nobody knew him, or his work. But what he
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painted, he painted. He painted what moved him, what *meant* something
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to him. And if the world noticed, or if it did not, that didn't change
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what he saw, or the way he presented it on canvas.
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He suffered greatly, endured greatly, but the work was the work.
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It was in-between that his life was most disasterous, when he wasn't
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working, when he wasn't *seeing*. And it was in that dry stretch that,
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on a warm Spring afternoon, he went out into a field five miles from his
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brother Theo's home, put a gun to his chest, and fired...out of guilt for
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taking up so much of his brother's money, out of fear, out of failure,
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the vessel not the equal of the talent it contained. (And even at that,
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he failed; the bullet did not kill him at once. He lay there for almost
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an hour, then crawled back to Theo's home, where several hours later, he
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died in his brother's arms.)
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And now, today, industrialists and collectors pay millions of
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dollars to hold one of his paintings to their eyes and peer through the
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bars to greatness...for the chance to see what Van Gogh saw through those
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tragic eyes.
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The work is the work. To fall prey to despair when it isn't seen
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for what (you hope) it is...or to puff proud like a pouter pigeon when the
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crowds cry out your name...both are equally anathema to the creative drive.
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You have to listen to the calm, clear voice in the back of your head and
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paint what you must paint, write what you must write, dance what you must
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dance and sing what you must sing, because to *not* do so is suicide, and
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to do so for the wrong reasons, to appeal to the momentary trends of the
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crowd, is a much slower but just as sure a death.
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The story is the story, and the work is the work. There is no
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other answer that would mean a damn.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 547 Tue Jul 23, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 16:58 EDT
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Vampyr: Zelazny collected 500 rejection slips before he sold
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anything, so you've got at least 499 more to go before you're entitled to
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get depressed.
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And yes, the piece can be reprinted, as can anything I write
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here.
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I'd hoped not to generally have this known...but no, I don't
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drive. I have a bit of a proble with depth perception that only comes
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into play really in any significant way when I'm behind the wheel of a car.
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Translation: I hit things, and they frown on that. So for the good of the
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Commonweal, I stay off the roads.
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So I don't know who drove off at LosCon, but it weren't me.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 553 Wed Jul 24, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:26 EDT
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I get around...it just requires a certain degree of creativity
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some days.
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(And yes, I have the stamp, thanks, it's very cool.)
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 557 Wed Jul 24, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:45 EDT
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Hmmm...I don't know this for a fact, I'm only speculating, but
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the station could be burning off its committment to clear the decks and
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the ledgers. Could be interesting if it backfires and starts doing well
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for them, which has the potential to happen when someone starts stripping
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the show nightly....
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 586 Thu Jul 25, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 14:51 EDT
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The driving *can* be done...but from my perspective, knowing me,
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not as safely as I feel should be the case. Unless I'm 100% confident of my
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ability, I won't get behind the wheel of a car and risk hurting
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someone. It's just not something I can do with a clear conscience.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 12
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Message 354 Tue Jul 23, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 17:02 EDT
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It's "arc," as story arc, he kinda misunderstood.
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I'm rather conflicted about the article...on one hand, it's a
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positive article, and one should be properly thankful for that. On the
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other, I'd thought it'd be about the show, and the cast (I wasn't even in
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the photo shoot, which is standard, so again I figured it was about the
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show per se), and instead it's mainly jms stuff, which I'm kinda so-so
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about. And on the third hand (I have a third hand now), it feels like he
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was looking for some kind of angle on the story, found this one -- that
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we are ABOUT something -- and kinda ran it into the ground.
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It seems these days that if you care about something, if you want
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to make a statement, or believe in your work, somehow that's passe, and
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it's trendy to poke fun at passion. The trouble with cynicism is that it
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tends to devolve into contempt, and these are cynical times.
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So I dunno...good article, in most ways, others...just kinda sets
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my teeth on edge. But again, this is the first time they've really
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acknowledged us, so I have no complaints. I'm happy they did it.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 608 Fri Jul 26, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 15:19 EDT
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Re: a gold-plated limo...dream on. Syndication pays roughly half
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what network shows pay. My agent still shakes her head that I left Murder,
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She Wrote and took a 50% pay cut to do B5.
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The Pegasus Publishing bumper stickers are definitely unlicensed.
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Script #3 title: "The Summoning."
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 624 Fri Jul 26, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 23:58 EDT
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BMW? Please, it's a Mercedes 300E, my only concession to working
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in TV, also because it's a very safe car. (1990 model, still going strong.)
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 2
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Message 320 Sat Jul 27, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 05:46 EDT
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There are no current plans for Talia's return.
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jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 648 Sun Jul 28, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 23:48 EDT
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Mike: the problem is we're telling different stories. What makes
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it interesting for me is that Sheridan *isn't* prepared, Kosh *didn't*
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finish his training. It isn't nice and tidy. And to stop and explain
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the dream in "Interludes" would've meant taking, oh, about 3-5 minutes
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|
OUT of that episode, and it's very tight as it is. And it would've just
|
|
been a case of, "Here, here's this bit of exposition relating to
|
|
something you've seen before."
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|
No, the dream *does* get explained...and it gets explained *this
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season*, in the course of the final five. In detail. But at the right
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|
time, and in the right place. To have explained it sooner wouldn't work,
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|
it has to come at the right moment, with the last bits of information our
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characters need to *use* that interpretation.
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jms
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------------
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SFRT II RoundTable
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Category 18, Topic 1
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Message 372 Tue Jul 30, 1996
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STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 16:37 EDT
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Van Dyke had considerable problems with alcohol for many years
|
|
before finally coming out the other side, which were widely known and
|
|
reported, and he's been very open in talking about them.
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|
And yes, definitely know that Rod's no longer with us, I was just
|
|
playing into the TZ sensibility for a moment. (While on TZ3 I did a
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|
posthumous collaboration with Serling, taking his outline for "Our Selena
|
|
Is Dying" and turning it into a full episode of the show.)
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jms
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------------
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