And we're back - despite life getting in the way of writing.
Trailer for Sphere Saga Episode 103: War, But Not As We Know ItOPEN on
Sphere Saga Animated Logo
Announcer: (Voice Over throughout) In two weeks, Sphere Saga returns -
CUT TO EXT: Panning shot of Warships of the SLDF Navy recharging at a star’s Zenith point.
General Kerensky: (Voice Over) Mohammed Selim, I give you this one chance - and one chance only to surrender the Rim Worlds Republic to the Star League Defence Force.
CUT TO EXT APOLLO, NIGHT: A Rim Worlds military officer (Phillip Drummond) floors it in his personal car through the streets of the capitol. In the distance is a huge firestorm, punctuated by naval laser bombardment.
Announcer: And the Star League Defence Force takes the fight right into the Usurper’s backyard.
NEW ANGLE: Looking up into the skies as another Naval Laser barrage spears down -
NEW ANGLE: from Drummond’s perspective as the shockwave from the strike thunders toward him - shattering his windscreen and flipping his ground car.
MONTAGE:- A Company of Royal Marauders discarding their aero-shells during a Drop
- A civilian hovertruck careening wildly toward an SLDF manned checkpoint, the troopers firing at it
- General Kerensky staring determinedly into space
Announcer: Where things are not as they expect.
MONTAGE (CONT.):- A SLDF Mechanised Infantry column drives into a city somewhere in the Rim Worlds Republic, surrounded by cheering civilians.
- An armed mob drags a RWR officer into a public square
- A young RWR child runs up to a damaged framed portrait of Stefan Amaris lying on the ground and stamps on it as other civilians cheer.
General DeChavilier: (Voice Over) This is war, but not as we know it.
CUT TO: CRANE SHOT pulling back on the smoking ruins of a RWR fort, as SLDF ‘Mechs and troops move in.
General Kerensky: (VO) The Rim Worlds Republic will be the next stepping stone on our way home.
Announcer: Sunday, January 21, here on Sparx!
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Extract from Reliving it, Almost: Behind the Scenes of Sphere Saga by Livingston Anderson. Pub. Avalon Press, 3105Getting kicked upstairs to Executive Producer level made me wish for the good old days. As Head Writer, I was already a Producer, but for convoluted and, frankly, nonsensical, reasons dating back the first explosion of motion entertainment on old Terra, the title “Producer” is one of the most nebulous in the entire Human Sphere.
There are Producers who have a finger in every aspect of their show’s workings. And there are some whose only involvement with the show is picking up a royalty cheque every quarter.
See what I mean?
Thus the proliferation of suffixes to the base title in order to get a sense of what the actual hierarchy is on a show - and to cause you despair just as the end of my meanderings is sight, I should point out that most of these suffixes are similarly meaningless. It’s why I always prefered to be known as the Writer, or Supervising Writer, or Head Writer, as the case may be. At least then you sort of knew what you were getting when you had to interact with me - Buddha help you.
However - “Executive Producer” is a title that’s mostly unsullied by all the other shenanigans attached to the base label. It’s simply where the buck collectively stops. With this yoke on your shoulders, you actually had to make real decisions.
I’d done the job before, on
Thin Black Line,
Nobody’s the Wiser,
Ducal Duties, and
Fires of Porto Augusta, but that was small potatoes compared to
Sphere Saga, in all it’s galactic glory and myriad of moving parts. But it had to be done. We’d learned that the hard way on Season 1 when we’d had to establish a fifth, then sixth, and eventually seventh Unit to finish shooting on schedule. As I mentioned previously, I became the director for the sixth unit out of necessity, but at least then I could go to Camus for the final decision on anything I ran into.
Now, thanks to the expanding scope of the story and Camus’s little health scare, I was firmly ensconced as his equal at the top of the pyramid. And that meant I had to deal with the Studio, mostly via Horace.
It didn’t take too long for the first groundquake to arrive.
We knew we’d done well with the first season. We’d not just blown off the proverbial roof, we’d sent it into geosynchronous orbit. The ratings were high, the box office take astronomical (and the frivolous lawsuits plenty).
So, at the risk of sounding really cocky, we were expecting the proverbial three-bags-full come nomination season.
The early trend was promising. The minor awards started nominating in October. About the only surprises there were the number of foreign awards we were in competition for. Although the Lyran’s GFTBs were practically a given, the
Saga team was pumped when we got nominated in several of the former Free Worlds states and the Combine. We also got nominated for Best Foreign Series in the Rasalhague Dominion, which really made the FVE lawyers sit up and take notice, because we weren’t officially being broadcast in the Clan territories.
Then came the big three nearest and dearest to my heart - the Vox Pops, the Stellars and the Rennies.
I’ve always been surprised that very few people actually know how the nomination and voting process for the FedSuns big three entertainment awards shows actually work, so grab a pew, sit down and listen as Uncle Livingston takes you through it (this is all germane to the story, I promise you - would this face lie to you?)
So, in ascending order of prestige:
The Vox Pops.
The bastard descendent of all those vote-for-your-favourite-celebrity shows going all the way back to old Terra, the Vox Pops was originally created by the Mikkelson entertainment conglomerate back before the Third Succession War, primarily to highlight their stable of exclusive contract stars. It became independent of Mikkelson in the thirties, but still carries the stigma. However, it’s important to the industry because it can serve as a useful raw estimate of popularity, especially for rising stars.
Nominations (and voting) are open to literally anyone who bothers to use the VoxPopsVote Apps (or mails in the forms in the Outback). Naturally, this skews the results towards the young and beautiful. Despite the efforts of the VoxPops controlling board in recent decades to broaden their base, the average VP voter is still a teenaged female (although, to be fair to them, these days that demographic is a plurality rather than a majority like it was back in ‘94).
As expected, Marcus Ettard and Crystal DelBosco snapped up individual VP nominations as well as one for Best Couple, for their work as Richard and Elise Cameron.
Well and good - that was predictable. What was not predictable, however, was that we would get a VP nomination for best series: as I said before, most VP voters were teenage girls, and a war/historical epic was not really their cup of tea.
So the VoxPops pretty much went as expected.
Now, the Stellars.
Although started by a loose alliance of entertainment writers and reporters shortly before the fall of the first Star League, these days the Stellars are voted on by all types of journalists. You only have to be accredited by one of several bodies recognised by the Stellar’s Controlling Board (technically, I’m eligible to vote because of my brief stint as a Policing Reporter for my local newsheet thirty years ago).
The franchise was expanded because it proved to be surprisingly difficult to get entertainment reporters to reach a majority decision in any of the categories. After the voting tallies for the 2976 to 2991 Stellars were leaked, which showed that some winners only got as little as 32% of the total vote, it was decided that perhaps entertainment reporters were a little too protective of their opinions, and the Stellars were reborn as the journalists’ pick.
The Stellars tend to be a good bellwether for the Rennies, while still retaining enough independence to occasionally disagree in stark fashion. You can still start bar fights in some places by musing aloud over whether the Stellar’s pick for the 3032 Best Pic (Rushes and Shades) was really better than the Rennie’s choice of The Frenetic for the same honour (for the record, I’m with the Stellars on this one - excuse me while I duck).
Again, we expected, and got, a flood of nominations. I was especially pleased to see that Hassan and Olivia were nominated for best script for Road to Exodus. There were only minor surprises again - Simone Lichkin picked up a Best Music Score nomination (her first ever), but Pytor Krikalyov missed out on a Best Actor nomination. Overall, however, we were quite pleased.
Finally, the Rennies.
Because of its status as primus inter pares of all the awards, more people know that the Rennies is run by the Film and Motion Picture Academy of the Federated Suns (FMPAFS), and that this body nominates, and votes on the Rennies.
What’s less clear to most is the membership of the Academy, and the membership of the voters.
Anyone working in the entertainment industry who’s a member of a FMPAFS recognised Guild/Union/Association is automatically an Associate Member of the FMPAFS. In my case, I gained associate membership when I sold my first script (for an overly-cutesy animated children’s show that never made interstellar distribution), and simultaneously became a member of the Federated Suns Writers Guild. There are literally hundreds of thousands of FMPAFS associate members in the Suns.
However, only Full Members of the FMPAFS can vote on the Rennies. This is a much smaller group, which usually numbers in the thousands (in 3104, there were 7,036 full members).
So, how does one become a Full Member of the FMPAFS? Well, it depends on your Guild/Union/Association. In agreement with the FMPAFS Senate, they set criteria for their own membership to qualify. It generally revolves around longevity in the industry. When I was elevated to full membership of the FMPAFS, the criteria used by the FSWG was 10 years in the industry, with (I believe) at least 20 short-format scripts sold, and/or 4 feature scripts sold. Your milage may vary.
And now we rabbit-trail all the way back to the beginning.
In early November, I sat in the Council Chamber with the writers, producers and studio execs attached to Sphere Saga, watching live on holo, at one in the morning (due to the time difference), as the Rennie nominations were announced.
We didn’t pay much attention to the first announcements, which were for categories like Documentary-Short Format and Amatuer Feature.
In fact, I was seated in my usual spot, with my laptop, taking a pass at polishing episode 207, and trying to ignore the crowded room.
Suddenly, someone yelled “What?!” and my peripheral vision picked up people springing out of their chairs. My head snapped up from rewriting Jamie Wolf’s confrontation with Takashi Kurita on Terra.
Someone punched up the volume on the holo. I noticed that the presenters were just finishing announcing the current category. I saw Sphere Saga’s logo displayed in the centre of five panels which showed the nominees in this category.
A Rennie nomination should have been good news, except for the category name that burned above the panels - “Best Editing in a Feature”
The room exploded with noise, and not the good kind. I couldn’t hear anything from the holo, so I yelled, “Hey! Quiet!”
I was only a little surprised when everyone shut up. And we stayed quiet as the announcements continued. Nomination after nomination came in for Sphere Saga - best VFX, best cinematography, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best director - but all in the Feature, not Series bracket of the Rennies.
What the hell was going on?
