JMS on Genie: September Messages
B5JMS Poster
b5jms-owner at shekel.mcl.cs.columbia.edu
Sun Sep 29 17:14:36 EDT 1996
Forwarded message to B5JMS list.
Originally From: dstrauss at aiscom.com (David Strauss)
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JMS on Genie
September 1996
[possible spoiler space]
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 626 Tue Sep 03, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:14 EDT
Thanks, all. We're very pleased and proud to have been
recognized for
the Hugo. It's a terrific validation of our work, and this is
something that
the fans made happen, and it's as much theirs as mine. It just
reinforces
that people can get together and accomplish something whenever they
choose to
do so
Re: copyright infringement...no, you don't have to prove damages
to win.
Statutory fines exist, at $100,000 per infringement the minimum under
the law.
Additional penalties come from damages; the $100,000 is the minimum
per. And
one can argue that each distributed game would be an
infringement...the math
ain't favorable.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 644 Wed Sep 04, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 02:04 EDT
Re: commercials...we don't make 'em, and have zero input into the
construction of them. We're not allowed to get near it, that's
strictly a
Warnr Bros. thing.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 424 Tue Sep 03, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:16 EDT
It's usually common for larger ships to drop their fighters just
as they
enter a jump point into normal space, so they can get an edge on the
target
rather than launching post-jump.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 647 Wed Sep 04, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 23:44 EDT
Small corrections...the Hugo space ship is silver; 7 Hugos have
been
given previously to SF shows, 3 to the original TZ, 4 to ST (old and
new). And
yes, apparently the "Is There A God?" debate has become the con's #1
seller on
tape, with Buzz Aldrin's speech second (I don't know whether to be
pleased or
chagrined), but we definitely didn't go to dinner afterward...we ended
up at
the same restaurant, but different tables on opposite sides of the
restaurant.
(Aside: I had to wolf down my food to get ready for the Hugo
ceremony,
and just as I was finishing, a fan had the waiter bring over a tray of
food,
christened spoo. I couldn't eat it, had to run, so I gave it to the
fellow
I'd been debating, explaining that it was "an act of atheist
charity.")
Aside to Mike Cooney...was there a message uptopic where you went
over
ways to more economically/reasonably portray, like, thousands of
ships on-
screen? Not that I have any reason for asking this question....
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 31
Message 328 Fri Sep 06, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:19 EDT
There's a term, for let's say England, when you're between
rulers, one
has passed along and the other is perhaps too young to rule, or they
haven't
yet decided on someone...a term for the person who's in charge in the
interim,
and I can't for the life of me think of that term. Anybody know what
it is?
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 19, Topic 1
Message 16 Sun Sep 08, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:15 EDT
Stims take a while to work out of your system, to get totally
flushed out
(as will be noted shortly), but when they're gone, it's unpleasant.
My own take on "And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which
airs
tomorrow in the UK...I like it. The Brother Theo stuff is a tad
stilted in a
couple of places, but it's only a couple of minutes, and the rest
works real
well. It's a very subversive episode in its way, and a part of it
still
creeps me out.
jms
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SFRT I RoundTable
Category 44, Topic 5
Message 336 Sun Sep 08, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:17 EDT
My guess is that for Necro, I'll be able to bring some clips
from 4th
season shows, the late 3rd season bloopers, some other stuff.
jms
(PS, Vampyr, good to meet you there...to put a face with the
sharp
analyses of stories. And thanks to all re: the Hugo.)
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 19, Topic 1
Message 22 Sun Sep 08, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 21:57 EDT
Well, sometimes you go along making an episode, and when it's all
assembled -- which is really the only time you ever know if it's
turned out
the way you want -- it's kinda late to change much. You're filming
the next
episode, you can't go back and refilm it or rewrite it. So there's
really
very little you can do at that point.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 738 Wed Sep 11, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:04 EDT
There's always a danger in making the show about the New Alien of
the
Week, which we tend to try to avoid. As for Hypernauts, yes, they
showed a
lot more virtual environments...but the resolution of those shots were
nowhere
near the level of resolution needed for a show like B5. They looked
more
plastic-y, more obviously CGI. The only way they could render that
much
material was to go for low-res stuff, and do other tricks. It also
helped
that they shot that show on *videotape*, which is far cheaper than
film. If
you did the Hypernauts EFX tricks on B5, they'd look very chintzy, for
the
most part.
That said, we *are* going outside the station more and more in
the last
batch of year 3 episodes, and even moreso in the initial episodes of
year 4.
We go to Narn, more time is spent on Centauri Prime, Minbar, Mars,
Earth, and
elsewhere.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 453 Thu Sep 12, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:43 EDT
Foundation also did the majority or all of the battle stuff in
last
week's Voyager.
Re: NDE...Doug was very happy with that name, which they arrived
at after
long, long discussions...and just after they locked it down, I pointed
out
that NDE is also a term for Near Death Experience, which has since
become how
some of us refer to it. (Or a Near Doug Experience, which is kinda
the same
thing, only without the light show.)
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 473 Fri Sep 13, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:59 EDT
Today John Copeland and I did our producer's cut on the first
episode of
year 4, "The Hour of the Wolf." Granted my opinion is subjective and
biased...but of all the first-episodes we've had each season, this one
is the
best. I was searching for the right word after looking at the
director's cut,
and finally came to it...maturity. It has a depth we've only skated
through
before, all meat, no filler. This one and the next batch are also all
over
the map, literally...B5, Narn, Centauri Prime, elsewhere...so it's a
real
challenge. But it looks great.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 482 Sat Sep 14, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:16 EDT
Mike...on the one hand you keep asking for big battle set pieces,
then
you say you don't want a war story...you'll forgive me if I note that
you're
sending out mixed signals.
You may also want to wait to see what we *do* rather than
worrying now
about what we *might* do.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 509 Sun Sep 15, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:44 EDT
Also, what tends to happen is that a message of mine gets
paraphrased or
misremembered, and someone says, "Well, back in 1993, jms said..." and
if they
get it wrong, and I don't catch it, it becomes part of what's assumed
is
actually happening. It's like playing telegraph with 25,000 of your
best
friends....
Small correction: my first on-line service was actually
Compuserve, back
around 1984-1985. I was one of the first to hit that service, I
think, and
certainly the first TV writer I knew over there.
Re: the crew...nothing else has changed. We've still got John
Flinn III
as our DP, Ann Bruice-Aling as costumer, John Iacovelli as Great Maker
of All
Things Art, Chris Franke on music, optic nerve...they're all still
here, all
still doing great stuff. Directors for the fourth season include Mike
Vejar,
Jesus Trevino, David Eagle, and some new folks we're trying out, Kevin
Dobson
(not the actor), John Macpherson, and we may even let Stephen Furst do
an
episode, since he has a long background as a director for smaller
films and
theater.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 513 Sun Sep 15, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:22 EDT
Actually, "Alas, Babylon" is a terrific book by Pat Frank, which
came out
in the late 60s, which I recommend to anyone. Great reading. Since
first
reading it as a kid, I must've reread it a dozen or more times over
the years
until the darned thing fell apart. (Paperback.) While at Worldcon,
I picked
up a first-edition hardcover of the book, and started reading it again
while I
was there...and fell right back into it again.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 527 Sun Sep 15, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:47 EDT
The thing about "Believers" is that, really, nobody's right, and
in their
own way, from their point of view, everybody's right.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 536 Sun Sep 15, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 16:48 EDT
Kwicker: exactly. Interestingly, one fan I ran into at Worldcon
made the
point that rather than moralizing or giving messages, B5's strength is
in
providing "meaning without judging." Kinda interesting....
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 600 Sat Sep 21, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 18:52 EDT
You ever get one of those pieces of news that leaves you at once
vaguely
amused and horribly chagrined? Turns out in the October issue of BUZZ
Magazine -- the high-style, fancy, New Yorker-in-aspiration LA
magazine for
rich folk -- they have the 100 Coolest People in LA. How do I know
this, even
though I don't subscribe? I got called by a friend.
Yep...for the first time I am now officially cool.
Still processing this one.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 588 Fri Sep 20, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:50 EDT
More episode titles: #5, "The Long Night," #6, "Into the Fire,"
#7
"Epiphanies," #8 "The Illusion of Truth."
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 619 Sat Sep 21, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 23:50 EDT
Mike: you give me an extra million dollars an episode, and you
can' have
those scenes. We make this show for under $900,000 an episode. We're
dancing
as fast as we can. What they spent on ID4 is more than we've spent on
all
three years of B5.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 620 Sat Sep 21, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 23:55 EDT
And just so you understand...it's not just a question of building
sets.
Yes, you start with that expense. Now add extras to populate the
scenes. If
you're going to have people being killed or even bumped around, you
need stunt
people, and that's very expensive if you start having more than 2-3 of
them in
a scene. Now there's the CGI. Now there's the cost of the
pyrotechnics. And
the staging. Crashes or big action (live, not CGI) scenes can take an
entire
day to set up. Yeah, you can get a 15 second BIG SCENE, but it'll
cost you
hideously, and it'll add an extra day to production, and you'll have
to throw
out other stuff.
We save our big hits for where they will make the most impact,
but again,
this is TV, not a major feature film. The ST shows get about $1.2-1.4
million
or more per episode, depending on circumstances. S:A&B cost $2
million an
episode on average. Our budget is limited to under $900,000. We do
the best
we can with what we've got.
jms
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SFRT II RoundTable
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 650 Mon Sep 23, 1996
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:47 EDT
Mike: okay, I've been quiet, even though others have noted it,
but you're
straying again and again into story suggestions, how the next season
should be
done, what the environment should be like, even titles; stop it. I
can't be
blunter than that.
Well, actually, I *can*...but the situation is born out of
enthusiasm,
and more or less forgiveable.
As for GROPOS, that one episode was so far over budget that I had
to
write 2 smaller ones to make up for it, and the many people you saw
were
really just one small group that took forever to digitally composite
into
looking like a much bigger group.
Mike, your suggestions on production are all well and good for a
big
budget movie. That's where your mindset is at. But this is a TV
show. We
have TV limitations. We have a budget below any other SF show around.
We do
the best we can. Please stop gigging us for things that we can't do,
and no
other TV show can do.
jms
------------
--
David Strauss <*> O- Administrator, New York Islanders Mailing List
http://www.aiscom.com/~dstrauss/
Intel. Putting the 'backwards' into 'backwards compatible.'
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