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Message

Subject: Re: Babylon 5 Scripts Site Nearly Ready, And More!
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 00:18:55 +0000 (UTC)
From: jmsatb5@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

Cornholio wrote:
> I really do not want to sound greedy, but... what happened with the
> production draft for "The Gathering"? Wasn't it supposed to be included
> in the 15th volume too? Did you simply forget to mention it, or was it
> dropped to include something else?
>

It's there, I simply forgot to mention it.

> And wasn't the S1-script included in the 15th volume supposed to be
> "And the sky, full of stars"?
>

Yeah, another brain-glitch.

> Anyway, great news, I'm really looking forward to it, and I think it's
> really great that the publisher will even SHIP the 15th volume for
> free. Can't wait until the site goes online and I'm able to order the
> first volume.
>

I'm told it may all go on-line later tonight at some point.

The full length on the first book has just continued to balloon, it's
now about 454 pages all in, with about 52 pages of intro, 28 pages of
memos that were written before, during and after "The Gathering" that
establish the rules of the B5 universe, costumes, prosthetics, set
design, the history of various alien races, production elements, CGI,
on and on, and a clutch of photos on top of that.

The first few volumes are more writing-oriented, I wasn't planning on
this being a real Making Of series of books, but that's what they're
turning into, so I've given into it and we start getting even more real
hard-core "making of" stuff starting with the third book.  As it is,
there's lots of stuff in the first volume alone on production, casting
(the other choices we were considering for Sheridan, for instance), my
initial casting notes on The Gathering, who my prototypes were, how the
show was sold, the reason Lyta was in "The Gathering" but not the first
couple of seasons, the day B5 almost died...it's crammed with
behind-the-scenes stuff.

Interestingly, in my memos, I discovered the premise-notes that I gave
to WB at the start of the first few seasons.  I told them that I don't
do outlines, but they still wanted some sense of what the stories would
be, so I'd write out about eight or nine stories for them in one- or
two-paragraph form, and some of those were never written into full
episodes, so it's been fun to read these lost (if rather short) B5
stories (which will be included starting around volume 3).

This is going to be pretty much THE definitive story of the making of
B5, told from the inside, with all the stuff nobody's ever heard
before.

jms