From: STRACZYNSKI [Joe]
Subject: Thanks, all. I suspect that Warners...
To: GENIE
Date: 6/19/1992 5:28:00 PM
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Thanks, all. I suspect that Warners will splash the "Making Of" thing
all over the place, and will thus leave that to them. As for the newsletter,
I've pretty much made up my mind, but still have to at least run it past
Warners as a formality.
Had the run-through today, with actors on hand reading through the whole
script (sort of a reader's theater rendering). Every so often, we'd stop and
discuss how to do this effect or that sequence, but the interruptions were
few.
It was really a blast, I gotta tell you. See, when it's just in your
head, you *think* you know how it'll work, but even then there's no way of
knowing it'll work when it hits the stage. There's always some doubt. Barely
slept at all last night, wondering, worrying the script in my head the way a
dog worries a bone. Dragged my ass in early this morning, met the actors who
were going to read through it with us, met everybody else (some of whom I
hadn't met before...it was a *big* room and a *big* crowd from every branch of
our production), grabbed a bagel and water (I don't think I could've handled
coffee this morning), and sat at the long table facing the actors, hoping for
the best.
And like I said...it was a blast. See, a script is *meant* to be
performed. It's still an art form unto itself, while it's on the printed
page, but it's *meant* to be spoken, the way you can appreciate a musical
score on a page, but it's only really alive when an orchestra gets its hands
on the notes and brings it out into the world.
Today I heard the birth cry of Babylon 5.
The characters spoke, out loud, for the first time.
In short, it went an *awful* lot better than I had dared to hope.
The character stuff worked, the humor worked wonderfully (the whole room -
- people who'd read the script dozens of times by now _ broke up repeatedly,
and after one long laughing fit, one of the actresses called to me, "You are a
very sick puppy. I like that in a man"), and the action was paced much faster
than I'd thought, just seeing it on the page. (If anything, I may have to
extend the scenes just a little during some of the action set-pieces...if it's
too short, it feels perfunctory. I wanted it to move fast-fast-fast, but now
I see that I can take just a beat or two more to give it more weight in
places.)
Some members of the crew felt that they'd finally "seen" the story for
the first time, and everyone left the meeting absolutely jazzed.
We wrapped at about 2:00. Five hours straight, and not one person left
to go to the bathroom or stopped for a break. Nobody *wanted* to stop.
Today was a very good day.
jms |
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