Echoes of All Our Conversations

[Greg60]

Thanks a lot Jan

You're perhaps insane, but you're definitely the best !

[Jan]

Originally Posted by Greg60

Thanks a lot Jan

You're perhaps insane, but you're definitely the best !

I may quote you on that! Looks like something went strange with the apostrophes when I copied from the PDF. Hope it's not too hard to read.

Enjoy.
Jan

[Greg60]

Originally Posted by Jan

I may quote you on that!

You can !

Originally Posted by Jan

Looks like something went strange with the apostrophes when I copied from the PDF. Hope it's not too hard to read.

Enjoy.
Jan

For what I've seen, " have been replaced by ¡° and ¡±, and ' has been replaced by a point or "

There is also "which involves standing quietly for 5 ¨ö hours then making a speech" and here I don't know what's ¨ö even if I understand the meaning of the sentence.

Is there something else ?

[DaveNarn]

I must go through all the photos when a volume first arrives, but enjoy reading front to back.
On rare occasion something mentioned earlier pops up again in some later remark and it's nice to imagine what everyone is doing at the time of each interview.

[Joe Nazzaro]

One of the things I've found very interesting is that I usually kept track of when and where each interview took place, but Jason was able to take that information and work backwards to see which episode of B5 was in production, which ones were in development and so forth. Because the interviews in volume five took place over a period of six or seven months, this information is really useful in terms of providing a very accurate timeline of what was happening between A and B. I think this will be even more interesting in volume six, where you can actually see which episodes were in production at the time and which ones were being prepped. So while Goran was shooting his episode for example, John Flinn was prepping the next one and Doug Wise was already thinking about 'The Fall of Centauri Prime.' And because JMS was working so quickly, there's a good chance that Jesus Trevino and John Copeland had a pretty good idea what was coming up in 'Objects in Motion' and 'Objects at Rest.' These are all the things I had to keep track of at the time in order to interview people about what was going on, but it's really interesting that you all now get a glimpse of that process as well.

[DaveNarn]

I agree - The Who, What, Where, When and How? All covered at the top is nice.
(Current or last in production, Currently on the Air, Interviewee title and location of interview)

The people behind the scenes and challenges of how it's done are just as compelling as the fiction created.
For a favorite movie or series DVDs, I play the commentary tracks as often as watch the program.
My Starship Troopers movie review made extensive use of three commentary tracks, Director/Screen Writer, Actors, and Musical Director. http://www.treksinscifi.com/forum/in...?topic=10582.0

If you have an eye for special effects, of keen interest is Foundation Imaging's Ron Thornton interview. Now gone but not forgotten, Foundation is credited for the ground breaking CG visuals and virtual sets for a televised series, B5 and later Trek.
Ron Thornton's earlier interview mentioned his work with Doug Netter on a proof of concept show called Hypernauts. Not discussed is that after leaving B5 to do Star Trek Voyager Foundation also set out to create a fully CGI series 'Starship troopers roughneck chronicles. A very ambitious goal of creating 40 episodes in one year, to air five episodes per week.

This is further covered in the Roughnecks DVD releases. Both Filmakers commentary and Technical Commentary are on four of the eight campaign releases.
They interview the cgi artist, network/hardware admins, voice talent, and everyone else in the trenches.

Anyone who can develop talent or turn a great idea into successful business has a fascinating story.
Especially if it's about a space station, alien worlds and civilizations all in an old 'Aqua-Tech' hot tub factory out in the Valley.

[Joe Nazzaro]

Dave, I agree 100% with your comments; further, I would say that Ron Thornton is not only one of the great unsung heroes of B5, but also for the use of digital FX in television. If you look at Thornton's early use of the video toaster, a lot of people in the industry were dismissive about the technology, which was actually creating shots that previously had to be done with a roomful of Cray computers (just look at The Last Starfighter). But within just a season or two, the work of Foundation Imaging was as slick as what a lot of features were doing with a much bigger budget.

But while B5 was creating amazing stuff, some of the folks in the Star Trek camp were still quite resistant to the use of digital FX. The big irony is, when B5 visual FX supervisor Mitch Suskin moved over to Voyager, he brought Ron and Foundation in, and the result was some amazing stuff (such as Species 8472). In fact, I remember doing an interview with Ron, which was going to be the cover feature of the official Voyager Magazine- we were sitting in a wonderful restaurant at Van Nuys Airport, talking about how much things had changed in just the few short years since we first talked.

And a few years after that, when Ron was overseeing Roughnecks, I got to cover the series extensively for Starlog and I found it absolutely fascinating how he created different teams of artists and technicians to work on various aspects of the series. Again, it was way ahead of its time.

[DaveNarn]

Sign me up, I'd love to read those Ron Thornton/Roughneck interviews.

In the commentaries, it's interesting to hear these guys refer to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie with a sense of awe and reverence.
As opposed to that feature film, Roughneck's demanding schedule and ravenous appetite for resources, was farmed out to four other studios, each with their unique facilities. Hyper Image was even using 3DS Max instead of Light Wave.
Still the results are nearly seamless.
Foundation's final episodes produced for the Homefront campaign showed a marked overall improvement.

There's a direct to DVD movie begging to be made. Although the series ended in a cliffhanger when Sony pulled the plug, the finale has been story boarded and audio recorded.

[Jan]

Looks like the page for Volume 6 has gone live already:

http://www.cafepress.com/b5books

Love the chosen quotes, as usual.

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

I was looking at the list of interviews in this final volume and there aresome great names in there, most notably director Mike Vejar, who really doesn't like to do interviews and only agreed to do one with me because I probably wore him down over a couple of years. And in addition to the key cast and crew, there are some fun interviews with other members of the extended B5 family such as Marshall Teague, Tim Choate and (I know this will come as good news to at last one person reading this) Maggie Egan. But my personal favorite is the last interview I did with Andreas Katsulas. I was on the set of Legend of the Rangers back in 2000 and the unit publicist, who was otherwise quite a nice person, warned me that I couldn't talk to Andreas, because he was heavily into his character and he really didn't didn't like doing interviews. I pointed out that I had known Andreas since before 'The Gathering' aired, and he had always been nothing but pleasant. No, she responded, just say hello, but don't try to talk to him. So sure enough, here come Andreas to say hello, and we shook hands and exchanged a bit of small talk and I was ushered away to do something else. Fast forward to a week or so later, and I was back in New Jersey when the phone rang. It was the 'Rangers' unit publicist, now very contrite. After I left that day, Andreas tracked her down to ask why I didn't want to interview him. After all, we had known each other for years, etc, etc. She then had to admit that it was her fault, and that she was the one being overprotective. Anyway, the upshot was, Andreas had passed on his phone number and said he was ready to talk to me any time. And that's the interview in the book.

[Milkman]

Well thats a hell of a story. Your so lucky to have had such relationships with such great people.

And who exactly is Maggie Egan?

[OmahaStar]

Originally Posted by Milkman

Well thats a hell of a story. Your so lucky to have had such relationships with such great people.

Agreed. Love those stories about Andreas ... and all the others, really.

And who exactly is Maggie Egan?

When someone asks that question, it is the perfect time for them to watch the series again. She's there from the very first episode aired to the last episode filmed. There are only six who can say that - Mira Furlan, Andreas Katsulas, Jerry Doyle, Peter Jurasik, Stephen Furst, and Maggie Egan.

[OmahaStar]

There is a coupon going around "TANKTOP" that will give $15 off an order of $45 or more. That should bring this down to $34 plus shipping.

[nottenst]

Originally Posted by OmahaStar

There is a coupon going around "TANKTOP" that will give $15 off an order of $45 or more. That should bring this down to $34 plus shipping.

When I just tried it, it came back with "The coupon is not valid for your purchases"

I'll try some other coupons later ....

Edit: I just tried a half dozen coupons got the same "The coupon is not valid for your purchases" messages

[Milkman]

Same i will wait a few days, try again.. and then just give up like last time on the coupons.

As for Maggie Egan.... Apparently i needed more in there. Or maybe some more . But its as good an excuse as any to rewatch all the episodes.