Firearms in Space

A Thousand Years of Quality

First of all, it's a myth that most modern guns wouldn't shoot in the vacuum of space. Although it made for a nice Firefly episode, the fact is that most all guns shoot perfectly fine in space. Do remember to have yourself tethered to something you want to go home to before firing your weapon because the bullets are like little rockets in reverse and you are the payload.
Boy-O-boy! That sounds like a real problem!
But that's not the problem.

No? What's the problem then, Chief?
The problem is long deployments in hypersleep. Is your sidearm going to be ready to go as soon as you wake up and need to put some hurt on the baddies?
To start with, you can't rely on springs. So the springs that hold the flechettes in your magazines? Those are gone from Alliance Airborne M28-G's.
Then how will my AA M28-G weapon system cycle properly?
Relax, soldier. We live in the future. We have inert silica hydraulic technology. Guaranteed to last for a thousand years in the cold dark of space (ISHT will ISHT you not!) After firing your weapon a new round is always in the chamber. And best of all — there are no user-servicable parts inside. That's right soldier, get a good night sleep because you won't be cleaning your gun at all.
So you've replaced the springs — what about the lubricants?
Regular lubricants will dry up. But organic lubricants are always working for you. They live practically forever and "feed" off the dust in the air or from the flechettes running through the weapon. And when there isn't any dust, they just rest! Quality... for a thousand years.
I noticed the AA M28-G doesn't have a velocity selector. Don't I need to worry about punching a hole in the bulkhead?
Not anymore. The barrel of your weapon recognizes what you're aiming at. A reading of soft-body targets automatically "gears down" your weapon system to a more appropriate velocity. Fire away at all the baddies without worrying about explosive decompression.
But this gun is so short — it's like you removed the butt-stock.
Recoil is a thing of the past, my good man. The flechette rounds emerge from the barrel at a very low velocity only to speed up when they get to target. More comfortable for you. Less comfortable to the baddies.

InGenius

The 2012 InGenius has been announced. I think this is the first real post-theatresource theatresource show. As far as I know this is Vinny Marano's baby. It goes like this:

manhattantheatresoure presents
InGenius 2012
Voices from the Writers' Forum
OPENS Monday, May 07 at 8:00PM
RUNS SUNDAY-TUESDAY, May 6-8, May 13-15, & May 20-22
All performances are at 8pm. Tickets are available here.

Decisions

I have decided to become a hot mess. I'm exactly the kind of boy your mother is afraid of. No job, crazy life, super-hot. The more a mess my life is, the sexier I seem.
I have decided to become an Internet troll. You know that Hitler guy? I'm totally going to compare your ideas to his. Either favorably or unfavorably — depending on the venue.

Have I mentioned recently how antibiotics affect me? I am functionally very drunk. What I mean by that is that although my motor skills are perfectly fine and not kagrunked, my sense of spacial relationships is out the window. Plus my dreams are weird. I'm a little worried about going for walks because my ability to judge the speed of oncoming traffic is narwhalamated. Driving is, of course, out of the question.

How Was I Not Informed?

How was I not informed there was a new Jack Reacher book out in paperback? I'm not saying that people should be forced to read Jack Reacher books — I'm not some sort of Fascist. But the State should be required to inform the populace of new paperback versions of Jack Reacher books. Like notices in train stations and along highways. Perhaps the ship dates should be included with voter packets in the mail.
I'm on drugs. Zithromax. The stuff always makes me loopy.
In fact, this cat from the Internet is how I feel right now.

Cat from the Internet expresses how I feel.

I managed to partially screw up yet another delivery. Well now I know how to fix it. I deliver a FCP project with the outputs properly assigned or I make special stereo .aif files for the English stereo and the M&E mixes.
I'm thinking I should try to become a diva DP. Refer to picture of cat, above.
We're partying down with prep for our first day of shooting (again). Here's a link to the callsheet.
John Bruno discusses one of my least-favorite things: DP's who are shooting their reel, not the movie.

Things in the Machine

Why multiculturalism makes you a better writer.

The great-great-great-grandmother of us all was the daughter of a hardline feminist and the jailbait mistress of a married poet. She wrote the first science fiction novel in Italy, while grieving over a lost child and suffering from postpartum depression. How does that translate into science fiction being only by and for white men who live in their parents’ basements?

I'll have you know my parents' basement is quite nice, actually.

I'm trying my best to watch Supernatural. I'm not too sure about their music choices.

That being said, they do a good job of distinguishing the dark-haired white guys from one another. Which is, you know, kinda difficult to do.

In the meantime I have that creeping crud that's been going around. I am going to the doctor tomorrow and the doctor will prescribe a Z-pak or the equivalent.

What you need to know about today

Larry Pontius has Mac Rogers as a guest-blogger where Mac writes on writing and producing Honeycomb Trilogy.

The movie Quadrophrenia is way more depressing than you expect from a rock 'n roll movie. I remember seeing it at a midnight show with friends. At the time I thought "This is a good movie, not really a rock movie." It's actually very well written, directed, and acted. Not an up picture though.

Remember back in the olden days when there was clamor for digital projection because of how much it would help independent film? Ha! Those days are gone. Of course, nobody at this point thinks that indy pictures work in theaters either.

Gibson SG's with P-90 pickups are under a thousand bucks brand-new.

Mariano Fortuny and butane torches

Mariano Fortuny

And butane torches.

The Journal of the Intellectual Elite

I'm totally going to start a newspaper and call it the "Journal of the Intellectual Elite". No really. And I wouldn't be the first one. Go ahead, translate that. I'll wait.

Speaking of the intellectual elite, here is my sister's dog.

I'm experimenting with these little bitty lights. It's going to be interesting to figure out what they do.

Self portrait with LED.

We're not going to shoot on Sunday 'cause of sick actor.
I've been concerned about these bands of noise I'm seeing occasionally on footage with the GH1. Here's a note from a forum on the GH1 by Steve Castle:

Banding usually occurs under certain conditions, its not just high-ISO, but rather a combination of the subject/environment you're taking relative to how much the noise is being amplified via a high-ISO setting. Banding noise is most noticeable in the shadows, or when an image has been superlatively brightened.

It's very hard to predict when the camera will be irksome like that. But it does seem to have to do with shooting under exposure.

I'm still trying to figure out if I can/should shoot with my Canon S.S.C. lenses on this movie. We could get nice shallow depth-of-field and we could shoot in very low light. Is it worth it? Should we do at least one take that way? I don't know. I know I'm shakier without the optical stabilization from the kit lens.
Also -- and maybe I'm just noticing this in my office -- but the strange color of the light is bugging me. The one other time I had that issue was on Day 2 when we shot outside and had funny light. But both times the light itself was indeed strange. I'll have to double-check with the kit lens.

Today's Conversations with Maduka

Me: Oh man, sorry. I'm an ass. I left my stuff all over your desk.
Maduka: It's OK. I'm used to it.
Me: ...
Maduka: Stuff being on my desk, I mean. I'm thinking butane over oxyacetylene. Plus I want to get a couple fire extinguishers...

Who?

Who is the beautiful genius who came up with those practical lights on this TV set? I love you. I want that light fixture over the table. Those lights aren't even on in this scene, but oh, they will be. They will be.
You just know that in every scene at night around that table somebody's just gonna adjust those ever so slightly for each shot.
I love them.
Love.
I need one of these things. Not want. Need.

Trends

How are things in the world of trends in genre motion picture delivery?
I'm here to tell you.
Here are things I've noticed from the required deliverables from our last couple o'movies.

• First of all, the 2257 Compliance is now becoming a standard boilerplate of text to slap on the end of a movie. And it's even going on movies where there's no nudity. Why? Just to be on the safe side.

• We've also been given the opportunity to deliver on hard drive a few times now. Delivering a multitrack Quicktime ProRes 422 is beginning to look like something buyers and distributors fear much less now. That's not saying we aren't having to deliver some PAL Digital BetaCam tapes, but those tapes are starting to become an exception rather than the norm. This is a big deal. 

About the "multitrack" part of that though, we're generally also delivering a folder with mono .aif files labeled with their uses. Left and right English stereo mix, Left and right M&E mix, 5.1 English (which is six tracks of audio), 5.1 M&E, and a stereo commentary. That's a minimum of 18 tracks of audio.

• And finally, freakin' finally. I've seen a contract which specifies audio in terms of dB Fs. Yes! "Fs"! Something we can actually measure with our computers. Not some vague notion of decibels based on some 25-year-old analog tape decks. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. Interestingly the contract I'm looking at specifies that peaks should be no more than -9dB Fs. That's 3dB more than we've been mixing to! On our next movie I get to back off my limiters to -9dB from -12dB. 

Yeah. Trying to guess what they mean by "0dB average with peaks of +8dB" based on some very old-school analog Vu meters was very frustrating to me because I haven't even SEEN an analog deck in more than 10 years so who knows what Sony thought "0" meant? I certainly don't have a spare $40,000 lying around to buy one to find out. Now we have some real numbers. [Ha! How many people did I just lose complaining about this one thing?] ;-)

These Are the Important Things

You know what I want? I want an SG — either a Gibson or an Epiphone or some sort of knock-off — that's so beat up that it would be fine for me to put my Earvana nut on it.
And, as Chance Shirley pointed out on Twitter, it should maybe have P90 pickups in it.
I want this guitar to cost less than $200.

I'm not 100% sold on the P-90's. I know I want covered pickups.

Swedish Rock

Witchcraft has a whole album of what Redditunes calls "stoner rock". That's under the "Swedish" genre.

So now I'm listening to Swedish stoner rock.

Beware Producers (Including Me)

How do you know when a producer is lying? His lips are moving. Ha! Yes. I love this joke.

The dudes at The Asylum are very savvy. And they're pretty straight-up honest dudes. Their BS level is quite low. Still, be then thou wary of any producer who actually gives numbers when talking about movies.

Producers lie for a couple reasons. The first is to make everyone think they're really poor so they don't have to pay anybody — either before or after making the movie. But they also lie about how expensive their movies are in order to make sure their distributors are not feeling ripped off by selling them a cheap movie. These two lies tend to make producers tell you they haven't brought in any revenue from a given picture and that they're spending a whole lot of money on a picture. Except when they're bringing in lots of money (they might say this to investors or their parents).
So never trust a producer when they're telling you numbers. I mean, unless they've decided to be candid with you. How can you tell? It's very hard. Maybe you can't. But like I said, the Asylum is relatively malarky-free, there are just a lot of political reasons for them to not give you the truth and the facts straight up. You'll note that I'm not judging anybody here. Why? Because I've been there, man, I've been there.
+++++
Now that I've made that disclaimer, I'd like to point out that The Asylum's Paul Bales talks some numbers. And, honestly, I believe him. I mean, with the caveats that everybody in their production and sales chain doesn't want to hear real numbers.

"Our sexy comedies like "18 Year Old Virgin," and "#1 Cheerleader Camp," and our "found footage" films like "Paranormal Entity," have budgets around $100,000; our regular "mockbuster" and creature films are between $200-750K; and our network originals like "Zombie Apocalypse" are $1-2 million. In terms of gross, it varies widely. Our sexy comedies and found footage movies are usually the most profitable, with margins upward of 50%."

If they really are making those kinds of margins on their cheap pictures then they're getting $200K in sales from them. I would think they're really spending about $75K and making maybe $125K on the pictures.
Or: he's dead-on and those are all totally real numbers.
If so, their revenues are better than anybody's in the indy world. Which makes some sense because they're clearly more successful than anybody else in the indy world.

O! That we could make $125K on offworld sci-fi without name talent.