Day 3 was Star Wars Day at San Diego Comic-Con International and we have something shocking to report, ladies and gentlemen. We did not see a single light saber, not one! Since we almost incurred an unfortunate eye injury last year due to an overenthusiastic Jedi, this was most welcome relief. For ScriptPhD.com, today was all about science and technology. In a day that could not have been more tailor-made for our website, we enjoyed panels with the eminent sci-fi television writers of today discussing writing for genre TV (a must-read for any aspiring TV writers out there!), a visit from the greatest science fiction writer in the history of science fiction, Ray Bradbury, a preview of next season’s sci-fi show The Event, and a panel on how exactly shows like CSI “tech” out with gadgets galore. Oh, yes, did we mention we got to hang out privately with the MythBusters?? With the help of our intrepid reporter Bryy Miller, we bring you the most complete Comic-Con coverage on the web. Plus, our Costume of the Day, after the “continue reading” cut!

The Write Stuff: Creating Genre Television

LOST. CSI. V. Battlestar Galactica. It seems that sci-fi, tech, and geek-chic television is everywhere. Not only is it a staple of prime time (across basic and extended cable), it’s an increasingly popular genre for which good writers are constantly in demand. Since we are SCRIPTPhD.com, an opportunity to listen in as a panel of some of today’s hottest genre television writers gave away secrets of their craft and advice for aspiring writers was irresistible.

Since this panel consisted of so many writers, albeit a dream team thereof, there was only an allotted amount of time for three questions, each of which the panelists answered one by one down the line, and quite enthusiastically. The moderator, Jeff Goldsmith, who runs the industry rag Creative Screenwriting correctly pointed out that not only are they all working in TV, but if they weren’t on this panel, they’d be at Comic-Con anyway. He called them the “Algonquin geek table.” The first question was to ask each screenwriter what brilliant idea they had that would revolutionize a show they were working on at the time, but that couldn’t get past the network censors.

Mark Altman (Castle, Elvis Van Helsing) recalled creating a pilot called Elvis Van Helsing, but ABC went with The Middle Man instead. So he turned it into a graphic novel, and the rest was history. Charles Murray (V, Criminal Minds) actually recalled a terrific idea for an episode of Criminal Minds, where a serial killer would put a milk carton in someone’s fridge and the “Have You Seen This Person?” picture would be of the dead person. Clever, we thought! Steve Kriozere (NCIS, VIP) had the clever idea on VIP of casting Bruce Campbell to play Pamela Anderson’s uncle. The amazing and talented Jesse Alexander (Alias, LOST, Heroes) recalled a victory for geeks in the form of Heroes Season 1 in an episode entitled Days of Future Past where all the characters went into alternate future. He mentioned that it was so hard to approve and get on air, but the episode went on to win multiple awards. What didn’t make it? “Season 5.”
Steve Melching (Clone Wars, Transformers, The Batman) recalled writing for the animated series The Batman taking place in his first few years in Gotham City, and wanted (but failed) to approve a B story about a frat boy group dressing up in D-List costumes, committing fake crimes and then videotaping their subsequent ass kicking by Batman. We wonder why that didn’t get approved. Ashley E. Miller (Fringe, Terminator) wanted a Fringe follow up to the episode “Bishop Revival,” which had an immortal Nazi. He wanted a flashback episode to 1942, where we find out that Agent Phillip Broyles is 100 years old, and whacking Nazis. Jose Molina (Castle, Firefly) wanted a Firefly payoff episode with a 9-months-pregnant woman being evil, where the team kills her but they save the baby, and the episode would consist of three acts of “Three Men and a Baby.” Right. Sarah Watson (Middleman, Parenthood) recalled being hired to do a SyFy Channel movie of the week about an untapped volcano under Manhattan (seriously!), and she had grand plans for lava engulfing Statue of Liberty, taking over all of Manhattan island, but when the movie got produced the visual ended up being lava trickling out from under a garage. Robert Hewitt Wolfe (The Gates, Deep Space Nine) was writing for 4400 in its final season, and was obsessed with the idea of creating an aerosol promycin bomb over Seattle (hmmm, as a Seattleite, I booed this from the audience). The showrunners created a promycin bomb at the end. So the next time you think all TV writers are geniuses, just remember that for every great episode of your favorite show, there were many bad ideas tossed around in the writers’ room.

Next, Goldsmith asked the panel to recount (as diplomatically as possible) the stupidest network notes they’d ever encountered for a show script they worked on.

Mark Altman recalled working on a SyFy Channel movie where executives asked him to recap the whole plot at the beginning of the hour because of people tuning in from HBO. Charles Murray, while working on V, was told he couldn’t use the word lizard in an episode. How do you get past something like that, he was asked. “I left the show. That’s how you get past it.” Steve Kriozere revealed the #1 SyFy Channel rule of movies: don’t speak to the monster. Jesse Alexander, having worked on some of the greatest sci-fi hits ever, waxed more philosophical. Everyone has an opinion on these shows, but executives want the rules of the show’s world, they want everything spelled out clearly, a lot of exposition. They’re generally happier if the shows are procedurals, but sci-fi shows don’t have room for that—if all the secrets and exposition are revealed it drives people away from the content. Steve Melching pointed out that a lot of animated shows have hyper-sensors because they’re aimed at children. The dumbest note he ever received was that you can’t say “killer satellites.” Ashley E. Miller was reminded (we are shocked!) that you cannot have an 11 year old boy say douchenozzle on prime time TV. Jose Molina recalled an episode of Castle where a body is found in the teaser, the guys go through case, and find out that the victim was killed by a stiletto. Said the executives: “Does the killer have to kill with a shoe?” Sarah Watson revealed that the most annoying thing to writers on shows now is that they’re paid by sponsors, so writers have to put products into scenes strategically. Her worst example was an episode of a show with a surf competition…sponsored by Tampax. To make this work, they had to cover a poor actress’s entire surf bodysuit with Tampax logos. Robert Hewitt Wolfe was taken out to dinner by the main executives of a show he was working on and flat out asked to dumb down the series. Ahhh, the things you learn when the iron curtain goes down.

Finally, Goldsmith asked the panel to give advice to young TV writers (or aspiring writers) on how to best write for a budget, which is unfortunately what most young writers will face on television these days.

Without question, the panel answered unanimously that the secret in the writing is all. about. character. The best and cheapest special effects are two actors in a room with terrific conflict and terrific dialogue—that’s what’s compelling, that’s what’s intimate. Most physical action, they reminded us, is actually superfluous—only revert to it after all possible dialogue is tapped out. Ultimately, you must look at how what you cut (if you are forced to cut things) affects the character. If you put six people in a scene, make sure that all of them need to be in the scene, because it is extremely expensive to shoot. The writers lamented that networks sometimes have too much money, and a subsequent desire to compete with Transformers or Iron Man, which television can’t do. Writers must remember that character works for television, and you can have high-concept ideas for sci-fi. That’s why shows on cable, which are often budget-restricted, are so great. Sarah Watson reminded the audience that you can always make a show cheaper, and fantastic, with great writing and great dialogue. This is how Friday Night Lights, which shoots on a shoestring budget down in Texas, was able to survive for five seasons.

Mostly, in advice relevant to any writer reading this, they said not to repeat past mistakes.

The Event

This television show, premiering in the fall of 2010, might be the new LOST, or it might be the new FlashForward. I’m not sure yet. The Event, a show that is so steeped in mystery that even its title is nothing more than Something Happens, was a show—and will be a show—with as many problems as it has concepts. Fortunately, all of its flaws are structural.

The pilot is laid out as three separate stories (well, actually, four, but one is extremely short in comparison) over the course of three separate acts. We actually start the show in the middle of the story when our hero, Sean Walker (Jason Ritter), hijacks a plane in order to save it, and then flash back to eight days earlier, and then forward to seven days earlier, and then once more to the present. It gets even more confusing when President Eli Martinez (the incredibly suave Blair Underwood) gets his go at the story, and then his segment goes back an entire year. The other two stories comprise of the father of Sean’s girlfriend, whose house and family are assaulted by unknown forces, and Simon Lee (Ian Anthony Dale), the supposed second-in-command of a secret government base/prison that lies at the center of The Event. It’s a shame that Lee’s section is so short, as Dale is a fantastic actor even within the confines of such little material. But perhaps the best acting comes from ER/West Wing (and Northwestern University!) alumna, Laura Innes, who absolutely nails her cryptic sayings as Sofia, the leader of the base/prison/thing-to-be-revealed-later.

The show will need to cut out some of the flashes in order to survive past its initial thirteen episodes, but it is definitely a unique format that works for this type of story. The writing was high-quality and so was the dialogue; there were no qualms there. It also revealed quite a bit about the world that had been set up if you looked closely enough. Co-Producer Evan Katz made the promise that answers would actually come a lot faster than with other mystery longforms. This is welcome, especially since I am of the belief that mystery shows can maintain the mystery if they answer questions in the right or clever way. Sometimes, it is even essential to answer them if you want the show to progress to its next level of weirdness. Blair Underwood was then asked what it is like to be the first Cuban president, to which he replied that there would be no Salsa dancing.

Katz then ended the panel the only way it could have possibly ended:

“The Salsa is not The Event.”

Spotlight On: Ray Bradbury

He is brilliant. He is one of the foremost technology predictors since Leonardo DaVinci. He is irreverent, utterly aware of his importance, and quite simply, the greatest science fiction writer in the history of the genre. He none other than Ray Bradbury. Ray has been coming to Comic-Con since the very first year of its inception. A devoted comics and graphic novel buff, he loves interacting yearly with fans, and gracing them with his musings, knowledge and appreciation. We were honored and somewhat overwhelmed to be there in person for Ray’s 41st Comic-Con panel, on the heels of his 90th birthday. Because Bradbury’s words speak for themselves, we bring you the panel through his eyes.

Bradbury, not shy about quips and bold statements, starts out his panel with a bang: “I want to make an announcement. Sam Weller and I are working on a new book together: Let’s Let The Cat out of the Bag.” In actuality, Weller and Bradbury released a brand new book of interviews (out June 29th) entitled Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews. Weller has spent over a decade with Bradbury, getting to know him, studying his works, and acted as his guide during the panel (Mr. Bradbury has become a bit hard of hearing). Bradbury is currently working on a new book of 20 short stories entitled “Juggernaut” to be published next Christmas.

On how it feels to be Ray Bradbury and if he ever marvels at himself, after a long, thoughtful pause, a hearty laugh and: “It feels mighty damn good.”

Fahrenheit 451 was among the most prescient sci-fi works of all time, predicting technology such as earbuds, flat screen televisions, school violence, and the rise of graphic novels. How did Bradbury predict all this stuff?

“The secret of life is being in love. By being in love, you predict yourself. Whatever you want is what you get. You don’t think about things; just do them. Don’t predict them—just make them.”

Of the technologies Bradbury predicted, he also warned about many, including rise of mass media. What tech would he like to see next?

Again, a thoughtful pause. “I’d like certain technologies to disappear. The internet is a great, big, stupid goddamn bore.” Keep in mind that when Bradbury was approached by an internet magnate to publish his works as e-books for the internet, he responded with: “Prick up your ears and go to hell!” The internet magnate? None other than the CEO of Yahoo.

Another strong, recurring theme of Bradbury’s panel was his love (adoration, really) of space exploration, most notably colonization of Mars and the Moon. Why? “Because we’re going to live forever. We should go back and build a base on the Moon, put a civilization on Mars. 500 years from now, we’ll go out into the Universe, and when we do that, we have a chance to live forever.”

Weller tried to get Bradbury to discuss the new book, once again evoking his crotchety sense of humour: “You can’t afford it. So get out of here and forget it.” In an extremely revealing, intimate moment, Weller pointed out that many Mars stories and works are inspired by and cut from Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, none more similar than the Twilight Zone. Bradbury then revealed something that many of his fans probably don’t know. “Rod Sterling came to my house many years ago. He didn’t know anything about writing sci-fi. So I took him down to my basement and gave him copies of books written by Roald Dahl, John Collier, a number of other great sci-fi authors, and myself. Rod Sterling forgot that he read all these books, and when he wrote his programs, he copied some of his ideas from me, and we got into a big argument.” The two never reconciled.

As we’ve mentioned, Bradbury came to Comic-Con in its first year, where he said only 300 people came to first meeting, quite different from today, where 1,000 people were gathered in his room alone. Why does he come so often? “Because I’ve been collecting comic strips all my life. I have 30 years’ of Prince Valiant Sunday illustrations put away, all of Buck Rogers. My background in becoming a writer was falling in love with comic strips.” How did they influence his prose and narrative? “Comic strips are full of imagination and glorious adventures. My all-time favorite is Mutts. A year from now, there will be a graphic novel of “The Martian Chronicles” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”” Bradbury is, in fact, the world’s greatest (and possibly oldest) fanboy. He is famous for writing fan letters to writers and other figures that he admires. He sent books to John Huston, the famous screenwriter and filmmaker. He sent a hand-written letter to Edgar Rice Burroughs begging him to come to a meeting of Bradbury’s science fiction society club.

Another thing fans may not know is that Bradbury is considered the patron saint of the American library system. He has been very active in rescuing libraries that are under fire because of budgetary crises. He recounted the story of his love affair with the library. “When I left high school, I had no money to go to college. I decided to not worry about going to college. I thought: “I will educate myself.” So I walked down the street, I walked into a library for 3 days a week for 10 years. Most of you in the audience can’t afford to go to college. But if you want to educate yourself, you can afford to go to the library. When I was 28 years old, I graduated from the library.”

The concept of time travel is explored in the short story “A Sound of Thunder.” If Bradbury could time travel, he was asked to what moment it would be? “Every. Single. Moment. Every single moment of my life has been incredible. I’ve savored it. It’s beautiful, because I’ve remained a boy. The man you see here tonight is a 12 year old boy, and he’s having fun!” How does he stay connected to his inner child? “Don’t worry about the future, or the past, you just explode every day. If you’re dynamic, you don’t have to worry about what age you are.”

Indeed, childhood is a theme of many of his short stories. Why is this so important to Bradbury? “Because I grew up loving carnivals and circuses. That’s why I wrote those stories.”

When asked if he had any regrets in life, Bradbury evoked the biggest laugh of the day: “I regret that I didn’t have more time with Bo Derek.” What’s the Bo Derek story? She came up to him in Paris train station, and exclaimed “Mr. Bradbury, I love you!” To which he responded, “Who are you?” She replied, “My name is Bo Derek. Mr. Bradbury, will you travel on the train with me?” With a stoic face he recalled replying: “Yep, I will!” The rest was censored.

Other than Be Derek, what was his greatest love? Bradbury turned philosophical. “I am the world’s greatest lover. I love to write short stories. I write them. I love to write novels. I write them. I love to write poetry. I write it. I love to paint pictures. I paint them. I loved directing a film. So I directed it. Those are my greatest lovers. I have loved all these things I have told you about.”

What authors inspired Bradbury growing up? “Edgar Rice Burrows. And Edgar Allan Poe—scared the hell out of me.”

Another fact about Bradbury that many people may not know is his rather illuminating and successful career as a designer and architect. He was asked how he got involved with designing the San Diego city center Horton Plaza. ”I designed a lot of other places all over LA. 50 years ago, the people who were building the New World’s Fair asked me to redesign the United States Pavilion. I helped build Epcot down in Florida. Because of those works, the people of San Diego came and asked for input in building The Horton Plaza at the center of San Diego.”

Aldous Huxley famously said of Bradbury, “You know what you are sir? You are a poet.” When asked who the poets are that have influenced his writing, Bradbury immediately responded: “Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.”

What are the things that keep Bradbury motivated now? “I have more work to do.”

On how his writing has changed over time: “It’s gotten more brilliant.”

As such a fan of Mars, Bradbury was asked how he feels about the ongoing Martian probes, and the real science evidence they have brought back to Earth. “I’m glad we are doing that [research], but we should be doing more. We should be going there in person. Not with a lander, but with a real rocket ship and landing on Mars.” In a rather endearing moment, Weller revealed that Bradbury has never driven an automobile. But he was invited to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where scientists asked him if he’d like to drive the Mars Rover over Mars. So he hasn’t driven on the 405 freeway, but he has driven across Mars! The scientists even gave him a Martian drivers license.

Any futuristic technologies for cities that Bradbury would like to see? “Monorails all over LA and California. Get rid of the goddamn freeways!” As a Los Angeles resident, hear, hear, Mr. Bradbury!

What was the intended audience of Fahrenheit 451 and how does he feel about its rise to prominence as a true modern American classic? “I am not a science fiction writer. All my books are fantasy. But the one book that is pure science fiction is Fahrenheit 451. So I’m glad that I wrote it. I’m glad that you all feel that way about it too.”

Does Bradbury have a favorite work? “All of my books are my favorites. All of my books are my children. I love all my children.”

How does Bradbury feel about digital books? With a cranky grunt: “I’ve already told you that. I don’t like them. I think of iPads and Kindles as books with a computer screen. Real books smell, real books have memories.” We here at ScriptPhD.com would like to give that statement a heartfelt “AMEN!”

Finally, Bradbury, on turning 90 in a few weeks. How does it feel? “It’s been 90 goddamned incredible years!” To which the audience responded by singing him “Happy Birthday.” A surreal, incredible and special moment.

Teching Out on TV

This panel started out with an inundating montage of clips from tech-chic procedurals CSI and NCIS that involved technology of all sorts. It was part awesome and part utterly corny, as words to the song that was spliced in occasionally would find themselves on to the screen. I was afraid that this foreshadowed the panel being just a huge PR stroke for both shows, but I was later proven wrong. Despite the moderator speaking in a loud, fast, incoherent style of mumbling, the rest of the speakers (Anthony Zuicker, creator of CSI; Pauley Perette, CSI; Barrett Foa, NCIS: Los Angeles; Kirsten Vangsness, Criminal Minds; and Rich Catalani, producer of CSI) were very articulate about all aspects of technology on their shows. They strove to make it less a panel about technology on CSI and NCIS and more about technology and how it relates to CSI and NCIS.

The presentation started out with questions about how everyone got involved in their work, and more specifically, how they got involved in technology, or if they even were. Perette studied forensics in college, talking about how, back in her early years, nobody knew a thing about it. She related a story that the first time that her computer was hacked into, she tried to tell the police, but ended up having to explain to them what an IP Address was. Then, after shows such as CSI and Law & Order made technology and forensics mainstream, everyone was a part of a club that they felt they cultivated. “We all became semi-experts,” she said. “It’s been an incredible decade of change. What we’re showing on our show is the grand upmovement”. Vangsness was a tad in the opposite direction: she took teaching jobs in order to support herself, and one of those jobs was teaching PowerPoint to third graders. She now has images of third graders hacking into government installations to post spam of kittens.

Foa stopped the discussion at one point to explain to the audience that his show, unlike the original CSI, does not stare at a green screen when looking at his computer tomfoolery. It is all real. Which complicated matters greatly when Perette’s character met Foa’s in a crossover between their two shows. She had to literally teach him on set how to react to a green screen as oppose to a real image. Foa also related how the super-tech that we often think of as fictional and made up is actually real. The CSI writers have access to China Lake, a military outpost where they test experimental technology. Scary, huh?

But sometimes technology cannot save you, and honest-to-God legwork must be put into use. For one CSI episode involving a stampede of ants, they actually had to hire an Ant Wrangler and clean up all the creepy crawlies using a vacuum. CGI was expected to just look too ridiculous. Then, in a devilish sort of irony, the projector broke, so the panel was cut short and went straight to questions. Perette was met with a young woman who was going to major in Cellular Biology in college because of Perette’s performance on CSI.

Thus, the cycle continues.

MythBusters: Panel + Press Room Coverage

How popular are Discovery Channel’s MythBusters? Very. Each year, the group of geeky demolition rock stars, who prove and disprove popular science myths through the scientific method, represent one of the fan favorite panels at Comic-Con. This year was no different. Press pass notwithstanding, we barely squeezed into a sardine-tight hall full of science fans awaiting their heroes’ arrival. Take a look at the picture below:

As if the presence of television’s most explosive group wasn’t enough, the audience was tantalized two-fold before the panel. First, a montage video introducing the Busters had us cracking up with its over-the-top… what else?… explosions!

Then, a special guest, Geoff The Robot from The Late Show with Craig Ferguson, stepped out to proclaim his nerdy love of all things MythBusters.

Finally, to ear-deafening applause, Chris Hardwick of one of our favorite blogs The Nerdist (follow him on Twitter) introduced the MythBusters, who announced that they’ve signed up for 7 more years of glorious science. This is a very special Comic-Con for them. It’s the first time all five have come as a group, and it is gorgeous geek diva Kari Byron’s first Con.

The first thing the MythBusters wanted their fans to know is just how very real they are. Although they feel like royalty at the Con, when they go back home to San Francisco, MythBusters is far from glamorous. Inside their workshop, which is a workshop and not a studio, they are doing all of the stunts and building themselves. They get dirty, they get bruised, and they do all of the experimenting. Says Adam Savage: “If you see it, we built it.” Although Savage has started getting more involved behind-the-scenes, he explained that the team is so knowledgeable about how to build things, that it’s faster and more efficient for them to do the building than to leave it to someone else. Tory Bellici mused that it would be nice to have stunt doubles sometimes, to which Kari Byron quipped: “They’re not stunts when you fall off.” Did we mention that we love Kari? Jamie Hyneman, who initially signed up for MythBusters because of the allure of getting to try new things, is still having a hard time acknowledging being on TV. When asked what famous people he’d met because of MythBusters, he couldn’t recall one. “President Obama?” nudged Byron. “Oh. Yeah,” replied Hyneman hysterically. Not so for Grant Imahara, possibly the most famous robotics guy in the world. “Craig Ferguson called me the Keith Richards of robotics,” said Grant. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

The audience was treated to a highlight reel of the upcoming season, which promises to have the best, and most extreme, experiments yet. The team revealed some of the secrets. Adam Savage revealed that a scene of a Porsche flipping backwards violently was done to bust an old 1980s myth that classic sports cars are more aerodynamic going backwards than forwards. In an utterly bad-ass bit of reconstruction, the body of a Porsche chassis was cut off, flipped backwards on the car, then raced at 100 miles per hour. Any more questions, kids? A scene showing Kari puking violently (she joked that it was in her contract to have to throw up every year) was explained as an episode testing whether people really do get cold feet when they have to do something scary. For the team, scary meant picking, then eating, two of the most disgusting selections from a table of delicacies consisting of spiders, cockroaches, chicken feet and more. And where does the team get their constant supply of ideas? “Surfing the internet really works!” joked Grant Imahara.

As to whether the team is cognizant of how much they advance science and critical thinking, and actively try to build experiments around didactic aims, the answer is… NO! Jamie remarked that as a whole, the MythBusters are a remarkably curious group. They are curious about stuff, they try to figure it out, and do so in a methodical and logical way. But they never set out to do science. Which, honestly, in the opinion of this website, is why their science is so great.

At this point, the team shared fun and hilarious inside stories from their Comic-Con experience and tidbits from back home in San Francisco. Adam recalls being shocked at two geeks that came up to him at an autograph table with their baby, wearing a onesie that said “Proof that nerds have sex.” Despite his uncomfortable laughter, the duo then asked him to sign their baby! Another fan went up to Jamie and remarked: “I’ve been watching your shows since I was a little girl and now I’m a PhD!” We’re pretty sure Jamie was kidding, but Adam still poked fun back at him. “You’re old!”

Just in time for next week’s Discovery Channel Shark Week, Adam recalled a fan coming up to him a few months back with what the fan was convinced was a brilliant suggestion: “Dude, you know what you should totally do? You should totally prove that, like, punching sharks will make them go away! Seriously, dude, it would be awesome! You’d just punch them.” A brief pause from Adam. “8 months later, there we were, knee deep in sharks, punching them in the face…”

Kari revealed that she filmed the show up to her 10th month of pregnancy. She pointed out that it’s a myth that pregnancy only lasts 9 months. (BUSTED!) She was worried that her baby would never come out. Replied Grant: “With all those explosions and gunshots outside, I wouldn’t come out either!”

Finally, to a fan that asked whether the team is ever scared of an experiment as too dangerous, Jamie reminded him that danger is a relative term. Nothing the MythBusters do is any less dangerous than driving down a freeway at 70 miles an hour. The trick is to good engineering and survive by doing a good job.

The new season of MythBusters premieres in the fall. Find coverage of their Comic-Con panel and clips from the new season on the MythBusters website.

We got to spend even more time hanging out with the MythBusters (and Geoff) backstage in the press area to get even more scoop about the show. We all wondered about the research process that the team undergoes. First and foremost, Adam proclaimed that they “don’t ever get things tested because they’re too dangerous.” There’s nothing the team is afraid of, and no length of time is too long to wait for a payoff. The research can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 years. The team searched 19 months for a lead layer thin enough to do an experiment properly. By contrast, the poppy seed drug testing experiment took two hours. They ate poppy seed muffins at 9 AM, and tested positive for heroin at 11 AM (well into the next day).

When asked about their terrific rapport, the team reiterated that they very much enjoy each other’s company and socialize quite well. All of the process, from picking to carrying out experiments, is totally collaborative. Secondly, the team shares a bond because they know each other quite well. “It’s not like we’re a science show boy band,” joked Adam. Most of them have known each other and worked together well before MythBusters began. Unlike other shows, MythBusters goes on for most of the year (46-47 weeks) because the building portions of the segments are so time-consuming. The most important thing to Jamie is a strong sense of respect that trickles down all the way to the show’s loyal crew of 23 people.

For the future of the show, Jamie revealed an interest in looking at the dichotomy of destructive things that do good work as well, steam being high on his list. The team never gets inspiration from movie trailers or clips if there’s no story there and they’re not worthy of a myth.

Adam revealed the interesting fact that somebody actually bought the Corvette which had been fouled by a decomposing pig to prove that a decomposing body can destroy the inside of the car. Adam now associates the smell of cleaner with that episode, which makes him sick to this day. Was that the team’s least favorite experiment, wondered ScriptPhD.com? Grant picked the ear wax candle experiment, jokingly calling it the “seasickness experiment.” Tory picked the chili pepper cure experiment. (“Burns on the way in, burns on the way out!”), while Kari picked the water torture episode. The most destructive experiment to this day, much to the chagrin of OSHA and safety regulation organizations of San Francisco, was the Civil War rocket, tested with a wax core. The team thought they had a proper bunker in the shop, but unfortunately ended up setting fire to their ceiling!

On any potential Discovery Channel crossover shows, Adam revealed that he’d like to go out into the wild with Bear Grylls (and so would I!) while Kari revealed that she would not like to do a dirty job.

And for the highlight of my personal day…

Last, but not least, is our official Day 3 Costume of the Day. We chose this warrior for a simple reason. He braved the chilly convention center without a shirt, yet with a completely covered head. Now if that isn’t upside-down thinking, we don’t know what is!

Incidentally, you can find much more photographic coverage of Comic-Con on our Facebook fan page. Become a fan, because this week, we will be announcing Comic-Con swag giveaways that only Facebook fans are eligible for.

~*ScriptPhD*~

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Greetings from sunny San Diego, everyone! ScriptPhD.com is in the absolute epicenter of sci-fi, comics and the illustrative arts: Comic-Con 2010. Armed with a press pass, our wonderful correspondent Brian Stempien of Lefty Films, and an industrial-sized vat of Purell, we are proud to bring you four-day coverage that spans the nexus of sci-fi, graphic arts, design, technology, film, television, and of course, the forum that started it all, comics. Day 1 coverage includes an array of panels covering the origins that drive an artist’s imagination, the future of cultural arts in a digital age, the future of space exploration with Iron Man’s Stark Industries as a model, good sci-fi, bad sci-fi, sci-fi that will change your life, and a conversation with two leading visionaries of the sci-fi genre, J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon. ScriptPhD.com also got to chat with the stars and producers of our favorite forensics show, Dexter. Plus, we have a little secret teaser interview with a certain MythBusters star that we’ve been teasing for a good while now! As we always do at Comic-Con, we pick our Costume of the Day as part of our compete Day 1 coverage, under the “continue reading” cut.

The Spark of Imagination

What better way to begin a four-day celebration of visual imagination than a panel of distinguished artists and designers discussing the “spark” that originates imagination, how to harness concepts and ideas, and how they feel imagination informs the creative process. The panel consisted of Tony DiTerlizzi (illustrator of The Spiderwick Chronicles), Travis Knight (lead animator of Disney’s Coraline), Hellboy creator/writer Mike Mignola, Kung Fu Panda director John Stevenson, Doug TenNapel (illustrator/writer of Earthworm Jim), and moderator Geoff Boucher of the LA Times blog The Hero Complex.

Let’s be honest, creative types are weird, weird people, me being one of them. Unequivocal unanimity was reached that this very oddness, which might alienate a person from the mainstay of society, was the very fuel that drove creativity and imagination. Tony DiTerlizzi recalled being a daydreaming doodler from elementary school onward, never listening to anything his teachers or figures of authority said to him, almost inhabiting his own world. (Sound familiar, creative readers?) Travis Knight concurred, adding that spontaneity, a side benefit of idiosyncrasy, is absolutely essential to the core of imagination. Artists never really grow up; they start out as hermits hiding in basements, grow into high school kids that get shoved into lockers, and end up playing with dolls as adults. But in a way, he added, it’s wonderful and liberating to live on the fringes of society, to see things in a way that adults have forgotten how to. Hellboy creator Mike Mignola expressed amazement and awe at people wiling to be brave enough to create things for the sake of creation, even if it will never see the light of day. “Let’s face it,” Knight sighed. “There’s something wrong with us.”

Recognizing and managing productive imagination when it happens were also a popular consensus among the group. It’s really easy to come up with stuff, maintains Doug TenNapel; it’s not really a special gift or ability and we all have it to some degree. The hard part is the execution in all forms of art. There are millions of ideas that will cross through our minds that will never see the light of day not because they’re not good, but because they aren’t viable. To develop those skills of managing and presenting ideas and putting them to use so one can make a living off of them, an artist has to become an “imagination editor” that parses out the ones that matter. Thank goodness Mignola refined that skill, or Hellboy never would have seen the light of day. He’d been drawing for years at conventions and other comics gatherings, usually on-demand for fans. After endless renditions of popular figures such as Batman, the fans wanted something more original, and Mignola sketched an early, rough inception of what would become Hellboy. Later, when asked to contribute a monster to a convention comic book, he recycled the character, drawing “Hellboy” on his belt to fill a blank spot on the page. Only later, when Mignola wanted to do his own comics, would the stories and three-dimensional world grow around that original central character.

DiTerlizzi also utilizes a character as a focal point for his stories. In order to care about a world, he reminded the audience, you must first care about the character that will inhabit it. How to come up with these characters and worlds? Research, imagination, and life experience! In researching a new character for Coraline, a model, Travis Knight watched YouTube videos of runway models. His biggest regret as he walked the halls of Comic-Con was seeing so many sequels, rehashes and remakes of 1980s TV shows and recycled concepts, and such a paucity of new thinking and bold ideas. This, Knight maintained, is the driving force for the future group of designers and illustrators.

Ultimately, making movies, TV shows, and even designing is inherently a collaborative process, one that the artist must accept if they want to derive the pinnacle of their imagination. John Stevenson ended the panel by emphasizing the three key concepts of successfully harnessing imagination: collaboration and sharing (all too lacking in the modern, fearful world of design and illustration), inspiring the people you’re working with as a leader, and thanking people and showing appreciation for those that have contributed to the betterment of a project.

Be inspired. Create. Let your imaginations soar!

Iron Man and Rocket Men: Is Stark Industries an Appropriate Model for Private-Industry Space Exploration?

Iron Man was easily one of our favorite sci-fi movies from the past couple of years… and really, what was not to love? Geeky gadgets, innovative applications, and a true purview into the scientific discovery process (more on this later). More than a few mainstream publications have noted the strong ties the movie has to innovation (a couple of good ones can be found here and here). But a bigger tie-in can be argued between Tony Stark himself and the government contractors that constitute the vast majority of the space infrastructure, most notably NASA. So when we saw a Comic-Con panel devoted to exploring this very topic, we jumped at the chance to catch some of the action. Leading New Space entrepreneurs Mark Street (XCOR Aerospace) and John Hunter (Quicklaunch) joined Chris Radcliff (SD Space) and Dave Rankin (The Mars Society—San Diego chapter), with moderator Jeff Berkwits (former Amazing Stories editor) gathered to discuss what is right and wrong with NASA, and how the presence of small businesses can only help quicken the ‘space race.’

First and foremost, let’s define New Space. When we talk about Stark Industries, for example, we are talking about the most extreme example of the tech-based industry, representing the Lockheed Martins and Boeings (and to some degree NASAs) of the world—funded by the government, developing missiles, rockets, and even top-secret projects. New Space, and the small, innovative companies that are leading the forefront of its revolution, represent realistic opportunities for outer space exploration. They are Tony Stark working in his basement, on the cheap, on experiments that no one is seemingly interested in. In this case, it’s the idea of making space exploration available to ordinary people, not just military or astronauts.

The first half of the seminar consisted of a very heated argument about why more companies have not been able to take the lead in space exploration and where, exactly, NASA has stagnated so much. Mark Street pointed out the dichotomy between the entrenched business models of industry versus small companies, some of whom are already launching innovative space solutions and making a profit off of them. The established market, on the other hand, has a steady source of defined income, and no real incentive to decrease costs associated with space travel, which will take lots of investment and trial and error. Boeing isn’t building the next rocket, per se, but they are building airplanes thanks to already established rules and comfort zones. Smaller companies are ultimately able to address these problems thanks to risk-taking, failure, learning lessons, and innovating. John Hunter likened NASA to a modern March of Dimes, a philanthropic organization that was relevant back in the 60s, when it helped cure polio, but has since usurped 90% of donations for cost overhead and only 10% for actual causes that it supports. NASA’s budget of $18 billion consists of 70% “legacy” projects and 30% new innovation. What they need, he claimed, is new thinking, new risk taking. During the space war with Russia, “some of the dumbest guys I knew were looking for jobs at NASA,” Hunter maintains. “Because they knew they could study vortexes coming off of golf balls for the next twenty years.” Ouch.

To Dave Rankin, this was somewhat unfair. He invoked the sign at the X-Prize launch of Spaceship 1: “Spaceship 1: 1, NASA: 0”. To be sure, the X-Prize accomplishment was a worthy one, but NASA has been launching human beings to space stations for years, and they are still the only ones with a proven track record in the United States. Part of the problem is that because NASA is subject to political whim, it has no clear-cut focus with its identity (does it launch rockets, do basic research, innovate new technology, etc?). That lack of risk-taking at NASA is where you wind up with stagnation; it’s so big, with so many stake holders, that the sheer size lends itself to bureaucracy. The panel also brought up NASA’s two shining stars: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, and the Hubble Space Telescope. While JPL provides some of the world’s best robotics, such as the Mars Rover, the photography coming from outer space is simply amazing. “You can’t put a dollar value on some of what NASA does. It’s who we are as human beings, but you can’t make a profit off of it. As humans, we have to keep looking into what are the places of the universe and how did we come to be here,” said Chris Radcliffe. Quipped Rankin: “Let it not be said that government does not fund the arts.”

Take a look at a video of the first commercial launch into space:

The inspiration for New Space exploration—for sticking Tony Stark into a basement—is that we need some more inspiration from space exploration than we are getting from traditional launches, and that will involve sending more people into space. Chris Radcliffe gave an example of a young engineer working at Hewlett-Packard in its early days who had the brilliant idea that computers could be more than technical devices; they could be personalized, streamlined, and made accessible to everyone. Hewlett-Packard didn’t agree, so he formed his own company and made that computer. The man? Steve Wozniak. The company? Apple. The computer? The Apple I. Like many of the companies comprising the New Space revolution, the design process in Iron Man is from top down, but the fun part is in the testing—you never quite get the process right the first time around.

Overall, the panel was very optimistic about the future of space travel and exploration, but emphasized the importance of spin-offs and small companies as a means to accomplish that. The biggest hurdles they will face is lowering prices of going to space, and overcoming the bad publicity of any first deaths that may come from the danger factor. Foreign competitors will have an even bigger role in driving our exploration. China will keep us on our toes, as they are very good at taking an idea, copying it and productionizing it. What will be the role of these companies in space exploration? Chris Radcliffe is pretty sure that space tourism will succeed, but that it will only comprise about 5% of the market. But it will be enough to drive producing vehicles and rockets and spacesuits and supplemental research off of things that will make money. The NASA CRuSR project, for example, takes existing suborbital platforms and doing science (in this case access to space for a reasonable cost) that they otherwise could not do on their own.

One of the more lighthearted moments, amidst a lot of PhD degree flaunting both from the panel and several people who asked questions, was a gentleman who prefaced his question by saying “I work in a coffee shop.” The reply from the panel: “You’re my hero!” While he respected space exploration as an ideal, he wondered whether the enormous cost of availing space to the average man might be better spent on pragmatic problems that can be solved right here and right now. Unanimously, the panel agreed that expanding human presence in space can only improve standards of living for everyone. If we wait until all our earthly problems are solved, they maintained, we’ll never do anything else.

Dave Rankin gave perhaps the best reason why New Space could be the future of exploration. “Space exploration is a forum for humanity: when we find a new space, we try to fill it.” We think Tony Stark would agree.

State of the Geek Report

From the more substantial programming of earlier in the day, we decided to devote the rest of Day 1 of Comic-Con to exploring our inner geek, with two panels looking at the best (and worst) of sci-fi in current entertainment. We started off with the “State of the Geek Report” panel, an exploration of the state of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in television and film today, and what the success of Avatar means for the future of movies. Steve Melching (The Clone Wars), Ashley E. Miller (Thor, X-Men: First Class), Steve Kriozere (Elvis Van Helsing), and Bill Hung and Todd Doogan of Digital Bits joined Geek Monthly editor and moderator Jeff Bond in discussing all things geeky in modern sci-fi.

Overall, the panel agreed that 2010 (largely carrying over from 2009) was one of the strongest years on record for sci-fi content. In some ways, we are at a peak of great sci-fi presence in pop culture and visual mediums, echoing 1982, considered by some to be the greatest year for sci-fi movies ever (Android, Blade Runner, ET, Forbidden World, The Wrath of Khan, Tron, etc). However, Bill Hunt maintained that Hollywood continues to try too hard to make every sci-fi film an “event,” and is getting excited for releases, but for all the wrong reasons. Not every film can be a blockbuster. In the past year, of the sci-fi films that got high marks from Jeff Bond, many were produced on extremely low budgets, including Moon, District 9, and the indie sci-fi film Yesterday Was a Lie. He also gave high marks to Star Trek and Avatar, which is where the panel took a big of a detour.

While Bond felt that the traditional, universal storytelling and high craft of Avatar made it a great success, Ashley Miller felt otherwise. Every dollar spent on the film was for aesthetics, and indeed, frame by frame, it is a beautiful film, including changing our expectations of what a 3D film should look like. However, as a complete work of art, it was shockingly lacking. To that, the panel brought up the point that what Cameron did with Avatar was harness 3D technology effectively, but the idea that every film now needs to be in 3D is ridiculous. Of recent releases, the brilliant Inception manages to be a challenging, engaging movie without the use of 3D technology.

Visionaries such as Christopher Nolan and James Cameron are given a lot of autonomy in their filmmaking—they are auteurists whose vision leads to the ultimate conclusion. Does sci-fi filmmaking lack for more Nolans and Camerons of the world? Autonomy, the panel decided, is earned. And not every director walking around is a Chris Nolan or James Cameron. Cameron made the original Terminator, which many feel is one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, on a shoestring budget. And Nolan used every penny of Inception’s mega-budget wisely. District 9 (which ScriptPhD.com loved) was shot in South Africa, with a native cast, on a very small budget. Moon, which we also liked, did all their special effects on model scale, with digital enhancements.

Ultimately, sci-fi is hurting most from studios turning everything into a “brand”: they are minimizing risk with constant remakes, but will ultimately have to swallow their tails and go towards original content at the risk of running out of material to remake. Sci-fi on television, which does not wallow in such an ignominious fate, is suffering from an embarrassment of riches. Highlights included Caprica, which invented an original, immersive futuristic world, and Stargate, which indulges in the essence of science fiction; to get the scope of wonder about other planets and life forms in the universe. (We will be joining cast and crew from both of these shows on Day 2 of Comic-Con!)

Abusing the Sci of Sci-Fi

From a discussion of the best of sci-fi, we went to what always ends up being one of our favorite Comic-Con panels, Discovery Magazine and Science and Entertainment Exchange’s “Science of Science Fiction.” Hosted by the hilarious, delightful and brilliant physicist Phil Plait (of the Bad Astronomoy blog), the panel was an equal mix of writers and scientists: Eureka creator/head writer Jaime Paglia, Battlestar Galactica and Eureka science advisor/physicist Kevin Grazier, Fringe writer Zack Stentz, and physicist/author Sean M. Carroll.

In perhaps one of the smartest ways we’ve seen yet at Comic-Con, the panel collectively provided examples of “good” and “bad” science on television and in film through clips. We’ll provide you with some of the highlights. Plait started the procession by admitting that he himself became interested in astronomy by watching Star Trek and Space:1999, and maintains that there is a lot of inspiring science in television and film, despite the bad. That said, his “worst” clip was from Armageddon, a scene Plait maintains is possibly the worst science film clip ever—Bruce Willis is supposedly on an asteroid and yet it’s raining! “Jerry Bruckheimer, you’re not in the audience are you?” He asked. “Armageddon. Worrrrrrrrrrst movie ever made!”

Paglia, bravely, picked scenes from Eureka as both his “good” and “bad” clips. The bad was a terrible attempt at an episode where nanoids have started to replicate biological organisms, while the good was an episode where Eureka made its own version of the Hadron supercollider. Quipped Stentz: “I have lived in Eureka in Northern California. Let me telll you…not filled with geniuses!”

Grazier, agreeing with Plait that Armageddon is the worst science film ever made, maintains that it has lessons of both good and bad science. In a scene showing the hypothetical impact of the impending asteroid (complete with overdramatic voiceover: “It has happened before, it will happen again!”), the shock wave of the impact is shown traveling around the Earth, which would not happen, while secondary impacts, which would happen, are omitted. The film was overly dramatic where it didn’t need to be, and yet missed out on an opportunity to show really scary science that was accurate. “It’s the only film that ever lost me in the first 30 seconds,” said Grazier. That said, the scenes showing post-asteroid tsunamis and other ramifications are so perfect, they could be a computer simulation for an asteroid impact on Earth.

Stentz, in a bit of writer’s defense, pointed out a bad scene from Fringe where the science was purposely abused in the service of an otherwise good episode. He wanted to illustrate that sometimes, you have to break the rules in order to tell the story you want to tell. Here, the writers wrote a story line where Walter’s hippocampus was “stolen” to remove his memory. To retrieve it, the team suggests implanting the memories (via the brain pieces) in the brain of someone who could interpret them. “I’m not a neurologist, but I know enough about memory to know that it doesn’t work that way. We knew that when we wrote it. We wanted the drama of a theft from someone’s brain, and how do you use them. That’s why you heard the line, ‘In theory, you shouldn’t be able to do that.’”

Carroll, ever the ambitious physicist, provided a theory, as opposed to just clips, against the philosophical backdrop of issues raised by the demands of narrative versus scientific accuracy. Take a look at the following Big Bang Theory clip of Sheldon explaining Superman and gravity:

This is the right way to think about science versus storytelling. A lot of writers are afraid of scientists because, frankly, we’re ANNOYING. We act as copy editors: “You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” But scientists are also good at telling you the consequences of existing laws, even if it ruins the romance of Superman. Science can make a story better by following this formula for conflict. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have the mysterious “Red Matter” from this past year’s Star Trek remake. No one knew what the stuff was, how it worked, just that it was a ball, it was bad, and you had to use a hypodermic needle to handle it. It’s far more interesting if you know the rules, can explain the science, and integrate that smartly into the storyline.

A lot of times, people think science fiction means anything can happen at any time, and that’s actually science magic. The rules don’t have to be scientific rules, but good drama comes out of limitations (scientific or otherwise), characters not being able to do something and coming up with another solution for it. As a working writer in TV/film, you want people wanting clarity on one side, but on the other had, you don’t want people to feel stupid and you can’t bore them. You can introduce science and technology in a way that heightens the excitement rather than taking them back to science class. ER used a writing trick to make this happen: one line of exposition, another line of exposition (medical jargon), then an emotional line telling you what happens. Ellen Page of the recent move Inception served this purpose as the audience member—what questions would they ask of the characters in the movie. To this degree, Carroll awarded Iron Man the award for best “science” movie of recent times, not for any specific science content, but because building the suit shows the true scientific method, and that’s how it’s really done in the lab!

Our intrepid correspondent Bryy Miller also went to two very exciting panels that covered a bit more mainstream pop culture. Here is what he had to report:

Tripwire Magazine

I had a theater class in high school, and we used to say that it was the most “un-schooly” class ever. It existed within the confines of the high school, but did not feel as constricting or regulated. Sitting in with the guys from Tripwire Magazine, a joint UK-American geek culture print, evoked the same feeling. It understood that the Con existed, but the speakers (Editor-in-Chief Joel Meadows, U.S. Editor Andy Grossberg, and Staff Writer Jeff Carlisle, and guest speaker Rich Johnston [editor of Bleeding Cool News]) were so aloof and full of intelligent confidence that everything seemed to fade away. They made the audience feel like they were a part of Tripwire – Joel even mocked the obscurity of their little magazine being at Comic-Con by proclaiming “welcome to the Tron panel, everyone!”

Their little magazine, starting as nothing more than fan scribblings in 1992, slowly gained notoriety over the years until they halted for a bit in 2003 due to their current publisher financially screwing them over. They got back on the horse in 2007, and since then, have gone on to catch things in geek culture such as the coveted first set visit for the superhero film, Kick-Ass. This proved to come back to teach them a further lesson in industry magazine politics, as the article was released a full year before it was assumed that it would. Tripwire covers everything in geek culture except music and gaming, and now they have set their eyes on new media such as webcomics and webserials.

“Anyone can get in, but how do you get people’s attention?” Grossberg mused, before giving Felicia Day’s The Guild as an example. A highly successful webseries about gaming, The Guild has a frothing following that has attained such levels due to catering to an audience that already surfs the web daily, and that would most likely consist of gamers. But Grossberg has another theory, and it is much more pernicious in nature as well as much harder to digest. “You know what they expect [newspaper] editors to do?” Grossberg asks Meadows, talking about the changing roles of businessmen in the digital age. The Editor-in-Chief simply replies: “Everything”. Turning to us, Andy Grossgberg comes to the summary of the thought that he started with The Guild, and that is that old media is dying because nobody has an attention span. He then goes on to lay out all of the various people involved in the making of a print comic versus the one or ones involved in making a webcomic. Carlisle then speaks up with his input on if you want to make money as a comic creator in the age of new media, “do a webcomic … everything will be the same thing [as far as everything being digital].”

This all went over fairly well until they asked to see a show of hands concerning who knew what they were talking about. Apparently, I was the only hand that shot up. It seems that the digital divide is still there, which scared me, considering we just spent an hour talking about how fast the winds of change are blowing. The panel ended with a heated discussion over which comic adaptation is the most “meta” because after all, this is Comic-Con.

EW Visionaries: J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon

Both J.J. Abrams (Alias, co-creator of Lost, What About Brian?, Cloverfield) and Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) are rock stars in the world of television genre writing. So it would go without saying that their combined might upon one singular panel would cause another big bang, or the birth of a unicorn, or at least get a boatload of fans churned up to Twilight-levels of excitement. That was the feeling in the enormous venue Hall H: that the world would halt for a brief hour while these two decided how to continue shaping it. Well, unfortunately, no unicorns were birthed. Fortunately, it was still a good time. Instead of the melding of ideas and thoughts, it was more of a dinner between two famous film people that enjoyed answering questions specifically asked of or about them. They would occasionally reference that the other dinner guest was eating at the sane table, but other than that, it could have been a Joss Whedon panel followed by a J.J. Abrams panel.

The moderator opened it up with a hum-dinger, asking Whedon if he was indeed officially announcing that he would be directing Marvel’s superhero team flick, The Avengers. At first, Whedon said that there was no official word yet, but then he followed that by saying the official word. This, needless to say, got a gigantic response from the unfathomably-huge, wide, and deep crowd. Abrams had nothing new, but gave a movie story none-the-less: when he was a small child, one of the crew members from The Exorcist mailed him an actual tongue from the movie. It was in no way related to what Whedon had just announced, nor was it a movie announcement, but it somehow felt like it was contributing to the larger narration of the panel. Abrams was then asked about his infamous draft of Superman Returns, in which Krypton does not explode and Lex Luthor is an alien. “It was not well received” Abrams sheepishly said, referencing the fan-storm that had swept the internet mere hours after it was put online. Abrams followed that up with talking about how he managed to team up with Steven Spielberg for Super 8, his mysterious monster move that, even though a teaser has been released, is not yet filming. “I was told that Steven Spielberg made movies when he was my age,” Abrams began “so they asked me and my friend to clean up some of his old movies…. They have in-house studios for that sort of thing, and they paid us $300, and I knew why they did not do that”. He added that the film would not be in 3D.

Whedon stated that he was fine with 3D, as long as it was done well. He was also fine with 3D as long as it was not in his upcoming horror movie, Cabin in the Woods – which it is. “I love it, it puts you in the space… [but] the movie has to work in 2D” he said. Abrams revealed that he was still on the fence regarding the issue, “everything gets dim… it seems less.”

Before a rather banal question and answer session filled with every Whedon and Abrams fanboy imaginable, Whedon took the time to talk about Dr. Horrible 2, the much talked about sequel to Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. When discussing the project, which would continue the story set forth in his webseries created during the Writer’s Strike (and has since become the second Whedon-written musical to become a staple of Comic-Con). “I missed my window,” Whedon said, on the topic of digital media “I was waiting for people to show up to the party.”

Even though the Q&A session was quite lame, and I do not like Abrams, something spectacular happened at the very end of the panel. A young lady asked if criticism is ever okay for writers, since her brother recently asked for some and then shut himself off from her when he received it. This clearly made Abrams livid, as he asked for the man’s phone number. His intentions were clear. That’s when I finally found something I liked about Abrams. I connected with him as a writer and as a human being. In the big picture, that’s what these panels are for. Not to showcase new projects or to grandstand, but to connect.

From the Press Room: DEXTER

ScriptPhD.com was extremely fortunate to join producers and stars of SHOWTIME hit Dexter on their way to their Comic-Con panel. Here’s some dirt that we picked up! (We promise to catch up with Michael C. Hall, who was literally rushed out before our very eyes, back in Los Angeles in a separate post devoted entirely to Dexter.)

The production staff at Dexter is getting a shake-up. This year, they’ve added several new producers, including Tony Goldwin (pictured), who visited Comic-Con along with the old guard to give us some insight into things we can expect from the show this season. Part of the strategy of the “new energy” is a shake-up of the show itself. The producers wanted to avoid the “one season, one adversary” formula and recalibrate the show’s content while delivering the same pleasing product to the audience. So expect a lot of differences this year with what Dexter deals with and whom he battles with (if at all).

Unlike a lot of other shows adopting the popular meme of “skipping time” for resolution, Dexter will pick up right where we left off to get all the blowback over Rita’s death. And what a lot of blowback there is! The newest change, producers tell us, is that Dexter is feeling a new emotion for the first time… guilt. It’s something he’s never felt before and quite new for him. Much of this is because he was so hopeful as the season ended that things might actually be heading towards a positive change, that he might get rid of the dark passenger, he was looking forward to a honeymoon with Rita, only to come home and find her dead and his son in a pool of blood. Dealing with that will be very difficult for him, but the producers couldn’t tease us with more. On top of all of this, people are starting to figure his tendencies out, which adds yet another layer of complexity.

ScriptPhD.com asked about the forensics of the show and how they’re keeping it fresh. Said Producer Sara Colleton: “Well, we have an expert who works with us, and they’re the tech person. You just keep up to date with what is used by police. What we don’t do is CSI-style, flashy, make-believe forensics. I don’t know how to go in your nose and down your throat and find a bullet and say “Here it is!” We really try to play by the rules in terms of how long a DNA test takes, what the limitations of top forensics are. We want those things to be real, because the conceit of the show is so unreal, that we want everything else to feel real.”

Jennifer Carpenter (Deb Morgan) was very excited about Season 5’s changes, though she admitted that for the first time, she really didn’t know what was going to happen. In the beginning of the season, Deb hopes that she and Dexter have a certain kinship, because they’ve both experienced loss, but that isn’t quite what happens. She correctly noted something I’ve noticed a lot about Deb, which is that she does a lot of talking at Dexter, and not with Dexter, which leads to his typical one-word answers. Jennifer noted that a lot of times, women in particular are guilty of “filling in the blanks” with the stories we want to hear (guilty as charged!), which affects Deb’s relationship with Dexter. She felt a little pressure of Comic-Con, with such a concentration of die-hard fans that you have to please, but pointed out that this is also the great thing about Dexter; they hate you one week and love you the next. Jennifer also hinted at growing suspicion on Deb’s part about Dexter, who experiences his grief a lot differently than her, but that the sister part of her refuses to piece it together. We asked Jennifer about the growing stripping away of Deb’s vulnerability, and how much more of that we’ll see in the upcoming season, and frankly, what she thought of it as character growth. Here’s what she had to say:

“I have to say that last year, Keith Carradine (Lundy), his line “You’re confused, and now you’re not. We’ll figure it out together.” was the first time on the show that I’ve heard someone say (to Deb) I’m going to help you. And then immediately he’s dead. That one line helped me play [the character] for seven episodes. I think about it now and I could cry my eyes out. This year, I feel like it’s about standing up straight, choosing your words, how you enter a room, she’s not editing herself, but she’s calculating. She’s working like a cop. And a little less of a potty mouth.” But not too much, she promised us!

Finally, we are thrilled to publish an interview that we have teased you about long enough. As we await the yearly MythBusters panel, always a hit here in San Diego, we had the opportunity to get some pre-Comic-Con scoop from one of our favorite MythBusters about her new hosting adventure on the Science Channel. Check it out:

Interview with MythBusters’s Kari Byron

ScriptPhD.com: Head Rush will primarily be aimed at kid-enthusiastic presentations of science. How did your interest in hosting and putting this show come together?

Kari Byron: This has been a passion project that Debbie Myers [general manager of The Science Channel], The Science Channel and I have been talking about for a while. There is a disconnect at about the age of 12 where girls stop being interested in science. And we just wanted to figure out a way to get them, and obviously all kids around that age, interested in science in a way that they could be passionate about it as well. We figured if we could create a show that was cool, not talking down to them, we could keep that interest alive.

SPhD: You have a very non-traditional science background as a sculptor and painter. How important is it to you to convey that a layperson can have a healthy curiosity and passion about science?

KB: Well I obviously came to science a little later in life, and I think that’s why I have the same excitement that you’d have when you were a kid for it. I think having no science background makes it more accessible in the way that you don’t have to be a scientist to enjoy the science.

SPhD: This programs is affiliated with President Obama’s STEM initiative. You and I chatted a bit about girl power at the Discovery Channel 25th Anniversary party. What kind of responses do you get from girls that are fans of your work on MythBusters?

KB: It’s really cool! I talk to a lot of moms and teachers as well, and I get excited [that they use], I hate to use the word role model because I feel like I don’t deserve it, but it’s nice that they have a really positive response. They like seeing someone that’s more like them.

SPhD: What small sneak peek can you give us to tease fans during Comic-Con to get them super excited about watching the show?

KB: I’m actually so interested in the material that we’re doing, that I’m just amazed at the stories. We do a bunch of experiments that give a hands-on approach to science. [Head Rush] is so different from MythBusters that I can’t even compare it. We will be using clips from all the Discovery brand shows, and a lot of MythBusters, of course, but the Head Rush segment of it is its own beast. I don’t know who or what I can reveal!

There you have it folks! Kari is so excited about her new show, she is hard pressed to reveal any secrets to spoil it. We thank her and Discovery Channel for granting ScriptPhD.com a sneak preview. Head Rush will air on The Science Channel beginning August 23, Monday-Friday 4-5 ET/PT, and Saturdays, 7-9 AM ET/PT.

Comic-Con 2010 Costume of the Day: ….and the unanimous winner is…. Calendar Man! We gave points for creativity.

For a complete album of pictures from Comic-Con (and many of the costumes that didn’t quite make the running for Costume of the Day, take a look at our our Facebook fan page (and become a fan!).

~*ScriptPhD*~

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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development.

Subscribe to free email notifications of new posts on our home page.

He is one of the most popular and explosive (sometimes literally!) science columnists of our day. Since 2005, he has written the Popular Science blog Gray Matter. He has been willing to try virtually any chemistry experiment known to man, all in the interest of proving a theory and educating (and entertaining) a fortunate lay audience. He has created the most widely acclaimed periodic table ever, which has been replicated into posters, an actual table, playing cards, and now, a gorgeous full-color hardcover book. Who is this mad scientist I am referring to? Why, Theodore Gray, of course! For Day 3 of Science Week, ScriptPhD.com is thrilled to review his new book The Elements, an equal parts homage to chemistry and photography. Editor Jovana Grbić sat down with Theo in a candid, in-depth interview about his books, his favorite elements, and the responsibility science writers have to informing the public. More more content, please click “continue reading.”

It is a staple of every high school and college science class. Its familiar shape has stayed largely the same since 1869, when Siberian chemistry professor Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev first grouped chemicals together according to similar properties. It is indispensable to scientists of all disciplines, and has even inspired our very own ScriptPhD.com logo! It is, of course, the periodic table of the elements. There is an immense challenge in taking such a well-known, immutable scientific entity and making people see it in a way it has never been seen before. And to do so using photography and creative writing? To the moon, Alice! Yet in Theo Gray’s gorgeous new book The Elements, this is precisely what occurs—a rebirth for ruthenium, rhodium, radium, rubidium… and the rest. Each page (as seen below) is elegantly laid out with gallery quality photography, sometimes of compounds, minerals and applications that would surprise you, and fascinating stories that turn each element into its own unique chapter in the hallowed Bible of chemical history.

Chemistry is the central science. But as you get to know the periodic table better while reading The Elements, it quickly becomes apparent that chemistry is also a science with much character. It is smelly, as is the case with sulfur. It’s sometimes a mouthful, as in the longest element name, praseodymium. It helps us control mood swings, as is the case with lithium. It helps us when we’ve overdone it at the weekend barbeque, as is the case with bismuth subsalicylate. Perhaps you know it better as Pepto-Bismol. Chemistry helps doctors and scientists to save lives. A radioactive isotope of technetium is naturally bone-seeking, and helps radiologists diagnose everything from compound fractures to cancer. Should you ever need to get an MRI, chances are you’ll have to consume a contrast dye composed of the element gadolinium. Sometimes, a fickle element both saves and takes lives. Chlorine, for example, has saved hundreds of millions of lives as an antiseptic and disinfectant in small quantities, yet is poisonous in large quantities. Likewise, selenium is an essential nutrient, but toxic in large doses. Gray also pays tribute to a sullied, marginalized element that has gotten a bad rap over the years: zirconium. If you’re considering proposing to that special someone, zirconium, like the overpriced aged carbon of which it is a replica, is near the top of the hardness scale and equally as beautiful for a fraction of the cost! On an unrelated note, thallium is one of the most effective poisons on the periodic table, owing to common symptoms that few doctors can pinpoint. For utter destruction on a wanton scale, however, one need look no further than uranium:

What is most unique and attractive about The Elements is the lengths to which it goes to envelop artists and creatives in the world of science, many of whom would be surprised how much of their craft they owe to chemistry. Iconic photographers like Ansel Adams would be nothing without magnesium, which has been widely used in camera flashes to provide light. For you font and graphic design nerds out there, one thing the typeface documentary Helvetica omitted is the magic that lies in the combination of antimony, lead and tin—it expands when solidified from a molten state. Voila! 650 years (and counting) of movable typeface. Film buffs who have enjoyed movies like Avatar (and the upcoming Hubble 3D) on IMAX would be interested to know that IMAX projectors use 15 kW short-arc Xenon projector lamps. Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, ZZ Top, BB King, and countless other guitar legends would be silenced were it not for the obscure element samarium, which in combination with cobalt is used as a magnet for electric guitar pickups. And for all of you DJs and musical purists who agree with The ScriptPhD that no musical sound is sweeter and sharper than that of a vinyl record, did you know that phonograph needle tips are made of osmium?

Interview With Theo Gray

ScriptPhD.com Editor Jovana Grbic was fortunate to chat with Theo Gray recently, and was eager to get his perspective on the making of The Elements and Mad Science books, and some more meaty science policy issues as well.

ScriptPhD.com: Tell me a bit about the idea to put together The Elements.

Theo Gray: The book goes back quite a ways. I started collecting elements, really by accident, in 2002. We needed a table for the common area of the office I was moving into, and I didn’t want some kind of an ugly thing that you could get from an office supply catalog, so I had tables on my mind. Then, I was reading Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sachs, and he describes a periodic table that he used to visit at the science museum. I took that literally, and thought the table literally looked like a table, and that seemed like the coolest thing—someone should make a periodic table [with slots for the elements], and at that point no one ever had! Because of the way the table was designed, it was easy to make little compartments underneath each element where you could put a sample of the element. This was right around when eBay was exploding, and it turned out you could get a great many elements there. It kind of happened by accident. One table led to another, and pretty soon, I had thousands of element [samples], pure and industrial compounds. Then I started photographing them to remember what they are. I put the cataloged list and accompanying photographs on the web, and people liked it, and the Ig Nobel Award I got in 2002 made me think that this is something other people might be interested in, too.

One thing led to another, and the cameras started getting fancier, and the photography started getting better, and pretty soon I thought I could make a poster [of the elements]. This poster is now seem on TV shows from MythBusters to Hannah Montana, which eventually led to The Elements.

SPhD: One of the things I really loved about The Elements was the humor interspersed throughout the copy. You manage to really make it fun, lively and at times hilarious. Was this writing style meant to parallel how you view science, and chemistry in particular?

TG: The other thing that I’d been doing [while compiling the book] every month, was writing a column for Popular Science Magazine, Gray matter. And it’s popular, it’s a popular magazine, as the name implies, written very much for a lay audience. So I did that every month, writing 350-450 words about a certain topic of science and working with excellent editors there to refine the language to compete with other popular publications—immediately engaging, and with some fun in it. I think it’s fair to say that over the course of the five years that I’ve been writing the column, I’d refined my ability to write consicely about a focused topic. And that’s what The Elements book is, a hundred Popular Science columns all wrapped up. In some cases, the story behind an element was so much more interesting than any practical uses we could highlight. [Editor’s note: radium is a particularly good example of this!]

SPhD: What were the biggest challenges during the making of the book and photography of the elements?

TG: In terms of the writing of the book, the rare earths, or Lanthanide series, was the toughest by far, because all of the Lanthanides are very similar [in chemical property]. In many cases, for commercial applications, they’re essentially interchangeable. If you’re making lighter flicks, it really doesn’t matter what rare earth you’re using—and they don’t even purify them, they just take them out of the ground. And many of them don’t really have any interesting applications. Although, it was interesting to discover Thulium (Tm 69), for example, which I’d gone for years thinking that no one actually cared about. But it turns out in the lighting industry they care passionately about thulium, and they couldn’t live without it [for metal halide lamps].

The challenge with the photography is that these are all essentially lumps of gray metal. 90%+ of all the elements are gray metals and shapeless. One of the few other photo periodic tables out there was published in the 1960s by Time-LIFE, and they all look the same—not very interesting! Our job was exactly like the job of a commercial photographer, an advertising photographer. They’re given a product that might be the most boring thing you ever saw, and they have to bring out its inner beauty by way of lighting and arrangement. We tried to think of the most exciting examples of each metal. We also did cheat a bit, with some of the beautiful, colorful crystals, which are not pure elements but rather compounds. But it is an excuse to put a splash of color on every page!

SPhD: You know I’m going to ask… you’re the Element King… What’s your favorite element and why?

TG: Ahh, the favorite element question! My first answer is that I don’t have a favorite child, either. But there’s different elements that I like for different reasons. Sodium, for example, if you have a lake near-by, is the element you want to have. [Editor’s note: BE CAREFUL! HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE!] On the other hand, something like titanium is a wonderful metal in every way—it doesn’t rust, it’s malleable, highly useful, strong, and many of its applications are interesting and exotic. Copper is so great as well, because it’s the only colored metal that is reasonably priced and not explosive. Cesium explodes, and gold is very expensive. That leaves copper, but people don’t tend to make sophisticated shapes out of it other than jewelry. But if I had to name two, it would be sodium and titanium.

SPhD: Let’s talk about your other book for a moment, Mad Science. Some of my favorite experiments that I want to replicate are the lightbulb, homemade pencils, 1-volt liquid battery (which I’ll use to charge up my iPod), plating the iPod, and my personal favorite, preserving a snowflake. Was there an experiment in this book that made it in or didn’t where you either felt like your life was in danger or you were like, “OK, change of plans, we’re not doing this.”?

TG: I have a policy of not doing anything dangerous. These experiments [from the book] are only dangerous if you don’t do them right, which I explain fairly well in the safety section. Because basically, I’m a complete ninny. I’m terrified of that stuff, which is the way that you ought to be. There is a good bit of thought that went into the worst case scenario, and if there was a shred of doubt, we rethought the experiment—smaller scale, or do it differently. One of the advantages of doing it for photography as opposed to in person is that we were able to get away with extremely small quantities. We also hired specialists where applicable, such as an electrical engineer for shrinking coin trick, or an industrial chemist for the chlorine experiment.

The one experiment that I suggest your readers do is the snowflake one, which is just so nice, and only took me three or four tries. The key is to keep your slide really cold and pre-cooled, and to handle them with your hands the least amount possible.

SPhD: You are, of course, most well known for your Popular Science column Gray Matter. How has writing Gray Matter, particularly focused for a lay audience, changed your role in science?

TG: It’s interesting to be faced with the challenge of trying to explain something that is actually quite complicated and deep in a format where you only have a few hundred words and you can’t assume that your audience has four semesters of college chemistry. If I were writing for Scientific American, it would be quite different and you could use a certain shorthand quite freely. Here, I have not not only explain everything, but also make it fun and entertaining. The most important thing is that I have an opportunity to speak to people, particularly young people, who probably aren’t getting any actual science anywhere else. Rather than preaching to the choir about the value and interestingness of science, I can reach out to a new audience. Often in lay magazines, it’s frustrating to read so much pseudo-science because the people doing it don’t actually know what they’re talking about. The other thing I like to do is scatter some breadcrumbs throughout my writing to leave hints or terms that can’t really be explained to encourage people to look things up on their own.

SPhD: So much of our modern culture is influenced by the growth of technology and science, which play a huge role in our lives and economy than ever before. And yet, as a whole, mainstream public knowledge of basic science can be shockingly absent or misinformed. What is the single most important thing people like you, myself and others in the science community can do to mitigate this?

TG: There’s a couple of things. One is, and I’ve written a couple of blog posts about this for Powell’s Books, that you need to be relatively fearless in getting out there and telling the truth without worrying about repercussions or consequences. I’m talking about things like creationism or homeopathy, which are two basically stupid ideas which are very widely believed. People like me have a responsibility not to beat around the bush [as to their accuracy or lack thereof]. One needs to have strong attitudes because that’s what gets people riled up. At the same time, one needs to communicate that science is something that is worth putting effort into and learning about, because it’s very powerful. If you understand it, and your competitor doesn’t, you win, in many, many situations. We see this both in technology and at the societal level, one that we’re frankly losing to China. While we’re arguing about evolution and homeopathy, they’re gathering all the natural resources they can to become the dominant global economy next Century.

SPhD: You are one of the few scientists that have crossed the barrier to entertainment and wider popular appeal. Why do you think more academics have not? Is it a problem of the public welcoming these figures, hesitation in the academic community of going mainstream, or something in the middle?

TG: It depends. There’s different motivations. I, for example, grew up in an entirely academic household; both of my parents were math professors. I completely understand that world and that mindset. The kind of articles that I write for Popular Science would be considered more than a little bit embarrassing if I were an academic and had to worry about tenure committees and citations of academic papers. It’s not a very respectable profession, from an academic point of view, and I think that keeps a lot of people out who could write for a broader popular audience. It’s also a quite different skill, one that’s taken me decades, to develop the writing style that works for a lay audience—and it’s not easy to do.

And then on the other side, there’s a resistance among the publishers and media types to take science seriously because they assume it’s going to be boring. It irritates me greatly when TV shows about science end up being frantically edited, with lots of flashy graphics going up. And you can just tell that what happened was that none of the people involved knew anything about science (or possibly cared). But if you look at a show like MythBusters, for example, it’s a fantastic science show.

SPhD: Yes! We love MythBusters!

TG: They are one of the most successful of all cable shows, and they are 95% a science show wrapped up around the theme of a “myth” that they have to “bust.” Fundamentally, what they do is pose a question and then hypothesize and answer it using the scientific method. I don’t know if people appreciate how revolutionary it is for them to do that consistently.

SPhD: This is why ScriptPhD.com loves The Discovery Channel and MythBusters so much. We are in contact with them, we’re big supporters, and we wish them, and you, a lot of luck with shepherding the next generation of curious young scientists!

TG: Delightful to talk to you as well. Thanks!

~*ScriptPhD*~
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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development.

Follow us on Twitter and our Facebook fan page. Subscribe to free email notifications of new posts on our home page.

ScriptPhD.com was delighted to join Discovery Channel in celebrating 25 years of science, specials, animals, crazy experiments, and educating the public viewing audience last week in Pasadena, CA. There, we met up with the likes of the MythBusters, Animal Planet, The Science Channel and more to get scoop for our fans and be a proud part of the best pure science television programming on air today. To help Discovery Channel celebrate, ScriptPhD.com is announcing a giveaway and fan contest that you don’t want to miss, especially if you’re a MythBusters fan! For more photographs, party coverage and details on our contest, please click “continue reading”.

As everyone knows, any truly great party starts with an animal. We knew we’d be in for a great evening last Thursday when we saw Animal Planet‘s Dave Salmoni and two of his closest long-necked friends frolicking in the backyard:

Inside of the Discovery Channel tent, not only was the science immortalized with geeky conversation, but also with flour and marzipan. Here, two lovely representatives of TLC’s Ultimate Cake Off show their devotion for Discovery programming:

While chatting with Grant and Kari of MythBusters , Grant revealed exclusive scoop to ScriptPhD.com. A future episode of MythBusters will test whether a car is bullet-proof with phone book pages (really!) and the premiere episode, in which they tried to literally knock a dummy’s socks off,

will be repeated. They got so many great suggestions, input and experimental alternatives from fans, that the Busters will attempt to bust this myth again! Not only was I fortunate to hang out with MythBusters Grant and Kari, I got cozy and comfy with the real star of the show, Buster. As any fan of the show knows, before the MythBusters can try out their experiments and theories, they must be tested and safety-proofed with a dummy. Meet the dummy:

Finally, we got terrific environmental advice from actor, activist and reality star Ed Begley, Jr. (His show, Living With Ed airs on Planet Green.) We asked Ed what his one non-green indulgence is, and he sheepishly admitted that it was the sometimes unavoidable luxury of flying an airplane. However, he suggested a terrific resource when flying (or doing anything that will leave a relatively large carbon footprint) that is not only environmentally-friendly, but largely affordable: a Terra Pass. For a small donation each time you fly, say $30 in exchange for a flight from Los Angeles to New York, TerraPass will fund organizations and projects that reduce emissions, offset the carbon footprint you are leaving, and make our world more sustainable and eco-friendly! Ed also reminded me that big change starts with small actions. Replace the incandescent light bulbs in your home with fluorescent ones. Weather-proof your windows and doors to reduce your heating bill. Recycle. These are activities you don’t have to be a celebrity or wealthy to implement, and they have a BIG impact!

And now, what you’ve been waiting for… details about our MythBusters give-away:

Last year, ScriptPhD.com had such a wonderful time hanging out with Jamie, Adam, Tory and Grant from MythBusters at Comic-Con 2009 (read our interview with the MythBusters):

This year, at Comic-Con 2010, we want to invite you along! Thanks to Discovery Channel’s MythBusters Superfan Sweepstakes, a lucky fan can meet Jamie, Adam, and the rest of the explosive crew. But here at ScriptPhD.com, we want to make sure that person is a ScriptPhD fan. Here’s what you do:

1) Follow ScriptPhD.com (@ScriptPhD) and MythBusters (@MythBusters) on Twitter.

2) Tweet the following message: I entered the SUPERFAN Sweepstakes via #ScriptPhD to meet the @MythBusters because #IMASUPERFAN! www.discovery.com/mythbusters. You may Tweet as many days as you’d like to increase your chances of winning. One lucky Tweeter will be picked by the Discovery Channel on February 8th to go to Comic-Con in San Diego later this summer. Important note: Limit one (1) Twitter Entry per person/Twitter account per day. Multiple entrants are not permitted to share the same Twitter account.

3) Let the Discovery team know you’re a ScriptPhD fan! Make sure to add a hash tag like this: #ScriptPhD to your Twitter message, let us know you’re participating with a comment on this blog entry or on our Facebook fan page!

4) The blog or website with the most fans that enter the sweepstakes will get a full MythBusters box set DVD to give away. We want you to get those DVDs!

5) Get a really cool MythBusters t-shirt mailed from ScriptPhD.com (see below)

While only one of our fans can win the trip to Comic-Con, we can guarantee giving away five of these charcoal grey exclusive “CONFIRMED” MythBusters t-shirts:

Starting today through the end of the Superfan Sweepstakes on February 8, we will be mailing one of these tees to five lucky fans that either leave a comment on our Facebook Fan page or this blog post that they have participated in the contest, or use the #ScriptPhD hashtag on Twitter when entering. Remember, the more times you participate, the more you increase your chances of winning the contest, the MythBusters DVD box set, and a t-shirt from ScriptPhD.com.

Good luck to everyone and hope to see you at Comic-Con 2010!

~*ScriptPhD*~
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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development.

Follow us on Twitter and our Facebook fan page. Subscribe to free email notifications of new posts on our home page.

Are you guys still staying strong and ready for more Comic-Con highlights? Good, I thought so. Saturday is always an action-packed highlight day for the Con, with the best of science and entertainment panels saved for last. And this year did not disappoint. We got an up close and personal view of the very last Lost panel ever as we watched right from the stage and bring you great pictures and highlights from the panel. Thanks to two great friends from the production crew, we were able to enjoy the controversial Futurama! panel from backstage, where we caught up with the writers and producers. Along with a full transcript of the highly anticipated True Blood panel, we had two more great press rooms with Fringe and MythBusters. To be a part of the Comic-Con action, please click “continue reading.”

Lost
Panelists: Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse (executive producers and head writers of Lost) and special guests to be named later.

We can say with a high degree of scientific certainty that this year’s Lost panel, the last ever at Comic-Con, was the most anticipated event, as evidenced by queues that wrapped around the convention center, around the marina, and back. Some fans had started lining up in front of the Hall as early as 7 o’clock… the night before. Luckily for you, our faithful readers, ScriptPhD.com had a front and center seat right up on the stage with the press to take in every moment right up close as it happened. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, we decided to let you experience the full Lost panel in the pictures we snapped and with YouTube videos kindly recorded by Tostie Productions.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

A fun Season 6 promo!

And an even more fun parody video

As a supplement to the full videos, scroll down for some fun pictures capturing the best moments of the panel. Please credit all photography to ScriptPhD.com if you take these for your own use.

Futurama!
Moderator: Bill Morrison (Bongo Comics)

Panelists: Claudia Katz (producer/writer, Futurama), Patrick Verrone (Producer/writer, Futurama), Eric Kaplan (writer/producer, Futurama), Michael Rowe (producer, Futurama), David X. Cohen (Futurama, The Simpsons), Matt Groening (The Simpsons)

As many of you know, there has been a fair amount of controversy surrounding the return of FOX’s immensely popular animated show Futurama! due to contract negotiation issues with the actors doing the voices. The Futurama! panel was to have consisted of the voice talent, however because of the uncertainty of when and if the show would be renewed, animation and production talent appeared instead. Matt Groening began the morning by reading a humorous, sarcastic statement absolving Fox of blame for the situation. Due to time restrictions, the panelists saved time only for fan questions.

Producers showed a funny clip of Futurama! behind the scenes. (The clip is available as an extra on the DVD of Futurama!

Matt Groening: First of all we want to make it clear that we love our Futurama actors! We just hope that FOX and the actors can come to agreement ASAP. Let us continue.

David X. Cohen: We are mainly a panel of writers, and we decided to take advantage of that. S we are going to show you some samples of actual behind the scenes dialogue from writers’ room: things people have said over the years in the writers’ room that have been memorable, and we wrote index cards later. We saved them, Xeroxed them, and read them back, these are magic moments. And genuinely behind the scenes.

Example:

“We need to think about logistics?”
“What kind of logistics?”
“That’s what we need to talk about-there might not be any logistics”

“This is a light, romantic scene, so we don’t want him farting, puking and shitting diarrhea.”

“Were you nominnated for something?”
“No I’m a judge.”
“What did you judge?”
“Nothing, I forgot.” —re the Webby awards

“My monster manual is starting to smell.”

“Search for lame [on the script] going upwards.”
“Watch, it’ll highlight the whole script.”

“Inscincere compliments are still good.”

“Futurama brings the flava.”

At this point, the writers opened up the floor to fan questions, and each fan that asked a question got a prize out of the box to mimic what the Lost writers did during their panel at last year’s Comic-Con.

David X. Cohen: This is mostly Lost merchandise as prizes.

Fan: How do you guys keep continuity throughout the series? There’s a lot of references in later seasons from earlier seasons.

David X. Cohen: Fan sites, actually. We frequently consult with them, I’m proud and embarrased to say.

Fan: Beginning of the new season, are they going to end up in a random place or back home at Planet Express?

Matt Groening: David and I debated over that one. I thought it didn’t matter and that we should just start over. And David thought, no we have to address that world. So, he wore me down and that’s what we’ll do.

David X. Cohen: Exploring the story of that world wont be the thrust of the plot, we’ll get them back home, but yes we will address that world in the beginning for continuity.

Fan question: Do you guys expect to do Futurama! in theaters?

Erik Kaplan: Like puppet theaters?

Matt Groening: We’d love to do a Futurama theatrical, but we had premiere screenings at various movie theaters, we actually had one here at Comic-Con last year. It’s really fun to see it on the big screen. Hats off to the animators at Rough Draft for creating something that’s way beyond the boundaries of television, so we have watched the show on big screens. And we do plan on some work as a theatrical feature.

Fan: Will Leela and Bender ever get together?

David X. Cohen: We were right on the brink at the last season, and we will address that a little bit, but they’ll have their ups and downs in the new adventures. But of course it’s their ultimate destiny.

Fan: Is it harder to come up with jokes later in the series than in the beginning?

Michael Rowe: Can be hard at start, actually but later you learn from those mistakes. You get into the flow of the feel.

David X. Cohen: We’re at a certain point now with the show where that curve is leveling up, but someone will say, “Wait we did that in Season 3” so then we remember a hilarious joke we did and do a twist on that.

Michael Rowe: We’ll have to go back to the DVDs and change it!

Patrick Verrone: It’s actually much harder to come up with stories than jokes.

Fan: What was the inspiration for Nibbler?

Matt Groening: That was my idea of designing something cute, my Ewok.

Matt then gave this fan the uber-prize for best costume they’d seen all day.

Fan: Will there be any major characters that we’ve come to know and love next season?

Michael Rowe: I guess it depends on the actors [and the contract resolution].

David X. Cohen: We’re not going for anything big.

Matt Groening: But we’re planning to reveal the secret origin of Scruffy. He is not what he seems.

Patrick Veronne: I was home working on a script for a concept called “Twitter in the Year 3000”, which I’m working on right now. I’m hoping to involve you the fans from here at home, but that may get written out. We’ll probably call it something else because of the Twitter copyrights.

Michael Rowe: We’re going to have a shocking, unlikely relationship. Bender and Amy. It’s hot and heavy. Bender is due for a lot of it. And it even turns into marriage.

David X. Cohen: There’s a controversy about the robosexual marriage aspect of it.

Michael Rowe: Yes, it’s human/robot marriage, I heard there was Proposition Infinity to address the controversy of it. [laughter from audience—he’s ripping on Proposition 8 in California to repeal gay marriage.]

David X. Cohen: There is going to be a literal rebirthing of the show. We have another big one in the works: Ken Heeler, Zapp Brennigan, and Leela stranded together on an island.

Matt Groening: We have another one where Fry arrives early for once in his life to meet up with Leela. And Fry and the Professor get into time machine to skip over the 10 minutes so they don’t have to wait, only they go forward 10 years on accident. They keep going forward in time, hoping that eventually they’ll get into a time machine that goes bakcwards. I can’t say anymore… well all right I’ll tell you. The universe collapses. That’s all I can say.

Patrick Verrone: [Off-topic—all the panelists got a Hershey’s kiss during Comic-Con.] I disovered you can turn a Hershey’s kiss into a gelatinous blob.

Erik Kaplan: Someone here has a figurine of Judge Sotomayor.

Fan: Are you guys planning on doing any more mythology episodes?

David X. Cohen: 100% chance. Definitely, it’s in the works!

Fan: Simpsons episodes tend to parallel other works. Does Futurama parallel sci-fi?
Matt Groening: Yeah, we tried to do a bit of that. To create a broad enough sci-fi universe to have fun with all sorts of sci-fi. But we didn’t want to do parodies, although we did do our Star Trek episode with the original cast. But mostly, we keep it to a lot of references to literary science fiction.

Fan: Is there a Zoidberg story in the works?

DXC: That is an episode we want to do this year. Why did the Professor hire Dr. Zoidberg? We want to do the origin of them meeting many years ago. Yes, although it’s the Professor who will mainly star in the episode, we still want to do that backstory as a part of it.

Matt Groening: Some guy came up to me and showed me his Zoidberg tattoo on his arm. And I was so amazed by it, I told him “I can’t believe you got that.” And the guy said, “Yeah, everybody gets Bender!”

Fan: Are we speaking to the original writers here today? Is there a difference between the Fox and Comedy Central versions?

David X. Cohen: Well, the format has changed. It’s more of a feature piece with more music, battle scenes, andepic scenes. It’s really hard to watch 90 minutes straight of jokes. You have to pace it out differently.

Michael Rowe: It’s four half hour shows in one movie, and we had to make them work.

Matt Groening: In the middle fo the third one there was a writers’ strike, so that also may be accounting for some of the inconsistency that you notice.

David X. Cohen: There were three huge events at 22, 44, and 66 minutes in the new format. There were challenges to it, but it worked to our advantage. Ultimately, it’s up to you the viewer to decide where we succeeded, where we didn’t.

Fan: What was the creative evoluton of Zapp Brennagan sleeping with Amy Wong?

David X. Cohen: Given an infinite amount of time, all possible pairings would occur eventually. This idea seemed like it would create good tension between our characters. It did. This is why Amy and Bender have their deal down the line. It creates more cross-breeding.

Fan: You’ve created celeb guest heads. Any exciting ones planned for the future?

DXC: We can’t talk about it until the actor resolution. Until the person agrees to record it, we can’t announce anything. Generic answer yes, but we do have every exciting big names planned. Ufortunately we can’t elaborate.

Bill Morrison: Any parting words?

David X. Cohen: Keep your fingers crossed. This is business, and we’re just hoping for the best. Many cast members are still around, things are good between us. Just hope for the best and it may come true.

By this point of Comic-Con, the journalists and media covering the event are running mostly on coffee, adrenaline and the never-ending desire to get sleep… someday. After three straight days of virtually no sleep, wall to wall coverage, running the marathon to get from one end of the Convention Center to the other, all while dodging nerds and egregious violations of personal space, you might be wondering what the atmosphere is like by now in the press rooms? Pretty darned silly! Check it out:

From the Press Room: Fringe

Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Jeff Pinker (series showrunners)

[ScriptPhD note: please forgive us for not delineating between the three showrunners for this particular part of the interview—they had to move very quickly from table to table, and it was tough for us to tell the voices apart in transcription. Thanks for understanding!]

Press question: How is the rewriting going? There was a whole conversation about it at the Paley Television Festival.

Showrunners: It’s going really well. We now know what the show is to a much greater degree. In a first season show, you’re really trying to find it, you’re trying to find the voice, trying to find what works and what doesn’t work, and like most shows that I’ve been associated with, the characters and the actors playing them start to become more one. And it’s a much easier time for writers who are joining the second season. The learning curve is much steeper. And they learn much faster. And they’re working out great. We’re just having fun with it.

Press question: Is there a plan for this season? Have you guys all sat down and…

Showrunners: We have a plot arc, a plan for this season, we have characters arcs planned for the season, and beyond.

I think in general, we’re much better prepared this season than we were last season. I think it’s hard for any show on earth, you’re in the first season, you’re finding your feet. So I think it’s a major improvement for us: what works on the show, what is the balance between the A story and the B story, which characters do better in what storylines? And it’s really a trial by fire. And hopefully if things are going well, by the end of the first season, everything slots into place. And that really happened. I think we all tangibly felt by the end of the first season that the show had really found its stride.

Press question: So when you’re plottig time for the show, what are the terms that you’re using for the different worlds?

Showrunners: We say our reality and the other reality.

ScriptPhD: Do you guys mind if I ask you a sciencey question?

Showrunners: As long as you don’t embarrass us! [laugher]

ScriptPhD: Promise. I represent ScriptPhD.com, we’re one of the few sites that covers science in entertainment. Really enjoyed the panel with your writers and your science advisor Ricardo Gil de Costa. He talked a little bit about his role, and I wanted to get the reverse, straight from the horses mouths.

Showrunners: Which one of us is the horse in that equation?

ScriptPhD: It’s just a saying!

Showrunners: It’s a collective horse.

ScriptPhD: It’s a collective horse, a proverbial horse. Tell me a little bit about how you use Ricardo’s expertise, and how that works in the mix of the science that you approach and obviously you are entertaining first and foremost?

Showrunners: We are entertaining first and foremost. We made a rule very early on that our show would not have aliens. Because The X-Files had done that so well. And we made another rule that all the science would be plausible, based on the science that’s currently accepted or at least proto-science. So the stories come from two different directions. One, we’ll come up with an idea that we really love and we’ll say, well, make the science work. Or, we’ll start with the science and ask where the story is in this.

ScriptPhD: And what role will Ricardo play in this process? How will you use his expertise?

Showrunners: Basically, it’s educating us about the language of the science, that we can rip creatively on it. You want to use the terms that are—we cheated, we tried to make it evocative and creative. So we’ll start with an actual article, actual reasearch, actual cases, and let that inspire us. As opposed to making stuff up. Everything that you’ve seen on the show has had some article that was the basis of it. You can see on any mainstream website or news outlet, the science and technology section has some very strange stories. It used to be that you really had to search these things out. And now you really can look at mainstream science and be inspired to imagine this really great stuff.

Press question: One of the things that makes it really successful is the science. Some people have asked about the romance, which for me personally is a bit too soon. In the second season, where are we on the Peter/Olivia romance?

Showrunners: I think we’re in a place where—I assume you’re talking about Josh and Anna—they’re more familiar. It’s more brotherly and sisterly right now and more of a caretaking role. As we go into the second season, our stories are starting to be driven by the characters as opposed to outside in. And if you saw our season finale, Olivia ended up in the other universe, and she’s going to come back, and there’s going to be consequences of what’s been done to her and what’s been happening to her. And she, in many ways, is going to become affected by the cases and this world. And he’s going to have to take more of a caretaker role towards her. It’s also very important for all of us that in doing a romance, you have to buy it. The characters have to organically get to a place where you would believe it. As opposed to forcing them together just to do it. Olivia’s character has so many walls. She was in love with someone who burned her badly, so she’s going to be very unwilling to trust again. And Peter has his own issues too. So I think if we do it, we really want it to happen organically, so that the fans buy it.

J.H. Wyman (writer/co-executive producer)

J.H. Wyman: Well, I’m the showrunner, with Jeff Pinkner, just so you know.

ScriptPhD: With Peter, how much are you going to go into the two realities. This reality versus the other reality? And where are you going to go with that?

JW: I can say that Peter is actually going to learn a lot of things about his existence, who he is, what’s going on, we’re going to delve into many things that will bang Peter out as a character. And make him the hero I think he wants to become. That’s all I can say about it.

ScriptPhD: But you are eventually taking us on a path where we’re going to learn about all of this?

JW: Look, you watch the program so you know that there’s enough answers in there to—I mean, it’s amazing the theories that people will come up with. It’s really quite wonderful. But yes, we’re definitely going to be able to delve into that and talk more about what we’re investigating in Fringe.

Press question: So we know there was this other reality Peter. Well, we think so. Is there another reality massive dymanic that enriches the world? Are we going to learn more about that?

JW: I would say that’s an interesting theory. I don’t mean to sound cagey about it. I think there are certain things the fans are trying to work out and figure out and the direction that we’re going down right now absolutely follows that line of thinking. But I don’t want to be cagey about what you’re going to see, but I promise it will really play your mind, because it does mine. It’s fun, you know? Really fun!

Press question: Any clues?

JW: Let’s talk about how the show is different, and there’s so many clues in that. Let’s talk about why it’s Fringe 2.0 instead of the original, and why it’s getting better I think.

Press question: So we know there’s not going to be aliens, what other things can we expect that we haven’t seen yet, as far as the fantasy and science fiction minus the aliens?

JW: It’s funny you should say that, because we literally made a whole—you know at the beginning, there’s the words, and we’ve done most of those words. Now, we’ve come up with a whole bunch of words—there’s many things beyond alien that you’re going to see that will frighten you and hopefully make you think science is dangerously out of control. But what’s really important, and the key to the characters and what’s happening this year, and why the show is different this year as opposed to last year, is that we’re actually—I would consider the first season a prologue, that’s my take on it. Here’s the show, here’s what you’re going to be doing with it, here’s the things that are happening, science is out of control, much more advanced than you would even imagine, here are the characters and the players. Now the second season is: let’s get involved into these people’s lives. And I think that that is the key to all the questions that you were asking. You’re going to fall in love with it. Like this year, Walter’s emancipation. He’s going to come out and come into his own and Peter’s going to have to let him, it’s really delicious stuff you know? Olivia’s going to start to develop in her own way, Peter in his own way, things that you never imagined you’d get to spend time with them, like last year in their houses and this year you will.

ScriptPhD: Like the relationship between Walter and Peter will develop.

JW: Oh, that’s one of my favorite things, yeah!

ScriptPhD: I really love that part of the show!

JW: I’m so glad you say that because it’s a big part. Yeah.

Press question: You just started shooting in Vancouver, just like another show, Supernatural. Can you talk about what that’s been like?

JW: We were in New York, and just cost-efficiency wise, we brought it to Vancouver. They allowed us to do much more. Because our money goes further, because of the Canadian dollar, and the production value goes up. The things that we’re planning to do this year really do take a certain amount of finance and fiscal responsibility to be able to do, so we figure we can definitely get much more money to do them. And we’re ecstatic. It was a smooth move, all our keys are still with us, and we found great people there, the nicest people ever. You can’t imagine. You go there and they’re just the sweetest people.

Press question: How much does the fans’ reaction to the show influence you in writing it?

JW: A lot. For me. I did read what they said about Season 1, going into Season 2. Because you have your own perceptions as a writer. You look at it and you’re going, “This is the story that I’m compelled by. I love the science and I love all that stuff, but what do I like?” And then when you start to write from that spot, you start to realize, oh when I’m really telling the truth, everybody responds. And people seem to pick up on the smallest little things. So I say, “Oh, everybody loves Walter in this! Oh, they love that moment.” And you realize that that’s something that you wanted to investigate so let’s do that. And I’m always looking at what they have to say, because that’s why we’re doing this, is so people can discover the program. And I still think not enough people have. And it’s really something, what the show is. The more that I can hear from the viewer, the more that I can do my job. Because, it’s not to write for them, but they’re a parter of sorts. I don’t want to write a show that fifteen people watch.

ScriptPhD: That’s really refreshing, because there are other showrunners [no names shall be mentioned ?] that are like, it’s my vision, it’s my show…

JW: No, no, no. I’m much more secure than that! I certainly have a vision…

ScriptPhD: I’m just amazed, because I’m a fan and a journalist and it’s really refreshing to me that when I watch the show, I know there’s a symbiotic existence between you and your fans, and a synergy there to make the show possible, and I think that’s just terrific.

JW: I did a very small program in the UK called “Key and Eddy”, a show in London. And I did it in 2001, and I still get people calling and asking what I was thinking for the rest of the show, because it only ran 13 episodes. And it left kind of a big question mark. It was very much ahead of its time. They still email and call and say this or that, there’s a whole movement, and they’re there. And it’s so hard these days to find time for appointment television, and the point is that when you’re asking someone in this busy time to commit to your show, the five minutes that they have in their day, I want them to feel like they are appreciated.

Anna Torv (Olivia Dunham)

Press question: Do we get to see more of your superpowers next season?

Anna Torv: I know for sure that we will.

Press question: Are they going to have a darkness to them?

AT: Oh I hope so! I want Olivia to get darker, I think. I kind of like the dark Olivia the most. I like the episodes where something personal has happened to her, like when she was taken and had her spinal tap and she came out and she was ready to kill someone. Or when she was killing people in her sleep. I like her darker.

Press question: How long have you been living in the United States, and have you been hanging out with any of the other Australian actors here?

AT: I didn’t live in the States at all until I did the show, so I’d been over and visited a little bit, and had met with agents to see if I could get representation, but I never lived here until I moved to New York for the show. I moved over a year ago. I don’t know any of the other actors, I missed out on all of that, because we were based in New York. I heard that they have all these barbecues and things like that.

Press question: So is Australia still home for you?

AT: Yeah. I go back every break I get. I love Australia!

Press question: Do you get used to the hectic, frantic work schedule a show like this requires?

AT: Yes, I think you just do get used to it. And it’s—I love it when I get to do physical stuff, which I don’t get to do a lot of, actually. I think it looks like I get to do more than I actually do. But really, I don’t get to do that much! No, I’d like to do more of that, sure!

Press question: How are the scenes shot with Leonard Nimoy at the end of last season going to play into this season?

AT: No, I do know, but I can’t tell you. But you do get to find out. So you do eventually see the rest of that scene, but in a really cool way, actually.

Press question: Do you have anything that’s happened to you like that in your past like Olivia, from your childhood?

AT: You know, someone just asked me that! No, there’s nothing that I can think of! I’m sure if I really thought about it, but no.

Press question: Can you talk a bit about your hobbies and lifestyles and what you like to do?

AT: When I’m not working! [laughs] Well, I’m from Australia, so I surf, and I grew up near the beach and we always had horses. I love riding horses! I keep trying to get them to do something where Olivia gets to go jumping or something. I don’t know, I hang out. I’m a homebody.

ScriptPhD: Are you excited about where Olivia’s relationship with Peter is going, and can you talk about working with Joshua and your guys’s dynamic?

AT: Well I know! Everyone keeps saying what’s going to happen with Peter and Olivia? And I’m like, “Did you watch the first season? He started picking up my sister!” I’m not sure where I want them to go. I just read an episode that we haven’t started shooting yet, we’re about to start shooting next week, and Olivia starts to see Peter a little bit differently. And I think it’s kind of fun! I can’t say anything more. That’s it!

Press question: Can you talk about being glamorous on the show and yet, still playing a strong woman character?

AT: I don’t know, I think they don’t write her glamorous, but we’ve always been—like when we started with the pilot, we were always adamant that it’s TV, so nothing’s really realistic, but you can do your best. Like she doesn’t wear a lot of lipstick and I don’t know. You do what you can.

Press question: What have you loved about her vulnerability aside from a lot of the action that you’ve gotten to see?

AT: I love the episode where she dreams, which was where she starts having these dreams where she’s killing these people and then she finds out. I love that because I thought it was a really beautifully written episode, and I thought it was one of my favorite bits of Fringe, and I personally loved the shadowy, secretive, dark, what’s going on stuff. It also was where she found out about the early experiments and Walter did that to her. I loved that because through a lot of the first season, I felt like there wasn’t a real personal connection with Olivia and Walter and now, all of a sudden, there’s something there beyond just what we were experimenting on.

Press question: And will that come into play this season?

AT: We haven’t gone back to it as intensely as we did at the end of the last season, but it’s definitely still there and I think it will pop up again.

Press question: Is there an awkwardness to your and Peter’s relationship now when you’re working on cases because you know that?

AT: Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes.

Jasika Nicole (Astrid Farnsworth)

Press question: I heard rumors that we are going to see more of Astrid in the season to come?

Jasika Nicole: If you heard it, and I heard it, it must be true! Astrid, you’ll get to see a softer side of Astrid. She was often the person put up against Walter because they were so different—the young, the old, the new technology versus the old, book-savviness and everything. So we would have these funny quips, but she’s more than just that. I think that her purpose, at least in this season, is more than just providing some comic relief and one-line quips. And so she has this really fantastic scene that we filmed the other day with Walter where you get to see their personal relationship. You get to see why they click and work so well together. It’s not because she rolls her eyes at him all the time. Which she does, that’s certainly a part of her, but she’s also much deeper than that. I’m hoping that you get to see more than that—her connecting emotionally with the other characters on the team.

Press question: let me just say this. It is so great to have a person of color have such a smart and intelligent role. You don’t see that on television—

JN: And how!

ScriptPhD: And that it’s not a big deal! It’s just a part of who she is, but it doesn’t have anything to do with her abilities.

JN: Yeah, totally! It’s like, “You got into college?!”

Press question: What are we going to find out about Astrid’s history and how she got to the place she is?

JN: You know, these are all questions that I don’t have answers to, and I’m hoping that they do get answered at some point. I want to know why she decided to become an FBI agent and where did she come from and I want to know those things. I wish I could say for sure that yes, it’s going to happen, but I will say that we have brought another person into the Fringe world. Her name is Megan Markel, and she plays an FBI agent, and she is also bi-racial. Let’s talk about that. It’s awesome! And I was so excited, because it wasn’t like, “Oh we can only have one. Oh we can’t have more than this one actress.” Like you said, it was no big deal. Here’s this gorgeous woman on the show, and she’s really, really smart too, and she’s an FBI agent, it’s just awesome.

Press question: I think it’s great to have people like you on the show, because science and technology are becoming so wide-spread and it’s a wide demographic, it’s great to show that anyone can really be a part of this world. What integrated storylines can you talk about given what you’ve already shot?

JN: Thank you so much. With this new character, and I can’t speak about her too much, obviously, but we’re actually going to start talking about the aspect of religion, and how you balance that out with science, which has kind of been a battle of ideologies for a really long time. So we start to address that in this season. We’ve only completed three episodes, so we don’t know how far it’s going to go, but I really like it, because it’s really exciting! What do you do with your faith that you have grown up with and is a huge part of you, and then how do you combat that against these things that are happening and all this death and destruction? You hear that someone is in charge of it and it’s not the God that you’re familiar with, so I think that’s a really cool thing that we’re starting to incorporate into this season. I have no idea where it’s going to go.

ScriptPhD: Reading the scripts and seeing the science material, do you ever just geek out? Normally as an actor, normally you don’t get to do stuff that’s this heavy and technical. Do you ever just get to thinking about some of the issues that the show raises and it bleeds into your own consciousness?

JN: Absolutely! Oh yeah! I do a lot of Googling, because there’s a lot of words that I am completely unfamiliar with. Like, “I don’t know WHAT that is!” But I think I’m most intrigued by the idea of there being this other universe because what they’re saying with that is that as a person, you make decisions in your life, you have all these choices, and you make a decision. But you can also make the decision that you didn’t make, and so there is a world in which you exist where you made that decision. And a world where you exist and you made this decision. So it might not even be one parallel universe, it could just be tons and tons of them for every single choice that you made that is not this one, but it was that one. Which is kind of like looking through a mirror—it just goes on forever and ever! And you think about what kind of person you would be. And I guess that at some opportunity, they’re going to get to meet themselves and see what kind of person they would be if they did this and that. I made that up, I don’t know if that’s true.

Press question: Can you talk about your work schedule, given that your character doesn’t appear all the time?

JN: I think most people are pretty jealous of me. I have kind of the perfect schedule—I come in and I work for maybe two days a week, and then I just… have the rest of my time to myself. And that’s been super-important since we moved to Vancouver. We’re in this new city, and we want to explore, and see what Vancouver has to offer. I got a bike, I can ride around. It’s been a nice transition for me, because if I had been like Olivia’s character, and thrust into this situation that was completely foreign to me, and then having to work 15, 16 hours every single day for 10 months, that has really got to make you a bit loopy. And I didn’t have to deal with that. I just had to deal with my own loopiness that I had from the beginning.

Press question: When did it finally dawn on you that you had a successful show and that this was real?

JN: You know what I think it was? I think it was when the observers started showing up in real life and not on the show, and I was like, “OK, they’re trying to make this like a brand, kind of.” He’s at this game, at NASCAR, and it didn’t have anything to do with the show, they would just be filming him and putting him out there to promote this whole idea. And I thought that was kind of huge and really neat! Maybe next, we’ll have Afro wigs [to promote the show].

ScriptPhD: This is kind of your first big break-out role. Is it weird for you when people recognize you?

JN: It’s weird. But you know, no one creepy or scary or anything has come up to me. It’s only been the nicest, sweetest, most complimentary people. So it’s weird to be recognized, but then you have this really awesome conversation and they tell you their theories about the show, and you tell them yours, and then you part ways. It’s great. It hasn’t interfered in a negative way at all, which is great.

Joshua Jackson (Peter Bishop)

Press question: How has the move to Vancouver to shoot the show affected you?

Joshua Jackson: Well, Vancouver is my hometown, so in its way, it’s moving home for me. Personally, it’s actually not difficult at all. Inevitably, it changes the urban-ness of the show. It doesn’t change the urban nature of the show, but the West Coast of Canada is very different than Brooklyn, which is where we shot most of Season 1. So that changes a bit. There’s a certain bittersweetness—and this is all behind the camera stuff—eventually the television becomes the people who make it. Moreso even than the actors or the writers. It becomes a machine, and the cogs of the machine are all of us sort of doing our bit and putting in. And to move the show, we had to lose 100 people, 140 people actually, who were employed on our show. So there’s a certain degree of bittersweetness, because without their hard work, we don’t get to Season 2. And in a just world, you don’t repay that hard work with a pink slip. So I feel a bit guilty that I’m going home and that’s fine for me, because for other people that is not fine for them.

Press question: Is it still home for you, in a sense, or have things changed since you’ve been away?

JJ: Have you ever been to Vancouver? Nobody leaves Vancouver. It’s paradise. It wasn’t until I moved to North Carolina, and was in a discussion with somebody who will remain nameless because I don’t want to bag on her hometown, but it wasn’t until I moved to NC and started working with somebody and they said, “God I’m so happy to be away from home!” that I realized some people don’t like where they grew up. Vancouver is paradise! It’s a perfect, perfect place, especially if you’re an outdoorsy person. It’s heaven, so…

Press question: But it’s been getting bad press about the drug wars at the moment, no?

JJ: [laughs] Yeah, I know. Have you been in downtown LA? East Hastings is a legitimately bad neighborhood. It’s on par with any of the worst neighborhoods that I’ve been in anywhere on the planet. But if you’re not a moron, you’re probably not going to get involved in a drug shootout. Or if you’re not an addict. So there are many ways to not get involved in a drug war between the Triads and the Hell’s Angels.

Press question: To get away from the real world and to get back into our favorite virtual world [laughter], we started to see Peter bringing in a bit of his underground connections, his underground connections for the end of last season, so are we going to see more of that next season, or is it more of you using your heightened superpower?

JJ: Sha-na-na-na-na-na! I think we spent the better part of the first season why it was specifically that Olivia Dunham needed to be the leader of the Fringe world. What we didn’t do—we talked about it, we hinted at it—but we never really saw what Peter was outside of this world, because we never visit him outside of this world. He’s always assisting and investigating hits. Then, you get to the end of the first season, and Peter becomes invested in this world. And now he starts to use his powers for good rather than evil. And, he starts to invest this very shady knowledge that he has and his personal immorality. He doesn’t have a moral attachment to things being good or bad. He is presented with a problem, he comes up with a solution, it doesn’t really matter if he breaks some eggs along the way. And I think he’s sort of figuring out his humanity as the second season is going on.

Press question: Can you talk about Peter’s relationship with Walter and how will that be developed?

JJ: Well, for myself, and I say this as an actor and not a person on the show, for Josh the actor, the most important relationship on the show to nurture and maintain is the Walter-Peter relationship. John Bishop and I spent a lot of time talking about where we are in the season, and pushing and pulling, and John is an endlessly inventive guy. And we work well together. So there’s always this state of play on set. That being said, that huge reveal about Peter not being one of us at the end of the first season is inevitably going to lead to a breakup. So until the breakup, I think you want to see these guys become closer and closer and more and more into a healthy father/son relationship and then poof.

ScriptPhD: Josh, can you talk about when you first got the material. This is very different from work you’ve done in the past, especially with the science. Talk about how you reacted viscerally to the show when you first got the script, and what about this really drew an appeal for you as an actor?

JJ: Well, the initial script, which I guess isn’t too surprising given who the writers were, read much more like a film than a television show. It was a two-hour pilot, so it was long, but incredibly in-depth, and with all of these multi-layered story points where things were not as they seemed and I just thought it was really well-done and well tought-out. And having worked in television before you also have to see how this idea behind the pilot could spin out 40, 60, 80 to 100 other ideas that could be interesting. And I think this group of guys has a pretty good track record with being able to do that. And I’m a sci-fi head, so…

ScriptPhD: You are? How cool!

JJ: Yeah!

That’s right folks, you heard it here. Joshua Jackson is a sci-fi geek. See? Science is awesome!

True Blood
Moderator: Kate Hahn (TV Guide)

Panelists: Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse), Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton), Alan Ball (creator/executive producer), Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette Reynolds), Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton), Sam Tremmell (Sam Merlotte), Michelle Forbes (Maryann Forrester), Alexander Skarsgard (Eric Northman) and Deborah Ann Wolf (Jessica Hamby) and Charlaine Harris (author)

Kate Hahn: I want to introduce myself. I’m a writer for TV Guide, and I’ve worked with Alan and the cast quite a bit, I worked with them for the TV Guide cover story and am thrilled to be here. We are going to kick off tonight with very special announcement from Alan Ball.

Alan holds up True Blood: The Drink to wild applause from the audience.

Alan Ball: True Blood: The Drink is a reality now. Those of you here at the panel last year know that it’s a very specific makeup. We couldn’t make up synthetic blood, so instead we used a nice mixture of Chateau La Feet Rotschild with blood of hemophiliac royalty, Viagra, Vicodin and vodka. …and ecstasy. Unfortunately it’s illegal. All kidding aside, though, there is a True Blood drink available September 10th. And it’s basically blood orange soda from all-natural ingredients. Just in time for Season 2 of True Blood.

Kate Hahn: Anna, Sookie has gotten in a lot of jeopardy and will be in more trouble as Season 2 progresses. How has she changed this season?

Anna Paquin: After last season, she is stronger, tougher, she’s been through a lot, she’s grown up quickly, and she tends to get herself involved in situations she can’t control, in which case it is good to have a vampire boyfriend. As far as portraying her, I’m just trying to imagine going through that in two weeks, and find myself in these situations. But that’s my job.

Kate Hahn: Stephen, Sookie’s being admired by multiple vampires. Hypothetically speaking, if something were to happen between Eric and Sookie, how would Bill respond?

Stephen Moyer: It’s hard to get away from that rangy Swede at the end of the table, but I’m not sure Bill would roll over and just let it happen. He’ll fight his hardest and not be quite as polite as he’s been up to this point.

Kate Hahn: We’ve seen really big changes with Tara. What is your take on how she’s changed as more of her softer side has come out?

Rutina Wesley: I like playing the softer side of her to show her vulnerability. I call her a hard flower, because of the fact that she’s so tough on the outside but has this really soft inside, and I think it’s nice for everyone to see that part of her. She wasn’t taken care of before growing up, and this season she’s being taken care of by Mary Ann which is a nice change for her.

Kate Hahn: Alan, there is lots of action in second half of season based on the preview we just saw. How do you balance all the action and the emotions of this show?

Alan Ball: I make a joke about a sign we should have in our writers room that says “It’s about the emotions stupid”. Without that, all the action and other craziness wouldn’t have a heart and soul. So, we just work really hard to always remember who these characters are, what their passions are, what they need and are fighting for so that the other stuff has an emotional foundation. It’s one of the reason I responded so well to the books, do the same thing on the show.

Kate Hahn: Mary Anne is the source of a lot action on the show. Michelle, the fans here know you from other shows in the sci-fi genre, wher eyou have portrayed powerful women. Why does this genre in particular lend itself to these women and these characters?

Michelle Forbes: I think ultimately sci-fi as a genre offers lots of freedom to see a future [where gender is irrelevant], and I spoke about this with Mary McDonnell a lot on BSG, she’s a goddess by the way, sci-fi takes cliches out of our minds and we’re able to have a lot of freedom of thought. It’s a forgiving genre, and especially on our show, grounded in emotions. True Blood is creating an entirely new love for these genres.
Kate Hahn: Nelsan, everyone loves Lafayette. [wild cheers] But Lafayette is having some post tramatic distress disorder these days, he’s having quite a time with what has happened. How has his worldview changed since the basement incident?

Nelsan Ellis: His hustle is supreme, but in this case, he’s figured out it won’t work for him to get him out of the situation, so he’s definitely rethinking his hustle and might stop doing it. But we’ll see.

Kate Hahn: Charlaine, you and I have talked before, and something that came up was your reaction to seeing your novels visually on the show. You said “When I first saw True Blood, I had to cover eyes about some scenes.” Can you elaborate on that?

Charlaine Harris: HBO sent me a copy before premeiere, and watching some of the scenes, I went “Ahhh!” And then I called my husband and said, “Honey we’re gonna have to move.”

Kate Hahn: Sam, we’ve talked about how your character has been unlucky in love, and he has a lot in common with Daphne, but things may not be going well between the two of them. Is he gonna finally find a nice girl?

Sam Tremmell: Well, he gets a bit lucky with Daphne. He’s a magnet for abuse this year, he’s just trying to get by. His journey this year and in years to come, is really sparked by his meeting with Daphne and what she teaches him. He has to decide whether he regrets it.

Kate Hahn: Deborah, this is your first big gig in the industry. You’re not that far out of USC. And you’ve mentioned that this cast has been helpful in the transition. What scene have they helped you with in mentoring, if you can remember one in particular?

Deborah Ann Wolf: I tend to be a nervous person in general, and am actually nervous right now, so just know that I’m picturing you all in your underwear. But I remember shooting Episode 4 and I was really sick with a 104 temperature and no voice. I felt like a total failure in terms of disappointing Alan with my performance, and was doing a scene with Steve and Anna and Jim. They said “Don’t worry, you can be quiet during our sides”, and I somehow managed to squeeze it out. Their moral support helped me through. [Collective audience awwwwww]

Kate Hahn: Alex, Eric is smitten with Sookie, but no matter what happens he’s drawn to her. Why?

Alexander Skarsgard: Well look at her! I’m sorry Stephen. Eric’s been around for a long time, 1000 years. He’s gotten to the point where he’s kind of over humanity by now. He’s seen it all. He thinks humans are pathetic and naïve and yet, despite that, there’s something different about her but he can’t put his finger on what excites him. He’s curious, and of course, he wants to explain that and see what happens.

Fan: Charlaine, will season 2 affect the plots of the Sookie novels?

Charlaine Harris: I just signed a contract for three more Sookie books, so that will give us up to 2014. I don’t think I’m affected by the show because those are past books that they’re plotting from. And I’m way beyond that now, things have really changed in the plot. Eric’s got a different maker from the maker on the show. But I hope you see that as a different opportunity for two entertainment experiences.

Fan: Alexander, your character’s gone from dark to vulnerable. How has that come about and will it continue?

Alexander Skarsgard: Well, at the beginning he’s just in one little sequence on the show, his is not really a huge part, he’s just the evil vampire leader and then takes it back into the dark. I always had to defend him, that he really does have a good side to him. But season 2 has actually been great because I’ve gotten to show that. He is a bad ass, but I’m just happy to get to do different layers and go deeper and show there’s more to the character than that. He doesn’t care for a lot of people and a lot of vampires either. The ones he cares about he’s very loyal to.

Fan: For Season 3, what are you excited to do?

Alan Ball: I’m just looking forward to the fact that there is a Season 3. Partially because I just love working on the show so much. I’m excited to start exploring some of my favorite parts of the book. We have wherewolves for the first time. I’m definitely interested in Russel Edgington and the Mississippi vampires. Debbie Pelt, I think she’s kind of awesome. I can’t put Bubba into the show without it being cheesy, though, because you could never have the real Elvis.

Fan: Alan and Alex. Pink spandex. Yes or no?

Alex Skarsgaard pulls up his pants to reveal that he’s wearing a pair. Wild cheers from audience.

Alan Ball: I’d planned not to, but maybe you’ve changed my mind.

Fan: Based on the preview we just saw, was it me or was that blond hair behind Sookie?

Alan Ball: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Fan: Alex, what’s it like to go from the entertainment industry in Sweden to America?

Alexander Skarsgard: If this was in Sweden this would be in a barn with 35 people and about 25 of them would be named Skarsgaard.

Fan: Alan, how you make musical choices for credits?

Alan Ball: “Bad Things” by Jason Everett that was a placeholder for the temporary title credits we’d made for HBO, and I didn’t know that song very well, I just randomly picked whatever country western tune I could find through iTunes. And later on, when we were constructing the credits, we wanted to use a different song, but when we went back, nothing ever worked as well as his song. For the end credits, we work with a music supervisor named Gary Calamar who also worked on Six Feet Under, and he brings us interesting choices. Sometimes a writer will put a choice in the script, other times we can’t use it because of money, other times Gary brings other options. Ultimately we try to pick what is appropriate with lyrics and what works musically for the emotion that it sells.

Fan: Sam and Regina, what about a rekindling of flames for your characters?

Sam Tremmell: I’d be excited about that.

Fan: Stephen, you will always be my Prince Valiant. Do you have any other projects going on right now?

Stephen Moyer: Thanks for Prince valiant reference. What she’s referring to is that I had to have a ridiculous mullet in 1997, and ride around on crocodiles. I’ve got a movie called Tribes of October, and I’m waiting to finalize that, and I’m doing a British film called Flutter about gambling.

Fan: What aspect of your character do you like and dislike the most?

Anna Paquin: What do I like about Sookie? I like that she says what she’s thinking, I admire that. She jumps in and gets involved even though it gets her into trouble. She means well. What do I not like? Well, if she’d been written as an unnatural blonde, I would have nice dark roots and my hair wouldn’t be shorter due to all the split ends, because I’m a very fake blonde. But other than that, Sookie and I get along great.

Fan: Will the love triangle between Eric, Sookie and Bill play out on screen as in the books?

Alan Ball: Yes.

Fan: Has any aspect of the portrayal of your character been influenced by the books?

Anna Paquin: I read them rabidly leadig up to my audition, as I wanted to know as much as I could to prepare myself for playing the character. I felt that the Sookie on the page in the script was like the Sookie in the books. It’s hard to unmarry the two. But ultimately the portrayal comes down to my interpretation and the directors and their input.

Alexander Skarsgard: I read the first five books to learn about the characters, but at some point you need to take control of the characters and leave the books behind you. We have a path and we stick to it but it’s certainly nice to get background information.

Stephen Moyer: One thing about our writers that is incredible, every time they see you play something that works, they think, “Well, if that worked so well, what if we put them in a completely different place and see what happens?” If we’ve seen them react to this, how do we see them reat to that? And it becomes more complex to play the role.

Fan: Will Jessica be more of a handful for Bill?

Deborah Ann Wolf: As much as they’ll let me.

Fan: Alan and Alex. Talk a little bit about the dynamic between Eric and Lafayett and Eric and Goddard.

Alan Ball: Obviously they’re gay lovers and spend the summer together in Fire Island. Eric and Lafayette. Their relationship is one of fear by Lafayette towards Eric for good reason, whereas Eric is intrigued by Lafayette may have plans for him in the future. Eric looks at Godrick as Godrick talks about them: father, brother, son. He is the most important person in Erik’s life, he’s known him ever since he was born as a vampire, so there’s tremendous love there. And it’s not necessarily romantic. The relationship between a vampire and his maker is deep, you can’t really understand it.

Alexander Skarsgard: That has been fun to shoot, because up until that point, Eric has been an entrepreneur, but this was on a personal level for him, going to Dallas for love and has nothing else to gain.

Fan: Question for the vampires on the panel. Anyone ever have a fang malfunction during shooting?

Deborah Ann Wolf: Well I’ll tell you, the hard ones stay in well, but the rubber ones fall out easily, so it’s kind of tough to be cool when you’re immortal.

Stephen Moyer: I spent the first two months with indentations in my mouth because the hard ones are really sharp.

Rutina Wesley: Yes, they are. [audience laughter]

Fan: Are you going to keep Jessica as a rebellious teenager or let her grow up a bit?

Alan Ball: One great thing about an extended series, you don’t have to define a character in the same place, they can grow up. I hope the series has a long life. I hope to keep everyone in their basic character as they grow. But you can expect evolution in the characters.

Fan: Deborah, is Jessica going to have a love interest?

Deborah Ann Wolf: I hope so.

Fan: Alan, will you ever have a one half vampire/human combinaton? Like a hybrid baby? [Loud boos from audience.]

Alan Ball: What? A one half vampire baby? No! In our show, they’re either full on vampires or they’re not vampires.

Fan: Charlaine, where do you get your inspiration for your books?

Charlaine Harris: I was gonna say the tabloids. Inspiration is a word I don’t trust. Writing is work and what I do is work. Some days I pull my own hair for ideas, and you wouldn’t want to be around me then. It’s just that the work takes places in my head. My contract has a deadline and if I waited for inspiration, my editor would be pretty mad at me. So I just flex my fingers and I say, “Who’s coming to Sookie’s house today?”

Fan: Charlene and Alan, what kind of demographics make the show a success?

Charlaine Harris: We aimed for an adult audience and I think we’ve hit that target.

Alan Ball: One of the great things about the beginning of the show before it had aired, HBO had tested the pilot, and it tested really high with adults of all sorts. The women love the romance and the men love the sex and violence. And since the show has aired, we have learned that it really does have wide appeal. There is a really large audience for this show. It goes across a huge spectrum.

Fan: How do you feel True Blood has impacted your career?

Alan Ball: It ruined it. I’m dead in Hollywood. It’s been really positive. But I tend not to focus on that aspect of it. This is the most fun I’ve had in a job. It’s a lot of good people, very talented, everyone is onboard to making the show as good as it can be and watching it. I’m the luckiest guy on earth.

Fan: Charlene, how involved are you in the series?

Charlaine Harris: Alan and I have a working relationship. I don’t tell him how to make the show, he doesn’t tell me how to write the books.

Fan: Michelle, what attracted you to the role?

Michelle Forbes: Any time you’re offered an entrance where you’re standing naked in the middle of the road naked with a pig, you don’t say no.

Fan: Any hilarious experience during filming?

Nelsan Ellis: Oh, so many. One episode in the future features a dancing naked dude who is 300 pounds. That was pretty hilarious. There’s one take where he fell. That was hilarous.

Fan: Charlaine, with regards to vampire blood, what’s the difference between doing V and drinking the blood.

Charlaine Harris: The age of the blood. V is from a younger vampire. Getting it from the vampire is always a much better experience.

Fan: Alex and Steven, are ou ever going to counter Godrick in a season?

Both: Yes.

It was great fun to watch the True Blook panel backstage and chat a bit with the stars of the show (Michelle Forbes, in particular, was a delight, and the ScriptPhD is a huge fan of her work on In Treatment), but the unquestioned, indesputable highlight of Comic-Con for me? Meeting and chatting with my screenwriting hero, Academy and Emmy Award winner Alan Ball. From American Beauty to the masterpiece that is Six Feet Under, Alan has redefined the cinematic experience on the big and small screen, and challenged his audience to engage in a deeper level of thinking and processing his material. Thanks, Alan, for being so very gracious and stopping by my way.

We ended an exceptionally busy and rewarding Comic-Con Saturday in an intimate press round table with the stars and producers of Discovery Channel’s hit science series MythBusters. For those of you who have not yet had an oportunity to check out this show, and are fans of great television science that entertains, it’s not too late to jump on board. In each episode, Jamie and Adam, aided by costars Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci, use basic elements of the scientific method to test the validity of various rumors, myths, movie scenes, internet videos and news stories in popular culture. It’s entertaining, explosive (sometimes literally!) and you get to learn cool science. What’s not to love? In fact, stars Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage announced today at Comic-Con that they will be appearing on the September issue of Popular Mechanics. Fans can visit this site to enter to win one of 10 signed copies by the MythBusters themselves. Our discussion with the cast helped answer lots of behind-the-scenes about how the MythBusters episodes are filmed, where they get their source material and just how do they do that?!

From the Press Room: MythBusters

Press question: How did this all get started and how did you guys all find each other and say, “Hey! Let’s make a TV show out of having fun and blowing up stuff!”?

Adam Savage: Well, it’s not our idea. Actually, the original MythBusters creator found Jamie and I in the Spring of 2002. He was looking for special effects technicians to host a show based on busting or proving urban legends.

Jamie Hyneman: And his idea was to not just have us talk about these things but to replicate them and the fact that we build all sorts of unusual things was appropriate for that.

AS: And so Jamie gave me a call, asked me if I’d be interested in hosting it with him because he didn’t think he could quite hold the show on his own—

JH: I figured I’d find someone that was a little mit more of a ham than I am. And maybe we could bat it back and forth a little bit and it seems to work.

AS: So we shot the first pilots in the summer of 2002, and shot the first season in 8 months in 2003, 13 episodes, and then Discovery wanted 30 in the next year, and we had killed ourselves doing 13 episodes in 8 months, 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. So they said, “Maybe we need some more people to help bust myths. Let’s kill some other people!” So we brought in Tory and Carrie and Scotty Chapman, who was in that second season. And then Scotty left after the second season, basically because she wanted to do her own thing. She didn’t like the amount of time that doing television took. Since Jamie and I had worked with both Grant and Tory, Grant was somebody that we’d been thinking about for a long time that we wanted on the crew, and I’d called Tory when I’d called him and I said, “Dude, it’s Adam call me back! I’m gonna change your life.”

Tory Belleci: Well I’ve known these guys for over about 15 years. Jamie actually gave me my first job out of college doing model making. And then Adam I’d met up at ILM [Industrial Light and Magic]. He used to walk around like he had a TV show before he had one. He’d be walking around cracking jokes. I did this thing once where I took an X-acto knife blade, I snapped off the end and I glued it to my hand and put a little fake blood. He and I were working together on a model, and I kind of reached over and went, “Hey Adam, can you hand me that?” And freaked out. He was like, “Ahhhh!” And then he goes away and all of a sudden I hear everybody in the other room laughing their butts off and I walk in and he has taken a whole bunch and snapped them off and glued them to his head. And he’s like, “Heyyyyyy!”

AS: Can’t let a good idea go to waste!

Grant Imahara: I remember Tory and Adam and I were working on Matrix: Reloaded and Adam came in one day and said, “Hey! Me and Jamie got this gig! I’m gonna be flying in this lawn chair with all these balloons.” And I was like, “Heheh, you’re crazy!” So he left. And then Tory and I were working on Van Hesing about a year later and he was like, “Hey! I’m gonna join Adam and Jamie, it’s gonna be great!” And I was like, “Hehehe, you’re crazy!” And about a year after that I joined them. I’m crazy too.

Press question: Favorite myths? Maybe that you’ve done on the show and or favorite that you have yet to do—ideas that are growing.

JH: Well, favorite myth, hands down, for both Adam and I (I think) is “Lead Balloon.” Interestingly, it doesn’t involve any explosions or weapons or anything like that. But it’s—when you think about what we were able to pull off, the lead that we were using was .0001 in thickness, it was about like working with wet toilet paper, and yet we were able to build a balloon that was 14 feet across, weighed 28 pounds and it flew. And so what you have to do to pull that off is walk it through entirely in your head. And that’s how we design things. I think our greatest joy, even above all of this, is the design. It’s just a thrill, because a lot of the stuff like that hadn’t really been done before. And it’s like an adventure. It’s like climbing Mount Everest or whatever. For us, maybe it’s an adventure in our head, but it’s still an adventure that we don’t know how it’s going to turn out and it’s just thrilling.

AS: You lie there awake at night thinking through to tomorrow’s build, and thinking through, like, all the possible outcomes, including the one which took us a while to learn, which is what if nothing happens? Which is often one of the most dangerous situations that you can have. Push the plunger, dynamite’s live, nothing happens. It’s one of the most upsetting—

Press question: Yeah, that was a question I had, particularly when I watch one of the more perilous episodes, which is are there ever episodes that don’t make it to air?

AS: It’s rare. There is one story that we started working on that we stopped working on. And we won’t go near it again. What we were working with was just too dangerous and too unpredictable. And the second part is actually more important. The unpredictability is what made that story undoable. But I think that’s pretty much the only time that’s happened from us. Have you guys [Tory and Grant] had—you guys had a real problem with train suction, I remember.

GI: “Train Suction” took a long time. It took over a year to do and the reason is simply that we had to find a company that would work with us on allowing us to be that close to a moving train. A train moving at very high speeds.

AS: And then it was also a year spent not saying, “Could you get sucked off if you get too close to the train?” [laughter] Finding the right way to say that was difficult.

Press question: Can you talk about the bullet experiment? You talked about it on the panel.

AS: So, bullet drop versus fire, it’s a physics thought experiment that if you drop a bullet and fire it at the same instant in time, both bullets will hit the ground at the same time. Not including things like curvature of the earth in the equation. It’s something that we’ve always had on our list. When we get into these physics thought experiments, it’s one of my favorite things. Fertile territory. Things like airplane in a conveyor belt and swimming in syrup. We spent an entire day using a camera that filmed at 5,000 frames per second just making sure the bullet release was happening at the same time as the bullet leaving the gun. And that was the resolution that we needed to be able to watch these things happen simultaneously. An entire day doing that. And then an entire day finding the consistency of where our bullets would land so that we could know what our target zone was and what we could look for. Getting into that kind of percision over those long distances with things like guns is thrilling, but it also took a tremendous amount of mental effort to work through the thing repeatedly, work through the protocols so no one is where they shouldn’t be. Firing guns is never entertaining to me. It’s always, sure when you’re standing on the firing line and firing an MP-5 it can be a really fun experience, but you’re working with a crew, you’ve got to get the footage in, you’ve got to be safe, everyone has to be behind the line. And we all take that stuff super, super seriously.

JH: That particular story was also a good example of, you don’t really need to know how to do that. It’s kind of like, what practical use is that? Probably none. It’s the process, though, of what we had to go through that we had to figure out that intrigues us. It’s an exercise. It’s another tool in your arsenal to apply to anything. It answers questions someplace else that you may not be aware of.

AS: And just like “Swimming in Syrup” and “Airplane on a Conveyor Belt”, we know for a fact that no one’s done it. We’ve done a lot of experiments that we know other people have done. We’ve built a lot of research and our researchers are phenomenal. But then there are the ones like this, that we know when we do the final experiment full-scale, no one’s ever tried it before. We’re way out on this edge. Maybe not an edge of utility, But it is very thrilling for us to be doing that. Knowing that when someone sees this episode, when a physics teacher sees this episode, he doesn’t just have to say it’s so.

JH: There’s also another prime example of that, and that was “Polishing a Turd.” [laughter] I mean, you absolutely don’t need to know how to do that.

AS: But we’ve all done it professionally. We found polished earrings made of poo, didn’t we?

JH: But it’s about the process, and you find things along the way. We get a kick out of doing things that are so unlikely, like that. One of the things that we’re gonna be taking up here before long is a poo special. I think they were wanting to call it an excrement extravaganza. And this was another example that maybe you don’t need to know how to this, but when you start to look into it, for example, I had been fascinated with hybrid rockets that use pretty much any hydrocarbon along with nitrous oxide or some other oxidizer to make rocket fuel. So I wondered what are all the hydrocarbons that we can possibly use. Obviously you want it to be a dense one, and I went through the list, and I realized that poo is a hydrocarbon and made up of stuff that might be usable as fuel. And, it sounds ridiculous, but when you start to look into it, which I did, I found out that NASA had done quite a lot of testing on this because you’re going to Mars and you’ve got some people on board and where there’s people there’s poo. What else are you gonna do with it? You might get away with recycling your urine, but the poo is a little bit different.

AS: I think you can only eat it twice before it loses its nutrition. [groans]

ScriptPhD: Getting away from poo for a moment, I have a little two-part question about your source material. Can you talk about the process that you undergo when you choose the next myth or the next source material. And then, what is the difference between the material that just interests you because it’s cool and the material that you think is interesting and is feasible to build an episode around?

AS: Well those two things are inextricably linked. Because the show is built on all of our interest levels. I think what’s successful about the show is that we’re actually having a good time. And what we’re having a good time doing is not just blowing stuff up or getting to wear neat costumes, it’s primarily getting to satisfy our curiosity. So really the primary driver, and where a story is going to go, is what are we interested in doing? So our producer, who is the guy who goes up to Discovery and says we’re going to do a poo special and it’s going to go roughly like this, and we’ll look at that story and we might say, “Yeah I know when we first started this was the thing, but I’ve done some more research and actually this is a more interesting direction. Let’s go in this direction.” Because we know that when we’re interested in a direction, that footage is going to be more compelling.

SPhD: And what are the places that you go to to derive this stuff? Is it where your curiosity normally takes you—articles, journals, the internet?

AS: Well, I’ll give you an example. On Twitter, shortly after I started posting regularly, someone Tweeted a myth that said, “Dirty versus clean car as a myth.” Dirty car gets better gas mileage, because the dirt has a golf ball-like effect on the surface of the car and allows it to slip through the air. Dimples, in other words. And I knew, because I’ve sat next to Jamie on countless plane trips where he’s bent my ear going “I don’t know what the golf ball effect is, and why don’t planes have little golf ball dimples, and so on”, and I’m thinking, knowing that [Jamie’s] interested in that, the moment I heard this myth, it cascades into a story that I know is going to interest me. I know it’s going to be fascinating because we log these little things, these little trips, and we talk about them all the time. We’ve sat on planes where the guy behind us has said, “You guys really talk like this in the world!” [laughter]

Press question: what are Tory’s and Grant’s and Carrie’s roles in the planning of the episodes? Where do they come in?

TB: We have our own team. So [Jamie and Adam] have their own stories and then we get a whole list and we do look through them and ask, “What do you guys want? What do you want?” And if we’re really excited about a story, we’ll say “Oh what if we did this! What if we added this?” and we start building and then they’re like, “Yeah, you guys are psyched about it, run with it!” And then if it’s entertaining, we have to ask if there’s going to be enough to make it scientific and entertaining at the same time. And we do these story meetings where we just sit around and brainstorm about how we’re going to test this, or what if we added this or so on, and it just grows and builds.

Press question: So you guys [Jamie and Adam] are the cover guys, but there’s a real honest division of labor between you?

AS: Those are totally separate stories, yeah.

TB: But every once in a while, we’ll get a story where there’s a cross-over.

AS: Also, there’s stories where these guys will do preliminary work on and we’ll pick up years later and ask how they did, or we’ll be doing something that they did and we’ll ask them how they did that.

JH: A good example, if I can interject, was one that I believe has aired, which was “See-Saw Saga.” Both teams worked on this, and when I first saw this story, I went through it and said, first off, while it’s gruesome (because it involved a skydiver whose parachute didn’t open) it also was funny because he lands on a see-saw and a little girl gets launched up to ten stories in the air and walks away from it safely. Here, when you start to look at that, I start to see a lot of interesting stuff because the impact that this guy is creating is a lot of science, terminal velocity and it’s likely going to break the see-saw and all that stuff. There’s a lot of physics to consider here. The rig that we eventually try to do, shows that even if it didn’t happen, or couldn’t happen, we would try to make it happen. And the engineering involved with that was quite involved. We used CAD, we used a lot of high-end materials, we were able to invent something that hadn’t been made before. It was really quite cutting edge in its own way. And so there’s all the elements that you could possibly want in an episode in that one thing: humor, science, a lot of challenges, a lot of complexity and depth in the process.

AS: But also I have to say, and I think one of the things you were getting at, is it’s not like we get lists of things from a producer to go and do. The producer, Dan Tapster, will outline a whole season, because Discovery has to buy off a whole bunch of stories. But those outlines are the faintest of sketches. The actual construction process, the actual design process of an experiment, is driven by the team that is doing that experiment. So it’s so much more than being on-camera talent, and I think that’s one of the reasons that the show is still getting the same ratings it was getting six years ago. We’re still engaged and I think I can speak for all of us—after 168 hours of programming, we’re still having more fun now than we ever have. We feel consistenly more of a sense of ownership of the material as we go, as we get better at doing this, as we get better at spotting stories and chasing down these paths. The experimental designs just get more and more fun.

TB: We actually got a criticism from our producer, and he was like, “You know when an explosion happens (and we were looking at some past episodes), try not to triple orgasm, try not to do that. If it’s something that interests you, great, but not this over-excitement.” And we looked at each other thinking, “We actually were that excited!” You can’t hide your emotions.

GI: We’re involved with the design process of how to bust a myth, of the mechanical rigs. I think that if we weren’t, you wouldn’t be able to see that on camera, because we’re not actors. So, it’s hard to give the impression that you’re involved if you’re not involved. And so you’d like to be involved, I like to do my own research, I find the best way to sound like you know what you’re talking about is to actually know what you’re talking about.

AS: Well, I think it’s the thing I see when other networks attempt to replicate MythBusters style of show. What I consistently see is hosts that aren’t engaged with the material. And in fact, when I watched shows that I like, it’s hosts that are engaged with the material. It has nothing to do with the material itself.

SPhD: Can you offer any examples, obviously without calling someone out?

AS: I don’t wanna name names, because I don’t want to trash other shows.

JH: An example that goes indirectly at this is one of the things I never see on any of the other shows, as far as I’m aware, are tangents that sometimes go off in a different direction and when that happens with us, it’s because we have come up with some sort of a seed of an idea, and we start to go into it and then we find interesting things along the way. A lot of times, we’ll do a right turn off in some obscure direction, because we are fascinated. It’s like, “Wow, who knew that this would happen?” and I’m curious about it. And fortunately, production has learned to appreciate that this makes for something that actually has more depth to it. It’s not just picking a subject and linearly following it and busting the myth and that’s what it’s all about.

AS: I’ll give you a good example. One of the best informed to me, of the MythBusters offshoots, is ESPN’s Sports Science. That’s a terrific show. I love watching it. But I think that what they spend a half hour on would take us six minutes of screen time to explain and demonstrate. There aren’t really hosts of that show. They have an outline and they methodically go down it. And they shoot down their targets as they’re going. And I think Jamie is absolutely right. It’s those tangents where you get those—because to us, the soul of the show is just these two guys on a Sunday in their garage. What would they do?

SPhD: Well as a build-off of this answer, and your previous comment, Tory, about the mix of the science and the entertainment, who do you view as your audience? Because there are a lot of spin-offs and there’s a lot of material available now. Do you sort of feel like there’s a certain demographic that is there, and then you tailor the show to them, or do you have an idea, you go with it, and it’s a wide spectrum of people who will come?

JH: Yes, we’re actually just having fun and screwing around. It seems to work. And yes we will be premeditative about it in the sense of my previous example with the see-saw thing. We can see certain elements in it that make for a clear trail of a good story. It’s got all the makings and we’ll make sure that we have that balance in it and make it into a composition that way, but as far as tailoring to an audience? It’s pretty much we’re just believers in the honesty of the approach. We’re just having a good time, we’re exploring, it’s an adventure for us to do what we do, and while we’re aware that the cameras are there, at least in my case, it’s just a pain in the ass. I would say get out of my way.

AS: One of the surprising and impressive things about the show is the feedback we get from kids saying it’s interesting, parents saying it’s interesting, our kids like the science, science teachers saying that their Thursday morning class discussions are the liveliest of the week because of what happens on our show the night before. The National and California Science Teachers’ Association have made us honorary lifetime members. But what we love saying is that if we’d set out to make a show that was “educational”, we would have failed miserably. It’s not by design. We understand that that is the case now, and yes, we can look down the throat of a narrative and say, yes, let’s bring in this element, and let’s bring in this here, and then in the middle of that demonstration, something really remarkable might happen. We’ll go down a different path. Most shows, like Bill Nye’s and those types of shows, are demonstration shows. They describe a concept and then they demonstrate it. We are steadfastly not a demonstration show. We’re an experimentation show. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen when we’re setting up to do something. Sometimes we do, but honestly, the largest proportion of the time we’re surprised.

JH: A lot of times, we think we do and it turns out that we don’t. And that, for us, is the best thing because it means that we learned something in the process. In my sense, the biggest excitement and bonus of doing this show is what I personally learned.

AS: I’m not going to give you the result of “Dirty Versus Clean”, but the result was so shocking to us that we literally just sat there and giggled on camera. We were totally wrong and so were all the experts. It’s great!

Press question: Have you gotten any interesting feedback from academic scientists?

JH: All the time. We get insulted about things that we’ve done, we get questions. A lot of time the inquires are just, “What kind of material do you use or where did you access it?” But we’ve had pretty much any scientific institution that you can name has contacted us in one way or another with some kind of inquiry.

AS: It’s not like we actually engage in discussions where they’re like, “We think you got this experiment wrong.” Actually, I think there’s a real clear understanding in the scientific community that these aren’t publishable results we’re coming up with. But what they see that we’re doing that’s a benefit, is that we’re doing things like, we’re showing you that we were wrong about our intuition. We’re showing you that the experts helping us to make wild-ass guesses were wrong. We’re showing that science is this very messy process. We’ll spend an entire episode realizing we’ve been asking the wrong question. And that’s really important, that people see that science isn’t guys in white lab coats going, “It’s just as I expected!”, it’s people going, “What do we do now?! Where do we go from here? We got this result and I have no idea where to put it.” To show science as such a creative process.

Press question: One question that isn’t in your bios. Which of you has the most degrees piled up?

GI: Electroengineering. A degree. Bachelor’s of science.

Press question: And second question. Have you done a do-over episode yet?

AS: Oh, we’ve done dozens of do-over episodes! There are a lot of stories we’ve gone back on with new data, new material, new information. Because fans will absolutely spell it all out for us when they think we’ve got something off. And if it’s enough material for us to come up with a different conclusion, and I love that! I’m always saying, “Wouldn’t you love to watch the History Channel, and have them air a disclaimer saying “You know all those Nostradamus documentaries we’ve been wasting your life with? Turns out it’s all crap! Sorry!””

Press question: Adam, you mentioned in the panel, somebody asked about Bigfoot, and doing an episode about that, and you said, “We’re not into proving negatives.” Can you talk about that?

AS: Well, if you are going to tackle ghosts, you’re going to have two outcomes: you’re either going to find a ghost or you’re not. If you don’t find a ghost, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. All you’ve done is proved that you couldn’t find a ghost. There’s not much that’s scientific in that. You’ve just demonstrated the negative, you haven’t demonstrated the positive.

JH: That’s the super part in supernatural. There may be something there that doesn’t fit within science or things that you can test, things that you can wrap your brain around other than being able to say, “Well, we weren’t able to find anything.” While we are at times coming up with results that are not definitive, well that’s most of the time, we’ve got a sample size of one or sometimes three, if we’re lucky. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to go off on wild goose chases after things and make statements about stuff that is out there.

SPhD: Right down the line, favorite episode to date?

TB: My favorite episode would probably be “Red Flag to a Bull.”

AS: For me, it’s “Lead Balloon.”

JH: Same.

GI: Probably the Wanted myth, where we tested the curving of a bullet. The experimental design was really fantastic.

I know you’ve been waiting for it, folks! The Day 3 Comic-Con Costume of the Day. Today was a very tough call. Compounding the fact that Saturday tends to be the busiest day at the Con, it is also the night of the annual Costume Masquerade Ball, so it definitely brings out the creativity. Our pick is a graphic designer whose costume took over two hours to put on, with some very neat results:

Please come back tomorrow as we close out a relatively relaxed last day with two amazing final panels (the inimitable Dr. Who and Supernatural) and our first visit to Hell on Earththe always packed convention floor. Good night!

~*ScriptPhD*~