#we’ve got some other stuff in the pipeline | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bengiyo · 8 months

Text

Dangerous Romance Ep 4 Stray Thoughts

Last week, we mostly skipped dealing with the internal fallout of Sailom experiencing extreme violence from his creditors, or seeing how he and his brother are coping, to jump to the Kanghan tutoring arc. We’ve confirmed that Kanghan has massive issues because his dad has undermined his confidence constantly by never expecting anything from him. The boys practiced their English at a tourist spot, and got chased down (for gross sex reasons) by some foreigners who were after Sailom. Kanghan thought it would be brilliant if the hid in an alley and kissed. Also, Kanghan’s friends don’t seem to know him or his interests that well. However, Sailom is going to Courage Wolf this man into believing in himself.

Look at this man lying about studying. Get his ass, grandma.

My poor boy, Chimon. Y’all know he sweats profusely. Why would y’all do him like that with that close up pan?

The grandma is at least setting reasonable expectations of Kanghan.

Interesting. That was apparently NOT the first time Sailom has been beaten up over debts. That is NOT how that scene felt at all.

I’m not sure I’m keen on a tutoring/friendship montage, but it helps that Perth and Chimon are good.

How are the candles helping them study if they’re spread across the room? Did they ask Sam’s staff to set this up?

Why are they being so heavy-handed with this windmill analogy? This feels so early!

Kanghan is such a dork. Why is his hair not inside of his helmet?

Fellas, is it gay to think about the bonding moment you had with your rival/tutor/crush in the pool when you can’t sleep the night before exams?

Chimon is good. His face dropped briefly in disappointment when he heard that Kanghan failed, and then he masked it immediately to encourage him because only failing one subject is an improvement.

Alright, but did we clear things up with the parents group chat so Sailom can go back to tutoring other people at least? I didn’t forget that Kanghan called him a sex offender.

Oh lord, not him having a secret crush on Kanghan because of the umbrella stuff.

Papang is back! We didn’t talk about much.

Here he goes again eating this dry ass steak alone. He paid $30 for this?

I don’t get all this mooning at each other. They could just talk? Do they need to act like they hate each other after all this cutesy time together?

I’m gonna need GMMTV to stop using Perth shows to swindle people into investing in crypto.

“I’m okay,” then almost busts his ass on the bathroom floor. You can’t fall in love if you ain’t clumsy amirite??

Ah, the poverty-to-sex-work pipeline begins.

Pepper is pretty, but I really hate the color of this jacket.

Now, why is Saifah spending this kind of money on dinner when they have bills piling up?

This is the first time I think a Thai show has used their penchant for potty jokes well by having Sailom eat with a man experiencing incontinence.

Well, at least this man only wanted to have dinner with him this time.

I appreciate Pimfah being tactful about trying to offer help to Sailom.

I don’t mind them wanting to use their wealth to assist Sailom, nor do I mind the grandmother putting conditions on that help. Still, I’m not feeling kind of off about the whole experience here because it feels like we dropped the antagonistic part of this rather quickly.

They’re really committed to the windmill analogy. There’s even one on the umbrella. It’s part of the design, so I’ll let it ride.

Yes, dry his hair. A BL boy will die if his hair stays wet too long.

Fellas, is it gay to make your rival/tutor/crush hold your drinks, feed you, and massage your shoulders as a break from studying?

Besties, I gotta be honest, I’m a little frustrated with this show. I’m having a hard time staying locked in on much of the drama because it seems to get resolved or forgotten at will. Perth and Chimon are good, but this is a bit difficult for me to connect to, and I find that the irritation is leading to a bit of boredom with it on Fridays.

#dangerous romance #dangerous romance the series #thai bl #bl series #Ben watches

20 notes · View notes

kuwdora · 8 months

Text

The fraught experience of watching TV in a streaming entertainment economy.

I basically watch new TV with the expectation that current season I’m watching is going to be the last. That includes The Witcher Netflix, btw, but other shows, too. I get the feeling we’ve all sort of…come to this conclusion, right? We’re all so jaded because things get cancelled left and right. Nothing is safe. Nothing. :(

We all have to race to watch The Sandman or Shadow and Bone ASAP instead of enjoying a week-to-week drop. It’s exhausting. I don’t like feeling guilty when I don’t have the brain to watch things. I definitely have just streamed stuff in the background and watched it for real later, too.

Star Trek Prodigy on Paramount? Cancelled and pulled from the platform. People who purchased the rest of the season on Amazon never got the episodes because the rights were pulled. Star Trek is the flagship IP!!! And it STILL GOT CANCELLED. Even though it’s beautiful, and fucking brilliant and incredible television and had new episodes in the pipeline.

The other show I’m currently mourning is Moonhaven. I wrote about that show here. It was renewed for a second season! It’s an fascinating, atypical sci-fi TV premise with great leads and interesting worldbuilding and shooting locations in Ireland. And then AMC decided that they were not going to renew it. It’s similar what happened to Avenue 5 on HBO (Ave 5 was more of a Schroedinger’s Cancellation. It’s cancelled except maybe not? But it really is cancelled.)

A League of Their Own? Cancelled. Willow? Cancelled. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance? Sense8???? The list goes on and on. :(

I think for me it was in 2017 or 2018 that I really started internalizing this idea that none of my favorite, amazing shows were going to last. Santa Clarita Diet was axed by Netflix far too soon. Same with Altered Carbon. Those cancellations changed me, yeah…

I follow a lot of WGA writers on twitter and there’s been a lot of discussion happening about the Suits renaissance. Suits aired on the USA Network for 9 years with 16+ episodes/season. It’s been streaming on NBC’s Peacock platform for awhile and now has 8 seasons on Netflix. It’s currently the most-streamed show in Nielson’s history, something like over 2 billion minutes now. people are discovering it for the first time or coming back to it for a very happy rewatch.

This writer sums up the situation perfectly.

I also can’t track down the tweet where a writer was talking to a development executive at Peacock who admitted that they wouldn’t be able to get Suits made today.

Ugly Betty is another show that’s having a similar bump (thanks in part to Barbie, people catching up to how amazing America Ferrara is. Also watch Superstore!!) because people are looking for these longer shows that have character development and the longevity.

The only streaming platform I currently ‘trust’ with my vested TV interests is AppleTV. And I only trust them because I can see what kind of free reign they’re allowing their creatives to do with their shows. They’re specific and bold premises and commitment to characters and themes. Similar to Netflix in the early years. I doubt this will last much longer.

On Apple TV you’ve got incredible psychological thrillers like Severence and Silo happening. The musical comedy Schmiagdoon! too.

Ted Lasso got to have longer episodes and handed over showrunning duties to the lead actor with some questionable creative choices made in those seasons. It still got to complete the show on its own terms. Amazing.

Apple TV also has Mythic Quest which is a unique comedy in the streaming age.

It’s a workplace comedy about a fictionalized video game development company. Picture Ubisoft who also provides video game assets/interstitials for the show among other things. It’s Community meets Always Sunny in Philadelphia (features writers and actors from both). A comedy that examines toxic masculinity in a workplace, completely roasts the girlbloss tropes and the patriarchy. The main characters are really autistic and ADHD coded. The show is completely self-aware (at times painfully so).

But what sets Mythic Quest apart and what tells me Apple TV is letting creatives do their jobs: This show has Bottle Episodes! And flashback episodes that don’t feature any of the primary actors! But the episodes are still relevant to the the themes and character dynamics the show is exploring.

In a hyper-serialized streaming world where executives and product strategists are measuring engagement by minutes watched and how soon they watch, Apple TV is letting these folks make episodes you can watch out of order or skip. But they’re also episodes with high rewatchability. It’s a show with a ton of heart. Apple TV renews Mythic Quest ahead of a season premiere. It renews it for multiple seasons. I’ve found this commitment to the longevity of the show very heartening.

In the past I’ve fallen in love with shows that were irreverent, campy, self-aware comedies. All of these were ABC shows so I can’t even rail against the streaming model. But like Netflix shows they weren’t given enough time to reach a wider audience even though I think some of these definitely have Cult Acclaim by now. I showed up bright an early for most of these and my god. The cancellations stung so much. That pain just accumulated over the years. A precursor of what was to come. :(

Better Off Ted - 2009 show. Another workplace satire that was just ahead of it’s time in the way it showed us the gallows humor of being a cog in the capitalist system. Addressed sexism, racism and classism. Funny as hell. Portia di Rossi knew the fucking assignment and fucked its brains out with her performance. Maz Jobrani was only in like 5 or 6 episodes and he was SO GOOD. I made sure to see every local comedy show I could to see more of him once I saw him in Better off Ted. - currently streaming on Hulu

Galavant - 2014-2016 - a fantasy musical. Monty Python meets Princess Bride. Featuring creators and lyricists who worked on 90s Disney films. So fucking funny and cheeky and heartwarming and silly. The music is so GREAT. All my Witcher and Our Flag Meets Death friends need to check this one out if they need something new-to-them that is witty and light and heartfelt. - also streaming on Hulu

Don’t Trust the B— in Apt 23 - a 2012 show with Krysten Ritter!! Before she was Jessica Jones! This show has eccentric women characters and James van der Beek playing a fictionalized version of himself. This is a show that had so much potential and they aired everything out of order and and and and and and I loved it so much. - Hulu since this is again an ABC show. Vid Rec: Applause by elipie.

Selfie - JOHN CHO AND KAREN GILLAN! John Cho and Karen Gillan in a ROM COM. The screeching wails from fandom when this got cancelled. It was an amazing set-up, amazing chemistry. Funny, quirky. You could see the growth in both of the characters!! And! We Never! Got enough!! - seriously watch this on hulu if you can. John and Karen are AMAZING.

Every first season of Star Trek has been wobbly or had wobbily episodes that didn't work or actors were still getting to know their characters. Every first season. Including new Trek! The X-Files? Even rebooted again? I don’t think it would work. Heck, even if they made second reboot of Battlestar Galactica I’m not sure it’d last. FARSCAPE! Got cancelled! By SyFy! They (like Sense8 and Firefly and a few others) got to have a movie conclusion. But at what narrative cost?? The Expanse got cancelled and uncancelled. The Orville got cancelled and uncancelled. I can't get my hopes up about anything unless I know it's a "limited series" at the onset.

I'm exhausted and sad by the state of the industry. I hope the writers and actors get everything from the studios and we can see a shift back to the previous working models again. Better working conditions and pay and residuals.

So I'll eventually watch A League of Their Own and 1899 and I know I'm going to fucking love every moment that we got to have. And then mourn. And go dig up all the fanfic and vids and art that I can to get my fix.

I think for now I'm gonna join in the Suits rewatch cause I love the humor and the character growth and relationships are fantastic. I don't think I rewatched Suits or Ugly Betty since they aired.

#sighhhh. to Fox for cancelling Almost Human. Michael Ealy and Karl Urban were AMAZING #fox also cancelling Pitch. Kylie Bunbury was outstanding. special shoutout to Ali Larter's performance here too #whyyyy fox why did you cancel The Exorcist after two seasons. it was so good.#HANNIBALLLLLL I WILL FOREVER MISS YOU #kuwdora watches #old and cancelled shows #and some new ones too #kuwdora recs #mythic quest #better off ted #galavant #don't trust the b in apartment 23 #selfie on abc #streaming bullshit #textpost #blogdora

19 notes · View notes

ashtrayfloors · 1 year

Text

Halloween was magical. P. and I both dressed as vampires, he in a Lost Boys style, me inspired by Dave Vanian’s look in the “Nasty” episode of The Young Ones. We took the kids out trick-or-treating for the first time since 2019—I mean, C. was too young then to even remember trick-or-treating. But I was just happy to be out, wandering the neighborhood on Halloween; it reminded me of Halloweens when I was a kid—the bonfire and chimney-smoke, crunching through the leaves, kids shrieking in delighted fear, the early dark. And two of the houses we stopped at had crock pots full of warm, boozy apple cider for the grownups, and it was wonderful.

Then November, the Day of the Dead—which I had already been celebrating for days beforehand. A Santa Muerte candle burning, offerings on my altar, thinking of all my dear departed. Missing Jack, missing Erik. Missing Sean and Frank and Travis and Matt and Molly and and and. Having conversations with my Grandpa—my mom’s dad, who died before I was born.

There were some other strange occurrences at the end of October and into November. A few objects launched themselves off of surfaces when no one was nearby, and when they weren’t anywhere precarious enough to just fall for no reason. There may be a rational explanation, but it happened enough times in the span of a few days when I felt the presence of the dead all around for me to think it was related.

I was feeling stressed and anxious later in the day of November 1, and C. was in a cranky mood, but then I remembered that both he and I do better when we get out of the house. And it was such a gorgeous day that day, weather-wise—part of a few-day stretch of warm weather before the autumn cold settled in. So in the late afternoon, we walked down to the neighborhood park, and it was perfect. I got to sit on a bench and write while C. did “parkour” and played tag with a couple of other kids. We were both a lot happier afterwards.

Last Thursday I cut my hair into a partially-shaved, semi-undercut style. I needed the change.

Friday I had a Facebook Messenger conversation with a friend of mine. At first we were talking about trans stuff, about how we feel like we’ve had experiences and feelings that are pretty tied to our AGABs, but then other experiences and feelings which are more often tied to the gender ‘opposite’ our AGABs. Then we were both venting about stuff we’ve been dealing with IRL. One of the things I vented about was finding out that a guy I know in the Kenosha punk scene is some level of serial sexual harasser or abuser. He’s not someone I know well, but it also just keeps happening, every year or two, finding out that some guy I knew from punk or activist circles is a rapist or abuser. And I was talking about how it’s kinda retraumatizing, giving me flashbacks to when I outed the Kenosha punk scene dude who raped me many years ago, and a bunch of other dudes in the scene either denied it or dismissed it. But I also said that most of the people I’ve seen calling this current guy out are in fact other men; and I said how heartening that is, and how maybe the tide has at least started to turn in the past 15-20 years. She was sympathetic at first but then started going on this rant about how awful cis men are and like... I wasn’t going to “not all men” her, but it made me deeply uncomfortable. Because like, I’d just mentioned how it was largely cis men standing up against this particular dude. And yeah, I’ve been raped and abused by cis men, but I’ve also been raped and abused by women. And some of my biggest supporters and comrades have also been cis men. And my partner is a cis man, and my kiddos are AMAB—they may or may not grow up to be cis men, but right now they’re boys, and whatever they grow up to be, to just write them off as “well of course they’ll be awful if they’re cis men?” No. Also, she’s a trans woman, so you’d think she’d realize that “all (cis) men are bad” is kind of a direct pipeline to the TERF viewpoint of “anyone AMAB is bad.” You know?

The first day I cut my hair I was feeling really good about it, felt like a hot queer punk again, but then I started feeling weird and kinda bad about it. I’m premenstrual, which can cause weird bad feelings about any manner of things, and I started worrying that maybe I actually look ugly with the new hairstyle, and also maybe like I’m too old to be doing shit like that to my hair anymore. I never ascribe to the “too old” thing for other people, and logically I know it’s bullshit, but as a woman, AFAB person, or someone perceived to be a woman, it’s hard not to internalize those kinds of cultural messages.

But then on Saturday morning, waiting to get vaccinated at Walgreen’s, I saw this person come in—they were probably in their late 50s or early 60s, their hair was all gray/white, and they had a full undercut, plus a bunch of piercings in their ears, and combat boots. And they looked so fucking fabulous that it made me go: If someone with a full head of gray hair who is like 15 to 20 years older than I am can rock a punky style, then I definitely can. (Also, they were super hot and my queerdar definitely pinged, and I’ve been having some sexy fantasies about them since the encounter.)

I got double-vaxxed that day; flu shot + updated CoViD booster. I get so mad at anti-vaxxers in general and at anti-CoViD-vaxxers specifically who are like “we don’t know what the side effects of the vaccines really are.” Because I do know what the side effects of vaccines are for me. I’m not allergic, but I get extreme reactions to both flu and CoViD vaccines (and others). I feel half-sick for twenty-four hours or more, I get pain and swelling near the injection site, and I get painful, swollen lymph nodes on the parts of my body near the injection site, which last anywhere from three days to a week. But I still get fucking vaccinated, because I’d rather have all that then get seriously ill or die, or potentially be a carrier and cause other people to get seriously ill or die. (It’s that whole “I do not know how to make you understand that you should care about other people” thing.)

What else? Well, I’m premenstrual, and still have the swollen, painful lymph nodes, and I’m stressed about money as always and desperately trying to find ways to hustle for side gigs and side-side gigs. But other than that, things aren’t so bad. I’ve been spending my time cutting, collating, stapling, and packing up zine orders while drinking hella coffee and listening to punk and post punk. I’ve been playing accordion; I’m glad I forced myself to do a tribute for Songs Jack Taught Us, because it got me to start playing accordion again. And I have been writing so much—I’m working on a bunch of poems, as well as a novella/memoir hybrid for NaNoWriMo, and the words are just flowing. In fact, I wish all I had to do these days was write, and I get frustrated that there are so many interruptions and other things I have to do, but I’m counting my blessings. I’d rather have this problem than the opposite one—the one where I have all the time in the world to write, but nothing will come out.

#ashtrayfloors #dear livejournal #halloween #magic #day of the dead #ghosts #small good things #haircuts #rape cw #all men are evil except my boyfriend #said the sound of the spectacle #hot queers #vaccines #life #trans stuff

5 notes · View notes

thisaintascenereviews · 1 month

Text

Makari - Wave Machine

I made it no secret that I was underwhelmed by the new Too Close To Touch album from a couple weeks back. The album, titled For Keeps, is a bittersweet look at the band’s final tracks with late vocalist Keaton Pierce, who passed away almost two years ago now. For diehard fans, they have some songs that they can sink their teeth into, especially since the band broke up after that, and even casual listeners have something new to listen to. I wanted to see if that album was a good introduction to the band, despite being a collection of songs they had in the pipeline after their vocalist passed, and it really wasn’t. The album is fine, but it was underwhelming in the sense that almost half of the album featured guest spots that overshadowed the band, and aside from a couple of excellent songs, they were just stuff we’ve heard before from them.

The reason I bring up how underwhelmed I was with that album, which wasn’t even that bad, is that I normally like their brand of pop-influenced post-hardcore. I love bands like Issues, Caskets, Archetypes Collide, and other bands that merge pop and R&B with metalcore and post-hardcore. Coincidentally, post-hardcore band Makari dropped their second album within the last couple weeks, and they’re a band that I’ve somewhat enjoyed. They’re not a big name in the genre, but vocalist Andy Cizek is a big deal in the genre (I last heard him on the latest Monuments album, where he joined as their new clean vocalist), and he’s got a set of pipes, so I was curious for new album Wave Machine. The crazy thing is that this is their first album in six years, despite putting out a couple of EPs since then, but I had no idea this was even coming out until I saw it on Apple Music a week or two ago.

Their last album, 2018’s Hyperreal, was a solid post-hardcore album that dabbled in pop and R&B, albeit not really adding anything new or unique to the genre. They’re one of those bands that do what they do well, and they can survive based on talent alone. These guys are clearly talented, but their sound isn’t anything to write home about. They have a knack for good hooks, and that’s where Wave Machine shines. Cizek is truly one of the best vocalists in this space, and this record shows. There are plenty of tracks with wonderful vocals and hooks, but the instrumentation is good, too. These guys sound a like bands like Hail The Sun, Circa Survive, and early Hands Like Houses, but a bit more emphasis on the pop side of their sound. The issue with that is, unfortunately, most of the songs run together, despite having solid hooks. A lot of these songs just feel formulaic, but they’re still good. They’re performed well, and they sound pleasant, but the more I listen to this record, the more the songs sound the same and blend together.

I thought I’d listen to this as a complement to For Keeps, and see if this album would give me what I wanted from that album, because I enjoy this type of post-hardcore. I would say that it does, for the most part. I’m not surprised that this record is sort of generic, because a lot of bands in this vein are, but it’s done well for what it is. I can listen to this, and have a good time, but only a handful of songs stick out to me, thanks to their hooks. Cizek is at the top of his game, he sounds fantastic here, and the rest of the band sounds good, too. It’s clear that the focal point is the vocals, but the music itself doesn’t suffer, despite how this record is relatively generic. It’s not quite one of my favorites of the year, but if I’m in the mood for this kind of music, this album is something I may add to the rotation or listen to. If you enjoy this type of sound, I don’t think you can go wrong with this one.

#Makari #wave machine #too close to touch #for keeps #post hardcore #metalcore #rock #alternative #alt rock

0 notes

kellshaw · 11 months

Text

The robot uprising and the end of the publishing world!

New Post has been published on https://kellshaw.com/the-robot-uprising-and-the-end-of-the-publishing/

The robot uprising and the end of the publishing world!

New Post has been published on https://kellshaw.com/the-robot-uprising-and-the-end-of-the-publishing-world/

The robot uprising and the end of the publishing world!

I can’t remember the exact title, but there’s an episode of Doctor Who where Tom Baker’s Doctor, and Romana are discussing life on Gallifrey, their home planet. The Doctor likes painting, but Romana thinks that’s archaic, as in her mind, computers do art. And while that was science fiction in the 1970s, today we’ve got AI tools that do art, and writing!

Every author business podcast I’ve listened to recently, and a lot of book-ish social media groups, are furiously discussing the impact of modern AI tools on publishing. There’s a mix of speculation, gossip and fearmongering.

Publishers with low-effort, AI-churned out bookswill swamp the market place! No one will touch self-published books again!

Readers won’t love us writers anymore as they can walk up to a computer, enter some prompts, and receive a perfectly tailored story to their tastes and preferences.

Canny publishers will use AI to increase their output and draw readers’ attention away from my stuff!

There are arguments on both sides. A lot of this appears to be FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) – the fear that the AI assisted texts will make certain writers more productive and take the readers away from discovering other writers! I don’t think it quite works like that. Sure, I’d love it if my favorite authors were more productive, but I’ve also stopped reading a series where the latest volume loses that spark and feels ‘churned out’. And even if everyone flocks to mass-produced texts, there will still be people who prefer hand-crafted stories. Maybe it will become like craft beer—there’ll be always an audience for those who want the more interesting beverages on the side.

What makes a good story? Intriguing characters, pacing, the ability to evoke emotion, perhaps. How do you bottle this and create a reliable, reproducible formula for making engaging stories consistently? People have been to figure this out for years. There’s so many courses out there that tell writers about how to write unputdownable stories, or what the best formulas. I’ve found some stuff useful (structuring and pacing techniques) and others less so.

There’s also been heartwarming stories of people with disabilities who can now express themselves better using AI technology. People with language issues or Long COVID brain fog can now complete stories with AI assistance. This is how I’d like it to be used. I’ve got some issues myself, which makes it hard for me to engage in social media. I have trouble writing random social media posts about blah life stuff without wanting to sit and think deeply about out it for ages, but if I bothered, I could go to the ChatGPT and have it write my social updates for me!

I haven’t mucked around with AI yet. Actually, I tell a lie—I use souped-up grammar checker Pro-Writing Aid to clear up my text. I’m a messy first drafter with lots of dropped words, speling errors that are fixed down the pipeline. I use some of its suggestions, but not all. Lately it’s got this AI feature that rephrases sentences. Some of it sounds better, some of it’s bland. Mostly I ignore it. But the tool is there as an option. Anyway, more options are good.

At this stage, I’m not going to engage AI (apart from PWA’s grammar/reporting checks). I’m still working on my craft, trying to capture that magic of making a great story, or at least, improve of what I’ve done in the past. For example, when I wrote Final Night, it was the best thing I’d written and completed, and now I’m going to improve on that with the next book. When I think I’ve gotten my craft to a certain level, I might check out AI tools more deeply, but for now it’s fingers to keyboard.

0 notes

doublegoblin · 1 year

Text

Cavern Chronology: Log 5

[Greetings, This is Epsilon. With V still being out of the office I was instructed to email this section of transcription over to you. I’m sorry if anything is missing, I’m still kind of new and still learning. Sorry that isn’t meant to sound like an excuse! Also I am sorry if this is out of line, I have been asking the others and nobody will give me a straight answer, but why do we not just attach the video files we collect? Once again I am so sorry if this is out of line! I just think it would be a much more efficient method of doing things. The new stuff should be coming in the next few months. -Epsilon]

Description: [Enter information here, include all relevant information. You can copy and paste the entry from previous submissions or write it all out yourself. Just be sure to follow the assigned outline.]

Note: Once you’ve got the stuff from Rico go through and put it together in one big document, he’s pretty good about putting things where they need to be so don’t move anything around. You’ll need to then take this file and make it into a .zip before sending it over to T. As you can see most of our work is handled by other departments, we just make sure there aren’t any outside bugs or issues before we send it up the pipeline. Then all you need to do is add it to the message as an attachment and shoot it across. You’ll know you’ve done it right when T writes you back. Give them a couple of business days, if it’s been about a week or so just send them a follow-up message, there is a lot to go through so it sometimes gets lost. Last thing, be sure to delete all of these extra messages, T isn’t a big fan of sifting through extra data. Plus if you don’t, we’re going to give you a lot of shit until you learn ;).

Date: 08/08/02 Time: 07:33

So this is going to be a little different than the last few files. We were lucky enough to stabilize the file before the camcorder went on the fritz. So not so much of a transcript for this part, more of an image ID.

To refresh: the image we’ve collected is a shot of what is being called a “conspiracy board”. A large cork board that you can find at really any major office supply store, supermarket, or anywhere that really sells stationary. This looks to be a cheap one. The frame of the board is most likely made of balsa wood, or maybe pine with an uneven and ugly looking stain job. The cork itself has some pretty large holes between the pieces, not just from wear and tear either. X did mention that along the lower edge there is some discoloration, they propose water damage. Besides the pieces of paper tacked to the board there are also some pretty neat looking stickers and enamel pins from different fandoms. I’m not sure if it matters much, but X and V both said to include it anyway, but the board is laid horizontally so it is more wide than tall.

On this board are several pieces of news articles, newspaper clippings, hand written notes, photographs, and of course Clyde's own drawing of the door. We’ll be designating larger items as their own entry but the smaller ones are placed into groups. They will be presented in the order most likely to be accurate to Clyde’s talking points later on. All of these items are connected by red push pins with a red string wrapped around each pin. Some string hangs limp, most likely cut at some point and just never cleaned up. I’ll be honest, some of the hand written notes are more out of focus items are educated guesses, for those situations we will mark them with (?).

The items:

A: A yellowed newspaper article, most likely a local paper. The date at the top looks to have been mostly lost during its removal but the year states that it is from 1979. The headline reads “YOUNG MAN MISSING IN NATIONAL PARK: FAMILY LEFT WITH QUESTIONS AND GRIEF”. Under the headline is a photo of a young hispanic male. Under this photo is a description that reads “Jacob Ortiz (17)”. The main text of the article is as follows:

“The community sends its thoughts and prayers to the Ortiz family in the aftermath of this tragic incident. Following a week-long search, Jacob Ortiz has been declared dead by local authorities. Jacob Ortiz had been out on a camping trip with his father and younger brother when he went missing. At this time the family has requested to be left in peace. We also ask that those in the community give the family their space in this dark time. Interviews with the father and younger brother can be found on (Page 4, Section A). The local sheriff has requested if anyone still has any information, or if new information has been found to please contact him. To quote ‘Anything you think could be useful, please, let us know. The least we could do is bring the boy's body back to the family, they deserve that closure.’ A closed casket funeral and memorial service will be held at 5pm on Tuesday at the Lily Family Funeral Home. This is an open invitation to the community.”

B: The interviews from the previous segment. These segments have been removed from their main page and only the words said by each interviewee have been preserved.

Mr.Ortiz has said the following “We’d only been out there for three days of our week long trip. It was early morning, I didn’t have my watch on me but it had to be no later than 7(am). I’d gotten the boys up for some oatmeal, mixed with some edible berries I’d foraged just the other day as a surprise. Jacob was the first one awake so had to go off to, you know, take care of his morning business. I let him know when we’d be eating and to not go past the treeline. He hemmed and hawed like all teenagers do, but he knew the woods could be dangerous, especially in that kind of vulnerable state. So he ran off with roll in hand and I got his younger brother roused and ready. Once the oatmeal was done I called out to him. Didn’t hear anything back. So I called again. Nothing. So I’m starting to get worried, but his brother reminds me that he had brought the Walkman on the trip so he might be listening to his music. Well I wasn’t having it, I thought I’d scare the crap out of him, a safe reminder that wild cats and bears love to catch you by surprise. But, when I get up to where I saw him headed, nobody there. So I start shouting his name, stomping through the forest, anything to get him to hear me. That's when I found the roll of toilet paper, set on top of a stump, just sitting there. I’m sorry I can’t talk about this anymore.”

PJ Orzit (Younger brother) had this to say “So we were on this camping trip right? I’m sure my dad said all that stuff already. Well he gets me up and the first thing I smell is burnt oatmeal. Then he starts callin’ for Jaco, I let him know about the walkman, and then he takes off into the woods. So I’m sitting there trying to pick around the crusty bits when dad comes out with this worried look on his face. So I’m thinkin’ ‘oh no what did he do now?’ and he says Jaco is missing. I…I didn’t think much about it then and kind of laughed it off, I regret doing that. So I follow him into the wood and see the stump with the toilet paper. I also saw his walkman there on the ground right next to the stump, the cord was wrapped around it, like when you want to put it away without the cord getting all tangled up. We spent maybe the entire day going up and down the woods. It’s like he just vanished into thin air man. I don’t care what the cops say, he’s still out there, he has to be. Jaco is real smart, really good fighter too, when we were younger he’d always kick me butt when we’d play pirates. He has to still be out there…he has to.”

C: Another newspaper article, most of the text is faded or the paper is damaged in some way that it’s hard to read. The date at the top says 1989(?) 1986(?) or 1988(?). The headline reads: MOTHER OF TWO VANISHES, VACATION TURNED TRAGEDY. On the page is also the location of San Antonio, Texas.

C1-C3: What appear to be a collection of modeling photos. The subject is a black woman of approximately middle age.

Ca: A postcard, the handwritten wording is illegible. On the front in bold gold words “Wish you were here”

D: Printed screenshot of a new site. WEEKEND RETREAT LEAVES SEVERAL DEAD AND TWO MISSING. Along the side, circled in red marker is a political ad, VOTE: CLINTON.

“What was meant to be a radical get-away for a group of teens has turned into anything but. Investigations are still inconclusive but local authorities propose gang violence or wild animal attacks. Early Friday morning the mutilated bodies of local teens (1) were found by amateur hiker Paul during his yearly trip around the park. At this time the whereabouts of-” the rest of the text is not visible on this piece of paper.

E: Handwritten notes by Clyde. Appears to be bullet points for the upcoming video.

F: A pamphlet showing a map of a local tourist destination. A caving trip.

G: Crude illustrations of fantastical creatures such as Mothman, Bigfoot, and some other third thing which is obscured by the paper folding in on itself. The first two have large black Xs drawn across them.

H: Clyde's sketch of the door.

[End of relevant data]

[This has been very informative, thank you Epsilon. As to your question, I encourage you to maintain this curiosity. This format is simply the best way for me to digest this information, sound is hard to process. I look forward to working with you. Best wishes -T]

#writing #original fiction #original writing #writeblr #creative writing #original work #work in progress #fiction #writeblr wip #CavernCC #document horror #document style story

0 notes

personalmains · 2 years

Text

Autodesk maya tut

#Autodesk maya tut software#

#Autodesk maya tut download#

#Autodesk maya tut free#

Have a look for it, it's not that expensive and it's really worth it I think.If you take a look at serious 3d graphic forums you can see a lot of amazing bed room, with ultra realistic surface and natural look. Any suggestions for new training's very welcome hereĪlso I second that thing with Introduction to Maya, it's a really good book to have on the side of tutorials to get a more solid foundation and good text tuts in there. We will have some shorter modeling projects on objects as setting out to do a high poly character will leave you a bit lost if you're a beginner.

#Autodesk maya tut software#

We'll also focus on producing training in the fields where you won't find much content for Maya such as lighting, 2d animation and add software that integrates with Maya. What we've set out to do on the new site is to split our training up the way it would be split in a production pipeline so you learn from the person best qualified. It's important to remember as well that tried and tested techniques remain in the industry and the actual modeling workflow does not change with version updates of Maya, version compatibility is on the other hand more important for dynamics where the menu set is completely different today than it was a few years back. These two tutorials are not for beginners but intermediate users and at this point I think anyone can figure out the split in the modeling set and the edit polys being edit mesh which are the main changes. For modeling some of the oldest things on this site are the Ferrari and Apache done in Maya 6 which is pointed out and they're both some of the best Maya tutorials I've ever seen. We did some general house cleaning and everything on the site is there because the workflow's accurate and it's useful content. For versions here we were thinking of doing some things in 20 as well as not everyone is on Maya 2011.

#Autodesk maya tut free#

I've picked up on this thing with the modeling menu set and it's one of the reasons for why there's no longer anything in the free section that is done in versions below 2008 (not sure when the split came, I think it was 8) hence bye, bye cartoon dog I think the free tutorials on this site would be some of the first things a lot of people new to Maya see and therefore we want it to consist of shorter projects that are not overwhelming when you're new and also we want to cover all fields of Maya to give people a bit of an overview to start off with so there will be a balance of basic dynamics, modeling tips and tools, shading networks, bump and normal maps, lighting, mental ray and so on. But there has probably been more since then. I think one had a train and one a catapult. Each one had a great step by step tutorial on modeling a semi-complex model using the most basic tools. nothing's going to happen.Īs for good tuts, I don't know if your local library has the "introducing Maya" books, but they were great. It won't matter how well you know Maya and it's tools, if there's no drive. what got you into this stuff in the first place. Some basic tuts to start with sure, but after that, you need to start doing what really gets you going. Plenty of guys around here to help you out with that one! So if you're anything like Acid (god help us) then model a cool car. The content you create in the tuts may be boring, but just use them until you get at least semi-confident with the tools, then just model something that really interests you, that's the only way you're going to see it through to the end, or however far it gets. Remember F1 for the Maya help files and there's also some free basics training on Autodesk's site which is good.īest thing to do is follow some really simple tuts at first. As well it shows UV layout and texturing so you get a good overview. My favorite tutorial on the site is Chef Ramsay because it describes the production workflow in character modeling and takes rigging into consideration. If you're already quite comfortable modeling I'd do the Sand Speeder because it includes so many different tools, or the Apache as it basically teaches you half of Maya in one tutorial but both these are long and quite difficult to complete for someone new to modeling. What's better to watch would depend on how much you already know in max, for beginners I'd go with the introduction to organic modeling, interior design or a low poly character as it gets you started and includes a few tools without being too much at once. If you look here you'll find the subcategories for modeling If you're looking for paid for tutorials on modeling in Maya this site has more than any other, and the content here is also the best for quality and getting results. We're also adding tutorials here in the next few days.

#Autodesk maya tut download#

We took the cartoon dog away with the new site, to make space for tutorials in newer versions of Maya and teach more diverse modeling techniquesīut download what's in the free section it should get you started and give you an idea of what's going on.

#Autodesk maya tut

0 notes

cksmart-world · 2 years

Text

SMART BOMB

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

May 3, 2022

ALTERNATE REALITY

Feeling crazy lately? If not, there's probably something wrong with you — unless you are living in a sensory-depravation chamber. Here are some things that may be cramping your brain: 1) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Disney is trying to make kids into sexual deviants. 2) Fox foghorn Sean Hannity's tweets reveal he was a shadow chief of staff for Trump. 3) Bomb-thrower Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who accused Republican colleagues of having orgies, was photographed in women's lingerie. 4) Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans say Democrats are pedophiles. The staff here at Smart Bomb contacted our futurist Calliope Luna for a heads-up on coming brain benders: 5) West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kristen Cinema are actually the same person who often changes costumes. 6) Donald Trump Jr. will become vice president of Trump Media World and disappear. 7) Utah Sen. Mike Lee is called on a religious mission to Latvia, where he discovers beer and women. 8) Utah Congressman Burgess Owens is abducted by aliens who immediately return him — yecht. 9) St. Peter refuses admission to the late Sen. Orrin Hatch. 10) Sen. Mitt Romney's wife's prized Olympic dressage horses sold to packing plant. 11) Ann Romney refuses to eat at McDonalds.

UNDER THE BANNER OF… VERY WEIRD STUFF

Oh boy, the Hulu mini-series “Under the Banner of Heaven” about the grizzly 1984 Utah murders of a woman and her 15-month-old baby by a pair of Mormon fundamentalists crackpots makes the real Mormon Church look... well, kinda weird. The bigwigs in the LDS Tower of Power are P.O.ed — to say the least. There they were minding their own business, building shopping malls and running the state legislature when that heretic Jon Krakauer dug the whole mess up in 2003 with his investigative book, “Under the Banner of Heaven.” Now comes the TV drama adaptation of the book — with a little artistic license just for kicks. The old boys may be praying that P.T. Barnum was right when he said, “There's no such thing as bad publicity.” The miniseries pulls viewers into some weird aspects of the church, noted for its now-banned practice of polygamy. Strange stuff bubbles up, some of which makes plural marriage look rather tame: the Mountain Meadows Massacre, blood atonement and green Jell-O with marshmallows. Audiences across the country will gobble up this true-crime thriller — a real bummer for Mormon missionaries who knock on neighborhood doors, asking, “What do you know about the Mormon Church and would you like to know more?”

GOODBYE LAKE POWELL — HELLO PARADISE

The Logic: St. George needs more water on account of all its new people and golf courses are thirsty. The Solution: Just build a 140-mile pipeline from Lake Powell and suck it's Colorado River water to the other side of the arid Southern Utah. It could cost $1 billion but what the heck. The Problem: The Great Basin is in a 30-year drought and things aren't looking good. St. George Water Officials: No worries, there's enough water for everyone and water skiers and fishers at Lake Powell shouldn't hog it up. Uncertainty: Climate scientists warn that global climate change makes computer models based on previous weather patterns less than accurate. St. George Water Officials: We've got to keep all of our 19 golf courses green and that's not easy in the 105-degree summers. News Flash: Lake Powell shrinks to 25 percent of its average volume. Result: The once half-billion tourist industry along the Utah-Arizona line is evaporating. Say goodbye to the pipeline. Serendipity: The marvels of Glen Canyon that have been covered by Lake Powell since the creation of Glen Canyon Dam in 1964 are coming into view again. Monkeywrench Gang: Ken Slight — Seldom Seen Smith in Ed Abbey's famed tome and an iconic environmentalist — has lived to see the return of Paradise.

Post script — That's going to do it for another beautiful spring week here in Zion where we keep track of Don Jr. so you don't have to. Fasten your chin straps, folks, because Donny is coming to West Valley City on June 17 with MAGA crackpot Madison Cawthorn as part of the right-wing Utah Liberty Festival. In his road show last week in Ohio stumping for Senate hopeful J.D. Vance, Donny joked to the MAGA crowd that Democrats are proud to be “groomers,” in reference to the GOP's new battlecry labeling libs as “pro-pedophilia.” Hey, all's fair in love and war and Republican politics. Donny's dad was happy to support the “Hillbilly Elegy” author but forgot his name calling him J.D. Mandel — Vance's opponent's last name. Oh well, it's just a small detail. A bigger deal is brewing in Fulton County, Ga. where District Attorney Fani Willis has begun submitting evidence to a special grand jury concerning Trump's (recorded) demand that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes” to defeat Joe Biden, or else. No surprise — a torrent of death threats has been unleashed toward Raffensperger's family and the D.A. Yep, when you think about liberty, Trump is the first thing that comes to mind. So bring on the Utah Liberty Festival. What could possibly go wrong.

Well Wilson, the world is a bad place, a terrible place to live, but we don't want die. So you and the guys in the band must have something up your sleeve that will help gird our loins so we can enjoy Mother Earth and her beautiful spring:

As I walk through This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity. I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside There's one thing I wanna know What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? And as I walk on Through troubled times My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes So where are the strong And who are the trusted? And where is the harmony? Sweet harmony 'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

(Peace, Love and Understanding — Elvis Costello)

0 notes

system76 · 3 years

Text

Thelio Massive at the Lab: An interview with Luca Della Santina

Every now and then we like to check in on our customers to find out about what coolness they’re up to. This week, we sat down with Luca Della Santina, an assistant professor at UCSF in the Department of Ophthalmology, to see what he and his Thelio Massives are discovering at the lab.

What kind of work goes on in the Department of Ophthalmology?

Everything we do is focused on the eye and on vision. I am also part of the Bakar Institute, which is a computational institute specializing in machine learning and deep learning applied to health sciences. The lab that I run is divided between working on computational approaches, mainly image analysis.

What projects are you working on right now?

One major current project is detecting an infection of the eye called trachoma. Trachoma is an infection that affects the inside of the eyelid. It usually occurs in countries below the tropics, and it’s a major cause of blindness for people across the world—except for in wealthy countries like the US where it’s very rare. Eliminating it elsewhere is a major goal of the World Health Organization. Africa, South America, Asia and Oceania still have many cases, so we’re taking photographs of the afflicted eyelid to look at the sites where bacteria has infected the eye. Then we use deep learning to detect it automatically to help public health experts decide which communities will require antibiotic treatment.

We’re also taking images of neurons in the eyes and map the connection between them, called synapses, to study how degenerative diseases of the eye such as glaucoma can alter the wires between neurons. Knowing which neurons are the most susceptible to disease will shine a light on new and more sensitive tests to catch these blinding diseases before they can actually cause major vision loss. This type of research generates really large data sets, in which each image is large many gigabytes and for which the analysis is very computationally intensive, both for the GPU and the CPU.

How long have you been using System76 workstations for your projects?

We started to use System76 systems two years ago, give or take. It was part of setting up my computational lab. One of the goals was to have a completely open a stack, and your workstations were an integral part of this strategy.

What is the computational stack you’re using?

We have the Thelio Massives configured for deep learning and for processing large image data. One of the systems has NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 GPUs for training larger models than we usually do. In the other system, we have it configured with dual CPUs and dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Tis. The reason for that is that some of the computational work is being developed with parallel computing, both on GPUs and CPUs. The more cores and the more CPUs we get this on, the better.

How do you balance workloads between the CPUs and GPUs?

Strictly for the projects I’m on, they’re each about as important. All of the machine learning runs off the GPU right now, but all of the basic image analysis and parallel computing actually works off the CPU. The reason for the latter is there’s no significant advantage to push that work onto a GPU. There are a few algorithms that we cannot parallelize on the GPU because of the way they are designed, and one of these is actually pretty fundamental in the way we segment images, so if we put it on the GPU there is not much increase in speed because we cannot push it onto every core of the GPU. For most of it, we need the raw power of the CPU.

What were the determining factors when you decided to go with System76 and our Thelio Massives?

A few things. We wanted a system that was designed to run Linux from its foundations. There are not a lot of systems like yours, so that was a major factor in our choice. We also wanted a system that we could expand easily in the future, and we found out that the Thelio Massive has has great expandability.

The most important factor for me was being able to double or triple the RAM somewhere down the line, and maybe have another couple of GPUs in the system. Having storage options is useful for us because we may generate a dataset and on a single 4TB hard drive, so the ability to just pop out and pop in hard drives is very easy. It’s actually huge for us. I ended up buying a bunch of 5TB drives and just packed them in. Most of the small stuff we just run off of the NVMe drive, and that’s much better than the rest of the storage we have.

I really enjoy how quiet these machines are! I can testify that we’re sharing the same room with another computer from a different vendor with similar components, and it’s about 10 times louder than the Thelio Massives.

What operating system do you use?

So far we’ve been keeping both Thelio Massives on Pop!_OS. The other workstation we have in the lab is either Ubuntu or Windows.

How has Pop!_OS been for you?

The software pipeline we use runs out of the box pretty well on Pop!_OS, so that’s not been an issue so far. I appreciate that you guys have full disk encryption out of the box.

We’ve also heard you’re thinking about buying a Lemur Pro. What made you consider that machine?

I need something that’s light that I can bring around with me. It’s also got a good number of ports, which lately has been hard to find on a laptop, which frees me up from having to carry dongles on my trips. I can also configure it up to 40GB of RAM, and I need at least 32GB, so that’s perfect for me.

Would you like to share how System76 has improved workflow for you and your organization? Contact [email protected] to set up an interview!

48 notes · View notes

felassan · 3 years

Text

Gamers For Groceries 2 event

A Twitch stream event from a few days ago. It can currently be re-watched here (it was fun & interesting, so I do recommend to check it out direct). This post contains some notes on things of particular interest & relevant timestamps, in case this is useful to anyone (for example bc of accessibility reasons).

First up is the All About Animating panel, a series of mini-interviews with game devs (animators) asking what they do, how they got there, and advice for anyone interested in getting into the industry. Some or all of the devs that were interviewed are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and a lot about the craft of game dev animation in general. This segment runs from timestamp ~38 mins 40 secs to 1:07:50. Some notes:

[sounded like DA4] Right now the creature team are working on different creatures in a way which involves going through a lot of mocap data

At BioWare they have a pretty big technical animation team, to support their animators, so each tech animator has a different specialty. Tech anim involves animation support, character art support, and rigging the characters so that the animators can pose them

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] One of the featured animators’ area of specialty at the moment is faces and hair (building the control structure for face animations). First they had to decide how the face rig and its control structure would work. This involves a lot of performance capture of live actors for things like cinematics and gameplay animation, therefore the rigs for bodies and faces have to be able to accurately capture the full range of expressions and emotions that the actor is portraying. Right now the stage that this dev is working on most is setting up the heads that they’re getting through the pipeline from character art e.g. making adjustments based on feedback from the cinematics team. “Polish - just trying to get realism”

Hair tech has come quite a long way in the last few years [in the industry]

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] Hair is very complex to get right. “In the past most games have used card-based hair, which is basically like sheets of polygons with a texture on it that looks like hair, through layers of transparency. But real hair is strand-based, digital strands, so we’re starting to look into that kind of tech - try to get more realistic, more beautiful hair, but there’s always a performance cost to hair. Layers of transparent things are always an expense, they need to balance like, it looks good and moves well, but it doesn’t make your computer or console chug. [...] I guess we’re in the prototype stage but we’ve almost got a set pipeline. It’s always fun to experiment”

In Mass Effect 2 or 3, Miranda’s hair was as expensive as a whole character (!)

[on balancing hair costs/performance, general] It depends on things like character importance and how many characters are on-screen at the time. When you’re in gameplay fighting a bunch of monsters you’re not going to be giving full beautiful hair to all the characters and the monsters, as it will cost too much. (Having a helmet on is a convenient way to get rid of hair.) But if it’s a cinematic scene, with 2 characters talking to each other in a dramatic context, there’s a better budget for nice hair allocated

Some of the hair in Anthem was quite expensive in cinematics. They kept getting bugs from QA saying (for example) that a character’s hair was tripling the performance cost in the scene, so it would go back to character art so they could take away some of the hair cards. “Tough balance, quality versus cost”

“I wish all the characters could have beautiful strand hair”

For p-cap, a lot of the time they don’t want to be too prescriptive in terms of the direction that they’re giving the actors, as the actors know what they’re doing and have a lot of experience, so they give them vague instructions that they then riff off of

[sounded like DA4] They recently did a mocap shoot

[sounded like DA4] There’s a bit more productivity happening now in the pandemic situation; now that the animators are not all going to the capture lab in Vancouver in person for shoots, if it’s not their turn to direct a shot they can instead be working on something else on their computers (multi-tasking). ((Lead DA4 Producer Scylla Costa recently gave a talk at a games festival on the challenges of DA production during the pandemic. In part of this talk he talked about various benefits and drawbacks to the remote-working situation. He also talked about and showed some behind-the-scenes stuff for p-cap and mocap. Notes, images and link here))

[sounded like DA4] Special mocap suits were sent out that they can use with a laptop to go anywhere and shoot motion capture. It’s not as high fidelity as what comes out of the capture lab, but it’s really good for prototyping stuff. Before the pandemic they did some of this (going to a park and shooting some running around)

[sounded like DA4] In one of the shoots they had some actors who were really well-trained in dancing. They were trying to get them to do some combat stuff. This was a bit challenging in the pandemic situation as there’s only so much they can demonstrate/portray as an example to the actors from a distance on camera. “It’s hard to describe what a ‘dodge to attack’ is through the camera to somebody who has no idea what combat looks like in video games”

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] The pandemic has really affected performance capture for the face side of things badly, as in order to record, the actor gets dots painted on their face in specific locations by a makeup artist. They can’t do that right now because of social distancing/restrictions, so they haven’t been recording faces at the moment

The more detailed a face, the more joints it has, the more the cost to performance is

---

There was also the Writers’ Block panel, featuring DA writers Mary Kirby, Sheryl Chee and Patrick Weekes, and DA editor Karin Weekes. The timestamps for this segment are ~2:37:50 - 3:26:20. Some notes:

PW has never been weirder than when they were writing Cole on DAI

PW thinks that they accidentally wrote part of “Timber” by Kesha into Solas at one point and they were like “Well, okay, I have to stop listening to Kesha”

For Sheryl, after a while Blackwall’s VA always nailed doing his lines. She loved the quality of his voice and so after a while would always hear his voice while she was writing. This really worked out

^ Mary had this with Merrill. As soon as they cast Eve Myles she listened to several hours of her in Torchwood, and then just wrote to the way that she spoke as much as possible

^ PW had this with GDL as Solas and FPJ as Bull. As soon as they heard FPJ’s delivery, they were like “Oh, okay, I have to write some lines differently, because Bull is smarter than I realized”. With GDL they were like “Okay, he’s going to put poetry into anything I say, in the best way possible”. In early drafts of Solas lines there were parts where they [PW] wondered “Is this too melodramatic? Is this too tragically-angstful?” and then they would hear GDL and be like “Oh! [It’s fine] Game on!”

For localization, German words are often quite long so they often have to make sure that everything fits on the GUI

They think scenes like the romance scenes sound prettier in the Italian versions

Behind the curtain in creating the in-world languages: PW: “There are some awesome websites that have every elven word, like ‘Here are the translations and verb tenses and conjugations’ [etc], [...] and usually Mary and I get very sad slightly looking at those pages going like ‘Does that mean that we have to stick to that?’ [...] The rule is, if I’ve looked at the Wiki and the words, and I go ‘Here’s the correct grammatical way to do it’, and if that turns out to be too long or too many disconnected syllables and it just looks bad or sounds bad, then we shorten it to something simpler, because the key is we want to give the flavor of a foreign language, but we don’t have the world-building budget and capacity to make something that is going to be dictionary-real [in a way that] someone could go through and translate all the background things written on the old temple walls”. Part of the reason for this is the consideration for VAs, who already have to act while bearing lots of things in mind, like the cues in the script for each line

Mary: “For building a language, the first things that I started with for qunlat, elven and dwarven, was what words do we need to use the most? Greetings, farewells, words for friend and enemy, basic things that will come up easily in conversation. After that it’s ‘How difficult is this for other writers to use?’ Can they just pick it off the Wiki? Do they need just one word? Do they need to write whole sentences, and how does that work? Qunlat has almost no grammar to it because asking anyone to learn how to use Qunari grammar and conjugate verbs in a pretend language is impossible, and then once you’ve done that a human being has to be able to read it, while not knowing what any of it means”

PW: “One thing that I was really impressed with with Mary in particular doing, Mary was one of the big lore people across the entire DA series; I can look at a word and go like, ‘That has two A’s in a row, that’s definitely a Qunari word. That word is kind of long and maybe has some apostrophes and has a couple of flowy vowel sounds, that’s probably elven’, I think that’s what’s important. You want players to be able to look at a word, players want to feel smart, [like] ‘Oh I don’t know what that means but I totally know that’s a word from the Qunari people!’”. Mary: “Every language has its own set of phonemes, the sounds that they make, and the sort of word structure and spelling so that it gives a flavor to that language. Hopefully that is always chosen to be pronounceable, because again, very important that the words can be said by human beings :D”

Sheryl: “One of the fun things to do is to make up swear words in the fake languages [...] Recently Brianne wanted a word, I don’t know if she managed to find one”

The origin of bosh’tet in ME: it’s just saying “bastard” and slurring it

PW: “I feel like there are times when past writers kind of leave traps for future writers, where past writers will go ‘Okay, I’m going to write this detailed phrase in a codex entry but don’t worry, it doesn’t matter if it can never be said aloud, because it’ll never have to be voiced!’ and then, next game, guess what guys! Look what you have to make someone [a VA] say! And you’re like [facepalm], c’mon!”

Karin: “Now, four games in, we have pages and pages of all these examples, and I wanna say this, well that’s how we said something before, well that’s ridiculous, I don’t wanna say that, but now we’ve said it and it’s out there, so it’s like, how do we, y’know, how do we evolve, and sometimes we just go ‘Screw it! Languages are living languages! We’ll just say it like this now!’”

PW's favorite is the sarcastic Mythal’enaste, “Because it’s the sarcastic Mythal's blessing that basically means you’re getting screwed over somehow. I love it because Mythal nasty! Whoever wrote that clearly never thought that someone would have to say this out loud”

Sheryl wrote Bull’s joke icicles line. She also wrote Isabela’s big boats line - Jennifer took it out but then DG was like “No it has to come back”

They have a pun test, they get a few of them and have to allot them wisely so as not to oversaturate on the puns. “Is this good/bad enough to be one of the times that we pull the trigger? We did have one of those recently, I obviously can’t talk about it, but it was pronounced Okay to go ahead”

The ‘baby-est’ writer is Brianne, who’s been there 8 years

It makes PW sad that the players never get to see the writers’ temp-text [placeholder text when portions are a WIP]. “People have the best temp-text". Mary: “The number of conversations that I’ve temped in like ‘WELL. I hope nothing BAD happens HERE’”

Q. If you could bring in anybody from outside of gamedev, who would you like to work with and do a writer’s session with? PW: “I will say romance novelist Nora Roberts, she is really smart and also she knows how to write inside a genre, and do wonders within it. Her structure is so good. If you pick up one of her books, you know here’s when this is gonna happen, here’s when they’re gonna meet, here’s when this first moment will happen. We’re all experienced and I feel pretty good about that but I really like all of the things she does that way, and also I am a sucker for romance so I would love to bring a romance novelist in and just have them look at our scenes and go ‘Okay here, no, they should pull the tie so that the article of clothing comes open, we need a sense of how warm the skin is here’ - something like that. I’d wanna see what they could do with that”

“Luke writes the best worst lines”

“I’m always impressed with Mary getting away with lines. There are lines that I look at like, wow, you buried that one. [...] The only players who get that line, I feel like they earned it if they went that far into it. [...] And then Varric or Merrill says a ridiculous line in a one-time throwaway”

Karin: “The group dynamic, you’ll see conversations or snippets of a lunch chat or a thing we’ve been joking about and you’ll see it get pulled in, and how all of you [the writers] are able to take a normal kind of thing - as normal as we get as a group anyway - and then turn it into a moment, and use it to further the plot or use it to further a character. It’s just the cleverest thing and it happens in so many different ways. [...] The little snippet of life, then how you crafted it into this very cool thing”

Quartermaster Threnn was written by PW in half a day. “When I was writing Threnn, ‘Okay, this is a good-hearted [person], I was doing a little bit of Steel Magnolias, southern, no-nonsense, but like, blue collar Steel Magnolias’. This is someone accustomed to the ways of the world so she’s going to call a spade a spade. If you come up to her and you’re an elf she doesn’t recognize you and says ‘Buckets are over there’ because she thinks you’re there to clean, [but] ‘Anyone calls you a knife-ear you come to me I’ll take care of it’. It’s problematic but she’s trying - the good-hearted person rooted for the wrong group on every occasion. She was a proud Loghain supporter, she gets really exited if he comes to Skyhold. That was a fun character for me to write because I had a viewpoint in my mind. I remember someone was like ‘Threnn is really important to me’. And you have to honor that, cause you’re like ‘Cool, it means so much to me that this connected with some part of you’”

---

Also of interest was the Mass Affection panel, in which BioWare devs looked back in over a decade of history to remaster a classic. It featured devs who worked on MELE. The timestamps for this segment are ~3:36:09 - 4:24:37. Some notes:

When the pandemic hit the MELE team were in a relatively awkward spot. They were really entering into what they consider full production and were on-boarding a bunch of teams, as well as training and on-boarding third-party external partner specialized teams worldwide. When the pandemic hit, BioWare and EA were super on top of it. They were tracking it weeks beforehand, getting everyone their computers ready, and getting everything encrypted. When the middle of March 2020 hit they were home rightaway. EA were nothing but supportive throughout the entire thing. They got money every quarter for stuff. It functionally ‘hit’ at 4-6 different times for them as the pandemic occurred in different places throughout the world at different times depending on each country’s response plan (and their external partners were in different countries). “So it was one of those things where it was just like, every day we’d come in like can we still work with this company anymore? Do we need to find someone else? Do we need to pull people in off the other projects at BioWare to fill gaps here and there?”

There was a bug on Virmire at the part when you’re coming into the STG camp. If the Mako had its new boosters on and you came hurtling in really fast, it cut to the cutscene, but the Mako hit a jump and when Ash was like “What do we do now?” the Mako ended up literally flying around in the background sideways and then crashing into the camp

Another bug: when they were re-tuning the guns, the physics force on some of the guns with Hammerhead rounds was so high that when you were fighting some of the Thorian Creepers, you could ragdoll them so hard that you could basically embed them in the roof. They’d be moving so fast that they’d penetrate all the walls with their legs dangling out. It was so easy to do and you could do it to everybody. You could launch a geth halfway across an Uncharted World

Another bug: with Shepard’s casual appearance in ME3, if you didn’t have it set up perfectly correctly it would default to Grunt for some reason. You’d be walking around as Grunt, going on dates as Grunt, and your face would be all scrunched up because it was all mapped to human bones still, so it was just, like, Nightmare Fuel of Grunt

Another bug: in ME2 on Illium when trying to recruit Samara, the Asari enemies just would not stop screaming - regardless of whether they were hit or not, it was endless screaming. Later one of the devs got an audio file of the scream, endless and looped, and now one of the devs has it on their phone and uses it for their morning alarm tone

“Shepard would come up to characters and they’d just be screaming”

---

There was also the Programming Variables panel, talking about what hurdles game programmers face. Some [or all?] of the devs that were part of this panel are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and about the craft of game dev programming in general. The timestamps for this segment are ~ 4:24:46 - 5:06:02.

[source]

[insights/notes from Gamers For Groceries 1]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #in case this is of interest to anyone #mass effect #anthem #covid mention #cole #spirit boy #solas #lul

26 notes · View notes

hopeshoodie · 3 years

Text

I feel so bad letting this sit for so long, but better late than never I suppose! Thank you to literally everyone who tagged me in this. Literally every time I see these posts it makes me grin like an absolute dope at my phone. This is one of the best fandoms I’ve ever been in. I know I joke that I’m just sitting in my corner making garbage, so thank yall for making the room my corner is in so lovely.

So here’s a shoutout to the people who made my 2020 better. If I’m following you (from my main @hyperspacial because despite being on tumblr for nearly a decade I still hardly know how to run a sideblog) I 100% like you. I’m sorry if I forget to tag people :( Also this is about to be a long ass post- don’t feel obligated to reply or like or whatever just because you’re tagged :P

@garyandhisnan. I just…. I adore you. Highkey would walk to the ends of the earth if you asked. Your writing, your posts, everything is top notch (and you’re an awesome person to boot which like… shouldn’t be allowed). Thank you for letting me rant about American late-stage capitalism and all the other nonsense I flood your inbox with. If yall aren’t following them, go do it now.

@deuchess

@ariendiel Why you would want to collaborate with me, ME, of all people? Still astounds me. I pinkie promise we’re gonna do it though, and it’s gonna be so good. I’m so excited. But seriously, your fics are some of the only ones that I can keep coming back to. Your writing is *chefs kiss* and your edits/moodboards are literally so pretty. I love your blog and I cherish you, you slut cheat.

@kiki-the-creator same brain saME BRAIN SAME BRAIN how do we have the exact same brain!? Your fics literally are the best thing this fandom has produced- I come up with these half baked concepts, you make them actually good, then I play dollhouse with them over and over again in my head forever :3 That Erikah fic? Literally every Marisol fic you write?? I love them. Also you’re highkey so funny and ugh. Te adoro.

@bubblelaureno you’re literally too good for me. For real. I’m sorry I’m so shitty about keeping up to date with fics and edits, you deserve way more than my shitty memory and my 2 second long attention span. Your blog is literally a beacon of positivity and it’s absurd how much I admire your drive and your analytical way of thinking. This fandom is so lucky to have you.

@codename-mango controversial yet brave opinion- your blog is the best LITG blog on tumblr. Your headcanons, your jokes, your route overviews? All immaculate. Even your reblogs are the best of what everyone else is posting. You’re the only reason I have notes, and I appreciate you sm.

@oneflewoverthecuckoos my comment to mango is controversial only because if not her, then your LITG sideblog for sure. For a ‘Lucas’ blog, the diversity of content and LIs you talk about is refreshing. I fucking love seeing people talk about non-LI characters.

@inthenewblood thank you for letting me bitch about the reddit oml it’s needed. Also having someone to be salty with? A new but not unwelcome experience lmfao

@noahssidechick you are literally so sweet oml I treasure our chats and the pictures of your dogs. You bring such a chill and earnest vibe to the fandom and ugh, I’m so glad to have you.

@fuseboxmusebox I feel like you’re so consistent in the fandom, like you were here when I first joined and you’ll be here after I inevitably lose interest and leave. Your reblogs are top notch, the takes are even topper notch, and it wouldn’t be a ‘litg blogs that made me happy’ list without you.

@crvsh-culture I will never not sing your praises. I love your blog, I love you perspective, I love your vibe. I consider you a friend even though we’ve talked like… once.

@radiantdae your artbreeder edits were the first thing in the fandom that left me genuinely astounded. Like holy shit they were so good. Kassam??? That was a REAL MAN. Obviously the stuff you post now is really good too and your blog is excellent. But tbh when I think of the LITG fandom, the first think I think of is your artbreeder pictures. Also your ‘filipino words that make me think of the islanders’. I still think of that often.

@therealityofthematteris seeing you in my notes makes me smile every time. That’s basically all, just needed to say it lmao. Also if anyone has almost convinced me to start playing TWC, it’s you and Seliné.

@bellarxse my dash would be dry af without you. Same with TWC- I’m so tempted to play because of your posts (I have it downloaded on my phone but like…. I haven’t finished a single route in Arcana and starting a new thing is overwhelming). But also your prompts are one of the few things that makes me want to write lmfao.

@lahelakoh I feel like I’ve said it before but your posts SEND me oml. The tiktok references, the chaotic energy. Both the taste and the flavour is immaculate.

@kiwi-tai we haven’t talked that much but oml I love your content so much 15/10

@confused-inalltheways-human you’re literally so cool and I think about that Harry fic all the time. Am I ever gonna get around to writing it? Probably not. But it was such a good idea. Also thank you for lighting up my notification.

@oceanatydes you come here, you post literally spectacular content, and then you peace out like bruh I wish I had your mind. I adore your edits, but my favorites are your posts/headcanons.

@voile-de-lune your aesthetic is everything I aspire to be and your headcanons/edits are such a refreshing take on characters that we’ve all gotten so stale with. I still live for that Rahim moodboard you made. Also your headcanons are so fantastic.

@lasswithumor this fandom desperately needs more Carl stans, thank you for doing the lords work. Also I highkey stalk your blog on a regular basis jsjsjsjsjsjs every chat we’ve had has been lovely and ugh, you’re just lovely

@bobbysapron your vibes are literally so immaculate. I know it’s been awhile since we chatted but I highkey adore your content and ugh. You’re such a cool person.

@beebips I feel like you’ve vanished off my dash, but you made up for it with that 3rd chapter of The Other Side of Seventh Ave made up for it.

@nerdferatum I don’t think I’ve ever breathed a word in your direction but oml you’re so sweet and supportive and every time your posts cross my dash I *pleading emoji*

@mrsgaryrennell I’m still agog that we’re mutuals because like… You are so talented. It took me waaaayyy too long to get into Blue and Hazel but now that I have… It’s highkey better than the actual season skskskskss

@kingkassam Like the above, you are waaaayyy too cool to be following me sksksksk. I’ve still got a few edits you had ideas for in the pipeline, and highkey the Kassam icons you requested are my favorite edits I’ve ever made. I live for someone else playing Matchmaker.

@hermitclaw hello?????? You’re so funny what the FUCK are you doing following me. Ik you don’t post that much anymore, but every LITG you grace us with is a knockout. It feels unreal when you reblog my stuff. Basically the same to @mchamster. Like you’re both so funny and have been in the fandom for so long that it fully feels like royalty whenever yall interact with me.

@ravenadottir I am fully unworthy to even mention your name but oml. Your guides are the only thing that help me retain information about the season, and your recent outfit edits? Oh my god they’re so good. Hope’s especially, with the brightly colored swimsuit, left me absolutely speechless. You’re just above everything in the fandom and I admire that so much. Plus you really don’t have to flex that hard in your fics, and yet-

@smaiihands saving the best for last because you are one of the single most talented people in this fandom. Your art is the strongest life support for the fandom and like I know we haven’t talked in awhile but you’re also such a dope person. So.

And a big shoutout to all the people I follow who I don’t talk to but have nothing but good vibes. I appreciate yall way more than I can articulate: @richhdesire @needsomesorrel @ficticiouspastry @cranesandshipyards @litg-ish @princesslove19060 @fictitiouspastery @icedcoffee-please @demons-dogs-and-puns @sparklydinosaurr @mountainmanxoxo @diamondsdiary @bucket-bill@another-lottie-simp @bobbys-darling @cyn-onlyyou @mikcove @officialpapa-johns @Amaxn @dxncingthroughlife @myfictionalobsessions @screw-u-vaanu @kittidot @chichiguitarist123 @myfictionalobsessions @Azibear @amelia-w @lilithlibrxa @litghoe @priyas-tiddies @daisybarks @ajs-wife

At this point this post is just a directory of the LITG fandom lmfao but genuinely. Thank every single one of you. 2020 was hard as shit, but I’ve been hyperfixated on LITG for like a year and I treasure your content sm.

#im so so so fucking sorry if i forget someone :(#i 100% did not mean to i hope no ones feelings are hurt #if you've ever interacted with my posts youve definitely made me smile

32 notes · View notes

sepublic · 4 years

Text

Dana Terrace AMA (Part 3)

Pink Stripe, AKA Amity’s look-alike from our world is confirmed to more or less be like a… Proto-Amity of sorts, so she’s more of an easter egg than anything else! That, or she’s a repurposed Easter Egg and WILL have lore… But more than likely there isn’t meant to be any counterparts in the human world on neither an in-universe nor writing perspective!

The Twins are salty over Grom, but will also have stuff to ‘distract’ them… This kind of screams ‘Blight family development’ a lot, doesn’t it? Probably Amity standing up to her parents and the twins likely taking her side, or at least acting from a place of protecting Amity… I can only hope these ‘distractions’ are good things, but who am I kidding?

Bird-themes are a Clawthorne thing, which really makes me wonder more about Owl Mask, especially since the Blights have never been associated with Owls before… Is this a long-lost cousin, parent, sibling? Child, even…?! Why didn’t Lilith nor Eda speak of them? I have to wonder if Eda’s ring is going to come into play here, if it was used to make some sort of ‘construct’ that is Owl Mask, who has a connection to Eda and is able to track her down as a result… And if Luz will pull off something similar with her shard of Belos’ mask once the truth is revealed!

Dana alludes to her favorite character having already been met, but not HIS face… While this could be Belos, I feel like these last two episodes count as a ‘proper meeting’ by now, which indicates she’s talking of Owl Mask… Which indicates that Owl Mask is a dude, but I can’t say for sure! Dana also said she has a bunch of other faves we’ve seen in some capacity, but not really, and I have to wonder if this includes the Blight Parents, the Heads of the Covens, etc.!

Eda’s been to Vegas, and she wasn’t impressed! Stan also got married in Vegas… Also, Eda would beat Lilith at Hexes Hold ‘Em, though she’d of course cheat! Though she also cheated in Grudgby but still turned out to be the better player in the end, so…!

We have confirmation that Coven Bindings also restrict very basic spells like levitation, even if they are still possible! This implies that there are base spells that don’t really fit into any category but are restricted nonetheless, or that you CAN do very minor spells from other categories, but as Dana said, it’s a lot harder and weaker! That implies such spells aren’t supposed to be accessible, which really furthers how Belos makes people dependent upon the system he’s created!

Dana also said that Witches can’t physically perform spells, which implies that the Coven Binding works on a body-level, and not as a mental block… Meaning it may be possibly for Glyphs to get around them! If so, then Luz is going to accidentally start a revolution and Belos will NOT be pleased, I have to wonder if he worked from the shadows to make a shift to Bile magic or at least focused on suppressing memory of Glyphs as a potential work-around to his Coven bindings! Everything DID change with Luz, huh…?

Also, ‘Wizard’ is apparently just a generic title (as implied by Episode 2), and there was a scrapped line alluding to Warlock=Edgelord!

Palismans are confirmed to have their own separate power source, so Eda can still cast magic without glyphs the way Luz did in the Season Finale! Witches will carve them from a special type of wood as teens (so before they join a Coven), usually at school or while their parents are watching… However, Dana alludes to that special wood no longer being around! Is Belos burning down the source of palismans because they’re a potential workaround to his Coven Bindings? Is he seizing the resource to make Palismans for himself? Did somebody else do it to keep Belos from making Palismans, what about the giant tree we see the Bat Queen fly off to, is this one of the final remnants of that ‘special wood’ that Palismans are made of?

We also know that Lilith’s palisman IS alive, which just furthers my idea that Eda is unusual in that she treats Owlbert as more than just a living battery, or an AI to give orders to but completely forget about otherwise! I love you Eda, you love everyone and everything for what they truly are and no wonder the Bat Queen trusted you…!

Dana alludes towards Parental Conflict in Season 2, so likely stuff about the Blight Parents, but also maybe Camila? She also mentions Island Exploration, so we’ll likely be seeing the hand… MAN, this keeps reminding me of Bionicle (specifically that one concept that was never explored) and I am LIVING for it! I have to wonder if the Titan’s hand is related to a potential staff/palisman, how it cast magic, etc… If there’s something in that hand, if it’s clenched around something…

If Eda were to be cured, her hair would still be gray! Also we’ll get a better idea of Belos’ inspirations later in Season 2, but that’s kind of stuff one would already figure out. Dana speaks of a distinction between ‘Hard Apple Blood’ and the stuff they put in juice boxes ‘for babies’, which makes me wonder if it’s like. The distinction between Beer and Root Beer? If Apple Blood is alcoholic, but there’s a non-alcoholic version for kids and it has nutritional value? Does Eda drink alcohol every morning?

Teen Witches enter Covens as soon as they graduate, maybe even earlier if they’re talented! So about seventeen or eighteen… YIKES, I said it before but it IS messed-up that people are expected to immediately figure themselves out permanently at such a young age! Sure the process at least begins to set you down that certain ‘track’ in a literal and metaphorical sense when high school begins, but that’s so much pressure! Belos sure is eager to shorten the pipeline between schools and his Covens… And while options within a Coven are possible, that’s still SO MUCH that’s permanently removed from your possibilities!

Willow works out every morning but doesn’t brag about it, unlike Boscha! Why am I gasping, I already knew that… Buff Willow, just love the idea that before we saw her in Episode 3, she had recently finished pumping her muscles! And that when she talks to Luz in the morning in Really Small Problems, she’d just finished a work-out or was even in the midst of it! I wonder why Willow works out, to help with gardening, or just because? Still, STRONK Willow! Recontextualizes her skill in Grudgby, even if her stamina when it comes to running could use some improvement!

The Construction Coven is the most ‘obscure’ of the tracks, makes sense it’s the sleeve-color we see least, and naturally sculptors and architects are a part of it! Eda’s bile-sac stopped producing magic bile, which basically means her curse caused organ failure, yikes… But yeah, this makes it clear that Witches don’t exactly have ‘finite’ reserves of magic, or at the very least they recharge… But clearly the curse is messing with Eda!

Luz is confirmed to just be oblivious, that she doesn’t realize that Amity has a crush on her! She’s also been distracted by Eda’s curse, which really speaks to her being ADHD… But I have to wonder that if Eda’s curse becomes less of an issue, she may have more room to explore Amity’s flustered reactions around her…?

And… that’s about it! Besides basic confirmation on getting to learn more about literally everyone in Season 2, or stuff we already knew (like Willow and Amity still not exactly being friends, but at least having a good start)! This was a FASCINATING lore-dump, a brilliant AMA, and my first one ever and it did NOT disappoint! I found myself constantly refreshing to see Dana’s replies!

There’s also a bunch of other stuff Dana talked about that isn’t related to lore, like her inspirations, how to pitch a show, etc.! So make sure to check that out, I can’t say much there because I’m not exactly an expert on that sort of thing!

#the owl house #owl house #dana terrace #reddit ama #the owl house amity #amity blight #the owl house eda #edalyn clawthorne #the owl house willow #willow park #covens #speculation #analysis

94 notes · View notes

lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

Link

Prior to the pandemic, Frank Patterson would spend most days at the sprawling production facility, formerly known as Pinewood Atlanta Studios, that he runs outside of Atlanta. Then COVID-19 hit, and not even he was able to make his health and safety team's cut of essential on-site personnel.

"They were like, 'Frank, why are you here? You're setting a bad example,' " says the president and CEO of what is now Trilith Studios, the in-demand filming location known for hosting a suite of Marvel projects, including WandaVision and Avengers: Endgame.

Since Patterson took the reins in 2016, he's transformed the place from a set of soundstages to a full-fledged film community. After divesting from the Pinewood Group, Patterson led investments in new technologies and content companies, as well as expanded Trilith's footprint. The result is a 935-acre master development that includes the studio as well as a European-inspired town including homes, restaurants and schools that serve as a live-work community for the many creatives on the lot.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Patterson, 59, opened up about the most challenging aspect of COVID-era production, the studio's biggest concerns and whether he'll mandate vaccines.

You've had multiple projects in production during COVID-19. How has it been going?

We've been very fortunate. We had the first studio feature in the industry back to work in June. I can't say what it is, but they'll be finished soon. It was an intense amount of research and work to put together protocols, recognizing that the disaster version looks like an outbreak. None of that's happened. We've had enormously low numbers of positive tests. And we have a full lot: 3,200 people drove on today.

How much more expensive is it to make a film or show right now?

It's costing about 20 percent more money and 20 percent more time. Things are slower and clunkier and it's taking more space. But the good news is cast and crew are taking safety very seriously. I'm sure you heard the story of Tom Cruise getting upset at the crew for not following protocols [on Mission: Impossible 7]. I don't think that's common. What we have found is with the exception of the day player — they tend to test positive more than the average crewmember — people are taking care of themselves.

A year in, how do you feel you did with the COVID-19 protocols?

They're pretty routine now. We're not just making stuff up like we were in the very beginning.

Which of those do you expect to remain post-pandemic?

The washing hands and standing apart, that's how we keep from spreading these diseases and how we need to work. There's a heightened awareness for cleanliness. People used to drag themselves to work miserably sick because if you missed work, you were letting your team down. Well, that's changed. If you show up and you're sick, they're like, "Get out of here." That'll go forward.

Fellow Georgian Tyler Perry said when he was shooting his shows last summer, there was an elderly actress who didn’t feel comfortable coming on set given the risk, so they had to write her out of the scripts. Have you heard of anything like that happening on any of your productions?

Not leaving a show, but changing of schedules to accommodate people's tolerance for coming back to work. There's an, "OK, let's not shoot this right now because this actor is not quite ready to come back to work." They're pivoting and shooting other stuff first and coming back. That's happening across all the productions.

What are the biggest concerns that you hear from the studios now?

Everyone's overwhelmed with the need to get stuff made, but we aren't returning to the speed that we had and we're spending more dollars per frame captured in just the pure production. And it's not like people don't care because you always care when you're spending more money than you planned, but it’s a way a distant second to: Are we getting this stuff shot?

Are all the studios behind?

Nobody is meeting their goals. Just look at the Disney+ line-up, all the stuff that they want to put in place. Look at what Paramount is doing now with Paramount Plus. If you just look at these pipelines, this is the anxiety that everyone feels right now. And then, by the way, WandaVision's a hit, so you got to feed that beast, right? That’s the tension that you feel every day.

How much of that is not having enough physical space to film? Several production facilities, including yours, are fully booked.

It's not just about space. Yes, of course, we could use some more facilities, and we're putting in five more stages that will be ready by June. But that's only one small part. Even before COVID hit, there weren't enough people — I'm talking about crew, not to mention the storytellers — to meet the demand that Wall Street was pouring into the pipeline. There's a talent drain. With COVID, it's [only gotten worse].

Georgia opened sooner than other states. Did you field a lot of calls?

It was overwhelming. Guys were like, "Hey, we heard you guys figured it out." First of all, we didn't figure it out. We have a version and it's working. But there was a lot of attention on us. And we had the good fortune of not having to worry about what role our government leaders would play because they basically said, "We're going to let the industry figure it out." That's the good news. The bad news: It was on us to figure it out and take responsibility.

Are you getting involved in the vaccine rollout as you did testing?

No, we decided we would just keep our focus on the testing protocols. We have to make certain that we just take it all the way to the end — and we'll let [union, guild and association] leadership decide when that is and when those protocols can change. And then again, as an industry, we're going to have to decide what we want to carry forward and what we don't. That's the next phase, and the rate at which we're vaccinating may advance those conversations faster than I thought. I used to think [the protocols] were going to go into 2022. I don't know if that's the case anymore.

Have you had conversations about mandating the vaccine on sets?

We haven't. We know that when it comes to mandatory protocols, we'll have to work in collaboration with industry leadership. No one goes on our lot without a mask, for example. And that was a political thing. Fortunately, Governor Kemp said, "How can I help?" And we were like, "What would be helpful is if you wear a mask in public," and he said, "OK." So when a crewmember said, "It's my right [not to wear one]" or whatever, of course we can say, "This is private property, sorry," but what our security team said instead was, "Hey, listen, the governor's wearing a mask, and you should wear a mask to protect our industry." It was us taking a stand, but the stand was really only taken because the unions and guilds and associations agreed. We'll have to do the same thing with the vaccination.

You're building out a neighboring town for people to live. Is this the future of production facilities?

I don't think so. In some ways, what we're doing is what Mr. Disney did. The mill town is not a new concept. But if we didn't have a state with a reputation for being so business friendly, for having the tax incentives, for having the most traveled airport in the world, if those things didn't exist right there, believe me, we couldn't do this. I grew up in Hill Country outside of San Antonio, Texas. You cannot do this in San Antonio, Texas.

How many people are buying houses and apartments on the Trilith property?

We have 400 of the apartments built, 260 of them occupied. We’re at almost 300 homes now sold and 500 people in the town. We're working on our next set of 150 homes right now and starting our third micro village. The second micro village filled up like that (snaps fingers). We have 36 people on the waiting list. What’s happening — and this is a global trend — is that COVID has heightened our awareness of the benefits of this approach to working. The distributed workforce and the way for us to collaborate with these electronic tools is causing a lot of people to realize that they don't have to live in the town they thought they have to live in. So I think people thought it was going to be more like a second home, but they're actually staying here.

Every few years it seems there’s some controversial legislation in Georgia that pops up and Hollywood threatens a boycott, whether it’s an anti-LGBT or anti-abortion bill. Do you just assume it's going to pass?

These kinds of ebbs and flows of social discourse and its impact on the industry will never go away. Georgia is not immune to it. The film industry has been this wonderful beacon of possibility, and I do worry, given what's going on in our culture right now, that we as an industry could get caught sideways in this in some way that really dampens our ability to continue to have diverse views on the world.

Georgia's film incentives program has been criticized by some as an irresponsible use of taxpayer money. Do you see it being phased out or pared in the future?

This state is very proud of the fact that seven years in a row now it’s the number one state in the United States to do business. They saw the film industry as a way to really diversify its economy, to bring the creative class into the state. So they wrote this policy that was supported left and right, and that still is the case. I'm not a politician, but I'm on all of these committees, and what I noticed is they were so careful and specific about making it make business sense. It would be very difficult for anyone to turn it around now because it's just good, smart money — and you have both Democrats and Republicans looking at it. But in every session in every state always in the U.S., you will have people come up and write up some kind of legislation, "Let's get rid of tax incentives." It's just not going to happen. I would be really surprised.

But there were some changes to it recently, yes?

There were parts that we needed to improve on around auditing and how we manage the information and our relationship with all the productions. We needed to clean up some of the back of house stuff, so Representative Matt Dollar passed some amendments last session that are now going into effect that really helped clean up the whole process.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

11 notes · View notes

gra-sonas · 3 years

Photo

Interesting interview with CW President Mark Pedowitz. Roswel, New Mexico is not mentioned, but he talks about programming decisions, straight to series orders, the next fall schedule etc. Another thing he mentions is, that he's happy that The CW will air a few more "family oriented" shows (like the Kung Fu and Walker reboots, and Superman & Lois). If you squint, RNM's very much a "(found) family oriented" show - with aliens. ;)

Pedowitz also mentions, that they have several slots to fill for the upcoming fall, and the 2022 spring schedule, but they haven't made all the decisions yet. While we might not hear about a S4 renewal very soon, this gives me a fairly good feeling tbh. RNM's an established show, it's comparatively "cheap" to make, they have great tax incentives in New Mexico, and the show is doing overall well enough in ratings and international sales.

—————————————————————————————

Mark Pedowitz, broadcast's longest-tenured chief, has no regrets about delaying the start of The CW's fall season.

His network (like Fox), made the decision last summer to wait until the new year to bring back scripted originals like Riverdale and All American. The late start afforded productions more time to get used to filming during a pandemic, where episodes take longer (and cost more) to complete. It also.

While the January fall launch gives the network a backlog of originals to air without interruption (provided the pandemic doesn't have other plans), it also delayed decisions like the network's traditional mid-January slate of early renewals.

Now, as The CW prepares to formally launch its fall season on Sunday with the returns of Batwoman and All American, Pedowitz talks with The Hollywood Reporter about how the network is plotting a return to business as usual, including more straight to series orders, developing shows with heart and, yes, the future of all things DC.

Let's pretend we're at TCA: When will you bring Supernatural back?

If they boys want to come back, we're ready to have them. (Laughing.)

The CW traditionally hands out early renewals during this time of year. Where are you in those conversations, especially since your season doesn't formally start until Sunday with Batwoman.

I'm just getting into those discussions. I came from a studio background and understand the importance of early pickups — it allows for better preparation. We're a few weeks away but I need to finish up some internal discussions.

ABC, NBC and CBS all returned originals late last year. In hindsight, any regrets holding the season start to January

No. Once we said it, we felt it was the right thing to do. It would have been too patchworky. At this point, it gets longer and longer and you're waiting to get back into some form of what's your finished product going to look like? I have no regrets. I just wish it didn't take this long to happen.

How much has The CW's late start to the season — originals return next starting Sunday night — impacted the way you conduct business, both in terms of renewals and the negotiations for pilot orders, etc.?

We did this strategically and made choice in the summer because we were concerned with misleading affiliates, the consumer and the ad sales community that we were going to have a fall schedule in the fall and felt that wasn't the right thing. We found some successes with some of the acquisitions, like Stargirl, Coroner and World's Funniest Animals. Some of those are good linear, a lot of them were great on digital. Our digital presence was kept alive because of that. That said, our fall had Supernatural. And once that came back, we were doing [ratings] numbers we were doing pre-pandemic.

We are interested in seeing how people react. It's not just a covid issue right now; it's also the uncertainty in the country with news being as much of a viewing choice as anything else. We're going to have to see how it all plays. We're getting a little colder of a start than we would have if we rolled out of summer. On a digital basis, we're fine. On a linear basis, it's gotten harder. On the development basis, nothing has really changed. I think straight to series [orders] will be done again this year — just for financial purposes so people can get going as quickly as possible — by the end of January. That could change because the surge could change. But there is a bit more flexibility to it. We're still on the same schedule: we have to talk to advertisers in some form in May about what things look like for the following fall. We're hoping that the following fall is closer to a normalized fall — like 2019 was. Do I think it will be completely that way? No. Do I think it will be much more that than not that? Yes.

So, you'll be focused largely on straight to series orders instead of pilot pickups this season?

We haven't seen a lot of development yet. Lost Boys and Maverick [ordered to pilot last year], because of what occurred, are back in contention as development, not because they got picked up to pilot last year. They're in the mix with many other things, including dramas from Ava DuVernay, Black Lightning spinoff Painkiller, Wonder Girl, PowerPuff Girls, The 4400. The scripts are coming in slowly. Right now, I've seen just a handful of scripts and I'm waiting for others to come in so I can make some decisions. They're in contention for how we pick up pilots or direct to series.

Last year, you went straight to series on Superman & Lois and Walker largely out of concerns that there could be a WGA strike. Why is this an attractive model for some development this year?

A lot of is dependent upon what we're dealing with in terms of production needs with ongoing series in a sense. The other is what's the economic impact. Bypassing pilots is short-term less money than going straight to series. We look at the economic impact and if we believe enough in these shows and that will determine the decision.

With two veteran shows — Supergirl and Black Lightning — ending, how much more room on the schedule do you anticipate you'll have? You're making straight to series decisions based on a slate that will have just gotten under way.

We'll have space for three or four shows for next season, 2021-22. We're sorry to see Supergirl and Black Lightning go, but we're happy to have Naomi, Wonder Girl and Painkiller in the hopper right now. From The CW-DC/Arrow-verse — whatever we're calling it these days! — I think we'll be OK for the next generation. The Flash is new leader with Arrow gone and we're hoping Superman & Lois and Batwoman step up there for a new grouping of shows.

How much more life is left in veterans like Flash and Legends as you develop the next wave of the Arrow-verse? Especially when you have Greg Berlanti doing a big-budget Green Lantern and DC world at HBO Max and J.J. Abrams doing Justice League Dark for the streamer?

And they have Matt Reeves' Gotham PD there, too. It always makes me feel good when we're copied. (Laughing.) There's a lot of life left. Greg and I speak quite frequently. I'm not that concerned. You recently passed on Green Arrow and the Canaries. Why? Timing. We couldn't quite figure out a model similar to Stargirl and couldn't quite get there. We were hoping to have it start at HBO Max and take a second run on The CW, but we couldn't figure out how to do it and couldn't make it all work. Last year's pilots Lost Boys and Maverick are back in the development stage. What's the status of The 100 prequel?The 100 prequel is still in discussions at the studio level. I'd like to see it happen. I'm comfortable with where the prequel spinoff episode we did this past season. It's not a pilot; the earliest that would happen would be probably summer 2022, if that happens. We may end up deciding that we can't put the pieces together and it won't happen.

Speaking of the studio level, Warner Bros. is in the midst of a massive change as Channing Dungey is replacing Peter Roth. How does the changeover at Warners — which co-owns The CW alongside CBS Studios — impact the network? What kind of conversations have you had with Channing about their content pipeline since Warners is your main supplier?

Peter and I had remarkable partnership and relationship, and that will be missed. Channing worked with me when I ran ABC Studios and we've known each other for a long time. She's very supportive of The CW and the shows that go on The CW. There are shows she'd like to keep there and get on the air there. Obviously, her priorities may be a little different than Peter's. We are all working toward the same goal.

How has the pandemic and our current state of the world changed the types of programs you're looking to make? Can you do a show like Maverick, set on a college campus, during a pandemic? Do you still make dystopian stuff, especially if it's expensive?

Maverick is still in contention. I just had this conversation with our development team. I've come to the point right now about hope. About safe havens and a place where you can just ease your tension a little bit. One of the nice things about Superman & Lois, Walker and Kung Fu is at the end of the day — despite all the superhero/genre and Texas Ranger stuff — all three shows are about family, which is an important aspect going forward. You'll see Superman in a way you've never seen him before. And you'll see Jared Padalecki in a way you've never seen before. After watching all eight of Wentworth, I switched to Bridgerton because I wanted something light and fluffy. And I found Ted Lasso a worthy successor to Schitt's Creek — it gave me a hug and made me feel good. It made me remember that the human condition is not always bleak. That's where my head's at these days and I'm hoping development is more hopeful than it is dark and dismal.

Have you considered keeping production on your scripted shows going through the summer given the current covid surge that's happening this winter and the uncertainty in terms of vaccinations and new, more contagious strains?

We work with the studios on episodic orders and when the shows would end, when they can revert back to a normalized schedule — some can do more easily than others — so we could be there for next October with a more normal schedule. We've sat with the studios and our production partners and have figured this out. Barring catastrophe, we think we're in good shape.

The CW is a joint venture between Warner Bros. and CBS Studios. Since both studios have prioritized their own studios, how much longer does it make sense for them to operate a linear network?

That's a question for them. for the moment, both parent companies are happy with how this is set up. They recognize the value of The CW brand for selling their shows in digital aftermarket.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

#mark pedowitz #the cw #roswell new mexico #(well not really but close enough)

13 notes · View notes