Jon Mac's Blog

Wild West Fest at Calico Ghost Town

After a somewhat longer than usual absence, I thought I'd restart the ol' Mythik blog with a little trip to the Wild West Fest at Calico Ghost Town. In light of the ongoing post-production of the movie Gold Rush, a weird west thriller I wrote, and an upcoming Steampunk project, a visit to a Steampunk festival at a ghost town seemed a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

I'm still sorting through the pics and my notes, so I'll have a proper post up very soon...

Summer Vacation Part-2

Sleeping under the stars. Our tent, Joshua Tree and Milky Way at Walker Pass Campground.Most Sc-Fi fans probably like looking at the stars. I'm no exception, and have a particular interest the night sky and telescopes and cameras. Living in Los Angeles, however, doesn't exactly make for very good stargazing. You're lucky to see a couple dozen stars at best. So I used the Dark Sky Finder to find a spot relatively close to LA to see what we could see, and try out a telescope, camera, and a few lenses. Check out Summer Vacation Part-1 if you missed it.

1960's vintage Vivitar 500mm f/6.3. I got this from Goodwill! 
Rugged peaks between Walker Pass and Chimney Creek.
My friend's NexStar 6SE telescope.
We went to Walker Pass Campground, which is about 2.5 hours from LA and is one of the closest really dark spots. We got tons of good views of star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies through the scope, and I fooled around with some wide angle pics with my camera and kit lens.

We played with a green laser pointer, which was very fun. It was so dark, you could actually see the beam of the laser. It looked just like a lightsaber! Milky Way and laser.
The fuzzy object in the center is the Andromeda galaxy.I still have a lot to learn about astrophotography, but it was a lot of fun. In the daytime, I was able to get a few pics of more earthly objects.

I couldn't remember which side of the tree the moss is supposed to grow on...
This pile of rocks was on the Pacific Crest Trail. I'm convinced it a signal by Sasquatches.

This is Red Rock Canyon, which might be the destination for the next trip :)
A closeup of Red Rock through the Vivitar 500mm lens. A lonely road and crumpled tin roof. Red Rock Canyon has campsites that are right next to the rocks. I want to shoot a short Sci-Fi film there. Hmm, or maybe adapt one of the Mythik Imagination stories...It was sure nice to be able to see all the stars and even the Milky Way. Also very inspirational :) I have a lot of #amwriting and #amediting to do, so I better get back to it.
How was your summer?

Summer Vacation Part-1

The summer is nearly over, but it was fun while it lasted. Most of my time was busy with work, writing, and working on the Gold Rush film project. But I was able to sneak away for a couple of extracurricular activities.
In the beginning of August, I was fortunate to attend Planetfest 2012, and watch as the Mars Science Laboratory successfully landed on Mars. It was pretty exciting to be with a crowd of about 2000 people all on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what would happen. Scientists from NASA were on stage, giving an ongoing commentary of the events as they unfolded. Everybody was thrilled to see a successful landing.
Planetfest had a lot of displays, including full size models of the Space-X's Dragon capsule  and Xcor's space-plane:


Other than the Curiosity landing, I thought the most interesting presentation was by Mars Society President Robert Zubrin. I got an autographed copy of his book The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must
 In it, he lays out a very detailed, thoughtful, and I think quite possible roadmap for human Mars exploration in the very near future. If you liked the How To Build A Spaceship tutorials, you will love this book :) It has all the juicy details of delta-vee, specific impulse, rocket equations, mass ratio etc. But much more than the geeky stuff, it is an easy to read and very enjoyable book.
If you want to explore Mars right now, check out the Mars Society website, where you can volunteer to take part in their Mars Desert Research Station, which is a real-life scientific simulation of a habitat on Mars.
In Part-2 we'll go from Mars, back to Earth, then out to the stars :)

Planetfest 2012 And Curiosity Landing

It's an exciting time to be a fan of space exploration. The Curiosity Rover is on schedule to land on Mars in just two days. If you happen to be in the southern California area, you might want to check out Planetfest 2012 in Pasadena:

"A two-day celebration for all ages of the real-time landing of Curiosity on Mars.  You’ll get play-by-play narration during the spacecraft’s descent and landing, plus a peek at the first images returned from the mission."

The event is Saturday & Sunday, August 4th & 5th. There will be many speakers and activities, not to mention a live feed of the actual landing with expert commentary. Hopefully the Martians won't say "Sorry, this is a no parking zone!"

It should be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to it. I'll have a full report and pics next week :)

Letter From The Future

Warning - this is my semi-annual rant/editorial. Its purpose is to encourage anybody out there who wants to be "successful" at writing. Sorry, it's long. But at the end, I'll give you the mystical secret to writing success.

So I've been working tonight at the Cool Day Job (ironic, huh?) and managed to also get a bit of writing/film editing done (actually more like fun "drudgery" of author's-eyes-only backstory and clip-logging/trailer editing - and if you understand the paradox of "fun drudgery" then this post is definitely for you) when something popped into my in-box from Go Into The Story. GITS is a cool blog about screenwriting, and you might wanna check it out if you are interested in that sort of thing.

Anyway, at the top of this email from GITS are two letters written by comedian/actor
Please check out the above link and read for yourself. His second letter begins with "Dear Gatekeepers." I think it is summed up nicely by this quote:

"Our careers don’t hinge on somebody in a plush office deciding to aim a little luck in our direction. There are no gates. They’re gone."

As I was reading Patton's letters, I thought how appropriate that attitude is, not only for comedians, actors and filmmakers, but also indy authors as well.

Once Amazon unleashed the floodgates of KDP, then anybody with access to the internet could publish a book, which, depending on who you listen to, is either "the future," or the apocalypse of the literary world.

According to Wikipedia, some self published authors you may have heard of include such names as William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman and James Joyce. Umm, that seems like a pretty respectable list, even accounting for the inherent potential unreliability of Wikipedia.

But still there is the stigma of being self-published. I am even guilty of avoiding the term just because of that stigma. Instead I use "indy author." At least that tries to ride on the coattails of independent film's semi-respectibiliy.

The stigma of self-publishing would seem to indicate that many people think the demise of the gatekeepers is not necessarily a good thing. Obviously I disagree.

Here's another quote from the "Dear Gatekeepers" letter, and then I'll tie this all together:

(Oswalt holds up an iPhone)
"In my hand right now I’m holding more filmmaking technology than Orsen Welles had when he filmed Citizen Kane.

I’m holding almost the same amount of cinematography, post-editing, sound editing, and broadcast capabilities as you have at your tv network.

In a couple of years it’s going to be fucking equal. I see what’s fucking coming. This isn’t a threat, this is an offer. We like to create. We’re the ones who love to make shit all the time. You’re the ones who like to discover it and patronize it support it and nurture it and broadcast it. Just get out of our way when we do it.

If you get out of our way and we fuckin’ get out and fall on our face, we won’t blame you like we did in the past. Because we won’t have taken any of your notes, so it’ll truly be on us.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the stuff uploaded to Youtube. There are sitcoms now on the internet, some of them are brilliant, some of them are “meh,” some of them fuckin suck. At about the same ratio that things are brilliant and “meh” and suck on your network."

He's addressing his letter to the gatekeepers of broadcast media to an audience of comedians, of course, but I'm expanding his idea to all content creators, which perhaps includes YOU, the wannabe self published author. Yes, there are self-published books that suck, some that are "meh" and some that are brilliant. And I daresay the ratio is about the same as those that have been vetted by the gatekeepers of agents and publishers.

The message that I take away from Mr. Oswalt's letters is that it is up to the creative artist to create their own success. I suppose it's always been true, but technology has made it especially true, now, to bypass the gatekeepers. All it takes is talent and determination. How do you get talent if you aren't "born" with it? You work at it. You make that work a priority. And you don't give up.

If you are in the "sucks" category right now, fine. Just keep at it until you are brilliant, or at least "un-sucky" to enough people to enable you keep going and keep improving. It's my opinion that quality is pretty relative anyway. For every Academy Award winner, there is a box office blockbuster that is critically panned. For every naysayer of Author X, there are many thousands of Author X's fans who devour every word.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I've had dry spells. I've had bursts of inspiration. I have tons of manuscripts "in a drawer." I have rejection slips. I've written many scripts and "finished" a few. I've been to conferences, writer groups and seminars by experts. All of those things help. But the secret... are you ready? Here it is:

Write. Write as much as possible. Finish what you write. Even if it sucks. Finish the story. Don't have the time? Then write shorter stories. Now listen, I'm no expert. I have no credentials to advise anybody other than one thing. All the best things I've learned about writing, either directly or indirectly have come from writing more. The last few months, I've pounded out draft after draft of a screenplay. Certain things that I "learned" in classes years ago became clear because I was writing so much right now. Things that I read about in a book truly made sense because I was actually doing it so much now. Writing isn't just an art form, it's a business and can be a career.

So listen to this one thing: If you want to lovingly caress every word and painstakingly agonize over every page and take years to write your novel, that's fine. But if you want to make your writing a career, you better just forget the agonizing and write. Write and finish. Then write the next one and finish that. Keep learning, but keep writing. At some point you will write something that people like. Then you are on your way as long as you don't quit.

In conclusion, as Mr. Oswalt points out, there are no gates. That is a glorious thing, and means it is up to YOU. You take the risk and the reward, and take the credit and the blame. All you need to do is the work. When your work is writing, you are a writer. Just do the work. That's the secret.

Okay, end of long editorial. Next time I'll have a behind the scenes update of Gold Rush :)

Weird Wednesday - Message From Mars

MarsThe Mars Curiosity Rover is due to land on the red planet in just a few days. Very cool, you might think, but not exactly something for Weird Wednesday. But among many other expected scientific discoveries, Curiosity just might get to the bottom of one long forgotten mystery: The Mysterious Mars Messages discovered by Guglielmo Marconi over 90 years ago. And that, of course, is perfect for Weird Wednesday.

A Nobel Prize winner, Marconi was a pioneer in the early development of radio. In the early 1920s, Marconi believed he received signals from another world.
Guglielmo MarconiUsing a special experimental apparatus on his Yacht, the Electra in the Mediterranean, Marconi received radio waves of a much greater wavelength than any produced on Earth at the time. This wasn't without controversy, and many experts believed the so-called signals were caused by natural storms on Mars, or perhaps some other, mundane earthy source.

But what fascinated Marconi about the signals was the fact that they seemed to repeat the Morse code for the letter "V." It seemed highly unlikely to him that a natural source would use Morse code. In fact, Marconi himself had used Morse code for the letter "V" many years previously in one of his first wireless tests. Could the strange signals be sending his own code back to him?
Curiosity RoverUnfortunately, the mystery was never resolved and was soon forgotten. Who knows, maybe Marconi did just receive some perfectly natural, but as yet unidentified transmission. Or... Perhaps the unknown senders of the signal just gave up. Maybe soon after the Sky Crane gently lowers Curiosity to the surface of Mars, a long dormant signal will spark to life. If a strange Morse coded letter "V" interrupts Curiosity's experiments, we'll know there was more to the story, after all.

We'll find out in a couple of weeks!

What do you think?

Mt. Wilson's 60-Inch Telescope

Like many sci-fi fans, I've always been fascinated by space, astronomy, and telescopes. Last weekend I was lucky enough to spend the night looking through Mt. Wilson's 60-Inch Telescope, located in the Angeles National Forest, north of Pasadena, CA.

Special thanks to the Keith and Alex for making this possible! And thanks to Reggie for starting the ball in motion and helping put it all together. Also a huge thank you to Tom The Telescope Operator and Shelley Bonus, our Session Director. They both were extremely knowledgeable and helpful and had our group laughing and learning all night long. You can also catch Shelley speak at The Planetary Society's Planetfest 2012 in Pasadena. Planetfest is a two-day celebration of the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars.

Some of the amazing objects we looked at are: Mars, Saturn, Neptune, M5 globular cluster (I think it was M5 - whichever it was, it looked really cool,) Cat's Eye Nebula, Ring Nebula, and Blinking Planetary Nebula.) One of the things that really stands out in such a big telescope is the amazing color in the nebulae and the details in the globular clusters.

The 60-Inch Telescope at Mt. Wilson is the largest telescope in the world open for public viewing. The "60-Inch" part refers to the aperture, or how big the mirror is. To get an idea how special this is, consider that the average backyard amateur astronomy telescope probably has an aperture of 3 to 8 inches.

The Mt. Wilson 60-inch design is a bent-Cassegrain reflector with a 60-inch diameter primary mirror which weighs 1900 pounds. The focal length is 960 inches (80 feet, or 2438cm) with a focal ratio of f/16. It has two 4-inch diameter eyepieces of 100mm and 50mm focal lengths. Those are mighty big eyepieces!

The Mt. Wilson 60-Inch telescope is the brainchild of famous astronomer George Hale. The history of the 60-Inch is fascinating, and the scope used very cutting edge technology for its time. In 1907 it was the largest telescope mirror in the world. The base, polar axis, and fork of the mount weigh over 16 tons. The mount used an ingenious design which supported over 21 1/2 tons of the telescope by floating on 650 pounds of mercury.

The great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 caused a shipping delay of the telescope itself, and over 150 tons of material for the building and dome were pulled to the top of the mountain by mule teams. The new wonder of the astronomical world was finally operational in December of 1908. It was the first telescope to photograph stars in other galaxies. It also took photographs of Halley's comet in 1910. The 60-Inch became "one of the most successful and productive telescopes in history."

Here are some pics from the trip. Click the image to view full size:

Beautiful views on the way up to Mt. Wilson. The 60-Inch dome. The telescope at twilight. Get ready for some amazing views! Saturn, taken with the camera hand-held up to the eyepiece. It was hard to get a good shot, and it doesn't really do justice to what the actual view looked like. I should have brought a tripod! A shaky, hand-held long exposure. After dark, all the lights inside the dome are red, to preserve night vision. Now that's an eyepiece! I wish I had this in my backyard. Oh wait, it sort of already is ;)Here's a little comparison of the Mt. Wilson 60-Inch and the 8-Inch reflector I used to have:

Mt. Wilson 60-Inch:
Aperture - 1524mm
Focal Length - 24,380mm
Focal Ratio - f/16
4-Inch Eyepieces
100mm Eyepiece Magnification = 244x
50mm Eyepiece Magnification = 487x

Dobsonian 8-Inch:
Aperture - 203mm
Focal Length - 1200mm
Focal Ratio - f/5.9
1.25-Inch Eyepieces
25mm Eyepiece Magnification = 48x
9mm Eyepiece Magnification = 133x
9mm + Barlow Magnification = 267x

Check out the original 1906 engineering drawing for more specs on the 60-Inch. Visit the Mt. Wilson website (www.mtwilson.edu) for more information about viewing through the 60-Inch Telescope.

Coming next week: The return of Weird Wednesday and a long overdue behind-the-scenes update on the making of Gold Rush - a paranormal feature film!

What's your telescope story? Have you had a chance to view through a super-duper scope? Or, maybe you have a fun backyard 'scope story to share. Comment below :)

Gold Rush Press Release

Coming soon I'll have some more updates for those interested in a behind the scenes look at the script to screen process. Here is the press release for Gold Rush :

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Independent thriller shoots in haunted Gold Country

HOLLYWOOD, CA – June 8, 2012 – Pre-production for a paranormal thriller feature film is under way and the filmmakers are going the extra mile for authenticity.

“Gold Rush,” will begin shooting at the end of June on a 40 acre property in the heart of Gold Rush Country-- Grass Valley, CA. The location is a private property that has preserved artifacts from the Gold Rush era.

“There’s no need for us to create props and sets because everything you’ll see is a remnant of history,“ said director Debbie Bledsoe. “Whether it’s the antique six-shooter Merwin-Hulbert revolver or the old poker table and other wild west artifacts from the Gold Rush era, everything is a genuine piece of a forgotten time.”

Written by Jon Mac, the premise of “Gold Rush” surrounds a modern day team of paranormal experts that goes missing one by one while investigating an evil presence at an estate filled with antiques from a gold mining ghost town.

In real life, the Travel Channel show “Ghost Adventurers” recently covered how locals believe the ghosts of deceased gold miners haunt the entire Gold Country area.

“When you step inside, you literally feel like you’re stepping back in time. It certainly has a haunting feel,” said Bledsoe. “We’ll also be sleeping here every night, so it will be a unique experience, that’s for sure.”

The cast and crew plan to shoot the majority of the film in one weekend using inventive techniques that will increase efficiency and elevate production values.

“Most films shoot with a single camera, but we’re shooting with four, which will complete the shoot four times as fast without compromising quality,” said Bledsoe.

The cast of fresh faces on the rise includes Angel Oquendo, Dexter, House MD, Oceans 13, Kristin DeLuca, Femme Fatales, William Mark McCullough, The Trialls of Cate McCullough, as well as Debbie Bledsoe, Lydia Castro, Desmon Heck, Michael John Lane, Valerie Lucas, Maria Picaso, Richard Scott, Caroline Beilskis, Shelly Insheiwat and Michael Buonomo.

The film is expected to be released the beginning of 2013.

For more info, you can check out www.GoldRushTheMovie.com

Gold Rush Table Read

I've been working hard on the script of Gold Rush, which is why the poor ol' Mythik blog has been a bit neglected. But here's the latest: We had a table read on Saturday. Most of our main characters were able to attend, and it was awesome :)

A table read is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: the actors sit at a table and read the script out loud.

I had a very long Friday night working on the latest draft and had it ready just in the nick of time. It still needs a few revisions, but seems to be coming along nicely.

The actors did a tremendous job bringing the characters to life. With this cast, the movie should be really amazing. Not only are the actors really good at acting, they are a fun bunch of people, too.

Here are a few pics of the event:

Yes, it's okay to laugh in a horror movie!

 
I am sneaking out. The actors were awesome. Hearing the lines I wrote gives me (more) gray hairs. They deserve much more than Cherry Gatorade for getting through that monster script. The final shooting script will be much shorter. And better. Ha ha.
The "solemn old west" photo.
If you can't guess, I'm the goofy looking one. Cool T-shirt, eh? Well, I've been working all weekend and am very tired, so I'll post more later with proper names for our cool cast members and more info etc. Our shoot date is the end of June, which is rapidly approaching. We're going to be trying a lot of new and hopefully innovative techniques with this film. I think we're off to a good start so far :)

P.S. - Check out the Facebook Page for Gold Rush. The producers will soon be filling it up with all kinds of cool stuff. If you like, "Like" ;)

The Backworlds

Today is the release date of The Backworlds by M. Pax. I've been a fan of M. Pax for a long time. Check it out :)
 
The Backworlds is here!
The first story in the Backworlds series by M. Pax. A vision of how humanity might colonize the galaxy some day in the distant future.
The Backworlds After the war with Earth, bioengineered humans scatter across the Backworlds. Competition is fierce and pickings are scant. Scant enough that Craze’s father decides to hoard his fortune by destroying his son. Cut off from family and friends, with little money, and even less knowledge of the worlds beyond his own, Craze heads into an uncertain future. Boarding the transport to Elstwhere, he vows to make his father regret this day.
Available from: Amazon/ AmazonUK/ Smashwords / FeedbooksOther links to more outlets can be found at either Wistful Nebulaeor MPax
The Backworlds is an ebook and a free read. All formats can be found at Smashwords and Feedbooks.
It’ll take a few weeks to work its way down to free on Amazon Kindle. It will also be available on B&N and iTunes. Sign up for M. Pax’s mailing list to be notified the day it does go free on Amazon, and when the book becomes available at other outlets. You’ll also receive coupons for discounts on future publications. NEWSLETTER
M. Pax’s inspiration comes from the wilds of Oregon, especially the high desert where she shares her home with two cats and a husband unit. Creative sparks also come from Pine Mountain Observatory where she spend her summers working as a star guide. She writes mostly science fiction and fantasy, but confesses to an obsession with Jane Austen. She blogs at her website, www.mpaxauthor.com and at Wistful Nebuae. You’ll find links there to connect on Twitter, Goodread, FB and other sites.
The sequel, Stopover at the Backworlds’ Edge , will be released in July 2012. It will be available in all ebook formats and paperback.