Joseph Mallozzi's Blog, page 241

April 24, 2019: Week’s Best Comic Book Covers!

These were my favorites…

Age Of X-Man: X-Tremists #3 (cover art by Rahzzah)

Doctor Strange #13 (cover art by Jesus Saiz)

Heroes in Crisis #8 (cover art by Mitch Gerads, Clay Mann, Tomeu Moray)

Thanos #1 (cover art by Jeff Dekal)

The Warning #6 (cover art by Ed Laroche)

So, which were YOUR faves?

April 23, 2019: More from the Stargate trove!

So, last night I found myself with a window of free time between my two scripts and my episode 1 cut (that never materialized) and seized the opportunity to go through the various discs, DV’s, and hard-drives I’ll be shipping out to MGM this week.  I can’t access a good 95% of the material, but if the descriptions scrawled on the labels are any indication, fans are in for a real treat…

Interviews with Michael, Chris and Colonel Carter no less.  Also crash burn and explosion tests.

Oodles of Atlantis stuff: McKay playing with a wraith torpedo, Atlantean gadgetry, and…the SG mascot?

Burning Vala, Atlantis stunt coordinator James “Bam Bam” Bamford, the complete Atlantis set, and a cast read-thru.

THIS is gonna be fun.

Also a lot of fun is this short excerpt from that Stargate: Extinction script.

Atlantis destroyed?

Future Todd??

WHAT is going on here???!!

April 22, 2019: Thousands of hours of unseen behind the scenes footage from Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe!

So, yesterday I uploaded the following photo online –

With the caption: “Thousands of hours of unseen behind the scenes footage from Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe – Back when he was the Special Features Producer on Stargate, Ivon Bartok spent years capturing behind the scenes footage on all three shows. Unable to make arrangements to send the footage to MGM after SGU was cancelled, he was at a loss as to what to do with all those tapes and discs taking up space in his apartment. I offered to take them in and, for the past seven years, they’ve been sitting in storage. Well, I’ve finally made arrangements to have everything shipped to MGM where a dedicated team will peruse the digital contents in the first step of making this goldmine of never-before-seen footage available to the fans.”

I figured fandom would be thrilled – but, alas, fandom being fandom, there was a vocal minority who was downright angry because –

1 – I’m not backing up all these files before sending them to MGM.

2- I haven’t personally uploaded them directly online.

3 – They’re going to MGM who will review, catalogue and ultimately make them available.

Look, I get it.  I empathize with those worried about being able to access these materials, especially fans living overseas.  However…

1 – I don’t have the time, money, or equipment to back up these files.  And while, yes, it would be great to take fans up on their kind offers to do it for me, these files are the property of  MGM Television.  Which brings me to…

2 – These files are the property of MGM Television.  This isn’t simply a case of me uploading an image here and there.  This is thousands of hours of video and supporting materials.  I have a great relationship with a number of the executives there, many of whom are Stargate fans as well, and they are overjoyed at the prospect of revisiting all this material and, eventually, making it available to fandom at large.  I don’t own the right to the Stargate franchise.  They do.  So they will be the ones to  make the call on what is released and how.  I am simply returning something that is rightfully theirs.  And no, I’m not taking any payment for this.

3 –

Lovely.

To tide you over, here’s another page from the Stargate: Extinction script:

April 21, 2019: Suji Sunday!

Lulu crashing today’s entry.  Watch your fingers!

 

Easter bunnies!

Our little cherry blossom.

A spoon and a wink.

That surprised look when you find out they cancelled your favorite show on a cliffhanger.

April 20, 2019: More from the vault! Stargate, Dark Matter, and Dogs!

Continuing my dig through the archives…

Stargate: Atlantis concept art – preliminary view of the city by Production Designer James Robbins –

Wraith pod jpeg…

Bartol Rendulic’s concept art for the Dark Matter airlocks:

Behind the scenes on SGA: Touching up the wraith…

One of things I really loved about working on Stargate was the opportunity to tackle far-out yet theoretically sound sci-fi concepts.  Like this one from the planned Stargate: Extinction movie…

And more pics of the dogs from back in the pack days: Jelly, Maximus, Bubba, and Lulu:

April 19, 2019: Random files I found on my old laptop: Dark Matter, SGU, the Atlantis movie script, and dogs eating ice cream!

This Space Channel preview for the Dark Matter series premiere…

This layout of the Destiny bridge from the art department package for the SGU episode “Resurgence”:

A copy of the script for Stargate: Extinction, the Stargate: Atlantis movie.  I gave it a quick re-read and it’s pretty epic.

The model for that Ferrous Corp shuttle we never saw…

Early VFX work on a research station…

And dogs enjoying soft serve (the old gang: Jelly, Bubba, and Lulu):

April 18, 2019: Akemi Birthday Festivities!

Today, we celebrated Akemi’s birthday by me going in to work for an 8:00 a.m. conference call, writing 7 pages of this latest script, and then sitting in on background extras and special effects meetings as well as a locations look-see. Oh, the office also had smoked meat for lunch and hosted a non-denominational Easter egg hunt.  Five large eggs contained clues that ultimately led to the Golden Egg containing the grand prize!  Line Producer Robbie David apparently made a pact with the eventual winner, promising to share the prize if either of them won – so I suppose now they both get to go to Red Lobster with Naomi and Drew and split the dinner special.

Speaking of dinner – I gave Akemi the choice of where she wanted to go for her birthday dinner.  Her pick…home!  Where she cooked shio koji chicken, creamy polenta with roasted tomatoes and crispy basil, and kale salad!

The flower delivery arrived just before dinner.

My heartfelt birthday card.  Too late I realized that I had F’d up the length of their legs so I had to create this inspired rock to solve the problem.

Cups!  Neko and paw are for her while the sloth is for me (which is seemingly designed to make it impossible to drink out of).

She also picked up a couple of items for me – to give to her: a handy door stop and maple sugar.  Note: the door stop is too big for the door.

Mom, sis, and Daisy serenaded Akemi with their traditional off-key version of Happy Birthday from Montreal and then –

We ate way too many chocolates from Akemi’s favorite chocolatier: La Maison du Chocolat.  I went heavy pralines.

We’ll cap off the tonight’s festivities with doggy time and youtube videos!

April 17, 2019: This Week’s Best Comic Book Covers!

These were my favorites…

Amazing Spider-Man #19.HU (cover art by Greg Land)

American Carnage #6 (cover art by Ben Oliver)

Bloodborne #11 (cover art by Yoshioka)

Daredevil #4 (cover art by Julian Totino Tedesco)

Guardians of the Galaxy #4 (cover art by David Marquez)

Naomi #4 (cover art by Jamal Campbell)

Spawn: Dark Horror, vol. 1 (cover art by Francesco Mattina)

Spider-Man: Life Story #2 (cover art by Chip Zdarsky)

Star Wars: Tie Fighter #1 (cover art by Eliza Bonetti, Giuseppe Camuncoli)

Teen Titans #29 (cover art by Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz, FCO Plascencia, Ivan Plascencia)

Tony Stark: Iron Man #10 (Alexander Lozano)

West Coast Avengers #10 (cover art by Gang Hyuk Lim)

So, which were your faves?

I received the following email from my former writing par...

I received the following email from my former writing partner last night:

“Cleaning out old boxes, I found this.  You may remember, these were the very helpful notes you took during our call with Syfy regarding the Atlantis episode “Inquisition”.  The significance of the flying frogs eludes me to this day.  Still, in many ways, it remains one of your strongest works.”

Wow, this takes me back.  Note the attention to detail.  The dueling insect armies. The mosaic wings.  The melancholy frogs.  I don’t remember much about that actual notes session, but it obviously went very, very long.  Still, one thing is clear.  We can pinpoint the exact point where my career peaked.  It’s been all downhill from there.

Akemi: On Game of Thrones, who’s the dragons’ mama?

Me: Daenerys Targaryen.

Akemi: If I was Naderys, I wouldn’t use my dragons to fight.  I’d open a pizza shop and just have them fire pizza.

Hey, remember Anne Devereaux?

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April 15, 2019: Answering your questions…

Ordinary Guy asks: “You are now showrunning the series that you are not creator of. How is that differs from “traditional” showrunning and what role creator have in that case? Who will have the last word on creative direction for the show?”

Answer: There really is no difference except for the fact that, in this case, the creator is an Executive Producer and gets a say in all aspects of the show’s development, production, and post-production.  In addition, the production company and broadcaster also have a say in the show’s creative.  This differs greatly from Dark Matter, a show I ran with little broadcaster input.

Tuptiagn asks: “What does a Gaffer door how does one become a Best Boy?”

Answer: A gaffer is the head electrician.  As for how one becomes a Best Boy – be better than anyone else.

John asks: “Could you explain sometime in the future how writers take the budget into consideration? I can see a writer with a creative imagination coming up with ideas that may be too expensive. An experienced writer may know that great battle scene with all kinds of extras involved would be too much, so they would come up with a few more intimate scenes to compensate. But a new writer wouldn’t know, of course.  Is there a “price list” so to speak?”

Answer: There is no “price list”.  With experience, writers learn how to produce on the page, meaning they write within the parameters of the show’s budget.  Individual episodes fall above or below the pattern budget (the episodic average) but things should even out in the end.  Those clip or bottle episodes are great money-savers.  And it’s no accident they tend to land in the back half of the season.  As for new writers, they should have a sense of the show’s budget going in.  In fact, I would say that, in my experience, one of the biggest deterrents to landing a staff position (besides not nailing that spec script) is pitching something completely unproducible.  Rookie mistake.

Drea asks: “Why not start a hotsauce sampling club?”

Answer: Y’know, I like this idea!

Robert asks: “Is it possible to move over to Amazon or Netflix like The Expanse?”

Answer: Theoreticaly possible, but some one would be a much easier fit than the other.

nantokanaru77 asks: “Btw, of your collection, which hot sauce is your favorite?”

Answer: At present, these are my favorites…

Rebecca asks: “Will you be working with Will Waring on your current project?”

Answer: Sadly, no.  Will has been busy working on It and It: Chapter Two

Shinyhula writes: “The next challenge has to be more reasonable; sour gummies? Bitter mellon?”

Answer: David Nykl, Stargate: Atlantis‘s Zelenka once gifted the writers a box of sour gummies.  They lasted four seasons.

Sparrow_hawk asks: “Any thoughts about the new live action Cowboy Bebop?”

Answer: I am impatiently waiting to find out who they cast in the role of my favorite character, Radical Edward.

Tam Dixon asks: “Are you bringing back the chocolate party too?”

Answer: Akemi has been asking too!

Fred asks: “Why isn’t Zelenka on the balcony at the end?

Why isn’t everyone thanking him for his Wormhole Dive solution?

Why isn’t Rodney embracing him with gratitude?”

Answer: How often have you seen Rodney embrace a fellow scientist with gratitude?  I’m sure the rest of Atlantis expressed their appreciation (in that scene that didn’t make the cut).  As for Zelenka not being on the balcony at the end – Yes, that was a mistake.