Short Dreamwatch article about B5's return with The Lost Tales.
Shabaz
service went out, and I tried to post from a mobile phone, but errr...
typing really doesn't work very well on one of these things. ;)
The latest issue of UK Science Fiction magazine Dreamwatch has what I
think might be the first article in such a magazine about the Lost
Tales. I saw someone post some bits of it at B5TV.com yesterday, so I
thought I'd check today if the latest issue had arrived in the Dutch
bookstores yet, and it did. :)
It's a nice short little 1 page article (with a "Babylon 5 is back!"
blurb on the front cover), recapping what JMS said at SDCC, and it has
a short interview with him on it. It claims that the first of the DVDs
will be coming out in Spring 2007 (I guess Spring would be roughly
analogous to the Q2 07 timeframe JMS spoke of, right?). They state
shooting is to take place in Vancouver, starting in September (but I
believe JMS just posted this has become mid-November).
The interview has some nice new bits of info in them, so I thought I'd
transcribe JMS's answers. It does not state when the interview took
place, but it is part of their SDCC coverage, so I suppose it could've
taken place there (relevant for one of the questions).
Dreamwatch(DW): How does the approved budget for B5:TLT compare to
those you enjoyed on the B5 TV series?
JMS: On a minute-per-minute basis, it's quite a bit more. The total
budget is classified, but for 70 or so minutes of film, on what are in
some ways supposed to be very personal and smaller stories, we still
have over a million dollars, just in the effects budget.
DW: Have you had any talks about the project with the actors?
JMS: We've just started talks this week. Which actors are in the first
episodes will depend on availibility and other factors. Ideally, I'd
like to rotate through the whole cast, preferably in a thematic
fashion. One episode would concern itself with issues of command, and
thus feature Sheridan, Lochley and Garibaldi; another would concern Psi
Corps, and we'd have Lyta, Bester, and someone else; another would be a
strong Minbari theme, so we'd have Delenn, Lennier and Sheridan (in his
role as head of the Interstellar Alliance); a Centauri sequence with
Londo, Vir and someone else; and we'd mix it up a bit.
DW: Do you plan to adopt one common storytelling format for the
30-minute tales?
JMS: The first one is set to pick up in real-time after the events of
[penultimate episode] Object at Rest. But other might move forward or
backward in time. This would also give us the ability to do a Sinclair
or Marcus story.
DW: Will 30 minutes be enough to satisfy the audience's interest in
these characters?
JMS: Thirty minutes is 10 minutes longer than the average Twilight Zone
episode... we could definitally tell a story in that time.
I know JMS is making speak mostly just in hypotheticals here, but
hearing some of the characters named (like Sinclair) does make me a bit
excited. And some post Objects at Rest stories to start with could be
fun. Some of the season 5 characters (well, mostly Lochley) sort of
started to grow on me at just about that episode, and then it was all
over. Revisiting that point in time could be neat.
-Shabaz
Kurt Ullman
"Shabaz" <shab...@gmail.com> wrote:
> DW: Have you had any talks about the project with the actors?
> JMS: We've just started talks this week. Which actors are in the first
> episodes will depend on availibility and other factors. Ideally, I'd
> like to rotate through the whole cast, preferably in a thematic
> fashion. One episode would concern itself with issues of command, and
> thus feature Sheridan, Lochley and Garibaldi; another would concern Psi
> Corps, and we'd have Lyta, Bester, and someone else; another would be a
> strong Minbari theme, so we'd have Delenn, Lennier and Sheridan (in his
> role as head of the Interstellar Alliance); a Centauri sequence with
> Londo, Vir and someone else; and we'd mix it up a bit.
>
> DW: Do you plan to adopt one common storytelling format for the
> 30-minute tales?
> JMS: The first one is set to pick up in real-time after the events of
> [penultimate episode] Object at Rest. But other might move forward or
> backward in time. This would also give us the ability to do a Sinclair
> or Marcus story.
>
I wonder if we should read anything into the fact that JMS mentions
pretty much everyone except Ivanova.
Jan
<kurtullman-E3041...@customer-201-125-217-207.uninet.net.mx>, Kurt
Ullman says...
He was asked if we might see Ivanova at SDCC and his response was, "Who can
say?"
Jan
--
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation,
The fire that will light the way to a better future.
We are One.
IA Declaration of Principles
(J. Michael Straczynski)
Kurt Ullman
wrote:
> He was asked if we might see Ivanova at SDCC and his response was, "Who can
> say?"
>
> Jan
Well he CAN say, it is afterall his Universe, but who WILL say appears
to be another matter altogether. Very Vorlon answer, as I should have
expected... (g)
Jon Schild
I would read into it that he hasn't talked to Ivanova yet. Others may
draw different conclusions.
.
alex_t
> I would read into it that he hasn't talked to Ivanova yet. Others may
> draw different conclusions.
As far as I know, Ivanova isn't even born yet :-)
alex_t
> JMS: On a minute-per-minute basis, it's quite a bit more. The total
> budget is classified, but for 70 or so minutes of film, on what are in
> some ways supposed to be very personal and smaller stories, we still
> have over a million dollars, just in the effects budget.
This is very interesting! It can mean that "The Lost Tales" are a
project intended as preparation for something bigger! Just like sets
and CGI were reused after "The Gathering", or "Crusade" sets carried
over from "A Call To Arms".
> This would also give us the ability to do a Sinclair
> or Marcus story.
Sinclair! He mentioned Sinclair! A-a-a-a! Zathras' happy!
Shabaz
alex_t wrote:
> > JMS: On a minute-per-minute basis, it's quite a bit more. The total
> > budget is classified, but for 70 or so minutes of film, on what are in
> > some ways supposed to be very personal and smaller stories, we still
> > have over a million dollars, just in the effects budget.
>
> This is very interesting! It can mean that "The Lost Tales" are a
> project intended as preparation for something bigger! Just like sets
> and CGI were reused after "The Gathering", or "Crusade" sets carried
> over from "A Call To Arms".
just felt that better effects were needed to make the episodes work
today rather than with what original B5 was budgeted. And while they
did some neat things with the money, original B5 was still made for
really cheap, so going up a bit from those budgets might not be that
hard. Still, the million plus effects budget is really nice to hear; it
seems to speaks of a vote of confidence, especially for something
intended as direct to DVD.
Anyone know the Rangers budgets, btw, so we can compare?
-Shabaz
alex_t
> just felt that better effects were needed to make the episodes work
> today rather than with what original B5 was budgeted
Well, CGI is getting cheaper with time - so even with original B5
budget (corrected for inflation) you could do way better CGI then back
then (especially when you consider how PCs advanced since then).
Shabaz
Certainly, more powerful computers and more advanced tools would allow
you to do much more for the same money than you would ten years ago
(although I would posit that the higher detail model work that today's
more advanced technology allows would require more time from the
artists, for which they would need to be compensated appropriately).
Still, for a special effects heavy show, B5 was made for extraordinary
little money, and not anywhere near an effects budget of $600.000 per
episode (very roughly what TLT's over 1 million for 70 minutes would
translate to for the 40 minute B5 episodes). And I was more making a
point that for today's playing field, they might've felt that they
couldn't get away with B5's more low budget approach to effects.
I'm still not quite sure how it follows that TLT is "a project intended
as preparation for something bigger" because of the nice effects
budget. For one, the first DVD is in preparation for, well, the rest of
TLT. Which, as JMS said at SDCC, if successful could continue for
thousands of instalments to come hypothetically, so some good
groundwork in the effect department that can be re-used later might be
a smart thing to do. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you? Do you want to
elaborate what type of project you were thinking they might be
preparing for here?
-Shabaz
alex_t
> Maybe I'm misunderstanding you? Do you want to
> elaborate what type of project you were thinking they might be
> preparing for here?
I find it surprising that they are going to spend large amounts of
money on direct-to-DVD project. I mean, existing B5 DVDs don't have
that level of CGI and still extremely popular.
So I'm (wishfully) thinking that possibly TLT will lead to something
bigger: either broadcast of TLT as regular series on major network, or
some other new B5 TV series or even motion picture.
John W. Kennedy
A motion picture is definitely in the cards. JMS actually said that he
turned down, temporarily, a motion picture, because of the recent death
of Andreas Katsulas.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"
Moyra J. Bligh
>> I wonder if we should read anything into the fact that JMS mentions
>> pretty much everyone except Ivanova.
>>
>
>I would read into it that he hasn't talked to Ivanova yet. Others may
>draw different conclusions.
Well, the last time the subject came up between Mira & I, he hadn't
talked to Mira either, and Delenn is mentioned. So that isn't the
conclusion I'd draw.
--
Moyra J. Bligh - mo...@zlatna.com
FAQ maintainer - alt.fan.mira-furlan http://www.zlatna.com/MFfaq.html
moderator mira-f mailing list - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mira-f/
===============================================================
Mira Furlan & Goran Gajic - come join The Celebration
http://www.zlatna.com/gold.html
===============================================================
ravend03x
Moyra J. Bligh wrote:
> Well, the last time the subject came up between Mira & I, he hadn't
> talked to Mira either, and Delenn is mentioned.
I was just wondering... in your little chats with Mira Furlan, did she
ever tell you what the flarn that Sheridan's character cooked for her
tasted like, really?
It looked like a piece of coconut jello and JMS has said that they used
real food on the sets. I know the B5 cookbook used scallops to make
flarn, but I didn't think that would hold up very well under studio
lights for hours at a time.
Little things often make me curious.
:o)
Ruth
Moyra J. Bligh
It's never come up in conversation., and I can't say it's something
I've ever been curious about (or for that matter particularly thought
about). I can't even say that I have any recollection of anyone asking
her about it a convention. My bet is that by now she probably doesn't
even remember.
Babylon 5 tends to be pretty much the last thing we talk about. We
talk about the more day to day stuff, what we are reading, what we are
watching, when we will be seeing each other next, and sometimes the
possibilities of the work she might be doing in the future. And these
days her body of work prior to B5 interests me much more than B5 does.
Shabaz
'Definitally in the cards' is maybe overstating it a bit. Quoting JMS
from SDCC (courtesy of Jan's trancripts):
JMS: Anyway, they call every so often and want to do something with B5
and asked "Do you want to do a feature film?" and I thought about
it for a while and I said, "No." And here's why. A) I don't
trust movies that much but B) most important, I can't see the
structure of a B5 movie right now as long as Andreas and Rick insist on
staying dead. As much as B5 was about the stories of Sheridan and
Delenn and those guys, there's the Londo and G'Kar arc that was the
clothes line from which I hung all that. And without G'Kar...maybe in
a year or two I can start to see the structure of it but right now I
can't do something big right now. I'd love to but I can't.
And while there might be some carry over in term of redesigns done for
TLT, I have a feeling a lot would need to be redone anyway to hold up
on the big screen, and at the resolutions feature film CGI is rendered
(although if they're making the CGI to hold up at HD resolutions, that
might be able to carry over over more easily).
Speaking of HD, while JMS didn't answer my question about it, I think
it's still a distinct possibility TLT will have HD taken into account
for its production. HD can up CGI cost quite a bit, so maybe part of
the reason for the effects budget could be HD? I don't know, just a
thought.
-Shabaz
Jon
Sinclair here. Not so excited about seeing him say that he wants
Lochley. But this was obviously going to happen based on her presence
in Crusade and TMoS.
As long as the DVD's aren't priced like HBO series DVD's, $100 for 12
episodes is a bit much, I'll be buying them. I just can't seem to get
excited about these short episodes though. I think JMS is as good as
you'll find for novels for television. I just don't think this type of
format suits Joe's strengths or fits into what made B5 special, which
was the long story arcs. Maybe it can work fine as a purely A-story
format without any B stories in the episodes.
Do "to be continued" types of stories fit into this format? Or will
these simply be self contained episodes? If they are created as "to be
continued" then I'd be more excited. But, I think that could make
things more difficult in terms of attracting and keeping new viewers.
I don't know, it's probably best to just wait and see what he creates
and support him by purchasing the DVD's and writing letters to any
stations that air them and their sponsors.
Jon Frain
Methuselah Jones
of rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated make plain:
> I just can't seem to get excited about these short episodes though. I
> think JMS is as good as you'll find for novels for television. I just
> don't think this type of format suits Joe's strengths
Well, not having seen any episodic stuff Joe's done, I can't say, but I
don't think he's a one-trick pony.
--
Methuselah
Reports of my being alive and well have been grossly exaggerated.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
alex...@supanet.com
Wow, I hope JMS is reading this and can see that fans still want to see
Valen / Sinclair.
:-)
Mac Breck (KoshN)
[....]
> DW: Have you had any talks about the project with the actors?
> JMS: We've just started talks this week. Which actors are in the first
> episodes will depend on availibility and other factors. Ideally, I'd
> like to rotate through the whole cast, preferably in a thematic
> fashion. One episode would concern itself with issues of command, and
> thus feature Sheridan, Lochley and Garibaldi; another would concern Psi
> Corps, and we'd have Lyta, Bester, and someone else; another would be a
> strong Minbari theme, so we'd have Delenn, Lennier and Sheridan (in his
> role as head of the Interstellar Alliance); a Centauri sequence with
> Londo, Vir and someone else; and we'd mix it up a bit.
>
> DW: Do you plan to adopt one common storytelling format for the
> 30-minute tales?
> JMS: The first one is set to pick up in real-time after the events of
> [penultimate episode] Object at Rest. But other might move forward or
> backward in time. This would also give us the ability to do a Sinclair
> or Marcus story.
Hopefully, Crusade stories are also considered B5 Lost Tales, after
all, they're in the B5 universe and they're certainly lost.
Jon
Oops! I see there's another Jon! I'm going to have to change my sig.
But, contrarily, I'm quite excited about this project. It really gives
a way to fulfill all the little events that have been talked about that
never seemed to get resolved. I expect, knowing JMS, that they're not
going to be as stand alone as they're being described now either.
Maybe the first couple will, but JMS works things into nice little arcs
usually.
Jon D.
Shabaz
He was asked about Crusade at Comic Con, and said nothing Crusade
related beyond scriptbooks was planned. Which I suppose is in a sense
fairly noncommittal, since at any point in time he could decide he does
want to start planning to tell some Crusade stories, with TLT or
through another medium.
Here is the exact quote of what he said, again with thanks to Jan for
transcribing these:
Q: Since TNT kind of screwed over Crusade, is there any chance, and
maybe this has been on the newsgroup but I don't really follow it, is
there any chance that we'll ever get to find out-in some form,
either in the Lost Tales or a graphic novel or novel-what really
would have taken place over the course of the five seasons. Because I
know it couldn't have been just been the plague, there had to have
been more to it.
JMS: There are no plans for that right now. We will eventually be
issuing the scripts through the script company we're using and my
notes will be in there. (JMS goes on to explain to the crowd about the
script book project)
Maybe he doesn't want to jinx it. ;) From what I can see, there have
been 3 big post B5 projects intended for the small or big screen. Which
all tried to at some point delve into the same Crusade story, namely
Crusade, Legend of the Rangers (which would've overlapped with
Crusade's timeframe if it had gone into a full series), and The Memory
of Shadows, which would've dealt pretty directly with some of the arcs
that Crusade would've gone into. All three of them sadly had a
premature dead in some form or the other.
I think that at least for now, if you look at him only mentioning main
B5 characters in that Dreamwatch interview, and saying that nothing
Crusade is planned at SDCC, he is trying to keep focus on main B5. But
the format of these Tales certainly seems flexible enough to allow for
a lot of things, if they ever should choose to do plan for those.
-Shabaz
Jon Schild
Jon wrote:
>
> Oops! I see there's another Jon! I'm going to have to change my sig.
>
> Jon D.
>
>
There's more than one other one.
.
alex_t
=)
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Thanks for the info.
> But
> the format of these Tales certainly seems flexible enough to allow for
> a lot of things,
Exactly. It's sort of a catch-all, and wouldn't have to be called
"Crusade" or "Legend of the Rangers."
I suppose "Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales" could contain arcs across
multiple DVDs or mini-arcs across the episodes on one DVD, rather than
all being purely standalone anthology tales. So, it's possible to tell
us the Crusade storyline in more or less a subscription format. Hell,
it'd even be possible to carry on more than one arc per DVD, by having,
for example, a Crusade arc episode, a B5 arc episode, and a standalone.
The possibilities are endless. It's very flexible.
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Jon
alex_t wrote:
> Jon, Jon, Jon Schild, and Jan
> =)
Oi...I'm so confused already. Should I just got by Jonathan? :)
Jon D.
Laura Appelbaum
<alex...@supanet.com> wrote in message
news:1159813988.6...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
Preaching to the choir. Or in this case, to the High Priestess. ;D You
know, it's kind of embarassing to admit, 12 years later, how much I'd
*still* get a charge out of seeing Sinclair again. Except of course that
all of *you* are still here drooling over *your* favorites, so that kind of
kills the embarassment.
Sinclair. Sigh.
:Blush:
LMA
Jon
At some point I'll get off my ass and make a signature. I use google
groups now, but I assume it's pretty simple. In the meantime I'll try
to write my full name. With new B5 episodes being filmed, I plan on
posting here again.
Jon Frain
alex...@supanet.com
> Sinclair. Sigh.
>
> :Blush:
>
> LMA
That's cool. Bein' a straight guy, I don't drool on "The One Who Was",
but I loved the Valen storyline (shown mostly in the comics) so much,
and I'd love to see the character on the screen again (ideally played
by Michael O'Hare, he's classic!).
alex_t
> Bein' a straight guy, I don't drool on "The One Who Was",
So liking "The One Who Was" speech makes someone gay?
Wow! Finally I know where I caught it! Thank you JMS! <vbg>
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Shabaz, couldn't the size of the effects budget be due to the B5:TLT
production having to rebuild the ***entire*** B5 & Crusade CGI library
that Babylonian Productions turned over to Warner Brothers, that was
then lost by Warner Brothers? Personally, ***I hope to god*** (and I
can't emphasize that strongly enough!) that the effects people pay
attention to detail and gets the models looking almost exactly like
they did in B5 & Crusade (except maybe at higher res.), and are
supervised better so that we don't end up with things like Minbari
Nials flying backwards (aerodynamically) or a missing Epsilon 3 (like
we had in the Rangers pilot). I ***hope*** the effects people are
B5/Crusade knowledgable/fans, and so will naturally catch things like
that.
Fingers crossed!!! I wish some longtime B5 fans, especially those with
a technical (engineering, physics, astronomy, etc.) and/or effects
background could be a level of QA/QC, i.e. a check, on this production.
Maybe they could find some B5/Crusade fans at JPL or MIT.
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Shabaz
Well, they really would have had rebuild everything anyway. I love what
they managed to do with the budgets and technical limitations they had
at the time, but reusing those models in 2006 would be silly, and
really, I don't think they would do it even if those lost B5 CGI files
would turn up tomorrow. Furthermore, all that could be salvaged from
those would be the model files, which isn't necessarily the most labour
intensive thing to make. And while the entire archive got lost, they
won't be rebuilding it _all_ anyway for one million. It's a good
budget, I think, but not that good. ;)
Also, when you say higher resolution, you have to realize that
technically, the old models were able to be rendered at higher
resolution, but it is the lack of detail in those models that makes
them visually break up. And adding actual detail would pretty mean they
won't look _exactly_ the same. If there is extra detail added, it
should be noticable, or else, what's the point of adding it?
And finally, while I hope they stay true to the design aesthetic of
B5's CGI model work, I don't hope they will feel restricted by some of
designs born out of technical restrictions. And I don't think they will
be, if you look at JMS talking about wanting to redesign how the CGI is
done a bit.
No, we have our answer for the budget in the latest JMS TLT update to
some extent, I think. It will be done in HD, which can and will add a
lot of cost, and he talks about a lot of green screening, suggesting a
lot of use of virtual sets. And indeed, it's the first instalment of
what could be a much bigger project, so some groundwork in terms of
asset creation could be laid with the CGI work for this disc.
-Shabaz
Mac Breck (KoshN)
I saw in Crusade (Most by far, were great, but some were really bad.),
and a lot of the effects I saw in the Rangers pilot, I am pretty much
filled with apprehension/anxiety about the effects that'll be in
B5:TLT. I want to like 'em. I hope they're great and the DVDs are a
hit, but on the day I get my first B5:TLT DVD, I better be drinking
decaf, or better yet, a couple of really good beers.
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Shabaz
I haven't gotten my hands on the LotR DVD yet, but I got Crusade in the
mail a few weeks ago, and I have watched 2 episodes so far (Racing the
Night and Needs of Earth, the first 2 in the Sci-Fi order). To me, at
the very least the space sections looked pretty polished. Some of the
virtual set work they did, like the stuff with Gideon flying over the
city in Racing the Night, seemed to be like they were stretched a bit
beyond what they were technically and financially capable of. Still,
it's impressive they even tried, and how far they got. Again, haven't
seen LotR yet, but I didn't see a big drop in the CGI with Crusade (it
was done by the same team, AFIAK, so I don't see why there should be).
I'm hopeful about the CGI for TLT. Not only because we will get it in
super detailed HD (making the AV geek in me happy ;), but also because
of some comments JMS made about taking on the task of slightly
redesigning the CGI as part of his directorial role on the first TLT
disc. He said this on the newsgroup:
I'm doing this first one for B5:TLT because it's going to be something
of a redesign in how we shoot B5, nothing major, just the feeling of
the shots and the CGI and to set a tone for the films.
And this at SDCC, from Jan's transcripts:
Q: Do you imagine that the look and feel of the show will be the same
or reimagined?
JMS: I want it to feel the same but not be exactly the same. We have
tools available to us now with CG and virtual sets and environments
that we had a little bit of in B5 but not that much. I want to try and
... if I were starting B5 now without the prior show behind me, but
keeping the same cast...what would it look like? What tools do I have
now that I didn't have then? I want it to be fresh but still be of
that same universe so it feels like B5 but [as an example] When I saw
Simon and Garfunkel in concert, it was the same songs but they did a
good job at reimagining how they were put together so that kind of
thing.
This sounds like something that I personally can get behind, in
principle. We'll have to wait and see if it will actually look good,
but I like the approach to it outlined above.
-Shabaz
Mac Breck (KoshN)
I am talking about using those models as a starting point/template to
make sure the new ones looked the same, but just with finer
detail/higher res. It's important that the new ships, etc. not be
visually, jarringly different than what they had in B5's later seasons
and Crusade. Stuff that looks the same except that it's higher in
detail/higher res., doesn't RIP the longtime viewer out of the story,
but rather "just looks better," and reflects the higher technology we
have now compared to when B5 (later seasons) and Crusade were made.
There's a time to be conservative and a time to take chances. When
you're continuing an existing story, it's best to be as seamless as
possible, or make changes gradually, so the new stuff doesn't stand out
like a sore thumb.
> and
> really, I don't think they would do it even if those lost B5 CGI files
> would turn up tomorrow.
They'd be silly not to (do as I described above).
> Furthermore, all that could be salvaged from
> those would be the model files, which isn't necessarily the most labour
> intensive thing to make.
But if the models don't look the same to the casual observer, it's
going to ring false.
> And while the entire archive got lost, they
> won't be rebuilding it _all_ anyway for one million. It's a good
> budget, I think, but not that good. ;)
Rebuilding it bit by bit, as necessary for the current DVD, over time,
not everything all at once for that budget.
> Also, when you say higher resolution, you have to realize that
> technically, the old models were able to be rendered at higher
> resolution, but it is the lack of detail in those models that makes
> them visually break up.
So, make new ones with the latest software, with higher polygon counts
and more detailed skins, but compare them to the old models and make
sure they look the same from the distances we saw then in B5 & Crusade.
> And adding actual detail would pretty mean they
> won't look _exactly_ the same.
from the same distance we saw them in B5 & Crusade. I just don't want
them to look so different from the same distance we saw them in B5 &
Crusade that it ruins the ability to suspend disbelief. If it's
obvious, and throws the viewer out of the story, that's bad.
> If there is extra detail added, it
> should be noticable, or else, what's the point of adding it?
Added detail generally means that you can do tighter closeups without
things falling apart.
> And finally, while I hope they stay true to the design aesthetic of
> B5's CGI model work, I don't hope they will feel restricted by some of
> designs born out of technical restrictions. And I don't think they will
> be, if you look at JMS talking about wanting to redesign how the CGI is
> done a bit.
>
> No, we have our answer for the budget in the latest JMS TLT update to
> some extent, I think.
To some extent, yes.
> It will be done in HD, which can and will add a
> lot of cost, and he talks about a lot of green screening,
Hope it's done well.
> suggesting a
> lot of use of virtual sets.
Like Crusade.
> And indeed, it's the first instalment of
> what could be
will hopefully be
> a much bigger project, so some groundwork in terms of
> asset creation could be laid with the CGI work for this disc.
I want it to knock people's socks off.
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Jan
says...
>
>
>And this at SDCC, from Jan's transcripts:
>
>Q: Do you imagine that the look and feel of the show will be the same
>or reimagined?
>JMS: I want it to feel the same but not be exactly the same. We have
>tools available to us now with CG and virtual sets and environments
>that we had a little bit of in B5 but not that much. I want to try and
>... if I were starting B5 now without the prior show behind me, but
>keeping the same cast...what would it look like? What tools do I have
>now that I didn't have then? I want it to be fresh but still be of
>that same universe so it feels like B5 but [as an example] When I saw
>Simon and Garfunkel in concert, it was the same songs but they did a
>good job at reimagining how they were put together so that kind of
>thing.
>
>
>This sounds like something that I personally can get behind, in
>principle. We'll have to wait and see if it will actually look good,
>but I like the approach to it outlined above.
>
>-Shabaz
>
Thanks for posting that, Shabaz. I was hoping I'd remember to do it once I get
home from work. I've been meaning to warn Mac that he can't expect the same
look ever since the convention.
Jan
--
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation,
The fire that will light the way to a better future.
We are One.
IA Declaration of Principles
(J. Michael Straczynski)
Joseph DeMartino
> Again, haven't seen LotR yet, but I didn't see a big drop in the CGI with Crusade (it was done by the same team, AFIAK, so I don't see why there should be). <
The CGI for "Crusade" was done by Netter Digital, which also did the
CGI for "B5" in the 5th and - I think - the 4th season. Netter went
out of business not long after production was halted on "Crusade" so
they were not available to do "B5:LR". A Canadian FX house took over -
it was their request for the CGI files that led Warner Bros. to
discover they had been lost.
That created a lot of problems for the production and was one of the
reasons that few existing ships from the B5 universe were in the film,
and the one brief shot of the station was a distant one and an angle
that did not show Epsilon 3. Also hyperspace was a little choppier and
more chaotic, but JMS has said that this was deliberate and closer to
the way he'd originally envisioned it but which the "B5" era software
had been unable to deliver. Apparently the color looked "off" to some
people (who have been complaining about it non-stop since the film
debuted) and this has led to blanket complaints about "the FX". (I
only just got around to watching the DVD, first time I've actually sat
down and watched the movie since it originally aired probably. It
plays much better than I remembered, and hyperspace looks just fine on
my 56" HDTV which has been properly color-calibrated. <g>)
Regards,
Joe
Mac Breck (KoshN)
> Mac Breck (KoshN) wrote:
> > I very much wish I didn't feel this way, but after a few of the effects
> > I saw in Crusade (Most by far, were great, but some were really bad.),
> > and a lot of the effects I saw in the Rangers pilot, I am pretty much
> > filled with apprehension/anxiety about the effects that'll be in
> > B5:TLT. I want to like 'em. I hope they're great and the DVDs are a
> > hit, but on the day I get my first B5:TLT DVD, I better be drinking
> > decaf, or better yet, a couple of really good beers.
> >
> > Mac Breck (KoshN)
>
> I haven't gotten my hands on the LotR DVD yet,
I'm don't want to say anything until you watch it.
> but I got Crusade in the
> mail a few weeks ago, and I have watched 2 episodes so far (Racing the
> Night and Needs of Earth, the first 2 in the Sci-Fi order). To me, at
> the very least the space sections looked pretty polished.
A lot of the space shots, especially the Excalibur beauty shots, looked
great.
In "The Needs of Earth," in the hyperspace scenes near the end where
the alien shuttle is destroyed? No, that wasn't as good as a lot of
the other effects shots (e.g. the shuttle entering the thick
atmosphere, etc.). Also, I thought the skins of the alien cruisers
looked too plain, almost unfinished, like a 1950s bare metal skinned
look, fighter or bomber. The scene where the Excalibur is surrounded
looked flat, 2D. Well, maybe that's what those aliens liked. <shrug>
> Some of the
> virtual set work they did, like the stuff with Gideon flying over the
> city in Racing the Night, seemed to be like they were stretched a bit
> beyond what they were technically and financially capable of. Still,
> it's impressive they even tried, and how far they got.
That's exactly the way I feel about that sequence. That was a helluva
effort, and very much forgivable, IMO.
> Again, haven't
> seen LotR yet, but I didn't see a big drop in the CGI with Crusade (it
> was done by the same team, AFIAK, so I don't see why there should be).
Patterns of the Soul - the flashback battle. See if you notice
anything that seems off, or not so great.
> I'm hopeful about the CGI for TLT. Not only because we will get it in
> super detailed HD (making the AV geek in me happy ;), but also because
> of some comments JMS made about taking on the task of slightly
> redesigning the CGI as part of his directorial role on the first TLT
> disc. He said this on the newsgroup:
>
> I'm doing this first one for B5:TLT because it's going to be something
> of a redesign in how we shoot B5, nothing major, just the feeling of
> the shots and the CGI and to set a tone for the films.
>
> And this at SDCC, from Jan's transcripts:
>
> Q: Do you imagine that the look and feel of the show will be the same
> or reimagined?
> JMS: I want it to feel the same but not be exactly the same.
That's all I want, for it to feel the same, but not necessarily be
exactly the same.
> We have
> tools available to us now with CG and virtual sets and environments
> that we had a little bit of in B5 but not that much. I want to try and
> ... if I were starting B5 now without the prior show behind me, but
> keeping the same cast...what would it look like? What tools do I have
> now that I didn't have then? I want it to be fresh but still be of
> that same universe so it feels like B5 but [as an example] When I saw
> Simon and Garfunkel in concert, it was the same songs but they did a
> good job at reimagining how they were put together so that kind of
> thing.
That sounds perfectly fine to me. However, I don't think they even
came close to achieving that with the Rangers pilot.
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Oooh, the typos on that one! <rolleyes> In my defense, I was going
like a bat outta Hell trying to get that post done before leaving for
work, and I just got back home.
> Shabaz wrote:
> > Mac Breck (KoshN) wrote:
> > > I very much wish I didn't feel this way, but after a few of the effects
> > > I saw in Crusade (Most by far, were great, but some were really bad.),
> > > and a lot of the effects I saw in the Rangers pilot, I am pretty much
> > > filled with apprehension/anxiety about the effects that'll be in
> > > B5:TLT. I want to like 'em. I hope they're great and the DVDs are a
> > > hit, but on the day I get my first B5:TLT DVD, I better be drinking
> > > decaf, or better yet, a couple of really good beers.
> > >
> > > Mac Breck (KoshN)
> >
> > I haven't gotten my hands on the LotR DVD yet,
>
> I'm don't want to say anything until you watch it.
That was supposed to be "I don't want to say anything until you watch
it."
[....]
> In "The Needs of Earth," in the hyperspace scenes near the end where
> the alien shuttle is destroyed? No, that wasn't as good as a lot of
> the other effects shots (e.g. the shuttle entering the thick
> atmosphere, etc.). Also, I thought the skins of the alien cruisers
> looked too plain, almost unfinished, like a 1950s bare metal skinned
> look, fighter or bomber. The scene where the Excalibur is surrounded
> looked flat, 2D. Well, maybe that's what those aliens liked. <shrug>
Those last two sentences above got transposed. Didn't mean to say that
the aliens preferred the scene to look 2D. :-O
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Mac Breck (KoshN)
> Shabaz wrote:
>
> > Again, haven't seen LotR yet, but I didn't see a big drop in the CGI with Crusade (it was done by the same team, AFIAK, so I don't see why there should be). <
>
> The CGI for "Crusade" was done by Netter Digital, which also did the
> CGI for "B5" in the 5th and - I think - the 4th season. Netter went
> out of business not long after production was halted on "Crusade" so
> they were not available to do "B5:LR". A Canadian FX house took over -
> it was their request for the CGI files that led Warner Bros. to
> discover they had been lost.
>
> That created a lot of problems for the production and was one of the
> reasons that few existing ships from the B5 universe were in the film,
> and the one brief shot of the station was a distant one and an angle
> that did not show Epsilon 3. Also hyperspace was a little choppier and
> more chaotic,
It's definitely more 3D and violent looking in the Rangers pilot, with
hyperspace "clouds" coming between the camera and the ship, and the
camera shaking, however it's lost that twisting, currents from lots of
different directions look. Prior to this, hyperspace looked more like
a ship was shot against a roiling surface/background of something like
the sea, with what looked like whirlpool currents in places, and that
gave it a disorienting/dizzy sense of both direction and depth of
waves, a confusing place where it looks like it'd be awfully easy to
get lost, because lack of static, visible reference points). The
Rangers pilot lost that latter quality. Not good. The Rangers version
looks like the ships are flying through a magenta storm cloud, with all
the cloud motion in one straight direction, with no shear, and no
curved motion.
> but JMS has said that this was deliberate and closer to
> the way he'd originally envisioned it but which the "B5" era software
> had been unable to deliver. Apparently the color looked "off" to some
> people (who have been complaining about it non-stop since the film
> debuted) and this has led to blanket complaints about "the FX". (I
> only just got around to watching the DVD, first time I've actually sat
> down and watched the movie since it originally aired probably. It
> plays much better than I remembered, and hyperspace looks just fine on
> my 56" HDTV which has been properly color-calibrated. <g>)
Viewed back-to-back with B5 episodes, Crusade episodes, and the other
B5 TV movies, the color of some things (e.g. hyperspace), looks a lot
different, decidedly more pink~magenta in the B5 Rangers pilot.
That's not a function of calibration of the viewer's video equipment.
In everything but the Rangers pilot, hyperspace was more of a burnt
orange~red. To be more specific, I'd have to do screencaps, sampling
in Photoshop, and post the RGB values, but I'm sure the hard numbers
would bear out what I'm saying here.
Mac Breck (KoshN)
Mac Breck (KoshN)
> Joseph DeMartino wrote:
[....]
> > but JMS has said that this was deliberate and closer to
> > the way he'd originally envisioned it but which the "B5" era software
> > had been unable to deliver. Apparently the color looked "off" to some
> > people (who have been complaining about it non-stop since the film
> > debuted) and this has led to blanket complaints about "the FX". (I
> > only just got around to watching the DVD, first time I've actually sat
> > down and watched the movie since it originally aired probably. It
> > plays much better than I remembered, and hyperspace looks just fine on
> > my 56" HDTV which has been properly color-calibrated. <g>)
>
>
> Viewed back-to-back with B5 episodes, Crusade episodes, and the other
> B5 TV movies, the color of some things (e.g. hyperspace), looks a lot
> different, decidedly more pink~magenta in the B5 Rangers pilot.
> That's not a function of calibration of the viewer's video equipment.
> In everything but the Rangers pilot, hyperspace was more of a burnt
> orange~red. To be more specific, I'd have to do screencaps, sampling
> in Photoshop, and post the RGB values,
Oops, meant to change that to CMYK values, would more clearly show the
difference in magenta. Sorry.