Full Circle: Maitreya’s Circuitous Seat

I’ve been working part time on filming Stardance for four years. Originally I conceived Stardance as a short film. (For details, go to the June 19th blog.) When I started I was working alone, and thought I had a reasonable chance of raising enough financing for a 10 minute short.

That meant I’d have to re-imagine the story. The Stardance novella had too much story for a film that short. I needed just a thimble-full of story to frame the zero-gravity dance which was the heart of the film I was now imagining.

Here’s an excerpt from a February blog, "Holding Up Visions," about the first script: .
"When I began work on the original short film script, I named the protagonist, Treya. She is named after Maitreya, the Future Buddha of all-encompassing love -- the fifth and last of the earthly Buddhas. I feel we need to aspire to do all we can to bring the Future Buddha of Love here now. Our world can't wait several thousands of years. Iconographically Maitreya is depicted on a raised seat with her feet resting on the ground in a state of readiness -- ready to appear in the world to give us whatever is needed."

So I spent a lot of time and donated money creating a team, writing several drafts of the screenplay, setting up the website, doing photo shoots for posters and a brochure, and a lot more, all based on a 10-minute film featuring a new character, Treya Anderson.

Then on 07/07/07 I brought all that to the Heinlein Centennial Gala and made my pitch—and two remarkable things happened: first, Peter Diamandis gave me two free tickets to experience zero gravity aboard his Zero-G Corp’s 727, and second, Jim Sposto came aboard as producer/co-director.

One of Jim’s first achievements was to convince me we could find sufficient financing for a 44-minute film in IMAX-sized large-screen format. That would obviously allow for more and better dance, and some real story—though it still would not be long enough for even a compressed version of the original novella. So Jim and I invested a lot of time and energy and money retrofitting the project for longer length. We created a new website, a sponsor’s kit and other publicity material, and several more outlines and treatments.

Then, last month, Jim and I both attended the Giant Screen Cinema Association Conference in New York…..and Everything Changed yet again.

If you read the blog entry immediately preceding this one (below), "Change: the only constant," you’ll better understand what I mean by that. Basically, the whole large-screen-format industry is in free fall. This is the worst time in history to try and interest it in a 44-minute offbeat film with a story.

It took me nearly a month to fully realize what an incredible blessing in disguise that is.

If we’re not going to be able to make a 44-minute film, and we don’t want to go back to 10 minutes, the logical next step is to go up to a feature length film.

There is no need to reinvent Stardance a third time. Not at feature length. It’s already done. Spider and I got it right the first time. We won a Hugo and Nebula doing it.

Treya Anderson was originally created as a shorthand substitute for Shara Drummond, because Shara wouldn’t fit into ten minutes. Or 44. But that problem is now gone. We can have Shara, AND Charlie.

Movie industry people will love the fact that the public demanded, and bought, three books’ worth of sequels. It’s a franchise. They’ll also love that it was voted Best Radio Play in Australia.

All we’ll need to do is set the story 20 years from now, and most of it still works. And we can come up with fixes for things that don’t work.

Believe me, there’ll be plenty of hard work for us to do as writers, turning it into a workable screenplay. But the story part is solid, with character arcs already worked out and developed. And a novella is the perfect length for adapting to a feature film.

And the weirdest part is, none of the last four years was wasted work. This version of Stardance will, I think, be even better than the first, because it will be informed by the visions of Treya, engaged in Maitreya’s Mission—accelerating our evolution with a picture of a new, enlightened paradigm of humanity.

All I can say is, what a long strange trip it’s been, and still is.

Change: the only constant

Where to begin…

The latest issue of the LF Examiner – The Independent Journal Of The Large Format Motion Picture Industry just arrived. Here’s the top headline: GELFORD: IMAX IS NOT “GIANT SCREEN”

Gelford is Richard Gelford, co-CEO of IMAX Corp.   On the first day of the Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) conference Jim and I attended last month (see our last 2 blog entries below), Mr. Gelford stunned the GSCA with the news that IMAX is reversing 4 decades of company branding.   Of the IMAX experience he said, “we don’t think of it as giant screen.” Rather, he said, “it is the best immersive experience on the planet.”  Mr. Gelford’s announcement coincided with the rollout of the IMAX company’s new digital projection system, intended to be retrofitted into 35mm multiplex theaters.  IMAX is going digital with Hollywood movies in Multiplex theaters.

The news was not well-received by most of the GSCA operators of  IMAX large screen film-based theaters. They contend that the “wow factor” is gone when viewing a film in an ordinary multiplex house that has been modified slightly. The screens are only a fraction of the size of the “real” IMAX theater screen.

The changes the giant-screen association is going through as a result of the new IMAX branding are unlike anything the industry has seen in the last 25 years.

The transitional fallout from this digital revolution will be on-going for several years. The GSCA is in an “identity crisis” brought on by outside forces, leaving them very unclear on their market segment. They claim that, “if we’re confused, our audiences are very confused.”

I can tell you that this conference experience left me very confused. For the last month I’ve been trying to figure out what the implications of this change mean for Stardance. That’s why I haven’t written a new blog entry. Jim and I both needed time.

Earlier this week I made a decision. I sent Jim a long email laying out my reasons for deciding to switch from making a 44 minute IMAX to a full-length feature film. The events at the GSCA conference forced me to re-access our plans. A few days ago, Jim concurred with my decision. The result is we’ve agreed to forgo the Giant Screen.

My next entry will explain in more detail the effect our decision will have on our film.

In closing, I again want to thank all of you for your ongoing interest and support. Stardance lives!

Warm, grateful smiles,
Jeanne

New Jersey to New York to New England

Spider here--since this system just today arbitrarily decided there is no such person as Jeanne, and never has been. Because we're on the road at the moment there is no easy way to fix this. So for now I'm going to pretend I'm Jeanne and type for her.....much as I did back in the day, when we were writing novels together.


Jeanne here now, speaking through Spider's fingers:

As Spider just explained, we've been on the road for awhile, so this has been my first opportunity to blog since Jim and I attended the Giant Screen Cinema Association conference in New Jersey last week. And to my absolute lack of surprise, Jim has already given you a thorough, accurate and articulate account of our adventures there.  It leaves me little to comment on except to say that the more we pursue this, the longer and more complex the path before us seems to get. 

You might think that would be dismaying--but it's just the opposite.  Working with Jim at yet another conference continues to build my confidence that we're going to reach the end of that path with success.  Each time I get a closer look at the process, I better understand just how good my partner is at this, and how fortunate I am to be working with him.

We'll be on the road for some time yet.  We just had a Robinson family reunion last week in New York, and of course we've been lucky enough to also spend time with our daughter Terri Luanna and son-in-law Heron in the Bronx.  And this week will be spent with my family in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile work continues on the script, and Jim has some interesting new strategy ideas I'm sure he'll be discussing in days and weeks to come.  I give my continuing thanks to all of you for your ongoing support; filmmaking is an expensive game.

Meanwhile, for a quick reminder of how this all got started, go to Spider's website or the iTunes Store, and check his latest podcast, SPIDER ON THE WEB #54, which contains a short excerpt read by Spider from Blackstone Audio's newly released audiobook of STARDANCE.  The next podcast will contain an even longer excerpt from the next book in the trilogy, STARSEED.  And as soon as Blackstone can get it out there, STARMIND (which has already been recorded) will be available too.  Astute friends of Stardance will notice that Jim designed the covers for Blackstone's editions.  Aren't they pretty?

Warm, weightless smiles to you all,

Jeanne

GSCA Conference

This week Jeanne and I are attending the Giant Screen Cinema Association conference in NYC. We're meeting all sorts of great folks here, and getting a warm reception to boot.

The nice thing about this crowd? No Hollywood Attitude - these are all incredibly sharp and dedicated people who love Large Format film. We've met people from IMAX, representatives of Technicolor, various theater principals and independent producers, film buyers and folks from various production companies. Greg McGillvray of McGillivray Freeman films was kind enough to invite us onto their chartered party boat on our first night here (that's a pic from our trip around Manhattan - under the Manhattan bridge, with the Brooklyn Bridge and the twin towers lights in the background.) A gorgeous night made all the more fun by good company, including our "mentor" Andrew Gellis - a man also responsible for some very successful giant screen films. He's been quite a boon to us as well.

We've seen a slew of large-format films, especially notable was Van Gogh: Brush with Genius - surprisingly good use of the giant screen. And today we had a speaker talking about marketing through blogging and viral video, etc. And Jeanne and I looked at each other and thought "We're way ahead of you, Buddy." (Well, I thought "buddy", she man have thought "man".)

But that reminded me, hence this post.

Speaking of which, jump out to YouTube, people, and share our clip some more - we'll get something new soon. Also, tell us what you think of the new home page intro on Stardancemovie.com.

Links To Us

Wow, lots of blogs linking to us. Nice to see - check them out.

In Russian: http://arisingmagic.info/tag/zvezdnyj-tanec/
In Verse: http://yldann.livejournal.com/49886.html
In Dance: http://blog.danceruniverse.com/blog/story/2008/8/11/111919/774
And more dance: http://danceadvantage.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/dancing-with-the-stars/

We're loving the attention. We love the support, and of course we love you all.

From the Earth to NewSpace

We made First Contact. Lots of them—with minds so different from my own they might as well have been aliens. But they were all there in pursuit of the same ultimate dream, manned spaceflight, so these “aliens” weren’t strange to me at all.

The difference was, they want manned spaceflight so they can make money. I want it so I can make new art. But there was absolutely no conflict at all. Everyone James Sposto and I spoke with at Newspace 2008 in Crystal City VA got us at once, and without exception they were thrilled by our plans to film zero-G dance. None actually pulled out a chequebook—these are not flush times for most astropreneurs—but many rushed forward to offer us connections, contacts, referrals, ideas and advice, and we’ll be following those up for weeks and months to come. All agreed that the Stardance story is an excellent, indeed an iconic way to sell space to ordinary civilians and bureaucrats.

My only major disappointment was that, despite tall effort, I never managed to fight my way through the crowds to meet Esther Dyson.

Right now, James and I are getting ready to attend the Giant Screen Cinema Association’s International Conference in NYC and Jersey City, September 8-12th. There we will talk to distributors and other folks in the large screen format business to get them interested in the Stardance movie. As members we're privy to information that tells us one complaint most often heard from IMAX audiences is the lack of any IMAX movies that tell stories; they’d like some to balance out all those documentaries.

We’ve had lots of expenses recently: travel and accommodations, of course, and conference fees, and printing expenses for our sponsor’s kit and other graphic materials, and a dozen other things. In consequence, our Stardance Movie seed money account is nearly dry.

You readers and fans have helped us bring the Stardance Movie this far. Like the protagonists of Spider’s story “The Magnificent Conspiracy,” we are still in the early stages of this conspiracy. I need to ask for your continued help and support as we approach the most critical juncture in our quest. I’m once again Calling All Visionaries...

Ad Astra!

--Jeanne

Big Trip to DC

I'm sitting in the Charlotte Airport - in my limited travels this is consistently THE MOST civilized airport I have been to in the USA. Courteous people, beautiful architecture, nifty airplanes hanging from the rafters...free internet access.

I feel like royalty - the spaceports of the future can take a lesson. I get to take some inspiration here, in this lush terminal of modern travel, while I play futurist and imagine the spaces (and space) that we will eventually bring to a very big screen. But I digress. I'm starting a trip that will take me from my home in TN to my offices in PA to culminate in capitol of these United States where I will meet up with my Canadian counterpart, one Jeanne Robinson.

What's in DC, you say?

Why "NewSpace 2008" is all - a convention of space entrepreneurs, or "astropreneurs" that Jeanne and I are attending. Not only attending, though, we are Exhibiting. We will have a booth, we will have assistants, we will have audio/visual presentation materials - and we will be sharpening our pitch as we believe that STARDANCE is set squarely (Tesseractly? - hows about thems references?) in the zeitgeist of this space-culture wave of 2008/2009.

The aspect of our film that is "a love letter to the future of space exploration" is rife for sponsorship from these self-same space-based businesses. The independents, the mavericks, the old establishment - all will benefit from our film's representation of (repeat after me) "an attainable, realistic and positive future of mankind in space."

All sorts of fascinating speakers will be there as well, including our friend David Beaver who will be discussing "The Overview Effect" and the philosophy behind the change of map that space-travelers experience by being in space and separate from this pebble in the sky we presently call home.

Jeanne and I are also attending a black-tie dinner in honor of Sir Arthur Clarke, and we're sure there will be a mindquake with this many thoughtful and inspired folks in one place.

Wish us luck, send us your love, do unto others (and when you do, do really nice things.)