JMS SPEAKS 3

[Lyta Alexander]

Nommy,

I've been checking USENET, but JMS hasn't posted in a while. I guess he's pretty busy with his new projects.

[Nommy]

Lyta, Wizz...Nothing new to report?

[Wizz]

<font face="Georgia">Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...<hr></font>

<font face="verdana"><font color="red">At imdb, this </font>[Fettes Grey]<font color="red">is given as an alternate credit for you. I assume this is what you use if you want your name removed from something. What meaning (& number of syllables) is correct for this usage.
</font>
Fettes and Grey were the two grave robbers in The Bodysnatcher.

jms
<hr width="75%">
<font color="red">Hey, you're alive! How's the first few days of shooting going?</font>

We don't start shooting until September 6th. We're in heavy duty prep at the moment. It's pretty massive as this is a very location-oriented show.

More later when I have time.

jms
<hr width="75%"><font color="red">
I had a perhaps stupid thought. While I was unpacking from a recent move, I came across a printout of a message you once wrote on the
usenet (or compuserve) answering a question about how you would do a Star Trek series. It was very insightful.

As you know, there is a new Star Trek prequel series in the works. It will also not have certain plot devices like universal translators and transporters (things you said you didn't like). A thought crossed my mind: would you or have you ever considered submitting story ideas to the Trek people?

Maybe you can't respond publicly and you seem to be very busy (do you ever sleep?) on you current projects, but I just had to ask...</font>

1) I don't write freelance.

2) I can't write with mittens on.

jms
</font></p>

[Derico]

Hi everyone. Did the little test & this is what came out:

# 1 Londo Mollari
# 2 Susan Ivanova
# 3 Morden
# 4 Alfred Bester
# 5 Delenn
# 6 Jeffrey David Sinclair
# 7 Kosh Naranek
# 8 Warren Keffer
# 9 Zathras
# 10 David Corwin
# 11 G'Kar
# 12 Marcus Cole
# 13 Michael Alfredo Garibaldi
# 14 Vir Cotto
# 15 Elizabeth Lochley
# 16 Lord Refa
# 17 Talia Winters
# 18 John Sheridan
# 19 Lennier
# 20 Lyta Alexander
# 21 Na'Toth
# 22 Zack Allan
# 23 Byron
# 24 Dr. Stephen Franklin
# 25 Emperor Cartagia


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Zut contr?le de l'inondation!

The Neil & Neal Show

[Wizz]

<font face="verdana"><font color="red">To commemorate this very special episode, TV's Greatest Hits will release music, composed by Christopher Franke for this episode, in MIDI format on the day the episode airs. This will be the first time this music has been available anywhere in MIDI format.
</font>
May I assume you made a licensing deal with Chris and/or WB for the rights to put that music out in MIDI format?

jms
<hr width ="75%">
<font color="red">In fact, Hollywood wouldn't let him run any show afterwards (at least for a while), since they take it as a sign he was either retiring as showrunner or committing a breach of accepted Hollywood protocol.</font>

Actually, 1) there is no such collective entity as Hollywood, just producers and networks and studios who work independently of each other, and 2) there were several offers to run shows after Crusade, they just weren't for shows I wanted to do. I don't do stuff I don't think would be fun.

I'm weird that way.

jms

[Wizz]

<font face="verdana"><font color="green">My recollection is that you stated that Eiben Scrood didn't get a credit on Crusade because of pressure on the relevant guild. Is my recollection correct? What kind of pressure?</font><font color="blue">
I assume because it's not a name registered with them.</font><font color="red">
It was his officially registered pseudonym. I can't remember his exact wording of why he wasn't allowed to use it, and I seem to have lost the article (a Dreamwatch interview) I got it from.
</font>

It was a properly registered pseudonym, but WB put pressure on the WGA not to allow me to use it as it "diminished the value" of the show and basically made light of the studio (which is, of course, the POINT of a pseudonym), and the WGA isn't the bravest when it comes to this sort of thing, so the WGA caved to their pressure.

jms
<hr width="75%">
&quot;1) I don't write freelance.&quot;


<font color="red">Me, I figured it was because freelancers get their stories butchered and don't have the kind of control you've come to enjoy.
If you have time, I'm sure people here who'd love to hear the correct reason you don't write freelance.</font>

Certainly that is a factor, but a much larger factor is that it takes a very long time to make it to being an Executive Producer...it's a steep climb up on a slippery slope. The moment you take something below that, people in Da Biz start to think of you in a different way, as something other than a show runner. Since 90% of Da Biz is perception, you can see why that would be a bad thing.

And as an aside, it generally takes any EP or show runner about 1-2 years after one show goes down to get on another one, since there are a lot of us and not many new shows. A lot of the time it involves waiting until somebody else falls off the merry-go-round....

jms
<hr width="75%">
<font color="red">Do you find that sometimes the stuff that would be fun isn't the best career move?
</font>

Absolutely.

<font color="red">And between "career move" or fun, I take it that you choose fun, or do you find a way to make the fun a great career move?

</font>
I always choose fun. Thing is, if you do Fun right, then it *becomes* a career move by virtue of showing you at your best.

But it's still possible to make mistakes. Early on, I was asked to come in on Roswell, but at that time there was only a vague description of it -- kids in a high school with aliens -- and it sounded dopey and I opted not to follow up. Turns out it's a pretty cool show. But them's the chances you take.

jms

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Rangers, Crusade, DVDs
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>
Your most recent comments quoted on "Cinescape On-Line" have produced the latest round of "See, I *told* you 'Crusade' is definitely dead" posts. Based on your earlier comments, I didn't read it that way. It just sounds to me like you have a plan "B" in mind in case Sci-Fi decides it absolutely *isn't* interested in "Crusade" after "Rangers" has been on the air for awhile. Otherwise your preference would still be to finish the "Crusade" story on a show called "Crusade." Am I wrong?
</font>

Sigh...I guess these are people who, on finding one door locked, never think to go in a window and just leave. You *always* have a plan B. Also a plan C, D and E.


jms

[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: Attn JMS: Showtime - Jeremiah over Stargate?
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>
Is there any connection between Showtime's confidence in Jeremiah and their decision to drop Stargate SG-1? Has Showtime indicated which time slot Jeremiah is likely to air in? Does Showtime consider Jeremiah a SciFi show or more of an edgy drama with young actors?
</font>

The two decisions were unrelated, though we will not be occupying Stargate's slot now that it's available.

<font color=red>
And, for my own curiosity, did you have any involvement with the Jeremiah poster turning up at the MGM booth at ComicCon? And if so,
did it get the results you were hoping for?
</font>

Saw it at MGM, that's about all...don't know what impact one could have expected.

jms


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[Lyta Alexander]

Subject: Re: JMS Interview at Science Fiction Weekly...
From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

<font color=red>
The ship is an old piece of junk nobody else wants. Presumably, the Rangers previously used it as a training craft at the time they were only accepting Minbari and Humans.

Then why won't there be translated signs in other race's languages: Drazi or whatever?
</font>

The minbari aren't too pleased with the Drazi and some other groups...they're kind of ethnocentric that way....

jms


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[Wizz]

<font face="verdana"><font color="red">I don't know if this question has been asked before, or if it's been asked in quite this way, so my apologies if this is one of those redundant questions you've already answered a thousand times.
When you write, do you just go full tilt boogie stream of conciousness and that's it? Or, do you write stream of conciousness and then go back and edit and re-edit, adding subtle shadings until the words paint the picture you want?
If the latter, how often do you find yourself going over a story until it's right? Perhaps that isn't a fair question, as it probably depends on how well the first draft came out of your head. But I ask because I want to know your answer, not merely guess at what might be your answer.
And if the former, then you're one hell of a writer. But then, you're that even if the latter.
Or is there something else, some other thing you do to make the story come out the way you envision it in your head?
</font>

It depends. By and large, it breaks down as follows:
Scripts I tend to write once straight through and that's it, minus last minute production changes (sets and the like). I hate outlining and avoid doing it whenever possible because then the story's written, and I lose interest in writing it. I like to find the story in the characters as I write them; I like to be surprised by what happens, on the theory that if I'm surprised, then the audience will be surprised.
The longer I take to write a script, invariably the weaker it is. Conversely, the ones written in one pass, in one sitting, in white heat, tend to be my best stuff. Sleeping in Light: written in under two days (though I'd thought about it for years, so that may not be the best example). Gethsemane: one day. Signs and Portents: two days. Chrysalis: one day. I could site others. Grey 17 took three weeks. It shows.
The thing about writing fast, for me, is that it forces me to get out of my own way. I don't second-guess myself, I just listen to the characters and write down what they say without questioning it or over-analyzing it. And I try to avoid rewriting because I think it leeches life out of a script.
Fiction: here I tend to write and rewrite ceaselessly. I'm about 200 pages into a novel I've been writing for the last year or so, and I've rewritten the first 100 pages at least 20 times, because it's a different process...it's about creating a mood on the page, handling description differently from a script (which is fairly straightforward) so that you create word pictures. I also trim and snip and cut and tidy until there isn't an inch of fat on the thing, it's lean and mean and ready to go. Fortunately, fiction allows that kind of detail work, which TV does not.

jms