CJ on Hulu

Looks like CHARLIE JADE is now available on Hulu. (In the US at least.) Via Mad Pulp Bastard.

Looking Back on CJ

Australian SF novelist Jonathan Blum decided to watch the whole season of CHARLIE JADE, and has written it up in his LiveJournal. If you haven't had a chance to check out the podcasts, check it out. It's a great summary of what Denis McGrath, Sean Carley and I experienced as the writing team who parachuted into South Africa on short notice to try to help showrunner Bob Wertheimer put his vision on the screen.

How Did You Do CJ In Five Days?

Q. I was particularly curious about the way you had to do each CHARLIE JADE episode with only five days main unit / two days second unit -- could you let me know what tricks you had to use to take that into account in the writing? Limited locations, lots of simple two-hander scenes, farming whole plot threads out to the second unit, that sort of thing? Any other bits of
cleverness?

Elifino. I asked Bob Wertheimer, our showrunner, if he could add anything. He says that 'by the time we were reduced to 5 day shoots, the crew was pretty solid and knew the show. And good. So that saved time. And by then we weren't getting a lot of network notes, so we never had to redo anything.'

You can't farm a plot thread to second unit. Second unit isn't for shooting dialog. It's a stripped down unit for shooting long shots, cars driving, inserts, stuff like that. If you tried to shoot dialog you'd need another director, sound guy, etc., so you'd be paying for a second first unit, and at that point you might as well just lengthen the schedule.

We did do one bottle show, which was also a clip show. A bottle show takes place only on studio sets; you can usually save a day on the schedule. A clip show reuses clips from previous shows; the less new footage you have to shoot, the more time you save on the schedule. To take the curse off the clip show, we made it a Rashomon episode, where we kept showing the same footage, but with new beginnings and ends to the clips, to change the meanings of what we'd seen earlier. Props to DMc for penning that episode so beautifully.

Oddly, we didn't shoot the bottle show on studio sets. We wound up shooting it at some sort of abandoned factory. Because who doesn't love an abandoned factory?

It was an oddly structured show from a production point of view. We had a studio. But the only sets we had were the Evil Corporation Headquarters, the Sidekick/Mentor's Office, and O1 Boxer's Club. Our hero, being as he was on the run from the Evil Corporation, couldn't plausibly have his own place. In other words there was no set for the A story of each episode!

So we gave a lot of business to the guys in the Evil Corporation, O1 Boxer, and (to a lesser extent), Sidekick/Mentor. Fortunately the corporate HQ and the club existed in multiple dimensions, so it didn't seem so narratively claustrophobic.

We did have a bunch of locations rented for the duration of the show, and those places also existed in each dimension. So we could have Charlie's Place in Alpha (lovingly restored by Sew Sew Tukarrs) and Charlie's Place in Beta (once we came up with a good reason why Vexcorp wouldn't find and kill Charlie on sight).

With a location, you have an interesting challenge. Production hates a location move. It takes more or less two hours to wrap up all your lights and camera and stuff, drive anywhere, and unload again. But if the writers can write exactly one day or exactly two day's worth of stuff at a location, then there's no location move and no loss of time. So, ten to twelve pages at one location = good. Six pages = not so good. Eighteen pages = not so good. Twenty to twenty-four pages = good again.

Overall, we didn't have tricks. We just had a great South African crew working their Boer buns off. Props to them for a great-looking show.

114 Up

I see my podcast on Charlie Jade ep 114 is up at CharlieJade.Net. Let me know what y'all think!

CJ Podcast

My podcast for Charlie Jade episode 112, "Charade," is up at Slice of Sci Fi. 114 and 116 will follow. Denis has done 110 and 113 (they'll be uploaded shortly); Sean has done 111 and 115.

Let me know what you think!

Michael Filipowich comes "from a long line of criminals and madmen"

RA Porter has posted a fun interview with Michael Filipowich, who played O1 Boxer so well in CHARLIE JADE. Michael is either a genius or insane or both.

There was so much going on in Gamma that you didn’t see…in Freudian terms higher self - Gamma; lower self - Alpha; mask - Beta. It’s like when a man goes out to an S&M club, gets loaded, things get out of hand, but has self awareness and a mission, and a longing…days later he stumbles home…his clean wife his adoring obedient children.

And:

Interesting you [compare my character to] Daffy because Looney Tunes were a big inspiration for 01. In episode 14 when I sneak up on Julius I improv the line - “come into my shop let me cut your mop, it’s free”, Looney Tunes Barber of Seville…wow man you got it. So I don’t think that you were seeing the actor but definitely the character…Daffy was a template. In episode 10 maybe where I beat a dude down…I put a lot of cartoonish moves in which were mostly cut out…but there is this like weird little step thing that I do. (ed: It was actually ep 11, “Thicker Than Water”)

Also that one scene where I paint a road on the side of a cliff and walk right through but then fall, but as I’m falling I pull out my cell and order a huge umbrella from acme which gets delivered to me while I am still in the air and I open it and safely float to the ground but then a Vexcor anvil falls on my head and my teeth become piano keys.

Fun.

Richard Porter Interviews Me at PopCritics

There's some fun behind-the-scenes stuff in Richard Porter's interview with me about my experiences writing CHARLIE JADE in South Africa, at PopCritics. Check it out!

Charlie Jade Podcasts

Bob Wertheimer has asked me and the boys to do podcasts on CHARLIE JADE eps. 10-16; I think he's doing 1-9 and 17-20. They'll go out on XM Satellite Radio and be available online.

What questions would you like answered about these episodes, the world of the show, etc., in the podcasts?

(And if you're lurking on any CJ or sf forums, please direct people here.)

That's Practically Prime Time in the Alphaverse

Charlie Jade has, alas, moved to 3 am on Mondays on Sci Fi Channel. (Thanks for the tip, RA.) I'm trying to think of worse imaginable time to screen a show... nope, if you were trying to bury a show, that would be it. I guess the numbers weren't as good as hoped.

Fortunately, all of you have TiVo, right?

Whoo Hoo! Charlie Jade on Sci Fi

CHARLIE JADE, the show I worked on in Cape Town, is coming to the Sci Fi Channel beginning this Friday. It is a strange, impressionistic, dark SF series about a detective from a parallel universe who is blasted to our universe by an industrial accident. Complications ensue.

My team came on board beginning with episode 9 ("Betrayal"), but we (Denis McGrath, Sean Carley and I) didn't really hit our writing stride until episode 12 ("Charade"). I'm particularly proud of eps 17 ("Spin") through 20 ("Ourobouros"), where I think we finally delivered on the vision that showrunner Bob Wertheimer was asking us for. Check'em out!

If you don't get Sci Fi, I believe the episodes will be streaming on their site as well.

UPDATE: RA Porter has a nice bit on the show at Popcritics.

Oh, and... Way to go Obama! Oh, Noes, McCain!

Charlie Jade, Coming Soon to the Cheneyverse

Bob Wertheimer, showrunner of CHARLIE JADE, writes to let me know that our show has been sold to The Sci Fi Channel. The deal is being drawn up so we don't have air dates. But we will keep you informed.

Rolanda Marais, think about visiting LA, huh?...

CJ in the UK

Fox International Channels' FX in the U.K. has picked up the science-fiction series Charlie Jade ...

No indication when it will appear. Bug your local FX affiliate.