I had two scenes to write today. I worked out the first one in my head as I was driving in to work this morning and was able to write it up in no time. I was on fire! I immediately moved on to the second scene, confident I would have the scripts wrapped up in no time. And…nothing. I spent two hours sitting in front of my laptop, wondering what kind of Thai dishes the production office had ordered for lunch and whether the spread would include chicken with yellow curry which I’m partial to but don’t love as much as that pork with eggplant and jalapenos that I used to get every time I visited that restaurant in Yaletown and that Paul would always get when he was ordering in and what was I going to have for dinner tonight and, hey, I should really catch up on my emails because it’s been almost a week since various friends and acquaintances contacted me but first let’s go online and see what’s making news and, if not making news, then at the very least amusing the general net pop and, well, you get the idea. I was getting nowhere fast. This was in marked contrast to my creative charge only hours earlier. What happened? Well, simply put, I got out of my car. Yep, for some reason, I do some my best writing while I’m at the wheel. So, rather than sit there and wait for inspiration to strike, I hopped into my car and went for a ride. By the time I rolled back into my office some forty-five minutes later, I had my scene.
I went over both scripts and made some tweaks. Tomorrow, I’ll review them one last time and then, finally, put them out – if not for me, then for Carl who seems especially eager to read them, his eyes lighting up whenever I stroll by his office. “Script?!”he’ll call out in anticipation. “No,”I have to tell him. “Not yet.” His obvious disappointment breaks my heart. It’s like telling a kid Santa Claus forgot to bring him presents. But not as funny.
Hey, since there’s been a lot of talk on the forums about the upcoming SGU “webisodes” and the kino in particular, I thought I’d leave you with some kino-related material. For those of you who don’t know, the kino is essentially a high-tech “hover MALP” capable of investigating and recording events on ship and off. Some of these kino sequences will find their way into episodes. Other clips will be made available online, often tying in with certain episodes. To those asking, the kino footage appearing online will not be crucial to your understanding of a particular episode. However, these clips do shed light on our characters and Destiny itself so watching them will offer a fuller understanding of certain in-show elements.
- Early kino design
Kino director Ivon Bartok discusses a scene with actress Julia Anderson –
Today’s entry is dedicated to Pol as she heads in for wrist surgery. Good luck! You’ll be waving in no time.
Mailbag:
Thornyrose writes: “I notice that the Fuel website doesn’t show the crispy duck for two on it. I take it that it can be requested off menu? Any other interesting entrees you might recommend?”
Answer: It is on the menu and you should have no trouble ordering it if you drop by. As for other interesting entrees – I’m always partial to the pork dishes, but their salmon is excellent as well.
Thornyrose writes: “Anothre question of idle curiosity. Was the change of font communicated, or were you expected to pick up on the changes telepathically?”
Answer: No it wasn’t a secret. I simply forgot.
Narelle from Aus writes: “When you’re pitching something like your Horror movie (any further news on that by the way?) do you just pitch the concept or do you need to include some of the peripheral details such as your target market/demographic, marketing ideas etc or is that something that the network works out for themselves?”
Answer: It depends on the project and how much detail you want to provide. In the case of the horror movie, we also pitched the marketing angle because it was unique.
Luis writes: “Joe I have never had Duck talk to a friend she said to go to a Chinese Rest. they make good Orange Duck…ever hear of Orange Duck???”
Answer: My father used to make something similar called Duck a l’Orange when we were kids.
PG15 writes: “Speaking of SGU (well, you spoke of it, I didn’t), a poster at Gateworld, Colonel Sharp came up with a pretty cool origin for the name “kino”, he says:
As we know, the Ancient language is ’supposed’ to be a form of Latin
Kino…well cyno (The abl/dat form of cynon), refers to a type of eye-ointment, and from what it seems like, this thing is basically an eye floating around looking at everyone.”
Answer: Interesting, but no. Kino stands for Kinetic Interactive Navigational Orb.
Actually, no it doesn’t. But it should.
Shiningwit writes: “Just letting you know that Sassie passed away at 11.57, she went the way she would have wanted, growling at the vet.”
Answer: Sorry to hear it. Did she suddenly take sick? Do you have any pics of Sassie you’d be willing to share?
Imadaman writes: “So I was wondering if the SGC will be moved to Atlantis, have they disabled the Atlantis’ gate or have McKay, Carter and Zelenka written a program that prevents incoming wormholes to connect the Atlantis’ gate?”
Answer: This is covered in the movie script.
Bugguy writes: “I’m back. Making a job change and things have been quite hectic.”
Answer: It’s been over a year! I had you declared officially dead and already collected the insurance money.
Mishmee writes: “What’s up for the next BOTM?”
Answer: September’s Book of the Month Club pick is Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover. Details in the right sidebar.
Paloosa writes: “It’s so frustrating with so many formats to view and create shows these days, as in; network, cable, direct to DVD, webisodes, YouTube, podcasts and God only knows what else in the future, it seems that technology is separating us more than bringing us together. I remember when there were only three US networks and we, as in the entire country, all talked about the same “big event”. Not so much nowadays. As an older person, it’s also expensive to keep up, and I think kind of sad as well.
How do you feel about this, and what do you see for the future?”
Answer: I’m holding out for the brain microchip that will allow me to do it all – make phone calls, take pictures, watch film and television, and learn how to darn a sock.
Silver_comet writes: “You’ve never asked questions yourself for any author’s Q&A, have you? Why not?”
Answer: Because, of course, you all come up with such terrific questions.
DP writes: “1. What is the relationship between the kino and the long-range communication device?
2. What are the main components of a kino?
3. How many kino are there?
4. Does the kino have any artificial intelligence?
5. What has the kino been doing all these millions of years?
6. Does the kino have any quirky traits?
7. Does the kino go off the ship?
8. Does the kino facilitate communication with aliens who don’t communicate in conventional ways?
9. Does the kino facilitate contact with aliens who live in environments inhospitable to humans?
10. Does the kino facilitate communication when the communicators are experiencing relativistic effects?
11. Is the kino nosey?
12. Does the kino have any pets? If so, what is its understanding of selective breeding?”
Answers: 1. There is none.
2. Not sure. I’ve never taken one apart. This is a question for Eli.
3. Again, I haven’t counted. Somewhere between several and not enough.
4. No.
5. Catching up on a backlog of t.v. shows. It’s partial to Lost.
6. You mean like an affinity for opera capes? No.
7. Yep. Appropriately enough, someone in the Art Department coined it the “hover MALP”.
8. It could.
9. It could.
10. What communicators?
11. It isn’t sentient – so no.
12. It had a 40 000 year old Chihuahua named Mordecai but, since a recent falling out, they don’t talk much.
Tawny writes: “Do you think we’ll be seeing another sort of transitional show, like “From Stargate to Atlantis, a SciFi Lowdown”?”
Answer: I haven’t heard but I wouldn’t be surprised if we do.
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