Whew...40 messages since yesterday...yipes! (And to the question of my
prior work, you might want to add 11 episodes of the new TWILIGHT ZONE, and my
adaptation of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," for Showtime,
which got a bunch of nominations, including the WGA Award nomination.) And on
the question of music...yeah, that's something I've already been working on,
picking an appropriate kind of music for the various species. I'm going to
have to sit down with some real sharp composer and just start trying things
out.

Meanwhile....WOW!

Ron Thornton just left here a little while ago, having brought over the
*NEW* and pretty much final version of B5...both in photos off thde video, and
on tape. If you've seen the B5 demo on the NewTek tape, you can forget
it...this is *so* much better, so 3-dimensional, so real and detailed that
it's absolutely astonishing. It makes the earlier B5 look like a hand-puppet.
We've worked out most of the tech on it, including a new way to handle the
centrifugal force question...and yes, to whoever inquired 'WAY up-topic, there
are heat dissipators and optical routing panels on the station to channel cool
light inside...and we've dropped the solar panels, incorporating the idea of
edges rising out of the sides with the heat dissipators. It's also been
created in such a way as to provide a) Earth normal gravity, b) various
incrementally greater gravities, and c) a completely weightless environment
not only at the center, but in one other area as well. And we've worked out
most of the problems inherent in docking with a moving object.

The point being...it looks really, really, *REALLY* cool. This is the
version that I'll be shlepping around to cons this Spring, though by then the
footage will probably be a bit longer and more elaborate, with music and the
series logo and ships and other spiffinesses layered in.

Anyway, I'm now even more confident that when you see this thing, it's
not going to be like *anything* you've ever seen before.

Oh...and I also saw, while Ron was here, the cover of VIDEO TOASTER
magazine, the issue that'll be out, I think, next week...and the whole cover
is taken up by a shot of the earlier B5 shot. It looks absolutely stunning
there, and Ron is featured in the article, which will explain a lot more about
how we're doing stuff. (In other words, hard core neepery.)

The momentum is gathering as we move toward Day One of filming.

Which is about 2/3 months from now. We're going to have a photog on
stage every day to chronicle production, and may link up with someone to film
a "making of" short. During production, I'll try to log on here every couple
of days (expect me to vanish a *lot* when we're filming) to provide updates
direct from the stage.

Onward...and just *wait* until you see the new, Even Better Babylon 5.
Yikes!

jms