No, really.
Film and TV
Some days ago the thought occurred to me that the original story got very viral very quickly. Well, maybe there was a reason for that. Gawker puts forward their theory here…
Myself, I’ve been chuckling over the whole business since it started, as I have my own referent for monsters off Montauk. …For certain values of “monster”, that is. I like Ed.
(As it happens, Robert Heinlein liked him too. He said to me on the phone once, “You know, I’m a Navy man. We don’t like sharks. You made me like that shark. That was a dirty trick.”)
Meanwhile I find myself wondering when we’re going to get a more open / transparent clarification of the present Monster than the somewhat veiled one that Gawker describes….
(Non-technically inclined people, look away now. Or skip down to the bottom of this where it gets less technical.)
I have a lot more screenplay stuff to do today, but I had to take an hour or so off from that after having a quick look at the “Out of Ambit” log files on arising, and noticing that someone had been trying repeatedly to access pages on my site that didn’t exist. The URLs they were trying to reach had all the telltale signs of attempted SQL injection attacks, which I hate as they mess up my tidy logs. So I spent a relatively pleasurable short time watching the Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace” on UK Gold while getting things fixed. (There was a certain enjoyable resonance to watching the Doctor blowing up robots while I dealt with other people’s bots to their detriment.)
I am not going to reproduce the actual string in question, but info about it and a detailed analysis of the string and the attack are here. If you’re a webmastery-type person, or you run a blog or website and are technically capable of dealing with problems of this kind, you should have a look at your logs and see if you’ve been having this sort of attack. Then decide how you want to deal with it — redirects, blocking via your .htaccess file, whatever. (IP blocking is of no use because the attacks are coming from all over the place.)
Since I didn’t feel like spending all day futzing around with writing redirects, I downloaded a copy of the Redirection plugin for WordPress, activated it, and created a custom redirect to deal with this problem. Works fine. The naughty people (or the poor bot-infested machines that have been dragooned into this) who come to OOA and attempt to inject this string are now being sent to a place of appropriate punishment.
That’s all the techie bit for today.
The only other thing of interest that’s happened is that (after finding myself thinking how long I’ve liked the Doctor, and liked him a whole lot) I got vaguely curious about the whereabouts of an article I wrote for a Balticon program book many years ago: a discussion of the uses of imagination (among other things). It was called “Meetings on the Stair”. I dug it out, updated and cleaned it up a little, and posted it so I can find it later if I want it for something: it’s here, if anybody’s interested. I suppose I’ll also stick it up as a pre-dated blog posting, so it won’t screw up the present blog entry sequence.
Now then… back to that script.
And how not, when he writes stuff like this?
Moviegoers who knowingly buy a ticket for “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” are going to get exactly what they expect: There is a mummy, a tomb, a dragon and an emperor. And the movie about them is all that it could be. If you think “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” sounds like a waste of time, don’t waste yours.
I, as it happens, have time to waste and cannot do better than to quote from my review of “The Mummy” (1999): “There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased. There is a little immaturity stuck away in the crannies of even the most judicious of us, and we should treasure it.”
Go Roger! Go Roger! Go Roger! Go Roger! (etc)
Tags: Roger+Ebert, film, review, Mummy, Dragon, Emperor, Tomb
Just stumbled across a reference to this at Lou Romano’s weblog —
Totoro Forest Project is an international charity effort to save Sayama Forest, also known as Totoro Forest. This endangered sanctuary on the outskirts of Tokyo is where director Hayao Miyazaki got the inspiration for his much-loved character “Totoro”.
Over 200 top international artists from animation, illustration and comics are donating artwork especially created for this cause. Find out more about the auction event, preview the incredible art collection, and please consider supporting the Totoro Forest Project with your generous contribution.
[scrippet]
INT. NITA’S BEDROOM — NIGHT
She’s hidden by the tented-up blankets on her bed. The dim light welling out from underneath would make you think she’s doing the reading-by-flashlight thing.
NITA (O.S.)
I don’t get why some spells call for these weird objects. The knotted string you were using. Batteries. Sugar cubes! Who needs this stuff when you have the Speech?
KIT (V.O.)
It’s something to do with the way they bend space around them.
INT. NITA’S BEDROOM — UNDER THE COVERS WITH HER — NIGHT
She’s reading the Manual by Fred’s light, while using the Manual to talk to Kit. We can see his face in a WINDOW on the open page.
KIT (V.O.)
They’re shortcuts. You could do it with words, but it’d take more energy.
NITA
Today took plenty. I feel like I had three gym classes in a row.
KIT (V.O.)
The Manual says it’s like exercise. It takes time to get in shape.
NITA
I can’t wait forever for my magical muscles to bulk up! I’ve got to get my pen back before Joanne loses interest and ditches it.
KIT
We’ll start Operation Frustrated Bully first thing Monday morning. Did you look up Fred’s “advisories?”
NITA
Yeah. They’re other wizards! Older ones, here in town.
NITA’S MOM
Nita?
Nita’s eyes go wide in reaction.
NITA
(whispers)
Fred — !
INT. NITA’S BEDROOM — CONTINUOUS
Her mother stands in the doorway.
NITA’S MOM
Who are you talking to? Don’t say “nobody.”
NITA
Uh, a kid I met today. A friend.
NITA’S MOM
Fine. Come out of there.
Nita’s head pops out from under the covers.
NITA’S MOM (CONT’D)
You know the rules about phone calls after lights out.
Her mom holds her hand out. Nita grimaces, SIGHS an exaggerated teenage sigh, reaches under the blankets and hands her mother her CELLPHONE.
NITA’S MOM (CONT’D)
And on the subject of lights…
Nita reaches under the blankets: the light under them GOES OUT. Nita pulls out a FLASHLIGHT and hands it to her mother.
NITA’S MOM (CONT’D)
Thank you. Now get some sleep!
She goes out, shuts the door.
INT. NITA’S BEDROOM — UNDER THE COVERS — CONTINUOUS
Nita ducks under the blankets again.
FRED
Is it all right now?
NITA
Yeah.
Fred’s light FADES UP. Nita opens her Manual again: Kit looks out at her.
KIT (V.O.)
Everything okay?
NITA
Yeah, my mom thinks I’ve been disarmed. Where were we?
KIT (V.O.)
The third part of that repulsion spell. Let the seventh-graders deal with that.
NITA
Right. Fred, a little more light here?
FRED
Sure.
KIT
Don’t think you’re gonna hog him! I get him tomorrow night.
NITA
So I keep hearing. Now about the rest of these ingredients…
[/scrippet]
(etc…)
From the newsblog that appears on Blogger’s dashboard page:
I am overjoyed to announce that today we have o’ficially graduated the new version of Blogger from “in beta” to “.” Why is this significant? Allow me to explain via analogy:
Battlestar Galactica with Lorne Greene : Battlestar Galactica with Edward James Olmos :: Old Blogger : New Blogger
(chuckle)
Now playing: street music – Cylinder Piano Tunes
[tags]Blogger, Battlestar Galactica[/tags]
Ron Moore is going to be writing the screenplay for the new version of The Thing. (via Variety and various other sources)
Go Ron!!
(And something from the Variety article that seems to have slipped under the radar: “Moore, who’s repped by CAA, just scripted an “I, Robot” sequel for Fox.”)
[tags]Ronald D. Moore, Ron Moore, Battlestar Galactica, BSG, The Thing, John Carpenter[/tags]
Notes
There are just a couple of things on my mind that (in light of earlier posts and responses) I want to share before I get back to the various pieces of work I need to be doing today.
Re whatever might have been going on in the ST:TNG offices as the first season got underway: I suspect the full story would probably take nearly as long to tell as it took to unfold. I’ve only heard bits and pieces of the story from those who were there, and I got a sense at the time that the people involved were trying to put it all behind them and didn’t want to go into tons of detail.
This I’ll say, though — and it must be clearly understood to be just my theory, one for which I have little concrete evidence, but am basing on gut feeling and later experience elsewhere. I have this feeling that all the trouble boiled down to money, one way or another, and the influence that given amounts of the green stuff have on any given project in Hollywood.
The more money is involved in something, the more people start to have a say in what’s happening to it and where it goes (since often they’re the sources of the money to begin with), and the more people start mixing in and trying to wrest the context in which the money’s being used into shapes that will serve their own agendas, whatever those might be. For the first time, I think, (televised) Trek was perceived as being about to have truly serious amounts of money thrown at it. (I leave the films out of this equation at the moment, as film and TV hold two very different and separate niches of importance and power in Hollywood.)
This being the case, and Trek having the (even then) considerable effect on popular culture that it’s had, the scrum and scramble for power and influence over the unfolding project would have started very quickly — as inevitable as the jostling and clambering-over-each-other in a bucket of crabs. I have seen this elsewhere since then, from the inside, in other productions; and always the cause of the trouble (or the cause of the lack of it) has been the amount of money involved. The more money, the more severe the agida. From this end of time, this realization leaves me suspecting that the same thing was going on in the ST offices, at root. For details of who did what to whom at the time, and why, and how, those interested are probably going to have to look elsewhere: I have only my one data point to contribute…and a certain reluctance to stir the pot.
But the money thing… Let me suggest a backwards diagnostic that I’ve found useful from the writer’s point of view. You can always tell how much money is being spent on a project, and how hard people are fighting over where it goes, by how many notes you get, and from whom, and how hard they are to deal with.
For those who may have missed the definition in an earlier post, “notes” is the code word for the suggestions (read “mandatory corrections”, usually) that the production staff above the writer in the food chain hand back to that writer after reading the submitted material. (This is not like writing a book, where you don’t have to do what your editor tells you. Notes carry more weight.) Sometimes you get notes as a memo or an e-mail, sometimes (in more informal settings) as literal notes scribbled in the margins of what you’ve turned in. Sometimes you’re given them in a meeting, or a phone call, during which you either scribble them down at top speed and hope not to miss anything, or else record the session (if your story editor or producer doesn’t mind) and play it back later. Then you rewrite your material, taking into account the notes that you’ve been given: doing what they say, insofar as your creative instincts allow you: arguing about the stuff you don’t think works, or can’t be made to work as the notes suggest: sometimes ignoring one point or another in hopes that the person(s) who gave you that note will just forget about it. (It happens. There are people who give you notes Just Because They Can: notes are their power trip, their assertion of their “rightful” position higher up in the creative food chain than yours.)
Then you turn your rewritten work back in, and inevitably, there are more notes on that draft. And so it will go from beginning to end, from premise to final draft script.
(Brief joke here: I very occasionally “dream true” — predicting some minor thing that’s going to happen, rarely anything of interest to anyone but me. These dreams have a specific feel to them, one I’ve learned to pay attention to: and when someone gives me advice in one of these dreams, I’ve learned to work hard, on awakening, to remember what that was. It usually pays off. In this regard, a number of years ago I had one of these dreams, and into it walked the much-missed, much-loved Filmation producer and story editor, Art Nadel — mentor and friend to a lot of the younger animation talent who were working in LA in the early 80’s. I was surprised that he should turn up, because Art had died some time earlier, and in the dream I remembered this. “Art,” I said, “I’m really glad to see you!” “I’m glad to see you too,” he said: and he smiled. “And now I have some notes.” …I woke myself up laughing out loud: first of all because Art was always fun to be around: and secondly, because I knew the dream had to be a “true” one, because Art was going to give me notes.)
You get used to the notes over time, truly: and to dealing with them. (Or, if you’re smart, you get out of TV and film before you are driven completely loopy.) Sometimes the notes infuriate you, and you fight as hard as you can to avoid doing what they say. Sometimes you acquiesce to what they require of you as gracefully as you can, because you realize — sometimes very belatedly — that the person giving you the notes was really right. Sometimes you acquiesce as gracefully as you can because, though the other person is incredibly wrong, there’s nothing you can do about it: that person outranks you, and you and your job will be toast in minutes if you rock the boat too hard. In this regard I have a few (until now) unwritten rules which have served me fairly well so far.
Unwritten Note Rule 1: The more money made by the person who gave you the note, the more attention you have to pay.
UNR 2: The more highly placed in the production entity the person is who gave you the note, the more attention you have to pay.
UNR 3: when notes given you by separate people are at odds, you follow the lead of the more highly positioned / better paid of the two, and let them fight it out if they need to.
It’s always a tightrope walk…or maybe better thought of as a gauntlet that you have to run through with every draft. Or, if you’re lucky and your production staffers and higher-ups are good people who’re genuinely trying to improve something which they want to turn out well, it’s a dance: everyone moves through patterns of agreement or civil disagreement, alliances form and shift from day to day as new people are added to the project or drop out of it. Your co-story editor may agree with you that one of your executive producers is insane, and you may band together to make sure that you only get notes from the other one, the sane one. Or you and your producers may agree that there are some of another producer’s notes that you don’t need to pay attention to, they’ll sort that person out themselves. But at all times…the money talks, and you have to listen to it. The more money is being spent, the harder you listen when dealing with the notes.
And another thing: you always get notes. Not to get notes suggests that you are on another planet. Or possibly working for the BBC in some dim and golden past.
I had this happen while working on an educational show called “Science Challenge”, in the early 1990’s. I had it happen repeatedly, to the point that I began to doubt my sanity. I would turn in a script, and my producers would say “Fine, let’s go.” They seemed to have this weird idea that a writer could be trusted to, you know, write. Sometimes the phone would ring and my producer would say, “You know, we’re shooting episode six this afternoon, and it looks like we’re going to come up three minutes short: can you fax us over a few more pages?” “Sure,” I would say, and I’d write three more pages, and fax them over, and they would shoot them. Very, very unreal. After years of working in Hollywood on and off, I would pinch myself. Planet BBC was a very different place from Planet Hollywood. (I understand this has changed, alas.) But at the bottom of this unusual behavior was, you guessed it, the money. Or lack of it. BBC productions were famous for being run on a shoestring: why do you think the old Dr. Who always ended up in the same gravel pit in Wales (or wherever) when they needed a ravaged alien landscape? (When I first started working for the Beeb, I spent some time walking around the neighborhood of the building where my producers were, and laughed again and again as I recognized background after background from Monty Python. Why go any distance to shoot when you have perfectly serviceable suburbia three blocks away? Waste of money…)
The notes are always about the money. The other end of the dear-Ghod(dess)-they-shot-what-I-wrote spectrum is the OMG-how-am-I-supposed-to-reconcile-all-these-idiotic-ideas?! end: the situation you get into when you’re involved with a multimillion-euro multiple-co-production-partner operation like Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King (aka Die Nibelungen, aka many, many other names in many many markets). Some of the notes that came down from our coproduction partners were beyond surreal…yet they all had to be dealt with somehow, because they were giving us the money to make the thing in the first place. Peter and I were lucky in that our producers at Tandem Communications, Rola and Tim, were smart and sane people, good friends, genuinely committed to making something worth watching. They were our lifeline on that project (and will be again some day, I’ll bet).
But at the end of the day, when you’re working in film or TV, it boils down to this: you’re part of a really big committee. And the heads of the committee are the ones who give you the money.
And we all know what art by committee looks like. It’s amazing when it works at all. Every time you get involved, you run the risk of finding your name on something that looks nothing, nothing whatsoever, like what you initially wrote. And them’s the breaks. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start looking around for the next project. Or, if you’ve had enough, you get the heck out of Dodge. (“What? And give up show business??”)
…Now I have to go to work on another piece of committee stuff. Right now it’s all mine. Right now it’s still at that pristine stage where there are, as yet, no notes.
But there will be. There will be….