Author: piersb

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Persona

So I wrote a thing. That’s a picture of it being filmed.

Persona is a drama for smartphones. Every weekday, you get two new 90-second episodes delivered to your iPhone or Android.

Watch them on the bus! Or the train! Or the tube! (If you’re in one of those new WiFi enabled stations, otherwise you’re SOL.) Or your house! (Which is where I watch it. You really ought to keep that spare key somewhere less obvious.)

The new season starts on the 6th of August, and you can watch it wherever you like using the app for Android phones, or the app for iPhones.

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On giving 110%

Some people (possibly the same as those that argue that Doctor Who isn’t Doctor Who’s Name or that “they” isn’t a perfectly good singular pronoun that’s been in use for centuries) have occasionally been known to argue that it’s not possible to give 110%.

Of course it is.

Let’s take a look at George Osborne, who I’m told recently said on ITN news that he was “110% focussed on the economy”.

Let’s assume that he was previously spending, oh, ten hours a week focussing on the economy. (This may be generous, given the complete rat’s arse he’s making of it.)

Anyway, all he has to do is spend an extra hour thinking about it. Bingo, 110% focussed on the economy.

Job’s a good’un.

(Well, not his, obv. He’s rubbish at it.)

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The Other Possessory Credit

You’ve seen them already, but you may not know what they’re called.

When a movie has the credit as “A Film By” followed by a name (and it’s almost always the director’s name), that credit is known as a possessory credit. The director is saying that the film is theirs.


You can find a quick history of the possessory credit here, but the tl;dr is this: the Directors Guild of America (DGA) has in its basic agreement that every director shall be allowed to negotiate for an increase of their credit. So many of them do. Can’t really blame them for that.


Now, you may think that this use of the “A Film By” credit diminishes the contribution of everyone else who’s worked on the film, to which I’d say: you’d be absolutely right. But the DGA isn’t going to let up on this. Many years of negotiation show us that at least in the mid-term, and likely for the long term, the film by credit is here to stay.


But there’s another solution which gives an equal share of the credit to the writer, first put forward (to the best of my knowledge) by Ted Elliott.


The director’s possessory credit is sometimes known as the Hitchcock Credit, as it was often used by Alfred Hitchcock who, according to auteur theory (which is bollocks, by the way) was Just So Damn Good that he could legitimately be called the primary author of his films, thus justifying the possessory credit.


Ted therefore suggests another, similar-yet-different credit for writers to adopt. If you’ve ever seen Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky (and if you haven’t, why the hell not?), then you’ll note that in the title sequence, the film is credited thusly:


Paddy Chayefsky’s Network


The Chayefsky Credit, therefore, would run alongside the Hitchcock Credit. So rather than

Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder (as seen here)

the film would be credited as

Frederick Knott’s Dial M for Murder
A Film By Alfred Hitchcock

And if the director doesn’t insist on a possessory, then there’s no reason for a writer to either.

This is something that can be done case-by-case. Like directors. Stick it in a contract. Negotiate with it. Trade it away for more money, if you like. But put it in the terms as something you want.

I don’t like the A Film By credit.

But if directors are prepared to fight tooth and claw to get recognised for their work, then I think that we should too.






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Supermarket Sweep

Just to let you know that my magazine Spaceships of Science Fiction is now available in your local supermarket.

You can pick up a copy at Sainsbury’s the very next time you go shopping. Huzzah!

(I believe it’s also available at Morrisons too, but I don’t have a local one of those to confirm.)

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Caine’s Arcade

I know I’m late to the party on this, and that you’ve probably seen it already.

But sometimes, some days, something like this happens to restore my faith in humanity, and the sheer beauty and wonder of the people living on this Earth makes me cry.

 

More info at the Caine’s Arcade website

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Eastercon Schedule

It’s that time of year again.

Eastercon, the British National SF convention runs from April 6-9 this year.

The provisional programme (PDF) has now been released, and it looks like it’s going to be a belter.

Here are the items I’m currently scheduled to be on:

Friday, 9pm – 10pm “Doctor Who: The Importance of Scheduling” (panel)
Doctor Who’s scheduling has varied over the years, from Saturday teatime to weeknight primetime. This year, for the first time since the new version launched, the season will premiere in the autumn. Is this a good or a bad thing?

Saturday, 11am – 12noon “How to set up a Theatre Company” (talk)
For the last year and a half or so I ran Red Table Theatre, a theatre company producing Children’s Theatre. We set up a new business model for Fringe Theatre, were the featured story on the front page of The Stage, got four and five star reviews for our productions, and made a profit. I’ll talk you through what we did right and wrong.

Saturday, 3pm – 5pm “Creativity Workshop” (talk and workshop)
For the first half I’ll be talking about creativity – how it works, and tips and tricks you can use to increase yours. Then in the second half, we’ll put them into practice and create a TV series.

Monday, 5pm – 6pm “Social Medial in SF” (panel)
Talking about both social media as portrayed in SF, and SF told through social media themselves.

There are a few tickets left, but it’s getting perilously close to selling out.

Do come up and say hello if you’re there.

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Mass Effect 3: SPOILERS

So I’ve just finished ME3. For those of you that haven’t, be warned: This post will contain a lot of spoilers for the whole damn thing.

Let me re-iterate. SPOILERS ABOUND. Do not read further if you plan to play the game.

Last chance. SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

SPOILERS.

Right. For the two of you that have finished the game (and the dozen or so who don’t intend to play), here’s the skinny:

The ending doesn’t work.

It not only doesn’t work a little. It doesn’t work a lot. In fact, it seems to go against everything we’ve established over the 90+ hours of gameplay that precede it.

I’m going to argue that this is deliberate. Bear with me.

So for the previous 90+ hours, the game has had one overarching theme. There are a couple of others, but this is the biggie:

Your decisions have consequences.

Again and again, you make choices which are reflected in what happens later. Very early in the first game, one of your squadmates dies. They will stay dead.

In the second game, a suicide mission is assembled. Odds are, most of your team won’t make it. Who dies is dependent on the decisions you take.

Throughout the series, there are callbacks to decisions that you made.

And then, after the beam hits you, there are almost no decisions except for one: do you destroy the Reapers (dooming yourself and most likely characters you care for), attempt to take control of them, or synthesize a new synthetic/organic leap to a higher plane of consciousness?

That’s a big choice. Right there. And all the gameplay up to this moment has allowed you to take time, think, ask questions. But this time round, the question is barely asked before you have to choose.

You don’t get a chance to even re-ask the question. Like, which option is blue and which red, again?

And when you move into position at one of the choice points – you can’t move away again. So you can’t almost-get-there, then change your mind.

And then whichever choice you make, all of the Mass Relays explode throughout the galaxy.

A choice which leads to exactly the same ending.
A choice which is no choice.

Now, it’s possible that the writers, after having spent so much care crafting a game with the theme of choice suddenly took that away from you for the final ten minutes of the game.

But that seems a trifle odd.

Let’s investigate further.

Throughout ME3, Commander Shepard has been haunted by bad dreams. A boy you were unable to save. You appear in a snowy forest, filled with whispering shadows, trying to chase down the child. But you can’t move properly. All of your actions are in slow motion. And there are no choices to make – if you try and run away, the child will re-appear in front of you.

In other words, the child that you couldn’t rescue, slow motion, and the lack of choice signify dreams.

After you are hit by the Reaper beam, you’re hurt. You fall unconscious. And when you come to:

You can only move in slow motion.
You can make no choice in your weapons – you simply have a pistol. With unlimited ammunition.

Making it to the conduit puts you in an area piled with bodies. (Why? What were they being used for? They just exist in that corridor… and nowhere else)

The Illusive Man is there before you. (How? How did one man sneak into London and make it through the Reapers?)

Admiral Anderson is there before you. (He even states over comms that he followed you up – but appears ahead of you.)

You meet something that claims to be the catalyst, the last piece of the puzzle. It looks like the child from your dreams.

It claims that it created the Reapers to stop synthetics from destroying organic life. A claim which makes no sense, as helpfully illustrated below.

So, to sum up:

The ending makes no sense given the text of the game.
The ending makes no sense given the themes of the game.
There are strong clues within the text that this is unreal.

Can we chase this down any further? After the game finishes, you get the following text:

“Commander Shepard has become a legend by ending the Reaper threat. Now you can continue to build that legend by further gameplay and DLC.”

Note that last: Further gameplay.

Now that I’m the God of all Reapers (option 1)? Seems unlikely.
Now that I’m living in a synthetic/organic higher plane (option 2)? Also unlikely.
Now that I’m dead (option 3)? Well, that didn’t stop me before… but I’m still calling a no on this.

So we know that Shepard’s story continues… but it can’t, in any of the available endings that we played.

In fact, we can’t even hit Resume Game to finish off those side-quests. All you get is a replay of the ending.

And then, let’s look at the post-credits scene. A man speaking to a child in a snowy forest (now, where have we seen a snowy forest before?).

“Tell me another story about the shepherd.”
“It’s getting late, but OK. One more story.”

To me, this leads to one inescapable conclusion:

That’s not the real ending. And was never intended to be.

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David Warner reads The Just So Stories

So as you may recall, some time ago I produced a show called The Just So Stories, based on the classic book by Rudyard Kipling.

The Just So Stories was performed at the King’s Head Theatre, the Pleasance Theatre in both London and Edinburgh, and at the Trestle Theatre in St. Albans. It got some fine reviews, and I’m very proud of it.

What you might not be aware of is that we also made an audiobook of the show.

I’ve loved David Warner ever since I first saw his work, and I’m proud to say that he reads an audiobook of The Just So Stories, together with songs sung by the cast. The audiobook was produced by the lovely Neil Gardner and Simon Willey at Spokenworld Audio, and features the five Just So Stories and songs which were used in the production.

You can find out more and buy the audiobook for just £7.99+VAT from the Spokenworld website. If you want to have a listen beforehand before parting with your money, you can listen to a five-minute preview there too.

Suffice it to say I’m immensely happy with this.