JMS SPEAKS

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: ATTN JMS: Rising Stars Trade Paperback
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>Ace job Joe. When's the next one out?</font>


Thanks. It plays a lot better gathered together like that.

To the question...dunno. I know it won't come out until after the next 8 are published in regular form, and 12 just came out, so that's at least 4 months down the road, plus one or two for gear-up...so figure June.

jms

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[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: JMS: Rising Stars Question
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=yellow>JMS,

I've finally gotten caught up on my RS issues and something struck me in the last issue. Granted, it's been 10 years since the Specials began to be hunted, but the last we saw of Cathy(?) she didn't know about her power of reanimation.

How did she learn about it? And when?</font>

At a point in-between. It's one of those things that I figure I can explain down the road a piece. Basically, when the powers began jumping in strength, it became more noticeable.

jms

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[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Midnight Nation 4 out 12/13
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

Just for those interested in picking it up.


jms

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[sindatur]

Hi Lyta,

Yea I realize they're not your questions, I was just hoping you might know the answer or someone else might. And in case you don't remember me from the last place I went by my real name there (Kimball).

As always, your posts are much appreciated, keep up the great work.

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Sindatur - The Grey owl Wizzard

[AsIs]

Lyta was replaced by Talia if I remember correctly because of the power that be, can't remember if it was Warner or not, but I think so.

Pat Talman was mostly known for her stuntwork at that time and they wanted a different actress for the part. So Andrea Thompson was cast in a modified role dealing with other cast changes as well. I think they also wanted to go with a actress with more *shudder/drool* sex appeal as well.

That's what I remember at least.

[Lyta Alexander]

Oh, hey Kimball!!

Sorry about mixing up your question...I misread it....very long day at work.

I don't remember why Pat was replaced by Andrea, although the answer provided by AsIs sounds vaguely familiar. I'll check my archives and see if I come across anything.

Thanks AsIs

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: the new widescreen prints...
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

I'm appending this message here in case it takes a while for a new topic to get through moderation....

Today I went to a meeting at Warner Bros. technical support, where we went over the problems detected in the SFC widescreen airings. I now have some answers and some information on this. I have to say up front that the WB folks have been nothing but helpful and determined to fix the problems.

In "Midnight on the Firing Line," wherein a teapot is shown instead of a starship when the audio indicates the latter...the editor explained that it resulted from a pause/freeze frame during assembly, and when he restarted the equipment, it jumped shots. This will be fixed.

In "Covictions," wherein a comp shot of several monitors doesn't show the surveilance footage, but rather shows just the original babcom logo...they had missed this on their list of comp shots, and will go back and insert the proper footage now that they know the problem is there. (They QC everything, but often with the audio down, so they had no way of knowing that they were talking about camera footage, and figured that it was okay since there was something -- the babcom logo -- in the monitors rather than totally blank screens.)

In "Inquisitor," wherein the west end/east end audio correction wasn't made...they were going off the original PAL audio transfers, which in this case didn't work because we made that audio correction *after* broadcast and replaced the audio for that shot afterward. They're going to go back to the
revised 24 track audio and insert the proper audio.

Here's what's going to happen beyond this.

1) WB is going to go back to using *only* the original 24 track audio stems for the dubs.

2) Seasons 4 and 5 as it turns out are already in proper wide versions, as is
season 1, so the only ones that need to be addressed are seasons 2 and 3.

3) WB is going to run cassettes of the whole series in the new version and I'm going to personally go over every damn episode personally looking for any potential problem areas (such as comps that may not have been recognized as such by the WB editors). It's possible that I may miss something here and
there, because 110 hours is a LOT of TV to watch...but it'll certainly help.

They were *extremely* helpful and apologetic at WB, and are determined to do everything they can to fix the situation as fast as possible.

As for the audio...the audio transfers are being done directly off the original clones (either the original PAL, digibeta or 24 track stems), and QC'd. So what they suspect *may* be the problem is if the SFC is running the digital tracks through a dolby decoder. If you try to decode Dolby that isn't there,
on a digital track (which doesn't need Dolby because it's digital) it can make the audio crunchy or lead to drop-outs, pops and other problems. I've sent word to SFC to have them check that at their end of things.

So the situation is well in hand.


jms

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[MerleZ]

AsIs, I find that odd. Personally, I find Pat much more attractive. Make that MUCH more attractive. Andrea does nothing for me.

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It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: ATTN jms:Jeremiah article on sci fi wire
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>There's an article posted today on Sci Fi Wire about the plan to develop Jeremiah. Does this mean they have accepted the pilot script?</font>


To accept a pilot script doesn't mean they are commissioning a series. We're waiting for a decision and should have some information probably next week.

jms

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[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: OK, I'm expecting an announcement about the formation of the Nightwatch
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>But the latest really takes the cake: has anyone seen a reliable,
confirmed report that Bush's lawyers are in Florida trying to prevent the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Miami Herald and others from looking at the disputed (which they have every right to under Florida's Sunshine
Law) ballots? Is this just another Scurrilous E-Mail Rumor?</font>


No, it's quite true. The Miami Herald in fact is in the process of demanding to review the set-aside, disputed ballots. The recount had put Bush at only 53 votes ahead when it was stopped by order of the Supreme Court, and some estimates indicate that Gore may have had far, far more votes than anyone
anticipated.

There's some *really* good stuff on this at Michael Moore's site, www.michaelmoore.com including an astonishing breakdown of the Supreme Court verdict which for the first time really explains the thing.

One of the more interesting elements is that they overturned the Florida Supreme Court decision because the FSC did not create a standard for determining the process by which the intent of the voter could be discerned --
which was all the Florida legislature had previously stipulated -- so that uneven standards would apply to different counties. For that reason, it was overturned.

But if the FSC *had* created a specific standard, then it WOULD have changed the rules after the game had started, and it would ALSO have been overturned.

jms

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