A Whole New World

Twitter.  You may have heard of it.  Me, I'm too verbose to be an early adopter of anything requiring concision.  140 characters?  Is that even enough room for a haiku?  I've got ThingsTo Say, people!

But if you want to get better at stuff, you've gotta do things that aren't a natural fit.  People use a phrase around here, "in his wheelhouse," meaning that a task plays to a person's known strengths, and thus they are the perfect choice, sure to succeed.

To a point.  On Season 3 of Sanctuary, I was fortunate to write a couple of episodes that were right down my alley, containing the sort of stories that I'm drawn to and known for writing.  In fact the second of my two Season 3 episodes, "Awakening," is one that I actively pursued being assigned to because I was so fond of its premise. 

In the course of writing Season 4, through the vagaries of scheduling and the needs of the ongoing story, the two scripts I wrote were well outside my usual specialty -- each in a different way.  For 403, "Untouchable," in particular, I had to tap into a style and structure that did not come naturally to me.  (More about the details of that after it airs. Spoilers, Sweetie!)  And you know what?  I am more proud of those two scripts than of anything I've done in a long time.  I had to really wake up and dig down to get 'em done, and the results are something I am very proud of.

So, lesson re-learned: Don't fall back on old tricks when you can embrace new challenges.

And so, finally, Twitter.  With ComiCon looming large in my sights, shiny new Smartphone in hand, I figured I'd jump in the deep end.  I quickly found myself tweeting from any place I was standing still -- and cursing when I couldn't get a wireless connection from inside the press room while I waited for the Sanctuary Cast to make their rounds.  No signal!  Unthinkable!

Yesterday I participated in an event organized by some of our Sanctuary publicity gurus, in honor of the release of our Season 3 DVD sets.  A number of cast and crew with Twitter Handles were recruited to play #SanctuaryTwitterTag for the day, passing a virtual baton around cyberspace by tagging one another with questions.  Of course it didn't go to plan -- which I soon realized was all for the best.  It would have been less fum and less memorable if it had all gone off without a hitch!  (This is another of those important life lessons, I assure you.)

At the end of the day, I saw tweets from fans that resonated with me, saying that they had found and were now following one another thanks to participating in the event.  I was reminded of the times when I was in frequent attendance at Highlander Conventions, realizing that while the panels with cast and crew are the initial reason for coming, after the first time the fans are gathering to see one another as much as to see us.  That they could have (and sometimes do have) awesome conventions without us showing up at all.  Their shared love is the glue to their community, online or off.  We are mere facilitators. 

And I figured out the secret to keeping it short on Twitter, too.  It's a conversation, not a lecture.  Characters on TV aren't supposed to make speeches longer than five lines, why would I? 

Except over here, of course.  Still got Things To Say.

The Collaborative Medium

While at ComiCon, I saw the preview of the first two episodes of the animated "Iron Man: Armored Adventures." I thought it was great, at the end of the hour I was eager to see more. There was one complaint at the mike that the storytelling is unsophisticated, which I thought was handled well with the reminder that the show, and the channel, are primarily serving 8-14 year-olds, with adult viewers an added bonus. They're not going to alienate their intended audience by going over their heads. It's refreshing to see some programming aimed at the future Comic Geeks. (Steven Moffat had a similar insightful comment during the Doctor Who panel, about making the show for today's 8-year-olds, not the nostalgic adults. To each generation their own Doctor.)

That being said, as an adult I found the show suspenseful and witty. And I was hugely impressed with its look and feel. Which got me to wondering about the always-hot-topic of Residuals. WGA members are fortunate and justly proud of the gains we've achieved in this area, where a person who creates a storyline or character has an ongoing financial interest, however small, when that intellectual property is exploited. But watching this Iron Man show, I was struck by the extent to which the design of the technology -- most notably Tony's heads-up display -- seemed to have been influenced by the film. In the ideal world wouldn't that Production Designer be receiving some kind of credit or residual? (Not to mention the comic book artists, but that's a whole other column!) What about sequels that draw heavily on the production design of their predecessors? What about all the myriad Star Trek licensed gak that uses the LCARS look? Do Production Designers and Art Directors swell with pride when they see their work influencing ancillary properties, or do they curse the studios and the Work For Hire business model?

Welder Needed

Paramount (and apparently Intel) had an interesting game set up at their booth at ComiCon, which I unfortunately didn't discover until Sunday. Paramount's booth was not near the other big studios and not well-marked on the map, but they did have an ad in the program book, which I finally noticed on Saturday night, urging people to come to their booth to form a Construction Crew and win a prize. The gimmick was, they handed out scratch-off cards every hour, which had job titles on them like "Gravity Engineer," "Electrician," etc. If you formed a team of eight, one of each type, you would win Star Trek laptop bags. They had excellent intentions with this game, which ideally would have resulted in people clipping the cards to their badges and spending the weekend scanning other people's ID to put together a team. In this crowd, this could easily have turned into a self-designed LARP, and lifelong friendships could have resulted.

In the event, the real-life result was that people collected stacks of the cards, and if they managed to put together all 8, they grabbed a bunch of friends or passing strangers and collected their prize. All of this was explained to me by a fellow attendee holding a sign that said "Welder Needed," which I thought at first meant he was an exhibitor with a broken display. But no, he needed a virtual welder to help him build an imaginary Enterprise.

I hung around for the card distribution, hoping to get a Welder card for my new friend, but both cards I was given said "Inspector" on them, which seemed appropriate. Then one of the booth staffers explained to me that I could take my photo at a laptop station in the booth and get a construction team ID, and if I did, I'd receive in the mail a 4-part poster for the new Star Trek movie. Considering that around the corner in the other half of the booth people were elbowing one another in the face to collect that very same 4-part poster one piece at a time, I found this hilarious. (I got two yellows and no blue.)

I was gratified to see that the crew chief I'd been chatting with found a Welder in the crowd. He'd worked for it.

I Can Almost Smell The Popcorn

Something happened on my last day at ComiCon that seemed like it was aimed just at me. Considering it happened on the jumbotron over the Lucasfilm booth, though, that's pretty unlikely.

Does anyone else remember the preview trailer for The Empire Strikes Back that was released with the Theatrical Re-Release of Star Wars in 1979? I sure do, because 25 of the 27 times I saw Star Wars in the theater in the 70's were during that magical summer. In those days before VCR's, our Star Wars obsession through the intervening years had been fed only by the comics, the novels, the flip-books we'd made out of Topps cards, the dialogue and sound on the Story of Star Wars LP, and of course the Holiday Special that even at the age of 11 we recognized as atrocious.

So the chance to see the film again -- and again and again and again -- was golden. Those 2-and-a-half minutes of preview for TESB were absolutely joyous. We stayed in the theater through multiple showings, enjoying the movie but living for, and memorizing, that trailer. As an avid Han Solo devotee, who considered Luke a loveable but annoying tag-along, I adored the moment when the announcer intoned, "Your favorites are back," and then listed off the characters... and as he said "Luke Skywalker!", instead of the head-credits-beauty-shot that the other characters got, Luke FWUMPED sideways across the screen to thud into the snow. Priceless!

When The Making of Star Wars was released on VHS in 1980, it included the Empire trailer. My father, a news producer, had a VCR before they became common. I saved my allowance to buy that video. I was so excited to have a copy of my own of that trailer I had committed to memory.

Except it wasn't the same trailer. It was similar, but had small variations. And they'd changed Luke's entry. Crushed!

As far as I know, the trailer I remember has not been released on any of the DVD extras. I haven't seen it in almost 30 years. But today at ComiCon, there it was, on the screen above the life-sized Clone Wars maquettes. Thank you, Lucasfilm Archivist Steve Sansweet, for that absolutely visceral journey back to a darkened movie theater in 1979.

Con! Cooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!

Eugene Son has coined the best rallying cry for this weekend. (See his blog.) I can't believe I've never heard this shouted in this context before. I'll never be the same.

(con. text. hee.)

San Diego ComiCon Schedule

I'm not on any programming this year, leaving me free to roam. The panel schedule is so jam-packed with interesting stuff that I don't know when I'll find time to shop the floor! I don't recall there being all this evening programming in previous years. It's a good idea, logistically, but the advantage to the doors shutting at 6 PM was that a person could go collapse and recharge for the next day.

I shouldn't complain, though -- I lucked out with a hotel room you can see from the convention center. Ah, pit stop, sweet pit stop.

There are a few things I'm definitely planning to attend, so if anyone's looking for me, look there:

Thursday, 12:00 NOON, Room 20, the Doctor Who panel. I so admire the writing on this show.

Friday, 7:15 PM, Room 6B, MST3K 20th Anniversary Reunion. It breaks my heart that this is up against Kevin Smith in Hall H, but no way can I miss seeing all the MST guys back together -- including both Joel AND Mike.

Saturday, 11:15 AM, Room 6CDEF Quick Draw! Ever since Len talked me into checking this out two years ago, I am hooked. Laughter is truly the best medicine.

Saturday, 5:30 PM, Room 8 Spotlight on Len Wein. Soon to be Eisner-Hall-of-Famer Len Wein, I'm sure.

I'm also planning to attend the WGA/Animation Caucus reception, always ComiCon's hottest ticket.