Technically This Means I Have Nowhere to Sleep…

Wow, things went sideways really quickly. So the whole of Europe is, basically, in hibernation until the virus blows over – which would be awesome if I wasn’t desperate to get out in the sand and start work. Getting people to follow me to Spain was a big ask, even without everything else that is going on, and it now seems that I’ll be without a full crew or, more worryingly, my cast.

Which is a pain.

I’m thinking that things escalating thanks to the Corona virus might have something to do with me – every time I try and do something the universe goes all out in trying to fuck me over, so when I attempt my most ambitious project to date…

Yes, the ego. Insufferable, isn’t it?

There are so many reasons that I shouldn’t be happy.

Firstly, there now looks to be very little in the way of cast or crew from Italy, France, or Spain available for the foreseeable future, which is an enormous pressure on an already tight schedule. I have neither the time nor the inclination to rush around securing alternative people, given that so much of the planning was built around three people who are no longer in the running at all. I’m not sure if this is a minor or massive delay as yet, and holding out hope that things get back to normal as soon as possible is my current strategy.

And if I haven’t mentioned it before I really, really dislike lugging a giant bloody camera around. I need a camera operator.

Then there’s the fact that I don’t have access to a vehicle, which was a setback I didn’t see coming. This is one of those problems which, if I could stop freaking out (which had led to my right eye flaring up in protest), would likely be a fixable issue, but at the moment there’s no way around it.

And the amount of money I’m dropping on getting everything together is, quite frankly, obscene. This is the biggie – the single most terrifying, insurmountable, overwhelming aspect of the entire plan. Once the money is gone I’m going to have to bust my ass or figure out what else I’m willing to sell. At present I am of the mindset that it is preferable to sell a kidney rather than any of the comics or books.

I can’t rely on selling more stuff to fund things, and I’m not sure that I can sell more – the British comics are not going to go (they are earmarked for many, many things which require their presence in future), and I can’t imagine getting rid of any of my vintage SF books. They took a ridiculous amount of hunting down, and so few of them regularly come up for sale that I would never be able to rebuild the collection.

Without the footage in hand by the end of the year I’m not sure how things will go.

But…

I. Can’t. Stop. Smiling.

There are moments I catch myself in a reflection and am reminded of Gwynplaine, yet I can’t help myself – there is currently a mountain of stuff I need to sort through properly and pack neater for transportation – I ordered most of this a while back and had put it all to the back of my mind. A significant portion of the costumes are here, a few trinkets and ornamentation, and a lot of equipment – it was all waiting for me at the post office, which explains the pile of “sorry we missed you” cards.

I still haven’t got a bone flute, the bullroarers, or all the fake furs which are going to be needed, but the amount of items to have already been shipped is slightly staggering.

I’m not used to such efficiency.

That bone flute, which needs to be present by the start of shooting no matter what, is giving me problems. Porcelain replicas look awful in comparison to actual bone, and the thought of having to sculpt and paint a prop is giving me the shivers – that, right there, would be at least two or three weeks work, if not more, to get it looking completely right. Then there’s the larger instruments (including a particularly difficult-to-describe horn I want made to look like an antler), which are going to take a lot of money throwing to get right.

Finding people to create things not in general use for thousands of years is a pain.

I’ve been hunting through various strange and obscure corners of the internet looking for people who have non-standard fabrics in an attempt to get some of the costumes rounded out, but that’s proving to be as frustrating as everything else. Mammoth-fur wraps, for example, aren’t a thing. Not even close to being a thing. I’m fairly certain that someone, at some point, has attempted to recreate what they would look like, but all of the photographs, and the ones mocked up for museums, aren’t doing it for me.

Costumes are incredibly important to get right, and nothing can appear on-screen which remotely looks modern. I’m keeping as far from the look of 1981’s Caveman as possible.

Already acquired in preparation is:

• A monitor that was on offer, and so beautiful I couldn’t help myself. One of the most expensive items, but which can be calibrated to reproduce exactly the footage fed into it. As I’m not completely sold on using digital after the last week’s fiasco, and as the temptation to shoot on film is so strong, this input might be from a small secondary camera, or for use shooting inserts.
• Old glass lenses, some still having yellowing stickers attached from when they were originally bought / last used. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to use as much traditional things as possible – looking specifically at the way some all-time classics were shot – and I’ve noticed the lenses in behind-the-scenes footage. Even if I only get to use them with some incidental footage they will be worth it.
• Awesome headphones which, I’m sad to say, cost about the same as my laptop.
• A clapperboard – and seriously, when did these get so damn expensive? It was one of the items I wanted to get quickly, so I wouldn’t overlook it in the rush, and goddamn, is it ever the most expensive thing per square inch. For its size it is remarkably loud, and the LED letters are certainly attractive, but I’ve questioned how much it is really worth since dropping coin on it.
• A light meter. Actually there are two, as I decided the first was good enough when I saw it, and it didn’t cost too much money (a concern that isn’t going to disappear), but then saw an amazing one that I couldn’t pass up. It looks like it belongs in a SF film, and it feels more comfortable in my hand – the slight expense incurred here is worth it.
• A tripod. I’m not completely convinced it’s suitable – I nevertheless picked it up because it was old extending tripod with really neat little feet, probably from the fifties or sixties. It looks slightly underwhelming, and there’s serious doubt in my mind as to its ability to take the weight of a full camera rig, but it was so adorable (and somehow sad looking) that I had to buy it. I’ll find a use for it.
• A bounce board I was gifted from a lovely chap who shot a bunch of fan films back in the day, and who has since upgraded much of his equipment. Free stuff is better than nothing, and I’m not going to pass up anything at the moment.
• Three cases in which all the equipment needs to be crammed. These were sized according to space aboard the yacht I had expected to be available, although at present the cases are holding a disturbing number of books. The shipping cost was a lot more than anticipated though, which makes them decidedly not a bargain.

There is also a weird wooden handle in the box that the filters arrived in, and I’m not completely certain what it is for, but it is with the rest of the equipment at the moment. Actually, there are a few things which are a slight mystery to me, though I’m trusting that all of the things I’ve decided might be important will come in handy, so I’m not going to start culling them from the equipment list as yet. I’m certain that once things get rolling they will find their role.

There’s also a small stack of folders so I can organize everything obsessively up until the last moment. And stationary. Lots and lots of stationary, because. C’mon, who doesn’t love reams of paper, shiny new pencils, gel pens, and note paper?

I don’t know, for sure, how much that little stack came to, but it seemed like I needed it given how much planning and information dissemination was on the cards.

Although there’s no need to splash out as yet, I’ve also been looking at top-of-the-range computers on which to edit everything, and which I can utilize in the FX process – it will be a few months before I need to make a decision on how I’ll approach this, but I desperately need to upgrade this computer already. Having only had it for the blink of the eye it is already starting to show signs of not being up to the task of coping with me. The bottom corner of the track pad is slightly warped, and there is a slight depression on a few keys.

But… the stuff – the amassed “things needed for the film.”

That’s taking up a lot of room.

The stuff is taking up a lot of room, and even adding italics to that sentence doesn’t do justice to how much space it is consuming. I only realized this when I took everything out of their boxes and had a look-see at what I actually had. There would be more room if I had been able to keep my curiosity at bay and left them as they were packed, but this is me – I had to check out everything to see if the deliveries were right. It is all good, as far as an initial inspection goes, though there was no room to move once it was all spread out.

Until I hit on an ingenious solution.

The bedroom – or, at any rate, the room which had a bed in it – is now the equipment store and clothes department for the film. It is scary crazy how many things I need for this, and there are two outstanding items that are going to require careful consideration on storage, or else I’ll run out of space completely. I’m not sure how to proceed from here, but there are a couple of solutions which aren’t horrendously expensive: either I get another storage space to keep everything in, or I get a little office space somewhere. There’s bound to be a few units available.

I am holding back on the traditional storage unit option given how much everything has cost me so far. There’s insurance to consider as well, and I haven’t got back in touch to clarify any conditions which might be in the small print. I may not be allowed to let some of this out of sight…

For the foreseeable future I’m sleeping on the floor.

Don’t ask me how I’m going to shoot a film without a complete cast and crew – I haven’t planned this out again, minus all those absent due to various restrictions which might or might not be in place – but I’m damned if I’m going to let things fall apart completely. I can always use the equipment for other (smaller) shoots.

I’ll likely get hell for suggesting this, and it is admittedly a very dark notion, but…

This is the perfect time to grab a camera and get stock footage of deserted streets and businesses. There are precious few times when these shots can be accomplished sans a large crew asking people to stay back for a moment when the footage is being captured, and as long as there are abandoned areas already present I can see no problem making good of what is available.

Yes, I’m probably slipping towards the dark side there…

Simultaneously with other plans, I’ve begun putting together the basis for sound design with a ridiculous list of do’s and dont’s. Building off all my complaints with what others are doing, or have done (I contend that 13 Eerie was ruined by poor music choices), I’m taking control of as much of this as I can without spending a fortune. At some point I’m going to need to get in a studio, but for now I’m content to do things in a decidedly low-fi manner. It merely needs to be “good enough” until I have footage.

The other extreme from 13 Eerie is what Nolan has been playing around with, mixing down sounds and speech to an impenetrable level – subtlety is better than bombast, and having every utterance audible (and each sound distinct yet not overbearing) is the only approach which would appeal to my perfectionist tendencies. It is a tad harsh to state this but the movement away from proper music to digitally generated tracks is one of the worst things to happen to music in the history of music.

Digitally created soundtracks are bloody awful. There, I said it. Where are the sweeping melodies, the softly rising and falling themes, and the heart?

A great deal of what I am doing has never been done before, which is the most exciting aspect of the entire process. I’m getting to break new ground. One specific problem I’ve noticed with music described as being Paleolithic is that there are sounds which would never have been achievable with the tools at hand forty-something thousand years ago. I can completely understand the need for people to use digital tools in creating (not recreating) sounds from prehistory, but synth has a distinct feel which interrupts my enjoyment of these tracks. By using only sounds that can be justified, a different nature to the soundtrack will evolve naturally.

And I’m completely ignoring all modern music theory – there is a beautiful Japanese logic, wherein music should conform to breath rather than beats, which feels better. There are other things I’m adopting as I work through this, mostly listening to various old recordings of peoples whose contact with the modern world were limited. I’ve noticed that most mainstream tracks seem to promote a more meditative, relaxing nature, but this gives me a whole world of problems – that calming sound isn’t what would spontaneously occur.

There’s a crazy-old CD of Native American tracks (probably manufactured in the late eighties or early 90s) which I picked up on my wanderings. A plain jewel case, with the CD only containing the name of tracks, as simplistic a packaging as I have ever seen. Despite looking like a cheap knock-off, it always sounded far fresher, more vibrant, and really alive when compared to the beautifully packaged, high-value releases such as Sacred Spirit. There are numerous shouts, overlapping chants, random noises, and laughter mixed in, and that makes it far, far more realistic than the smoothed out, clean, and ultimately rather disappointing, studio-bound material.

Chaos, and unpredictability, must be built into the sound of a world before civilization took root. It only popped into mind in the last couple of weeks, but any music needs to include the sound of wildlife in the background. It’ll likely need the crackling and popping of a fire in the sound mix as well.

I have started painting the poster (which is massively presumptuous, but which is a relatively free step on this journey) although the specific tone is hard to judge. Too funny and it looks like a knockabout comedy (which it isn’t), too dramatic and it looks like Quest for Fire (which is so isn’t), too scary and it looks like another fantasy knock-off of Conan (which… okay I’ll allow that to stand). I can’t paint any facial features in, as that’s still a question mark, but I can at least try to figure out the layering of costumes with this.

And I’m writing the novelization (technically an adaptation of the script at this point), which is another leap of faith.

Because budget isn’t a concern I’m going to reinstate a couple of things omitted from other versions, streamlining it in places where the visual-led story elements don’t make sense, and generally making it slightly deeper – things which can’t be done on film, like really getting into the characters’ heads, is the main requirement. While it is tempting to include a massive lecture on the reams and reams of research done in preparing the script I’m doing my best to restrain myself.

Maybe a ‘Making Of’ book would be another way to make some money out of this… At least it would be cheap therapy.

When I decided I wanted to do this I concluded that the film should be released before my 45th birthday as a statement. Mostly “I’m still alive,” which is an awful statement. I need a better one, but lack of sleep and all the stress is making me slightly (okay, massively) useless at the… brain use. Uh… Cognitivation. No, ratiocination.

Thinking – “thinking” was the word I was thinking of.

It makes sense that this would be a later release, rather than falling in the first quarter, so September or October 2022 would be about right – as the nights are still warm enough, when a stoner comedy with hints of dark fantasy would be most appreciated.

That hopefully gives me enough time to get everything up and running in the allotted time. It isn’t a brilliant strategy to work back from an unknown date two years hence, but as long as that is at the back of my mind I have the momentum to keep pushing through all of the delays, external forces, and obviously the mistakes I’ll inevitably make.

Once the novel is done and dusted I’m going to start penciling the comic. No need to tackle everything at once …then I can work out the script for an audio adaptation, plan out a fun little game based on the characters, and see if there is anything else I can knock out in anticipation of this being moderately successful.

So after all that…

I’m calling it a day… after nearly two weeks of hanging around outside seemingly abandoned industrial parks, warehouses, and business centers, I’ve finally had enough. Everyone has apparently decided to bugger off at the same time, so there’s little point in torturing myself any further.

I was meant to have quickly tested out a whole bunch of cameras. I was meant to have simple video shots to compare. All this running around, and all I have accomplished is burning through money I need later in the year, getting more frustrated than imaginable, and wasting a lot of time.

The whole point of scheduling meetings was to keep disruption as low-impact as possible, and it was never in the planning to face so many problems – things have a way of going sideways, and this fiasco should have been worked into the schedule.

A few hours somehow ballooned into more than a week without me keeping a tab on the time. The last-ditch attempt to get my hands on an URSA Mini Pro for a couple of hours ate up my weekend, without me so much as setting eyes on the camera, and so it occurs to me that renting all of the cameras, one after another, for a few days each might be a better way to go.

This is going to mean another downwards adjustment to my already shrinking capital, but I can’t go out and start buying everything without at least a little insight into what I am getting for my money.

Ah, but the cameras…

The top tier has been tempting, but possibly too far out of my current budget to seriously consider (unless I can pick them up second-hand). Everyone seems to rave about the ARRI cameras, but I’ve already had the long, long speech about how I would need a horrific amount of add-ons to the body to get it up and running (lenses, a monitor, battery, remote focus grip, and all the bells and whistles), so that’s a serious question mark hanging over the cameras.

ARRI ALEXA M; ARRI ALEXA Mini LF; ARRI ALEXA Plus; ARRI ALEXA SXT; ARRI AMIRA

The next bunch, with varying degrees of technical limitation, aren’t exactly enticing, and I’m loathe to purchase any before getting a solid idea of their capabilities. I can’t use anything which gives blown out skies, as the desert setting means I’ll need all the variation I can muster, and clouds are going to be desperately needed to keep the image interesting during quiet sequences where characters are walking.

Blackmagic Cinema Camera; Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro; Blackmagic Design URSA Mini 4.6K; Canon C300 Mark II Cinema EOS 4K camcorder EF; Canon C700; Canon EOS C300 Mark II Camcorder PL; Canon EOS C500 4K EF; Canon EOS-5D Mark II Camera; Nikon D800 Camera; Olympus E-P5 Camera; Panasonic VariCam 35; Panasonic VariCam LT; Panasonic AU-EVA1; various Red models; Sony PMW-F55

A rather varied bunch, each with recommendations from various people. Some nice folks have warned me about stumping up for an ARRI if there is going to be a minimal crew – and as I’m stripping everything to the bone in order to maximize my (minuscule) budget (by any kind of standards) there isn’t room for a large crew.

Hell, there’s barely room in the budget for any crew, which is why I’m desperately calling in everyone and anyone who fits the bill, and who isn’t going to be focusing on the financial side of things. I’m going to see to it that everyone who contributes to the film is well taken care of, but more than that I’m not willing to speak of just yet. My idea of keeping everyone on board is likely going to bring down a kill order from various unions for upsetting the order of things.

So given that there’s a need to have as much bang for my buck, while I’m looking at some very expensive things, hands-on experience of each is a must. The cameras I end up choosing have to pull their weight, especially given that I’m going to be so far outside of anything resembling easy access. I’m not sure if anyone has actually taken each of the above out into the wilderness and exposed it to the elements, so there may be problems when I get out into the middle of nowhere – it would be awesome if things went entirely to plan, but, as this week has perfectly demonstrated, that’s asking far too much.

The abuse they would need to take – extremes of heat, potential sandstorms, rain, and more – is the scary part. Any of the cameras I choose (and I’ll likely need 3) has to be able to handle whatever it gets thrown at it.

I’m not fussed about the size of the captured image – warmth and color are more important than the number of pixels, and there’s more important things than how it conforms to some arbitrary format. Mostly I’ve been watching Milius’ Conan, Iron Warrior (Ator il guerriero di ferro), and Red Sonja, noting the look as much as anything, but seeing what I want any camera I choose to be capable of reproducing.

But there’s that nagging feeling that there’s something… wrong with the technology at present. Not wrong, perhaps, but certainly not in the spirit of the films this project is hearkening back to. Amando de Ossorio shot everything on film, as did Lucio Fulci, and George Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead, and Jean Rollin, Larry Cohen, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Sam Peckinpah, and pretty much every director who I’m ever-so-slightly obsessed by, all used film. Film is right for something that looks and sounds as if it should have been made in the late seventies or early eighties.

Actually, I won’t swear to de Ossorio or Fulci – they might have used video at some point in the eighties, and I don’t have their complete filmography to hand in order to check that. Fulci always struck me as one of those cats who would work with whatever was to hand, like comics publishers during WWII who would print on whatever paper they could get their hands on – didn’t matter if the ink couldn’t adhere to the paper or not, they would blast out as much as they could with what was available. I’m sure he would have used video at some point.

Film cameras are, without a doubt, better than digital.

There’s no question, given that so much time and money has been thrown at making digital cameras output footage which is closer to film, so why should I settle for digital when I can shoot on the real thing? It isn’t an easy choice to make at this juncture, especially as the overwhelming focus seems to be on getting people to fall in love with digital shooting. I’m not in love with digital film. It should have been obvious to me, considering what I would prefer to watch, and as much as I want to get on board with where everyone else is at it feels inessential at the moment – digital simply isn’t where it needs to be as yet.

But there’s good reasons to work with digital, and I can already imagine the points which will be raised by my self-admission that I prefer film to digital.

Finding suitable film stock is going to be a pain in the ass.

A thousand feet of 35mm Kodak stock is going to set me back about four hundred quid, and I’m guessing that I’m going to need between fifteen to twenty thousand feet given the complexity of some of the things I want to try. Remember that this is my baby, and I’m going to do it right, so… Yeah, that’s going to be a serious outlay.

Actually, because I’m a geek, the idea of “pulling an Oliver Stone” is appealing. Super 16, digital, and 35mm thrown into the mix, depending on the scene and the context. And yes, I’m well aware that this is needlessly complicating matters, but it makes me smile a stupid amount when I consider what I could get away with if I chose this option. The only thing I’m absolutely certain of at this precise moment is that the finished film is going to be 1.85:1, because that’s the most pleasing to the eye.

Getting the film processed is going to be a pain in the ass.

This is a reasonable thing for people to think, but (surprisingly) no, there is still enough need for processing that it isn’t exceedingly difficult. There is going to be the issue that the film will be out of my hands – and therefore at the mercy of others – for a while during this, which is worrying, but that’s to be expected.

Shooting on film will likely end up costing more.

About that… I’m not so sure. Things are going to be “holy fuck, you want how much money” either way. It sure isn’t helping my nerves any to see how much money everything is costing right now, and the big ticket items still need to be acquired.

No matter the negatives to its use, I can’t stop the thought that keeps coming back to me: why not use 35mm?

I’m not going to make a sudden choice on this matter, but it is a serious consideration.

Planning a shoot is hard at the best of times, but planning one in the middle of an international medical crisis, and especially because I’m planning a non-English shoot, is way more complex. Attempting to make sure everyone I contact is aware of the language issue explicitly, so that nobody is caught out at a later point, is the main gripe with flurries of emails – these essential little details can get lost in the glut of other information, and I have been mentioning it endlessly when conferring with potential cast and crew.

If anyone is getting sick of hearing that detail, it is only so I can be reassured that nobody will be surprised later.

La sorpresa será cuando aparezca con un disfraz de payaso a las tres de la mañana.

I Want to Flee the Sinking Ship Britannia

I haven’t made headway on anything this week, and I’m stuck away from everything important for at least another day or two. I am a hamster on a treadmill, forever rushing yet getting nowhere fast. The universe has a completely perverted sense of humor, and these reminders that anything I attempt will be met with equal and opposite resistance are starting to be extremely irritating.

Not only am I minus transport which I was counting on, nearly everyone I need to talk to is MIA – which, under any other circumstances, wouldn’t be an issue, but when I’m throwing every penny I have at attempting to get things done… Frustrating as mass disappearances are, and being yachtless is, of slightly more concern is how much money each setback costs me. I’m terrified of having to use my card all the time (and, y’know, thanks to whoever emptied out all the cash machines – great thinking there) as it doesn’t feel like real money. I use the card without thinking, and as I barely look at statements I have no idea how much I’ve spent this month already.

The reason that I prefer cash, as in physical money, is that I can work out – from what remains – how much I’m allowed to spend in the remainder of the month without feeling guilty. At this rate I have zero knowledge of where I stand on that front. And no, don’t even bother saying “you can check your balance online,” as the banks have seen to it that their websites are so horribly broken that doing anything on them is absolute torture. Having to input security codes every three minutes might be fun and exciting for some, but its a bloody chore, and that’s with the “remember me” button selected.

One of the major problems with me being left to my own devices, with all meetings seemingly canceled on me, is that I have time to browse. This is dangerous. Today (Saturday) alone I have seen three modern firsts crying out for someone to care for them, and there’s a fairly substantial number of weird paranormal books from the seventies and eighties calling out to me. Under other circumstances I would already have buckled, but keeping at least some semblance of a budget has to come first. A couple of old magazines were all I dared purchase (only eight quid apiece), and even that has given me the guilts.

Whenever things get this annoying, and hoo-boy things are so annoying right now, I get to wondering how Britain must look to the rest of the world. When we broke away from Europe did we officially change the country’s slogan to “ambitious but rubbish?” Everywhere seems to be closed up, even when I’ve specifically booked an appointment… I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to bloody well swim to mainland Europe. Maybe that’s the reason for my compulsive exercising – I’ve already subconsciously decided on a plan of action, or something.

There’s so much melodrama around at the moment that actual, proper drama is far preferable. While I appreciate that people have a natural instinct to panic, emptying out shelves from shops, nabbing all the money from cash machines, and generally going full Prepper on the world, there really isn’t a massive chance of any individual catching Captain Trips. You are more likely to get hit by a bus, or fall down a flight of stairs, or be poisoned by your underpants, or… IDK, be murdered by an Elvis impersonator or something.

Focusing on some hypothetical danger isn’t the best use of anyone’s energy, and only by continuing to follow routine can we get through this madness with as little interruption as possible.

But no. People want to flail and moan, and act as if the sky is falling.

I was going to list everything I still needed to pick up, but as I made my way through endless requirements it became more depressing than anything else. On my travels I discovered a little art shop, one of those independent ones the kind of which used to be everywhere, and it had an absolutely gorgeous little wooden box full of sable brushes on sale. I very nearly splashed out three hundred quid on it, my card tantalizingly close to hand, before I remembered that the plan was to get a camera before anything else. If it is still there the next time I pass through this way I’m going to treat myself.

The specific camera is still an unknown. I want a Red, but dropping twenty grand on an unknown quantity is fucking scary. It many not be much to some, but this is a lot to spend for me at the moment. It isn’t so much money which is playing on my mind, but rather image quality – the first thing I want to do when everything I need is in the can is to find a small cinema somewhere to see all my raw footage on a large screen, then proceed from there. Not knowing exactly what to expect from various makes and models is a massive leap into the unknown, but I can’t go back to using video. Seriously, anything but video… I’ll use one of those Fisher-Price toy cameras before resorting to video.

While I could live with something that looked okay, I want footage slightly better than a run-of-the-mill budget flick. Knowing how to shoot in the desert is going to be the biggest challenge. I’m comfortable with cameras, I’m sorta, kinda, mostly comfortable with designing the look of everything, and… Well, lighting and sound are pretty much black arts. Those that know such things are wizards, and must be given the proper respect. I’ll get hexed otherwise.

Mentioning this, some lighting technician is probably fingering their gris gris bag, staring at the screen, going “say what, motherfucker?”

My head is totes going to end up looking like Beetlejuice at the end of that film. I promise to not mock subtle and dangerous majiks.

I’ve seen another dozen or so films which were released when I was in my little funk, hiding from the world. Goddamn, cinema has gone to shit. I’ve found a total of six great films released over the last few years, where I expected to (maybe) be able to list off a few dozen. There’s an overwhelming sense of familiarity to most of the acclaimed films, with a few being so irredeemably bad that it is almost beyond belief that they managed to garner enough popularity to break even, never mind turn a profit. This makes me fearful that there isn’t room for intelligent, artful films in the current marketplace, but I’m hoping that there is still a space for things which are artfully constructed.

Are didactic speeches becoming a thing? There’s nothing wrong with films imparting lessons, but to drag everything to a halt so that someone can pontificate is ridiculous. Scriptwriting (across multiple genres) has fallen so low in my estimation that I soon expect to see Tellytubbies revived for the big screen by Guy Ritchie – I thought things couldn’t get any worse than Hobbs & Shaw, but I was overly optimistic. This is extremely depressing. You do know that there are lessons hidden in Peckinpah films, right? The narrative doesn’t come to a screeching stop so that you can be told them – you have to work a little harder for the take-away – and they serve to inform character, location, and their place in history.

The single worst atrocity against cinema has to be the opening scene to the Charlie’s Angels reboot, in which Kristen Stewart delivers a speech which goes on… and on… and on… And by the time it is over I’ve already given up the will to live. Yes, the clever little line about threat assessment is well-placed, but everything before it is so speechy that it doesn’t sound like sentences any human would say. Ever. The individual words aren’t bad, and the sentiment is great, but it sets up nothing, goes nowhere, and exists merely to exist.

Maybe there’s hope for Tommy Wiseau after all, if this is the quality of the competition…

And I’m going to have to reassess my criticism of Uwe Boll. Isn’t that a scary thought?

Skipping Merrily Through a Minefield

The goddess is obviously in a playful mood. Just when I think everything is rolling along smoothly, whoomph – the hand of the divine reaches down and starts plucking at carefully woven threads. This isn’t something that comes as a great surprise, given the last few years, but I was sorta hoping for a little more time (and to be permitted some degree of preparation) before being hurled into yet another mess.

There’s Big Ticket Items which are, at present, still-outstanding purchases – it isn’t that I haven’t tried to tick them off the list, but the prices are nowhere near stable enough to guarantee that I will be able to get things at a price which doesn’t cripple me. So when I was told that one of the desperately needed items was on sale extremely cheaply I dragged myself off to see for myself. In the meantime, however, one of the hard drives was slowly dying (unbeknownst to me), and the report on a yacht I had planned on using came back with disappointing news.

It is so reassuring to have bad news waiting on you, isn’t it? Like there’s a sentience to the universe, and every action results in three repercussions entirely unrelated to the action itself. “Cosmic snakes and ladders” was my initial though, “and some bastard’s playing with a loaded die.” And before you say anything, I know that doesn’t make complete sense, but I can’t help immediate reactions to yet more obstacles being set.

If anyone compares life to a marathon, remind them (from me) that the course isn’t changed throughout the event, nor are obstacles rolled into everyone’s path. And there are no trenches for people to leap over. And nobody is firing a sub-machine gun over the runners’ heads. In fact, the more I consider marathons as a sport, the more I am convinced that these are all going to be implemented at some point – we’re fast reaching a point where The Long Walk and The Running Man would sit happily between abuse-as-entertainment from Jeremy ‘Killer’ Kyle and psychological warfare as seen on Love Island and its ilk.

When I heard Killer Kyle was returning to ITV, I may have said “fifty quid on a suicide within three months of it returning.” I immediately felt guilty, of course, about making light of such a horrible outcome, yet somehow it seems about right. As the death toll from reality television mounts up it becomes, somehow, more easy to see where the faults with these shows lie, as well as the damning contribution that the writer’s strike made back in 1988. These things have a way of bringing unintended consequences.

Things from the past affecting the present. How novel a concept…

I really shouldn’t be this sarcastic, but I can’t help it.

The hard drive had been moved around so much that it is a wonder it survived this long, and a fair percentage of its time tucked inelegantly into a cardboard box overfilled with tech which should have had better treatment. Still, better for it to have given up the ghost when it was being used as a back-up rather than having irreplaceable items on it. I’ve been planning on getting a few hard drives in preparation for later – guessing as to how much I need, there was 50TB scheduled to be bought at some point anyway, and this hiccup merely pushes that purchase forwards in my schedule. Given that the last time I shot anything was probably on S-VHS, I have no idea how much memory I’m actually going to need.

The big problem, and one I have no answer to at the moment, is losing my means of transport. I was going to stow everything in a friends yacht and sail over to Spain when the time came, but it isn’t going to be ready in time. In fact, I don’t know if the damn thing will ever be able to hit the open water again given the extensive list of repairs needed, so that’s a whole list of transport and schedule issues thrown in front of me. I don’t want to use an HGV or something, as that merely escalates costs ridiculously, and there’s the minor long-standing issue of proper paperwork to deal with.

To add insult to injury, the server I traveled so far to see had been gutted. There’s no way I could get it cleaned up, restored, modernized, and fully working, unless I devoted a significant amount of time to that process – and if there is one thing I am desperately short of it is free time.

It wasn’t a completely wasted trip. I got a half-hour horror/thriller script written during my down time, specifically designed to feature a single actor in one location, which is sufficiently amusing a notion that it may very well skip ahead of the feature in plans. Depending on the way things go with transport I may be forced to shoot material here, then work out a way to get my ass out to Spain.

Although I wont be able to film, edit, score, and package this short in time for FrightFest at the end of August, I still want to have something to pass around.

Now… About the hard drives:

There are a staggering number of models on this computer. I hadn’t planned on spending more money this month, nor having to find any extra space, but I don’t want to delete any of my planning and development stage before I’m certain that everything which will be required at a later date is safely tucked away somewhere. This is a rather worrying development given that I haven’t got to the stage where the large files were to be expected.

It was always the video files I was prepared for, especially as I want any footage to look as good as possible before getting tweaked (color correction and the like) in post – Blender was never given consideration as to how much space it would take up. While 19 GB isn’t, by any standard, a massive amount of space for models, coupled with reference images and all of my art accompanying the models it soon adds up.

When I get myself a decent HD camera there will probably be a shortage of hard drives soon after¹.

Despite them not working at the moment I’m keeping test blends which do things that I can’t see attempted anywhere. I figure that I’ll pick up enough knowledge of the software to come back to them, and the prospect of recreating immense set-ups is something to be avoided. Really, going back and recreating anything ought to be avoided unless absolutely necessary² – only by looking forward, and folding in new techniques and skills, can creations be the best versions possible.

They really aren’t working, in case you are thinking that they merely need a little tweaking. Whilst some steps are relatively simple – modeling and animating – others are proving slightly more obscure³. I don’t want to get too much into that here, as there’s a whole bunch of things which require thoughts on, and having a dedicated space for ruminations was meant to free this blog for the other notions which were bouncing around in my brain.

Looking back isn’t a bad thing. I find myself, when events aren’t going to plan, considering many things which would be far better if attempted now. One of the lists I slapped together a few years back now appears… well, thin. And given that so much has been released after that was compiled, in various media, it might require a more comprehensive study. The question of what to write in order to keep the money flowing in isn’t the big question: the questions are how and where.

Here’s where I very likely dig a hole for myself…

Most things I’ve sold have been one-off payments⁴. This isn’t a bad deal, whatever you may think. I’ve been more than happy with the earnings, and the fact that people I’ve sold things to are really cool individuals doesn’t hurt – but I’m going to be having a few months blocked out where blasting out short stories or non-fiction articles isn’t going to be possible, and during those periods it would be nice to get some money coming in. There’s also been a growing feeling that I should maintain some control over the work I create, so this means going it alone.

Now, given that I’ve previously – and extensively – noted all the problems which pen names brings up, you might expect that there will be an onslaught of material appearing under my name, but this would produce two insurmountable problems for me:

<strong>One</strong>. There are short story collections, novellas, novels, and non-fiction of an extremely wide variety. Having everything appear under my own name would confuse people who are looking for more of the same – and even limiting myself to only issuing novels under my name wouldn’t solve this, due to my (previously noted) penchant for mimicry. There’s so much difference from one novel to the next that a casual reader would be forgiven for thinking that they emerged from completely different authors.
<strong>Two</strong>. It is a Very Bad Idea to skip willfully across genres with little regard for any audience those works would garner. While it is possible to dual-path readers (King manages to mix his horror and crime output magnificently), by the time one gets to four or five genres it can be confusing for people arriving late to the party. The notion of restricting myself is tedious, and I would only end up subverting, undermining, and twisting genre works anyways (no change there), so having these separated out makes complete sense.

This means, in case you are wondering, that I am seriously considering a clutch of pen names to fund things to come.

The how, therefore, in getting through the next few years is clear.

As for the where… Okay, so Smashwords is the obvious choice. It is, alas, a choice which is presently overflowing with great novels⁵. But this train of thought wouldn’t be half as entertaining if I merely went ahead and started uploading – there needs to be something contained within the process of using pen names which elevates their use somehow. If I’m going to use this long-standing tradition⁶, then it needs to contain an added component which others have omitted until now. It needs to make sense in the greater scheme of things.

Most importantly, it needs to be fun. What’s the point otherwise?

A few of the quick ideas generated to push this on felt a little too forced. Gimmick naming, wherein the list of pen names would consist entirely of, say, obscure 16th to 18th century playwrights, or French philosophers, or the names of tertiary characters from Victorian literature, is something I am really trying to keep myself from using. It would be interesting to see how quickly they would be identified, but might be a touch too eccentric. It would also be fairly easy for people to see where the story within drew possible inspirations.

If I can keep from playing too deeply with references (another challenge) then my time and energy could be better used on the contents.

And, because this is me, there’s going to be a standing invitation for people to attempt to ‘out’ my pen names. Normally a verboten activity, I’m going to encourage you to see if you can find where I’ll be dropping books. Other authors (unless they have explicitly stated they are open to this) are to be regarded as completely off the table – and I’m going to be very disappointed if people start exposing authors who have good reason for trying their damnedest to maintain a level of secrecy – but you can expose as many of my forthcoming pen names as you want.

In fact, lets make that a game. I’ll throw up a page here with the pen names once they have been correctly identified, with each getting their own page listing the works under that name, and a mention in the “biography” section of who was first to correctly identify me as the hand behind that name. Fuck it, if I’m going to make a mockery of the use of pen names I’ll do it with panache.

This is likely going to ruffle a few feathers. Y’know, as long as this is kept constrained I can’t see the harm in letting it play out. This is hardly the worst thing I’ve done, in case anyone thinks that by moving the goal-posts so far I’m wilfully attacking the core conceit of a pen name. It has the beneficial side-effect of forcing me to alter my writing style when working on something, and it challenges people to use analytical skills when approaching a text – the entire idea itself is something which makes pen names <em>more</em> interesting as a concept.

Don’t think I’ll make it easy for you – there wouldn’t be any sport in that. I’ll take things on my end seriously, applying all of the things I would were I to seriously be attempting the use of a pen name. There won’t, for example, be any of the usual pithy indifference of status⁶, or mockery of my usual subjects of scorn. You are going to have to work for your bragging rights.

And there’s the other thing.

It is difficult to put the following into words without causing at least some consternation and annoyance, so before I dig into the other reason why I’m using pen names I’m going to make an important distinction which needs to be made between what I’m doing and, for example, people writing erotica. There’s a damn good reason why a person might not want their name to appear on the cover of… Red Hot Sex Slave or something.

I have no idea if that is actually a book. It sounded like a title which could exist so I ran with it. If there is actually a book with that title, and if it is under the author’s own name, I apologize profusely, but the title sounds lurid. I’m imagining someone tied up in bondage gear on the cover, a goofy grin on their face. Somewhere between one of those gorgeous fifties paperbacks – with improbably pneumatic women, and men in elegant suits – and a grubby eighties straight-to-videocassette feature. It has the ring of authenticity about it.

Man, I need to write that. The hell with the rest of this post, that sounds like an interesting little novella which I could knock out in a few hours…

What was I saying? Oh, yeah – there’s a real and serious reason for people to use pen names. I’m not dismissing that. What we need to think about, in regards to pen names, is the authenticity of the contents in relation to the authorial persona when it comes to awards. There’s a long list (a very, very long list) of pen names who have won awards, but in most cases the identities of those authors are either an open secret or are the subject of rumors, speculation, and general chit-chat.

Most of the works which one can pinpoint as by a pseudonym are pretty good, and truly deserve any awards they pick up.

Buuuuut… (there was always a ‘but’ coming) I’m ruling myself out, here and now, for any and every award. Don’t even think of suggesting a work which appears from my pen (or keyboard, actually, but pen sounds better), or else I will step in. Not only am I prepared for this – albeit unlikely – eventuality, I am more than willing and capable of putting the kibosh on any unwanted celebration that a pen name might garner. Although there are certain awards I would definitely want on my shelf, I wouldn’t want to look at one which didn’t have my name on it. I’m not, therefore, going to chase anything.

Pen names don’t count.

Once more, because people might be skimming – this is only in relation to me.

There are a bunch of reasons behind this line of thought, but the main thing I keep coming back to is the integrity of the lists. While others may be happy with any name on the lists, the thought of sitting back and letting a patently false name mar any awards list makes me uncomfortable. A great many things I refuse to let stand have, over the years, been points of principal that have attracted bemusement, scorn, and disbelief. It doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what the rules state, and it certainly doesn’t matter what popular opinion decrees.

What matters is my ability to focus on things which are important (to me), and not have to deal with thorny dilemmas which are a distraction.

Someone ought to start tallying up all the things I refuse to do for dumb moral reasons, then slap me with the printout. Yes, I am well aware that this is yet another thing that isn’t actually a thing. This is an issue which only exists in my head, and nobody else cares. I get it. I completely accept that I’m the only person who has a problem with accepting a pen name’s eligibility for awards, but that isn’t going to appease me any. I want no part of awards outside those which I am eligible for under my own name.

You don’t have to understand, and you don’t have to like it.

1. I’ve already begun playing with models constructed from bits of cardboard and plastic, using the crappy webcam to block out shots I’m planning as best I can. It has almost zero focus capabilities, and a terrible picture, but I can get the overall impression of what I want – making the leap to an animatic less problematic, and shortening the amount of time it will take to step up to the finished article.
2. Recreating lost footage, such as missing Doctor Who episodes, are an exception. Moving things across media is also a valid use of recreating what was, and it is largely when there is little original input into the finished article that I get annoyed at seeing people reuse things. If there isn’t something new brought to bear on a work then there isn’t any need to remake it – which is my main problem with film remakes appearing so often. Very few seem to have had proper development of the ideas inherent to their properties, making for an unsatisfactory and cheap experience.
3. There are so many ways in which I despise the lighting set-up, camera placement, and UV unwrapping in Blender, none of which are as intuitive as other software makes the processes. There’s more on this at Digital Hume. I may yet splash out on something a little more to my taste, though the budgetary concerns are playing a massive part of my thinking as yet.
4. Complaining about payments, and the loss of rights, helps nobody – anyone thinking that there’s something inherently wrong with a sale shouldn’t go through with it, and that isn’t just my way of saying “let me grab that opportunity, thanks” – and I expect everyone to be doing their homework on what they are giving up when they sell something they have created. Merely because I am satisfied with the money paid for my writing doesn’t meant that anyone else should settle for what they determine to be a bad deal.
5. Yes, the novels are good. A great many covers may leave something to be desired (and I’m going to get around to that eventually), but the writing is, overall, of a very high standard. My sampling may not have been extensive, nor covered all genres, but of what I have read there is much to be impressed by.
6. Don’t. Really, don’t… If you are going to start listing off how this is a problem of epic proportions, I don’t want to hear it. People have been using pen names for centuries, and if you have a problem with my decision to use pen names then you can take any commentary elsewhere. I’ve found a way to make it fun and interesting.
7. This is not going away. Here, where I get to bang my brains out on the keyboard and mash gray matter into my words, is going to remain a place where I don’t have to acknowledge that there are tiers. Nobody is more important than anyone else by virtue of their back catalog. I’m not going to tip my hat to anyone, and I don’t expect anyone to view me as being more important merely because blah, blah, blah. Watch this. Now, tell me – does it make any sense to maintain a status quo which has been so thoroughly demolished over the years. There may be a t-shirt reading “I am vulgar and I don’t know my place” waiting in my future…

I Really Do Have a Plan. Honest.

As I’m being completely transparent as to my short and medium term goals – well aware that they are likely to draw criticism – it is only fair that I also let you in on some of the difficulties and opportinuties which are complicating matters. Full disclosure is probably unwise, but this is cathartic as much as anything. Do you have any idea how stressful it is to attempt to keep things on the quiet? I’ve been downplaying things, and… I’m not sure how successful – if at all successful – any reassurances given out have been.

The new laptop isn’t ideal. It isn’t the fault of the laptop itself, but rather the overall design choices which are dominating the current generation of laptops. I’m probably going to have to buy a more substantial external keyboard at some point, as writing around a hundred thousand words a day on this is going to wear out the keys in no time at all. I’m also slightly concerned about the tracker pad, which was never designed for such extensive use.

The only reason I’m able to do so much right now is the insomnia flaring up – with only around four hours sleep a night at the moment, and not good sleep either, I’m somehow increasing my workflow substantially. There should be a knock-on effect of exhaustion, but I’m concentrating hard on Blender and getting excited at the notion of getting a film made. The current situation does afford me more time than I would otherwise have, so I’m portioning out that time as well as I can. I’m keeping – more or less – on schedule, with the only limiting factor being my comfort with Blender.

The rest of the time…

Well, there are short stories, scripts, and designs to figure out. While I’m not sure quite how much material I’m going to have to create in order to fund all the steps along the way to the previously mentioned projects, there’s likely enough wiggle room to play in if I keep on budget. I’m not going to borrow money, or go into debt, in achieving any of this, and I don’t want to ask anyone for help – that would probably be the smart thing to do, but I want my fingerprints on everything. It is ego, pure and simple. I can do all this if I put my mind to it.

The funding, as far as financing is concerned, has always been intended to spring from me, and me alone, as asking anyone to chip in seems too much like begging.

Actually there’s another reason why I have to do everything on my own, and that is for what comes next.

Building on what I’m working on now, moving forward with concepts which intrigue me, has to follow certain specific constraints. It would be both arrogant and unrealistic to expect others to adhere to such limitations, so there really isn’t any point in frustrating anyone with them – and as I have no interest whatsoever in creating franchises, and little interest in playing within the worlds others have created, I’m largely stuck doing the best I can with what I have.

There has to be a certain sensibility in all these things. Not that I want to impose a look on things, or that everything has to be willfully clever (there are enough stoner gags in the film script to keep everyone happy), but that they come from a certain place – the understanding that they all originate from one source. Despite the complications which tackling everything creates, having one hand behind all aspects involved is the best way to maintain that sense of auteurship.

Like I said – rampant ego.

I’m not tackling everything completely alone, as there are people who are absolutely vital to get on board. There’s a certain director – semipro, with a great visual style – who seems as if he could cope with the level of interference I would bring, and I’ve been on the look-out for people to fill other key positions. There’s no cast in mind yet, which is going to make me really, really nervous when thing move forwards, but I figure that there’s plenty of time to deal with that yet.

And before anyone asks, yes – I did all the storyboards myself. Any opportunity to cut down on the overall cost is to be grabbed with both hands, especially when there are so many specific things to keep in focus. As soon as I can figure out how to get the animation properly rendered, I also have a vanity plate ready, for which the letters were specially done. Everything has to be mine, otherwise I’m going to look back on the finished article and regret not spending the time to do it right.

Whatever else, this should be interesting. Hell, even if things go completely mad and I end up stuck in the desert for longer than anticipated, at least it will make for great blog posts, right? There’s no way I would leave you hanging while I’m doing something so ambitious.

There is one small, yet crucial, aspect of this that I’m not even going to attempt to tackle solo – the soundtrack has to be completely right for the story. That means, unfortunately, that there can’t be any synths used. Nor pianos, or guitars, or anything remotely familiar. When I was working out the story, and trying to find as much information as possible on artifacts which originated in the right place, at the right time, I found a few possibilities – and there are at least three instruments I want to track down replicas of, if any have actually been created.

Putting the sounds together, and mixing them in a way which doesn’t detract from the visuals, is a whole world of technical nightmare. I wrote a few scenes to specifically play out in a manner in which the audio leads narrative development, so the pacing, mood, and intent has to be right as well. Soundscapes have to possess so many factors that it would really stretch my abilities, and I’m not comfortable tackling so demanding a role when there are people around who not only do this stuff for a living, but are far, far more talented than me when it comes to sound.

There’s one thing that really tipped the balance for me when it came to the decision I would make this film: there aren’t really any combat sequences. Yes, there is some action involved, adhering to the original concept “Conan meets Cheech and Chong,” but no bloodshed. For that matter, the computer game will be mostly free of physical violence as well.

I told you that I wasn’t thinking with my commercial brain.

There really isn’t a need to add violence for the sake of it, nor is there any need for nudity. Well… I may throw in a naked background cameo if nobody objects, but mostly because it would be extremely amusing to do so, and not for any artistic reasoning. Don’t worry, I’ve been working out. I’m not saying that I’m gonna look like Chris Evans anytime soon, but at least there’s muscle definition.

Changing the nature of the discourse between standard fantasy fare and audience is something that has been bugging me a lot, and as nobody else is willing (or able) to step back from the popular concepts to examine more important aspects, then it is largely down to those who need to do so. In this case, yeah, me. That there is such a broad canvas from which to draw fantasy from, but so little making its way from the archetypes to what is presented on screen, means that there is an audience which has never really been exposed to some of the fundamental ideas.

While I’m always going to love the Conan films, and even films such as the Ator sequence (especially Iron Warrior), I can’t help feeling that there is room for something greater than that which we are so often presented with. There’s little exploration of the spiritual, or even just the social structure, of these societies, and stepping back to look at how life might have been forty-something thousand years ago – well, forty-something thousand years ago with added weirdness – is far more interesting than seeing guys chop each other to bits with swords.

Something I mentioned on the digital blog keeps being repeated in what I want to do – to break out of the way which everyone else seems to be thinking and do something new. I’ve tried my best to write whatever might be beloved by all, and to fashion characters which can be made into toys, and cartoons, and all the rest of the noise, but there’s always something soulless about such work. It doesn’t speak to me the same way that crafting an entire little world, self-contained, and living, does.

There’s a lot to do over the next few months, and I desperately want to be shooting in August or September – when the desert is going to be cool enough to film in during the day. By that time I can have the animatic up somewhere, then start figuring out the effects which are needed. I was smart enough to include a couple of scenes which could be filmed anywhere, and those are the ones I want to get done and dusted first (although these are also heavy on magic) to have at least a little headway before venturing forth into the wilderness.

And I’m going to have to paint a poster, because all films should have proper posters and not horrible Photoshop monstrosities. Gouache is probably better than oils for this, as I’m pretty certain that a lot of 70s and 80s posters used them for their art. It will need to be something slightly in the style of Frazetta, though not so much a parody as it is inspired by his style. While this may sound like the easiest of the things needed for the preparation, it is going to have to look like the characters – something that will have to wait until I’ve gone through the casting process.

As far as art is concerned, I’m also going to do the comic adaptation – script, art, lettering, and possibly the coloring. That last one is still questionable, as I don’t want it to look too rough and ready, and I can’t help but fill in detail where I can. My tendency has always been to put in more details than are really required, and it would probably work better with a looser, more traditional, style. That’s way, way into the process, though, and something which I’m not even going to ponder until I get other things done.

Before I get too far into all that, there’s a test shoot required on a beach somewhere.

I’m not sure that I’m going to post a full schedule, as having people arrive unannounced wherever I decide to use might be annoying, but all other information is likely to end up here.

Everything in Order

You will have noted, in the previous post, that there is a certain unintuitive order to things. Why, you ask yourself, is the film a top priority? Well… It’s complicated. I’ve never pretended to be populist in my outlook, and there are aspects to the novels which prevents me from placing them at the top of the To Do list.

See, the film script was written with the intention of it being filmed in Spain, and not only as a throwback to all the gloriously cheesy seventies flicks – I need it to be made there because my Spanish is awful. What has that got to do with anything? To understand the urgency with which I am attempting to learn Blender – in order to move forward with the film, in order to better grasp the Spanish language – you have to understand something integral about the books…

I’ve worked out the most complex arrangement possible for the dialogue.

It has never made any sense to me that people in the future are going to speak English. Yes, the majority of readers will speak fluent English, and – of course – English is my native tongue, but merely because those two facts are present and correct doesn’t reflect on what I want to accomplish with the story. It has long been of interest to me that H. Beam Piper decided to have a multicultural aspect to his work, and in expanding, extrapolating, and complicating the universe I wanted to delve into, it made sense that language would play an important aspect.

Which is why there are several distinct speech variations which are required.

The first glimpse of the universe is going to be set in a location which is strongly Scandanavian, with bits and pieces of those languages blended together in a completely new form. I’m not even going to pretend that my grasp of the Scandanavian languages is anywhere near competent enough, so I’ll likely need someone with more expertise to check that over, and add in any corrections or omissions.

The next society which gets a look in, and which I have been spending the most time exploring, is a blend of French, Italian, Spanish, and Portugese. There are words which I absolutely adore, and which I’ll do anything to work in – and in addition it seems only fair to use root words from Latin in subtle ways. This has been the most difficult, and if I can get through everything which takes me to a point where I can safely start fiddling with the mix without second-guessing any constructs then I’m going to be one step closer having a product which is unlike anything else out there.

There’s also the looming presence of another faction, blending Russian, German, Romanian, and Gaelic, but one step at a time.

When I pointed out that there were things people would hate about the books, this was what I was referring to. I’ve always loved extremely dense back-stories, and the opportunity to create and develop languages inherent to specific cultures of the future – borrowing equally from the component parts of those societies – is too tempting not to play with. There’s no point in doing things in half-measures, and if I had to cut back on the situational realism for the sake of having a finished work which was more palatable I would be doing a disservice to the creation.

You can laugh all you want, but I’m really trying to create something which I can be proud of. I don’t want to look back at the end product wishing that I had done things differently, so the only way to get from where I am to a point where this can be properly edited is if I can master the skills required to see it through.

And here’s a thought – SF is meant to be awesome. You are meant to awe. If you aren’t awed, then there’s either a problem with the work or a problem with the creator’s interpretation of their work. I don’t want to be the problem. I can see what I want, but at the moment I can’t quite pull it off. In short, my Spanish sucks. Not that my Italian or French is much better, but I figure that if I scratch off one language to a certain competency, then the others will be easier to acquire.

At least that’s the plan.

The base language will be English throughout – as everyone would need to talk to each other, and English is one of the dominating languages in media – but I want it to sound unlike anything else you have ever read, seen, or heard. I’ve been pondering how to include languages outside those selected (especially Mandarin and Arabic), but justifying their inclusion merely for the sake of representation is giving me a headache.

And I’m completely dreading someone asking me to do a public reading, because really…

Have I mentioned that little OCD thing?

Thus the film needs to come first. I haven’t got the hang of Blender yet, so any animatic is still a ways off. I’m not even sure how to get funding (especially as it is a fantasy), and there are a host of things which aren’t at the point where I can start bragging in any way, shape, or form. Yes, this is madness. Yes, I know I am doing things all ass-backwards. And yes, I know that there is a likelihood that this is going to go very wrong, but I’ve started now.

I’m also, in case you hadn’t realized, extremely stubborn.

I’m also acutely aware that I’m very likely crazy. There’s no need for you to point that out.

Onwards and… Outwards? Offwards? Something.

It has been far too long since an opportunity arose to cover my status, and while I don’t want to appear too positive at the moment – which is adequate encouragement for the universe to poke me in the ribs again – there’s enough to be getting started with…

My awareness of cultural artefacts seems to be remarkably low in relation to my liking. I’ve missed a lot. These last couple of weeks I have been catching up on as much as I can (strictly within my budget, because I have one of those now), but there are a lot of novels, television series, films, songs, and computer games to have appeared while I wasn’t looking. Some of what I’ve seen impressed me, a handful depressed me, and a couple are now on my All Time Classics list. It isn’t a great batting average, but I’m guessing that there are great works which I simply haven’t heard of, so when I get around to them the overall score for 2010s Media is likely to rise.

Where to start? Well, I’m skipping Game of Thrones. I know it had a big place in people’s lives for a while, but there’s no point in watching that until I give the last couple of books the once over. It was never a series I fell in love with – having read a few books, and seen the first two seasons before The Big Interruption – and it feels, in places, like a love letter to Gormenghast as much as a brand new work. That isn’t an insult, on any level, and I’m going to get around to it eventually.

I’ve seen Lost in Space, as it was always a franchise which held great promise, and though it has been strange to see such a new take on the set-up, I’m glad I set aside the time. While there are things I would have liked to see developed, and characters who demanded more screen time, it has been an overall successful reboot. It is also one of the few shows which made me consider how little I note really good works outside of the evergreens – it is easier to spend a few thousand words complaining about the dross which inflicts itself on my eyes, but I ought to have as much (if not more) verbiage pointing out where the cards have fallen perfectly.

Lost in Space is great. As is the few bits of Black Mirror I’ve caught up on, and so too Haunting of Hill House. These aren’t perfect, but they are very, very polished. Selected reviews will appear here at some point, but I’m not going to promise that I can keep from being annoying and pointing out the deficiencies in what has been screened in my absence.

I can’t say the same good things when it comees to film. It is tricky to arrive back online and be anywhere near analytical about the overall state of cinema, but my feeling is that something dreadful has happened in the last few years – it took my viewing of a few films (out of their release order, mind you) to catch on to something which has been at the back of my mind since seeing the trailers for Age of Ultron, and now it is impossible to shake:

Things have a certain look which I don’t really appreciate.

Did everyone get handed a set of standards that I’m not aware of? Is there now, from some strange office, a list of things which have to appear in every film? There’s a hegemony in popular entertainment – originating from I-don’t-know-where – which bothers me. Why does everything share certain stylistic tics these days? X-Men: Days of Future Past may be the most depressing, most cynical thing I’ve seen in years, and the reboot of Charlie’s Angels was a huge missed opportunity. The Fast & The Furious franchise has fallen to the level of a Cannonball Run sequel, and I’m fast losing patience with DC films. I haven’t seen Joker yet, and may not even bother.

It may merely be that I’ve picked the wrong films, in which case… My bad. But I really do get a sense of constant déjà vu when things appear again, and again, and again. Is this just me? Am I alone in thinking that we are seeing the regurgitation of a select few concepts? Is cimena eating itself?

There was a time when any genre offering was beyond tempting, but when there’s so little that these films offer it is hard to care.

Literature has served me better, with a few Stephen King books released over the last few years catching my eye immediately. I’m always going to turn to him for compelling characters, interesting plots, and great set-pieces, but King’s still serving up rather disappointing endings when he isn’t on top form. Scalzi, as always, brings a new sensibility to what he writes, and it has been interesting to see him stretch out a little and play.

Of course, things don’t stand still, and it is depressing to see the names of all who have passed while I’ve been… busy. Damn. I’ll state categorically that it is unlikely I’ll catch up on the what, where, when, why, who and how, even with the extra hours I have, so over the coming months I’m going to be rather useless. If I say something dumb (which… come on, this is me, of course that’ll happen) then it is likely because I didn’t arrive at everything in order. I’m dipping into the last few years at random and pulling what catches my eye, but there are things I’m going to overlook.

Which is partially why I gave myself three objectives:

1) Get good at Blender. It is the reason Digital Hume exists, and it isn’t an isolated thing I’m attempting. I know people are going to ponder the reasons, so I’ll be forthright about my intentions – I really want to get the Untitled Fantasy filmed, especially as it doesn’t need a lot of tricks. If I can get my shit together, good enough to create an animatronic of the entire script, then it pushes it closer to a done deal. My communications with a semi-pro director aren’t proceeding as fast as I would like, and the notion of going ahead and shooting the main desert battle with placeholder FX is at the forefront of my brain.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that sequence, and I’m pretty sure it can be done on the cheap with the right software.

There’s also a game which I ruined. My fault completely. It deserved better, and it really is an interesting side-step from what everyone else has done. There are a few properties – in other media, thankfully – which came close, but nothing has stayed in the headspace in which that game exists for long. It is something that nobody else will take on (for obvious reasons, when you finally hear more about it), so I have a duty of care to get it out there.

2) Fix at least one book a year. It is ambitious, yes, but going back and editing millions of words down into a coherent, appropriately long, intelligent narrative is something that has been on the To Do list for far too long. I’m not sure how many words I’m going to have to redo completely (I have many, many versions of the opening to my Piper homage), but the complex stuff is at the front of the list. I may even drop some new stuff straight to free ebooks, as I have no idea where to place the more experimental work. You can blame my re-reading Tristram Shandy compulsively for those.

Although the priority is on things that I feel are Important (capitalized for importance), I’m not overlooking the fun little things. At some point I’m going to have to ask for help in getting the little comic strips completed, but I can’t see that being something which demands immediate attention. They don’t really built to anything grander, so they aren’t part of my plans in the short term.

3) Get the Database back up and running. This is, in all likelihood, the most complex of the things on my To Do list. See, the version I’m currently working with is a copy of the backup, missing key elements, and with horrendously broken code – the Javascript is hacked to bits, and there are missing tags all over the place. I really screwed up big time, but I didn’t think I would actually need the backups. I should know better by now, but optimism beats practical consideration all too often. I mentioned some of the problems in the previous post, but that isn’t stopping me from proceeding, albeit slowly.

But the issue with the Database is that it has always eaten money like there was no tomorrow. I’ve been adamant that it wouldn’t carry advertising, but that’s something which I’ll address at a later point. It has also grown rather larger than it should, taking in television, film, music, literature, radio, computer games, and other media, outgrowing its original intention. I can’t do simple things, as has been proven time and time again, as there is always more information out there which adds to understanding. I want to be as complete as I can, but that always seems to lead to the same problem – too many words.

One of these days I’ll learn to sit back from the keyboard and say “done” without feeling a lingering need to add one more thing. Then another. Then…

So that’s the short term and interim goals. I also have a couple of things I’m dragging out from the folders to see if I can make them sing, but I would rather focus on a few things that are clear and have defined conclusions than start on what could end up spiralling into massive ventures.

There’s something I’ve only touched on here briefly, and that’s going to be a long-term goal – making things self-financing.

Whatever the (justifiable) arguments about monetization are, it pains me to talk about the Database as anything other than a source of information. I don’t want to start getting it grubbied up, and it feels wrong to stick a bunch of pleading notices on it. I want it kept clean and pure. Yes, that is horribly, unrealistically hopeful, especially as the thing hemorrages money, but it was set out in the original statement, and I don’t like changing these things so long after the fact.

The game should make its money back, and the books… Well, they’re questionable. There’s a lot of stuff which I know I’ve included which I know puts people off works, but those are essential for the stories to unfold properly. Call that idealism. Whatever. I’m not going to make things ultra-commercial merely to make money – yeah, I have integrity, don’t act all surprised and shit.

I’ll figure out the proper course of action eventually, even if I end up zigging when I should zag.

Lit Lists

This is the start of a semi-regular feature – every time I have nothing else urgently requiring my attention, I’ll put up a list of books seen in films and television shows. It is, of course, based on the Rory List which Abby featured on her blog. To open with I wanted to pick a film I really love, but I could probably have planned this better. For Fight Club, the list of books is staggeringly small – Anger Kills by Redford Williams, M.D. & Virginia Williams, PH.D. is the only book whose cover clearly seen, and there are a couple of quick flashes of a dictionary when the Narrator is having the skin on the back of his hand burned away. It isn’t a lost cause for magazines as the Fürni furniture catalog (which I’m pretty sure is fictitious) and Movieline (Jul 1995) are shown. Also, the Narrator reads from Annotated Reader (which I would Google to find out the deal behind it, but I was kinda disheartened by the lack of a juicy list to put together and didn’t bother. In addition, the line “You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world” is inspired by Also Sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, for those of you who need to know this kind of stuff. As I pointed out, I could have planned this better.

Console yourself with Chuck Palahniuk’s bibliography.

So… What about some other film? Children Of Men, perhaps… There are a lot of books used as background filler, though actually displaying them on-screen is rarer than it could have been. Man, everyone else seems to be either waaay better at this shit than I am, or they are picking the easy films and television shows to do this with. I couldn’t make out any of the titles in the damn film, even though Theo walks past stacks of books during the course of the film. Maybe “boy films” are the problem. Possibly looking at the books in comedies would throw up more examples of what I am looking for. C’mon, it can’t be that hard to find characters reading on film.

Miss Congeniality

The Invisible Intruder by Carolyn Keene (Harriet Stratmeyer Adams)
Essentials Of Russian Grammar by Nicholas Maltzoff.

Dear gods, Miss Congeniality has more books visible than Fight Club – am I in Bizarro World? Maybe I’ll have better luck with a television show…

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this.

Just because.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

Thanks to Perry Block for reminding me of the Plan 9 From Outer Space explanation I had planned on posting for the longest time. This, as you may know, is one of the key films in my catalog of references – I have, over the years, got more mileage out of defending this than any other film. Why? Well, it is an important part of the crossover between the classic film era, the “middle period” (which led to all those classic sixties dramas as epitomized by Roger Corman) and the modern era which was ushered into existence with the release of Jaws. It’s not so important for its’ contents (or supposed lack of quality) but because of the script. Read the script, and take a moment or two to consider how much of the techniques have been borrowed from (and absorbed into) the language of cinema.

In case you need reminding, here is the film.

and here is the script.

Now, I know that no less an authority than Stephen King has claimed this to be a waste of your time, but it isn’t. Neither is Independence Day, Electric Boogaloo or Love, Actually. From lesser films, we can always learn. What do we learn from Plan 9 From Outer Space? Depends on what you want to learn, but we can take a few lessons from the script first and foremost – the use of non-fiction elements to sell fictional portions of a script has been used a number of times in a variety of ways, but the Criswell Predicts opening is, perhaps, the purest exploration of sliding people from a television format to a feature film. It is done in an incredibly cheesy way, but the very same thing can be seen any time you identify real newsreaders in a film.

There are other things which you can walk away from the film knowing. Award yourself a cookie every time you see something in Plan 9 which has been done in a blockbuster in recent years. There is, oft times, greatness in the crap we too readily step on.

Scumbag Of The Week: Jason Peterson

Just a quick heads-up for people who should be aware of things going on in the interwebs.