 Orion X. You know Roland Emmerich, don't you? He's the director of Independence Day (which is about to be celebrated in the USofA soon!) and Godzilla. And several other famous movies. He's German. And (most probably because of that) we have something in common: Raumpatrouille, still the best SF TV series around. Roland was working on a remake of the old series, together with the German TV channel PRO7 (Their website is crap, don't go there). That was in the late 90s. And it never happened, because of the costs involved. Shame. Well, I managed to get hold of the script of the pilot. It's great, and you can't download it right here as a PDF. It's a very dark and almost cynical version of the original first episode, 'Angriff aus dem All' (Attack from Outer Space) and it's written by Terry Black. Terry: Good work! I'll keep it on the server for about 2 days, and then it'll be gone. After all, the copyright is with Emmerich/Black/Pro7/Bavaria and whatnot. Enjoy it while you can. An interview with Terry was published on a website which I can't find anymore (Google sucks anyway, what the heck has happened there?), so the raw text is here in it's entirety and archived forever: SAVING THE WORLD BY MONDAY by Terry Black "Good news," says Anne, my agent, in a tone of immense relief. "Treehouse is giving you a third meeting." It's good news indeed. Among free-lance writers, the third meeting is a cherished goal, a sort of Holy Grail - because according to Writer's Guild rules, if they bring you in for a third meeting on a project they have to hire you. For good reason. So much time is spent on those Gadfly pitch meetings, so much effort with no promise of return, that if they bring you in not once, not twice, but three times then they'd damn well better pay you for it. As a veteran of numerous meetings numbering two or less, I'm overjoyed. Treehouse Films is producing the new series Orion, based on the German classic Space Patrol that ran for only seven episodes but became a staple of European broadcasting. (One of my students reports seeing it in England in 1986.) Among its German fans are producers Oliver Eberle and Roland Emmerich, who want to do a revamped update with high-tech special effects. Roland's involvement is great news, because he's co-writer and director of the sure-fire summer smash, Independence Day. Last time, I pitched half a dozen story ideas and got a favorable response to four. This time, Oliver wants to talk about the direction of the series, how to make the aliens scary, and what elements of the original Space Patrol will still play in the nineties. They're planning thirteen episodes, with more to come if the ratings are sufficient. "We've got all thirteen assigned," he says. I'm crestfallen until he adds, "And two of them are yours." Ah, sweet mystery of life... The two they like are Storm Center, where the Orion and an alien ship are grounded on the same backwater planetoid; and Second Guess, where young Officer Zed develops the psychic ability to predict not the future, but its exact opposite. The alien story will need reworking because they've hired a consultant to "design" the aliens - their diet, physiology and mating habits - and the update makes most of my story obsolete. Not that I'm complaining. Shay Roberts' The Secret Life of Frogs describes the deadliest alien menace since Michael Rennie's robot came THAT close to frying the planet in The Day the Earth Stood Still. The alien encounters will play like horror scenes; no cuddly Ewoks here. The bad news is that the series is on hold until they've got a shootable pilot script. The first draft has a clever plot but the characters and dialogue are a little stale, and Treehouse wants a rewrite. The good news is that I'm up for the job. It's a big deal, because a series won't work without a compelling pilot. It's the first glimpse the viewers have of your show; done badly, it'll be the last glimpse. Episode Two can be an aesthetic triumph, but nobody will care if the first one sucks egg yolks. Show of hands: how many people saw the second episode of Cop Rock? What the pilot needs most, I argue, is to establish each of the characters clearly. It doesn't matter that we're in outer space, ten centuries from now - whether it's about cops or cowboys, dynasties or dinosaurs, the only reason viewers will tune in again next week is if they care about the starring leads. The Honeymooners was made with minuscule production values (at least, by modern standards), but Ralph and Alice were so vivid they became cultural icons. On the other hand, the first episode of Battlestar Galactica had a feature-film budget (it was actually shown in theatres), but the characters were so forgettable that I can't name them. The plot in Orion's pilot script is fine. Mostly. Well, there's an odd bit in the third act where Commander McLane is captured by aliens and then shows up later without a word of explanation, but any writer worth his mouse pad can rattle off a dozen escape devices (he slips the ropes, picks the lock, crawls through the air vent, plays dead until the dumb guard comes to investigate, etc.) without breaking a sweat. A tougher question is, what can McLane do that not only serves the story but reveals his character? What can all of them do? Because the pilot should give every cast member a moment in the footlights, a word of introduction to the folks at home, or it hasn't done its job. So that's how I pitch the pilot. I downplay the story and instead go through the characters, suggesting ways to make each and every one of them memorable and unique. When I'm done, they seem impressed. This is Thursday. I'm sweating bullets all weekend long, until on Monday it's all I can do not to call up the agency and gasp, "Well...?" I figure if they knew anything, they'd tell me, and I don't want to seem desperate - even though I am desperate. Finally, around 5:00 PM, I can bear it no longer. I call the agency and Anne comes on, sounding a little breathless. "I can't talk now," she explains, "because Treehouse is on the other line, negotiating your contract. You got the pilot." Just like that. And that's the story of why I'm no longer unemployed. The script was rewritten in about two weeks, and submitted last Monday. Tomorrow I get notes on rewriting the rewrite. They seem delighted by what I've done so far. My working title is Baptism By Fire, which describes not only the story but the process of creating it. Keep watching the skies, boys and girls. The adventure's just begun.
3:59:10 PM  |
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Have fun:
Tolchock. Wellywellywell, dear Chellovecks, here's the
Dry Bones. I've blogged The Prisoner 
Dear Programmers. Software Developers. Hard code specialists. RadioGods.
Ahhh! Working again, Radio, are we? Well, I just had to republish my entire website. Took about 4 hours. Thank you, Radio.
Wonder if this will update the weblog...
Brrrr. I've got an 
Monolopy. Everything about Monopoly on 
Practical Computing. Great. Here is the 
Let's start this lovely day with a quick one from my sketchbooks.
A fellow cartoonist! Found in my comments: 
Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp. 
Posada. Must be my 'Art Day' today: 
Aspen. The multimedia magazine in a box. Aspen magazine was published by Phyllis Johnson from 1965 to 1971. Each issue came in a customized box filled with booklets, phonograph recordings, posters, postcards - one issue even included a spool of Super-8 movie film. Artists included JG Ballard, Peter Blake, John Cage, Ira Cohen, Philip Glass, David Hockney, John Lennon, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol... 
I always wanted to know that. 
Spellbound. 
Blackbeard. The nice person on the left is Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, and he is a professional pirate. Found a 
Waking up. 
Bloodshed. Big time. Thanks to 'The Church'. Website about 
Legends. King Arthur. Erin & Alba. Beowulf. Paladins & Princes. All of this and much more is at 
So. Is Campbell leaving then? Is he going to be kicked out?
Oh, how wonderful. 
The Street Crier. 
How strange. Found a peculiar website with an 
HeHeHe...
Insel Felsenburg. (Dieter would have loved this.) Tristan da Cunha is 
Fantastic. The Robot Art of 
Frxcksz! Have to ring Apple again. The new CRT - there are some bright 'spots' in the upper part of the screen. Pinholes. Distracting stuff which I can't get rid of. Seems to be 'burnt in' into the tube itself - strange. It's really annoying when doing work in Photoshop. No- it's even annoying once you've realised there's something annoying on your screen... spots, bright spots. Like scratchmarks? I think I'll get a G5. Or no, a Dell, just to annoy Apple. How annoying. Am I getting an award now for using the verb 'to annoy' at least 54876 times? No? How annoying.
Arno Schmidt's favourite Encyclopedia. Fantastic. 
The Trabant. Quoting:
Por-no-graphic. Good old Egon. I think he was great, although a bit weird. A really good website about the Austrian artist is simply called