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So I Don't Feel Unattentive...
Nov. 23rd, 2007 01:31 pmIf there's anybody out there who reads me and I haven't Friended, let me know by Comment and I'll Friend you.
FP
PS: Producers Are Money-Grubbing Scum.
FP
PS: Producers Are Money-Grubbing Scum.
New Thoughts on Old Ideas
Sep. 15th, 2007 12:00 amI suppose I'll start with the older of the two.
Back when I was in High School, I played around with a science-fiction story about an Andromeda Strain-variety pandemic hitting and how the only person with an immunity to the disease has to endure all sorts of crises before he could make things right. The disease I had in mind was a virus that induced an extremely strong fatigue/lethargy effect.
This week it was announced that there is a viral component to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
In the words of Men At Work, "It's not the future that I can see--it's just my fantasies".
And the other idea?
It would be for a sitcom set in the far future, about a group of people in a living history park playing the part of early 21st Century citizens. The way of life that we know now has been completely phased out or destroyed, and so the following civilization feels the need to preserve some of it. Of course the actors in this park approach it with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Just thought up the title: "Old-Growth Suburbia".
Maybe it would work better as a webcomic.
FP
Back when I was in High School, I played around with a science-fiction story about an Andromeda Strain-variety pandemic hitting and how the only person with an immunity to the disease has to endure all sorts of crises before he could make things right. The disease I had in mind was a virus that induced an extremely strong fatigue/lethargy effect.
This week it was announced that there is a viral component to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
In the words of Men At Work, "It's not the future that I can see--it's just my fantasies".
And the other idea?
It would be for a sitcom set in the far future, about a group of people in a living history park playing the part of early 21st Century citizens. The way of life that we know now has been completely phased out or destroyed, and so the following civilization feels the need to preserve some of it. Of course the actors in this park approach it with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Just thought up the title: "Old-Growth Suburbia".
Maybe it would work better as a webcomic.
FP
Ficlet: The TV Series
Aug. 13th, 2007 12:57 amThis is a postscript to my preceding idea about making the Hackett Continuum as a role-playing game...in the interest of making all ficlet dabblers aware of the paradigm involved, I looked into my copy of a screenwriting book written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Stracynski.
Now whether you incorporate "commercial breaks" into your ficletage, that's entirely your thing. I was hoping to do so in my own series if only to put the "reality" of my world in perspective--what things cost, what was available technology-wise, what the culture was like, and so on. Plus it would have been nice comedy relief when needed. (And they can be repeated from one episode to the next.)
So this is the model:
* Episode Teaser/Opening Theme and Credits
* First Commercial
* Act I Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E - F)
* Second Commercial
* Act II Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E - F)
* Third Commercial/"News Brief"
* Act III Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E - F)
* Fourth Commercial
* Act IV Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E)
* Promo for Next Episode/Closing Theme and Credits
The reason for the Scenes in parathenses is because we could move Scene allotments around as needed. Each ficlet would represent perhaps two or three minutes of screen time. As an Act generally runs eleven minutes in practice, that means four to six ficlets.
The grand total is...twenty-two to twenty-nine ficlets. This is for the 'hour-long drama' show that I wanted to emulate; a half-hour sitcom would only have three Acts and fewer Scenes per Act.
More to come.
FP
Now whether you incorporate "commercial breaks" into your ficletage, that's entirely your thing. I was hoping to do so in my own series if only to put the "reality" of my world in perspective--what things cost, what was available technology-wise, what the culture was like, and so on. Plus it would have been nice comedy relief when needed. (And they can be repeated from one episode to the next.)
So this is the model:
* Episode Teaser/Opening Theme and Credits
* First Commercial
* Act I Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E - F)
* Second Commercial
* Act II Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E - F)
* Third Commercial/"News Brief"
* Act III Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E - F)
* Fourth Commercial
* Act IV Scenes
- A - B - C - D - (E)
* Promo for Next Episode/Closing Theme and Credits
The reason for the Scenes in parathenses is because we could move Scene allotments around as needed. Each ficlet would represent perhaps two or three minutes of screen time. As an Act generally runs eleven minutes in practice, that means four to six ficlets.
The grand total is...twenty-two to twenty-nine ficlets. This is for the 'hour-long drama' show that I wanted to emulate; a half-hour sitcom would only have three Acts and fewer Scenes per Act.
More to come.
FP
Tags:
Breaking the Geek Barrier
Jun. 19th, 2005 12:55 amHey.
This week, I finished reading the run of Battle Action Force comics, which has been posted at http://www.bloodforthebaron.com . This is the de facto prequel to the British version of G.I. Joe comics, some of which were imported to the US by Marvel. The Battle series was not imported, however, making them truly a geeky prize.
As a read, they're spotty. Several of the stories (especially after Cobra took over as main antagonist from the Red Shadows) are horrendously silly. The cliffhanger/recap factor is terribly high, and if I were to reprint these, I'd really whack away at the page count to compensate. The artwork is fairly gritty (I mean that in a good way), but the dialogue is hamstrung--especially in comparison to the convoluted wording Larry Hama used in the American G.I. Joe titles. Body counts in the stories are as high as in the classic pre-Joe American war comics like Sgt. Rock...but this also makes the comic terribly predictable as the reader figures out who lives and who dies rather quickly.
For a while I was toying with knitting the storylines of the British and American continuities into a coherent whole, but it's kind of contraversial too...and getting moot as a point. Devil's Due, who took over the American Joe franchise in the comics with "Reinstated" five years ago, is going its own way and abandoning the past that Marvel (and Battle) had made.
It makes sense. This sort of thing is meant to be sold to the kids, who aren't interested in backstory. They want to plunge right in and go without having to look something up. When I was a boy, I felt the same way (as I wrote in the post "I Coulda Told You That!").
I also think something is being lost...but that's not my call. I should learn from this experience.
FP
This week, I finished reading the run of Battle Action Force comics, which has been posted at http://www.bloodforthebaron.com . This is the de facto prequel to the British version of G.I. Joe comics, some of which were imported to the US by Marvel. The Battle series was not imported, however, making them truly a geeky prize.
As a read, they're spotty. Several of the stories (especially after Cobra took over as main antagonist from the Red Shadows) are horrendously silly. The cliffhanger/recap factor is terribly high, and if I were to reprint these, I'd really whack away at the page count to compensate. The artwork is fairly gritty (I mean that in a good way), but the dialogue is hamstrung--especially in comparison to the convoluted wording Larry Hama used in the American G.I. Joe titles. Body counts in the stories are as high as in the classic pre-Joe American war comics like Sgt. Rock...but this also makes the comic terribly predictable as the reader figures out who lives and who dies rather quickly.
For a while I was toying with knitting the storylines of the British and American continuities into a coherent whole, but it's kind of contraversial too...and getting moot as a point. Devil's Due, who took over the American Joe franchise in the comics with "Reinstated" five years ago, is going its own way and abandoning the past that Marvel (and Battle) had made.
It makes sense. This sort of thing is meant to be sold to the kids, who aren't interested in backstory. They want to plunge right in and go without having to look something up. When I was a boy, I felt the same way (as I wrote in the post "I Coulda Told You That!").
I also think something is being lost...but that's not my call. I should learn from this experience.
FP
