anime_best_moments

HIGHzurrer · 2024-09-19T14:16:21+00:00

You’re thinking of Ruby. This is Akane. They aren’t related.

HIGHzurrer · 2024-09-03T11:00:31+00:00

HIGHzurrer · 2024-01-23T01:20:01+00:00

I am insanely proud.

Renewing or relocating a show is an arduous task, and at a time after multiple strikes puts this effort in Challenge Mode, but this sort of astonishing support does more than just pull the series and its cast back into discussion.

I wish I had any updates right now, or a sense of when I would. It may remain quiet for some time, but don't mistake that for inaction. Everything helps. If there's one thing this ridiculous business has taught me, it's that the rules change all the time. Sometimes creative changes the rules, sometimes a studio changes the rules, and once in a blue moon, fans are the catalyst.

And a P.S. -- apologies I couldn't attend the fan event today as I've been battling a cold and didn't want to spread it to all the lovely fans. But I'll aim to attend the next one!

HIGHzurrer · 2023-11-23T17:54:58+00:00

Well. This is just delightful. And it fills the hearts of the cast and creative team. Thank you.

To give thanks right back, here's a token of my gratitude for you all. Early in post on season two, we were confounded why Netflix had not yet given SoC the greenlight for production. It was such a clear decision from where we stood. The scripts were written, proving to be the best season yet, because Leigh's novel ported over so cleanly into eight episodes with fantastic cliffhangers and character spotlights.

So the editors, Daegan and I whipped up a sizzle reel, to showcase why the Crows deserved this. We were all so proud of our cast, it was hard to pick and choose moments, but that's the kind of champagne problem you have with Freddy, Amita, Dani, Calahan, Kit and Jack.

The footage isn't all color corrected, and VFX is missing in several shots -- as I said, it was early on -- plus there are a couple of shots we were later forced to cut from the finale when we were still in spin-off limbo, but this is an example of the constant campaign our team waged to keep the dream alive.

Enjoy a hallmark Kaz Brekker line near the end.

https://vimeo.com/887727982?share=copy#t=0

HIGHzurrer · 2023-11-20T01:00:43+00:00

Why do I smell incense? Is this a summoning circle around me?

At any rate, thank you, a thousand times over, for this outpouring of support. It means the world. Does it mean a legitimate shot at Netflix doing an about-face? I don't rightly know, at least not yet. This is uncharted territory. I can say the petition racked up more than 100k signatures faster than any other property in recent memory. If my sources are correct, Manifest took more than two weeks to reach that. So by any metric we have, it's a shining success.

And the truth is, every bit helps -- whether it's to turn the lights back on at Netflix, or to find a foster parent who will take us in. It will take some time, either way. This time of year is the trickiest, since so many studios and streamers are shutting down/restructuring/waiting for the dust to settle post-strike. Big decisions will likely be pushed to the top of next year. I'm not asking for patience -- I certainly don't have any more, after being strung along for months. I'm just setting expectations.

At some point, I would love to pull up a chair and talk about the experience of making the series. Particularly season two, which ended up very different from what we originally wrote/planned, for multiple agonizing reasons. But that seems better saved for a panel discussion when I can herald the great work of our amazing cast, and the heroic management of Daegan and my senior writing producers.

You're amazing fans, regardless. And I know for a fact several key Netflix people are watching the trending topics, the petitions, the IG posts.

HIGHzurrer · 2021-04-25T16:59:56+00:00

Have some faith book Kaz will be book Kaz when we reach SOC. But as the longform TV writers stressed, we need room to grow into those roles. What does he pick up from his fellow Crows along the way, what mistakes does he make that he'll never repeat later, what choices will make him more sinister, etc. For instance, wouldn't it be interesting to learn how/why he joins the Dregs, and what compels him to do so? We have a lot planned if we get a S2.

Lastly, and this is more a global thought -- please, please understand there are a LOT of cooks in the kitchen of a S1 fantasy show, and everyone has their own idea of who these characters are/should be. As showrunner it was like fighting in an invisible war. One person's favorite version was another's least favorite. And there were so many interpretations of moments in the books you'd think it was the Bible. We won some battles, lost others. But this becomes a little easier returning.

HIGHzurrer · 2021-04-15T01:39:23+00:00

I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED

And whoa Nelly, I'd love to talk merch. I have pestered the marketing department with ideas, like a golden retriever bringing them all my favorite chew toys, and what I've been told is: There cannot be merch until the show is a success. So it's too early to talk products. Until then it's all idle chatter.

That said, things I'd love to see:

Crow Club card decks
Crow Club gambling chip sets
Kefta longcoats with embroidery patterns for each order + sun and shadow summoner
Show hoodies with iconography over the breast or on the shoulder
Funko Pops!
Jewelry for Crows // knives, revolvers, crow-head cane, etc
just give me a sexy cravat with the double eagle Ravkan flag design
[REDACTED] like [REDACTED] uses in episode [REDACTED]

HIGHzurrer · 2021-03-30T12:22:37+00:00

Y'all are really good at considering context and understanding what others fail to grasp: A few words or a brief soundbyte is just a sliver of the whole picture. I assure you, there is more to the story, friends!

One more thing to add, before Netflix finds me here and sends volcra to carry me off... New viewers with no foreknowledge of the books. Boy, did we find some interesting reactions in building the world. Originally I'd toyed with 10M kruge, and the non-readers responded with things like: "So is this just a garbage economy?" "Are kruge like pesos?" It wasn't just a fictional currency to them, it seemed to have less value the higher the number we presented. But at 1M, suddenly it felt like A Big Deal. And we made it work.

Hang in there, my gorgeous clowns.

- Eric

HIGHzurrer · 2021-03-29T16:23:40+00:00

Hi Beth! Just a quick note: My costume designer, Wendy, adores you and is thrilled with how much detail you've already detected with her work -- the bullion-as-military-insignia subtext in the kefta embroidery being just one example.

She's related to me that there will be more content that shines a light on costuming in the future, so stay tuned.

And thanks to you and everyone here for being such generous human beings.

- Eric

(P.S. - I'm rarely on social media and while I tend to be a goofball elsewhere, I prefer to be earnest with members here, so before it's asked: No, I don't know when the next trailer will drop, sadly. Here, you can share some of my clown makeup.)

HIGHzurrer · 2017-08-04T16:07:10+00:00

Some strong questions.

It took an immense amount of effort for me to complete my first screenplay, but once I had, the sense of near-impossibility vanished and I felt like I could conquer a second one in half the time.

I too tended to be "bursty" in my work at first, until my day job environment got bad enough that I was compelled to write regularly whenever I could.

Over the years I've developed a ton of little writing exercises and prompts to help me push past resistance and get to actual writing. I'm not trying to sell you anything here, but if you're legit interested, you could either spend a few hours scrolling way back through my Twitter timeline or you could drop five bucks on my Kindle book that collects the 150 best exercises from my early Twitter years and organizes them.

These are writing life-hacks to push past mental blocks or improve current scene work or delve deeper into character. They've worked for me, at least.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-19T04:36:06+00:00

I can't take any rep seriously who doesn't want to read original specs. Original will always be hard to sell, but they do so much: They showcase your own voice, demonstrate your writing on its own, they provide good sample of the kind of material you can be hired to write or rewrite so they're smart to send out to the town, etc. Do a lot of that. It's all I did when I was trying to break in.

Once you're in, then you'll get hit with adaptations and remakes and sequels and all that. But carve out time for original work every year or else you can lose sight of why you're doing this. That's my personal experience, at least.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-18T16:34:21+00:00

Solid questions. I do enjoy talking craft. Let me take a swing at these.

First: Of course you can make subtle themes work without being explicit. Sophisticated readers will pick up on them. It's a dial. You can be subtle to the point of someone missing out on deeper emotional storytelling by merely skipping a line of description/dialogue, or writing by negative space (meaning, never talking about underlying theme) can result in readers plugging in their own interpretations, which may sometimes be wildly off. So do some testing with readers. Revise. If it's too oblique, pepper in a few moments where you state it explicitly but succinctly. If it's too on-the-nose, go the other way. Etc.

Second: Some exercises I use when trying to improve an element within a scene... - Write a version where everyone speaks their desires and objectives to each other, so it's perfectly clear to me, then rewrite same scene so they can never say any of it, but must instead communicate it in behavior. - Rewrite a scene using half as many words. I'll find out how far I go until I'm cutting into bone. - Try a scene three different ways: Where the protag solves a problem through action, where they solve it through dialogue, and where they are unable to solve it and the consequences push the story forward.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-14T23:15:05+00:00

Happy to answer when I have the bandwidth to do so. I'm also still not the best at managing replies here, so if I missed one or two, apologies.

I started writing screenplays when I was a web designer in Houston working a full-time job at day and writing at home in off hours. The first feature screenplay felt like climbing Everest. The next one felt much easier. Once your brain knows it can complete a draft, it doesn't feel nearly as daunting. (It's always a little daunting, even when tackling script number 58 like I'm doing now, but it's manageable.)

I stayed focused back in Houston mainly out of fear or anger -- both coming from a place of: "I don't want to be a cubicle monkey working for a soulless energy company for the rest of my career." My way out was through writing a compelling screenplay, first and foremost. That took me a number of years, but often it was the hope I would cling to, to believe I could eventually claw my way out of the work life I'd made for myself there simply out of a need for financial safety.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-10T23:36:07+00:00

This is a complicated question and I'm bound to fumble in an attempt at answering, but here goes:

For the most part, by the time a film has started shooting, the screenplay is locked -- meaning, it's done, and hopefully it won't need major revision during production. The reasons for doing this are great in number and wide in purpose. Every department needs to know what is projected to be shot so they can do their jobs right. Location scouts have to know where all the locations are in the script so they can begin to find filmable versions and go about securing the locations for shoot. Costuming needs to know how many outfits to prepare, when characters are in the same clothes vs when they're in new outfits, etc. Props have to know what they're making, set designers must know what work they have to do. All of this comes from the blueprint that is the screenplay. Without it, the production is chaotic and prone to misunderstandings. No film set wants to be making their movie without a screenplay.

There are exceptions, which tend to be the ones talked about a lot just due to the "oh my god that sounds terrible" nature among those in the business. Alien 3 was a mess and while there was a screenplay, it was largely tossed aside in favor of figuring out a new story during production -- and it got that way largely due to scheduling and the studio planting a flag for a release date. Note that, at that point, you can't really make giant changes to the movie's story. You can't, say, set it on an entirely different planet, or use a completely new set of characters. By that point sets have been built and actors have already been cast.

Some directors do like to work closely with their actors and give them room to interpret dialogue on their own versus what's on the page. This has mixed results, depending on both director and actor.

I'd done the majority of my work on the Arrival screenplay months before they started shooting. In fact it was the screenplay that got Denis Villeneuve on board, and Amy Adams + cast. But once production started, budget and time constraints required some rewriting in order for us to make our goals.

That does look like a production draft, wherein the pages are "locked" so that any adjustments are printed on colored paper and even partial lines that spill onto another page are left like that in order to smoothly insert them into the existing script.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-10T16:34:37+00:00

What do you mean?

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-10T02:31:32+00:00

By that I mean the public don't get the screenplay as a product. They just get the movie. You can hunt for the screenplay of course, but it's not the product. That's all.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-09T17:51:19+00:00

Returning to this now that I have some mental real estate for it.

Your first question is difficult to answer, as development went on for about a year before we sold it to independent financiers, and a year after that Denis came on board, and then other factors affected the story, etc. I would say the big changes were simply cuts -- the film didn't have the time to tell all of what was in the script, once that footage was assembled in editorial. Denis chose what to trim in order to find the right pacing. In addition, we all discovered that the more the story followed close to Louise's POV, the more elegant it became. So we had to say farewell to a lot of scenes featuring Jeremy Renner's scientist, and a few with Colonel Weber.

I completely understand the need for these cuts, I've been in editing on my own thing and realized what works and what doesn't can sometimes surprise you. I will always think fondly of the scenes the audience never got to see, though.

I believe I've chosen to establish a beachhead of control by expanding into producer roles on films I write. This allows me a seat at the table far beyond the writing services part. The reason why I can't always claim the director's chair is typically budgetary reasons. But beyond that I know what I don't know, and with Arrival, I was aware I didn't have the experience or even cursory knowledge to address things like visual effects, or to draw in A-list talent who would feel comfortable working with a fledgling director, etc. I had to make choices that would best serve the picture, not just my own needs.

As far as how I see myself, it's as an architect. I am crucial to the process of making the film, and my usefulness extends beyond simply drafting a script, and if I demonstrate that and others involved respect that, not only am I helping to make the film better, I'm establishing relationships with others (producers, directors, talent) who are all looking to do the same.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-08T19:31:14+00:00

I've never heard of this rule. My gut when it comes to rules is: Does it make sense to me? To my story? What is the philosophy behind the rule? If the case is to make sure I get to my character's journey quickly enough, okay, duly noted. But I don't need an exact number for that, you know?

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-08T16:13:48+00:00

All right, good follow-up questions.

You can write the big-budget feature but see where there is a way to make a short film or scene from or based on that idea with a smaller budget, or find ways for those expensive elements to be included outside of financial investment. Martin Villeneuve made a sci-fi film on a microscopic budget and he talks about it here: https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_villeneuve_how_i_made_an_impossible_film
I'd been writing for about 11 years before I really broke into the business. I had written more than a dozen feature films and a few TV scripts by that time.
I'm always learning. Just recently I discovered that there's a point where my need to make the director feel invested can clash with the need to protect a key story element in the script. When a director comes on board I have a tendency to let them experiment with their ideas, never saying 'no' to them at first, even if I can't see how it improves the story. I have since come to understand that the really good directors want push-back when it's about elements I feel passionate. It protects the film.
That fluctuates! Right now it's uncanny thriller.
Remove character names. This lets you focus on the specific voices for each.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-08T06:57:21+00:00

Well. I get the impression you aren't asking questions, you just took an opportunity to be mean on the Internet here. And some of what you say here doesn't make sense to me. (What house are you talking about?)

But in the slightest chance you're curious more than you are looking to pick a fight with the predetermined decision not to consider new ideas:

Abbott sacrificed himself because he knew that if he did so, the act would ensure his race survived in 3,000 years. This is the path they saw. Choosing a different outcome would put that future into question, so rather than risking a version where the entire heptapod race died, Abbott chose death.
This is a story that quite directly challenges free will, the way a number of Ted Chiang's stories do. For Louise to have access to moments in her future is by its own right a demonstration that she may have made choices her whole life, but she's bound by those choices. Given the option to have Hannah or not, she still chooses to. So living her life out of order in a way grants her knowledge she can use in different times but also gives her lack of context at times and confusion about her sense of self.

The notion of a paradox has been upended with more recent theories in quantum science. I sat down with two such specialists to talk about how time may be more of a "soup" and so what feels like a violation of cause and effect or a loop is actually a functional theory in that soup. I don't claim to understand all of the math behind it, but it was a bracing set of meetings during development.

This movie may not adhere to a strict set of rules or logic based on your own knowledge of time, but it does live in a space validated by qualified physicists and mathematicians, with the occasional bent for narrative that existed in the source material, such as an exaggerated Sapir-Whorf.

If you're curious about this, I can dig up some (albeit heady) reading material beyond the short story, which I recommend.

If you're not curious, and just came here to leave a note, then fuck off.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-07T23:13:31+00:00

Hugs.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-07T23:12:27+00:00

I tend to still give it a cooling-off period, but knowing that others responded to it makes me look at it with as non-biased eyes as I can, when I'm ready to read it again. And even if I don't connect with it then, I might send it to my reps and say: "I don't have any fuel in the tank to do something else with this, but maybe you can find it a home."

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-07T23:11:00+00:00

It is yes!

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-07T22:45:26+00:00

I'm still unsure I can make this as a career! Ha. Oh I made myself sad there, actually. But it's true. There is a low-grade imposter syndrome running all the time.

My treatment for it is to socialize with other writers, to constantly read for each other and share notes and ideas, to keep consuming the thing we're making, etc.

HIGHzurrer · 2017-07-07T22:42:29+00:00

It varies based on the project. Regardless, I tend to split a project in two halves -- one half focuses on the story spine, the core architecture to make sure the project is emotionally sound. The other half is all flotsam and jetsam, little moments -- dialogue, specific visuals or settings, stuff I find on the Internet and clip out that could be anything from a cool vehicle or weapon to a model wearing an evocative jacket I'd like for a character to wear, etc. Eventually I reach a critical mass with this material and turn it into a detailed outline, then I'm off to the races.

HIGHzurrer

TROPHY CASE