Sirius - The Screenplay

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The End
2007-07-31 06:05:00
I received a refund of my payment today along with a gracious letter from John Stapledon. The story ends here.

Waiting (Part 2)
2007-07-25 18:39:00
Just to make the waiting more grueling, this just in from the Guardian Unlimited (UK): Post workers in fresh strike action Press Association Wednesday July 25, 2007 7:28 AM Postal workers are to start a fresh wave of industrial action on Wednesday night, which will disrupt mail deliveries for the next two weeks. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said the aim was to hit Royal Mail hard, at minimal cost to its members. Individual workers will take part in two 24-hour walkouts, but the action is being staggered over the next fortnight, with different groups of staff taking action on different days. The union is also aiming to step up its political campaigning and to explain to MPs why it has rejected a 2.5% pay offer and the Royal Mail's modernisation plans, which the CWU warned will lead to the loss of 40,000 jobs. The postal organisation said it was "hugely disappointed" that the union was pressing ahead with more strikes. A spokesman said: "Only part of Royal Mail's wor...
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Waiting
2007-07-20 19:43:00
On Monday, I received word that a letter has gone out to the Stapledon Estate in England with a request for return of my payment. All I can do now is wait...
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It's the End of the Blog as We Know It
2007-07-15 18:48:00
I've come to the realization that there isn't any point to keeping this blog going. If things go well, there will be one last post with news that John Stapledon has agreed to refund my payment. I expect to hear news within the next two weeks. If he doesn't agree, I'll continue posting in order to document my attempts to recover my money. Id' like to thank the two or three people who have been following these proceedings regularly. I'd also like to thank the few science fiction writers who contacted me at the beginning of the project to wish me success after they read about it in Locus.
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New Project
2007-07-12 00:01:00
I've already begun a new screenplay project. All I'll say is that it's a comedy and it's not an adaptation. There will be no news related to this project while I'm writing it. I may start another blog about the business of selling a screenplay, after the screenplay is written and I'm ready to sell it. In the meantime, I will most likely post a few scenes from the Sirius screenplay on this blog. Once I get my payment back, I'll probably write an article on this whole experience for a writing magazine. I'll announce this here. This blog is paid for until February, 2008. It will come down at that date or earlier if I've run out of comments on the Sirius project. Thinking about the collapse of the project, I have to say that I'm angry, disappointed, and saddened by the whole thing. I mentioned a while back that I was moving. I'm still unpacking and while I was unpacking my books, I came upon all the research materials that I bought specifically to write the screenplay. Bo...
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The "Horrifying Story" Continues
2007-07-08 16:12:00
I received an e-mail from Robert Crossley this morning. He's out of town, but he said that he's going to contact John Stapledon mid-July when he's back and tell him that I'm requesting a refund. If all goes well, I'll have the money back by August. Here's a forum post that I found on an Australian web site devoted to movies, called JoBlo.com: Sirius problems Wowzas! So I was randomly reading through blogs and came across this horrifying story of a guy buying the option to a book that turned out to be in the public domain. Sucks.This is sort of one of those, "duh!" kinds of stories, except I think a lot of people do cut corners they really shouldn't, sometimes (usually?) with terrible consequences. He should have checked the public domain, and he should have gotten a lawyer involved. I think if one can't afford a lawyer one should, you know, come up with a story on one's own.Still an interesting read.The writer calls himself "Nima," and he says he lives near L.A. in Calif...
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Screenplay's End: A Warning to Screenwriters
2007-07-08 00:11:00
This Sirius screenplay project began at the end of 2006, when I contacted Robert Crossley, the Literary Executor of the Olaf Stapledon Estate. I wanted to write a screenplay based on Olaf Stapledon's novel, Odd John. Mr. Crossley informed me that the Estate didn't hold the rights to Odd John (I subsequently found out that the rights to that novel are held by the estate of George Pal, or at least they once were), but that I was welcome to buy the movie rights to any other book that was available. Sirius was my second choice. Mr. Crossley informed me that someone had the rights to Sirius, but the option was due to be renewed in January, 2007. When I checked back in January, it turned out that the other writer decided not to renew the option. I jumped at the opportunity to buy an option for Sirius. I signed the contract, which gave me exclusive rights to the movie rights to the novel, and sent payment of £300 (which is about $600 US) to John Stapledon, the authors son, in the UK. ...
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Spitting Orang-utans Solve Nutty Problem
2007-07-07 01:30:00
Orang-utans are clever enough to use water as a problem-solving tool, an experiment inspired by Aesop's fables has demonstrated. When presented with a peanut floating deep down inside a transparent tube, the animals spat their drinking water into the tube to raise the treat to the top, where they could grab it. Researchers say that the study is novel because it shows the insightful use of a liquid tool by a non-human primate. Natacha Mendes at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, recalls that the idea for the study came out of a discussion with her colleagues about Aesop's fables. The team focused on one particular story, in which a clever crow throws stones into a pitcher to elevate the water to a level where the bird can access it for drinking. Mendes and her fellow researchers wondered whether the orang-utans they worked with could have a similarly smart insight. Read the complete story.
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Intelligence and Longevity
2007-07-04 01:45:00
I've come up for air after moving. Every time I move, I forget what a horrible process it is. I was reading NewScientist the other day and was struck by this passage from an article entitled Songbird Reveals the Secrets of Its Longevity (June 27, 2007):Aubrey de Grey of the SENS Institute in Cambridge, UK, sees the work in terms of longevity explaining intelligence. "A long lifespan creates pressure to protect neurons from free radicals which may help advanced cognition to evolve." Smart animals may also be under pressure to further increase their lifespan, Rottenberg points out: "They need extra time to learn, memorise and exchange all the complex information their brains can process."Compare this to the following passage from Chapter II of Sirius:While he was improving his technique so that he could ensure a rather more healthy animal, he at the same time undertook research into methods of altering the tempo of its life so that it should mature very slowly and live much longer ...
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Moving
2007-06-30 03:54:00
I'm moving tomorrow. We've been packing up to the last minute. This is no fun. My back hurts. Stay tuned. The blog will resume when I have a chance to come up for air.
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Taking the Piss
2007-06-18 03:00:00
Here's a short humorous scene where Sirius learns that Gelert can't talk, and neither can any other dog. The two dogs are walking back from Pugh's farm with Maurice after the three have alerted Pugh that one of his sheep is out on the moor with a broken leg.EXT. FIELDS NEAR GARTH - DAY Maurice and the two dogs walk back to Garth.                       SIRIUS            Gelert can't talk, can he?                       MAURICE            You're the only dog who can talk.                       SIRIUS            I'm... the only dog in the world            who can talk.           ...
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Perils in Push to Perfect Canine Gene Pool
2007-06-12 16:00:00
FORT MOTT STATE PARK, N.J. — When mutant, muscle-bound puppies started showing up in litters of champion racing whippets, the breeders of the normally sleek dogs invited scientists to take DNA samples at race meets here and across the country. They hoped to find a genetic cause for the condition and a way to purge it from the breed. It worked. “Bully whippets,” as the heavyset dogs are known, turn out to have a genetic mutation that enhances muscle development. And breeders may not want to eliminate the “bully” gene after all. The scientists found that the same mutation that pumps up some whippets makes others among the fastest dogs on the track. Read the complete story.
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Page 24
2007-06-12 01:16:00
I'm on page 24, which means that I'm about 1/8 of the way through the first draft. One of the problems that I'm having is the use of narration. It's difficult to know when to use narration. I've found that narration is useful in transitioning between scenes and to give information where there isn't any dialog. For example, there's a scene where Sirius follows Gelert, a super sheepdog (as opposed to Sirius, who is a super-super sheepdog). Gelert stalks a rabbit and kills him and Sirius follows close behind. At the end of the scene, Robert as narrator comments that this was the beginning of a conflict that Sirius later referred to as his wolf-nature. This is followed by a scene where Sirius sniffs around the rabbit warren after discovering his interest in hunting. Plaxy leads Sirius away from the rabbits so they can play. While they're playing, Sirius finds a frog, which he kills and tries to eat. Plaxy cries and Sirius kisses her to make up. The nice thing about the narrat...
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Amazon.com and Animal Fighting: A Message From Wayne Pacelle
2007-06-08 18:15:00
Incredibly, Amazon Defends Animal Fighting ! For at least two years, online retailer Amazon has been infamously -- and incorrectly -- touting its "right" to sell materials promoting illegal animal fighting, blatantly peddling dogfighting videos as well as cockfighting magazines like The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior. These materials are not only offensive because of the cruelty they glorify, but their shipment is also a felony under the recently-enacted Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act. The company's decision to defy the new federal law against the reprehensible practices of dogfighting and cockfighting is reckless. Amazon is falsely claiming its commercial sale of animal fighting publications is protected by the First Amendment. But these cockfighting magazines are selling fighting birds and cockfighting weapons, and those activities are explicitly outlawed under the new federal law! Amazon even says it is within its rights to sell dogfighting videos -- a practic...
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Current Writing Status and the State of the Blog
2007-06-07 07:23:00
Exciting things are going on with the screenplay. Not so exciting things are going on with the blog. First, the screenplay. I'm on page 20. The writing is going more quickly. It's becoming more coherent. The dialog is going to need a lot of work after the first draft is completed, but that's par for the course. The section I've been working on goes like this: Thomas drives back to Garth from the University after being told he's going to receive funds. Thomas is greeted by his family. That night, Plaxy climbs out of bed to find that Sirius is sick. Sirius is nursed back to health. I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. Next, the blog. This blog is now averaging 8 visitors a day and two of them are me. Most of the people who find their way to the blog are searching on Google for things that are only peripherally related to the blog. Here's are some examples: Someone in India searched Google for animal communcation pictures and stayed on the blog for a whole 16...
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Thomas Assured Funding
2007-06-03 18:06:00
I'm on page 17. I was writing a scene where Thom as plays the gramophone record for Dr. Billing and Professor McAlister. From the novel:Thomas determined to have a permanent record of the dog's speech. He bought the necessary apparatus for making gramophone discs, and reproduced conversations between Sirius and Plaxy. He allowed no one to hear these records except the family and his two most intimate colleagues, Professor McAlister and Dr. Billing, who were influential in procuring funds for the research, and knew that Thomas's secret ambition soared far above the production of super-sheep-dogs. On several occasions Thomas brought the distinguished biologists to see Sirius.While I was writing the scene, the computer crashed. I didn't lose that much, just a half-page or so. It turned out to be a good thing, because I realized that a scene where three men sit in a room listening to a record would be pretty boring. So I split the scene into two scenes. The first has Thomas finishin...
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China's Zoos: 'Asylums For Animals'
2007-05-31 20:25:00
From Sky News: China's zoos have been described as "insane asylums for animals" and a national disgrace, where live domestic pets are fed to lions and tigers for the entertainment of visitors. Animals are trained to perform tricks Animal rights activists have told Sky News that in 10 years of monitoring animals' living conditions there has been "no improvement". Campaigner Dr John Wederburn said: "I come back to the same zoo four or  five years later and the same animals are still trapped in the same tiny cage. "It's called zoo-chosis. The animals are simply driven out of their minds by the boredom." Read the complete story. Take action.
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Humor
2007-05-30 05:12:00
I'm on page 15. I didn't work on the screenplay much over the holiday weekend. My wife and I have been looking to move and we checked out a few potential places. We spent the rest of the weekend taking it easy and we watched a couple of movies. Here's a quote from Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future, by Robert Crossley:...Two years after the novel's publication, (Stapledon) remembered, inaccurately, a general critical revulsion, but at the time it was Philip Toynbee's lengthy, derisive review that particularly galled him. As he told Mary, "Like several other reviewers, he failed to see that it was meant to be funny in quite a lot of places..."That there are some genuinely funny bits in the novel is overlooked by many people. Toynbee commented that the narrative is detached, logical, and unemotional, and I would have to agree, somewhat. I'm attempting to pull the humor out of the novel where it exists and find places to add a little humor. For example, in the novel, there...
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'Noah's Ark' of 5,000 rare animals found floating off the coast of China
2007-05-27 09:30:00
Cargo of abandoned vessel destined for restaurants Illegal trade drives species closer to extinction Endangered, hunted, smuggled and now abandoned, 5,000 of the world's rarest animals have been found drifting in a deserted boat near the coast of China .The pangolins, Asian giant turtles and lizards were crushed inside crates on a rickety wooden vessel that had lost engine power off Qingzhou island in the southern province of Guangdong. Most were alive, though the cargo also contained 21 bear paws wrapped in newspaper. According to conservation groups, the haul was discovered on one of the world's most lucrative and destructive smuggling routes: from the threatened jungles of south-east Asia to the restaurant tables of southern China. Read the complete story.
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U.S. Stops Breeding Chimps for Research
2007-05-26 19:28:00
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Institutes of Health, which supports a variety of biomedical studies using animals, will stop breeding government-owned chimpanzees for research -- a step animal rights advocates lauded on Thursday. The NIH's National Center for Research Resources cited financial reasons for its decision this week to permanently cease breeding of government-owned chimpanzees for research. A breeding moratorium on NCRR-owned and supported chimpanzees had been in place since 1995. The Humane Society of the United States said it suspects that ethical reasons also were involved in the decision. The group, which opposes the use of these apes as lab animals, said the decision on ending breeding likely also means NIH no longer will be acquiring new chimpanzees through other means. Read the full story.
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