LEVERAGE: It's Practically a Single Entendre

Always with the conference room scenes. Good Lord, it's dark in there ...

The Mile High Job is one of those episodes that seems so simple. It begins with us in the writers' room cheering "They're on an airplane, and have to pull off the con before they land! It's practically a bottle show!" and ends with a 70-foot replica fuselage on the soundstage. Oh, and we had to build an airplane bathroom with wild walls, because you just can't get a camera in there for the beautiful fight carnage.

Interesting dynamic in this ep, actually, and one of the episodes you can see the various creative styles of the writers really highlighted. The Notorious B.E.R.G. wrote this one. She favors contained spaces and an active victim/surrogate victim in the con. Chris Downey likes the "setting" episodes -- "It's a wedding! It's a --" -- whoops, spoiler, never mind.

I tend to construct the villain plan absent the heroes, then drop them in. Also, I favor multiple little cons on the way to the big con -- witness the pilot, Homecoming, and the season finale, along with various tweaks along the way. A lot of times I start with "What will we steal?", while Chris starts with "where are we?" There's a fair bit of cross-pollination in the room, of course, and we've spot-welded our approaches several times -- Berg and Chris worked together on The 12 Step Job, while our Filthy Assistant's first script, The Juror #6 Job, shows the taint of both Chris and I.

Layered on the plots, of course, are the stories. Which, as we all know, are not the same thing. Homecoming was about the team learning that being good guys is a lot harder than being bad guys. Two Horse is about dealing with your past. Bank Shot is all about the team growing up, cementing the family bond -- the 'kids' having to pull off the gig on their own. Miracle is about faith and hubris, of course, and you can go on and on. We don't like to lay it on too thick, but the team story is the top layer. End of day, it's very hard to get the audience to give a shit about the vic-of-the-week. In 42:30 they just don't have the screentime. So tying our guys in -- in hopefully non-hacky ways -- is the key to the show's emotional grounding.

For what it's worth, Mile High Job is a trust episode betwen the rest of the team and Hardison. I'd put it in the first half of the season arc. For those of you playing the home game, Bank Shot is the swing episode -- the transition to where the team is fully invested in each other, and walking away is not really an option.

Unless somebody really, really screws up.

Right, questions ...

Richard Jensen: Question about the fight scene. How much is written in advance and how much is blocked out in the shooting?

Depends on the fight scene and who's writing it. Usually we drop one signature bit in there, just to create a framework. Hold on ... let me pull up a pdf of Bank Shot. Tweak the formatting a bit ...



EXT. STANTON PARK - MOMENTS LATER
At the black SUV, THUG #1 stays in the driver's seat, THUG #2 and the head METH DEALER approach the briefcase. They pop it open on a nearby trash can.

THUG #2: It's more than we asked for.
METH DEATHER: Well, ain't that punk just full of surprises.

A BANG as the rear door pops open. Reveal ELLEN CLARK [mid- 40's, a cut over her left eye presumably from battling the thugs during her capture]. She's gagged and her wrists are duct-taped. She bolts from the SUV, manages to make it a few steps, but stumbles. Instantly the Meth Dealer is over her. He draws a REVOLVER, moves to pistol-whip her.

METH DEATHER (CONT'D): Where the HELL you think you're going,
old lady? Where the --

A hand CLAMPS on his raised wrist. He looks back. REVEAL Eliot, holding the Dealer's raised gun-hand.

ELIOT: Hey, what smells like crank and screams like a girl?

Before the Meth Dealer can reacts, Eliot KICKS out his right knee. The Meth Dealer SCREAMS like a girl and collapses. Eliot casually turns to the other Thugs as he empties the chamber to the revolver, letting the rounds fall.

ELIOT (CONT'D): Hmm. Right answer.

Thug #2 rushes Eliot. Eliot moves inside, one-two-three brutal blows, then aikido-flips the guy into a mid-air spin. Thug #1 is halfway out the driver's side door when Eliot closes and KICKS the door, slamming the Thug into the door frame. The SUV door swings open, allowing Eliot to SLAM the door on him again. As that Thug drops, the first one attacks from behind -- Eliot spins, PUNCHES through the window, grabs the THUG and SLAMS him up against the door by pulling his shirt.

As the last Thug drops, Eliot notices little BAGGIES OF METH scattered on the ground. He kicks one idly, turns back to Ellen Clark. Eliot crosses to Ellen, crouches. Throws on his most charming smile. She pulls off her own gag.

ELLEN: Who are you?
ELIOT: Well, ma'am. We'd be the cavalry.


Not exactly as played, but close enough. Charlie Brewer then turned this into something about 300% more complicated and cooler. They tend to fall on either side of this in level of detail.

R.A. Porter: ... I was also amused by the foley work during Eliot's knife conversation.

If there is one thing we can teach you, Spec-Monkeys, it is this: foley + volume = comedy

Sapphire Smoke: By the way, those bridesmaids dresses were disgusting looking, PLEASE tell me that was the point of them lol. You mentioned about scenes/lines being cut for time and stuff, are there any particularly good ones you wish ended up making it in this episode or any of the previous ones?

They were as intentionally ugly as our Costume Designer would let us get away with. I, personally, always marvel at that awful tradition.

I don't miss anything in particular. [EDIT: Actually, three things worth discussing, but they're spoilery. We'll do it tomorrow.]

It's worth noting that in the middle Nate/Sterling scene in Two Horse -- the one at the stable office -- Sophie, Parker and Hardison are actually crammed in that closet directly behind Sterling. The scene started as a comedy scene, and ended up in editing as a dramatic scene.

Alan Scott: Also, some of us haven't been exposed to your Holmes/Watson rant--and if we didn't want to hear you rant, we wouldn't be reading your blog.

Commenter ajay pretty much nailed it: Absolutely. At the beginning of "A Study in Scarlet", Watson has just returned from Afghanistan with a nasty case of PTSD. He went straight into the Army from medical school, and straight to Afghanistan the next year. So he can't really be more than 26 or so when the novel starts - Victorian doctors went to university at 18 or so and studied for five or six years. And Holmes is about the same age if not younger - he's studying at the university, he's had no previous job that anyone mentions, and Watson doesn't describe him as significantly older than himself.

John Watson is a twenty-six year old combat hard-ass with mujhadeen shrapnel buried in his leg (or shoulder, depending on the story), not some foppish fuckwit with a bowler hat. Sherlock Holmes is your substance-abusing perpetual grad student solving cases for the London underworld/working class that the cops won't touch. THAT'S why everybody fucks up Holmes and Watson including, probably, my favorite writer in the world.

About two years ago I was developing that version of Holmes and Watson with a director to do a TV pilot, and our agents correctly argued that no network was really looking for that. However, it's my fondest wish to someday do that show.

Oh, and they're women. Did I mention that?

Maybe, someday.

kinesys: Also: Much love for Dan Lauria and Nicole Sullivan. I love seeing the comedic actors that you're pulling out of your hat and giving them the opportunity to pull out some dramatic chops. I actually did NOT recognize Dan Lauria at first.

More on the way. Brent Spiner was nice enough to drop by. Wheaton owes me one if we go a second season.

billjack: I've noticed some inconsistency in the characters' skills--most notably Parker can act and improv this week when her inability last week was a plot point. How do you keep track of each character's strengths and weaknesses in their skill-sets? ... Are you tracking changes in the characters' skills over the season (as you clearly are with the relationships)? Many shows end up with every character just good enough at every necessary skill as the plot requires them to be which would be a shame to do with such clearly defined characters as these.

The assumption is that most of them have Thief 101 skills. However, they all have their strengths, and you won't see a ton of crossover. Sophie and Parker do the lifts and pickpocketing; Eliot never touches computers except when it's a plot point that he has to; Hardison is the only hacker and never does sleight-of-hand, etc. and can't pick a lock. We wound up giving Eliot and Hardison more con stuff because, well, Kane and Aldis are just really frikkin' funny. You will note that Eliot is almost never part of a long con -- short scenes only.

There is a definite arc to Parker's ability to roleplay throughout the season, and Sophie's tutelage is one of the little relationship runners. It pays off in a big way in an upcoming episode. You'll note that usually, even when she's good, she's very close to blowing it at all times. Same thing with Eliot and Hardison cross-pollinating skills as their relationship -- I wouldn't call it a friendship -- evolves over the course of the season.

Joseph: Any other ideas for the DVD release - cut scenes, video diaries, commentaries. I cannot wait for this release! Have you thought of doing any podcast commentaries?

We've got a ton of b-reel, and that'll be a big part of the next few months, putting that together. We may do podcasts as a dry run for the DVD commentary, if people are into it.

Mitchy: This might have been filmed earlier but the Hardison/Parker scenes still zing as much as last week; is that a pairing that hit the ground running for you and the script writers or was it just luck that paired them up so often in these first episodes?

No, we intended that relationship when we developed the show, and once we saw the chemistry in the pilot we were relieved that we could explore it. Nothing worse than trying to force a relationship on characters who just don't click organically. On the other hand, the team kind of naturally splits along those lines: Nate and Sophie doing brainwork/long con, Parker and Hardison doing insertion/security work, and Eliot beating the shit out of somebody.

Warlach: That said, just a quick question: surely the mirror in the cabinet where you first see Hardison place a bug would make the device pretty obvious?

It's a reactive alloy that will blend in with the wood grain and -- HEY! LOOK OVER THERE!

Kevin: The plotting on this episode seemed a little shaky to me. In addition to what Tal_Kaline noted above, there were a number of inconsistencies that seemed unrealistic ...

We freely admit, this one was our big-comedy "farce with guns." We kind of cashed our Big Comedy card with this one. But frankly, it was worth it. The Fun Train will NOT BE STOPPED!!

All right, I need to get to bed, because some of us are writing six more goddam episodes. Thanks for watching, and we hope you enjoy tonight's Leverage-y diversions. Consider this your episode Open Thread.

Life on Mars?

by M A N

Well, is there ? I'm going to venture a highly uneducated guess and say no, but it's fun to speculate. A nice roundup of "where we are now" comes from Phil Plait over at one of my favorite blogs: Bad Astronomy.

And if you're looking for the thrill of discovery a little closer to home, there is a fascinating series of posts over at Scientific American called Dispatches from the Bottom of the Earth . A scientist by the name of Robin Bell is documenting the expedition to study a mountain range hidden beneath the ice sheet in Antarctica. Mountains of Madness anyone?

We also seem to have taken one step closer toward invisibility. The military applications are pretty obvious, but I'm curious. What commercial uses would there be for this technology? So tell me, Monkeys. What would you use an invisibility cloak for?

(And let's try to avoid the "sneaking into the girls' locker room" type shenanigans, for decency's sake. If you need invisibility to see someone naked, it's probably safe to say that your kung fu is not strong. Nor your use of teh Google.)

Tool Academy

I was told there'd be a cleansing white fire. WHERE IS THE CLEANSING WHITE FIRE?!?!

Food For Thought: Shadows on the Wall

My favorite book is Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind (please, no judging). I mean, I LOVE this book. Of my list of five books I'd take with me to a deserted island, it sits at the top. I can't really say why, either. It certainly isn't the best book I've ever read or the most well written (and the last several books of that series get bogged down with the author's ideology which make them difficult to get through), but there's something about the story, the characters, and the way everything unfolds that I find myself rereading all 820 pages at least once a year.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that there is now a television show based on that book. Like any fan, I sat down to watch the show, but was completely surprised by how different it was from what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting a Lord of the Rings quality adaptation and knew it would have a tone more along the lines of Xena or Hercules (which it does), so as a WFR fanboy, my expectations were pretty grounded. But as I watched through the episodes, I noticed that the show, the story, was, well, different.

This, of course, made sense. Things would have to be changed. Telling a story through nearly a thousand pages of text is different from telling it visually in 42 minute chunks. Some scenes would have to be abridged, if not outright cut, certain characters would have to be molded and shaped in a way to make them sympathetic much more quickly than what a writer can get away with in a novel, story structure would have to be more rigidly formatted for t.v. than the looser stylings of prose. All of this got me to wondering. How much does the medium within which a story is being told dictate the story itself? When the mediums change, does the story cease being one story and become another?

I don't know and I'm sure that's something that can be debated about in comments. But my point here isn't to find an answer to the question, but to think about story itself. Without walking too far into Plato's cave, I'm talking about the TRUE story, the one that's sitting in your head right now. What medium best serves THAT story? And be honest with yourself. Just because you want to write a stageplay doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best medium for the story.

Every medium has its pros and cons (I'm referring more toward the creative aspect of writing for a medium as opposed to working within a medium--different animals). As Sensei Waid has said numerous times before, comics is a visual medium. If your story isn't very visual, comics might not be the best medium for it. So it's a matter of finding which medium will work best for that story.

This may sound a little backwards since most writers probably find a story that best serves a medium rather than the other way around. But if you have a story gelling in your brain that you're struggling to tell the way you want to, it's possible that it's the medium that's the problem. Anway, food for thought.

So how 'bout it, fellow monkeys? What's your favorite adaptation of a story from one medium to another? Least favorite?

Ephemera 2009 (3)

-- My Bloody Valentine 3-D. Wow, the 3-D works. Seen in a packed theater with the appropriate screaming, it's a hell of a time. Occasionally it forgets its nature and attempts to let people act, but not so often to distract you from the over-the-top gore. The coolest thing? This gentleman makes an appearance:

"Thrill me."

-- Apparently there's been a rash of perfect ice circles forming in Britain.


As we know, it's impossible for such complexity to arise spontaneously in nature. Plainly, this is proof of an intelligent designer!

-- There are a lot of specialty travel sites, but a friend has recently started one oriented around "just couples" travels, focusing on getting to know the destination organically rather than hitting touristy spots. Check out Travels with Two.

-- Although this Penny Arcade strip mentions documentaries about single letters of the alphabet merely in passing/mocking, I must note I would watch a documentary about the letter Q. My friends still joke about the fact I read Salt: A World History. Often during the mocking they botch the title as "The Story of Salt." That, of course, is totally off-base. It's not the story of salt; it's the story of the world as told through the lens of salt. I can only imagine their shame, now that I've pointed out their mistake.

It's a great book. He's also written about Cod and Oysters. But the Salt book is really his best.

-- Gail Simone's Welcome to Tranquility is the comic you didn't read, and you are poorer for it. And anyone who can explain why the Batman R.I.P. arc was both necessary and relevant to the sequence in Final Crisis, feel free to take your shot in the Comments.




-- Cowboy BeBop is, and will forever be, Cowboy BeBop.

-- Today in the writer's room:
"Did you know Dolly Parton's first album was cut in 1957?"
"I did not."
"And look at this album cover --"

"-- Dolly had a really modern look back then."
" John, why are you on a Dolly Parton Timeline site?"
" ... blogging is not always pretty, Chris. Sometimes you follow a link, and it leads you ... places."

-- You're welcome.

-- For discussion in the Comments: Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man or Angie Dickinson in Rio Bravo?

Six Scripts

As various Humans reported today, Leverage has a new six-script order. To clarify fan speculation, these will not be tacked on to the end of Season One, but would be in theory the first six of a Season Two, if we are indeed picked up for a second go-round.

It is encouraging, but not a guarantee. So keep watching and linking and recapping if you like the show, and if you don't, well, ummmm ... read more? I don't know where that sentence was going.

WW #6 Follow-Up: Good With The Treasure Hunting, Not So Much With The Treasure KEEPING

Judging from the comments, the "Six Qualities" list sparked one of our more interesting debates. The comments certainly had me thinking and reflecting. Some clarifications:

1) I apologize if anyone thought I was deliberately belittling Dr. Henry Jones or the Indy movies. At least one commenter seemed to have taken it personally. Not my intent. Raiders is still one of the greatest screenplays of all time and one of the best movies in anyone's film collection, including mine. But I honestly think that what I love most about that movie is its subversiveness towards the classic movie-hero tropes--most notably that if you take Indy out of that movie, the plot stays virtually intact. Okay, yeah, it might take the Nazis a little longer to find the Ark out there in the desert, but they still get their faces eaten off by tampering with Forces Unknown. ("Find the ark and get it to the US Government. He did that." Please. Only because the Villain Defeated Himself.) I really don't mind this. And, more importantly, I surrender to it.

2) I still feel like you have to stretch the definition of "successful" in order to make it fit Indy, who loses things almost as often as he finds them and manages to leave an awful lot of archaeology-unfriendly destruction in his wake, but I certainly accept that "successful" doesn't always mean "at the obvious goal" and can mean "at an unintended goal" so long as you can sell the audience on the idea that the latter's just as significant. (Not always a given.)

3) I have no idea how Frodo manages to bypass this list, but I'm convinced I could figure it out if I liked him as a character even remotely and hadn't spent eight moviegoing hours silently imploring his comrades to just leave the little bastard behind.

4) I probably should have added the word "altogether" to the statement "if my hero is missing one or more of these qualities". Not backpedalling, just emphasizing the earlier point--not every hero has to have all six qualities firing on all cylinders all the time. But, as I said, if I look back on some story of heroic fiction that I've written and realize I failed to have my protagonist hit these touchstones even once, the story feels "off" unless I did it on purpose.

Agreed all around that sometimes the most interesting stories are about the protagonist acquiring one or more of these traits as part of his journey. In fact, to further the discussion, let's let's expand on the original list. Here's how I interpret the Six Qualities. YMMV. (In fact, since it's not even my list to begin with and I no longer know how the original author interpreted these terms, MY mileage may be the one that's varying.)

COMPETENT--this doesn't leave a whole lot of room for interpretation. Hero doesn't have to be consistently brilliant--that's dull--but it seems like you want your hero to be at least baseline not-a-total-buffoon. I suppose there are exceptions--within the world of the Pink Panther, Clouseau is a hero, I guess--but I'm not sure these guidelines translate well to slapstick comedy.

BRAVE--again, pretty self-explanatory. Fundamental, I'd say. Because no matter how quirky or comically cowardly your hero seems, anyone who's willing to start down the path of the Heroic Journey however reluctantly is, to some degree, "brave."

MORAL--I take "moral" at its strictest definition: demonstrating a consistent ethical code, not necessarily MY ethical code. Dr. Doom is actually "moral" in that sense. I do think that if your hero's all over the map morally, it's much harder for the audience to keep his motivations straight.

SELFLESS--toughest to infuse consistently without making your hero a dull boor. Personally, I like selfless heroes more than heroes with feet of clay--personal preference--but I fully understand why they don't resonate widely. In Back to the Future, one of my favorite movies of all time, Marty McFly shows only the occasional flash of selflessness--his goal is, in fact, 100% selfish and his own welfare is almost always at the forefront of his actions. But the key word there is "almost"--there are the occasional flashes of selflessness in act three, and I'd argue that without them, the story would be more hollow.

RELEVANT, at least as I interpret it, means that the hero's goals or needs are in some way relatable to our own--the more relatable, the better. The reason Spider-Man's popularity overtook Superman's back in the '60s was that Spider-Man's problems were relevant to us--family worries, trouble at school, feeling like you can't catch a break. Meanwhile, Superman's biggest problem was that he couldn't figure out how to enlarge the Bottle City of Kandor.

And SUCCESSFUL we've already discussed. Successful at something important to the audience, something the importance of which (if it isn't the stated goal) clearly supersedes on an emotional level any failed goals.

I repeat: not a recipe. Rules of thumb. But, for writing pulp adventure, rules I find useful.

Waid Wednesday #6: Six Qualities of a Hero

Late posting. And thin. Sorry. Horrific week, dead desktop computer beyond resurrection. So, this, sent to me almost two decades ago by award-winning writer/artist Ty Templeton, who in turn cribbed it from a then-recent PSYCHOLOGY TODAY article. Author lost to time (and to Google), exact citation lost to time, but this list has been in my head nonetheless ever since I first read it and is an invaluable checklist/touchstone that, to this day, I refer to every time I write a story in any genre.

THE SIX QUALITIES OF A HERO:
Competent
Brave
Moral
Selfless
Relevant
Successful

While all six characteristics are not always 100% present in every hero (see: Jones, Indiana, who fails u-t-t-e-r-l-y and r-e-p-e-a-t-e-d-l-y at Quality Six), I find the list terrifically insightful and have come to learn that if my hero is missing one or more of these qualities, I had better be able to articulate why...and if/how that makes it a better, more compelling story. Because generally it does not.

In the comments: debate. And, for extra credit, defend Indy to my satisfaction. Good luck with that.

LEVERAGE: 'Til Death. Like A Steel Cage Match.

A short post on "The Wedding Job", as we're a bit stacked up today. This was the third episode shot -- you can see some of the raw edges in the character relationships intended for the early part of the season. I think you can also track the season by Beth's evolving hair-style. Maybe we'll have a competition after the season finale. Figure out the original order based on dialogue and hairstyle, and win a prize!

Written by Chris Downey, directed by Jonathan Frakes (yes, that one.) Watching Frakes direct is a delight. High energy, lots of laughs on set. Actors directing actors is always fun. They share a common working vocabulary -- and are a bit more ruthless.

This is, as Chris calls it, our "farce with guns." It was actually born the day we were putting up the Hundred Cards of Crime. I'd written "Scandal in Bohemia" on a card. Chris, because he has a life, didn't get the reference. I immediately launched into my long explanation of the story -- with a digression into my usual rant of how everybody always cast Holmes and Watson too old -- when Chris cut right through to "Nate as a minister is interesting." So a "steal a wedding" became our high concept, and what's the most dangerous wedding?

You got it. Oh, and yes, you do recognize the FBI guys. FWIW, his is my second favorite fight scene of the year, if only because it's so Jackie Chan in tone. Man, Downey really hit all the buttons of the show with this one ...

EDIT: Almost forgot. That's Chris Kane doing not just the fight knifework but the kitchen knifework. He's actually a pretty great cook.

Let's tackle last week's questions, then open this up to an Open Thread for Comments and questions about this week's ep. Particularly the amazing fight scene.

Caseyo: asked about the books since I saw Apollo's list, was checking to see if there are any other's I should pickup when I go back to work.

Sorry, I was just jammed up that day. Sitting on my shelf right now are:


Sapphire Smoke: It might be just me, but the whole Hardison and his thing for orange soda reminds me of Kenan & Kel. "Who looovvee orange soda? Kel loooovves orange soda" LOL!

Aldis brought in the orange soda first day, and it's now become a running gag. Sadly trimmed from a script -- his half-page rant about the inferiority of Eastern European orange soda.

Hollie Neil: (Stork Job) seemed like a really expensive episode to shoot. Explosions, child actors, etc . The other episodes were slightly more contained (the bank, the church, etc) Did you have to sacrifice anything you loved in order to make all that work? Just curious.

Actually, shooting on our own set for Howl Force, plus KNOWING we were writing for a bigger budget, kept things relatively under control. We did however trim up the budget for a few future episodes to pay for it, but that's okay, that's the balance every TV show does. Ask the BSG folk about the boxing episode someday.

Ironically, blowing things up is not that expensive. CHILDREN, on the other hand, are brutally expensive. And you have to be all, like, careful with them and everything. Fuck 3-D, we desperately, desperately need robot children for tv acting.

TheMindFantastic: The American Embassy scene, found the banter especially interesting. 'Irina' knowing how a person will lie by eye movements, seems right out of a Bandler-Grinder NLP book, which links to the 'Anchoring' Sophie tells Eliot and Nate about, which is right out of a Ross Jeffries manual on seduction (who got most of his tech from Bandler-Grinder). That alone (mostly because its shit I happen to know about) made this my fav ep so far

It's almost as if you were looking over the hard-researching shoulder of ep writer Albert Kim. Who had to explain to his wife why he had that stack of books on seduction she found in his office. Ouch.

Robert Emerson: You know, episodes of shows where the premise is fake movie or television shoots are always hilarious, as those involved seem to exorcise some ghosts of real shoots past through the episode. I mean, seriously, damn funny episode, espcially the "Director." :D Anyone or group of someones in particular?

The Howl Force experience is based on various nightmare tales of eastern european film shoots from our crew. From the 1st Ad to the Best Boy, everybody's shot in a tax-friendly former dictatorship at some point in their life. We did, at one point, turn to each other and say "you know, we could just shoot out the rest of Howl Force and sell it to SciFi ..."

Rob: On one hand, I don't have a really clear thread of character/relationship development. This might be a function of broadcast order, but to sum up, given they started out as People Who Work Alone, they all got more or less totally comfortable with this arrangement way too quickly. After the pilot it's a little like I've just checked back in for season 2. Is this intentional? Tied to the slightly retro tone?

A mix of both. It's always hard, once the audience has bought the ticket, for the writers to say "Whoa, whoa, slow down the fun train ...". Coflicts remain between the characters all season, and the eps in original order track the arc a little more carefully. Actually, a major new conflict/shift occurs about halfway through, so it'll be fun to see how people respond to that.

On the other hand, yeah, retro fun. I think we split the diference.

KazG: The injury that Eliot was holding an ice pack to in the beginning looked pretty real, was that make up or Chris Kane's own stunt-induced damage?

SOMEBODY went out at 1am after his weekly poker game with Tim Hutton and SOMEBODY started tossing around a football, until SOMEBODY slipped on the asphalt in his goddam cowboy boots.

Miraculously -- and I mean MIRACULOUSLY -- that Somebody heals at weirdly supernatural speed. We only had to cover the problem in two shots (the lesbian bar joke was an on-set throwaway, I think). Seriously, the entire asphalt burn was healed in under three days. The doctors were freaked. It definitely supports the idea that "shitkicker" actually has a genetic component.

Commish: ) I'm going to do some poking around on the internet myself, but I'm just curious how real, and how large-scale, of a problem the situation with orphans in Serbia is. How much did you learn about that whole dilemma in order to shoot the episode? Were the actors involved in your research? Were you hoping that this episode might highlight the problem so that it might be further addressed?

We did a fair bit of research, more into the adoption scams (that tend to run out of Russia) than the Serbian issue. Enough to get really, really depressed while writing. But no, we're not arrogant enough to think we're drawing attention to the situation. If someone's motivated to poke around based ont he show, we'll take the win.

commish cont'd: 2) The only nit-pick I had this week was the way they decided to get the "real" director in Belfast out of the picture. They had to SWITCH his cell phone to send him a fake text message? Hardison couldn't just get the guy's actual cell phone #, and rout him a fake text message? Besides, wouldn't the guy be halfway to the airport when he realized it wasn't his phone, and be back on set within an hour? I know I need to zip it and suspend some disbelief, but I just wanted to mention that one.

You're looking at the "we can only afford to shoot one third of the actual scam" version of that scene. But fair on ya, particularly because we phone scam all the time without a lift.

commish cont'd: Ooh, wait, if I can get it answered, I have one more question... how are the ratings coming for this show? Is TNT pleased? How do the +3 ratings for it compare with some of the other original programming that TNT is airing?

TNT is pleased, and our DVR numbers in particular are ... strong, and we'll leave it at that. You know, at this point in the broadcast model, there's no real point to the overnight ratings we all quote, but that's what we've been doing for years, so that's what we all talk about. TNT, like most cable shows, looks at "runs" of episodes -- so, say, the three showings on Tuesday are added together -- and also pays a lot of attention to DVR +3.

Killah Mate: Don't worry about it though, it wasn't too suspension-shattering. In fact, if we ignore the locations, extras casting, all that budget-dependent stuff (and hell, even Casino Royale wasn't shot anywhere near Montenegro) you come out looking pretty good. I appreciated the amount of local language spoken, even by the leads (which is rarely done, maybe because they don't want it to sound stupid - which your guys and girls didn't, so props to the language team). Also, you established a nice sense of place (lovely greenscreen work, regardless of the actual source of the panoramas).

We appreciate your appreciation. Gina did have some grim satisfaction in watching everybody else learn how to do what she does every damn week. I know there's been a bit of a kerfuffle on the greenscreen samples, but that's one of those things where the importance of a.) affordable and b.) available at c.) the right resolution with d.) the matching camera movement trumped fine-point accuracy.

All told, we do our best in seven days. Nicely enough, there are a lot of actors who speak multiple language sin LA; we do tend to favor native speakers if they're available in those roles.

Jim Kakallos: I was also going to ask about Hardison using a translation book as opposed to software (even if the software I could use is too slow, I don't believe that Hardison hasn't hacked the NSA's super secret real time programs).

Hardison foolishly forgot to switch his keyboard over to Cyrillic on the drive over, so at that moment it was faster for him to pick up his dead-tree dictionary.

No, seriously. That's why. LOOK OVER THERE!

That's it for the mailbag this week. Use this thread for comments and questions, and we'll see you soon. Thanks for the time and attention.

Ephemera 2009 (2)

-- Mike Nelson is too modest to pimp here, but issue #1 of HEXED came out this week (hey, free first issue is a FREE DOWNLOAD!! SMART!!). It's very, very good. I call it "Juno meets Hellblazer". I don't know what Mike calls it. Great artist, too.

-- From Warren Ellis: Polar Nuclear Lighthouses. I repeat. Nuclear. Lighthouses.

-- Mysterious Skin / Brick / The Lookout, that's a hell of a run. Skin is a hard, hard movie but for a weekend rental you can't go wrong with either Brick or Lookout. The Lookout is actually the best of the lot, really a hell of a movie, and streaming off Netflix. You could pump it through your XBOX360 and have it up on the big screen in five seconds. Oh, wait, Brick is available on Amazon VOD, too. Cool.


-- Charlie Stross' Jennifer Morgue is finally out in paperback, meaning you can now do the one-two punch with Atrocity Archive. I will admit that although I like both books, I actually prefer "The Concrete Jungle" novella in Atrocity Archive. You can read both on your Kindle ...


-- ... which, having had for nearly a year now, I will say is well worth the money if you buy as many books as I do. Like most people I have a deep aversion to throwing away books, and finding trading situations can be tricky (although Mrs. Glenn likes The Paperback Exchange EDIT: she actually recommends The Paperback Swap.).

The Kindle provides several benefits. First, I keep my big clunky non-fiction off the much smaller bookshelves of my tiny LA bungalow house. I read more, because I have that 3 pound, 1000+ page Colony to Superpower tucked into the outside sleeve of my briefcase so I can pick it up at lunch anywhere I go. It handles magazine subscriptions well -- I picked up subscriptions to Asimov and Amazing, which I'd never do with the dead tree version. Better for the environment, too.

The Kindle editions are discounted enough that I've managed, particularly on the hardcover purchases, to earn back in savings what the Kindle cost. It takes about three days to get used to -- during which you wonder what chimp engineer designed it so every surface a normal human would use to hold the device is actually a button -- but after that you can't live without it. I now actually delay some book purchases because they don't have a Kindle edition yet.

-- speaking of books, the First Law trilogy: ** SPOILER**I love, love, love Joe Abercrombie's writing style and storytelling. His female characters aren't great, but hey, first book. I urge you to read the trilogy. I'd read his shopping list. However, I don't know if I needed to spend 3000+ pages to suddenly discover that the entire work was a buildup to: "What if Gandalf was a dick?" (highlight to read).

-- New link going into the sidebar: Frontal Cortex, neuroscience fun by Jonah Leherer. Prepare to lose a day plowing through the archives.

-- Keep a pipe bomb on you at all times, you can use it to shift that genny out of the elevator door. Although I've noticed the practice is waning. Oh, and on the roof of Mercy Hospital, Smokers should ambush ladder-climbers from the LOWER rooftop, closer to the edge. You're still in range.

-- I recently in a meeting said "As useless as a Hunter on the roof of Mercy Hospital." Sadly, I do not think it's going to catch on.

-- In the Comments, please post your senior prom theme song. Which, for the life of me, I personally cannot remember ...

Big Hollywood and Why I Admire David Zucker

Yeah, if you're just here for LEVERAGE pr0n, best skip this. For you newcomers, I may need to establish that this is my blog, not an official blog of TNT. All opinions on this site are utterly my own. Only I am responsible for them. TNT or any other parent company neither agrees or endorses anything on this site.

Seriously, you're not going to enjoy this. Go back to TWoP.


*******************************

No.

Stop e-mailing me. Stop wondering, in your blog, when I'm going to start going over there. One or two odd posts where the facts are wrong, I can handle that -- hell, that was the whole point of "Just Stay Down", people's hypotheses should be tested against actual facts. It was an intellectual exercise in the scientific method. With snark.

But after swinging by Big Hollywood this morning, I realized (me) + (that site) = (getting on the boat to look for Kurtz).

It's a crack pinata. It's a garden of crack pinatas, and I'm spinning and spinning -- half the site is triumphantly noting that Hollywood is finally making conservative or secretly conservative big budget mega-hits (Dark Knight! Iron Man! Transformers!) while the other half bemoans how Hollywood keeps making anti-war/anti-American movies mega-flops. Somehow the massive hits made by mega-corporations are happy subversive accidents, while flops are the direct product of these exact same mega-corporations' self-destructive liberal agendas.

For chrissake, there's even one woman, the sum total of her post was how Hollywood types don't worry about taxes because we incorporate and then laugh at the Red State rubes who pay taxes. Because S-corps don't exist outside the 90210 zip code, as you well know. But Hollywood is laughing at you, America! This post basically summarizes populist conservative rhetoric in America, brought to its alchemically pure conclusion in Sarah Palin: "Oh , they think they're sooo smart, don't they? Well we'll show them!"

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This is the section you were probably sent here for. It's not here anymore. A friend of mine e-mailed me, and pointed out that personal attacks were beneath the level of this blog, particularly now that it's a group blog. He basically ass-kicked me, and he's right. I can't invite Mark and Mike on here, try to make the focus of the blog in the new year alt media production, and continue on these rants. I certainly can't pick this fight, and then deny Comments. At the same time, I desperately never, ever, ever want to discuss these humans again.

The major teaching point is: do not post at 1 am.

Let's just note that Big Hollywood's bugaboo is "Hollywoood"'s incessant attempt to shove anti-war/anti-culture movies down our throats. In particular, Editor-in-Chief John Nolte notes that there were 16 movies he'd consider anti-War in the last two years, most of which were actually independently produced documentaries or did not, in fact, directly involve the Iraq War. And that they flopped. Actual numbers show that most broke even at least. You can recreate the research with five minutes and BoxOffice Mojo.

But I was, to be blunt, a raving asshole while I made that point. And I'm trying to do less of that. As a matter of fact, consider this my last binge of the New Year, before the resolution kicks in.

You can probably find this original page in the Google cache.

So consider it trimmed down tooooo ....

*********************************

"Now, John," you might say, as a reasonable human, "that's not fair. Big Hollywood's argument is that the anemic box office domestically indicates Americans don't want to see movies that show America in a bad light, and despite that fact Hollywood produces lots of them -- okay, not lots of them but anyway -- still produces these movies because of its liberal bias. You should engage his intended argument, not his actual one."

Well, first off, for a trillion dollar industry dedicated to pushing anti-War movies on America, dedicating to this cause less than 5% of the last 300 movies kind of indicates our hearts aren't really into it. Not to mention the limited number of release theaters for most of the movies we discussed. FIFTEEN THEATERS for Redacted, for chrissake. Here's a quick clue -- when Hollywood wants to sell something, we make it as widely available as possible for purchase. Crazy, I know. What sort of marketing mumbo-jumbo is this?

You'll note thay evil "Hollywood" kind of lay down on the oppression job, allowing An American Carol to be released in 1600+ theaters, and Proud American to be released in 750 theaters, and Expelled to be released in over 1000 theaters, the widest release of a documentary in history. As far as soul-crushing propaganda machines go, we are not getting the memos out, apparently.

Let's take a moment to address the first, possibly non-crazy part of that argument: we should use domestic box office. No, because Nolte was right to use the worldwide box office in his argument.

This is how it works, kids. Hollywood is run by large corporations. Large corporations do not want to make controversial political movies. Which is why, by and large, they don't. They want to make franchise-friendly four-quadrant super-profitable family entertainment, with some sex comedies for the teens/dumb-guy comedies for college students, sprinkled liberally with horror movies for Date Night. Which is why, by and large, they do.

This is not hard. This is capitalism. Capitalism is our friend.

Artsy People in Hollywood, on the other hand, often want to do something artistically satisfying, or personally important. And, too, studios sometimes want to win awards, because with that prestige comes more bargaining power with the Artsy People, and often more profits. And, hey, some Execs are secret Artsy People. It's kind of cool, actually.

So let's pretend I'm Reese Witherspoon. I'm going to do that right now. Gosh, I'm pretty. This shirt doesn't go with my eyes, though --

-- okay, let's bail on that. Let's pretend we're watching Reese Witherspoon. NO! Not like that! What is wrong with you people?! Let's make you Reese Witherspoon. You can bear the burden.

Right, Reese. After a couple years as the It Girl in little dramas, you break big in Pleasantville/Cruel Intentions/Election. You have a hell of a year. Now you are the Head on the Poster, and in five years you topline movies making Suits lots of money. How much money? Roughly $770 million worldwide by 2005, not to mention winning an Oscar along the way, which increases both your marketability and the marketability of every movie you star in from now on.

You then announce that you found a very tough little script called Rendition you want to do. You'll do it on the cheap. Anybody wanna help?

The correct answer is "Who do you need dead, Miss Witherspoon?"

There is some trepidation, of course, in the studio office. Let us produce a short play to illustrate how both the dilemma and the resolution may have played out:

Suit #1: In this movie you have brought me, Reese Witherspoon -- America's blonde shiksa sweetheart -- is married to an Arab who is wrongfully kidnapped by the Americans, and tortured. Because, you imply, stopping terrorism can sometimes be bad.

Suit #2: Yes.

Suit #1: Get the fuck out of my office.

Suite #2: If we do this, if we take this risk for her, she may spend her enormous marketplace capital on a project of ours in the future. Say, that script for Romantic Comedy #283 sitting there on your desk.

Suit #1: I am intrigued, but still trepidacious.

Suit #2: She may win an Oscar. She's done it before, it's a serious drama ... that would boost our profile, add to our marketplace capital, and insure profitability with the Oscar Bump.

Suit #1: Still not sure. Let us call Foreign Sales Guy.

Foreign Guy: (entering) I sensed you needed me.

Suit #1: Reese Witherspoon. Anti-war drama.

Foreign Guy: Budget?

Suit #2: Under thirty million. Gyllenhal's in it too.

Foreign Guy: Reese Witherspoon reading -- not even aloud, just sitting and reading -- will sell X million tickets worldwide. Gyllenhal's a bonus. You're covered.

Suit #2: Thank you, Foreign Guy.

Foreign Guy: You're welcome. Now excuse me, I have to go kill an African-American comedy two offices down.

Thus, a box-office "flop" is born -- because it is, in fact, probably going to be profitable in the long run, and make Artsy/Important people happy. And it just might be a really, really good movie.

******************************

This leads us to why, frankly, I admire the hell out of David Zucker.

Because this is the decision everyone makes in Hollywood -- actors, directors, even execs. You have Hollywood Capital -- reputation, proven box office performance both domestic and foreign -- a non-physical set of Assets within the economic system, but capital A-assets nonetheless. (It is, frankly, damn close to a reputation-based economy. Hollywood runs on whuffie.)

And let us get this straight. You have earned that asset, through a mix of hard work and luck, like every other independent contractor in the nation. You have something people wish to buy. It has a value, established in an open and free pure public marketplace.

You then trade this capital with other participants in your indistry for services or products. Services like creative control, or exclusivity, or a product like a script you want, or the studio's own resources -- time, money, access to physical production means, promotion apparatus -- dedicated to your own agenda. This is what every person who has made one of these movies has done. Even execs trade their capital to make movies that might be a risk but might be art, and it's their right, because it's their capital. And if they fuck up, the marketplace will HAMMER them for it.

That's what David Zucker did for An American Carol.

Zucker took his Hollywood Capital, his money, his rep, and his relationships, and invested it in a project he believed in. Hell, do you think that was easy? To make that movie in Hollywood? The amount of shit he must have taken? Good. For. Him.

Was it funny? Well, not to enough people, I guess. But that doesn't matter. He spent his Hollywood Capital, and made the product he both believed in and believed the American Public would buy. Which is exactly how every one of these movies was made. This is what Witherspoon and Gyllenhal did for Rendition. The financiers did for In the Valley of Elah. The stars of Lions for Lambs. It's what Gibson did for Passion of the Christ. They spent their Hollywood Capital, and took their risk. Often slightly less risk as far as Hollywood structure goes because of the nature of the community, but an equal risk in the marketplace.

The difference is, the guys at Big Hollywood look at Stop-Loss -- costing $25 million and making $11 million -- and deduce that America is rejecting Hollywood's liberal agenda. While I look at An American Carol -- costing $20 million and making $7 million -- and deduce "Huh, people didn't seem to like that movie."

Indeed, I might look at the failure of those two overtly political movies at the either end of the ideological spectrum say "Huh, people don't seem to like overtly political movies from either end of the ideological spectrum." But probably not, as I'm not the sort of fuckwit who tries to derive patterns off two lousy data points.

***********************************

So that's the short (ahem) version of why I'm not going over to Big Hollywood, and it will absolutely be my last post on the place. Hell, I'm closing the Comments on this post, because even idly reading them, positive or negative, will be a waste of time. Why? Because they relate to Big Hollywood.

We at Kung Fu Monkey, between Doctor Who jokes and comic book references and the odd political screed, are in the business of Making Shit, or helping you Make your Shit. When conservatives Make Shit we applaud, because we know how hard it is (Good for you, Sherwood Baptist Church. Aces up.)

When conservatives -- or liberals -- spend all their time bitching about how hard it is to Make Shit, they're not worth anyone's time.

Waid Wednesday #5: Rainbow Of Confusion

Slight change of plans. I billed this installment last week as “A Unit Of Entertainment”—the importance of building a conflict and a resolution into every chapter of your serial fiction, and some tips on how—but that post’s turning into a term paper, plus I want to embed some examples from a specific story, so as soon as I wrestle the word count down and get clearance to reproduce a short script I did for a friend’s upcoming book, we’ll tackle that one. Probably next week.

In the meantime, this week’s post was cued by a question from a longtime listener/first-time caller. Christine asks: “I often overdo captions, probably because the theatre bug always makes me want to monologue, and captions can be a monologue broken up over corroborating or subverting images. What are the ideal ways to use a caption as a character-revealing and/or story-telling device in a short or long comic?”

This is an awesome question, because answering it gives me license to rant about my least-favorite narrative device in modern comics: multiple narration. You might want to put on a helmet for this. But first, let’s address Christine’s questions more directly.

Captions can be a great character-revealing device when they are used sparingly. First-person narrative captions, in particular, are a great way of letting us into the characters’ heads. But—as I keep insisting—comics is a visual medium. That means the writer has to be careful not to overuse captions in lieu of showing us the story. I wrote THE FLASH for DC for ten years using captions in the “first person immediate” tense, but that was a character choice—it made sense to me that the fastest man alive would be telling his stories in the moment. The danger was always the temptation to tell more than show. It’s deceptively, temptingly easy for a writer to overwrite captions because they’re generally the easiest part of scripting (it's so much easier to write monologue than dialogue). But the comics page is all about balance—words and images working in tandem to tell a story with depth and immediacy that that neither can accomplish alone.

Here are my pocket guidelines about caption use:

One: Err on the side of paucity. You really don’t want to have more than about twenty words in a caption, max—in script terms, no more than two lines of type across the page. (This applies to word balloons, as well, btw.) Any more than that runs the risk of creating a big block of type that’s just wearisome to read. And four of those in one panel and eleven of those on one page exhausts the reader. Don't make each page a chore.

Two: Always be aware that the caption creates a distance from the story that word balloons and thought balloons do not, same as v/o narration creates a distance in film. If there’s something about your story that demands that distance, go to it. But always ask yourself if dialogue might be a better way to immerse your reader more fully into the story.

Three, and most important: Find ONE VOICE for your captions. ONE. If your captions are third-person, stay with that. If they’re first-person, find ONE narrator and stick with him or her. Do not cross the streams. Do not interrupt the reader by confusing him as to who’s talking. And for the love of God, American superhero comics, stop having five different characters narrating a scene when all I, the reader, have to differentiate their voices is caption color. This has gotta stop. Frank Miller introduced multiple narration to mainstream comics twenty years ago with BATMAN: YEAR ONE, which was narrated half by Bruce Wayne (in scratchy, handwritten journal-entry captions) and Gordon (in faux-typewriting font captions). It worked then because it was fresh and exciting and the two voices and two caption styles were radically distinct. Now it is old, tired, and easy, and as storytelling tricks go it runs the risk of creating more confusion than insight.

(This makes my head hurt worse than anything in comics today: This month’s issue of Superteam X is tag-team narrated by everyone on the team plus their android butler, and immediately, I’m lost in a narrative where the voices are all the same but I’m supposed to know—and remember from panel to panel and page to page—that all the red captions are Team Leader’s, all the orange ones are Spunky Sidekick’s, all the blue ones are Plucky Speedster’s, etc. I’m not talking about a Rashomon set-up where Each Hero says to the group, “Okay, here’s what I think happened” and then we flash back to three pages that are clearly narrated from that particular POV. I’m talking about—I am not making this up—coming across an eight-page fight sequence with so many heroes narrating it that they ran out of colors. Martial Artist’s captions were medium-blue, Subatomic Guy’s captions were dark blue, everyone all sounded the exact same anyway, and the writer got to clock out at two-thirty rather than actually have to put some effort into integrating words and pictures. Multiple narration is very hard to do well and not for beginners.)

As in TV or film or the stage, comics captions/comics narration can be used ironically, can be used to reveal character, can be used to artfully step over the dull stuff...but they should work with the story you’re telling, not in isolation. Balance, balance, balance.

LEVERAGE: Stork Raving Mad/Open Thread

Ah, Stork Job. You started as the most depressing writers' room day ever -- "Hey, let's research Eastern European orphanage scams" -- and turned into our classic Mission: Impossible homage. This is the fun of doing Leverage. Bank Robbery bottle show, high-rise rappelling, classic Sting horse race heist, saving a church ... now going to Belgrade and finding a missing boy while butting heads with arms dealers. It's our little movie every week; sometimes crime-y and sometimes action-y.

Although I always cite late 60's TV as the model for the show, my Dad recently pointed out that I spent a great deal of my youth consuming the old Bantam Doc Savages from my Grandfather's cabin. Once you look at the Lester Dent master pulp fiction plot I internalized at age 12, I think we can safely say -- we're writing pulp here, people. Juicy, old school pulp.

This episode has one of my favorite scenes of the year in it, but it's spoilery, so we'll talk about it next week. The writer of the episode, Albert Kim, is a pretty great amateur photographer, although not quite as sharp as his wife Jennie. So, instead of my blathering let's look at spiffy backstage photos -- like the one above, showing first-time director Marc Roskin going over the script with Tim. Yes, Tim's hair is funny. There's a reason. Now, what else do we have in here (all pictures reveal a high-res version when clicked)...


The episode is very Beth-centric, by the way. Oh, and those weren't her parents who lived in that house she blew up. Now whether those nasty abusive people were still in there or not ... choose the answer that you like. We're never, ever going to tell you everything about these characters. For example, you have no idea exactly who Sophie was married to at age 17, do you? Or why when Eliot said "I don't like guns" in the pilot, he added "... you know that." to Nate. Why would Nate know that?

Let's see -- writer Albert Kim enjoying the thrill of the Steadicam under the expert guidance of our A Camera Operator, the legendary Gary Camp.



Hmm ... I can't show you a picture of Gina in her wardrobe for this episode, not only because it's too spoilery, but too mind-shatteringly ... sure, Moffat got her kit off. We're the ones who put her in boots and ... anyway, here's a lovely one of the gals instead:


Who else is doing this?


Nobody, sir. And finally -- "What is Howl Force?"


I cannot tell you. You are not ready for the soul-shredding truth behind Howl Force!

For those keeping track at home, this is actually Albert's second script of the year, which shot around sixth or seventh for the production cycle. His first script was the second episode shot, The Snow Job, which airs soonish. It'll be interesting to see Snow Job in that context. We were definitely still hacking out what the show exactly was at that point, and it's a much more contained crime/con game than later episodes. Big fun fact for that episode -- that actually is how you fake out an MRI.

Right, enough pimpage, let's get to those questions from last time. Spoilers now, because you can get all the episodes from iTunes and Amazon VOD.

Antonia: So are there any behind the scenes pics of whatever DB did to, how did you phrase it? Something about steamy?

Weirdly, that's the one episode I don't have pics from. Personally, I didn't get it. Apparently, though, chicks dig DB Sweeney s a tormented priest fighting to save a church with his fists and his heart. *shrugs*

Richard Jensen:Point the Second: "Toe pick"? (Puzzled look?)

From The Cutting Edge. Have your wife or girlfriend expain. I assure you she can.

Michael: 'm curious to see if you got any right wing hate mail for the episode that portrayed security contractors in Iraq as greedy, corrupt and violent.

There was a bit of a kaffuffle on the TNT boards about the reservist health care isssue, but they were quickly shut down by actual veterans showing up and saying "Yeah, that's really happening." The sad thing is, a lot of the people who posted were talking about how there are all these great programs taking care of soldiers after combat. Which is true, but like all programs conceived by fallible humans and run by the government, people fall through the cracks. A lot of Americans just don't want to wrap their head round the fact that when it comes to the men and women who serve this country, we have to try harder, and saying were not a hundred percent there is somehow implying that we don't care, we're bad, the country is bad, blah blah blah. Policies are instruments of governments, which are run by men, who are elected by the people. The entire point of the goddam country is that these men are not special. Criticism of any policy or any of those men is not inherently unpatriotic. I hope that simple, binary way of looking at things is passing.

Oh, I'm sorry, the contractors? No, nobody had any problems with that.

Mike Cane: You mentioned Hardison footage cut out of Miracle. Was it actually shot? I hope you're saving all those bits.

That, and how Parker got the FBI car in Bank Shot, and a few others. Sadly, when we're cutting for time the stand-alone flashbacks are the first things to go. They'll show up on the DVD's.

Maya: Reading about all the magic that is done with the green screen shots I was wondering if the actors really are looking at what the audience sees on the six plasma screen TVs when they're filming all those conference room scenes.

About eighty percent of the time they're looking at the actual video playback of imagery, the other twenty green-screen. We usually only green-screen those shots when the episode requires images that are shot out of order, or if the playback hinks up the actors' timing.

Casey: So what was your major reference source for the cons as far as books or docs go? And which was your favorite?

We've got the reading list around here somewhere ... ugh, too late in the evening for me to dig it up. Start here and branch out, you can't go wrong. We wound up with a bookshelf of criminal biographies, tech hacking manuals, and the like we took pieces from as they amused us.

rrwood: One of the greatest challenges you, as the creator/writer, face in creating episodic television is the fact that we, the audience, know that things are always going to work out-- that the hero is always going to be back next week, and that deep, fundamental changes to the formula of the show are not going to happen. This means that the easiest tools you'd use to crank up the dramatic tension in say, a movie, are locked up and off limits to you, and you guys have to work your butts off to keep us interested. And in addition to the can't-kill-the-heroes straight-jacket, you guys have a number of other pretty obvious restrictions, given the nature of the show ...

Which is why all TV shows are really about the evolution of the characters' relationships. You don't know how that's going to turn out. Hell, Nate and Sophie wound up unspooling differently than we anticipated.

That said, the pulp model applies. We want you to be hooked enough on how they'll solve THIS problem that just popped up, and then the next ten minutes later ... our complications are varied enough, too -- not a medical mystery or straight crime procedural -- that at the very least the obstacles probably aren't ones you've seen before. Commenter kinesys actually answered this question pretty well in the original Comments.

Kathryn: One question about The Bank Job (based on the sneek peak): Elmore and Leonard? Was that a nod to the author, because that was my first thought when I heard the names. But then, being a Supernatural fan and the fact they use aliases based on rock music performers, I may just be trained to think that way.

Hardison chooses the aliases for all the fake ID's they have. They tend to have some significance to the heist at hand.

gwangung: Ha. Then you'd love a friend of mine's theatre in New York. He specializes in battle choreography theatre; every single one of his shows features multiple battles (10, 12, 15 at a time), spanning all sorts of disciplines. Why, yes, he also does shows for the NY Comic Con. Why yes, he almost always features female protagonists (dressed in skin tights, very popular with said Comic Con). One show was a Shakespearean zombie/kung fu pastiche....

Personally I disapprove -- aw hell, just post the damn website address.

Tal: Do you ever wish you had more time to devote, or the budget to devote existing time to different cons? Because some of the cons that seemed really interesting to me (getting the assistant to confess, modifying the text of a Congressional bill) seemed tossed off as asides.

Every week, kiddo. Every week. 42:30 is a bitch. I think by about halfway through the season, we finally found the right balance.

Daiv: Am i mistaken? Or is that a fridge full of Jones Soda (with Real Sugar) that Elliot is pulling from in the beginning? (though he clearly did not get a bottle of Soda).

Hardison has a thing for orange soda. Jones was nice enough to provide some delicious beverages. Everyone wins.

Anonymous: Love the show -- it's definitely my current favourite! Had a question though -- who pulled the switch with the pizza box and the briefcase at the end of 'The Bank Job'? Hardison was talking to the judge the whole time, Nate was shot, Sophie was tending to Nate ...

That's just how good they are.

Yes, that's the answer. Now walk away.

Seriously, though, that's both one of the bits cut for time, and one of the times when the physical layout of the bank, didn't match exactly what was needed for one of the switch moves (the counter is on the wrong side of the actors) . So sometimes, you let this stuff go. We had a similar issue in The Snow Job and even Two Horse had a bit which was much more convoluted and involved the outside walls of the entire stables, not stalls. Choreography on location sometimes just doesn't want to cooperate.

R.A Porter: (Bank Shot) was my favorite episode to date, with great scene chewing from Michael O'Neill.

He's a villain, baby. With a skinny tie! Seriously, this episode was pitched as "This is our Western." Michael absolutely nailed the big Western villain tone.

EmanG:OK, not a flame but a serious question. Why does Burn Notice get to keep shooting in Miami yet Leverage has to move away from Chicago to LA? I may be in AZ these days but I'm still a firm believer in/member of the Chicago production scene and I know that this show would be that much better in a place other than LA. I want to see a regional cinema. Stories from and set in Cleveland, Portland, Chicago, Kansas City. LIfe doesn't just happen in LA, a place stories and characters go to die in the sameness. Damnit, give me a livable wage in Phoenix and a writer that can live on the same and I'll give you programming about not just the characters, but the place they live in. And too many of us live in places not at all like LA not to have our stories told, our visuals sold. To not to at least try to have that represented, no?

Unfortunately shooting in a city requires much more than just actors and the willingness to work there. A certain level of infrastructure is needed to do a series as opposed to a short, one off movie, and Chicago just didn't have what we needed at that short notice and on our tiny, tiny budget. The fact that we were all clustered around the Doghouse post-production facility is to a great degree what allowed us to shoot the show independently. Even for bigger studios, shooting in other cities is often prohibitively costly as far as physical production goes. Remember, TV shows bleed millions of dollars while they shoot, and recoup almost none of it until foreign sales and DVD. LA is streamlined to keep those costs down.

Burn Notice "gets" to keep shooting in Miami because they get heart-stopping tax breaks and have a very good relationship with the city. (One of my favorite shows, btw)

That said, one of the main points of this blog, and why I always write about emerging technologies, is that I firmly believe we're at the point where people can begin to make local entertainment of the same technical quality as we shoot in LA. We still need to lick distribution -- hell even we haven't licked that problem entirely -- but there's no reason, if you think your city has stories to tell, you can't go get cameras and tell those stories.

Richard: Whoops. Hit post too quickly. One question: How plausible do you guys want the cons to be? Because my only real problem with this episode is the miraculous image editing. As someone who uses Photoshop professionally ...

As plausible as the medicine in House. Take that as you will. :P

kinesys: Oh. And how long before we discover that Hardison knows this weird chick named "Aleph"?

You came thisclose to an episode this year where Aldis got romantically involved with Aimee Garcia. You know Aimee, right?



And the reason I knew Chris Kane was because he was the guy who came thisclose to playing Sean Ronin on GF.

I fully expect to see Leverage/GF crossover fanfic by Friday, people. Chop chop!

Robert Emerson: One of the things I like most about how Christian Kane's fight scenes are ... not linear, but multi-directional and adaptive.

This ep was the first time I dragged my heel across the dirt, laying out "the fight line", just like Jackie Chan explained to me ten years ago. Main axis for shooting and choreography, with alternate actions happening off-axis to open up the fight space.

Now granted, Charlie Brewer has been doing fights and blowing shit up since I was in a bad prom tux, but he tolerates my obsession and even occasionally listens to me. For which I am forever grateful.

Denita: I also have a question. Which episode does Sam Anderson (Holland Manners from Angel) appear in? A few of us on Whedonesque have been wondering.

The abovementioned The Snow Job. With Danny Strong, as the co-villain.

Whew. That was a helluva mailbag. A new open thread tomorrow, and thanks as always for watching and spreading the word.

Oh, and if we get more people on Facebook than Closer, their co-exec has to buy me dinner. So feel free to spam the bastards.

Use these Comments for Stork thread business. Comments and questions.

Put Your Armor On

by M A N

One of the most difficult things I've had to learn how to do as a professional writer is deal with criticism. It's a very important part of the job and is absolutely essential in making one a better writer. But if you have an ego as gargantuan, fragile, and as in desperate need of validation as mine (and honestly, don't ALL writers?), it can either send you dancing naked through the streets or leave you weeping in the fetal position while you nurse the remaining drops of whiskey from the bottle clutched in your trembling hands.

I think the trick to dealing with criticism (aside from growing a very thick, impenetrable skin) is to learn which criticisms to take to heart, which to accept with a grain of salt, and which to just simply ignore. At first, my default rubric for accepting or dismissing criticism was usually binary. If the criticism praised me and my work, I accepted it. If it didn't, I dismissed it. That approach made sleeping at night a bit easier, but it didn't help me use those criticisms to better my writing.

Criticism that comes from my colleagues is the kind I quite often take to heart. Editors, fellow writers, teachers, professors, etc. usually have an understanding of what makes writing and/or story telling good (this is not true in all cases, obviously--there are hacks, dolts, and saboteurs in every walk of life). But another thing these people all have in common, other than experience with the written word, is that they genuinely wish to see me succeed. They want to help me write the best story that I can by telling me how I can improve. I'm fortunate to have befriended a group of professional and freakishly talented writers who have no problem telling me where I'm falling short. And that's the key. They're honest. Brutally honest. Yes, it can be heartbreaking when a person whom you respect and whose work you admire tells you that your latest attempt is, well, garbage. The nice thing is that they're willing to tell you WHY it's garbage and help you find a solution. Mind you, not find the solution for you, but guide you to finding the solution yourself. Teaching a man to fish and all.

The criticisms that I find myself taking with a grain of salt are the ones that come from friends (outside of the entertainment industry) and family. Their opinions are almost always suspect. My parents' opinions seem to fall into one of two categories: 1) Lukewarm praise or 2) I still don't understand why you didn't go to medical school (holiday dinners tend to be a bit awkward--"Stop encouraging the boy and tell him he needs a backup plan!"--raise your hand if you feel my pain).

My friends, however, are always positive. Always. No matter how ass-tastic I know the story is. This is nice whenever I'm feeling down and need an ego boost, but if I ever need help improving a story, there isn't much they can offer other than unconditional support.

But the criticisms that I find most difficult to deal with are ones that come in the form of reviews. Especially BAD reviews (and I've had my fair share of them. My absolute favorite bad review came from a reader who said that money spent on my comic was money better spent on a taco--a TACO!). It's never fun having someone tell you that you are suck incarnate, no matter how colorful their criticism might be (I've been told time and time again to never EVER read reviews, but I just can't help myself).

The difficulty comes in determining if the review has specific issues with my writing or if it's just angry rambling over my epic suckitude. For the longest time I never even saw a difference. I was so blinded over not being viewed as the greatest writer in all of space/time that I sneered a "What do they know?" before drowning myself in a vat of cheap grain alcohol.

But over time I've learned to differentiate between reviews that are deliberately caustic and those that might have legitimate reasons for being negative. The caustic ones never have anything constructive to say nor any insights as to where the story may be falling short. So I try to ignore those zero-calorie rantings (which can be very hard as the urge to hunt some of the meaner people down and stuff their esophaguses to bursting with rat feces can be quite overwhelming). However, if a reviewer complains that my story is difficult to follow, I'll look to see if other readers have the same comment (even if those comments are nasty). If there are then it's most likely an issue of poor story telling and something I should keep in mind when writing my next story.

Granted, you can't write for critics. You have to write for yourself. But sometimes even the meanest comments can be illuminating and helpful in their own way. There's definitely a heirarchy when it comes to which criticisms carry more weight, but quite often the most painful criticisms are the most beneficial. Certainly not always, but it's a good idea to look for faults in your story before looking for them in the reader.

Ephemera 2009 (1)

... Two out of two writers named Mark Waid and John Rogers agree: Young Sherlock Holmes is worth a second look.

... "When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon." - The Last Good Kiss.

James Crumley was precisely as good as everyone says he was. I'm working through the back catalogue now.

... Also digging everything by Tobias Buckell.

... The 2008 Doctor Who Christmas Special was a helluva thing.

... Hey Far Cry 2: I'm an hour of my life into the game before I actually start playing, and then my character starts collapsing intermittently from malaria? Usually in the middle of firefights when I've managed to find something resembling fun? SCREW. YOU. I would like you to meet my friend Gears of War 2. He is not clever. His world is not a sandbox of delights. But he has given me an automatic rifle with a frikkin' chainsaw on it, and allows me to use it to my heart's content. And so I love him.

... And while we're talking gaming, spawning ahead of the Survivors and then jamming forklifts in the elevator door or at the end of the warehouse -- that is punk shit. Seriously.

... And while we're talking Survivors, that first season ending is precisely why I prefer closed season storytelling. Call out SPOILERS in the comments if you wish to discuss.

... I don't know why I didn't pimp it hard enough first time out, but Kevin Church and his 18 year old artist (Jesus Murphy) Michael Dake are doing great work in their serialized graphic novel Waimea. I love, love, love that clean art style. Which is my hint for them to make some sample images for bloggers to post. Ahem.

Welcome to the New Year. As my Grandfather used to toast: "May the best you've ever seen be the worst you ever see."

In the Comments: the book/comic/movie/TV show/song/band you kept annoying your friends with during 2008.