Science Fiction Film "Babes" on Flixster

Ah, the science fiction "babe". An elusive creature, if there ever was one -- though that trend finally seems to be changing in film and on TV (thanks, Joss!).

Still, Flixster recently posted an article called 'Science Fiction Film Babes Through Time' that lists five decades worth "babes" in order of "babe-itude". It's a fun read. And though I don't know a couple of the women listed there, in my opinion, their list is pretty accurate.

Thus Endeth The Sideshow

Tonight was the last episode of the ABC's brilliant "small screen side show" television series called, er, 'The Sideshow' (with Paul McDermott). In honour of that:

TV: better than science of philosophy
Better than religion or a charity
Better than being there
Sideshow-o-o-o-o-o
Sideshow-o-o-o-o-o
Sideshow-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Of course, you'll only get that if you're a Sideshow fan.

Ah well. No more Paul McDermott, Claire Hooper, Tripod, Flacco, The Umbilical Brothers, the Threatening Bears, the band, and all the guests that came on the show.

In the words of Paul McDermott, "we'll miss you like a junkie, when [you're] gone."

Star Trek XI: First Look

I am, of course, following the upcoming Star Trek movie (referred to as Star Trek XI since its final, official title hasn't been released yet). It's a prequel about Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise bridge crew as they make their way through Starfleet Academy. As a result, they've had to re-cast all of the principal characters. They finalized that just recently and /Film (pronounced slash-film) recently posted a photo-shopped first-look of the crew on their site. The crew looks good so far. Here's hoping the movie is a good one, too.

The Sci-Fi Genre's Rise in Popularity

The New Humanist Magazine, in its latest issue, has published an excellent article that talks about the rise in popularity of the science fiction genre in television:
No one who likes television could in all conscience have missed Heroes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Angel, Battlestar Galactica, Lost or even, if you’re feeling patriotic, Dr. Who. Supernatural and extraterrestrial television has stopped being only for people who like to dress up with pointy ears, ideally at a convention with like-eared friends, and become the mainstream.

Natalie Haynes argues that sci-fi is becoming increasingly popular these days because programmes set in the real world are becoming increasingly limited in scope and because the nerds (like Joss Whedon) are becoming more powerful. She also talks about why science fiction fans are so loyal.

Anyway, it's a great article and I highly recommend you read it.

Making Time for TV

I love watching television. Whether it's the news, documentaries, movies, cartoons, music videos, my favourite television shows, or, well, anything else that's on. Unfortunately, because of my MBA commitments (especially evening classes), I don't get the time to watch as much television as I would like.

Enter LifeHacker's 'Six Ways to Catch Your Favourite TV Shows'. And though not all of the methods described in that article work in Australia -- like streaming episodes directly from US television networks' own websites -- the rest do and that's better than nothing.

If you're in Australia, meanwhile, you can download entire episodes of ABC shows from the ABC website. Or, if you like 'Rove', 'Australian Idol', or 'Supernatural', you can view or download those shows from the Channel Ten website.

Enjoy :)

Multiple, Complex Storylines = Good

One of the really cool [1] things about television shows these days is the complexity and sheer number of storylines that they're squeezing into them. What's even cooler is that we're able to follow each of those threads, for the most part, reasonably easily. Though recaps and other assists help us keep things straight. Of course, this is not to say that the A/B storyline concept is dead [2]. That is indeed alive and well, and will continue to be the dominant narrative form on television for the foreseeable future.

If that jargon has thrown any of you, here's a quick recap. A storyline is a narrative thread "experienced by different but specific characters or sets of characters that together form a plot element or subplot in the work of fiction" [Source: Wikipedia]. Basically, a storyline is a plot (if there's only one storyline) or a sub-plot (if there are more). You can also call them story threads.

Single-Plot Stories

Older television shows (and even movies) usually had just one storyline that ran, for the most part, linearly. There was usually only one major plot (e.g. Spock, Kirk, and McCoy get stranded in the 1930s after stepping through the portal called The Guardian of Forever) and, occasionally, a few minor sub-plots (e.g. Kirk, surprisingly, finds the time to fall in love with Keeler). And we were usually shown these in chronological order unless, of course, there were flashbacks.

This is generally (not always!) what makes older stuff a little harder (i.e. a little boring) to watch. Though an episode like Star Trek: The Original Series' The City on the Edge of Forever is far from boring!

Multiple-Plot Stories

Then came the concept of the A/B storyline [3]. In this, two (or more) story threads (i.e. narrative plots) are developed simultaneously. The A-storyline is the main plot of the episode. For example, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Once More With Feeling, the A-storyline is the one in which the team investigates the spontaneous singing and bursting-into-flames phenomenon and tackles Sweet, the demon who has been summoned to Sunnydale and has caused all this mayhem.

The B-storyline, meanwhile, is a sub-plot that usually does things like character development, moving forward a developing story arc (i.e. a plot spread over a number of episodes), or supporting the main plot in some way or the other. In Once More With Feeling there are two main B-storylines. One is Tara finding out that Willow is abusing her Wiccan powers (and using them on Tara) and the second is Giles realizing that it is time for him to leave Buffy on her own (and for him to go back to England). The former doesn't figure much into this particular episode but the latter almost gets Buffy killed. You could say there are two more B-storylines going on: the first addressing the Buffy-Spike relationship and the second exploring the Anya-Xander relationship in more depth. Those are a little less important though, so you could even call them C-storylines!

Generally, though, shows produced after the turn of the century have lots of little subplots and storylines being developed in them all at the same time. That is, there aren't just two storylines, the A and the B, there are a few. Despite that fact, the phrase "A/B storyline" still generally works.

By the way, I chose Once More With Feeling to explain storylines specifically because each B-storyline literally gets its own song in that episode!

Craploads-of-Plots Stories

What's happening in television shows these days, though, is that there are many more storylines that just a handful. Lost is probably the first series to explicitly explore numerous storylines, character development arcs, and overall story arcs. This fact was initially daunting but, once you got used to it, all the storylines fit together and made sense. It was a little difficult, though, to start watching the series mid-season since you weren't quite sure what was going on. Also, Lost uses flashbacks to explain a lot of what is happening with its characters.

Heroes, which just started its second season in the US a few days ago, is the second major series to tackle this many storylines. In this they use both recaps and captions (that give you characters' names and locations) to help you figure out what's going on. That is particularly important for this series since, basically, it is narrated like a comic book.

The best thing about all this, then, is the fact that television shows are starting to become more compelling (narrative-wise, that is, since you have to have good writers on the show to be able to pull off that many simultaneous storylines and still make sense!); more in-depth with their stories (though, understandably they're a little slower with story development); and more prone to cult-like followings (since laypeople will find it hard to join mid-way...and once you're hooked, you're hooked). All of this, in my opinion at least, is a good thing.

Multiple, complex storylines = good.

Footnotes

[1] I have to stop using the words "cool", "awesome", "great", and "really".

[2] Or is it "A-B storyline"...I don't know.

[3] In television shows, that is. Plots and sub-plots have always existed in books.

Watching Movies/TV, Listening to Music

Since I've started talking about the different layers that make up a scene in a movie or television show (i.e. by talking about scripts), let me go ahead and tell y'all how I watch movies in the first place. No, not the obvious open-eyes-stare-at-screen type how I watch movies, but more like what my movie-watching philosophy is. Of course, calling it a 'philosophy' gives it a little too much credit, but it sounds much cooler that way so I'm going to stick with it. (Also, when I say just 'movies', I do actually mean both movies and TV. It's just that it's much easier to stick to the one word, which is exactly what I'll do for the remainder of this post.)

Levels & Layers

Simply put, I watch movies at multiple levels and often (usually when I really like a movie) I watch it at least twice. When I say 'multiple levels' I mean that, because I know a little about how movies are made, I can see and appreciate the inputs of various contributors to the overall product. Let me give you an example from the first part of 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'. And from that let's take the scene in which Gandalf and Frodo are riding on Gandalf's cart towards Bag End (i.e. Bilbo's house). The scene seems to be reasonably straightforward but there's a lot going on in there. For example:

  • The two actors are actually sitting five feet away from each other on a specially designed cart that, when viewed from the side, uses perspective to make Frodo look much smaller than Gandalf. As it moves along, the bench they're sitting on adjusts to ensure that there is no break in scene continuity.

  • The actual jump that Frodo makes into Gandal's arms was made by Elijah Wood's stunt double, Kiran Shah.

  • This is an important scene for Gandalf because, first, it's the first time we're seeing him on screen and he has to look believable and, second, because Ian McKellen worked really hard to get Gandal's voice, humour, mischievous nature, concern for Bilbo, and hidden power all just right for this scene.

  • A lot of work went into Gandalf's costume. It comes from drawing by John Howe (created for the cover illustration of the one the book editions) and both he and Alan Lee worked extensively with the producers to get the look and feel of Middle Earth just right.

  • The firework effects were added later and, in the scene, the children are reacting to just audio (if that). One of the children in the scene is actually Peter Jackson's.

  • The location of the scene is a park in New Zealand and all of the construction that was done to make it look like Hobbiton was completely undone after filming was completed.

  • Howard Shore's musical score is currently on the hobbit theme. This theme will be played (sometimes intermingled with other themes) every time there's talk about hobbits and the Shire. Bits of the fellowship theme are thrown in throughout the first half of the movie, but that theme won't be fully developed (i.e. played) till the famous crossing-the-mountain-ridge scene later on in the movie.


Now it's true that I know a lot of this stuff because (a) there is a lot of production information available about the LoTR movies in the DVD extras as well as online, (b) I'm a Peter Jackson fan and so I keep up with his work, and (c) I'm a huge LoTR fan. But that's part of the point: it is because I know about all this stuff and have read about it that I know a lot about what's going behind the scenes. And it's that which helps me watch the movie at multiple levels.

The fun thing is that, even if I don't know a lot about the movie I'm watching, I can still see how it was made. For example, regardless of which movie I'm watching, I will consciously notice continuity mistakes, the score and what it is trying to convey, the lighting, the cinematography, the camera angles, the number of cameras being used, the cuts between takes and scenes, the work being put in by the actors, the effects added on by the visual effects people, the audio being added on by the folio people, and so on. This is in much the same way that an editor would look at a book and see spelling and grammar mistakes, different font faces, writing and editing styles and choices, printing and layout choices, etc. (Aside: Being a web developer and designer, I do the same when viewing web pages.)

Layers in Music

Being a musician, meanwhile, helps me do the same thing when listening to music. For example, I can usually tell what bit was recorded live and what was added on later, what the song structure is all about, what the time signature is, when the key changes are, how the song is arranged spatially, what is being done with the backing vocals (when, who, how many, higher/lower, how spatially arranged, etc.), which instruments are playing in which audio frequency areas, what melodies and counter melodies are being used, what exactly each instrument is contributing to the song (which individual melody they're playing, etc.), and exactly which drum component the drummer is striking at any given time.

The Benefit

All of this, for both movies and songs, does a couple of things for me. First, it helps me get a lot more from the movie I'm watching or the song I'm listening to. I end up appreciating them not just for what they are, but also for how they came to be that way. Second, it makes me doubly dislike badly done songs/movies and makes me really like those that have been well done. That doesn't seem like a big thing but, believe me, it is. Take Shakira's song 'Hips Don't Lie' for example. The song is really good and it's great to dance to but, dammit, its production could have been better. Or take 'Rock the Party' by the Bombay Rockers in which the chorus sound like "frack the part, frack the party" instead of "rock the party, rock the party".

On the other hand, it is thanks to this that I can appreciate just how awesome the band Dire Straits was because its production is just incredible. (Unfortunately, Knopfler's obsession with getting everything exactly right led to a high turnover of band members). You also start to appreciate different individual music producers -- like Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, Butch Vig, Mark Knopfler, Rick Rubin, Mike Campbell, and Peter Gabriel, to name some of my favourites -- and what they bring to bands and their sounds. To get an idea of the same thing happening in a different context, ask Nadia how she likes Dan Brown's 'The DaVinci Code' and why she has never been able to get past the first page because the writing is so darned crappy!

To make my life a little happier, by the way, I have had to develop both the ability to separate content from production and the ability to enjoy something even if it's not all that well done. So I can still enjoy listening to 'Hips Don't Lie' and I can still enjoy reading 'The DaVinci Code' (without cringing all that much) and I can still have a great time watching 'Terminator 3' even though there are minor acting issues and storyline inconsistencies.

Let's Watch That Again

Last thing: I mentioned at the start of this posting that I like to watch good movies more than once. One of the advantages of doing this is that I can peel off additional layers with each new viewing. And when a movie is really good, you get something new from it almost every single time you watch it. It is especially useful to watch good comedies more than once because you don't always get all the jokes the first time round (presumably because you're laughing so hard the first time round). Another advantage of multiple viewings is that, at the first viewing, you can leave your technical eye at the door and simply enjoy the story and get caught up in the action and excitement (especially if you're watching it in the cinema). Once you've done that, you can think "that was cool, how did they do that?" and then watch it again.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I watch movies, TV shows, and plays; view websites; read books; and listen to music. Yes, life is rich and life is fun.

Reading Scripts

I not only love to watch movies and TV shows, I love to read their scripts as well. And since there are lots of them available on the Internet, I've read quite a few. I used to read just film scripts but, over the last year or so, I've also started reading TV scripts and transcripts. In fact, I'm going through a TV script-reading phase these days: I finished reading all seven seasons of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' a couple of months ago and now I'm on season three of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' (ST: TNG, or just TNG).


I really do enjoy reading this stuff. It gives you a whole new perspective on things. For one, you get to tap right into the writers' minds since (ignoring transcripts for the time being) you're reading their actual words. Because of this, you get to skip the layer of interpretation, presentation, and representation added on by the director, cinematographer, and actors respectively. You also don't get the soundtrack so there's no emotional augmentation from the music either.


Less Than a Book, More Than a Play


Reading a script is not like reading a book, by the way. Books are books -- they describe thoughts, feeling, and emotions in the text as well as through dialogue. With scripts, actors get cues from the scriptwriter, direction from the director, and they also bring their own abilities (and interpretation) to the delivery. Still, some pacing and acting cues help describe how things should pan out, like in this snippet from a TNG episode:




Worf, Korris and Konmel walk along.


KONMEL



The opponent that killed Kunivas
should have been an enemy -- then
his death would have been even
more glorious.

WORF
(stunned by the revelation)

If the opponent was not an
enemy... who was it?

For a beat, neither Korris nor Konmel answer.



WORF
(continuing)

Tell me -- what really happened?


Korris gives Worf a long steady gaze.



That's not like a book and not like a stage play script either. In the latter, a lot more is left open to interpretation -- aside from the fact that that's written for a wholly different medium, of course. The closest that books come to being written like movie scripts are when Michael Crichton writes them. His books come across like screenplays and the action almost plays out as if you're watching it on a screen. Most cool, that.


Scripts are sometimes doubly enjoyable when you've actually seen the episode/movie that you're reading the script of because you can have it playing in the back of your head while you read. This lets you see exactly what the actors, cinematographers, visual effects people, soundtrack people, producer, and director added on to the scene. Since I am a movie/TV buff, this is something that I really enjoy doing/seeing. Much in the same way that I enjoy browsing the web at a deeper level than most users because, since I used make websites for a living, I know how people have made the sites I'm seeing. And while bad sites irritate me more than they would irritate others, visiting good sites actually makes me happy! Yes, I'm a little weird.


Fun With Changes


Anyway, coming back to scripts: they're even more enjoyable when the script actually differs from what was in the filmed version of the movie/episode. I can, at this point, go off on a tangent and start talking about script versions -- i.e. drafts, originals, revisions, shooting scripts, and transcripts -- and how scripts evolve but, don't worry, I'm not going to get into that right now. Maybe in a later post. But still, it's fun when you read unfinished scripts that say things like (from another ST:TNG episode):


 




73 INT. EXECUTIVE OFFICE - DAY (TO BE WRITTEN)




Beata, Trent, the away team. Basically, Beata tells
Riker he's pretty smart for a man. She's given his
words a great deal of thought, sees his point, has
(with the help of her parliament) reached a decision.



...(stuff deleted)...


Beata urges them to be on their way. She strikes the
meditation crystal, giving in to its soothing warmth
as Riker belays the previous order to "kidnap" the
Ramsey group, and our away team DEMATERIALIZES.


In the filmed version, they've obviously added dialogue to that scene but it is interesting to note that someone else (the actors or the director, maybe) actually came up with the words that were said at that time.


Different Endings


It's also fun when the ending is different from what was in the movie, something that often happens in earlier drafts. For example, in an early 'Alien: Resurrection' draft, Ripley actually fights (and eventually crushes to death) the new, hybrid alien on the surface of the planet Earth while in the movie he gets killed before they enter Earth's atmosphere (the cool blow-out from the cargo hold, for those that have seen the movie). Sometimes scriptwriters write multiple endings, letting the directors or producers choose the one they like the most. And sometimes it doesn't end there either: the director and producer go ahead and shoot those multiple endings, delaying the final decision till the editing stage. (Some DVD extras show you these alternative endings too).


Tightening The Narrative


What's more subtly cool, though, is when you read a script and realize that the director and/or editor has deviated from the script in order to tighten the narrative up a bit. For example, in another ST:TNG episode, the second-last scene in the filmed version is much more appropriate than the one in the script. In this episode (1-08, 'Justice'), we're on an alien planet in which Wesley has unknowingly committed a 'crime' (tripped and broken some glass in a greenhouse). Unfortunately, all crimes on this planet have the same, single punishment: death. At the same time, the planet is "overseen" by a highly advanced being that can do pretty much anything. The locals call it "God". Anyway, everything boils down to Picard having to choose between saving the life of a crewmember and sticking with a strict interpretation of the Prime Directive (according to which he can't interfere with local laws and so Wes must die).


In the script, the second-last scene ends with Picard saying the line "I realize now that there can be no justice...no justice so long as laws are absolute. Life itself is an exercise in exceptions." just before they beam back up, taking Wesley with them and leaving the locals pissed off. In the actual episode, however, Picard actually gives the order to beam up before he makes that speech...but nothing happens. "God" is blocking their transporter. It is then that Picard makes the speech, soon after which the transporter kicks in and they start to get beamed up. As they phase out, Riker says something along the lines of "I guess God agrees with you"�. The difference between the two may be subtle -- and I know I haven't explained it all that well (you have to have seen the episode itself to appreciate this properly) -- but, trust me, it makes a big difference to the episode. In the original script, they've technically gone against the Prime Directive and have angered the planet's inhabitants with their flagrant disregard for their local laws. In the filmed version, however, they have successfully appealed to God, something that the inhabitants have seen and have understood. In a show like Star Trek, this makes a huge difference.


Read Scripts and Transcripts!


Anyway, I hope this encourages at least some of you to go out and read some scripts. They really are a lot of fun. Assuming, of course, you like that kind of thing. I haven't talked much about transcripts in this post. Instead of saving them for a later post (because there's not much to say about them), let me just say that I like reading those too. While they don't necessarily give you a deeper understanding of the production process, they do give you a deeper understanding of the story, various story arcs, writing styles, acting styles, and all of that other stuff. Their quality does depend on the person writing the transcript, though. So you do get spelling errors and there are different styles of describing the action seen on the screen in words but, for the most part, the transcripts I've read have been pretty darned good. I guess that's partly because they're written by fans of the show who really do care about the quality of what gets written down.


Damn that was a long posting. I'll stop rather abruptly now.