Failing Better
Jason Arnopp recently had a showing of his new short film Look At Me. (trailer)
Great fun was had by all. A precursor, no doubt, of greater things to come.
His next task? A feature with a working title of ASK. Director Dan Turner offers a prize to those hardy souls who can guess what it stands for.
And if you don’t look forward to it then Jason and I will hunt you down with our giant floating hands and destroy you while you sleep.
Let’s not make any bones about it.
This is a bona fide threat.
Finally got round to watching Being Human last night.
Well that was rather fucking fine.
You can watch Being Human online here for the next couple of days. After that, you may have to resort to the usual channels.
Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (“She’s a cheerleader! She slays vampires!”), the setup itself gives no clue as to the goodness within.
You hear: “A Vampire, a Werewolf, and a Ghost share a house,” and you think: “Sitcom.”
This is not a sitcom. This is an accomplished drama, and the story engines are revving mightily.
The clue is in the title: These are people who desperately want (like so many of us) to be normal. And (like so many of us) aren’t.
Solid reviews from The London Paper and The Times.
Now, I don’t know how BBC3 commissioning works. It may be that they have already blown their new drama budget for the year on Phoo Action.
But if you saw Being Human and liked it, there is a petition to get a series commission here.
It would not kill you to visit.
Oh, I know you’ve been in suspense.
My panels at this year’s Eastercon are:
Are TV novelisations and tie-ins proper books? Friday, 7pm
The Doctor – Saviour or trickster god? Saturday, 12noon
Is there a future for Trek with no series? Monday, 12noon
More information about the rest of the programme.
And I can also highly recommend Crisis Management, which you’ll need to sign up for as soon as you get there, as spaces go fast – I won’t spoiler it for you, but it’s well worth two hours of your time.
You may already have seen the first (and, now, last) part of Max’s travel blog for the Guardian.
Basically, a 19-year-old boy doing a gap year is about to travel to India and Thailand. He’s going to write a blog about it.
Good for him. Thousands of kids his age do just that.
Here’s where it all goes pear-shaped:
Somehow, someway, the Guardian commissions him to put his blog on their website. And a comment-storm arises criticising Max, the media in general, and the Guardian specifically for writing and publishing this.
The writing is, to put it kindly, not the best travel writing ever. But pretty much none of the thousands of other “Here I am in Thailand, wow,” blogs are either.
So, why exactly was Max picked from the crowd to a featured spot on a national newspaper?
It doesn’t take much research on the Internet to find that Max’s dad is, funnily enough, a travel writer. And it’s not a big leap to suspect that nepotism may have played a part.
Whether it did or didn’t is actually irrelevant. The problem here is that no-one at the Guardian thought it might be a problem.
The Guardian’s travel editor, Andy Pietrasik, responded (but, notably, didn’t apologise), saying basically “Yes, he’s not a very good writer, but I thought it was interesting that a 19-year-old was writing for Skins. And I didn’t edit his writing.”
Max’s writing is trite. That’s not an offense in and of itself. My writing here is often trite. I keep a blog, don’t I? Who the fuck wants to read my bizarre witterings?
The fact is that it doesn’t matter in my case, because readership of this blog is self-selecting.
Now, if a respected newspaper such as the Guardian had promoted me as an exciting new talent, who happened to live in London, and I happened to come from a nice middle-class family, and my father happened to be a respected travel journalist, and my first piece happened to be badly written, dull, and about a small well-off subset of London society, and no-one at the Guardian thought that people might wonder why the hell I’d been commissioned then that’s a different story entirely.
So. Max’s blog becomes a minor Internet sensation, and he’s wisely decided to not write any more. Good.
But then we have this story from the Observer, in which we find that Max’s dad was surprised by the outpouring of vitriol. But I believe that his quote from which the title of this article is taken proves that he, too, really hasn’t thought this through.
It’s not a crime to write badly, to be white, to be male, to be middle-class, to live in London, or to have contacts at the Royal Court, Channel 4, and the Guardian.
This is not about Max. It’s not his fault, and I wish him well on his trip.
This is about the editors at the Guardian who damn well should have known better.
Dear Christ in Heaven. Torchwood Babies.
Blatantly linkwhored from Stephen Gallagher.
It’s just like passing on the cycle of abuse.
The deal summary for the WGA strike can be found here.
It’s not as much as we would have liked. It’s more than the studios would have liked. It’s a deal both sides can live with.
That seems fair to me.
Some of the highlights:
The WGA is recognized as the exclusive bargaining representative for writing for new media
Fairly self-explanatory.
Separated Rights
If a writer creates a show or character for a program premiering in new media, and that character or show is then turned into a TV show, or film, or board game, or action figure, the writer gets money for this.
Internet Residuals
After the initial payment for a programme created for the Internet (which covers 13 or 26 weeks worth of showings, depending on whether the viewer pays for access), writers get money if the programme continues to be available.
Internet Re-use / Distributor’s Gross
For the next two years, casting a programme in a new medium (internet, cellphone, etc) attracts a flat rate. After that, the fee is based on a percentage of the money earned.
What did we lose on?
A vote is occurring today and tomorrow to stop striking; within ten days the WGA membership will have voted on whether to accept the contract.
This is a good contract.
The showrunners are already back at work. Everyone else (pending the expected let’s-stop-striking vote) will be back at work on Wednesday.
It’s over.
Trade news today: Web series Sanctuary, created by Stargate alumnus Damian Kindler, has just been picked up for 13 episodes by SciFi.
I actually interviewed him about it a while back, so nice to see it’s all working out well.
This is the second web series within as many months that’s been acquired by a TV channel, the first being Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz’s Quarterlife. You may have heard of them before, too. They created thirtysomething.
Criswell predicts that this will not be the last web series picked up for TV.
The AMPTP and the negotiating committee continue to talk behind the scenes about what they might talk about at the negotiating table when they get back to negotiating.
Nikki Finke is positive but, hell, we’ve been positive before just before the AMPTP tried to fuck us in the ear. (You’ll note that, as predicted in that post, many overall deals have now been cancelled.)
But there’s a press blackout now, so there’s no real news to be had.
The silence is a good thing.
Away from the duelling press releases of the last round of negotiation, maybe the various negotiators can start getting a deal together that everyone can live with.
In the meantime, the pressure is still on the AMPTP with picketing, more side deals, and the Oscars coming up.
And let’s be clear, the Oscars are a big incentive to get a deal made.
No SAG actor will cross a picket line outside the Oscars ceremony, because they know this deal is all about setting a precedent for their negotiations about payments for Internet series too.
Losing the Golden Globes cost NBC somewhere between 15 and 20 million dollars. If the Oscars are cancelled, the financial hit will be a lot higher, and not just to the broadcaster – there’s the loss of all that free advertising for films as people tune into the show to see the stars accept their awards.
So the 24th February is the next big deadline.
Good luck to all.
Sadly, it seems that a cease-and-desist order from Blizzard has resulted in a name-change. However, if hot elf action is your thing, you’ll be pleased to know that someone has listened to your telepathic entreaties.
Link is SFW. Though fairly obviously, if you wish to search them out, the actual videos are not.
Two things.
Thing the first: This year, I shall be going to Eastercon, and I think you should too.
Every year, there’s a british national science fiction convention, held over the Easter Weekend. (Thus the imaginative name).
People who like SF gather, talk, drink, listen to the guests speak, and generally have fun. There’s pub quizzes, games, dancing, videos, and academic talks for those that wants them as well.
This year’s guests are The Mighty Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, and China Miéville.
If you’ve never been to a con, you might have the impression that it’ll be full of people dressed as Klingons. If you’re lucky, out of the thousand or more people who’ll be there, you might meet one or two. On the fancy dress night.
I’ve been to a couple of conventions (otherwise known as cons) run by the people who are organising this year’s Eastercon, and I can guarantee that it’ll be good fun.
To attend will cost you 55 quid for the four days. It’s out in Heathrow – so commutable to London if you’re very very poor – but it’s more fun to stay in the hotel with everyone else. And because there’s so many people staying, the rates are about forty quid per person per night, breakfast inclusive. And this is a five star hotel, mind.
To find out more about Eastercon, check out the introductory page here. And hopefully I’ll see some of you there!
Thing the second:
Loli will be joining me at the con. And she’s not yet a science fiction afficionado. So the question is this:
What should she watch or read beforehand? Assuming no more than one novel (or, say, three short stories) from any writer, and no more than one episode from any TV show, what are the best bits of SF that everyone should see?
