One last GF question ...

And off to work. Somebody who saw the torrent e-mailed me and asked if we would've abandoned the "multiple guest star" structure from the comic for the show. No. In order to have some semblance of continuity for network audiences, I needed some viewpoint characters -- but it couldn't be Miranda, because you never knew what was going on in her head. As a matter of fact, part of the entire five-season arc was that you were never sure what Miranda was up to.

The only person who knew what the entire five season arc was was, actually, Michelle. She knew what Miranda's full plan was*. And if you've got the torrent, watch her face in the final scene. When Flynn and Dr. Finch hook up, to start the five year journey. That is not a happy face ...

So we were going to use Josh and Jenni as the focal characters, but toss in a rotating cast of guest characters to be the expert of the week. Neatly, of somebody hit, I could then have built them up into recurring. Then, if the audience really started to like them ... I'd kill them.

Yep. The show format beautifully leant itself to actual, almost unheard of suspene. I could kill anyone, at any time, and other experts would just step in. It makes a nice tool for keeping your actors in line. "No, fine, go back to your trailer. I've got every character on the show's death scene pre-written and waiting."

As a matter of fact, at least one of those characters in the torrent doesn't make it past episode 13.

Again -- what the hell was I thinking?



* In a giddy moment, Michelle came in for her audition, and told me how the show ended five years later. And she was right.

The Inside

Seeing as a ton of Whedonesque and buffista humans are here, welcome. I'd just like to chime in on THE INSIDE and say Tim Minear did a hell of a job. I look forward immensely to the rest of the run.

For you new pals, please peruse the archives. You may enjoy:

The Jargon Preservation Project (previous installments in archives)

Lost: You Uncurious Motherf*ckers

the articles on writing, the True Geek Conversations(tm) and various other ramblings. Archives to your right, hang out and play nice.

Miranda is ... annoyed

Actually, I believe Michelle is annoyed at this moment because I'm tweaking something, but, whatever. Michelle Forbes drinks good British beer and smokes real cigarettes, along with being able to somehow flip between dead sweet and absolutely goddam terrifying at will. Fantastic actress and better person.

And, heh ... yeah. Miranda goddam Zero.

What's all this about, then?

I'm an idiot who forgot Blogger posts backwards. Skip to here.

Beautiful locale for the final scene...

... marred only by the fact we were directly under the landing pattern for the island airport. No, thank you, ADR.

Prepping the big kah-splodey finale 

... and the finished look 

Ellis and the Moving Pictures

The man himself, blistered from unexpected exposure to a burning orb we call "the sun", watches playback. Next to him, by the way, is Angela Chen, his agent and the namesake of the CIA contact in Queen & Country.

Logo

nm

I've been holding on to this for a while, I suppose out of hope. Next package out, Warren. 

It's a "Global" Frequency now ...

First off, any WB lawyers: it wasn't me.
Second: sorry if I'm behind on e-mails, folks, got a vicious deadline just popped up on a script.
Third: Well, Global Frequency is out on Bittorrent.

To say emotions are mixed on this getting exposure, well ... I haven't written a lot on GF not getting picked up. Primarily because that one, of all of them, broke my goddam heart. A year and a half of writing and sweat and production disappeared down the TV pilot hole, not to mention some truly incredible work by Josh Hopkins, Aimee Garcia, the young woman who every geek guy I know said "Oh, hey, the new Gillian Anderson, congrats" -- Jenni Baird. And, of course, Michelle Forbes as Miranda FUCKING ZERO. You can't look at her in this role without saying "Holy shit, that's Miranda FUCKING ZERO!"

Everybody, from director Nelson McCormick to the producer humans (RACHEL!!!) to the FX guys slaved away on this, and what was wonderful was that for all of them, you could tell, it was a labor of love. I've done my share of pilots, boyo, and the vibe on this one was different. Warren, that black-hearted bastard, touched something deep here, and I was lucky to be the guy to try to get it out to the masses.

What happened? TV happened. Even Mark Burnett (who was pretty cool, AND can kill you with his thumbs) couldn't beat it this time. Despite having some great execs, and even testing pretty well, we got hit by a change of network presidents in the middle of the shoot. I know, every guy in the industry just instinctively winced when I said that. David Janolari was a gent about it, but between some differing creative visions and network/studio gunk, all the best intentions in the world weren't going to get us there.

Also, in completely honest retrospect, what the hell was I thinking? It's a show about how the institutions around us have failed us, and we live in a world of chaos and death, held back only by borderline sociopaths. The HAPPY ending is our hero shoots an innocent man in the face. Oh yeah, slot us right in after Gilmore Girls.

Is it perfect? Shit no. There are a bunch of cuts I've rethought, and if we'd been picked up I'd go back and reshoot that damn alley scene -- it was backlot for scheduling, and as great as Nelson and our DP were, as heroic as the design guys were, they couldn't beat the look of it. Aleph's Control was intentionally smallish and real-tech -- we were going to build it out into that open space as the show progressed, to show how the Frequency was expanding. Dead honest, if it weren't my show, I'd give it mayb a B+. Some of you, I'm quite sure, are going to hate the guts out of it.

But, you know what -- we had something there. I had a line of writers (at one point, essentially the entire ANGEL staff) ready to go -- each and every one chomping at the bit, some ready to start work for free if need be. We had a five year plan, with a goddam MORAL, not some flash pilot and wing it out as we go ... but most of all, we had that concept. Warren Ellis's beautiful, crystalline find. In a TV wasteland, we had the one show that wasn't just about stories, it was about SOMETHING -- faith in us. Not faith in the treacherous fat white men in suits, not power, not money -- faith in US. It's not four camera redneck jokes or horny housewives or sexy rich teens with troubles or venal everymen cutting each other's fucking throats to win some trumped up Skinner show, but it's something.

And seeing as I'm way too busy actually working to do any serious blogging for the next few days, I'm just going to post some shots I took during production. Nothing from my copy of the pilot, of course, that would be wrong. But these are personal rehearsal shots, so in short, anybody with a problem with this can really, really bugger off.

One quick story: There's a sequence in the show, when Aleph gets everyone on the Frequency, and they figure out what the problem is. All these citizen-experts, pitching in to save strangers' lives. To get a good feel for the timing, all the actors were kind enough to show up on that shoot night (Aimee shot separately) at 3 am and do their parts LIVE. So it played out, just like on the show -- the call went out, people responded, voices chiming in, all in one, long flawless take ... like it was actually happening.

It was incredible, one of those alchemical moments were it stopped being television, stopped being a performance, and actually took us to another world.

Nelson calls "cut". I step into the set, basically this glorified warehouse, and realize that there's a weird silence. Cast and crew are spooked. Some people are tearing up, I actually hear a little sniffling. I turn to one of the show staff and say "Hey, you okay? What's wrong?"

And she bursts into tears. "I was just ... what if it were real? Wouldn't it be beautiful if people could really ..." And she fades out, wipes her eyes. Whispers: "It would just be so amazing if it were real."

That's right. For two glorious minutes in a waterfront shed in Vancouver, the Global Frequency was real. And it destroyed people. For just the chance at that, I'm glad I tried.




ADDENDUM: Please see this post. And new summary of all posts on this subject here.

(a reminder -- GLOBAL FREQUENCY, all plots and characters and the logo thereof, are property of DC Comics, and the TV pilot script and broadcast production of GLOBAL FREQUENCY (etc. etc.) are property of Warner Bros. Television, as far as I know. Nothing on this site is to be considered a challenge to that copyright)

Monster Island

From Boing Boing, we find Monster Island. The first in a trilogy of novels written in blog format, then collected as downloadable funkiness in various forms, including the ability to be read on your IPod.

Get your story out. Get your facts out, get your fiction out, get your story out, There are no excuses anymore.

And Now a Step to the Ri-ii-iiight ....

We have an odd little audience here, politics-wise. I'm a liberal, but based mainly on libertarian principles, so my writing tends to drag in a fair bit of moderate righties. I Miss Republicans got heavy, and complimentary, coverage in a bunch of conservative blogs.

I do my best to be play nice with these folk. There's a strict no-flame war rule in the comments. Make your argument with facts (or overwhelming style, that counts too) or move on. Had a lovely chat with some of them over the activist judges post, and school prayer. I don't agree with them, but I get the point. For example, I get if the reason you're anti-choice is because you don't like abortion. However, I have a hard time with the pick-and-choose style pro-life argument. We have an infant mortality rate higher than Cuba's, and abstinence programs just don't work. How many abortions are you willing to endure because you hate the word "condom"? I disagree with you on the "morning after" pill -- which is not an "abortion" pill, by the way, but science has never been anyone's strong suit -- but theoretically understand your objection to it. However, you can't then turn around and support pharmacists denying women access to birth control pills.

Again, I'm annoying, dismissive, overly judgemental and sarcastic -- but at least my positions are internally consistent.

Anyway, there's a fellow over across the aisle I've been digging lately. He's a bit stunned at where his party's gone since the Schiavo mess. He has a truly rare streak of intellectual honesty. And yet I still disagree with him probably %50 of the time, which is the sign to me that it's someone I should keep reading.

Added next week to the sidebar (when my deadline's over) is John Cole.

Integrated Solar Panels

From the spiffy site Treehugger (making green cool) come these integrated solar panels. These are hitting the roof of the new house as soon as feasible.

Oh, and a quick reminder, if you are driving a Hummer or Navigator and have an "I Support the Troops" bumper sticker or ribbon, you are now legally obligated to have a matching "I Send Suitcases Full of Cash to the Saudi Fucks Who Blew Up the Towers and Finance the Guys Killing Our Troops." You are allowed, in certain states, to have the shorter "I Buy IEDs for Bad Guys" sticker as a substitute.


And I forgot another great blog, which'll be sideboarded soon -- The Oil Drum.

All Your Uterus Are Belong to Us

Now, a while ago I promised to punch Florida in the neck if it spat one more attention-grabbing dysfunctional headline out on to the rest of the country while we were busy doing grown-up things, like trying to figure out how to pay for a war with immense tax cuts for the rich. Florida is that dick of a drama-queen cousin at the family reunion dinner of America.

Texas, today ... I'm not going to threaten Texas. This story is so weird, so sad, so broken, so goddam terrifying that it's happening in this country in the 21st Century ... this is when you realize that unlike fussy little Florida, Texas is just mean crazy and back away reeeeaaaal slow-like, no fast moves with the hands, and promise yourself to change your locks and phone numbers at the earliest opportunity.

Oh, the Groom Grinds a 360!

Sharp-eyed Ezra (so much free time now that finals are over ) spots a new speech from our new Pope.

Pope Benedict, in his first clear pronouncement on gay marriages since his election, on Monday condemned same-sex unions as fake and expressions of "anarchic freedom" that threatened the future of the family.

The Pope, who was elected in April, also condemned divorce, artificial birth control, trial marriages and free-style unions, saying all of these practices were dangerous for the family.

"Today's various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages as well as the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man," he said.

"Anarchic freedom". Someone's still verrrrry angry over the '60's.

This, of course, should surprise no one. He's the Pope who was the head of the frikkin' Inquisition. But it's interesting, in the context of the Southern Baptist article below, that he used "anarchic freedom" where "anarchy" would have done just fine. Freedom's just another word for something you gotta lose.

First off, anyone who gets up on their high horse about abortion or gay marriage but who's divorced -- fuck you. Seriously. Shut. The hell. Up. This is the greatest hypocrisy of American Christianity, and I'm sick of it. Jesus mentions divorce several times, homosexuality -- eh. Abortion -- don't even get me started. A gay man who gets married is just as Catholic as you are if you're divorced. I'm for both divorce and gay marriage. At least my argument's consistent.

This is one of the things progressives should hit with a hammer again and again and again. America's supposed to be the place where you make the decisions affecting your family. But the Texas Reps and Religionistas, they're going to decide if you can get access to birth control, by faking it up as a moral stand by pharmacists. It doesn't matter what husband and wife have decided, what you've decided between yourselves and your doctors -- that guy's precious moral choice trumps your moral choice, and now the gubmint's on his side. They're going to decide what a marriage is, what love is more valid than others. The anti-same sex marriage laws have already been used to let guys who beat their live-in girlfriends off the hook, and I assure you some people are not at all unhappy about that.

They're going to decide how your kids learn about God -- in school, according to their definition, not from you. You in favor of school prayer*? Fine. You happy your kid's going to be praying from the selection made up by some real angry Southern Evangelicals who think your church, be it mainstream Protestant or even Catholic, is a false church? Ahhh, not so much fun now, is it ... They're going to decide if you live or die despite your wishes or your family's, they're going to let their poor understanding of science inflame their morality to the point where your kid dies of a disease that could've been stopped by stem cell research.

The government does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation. Nor in its living rooms. Nor in its churches. The bitch about the opening the door so faith can get into the government is that the door swings both ways, my religious-moderate-but-still-inexplicably-voting-Republican-pals. The problem with electing people to turn your moral beliefs into policy is that once they get to Washington, they'll turn their moral beliefs into policy.

You often wonder where the fulcrums of history are. Well, folks, this is one. The next twenty years. We either march forward under a banner of equal rights into the future, or we fall back to the 1950's. Which I assure all you young conservatives, were nowhere near as spiffy as you've heard.

Once again: Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century over here. Everybody who misses the 1800's over there. Good, thanks. Good luck with that.

And "free-style unions" should only be practiced by those who've been married for more than ten years and have worked the committment half-pipe for many hours of practice.

* It may surprise you that I'm all for "a moment of silence" in schools in the morning. If you've read the history of school prayer, by the way, you'll dicover that the only reason the Supreme Court killed the moment of silence idea was that one of the people suing for it admitted it was a backdoor way to get prayer in school. See, a perfectly good compromise ruined by the "give- 'em an inch" idiots.

Peak Oil

Well, this is the problem with having a career. While I was balancing my page count with the research, Kevin Drum has done a perfectly serviceable series of articles on Peak Oil. I'll probably revisit this in the context of some other ideas, but for now, not bad reading.

If you'd like to maintain that nice, mellow panic-buzz -- like taking too much Robutussin and trying to remember where the hell you left your wallet -- you can always go read some Joseph Palmer, or track articles at Global Public Media, or hang at the website of the guy who created the latest buzz with the article excerpted from his book The Long Emergency -- Jim Kunstler. His blog is Clusterf*ck Nation, which I find abrasive and amusing as hell.

I am incredibly encouraged by the fact that the Western Democrats (or at least some of them) understand that energy independence is both crucial policy and smart politics.