Some general stuff; this has been posted elsewhere, so if you've seen it
before, there ain't much need to see it now.

Today, John Copeland and I finished re-editing "The Gathering," the B5
pilot movie. While there were some areas we couldn't get into because of the
complexity in redoing the mix, virtually every scene got tinkered with to one
degree or another, and most important, the roughly 14 minutes of footage left
out of the original version is now back in. The whole thing is tighter and
faster, and there's more recent CGI, we'll have Chris Franke re-score it, and
it's just in general a lot better. (Some parts of it even make more sense
now.)

One additional change: because of the desire on PTEN's part to have as
many commercial breaks as possible, the 6-act script was jerry-rigged and
broken down into 9 acts. One side-effect of this is that 9 acts wears on
you, and wears you out, more than the standard 6. You start to get a feeling
of being led up to things too often, and there isn't time to dwell on the
acts you're in. I was finally able, with this re-edit, to move scenes back
around again to what I originally wanted in a 6-act structure (you'll see a
number of scenes juxtaposed from their original order).

Anyway...the TNT Special Edition is much improved over the original.

Other stuff: the fanclub site continues to expand and improve. If you
haven't been around in a while, you may want to check it out again sometime
soon (http://www.thestation.com). The chat room is running better than ever
before, there are new graphics, and the B5 Emporium should be online in a
matter of days allowing purchase of B5FC stuff online with credit cards.
(Mail order stuff is still being processed.)

Latest additions to the lineup: Psi Corps hats and pins, patches of
various sorts, Earth Alliance pins, Ship Recognition charts in poster form,
and others.

Finally, I'll be a Guest of Honor at this year's LosCon, held
Thanksgiving weekend in L.A. at the Burbank Airport Hilton. My 2-hour B5
presentation will be Sunday afternoon, where I'll be showing clips from the
two TNT tv-movies (including lots of stuff from the finished prequel), from
upcoming S5 episodes, new bloopers and so on. I'll also be joined by John
Copeland, producer, and Harlan Ellison, our conceptual consultant. This is
always an SRO venue for us -- LosCon has been a part of B5 from the start --
so you may want to get there early. (Or even go the day before; it's a fun
convention.)

jms


jms