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Better than Enterprise…

A while back, I posted the link to the Starship Exeter, the fan-produced Original-Series-era Star Trek episode. Goofy fun.

Yesterday, the Dastardly Best Friend sends me the link for another fan-produced Trek project, Hidden Frontier–a TNG-film-era series. That’s right, a series. This fan group has produced 3 seasons worth of episodes, filmed with virtual sets (via greenscreen), with starship sequences rendered using Lightwave 3D. The acting is amateurish, the cast definitely leans towards the less-flattering stereotypes of the fan community, but damn if their enthusiasm isn’t palpable and, to an extent, contagious. The absolute professionalism of the starship SPFX is a big help…and the fact that they use the music from Galaxy Quest as their theme music is a nice inside joke, while simultaneously being a stirring piece of music that isn’t associated with an existing Trek series.

It is amazing what fans are able to produce, using home equipment.

I need to get myself a copy of Lightwave 3D. Since I was a kid, raised on Original Series Star Trek, Star Wars, Space:1999, Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, I’ve had a desire to create my own Space Opera. Taking a look at what these fans have done makes me think that it just might be something do-able.

Must ponder that.

GMS

A Pleasant Surprise

So I’m off work today—sick. The inaugural yes-it’s-spring-so-now-your-allergies-will-kick-your-ass fun fest. So I took a day to get it under control.

I’m crashed out on the couch, drinking tea and general trying to get some rest. I turn on the tube, and catch the opening credits of a movie starting on FLIX, one of the movie channels I get via satellite. It’s a Vincent Price movie—one of those Roger Corman-directed early-60s gothic horror B-movies that took their title (and little else) from Edgar Allen Poe stories. (Stephen King was a big fan of these, and in his book On Writing said that he and his friend referred to them as “Poepictures”) This was one I hadn’t seen before: “The Haunted Palace”…the title cribbed from one of Poe’s poems.

So, as I’m watching, I start catching references in the dialogue: the town is called “Arkham”. Price’s character is named Charles Ward. Charles DEXTER Ward. As soon as it begins to dawn on me, the floodgates open, and the references come heavily, one after another: The Necronomicon. Cthulhu and Yog-sothoth. Tillinghast.

It’s a Lovecraft movie, as well as a Poepicture! Woo-hoo! The day suddenly gets just a little bit better.

I love little surprises like that.

GMS

Long Time, No Update

Yeah, yeah, I know. Things have been intensely busy since the last time I posted. I let it be known, in a very limited fashion, that I was available again for game-industry work, and before you could say “get a life!”, I suddenly have a number of things on my plate, including a few consultancy gigs and some writing (including a request for a synopsis/sample chapters combo for a game publisher branching out into novels).

This is great, because it confirms that I’m still able to draw enough contracts to be able to keep myself employed full-time in this business. On the other hand, it also has its down-side, mostly due to the fact that I’m still working the corporate gig for at least the next couple of months, and so I’m essentially in a position where I’m working two full-time jobs. This can be exhausting.

Speaking of exhausting—July is looking like it’s going to be fun. My lease at my current residence ends at the end of that month, and so we had been planning to move to Kansas then. Well, I just found out that due to a couple of the consultant contracts that I’ve entered into, I’m going to need to attend the Origins game convention in Columbus during the end of June, and then also attend the GenCon game fair in Indianapolis at the end of July…and somewhere in between the two, I need to pack up the entire contents of my house. Fun!

Thanks to Mike Mearls, I have a place to stay for both shows, since he had the forethought to reserve hotel space for any of us wacky game-designer types who want to crash with him. Just need to get my plane tickets, and my badge, and I’m good to go. Here’s looking forward to running around like a chicken with my head cut off, from late June to late July.

GMS