A Song of Ice and Fire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - A Song of Ice and Fire

Last week, the Daily Star tabloid claimed that a new game called Grand Theft Auto: Rothbury was being planned (based on a lame Photoshop job), which would lionise the recent exploits by killer Raoul Moat (who shot and severely wounded an ex-girlfriend after killing her boyfriend, vowing to kill both police and innocent members of the public before going into hiding for a week before shooting himself during a stand-off with the police). The Star decided to get comments from, rather than say the game's makers Rockstar, the families of the injured and deceased, causing them considerable distress. The game, obviously does not exist.

Of course, the Star did not take into account that Rockstar have much, much more money than them and access to extremely formidable lawyers, prompting the Star to offer an apology utterly satisfying in its levels of grovelling:

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The writer of the article himself appeared to be uncontrite previously:

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Over on WiC there seems to be confusion over how the 'production block' system that HBO is apparently using for Thrones is going to work. If we assume many of the people keeping an eye on this situation are Americans and regular American network TV doesn't use the same system, this is understandable.

American network TV shows like Lost use a 'rolling production' model, where each episode is filmed sequentially after the last. Most American shows film one episode over 6-7 days and then straight into the next one, or sometimes with a single day off between episodes (with usually a longer break, maybe a week or two, around Christmas). Upwards of half a dozen episodes will be in production at any one time. One episode will be filming, another will be in post-production, another will be in final mixing and music scoring and another will be being delivered, whilst on the other side one episode will be being written, one will be having pre-production budget meetings and rewrite discussions, another will be in read-throughs with the cast and another will be prepping to shoot. Simple shows like sitcoms will be shot over 4-5 days (with the bulk of filming on a studio audience night), whilst a more complex show like Lost will shoot over 7-8, with an overlap in filming (the last day of shooting Episode 4 will simultaneously be the first day of shooting Episode 5, but it will be arranged so that the same actors will be not be required). Due to the increase in serialisation, it's also possible that scenes will be shot that span episodes (the final scene of the BSG episode Revelations saw the entire crew trucking out to a beach outside Vancouver for the classic cliffhanger ending where the crew discover a nuclear-ravaged planet; rather than get everyone else out there again the following week, they simply filmed the scenes for the following episode Sometimes a Great Notion immediately afterwards, with another director stepping in).

American TV prefers this model because it allows them to shoot relatively close to transmission. If a show is not performing ratings-wise, they can cancel it and only have spent the money for another 3-6 episodes, not the entirety of the season. It's a somewhat flexible model. This model does mean that directors will usually not direct consecutive episodes, because the workload is insane (it requires directors to be prepping one episode whilst simultaneously filming another and then switching to cutting an episode whilst filming the next, and there simply isn't enough time to do these jobs at once), though for two-parters directors will sometimes prep both episodes in one go and then cut them in one go.

This is not the model that HBO are using for Thrones, however. It appears (although it is not fully confirmed) that HBO are using the British 'production block' system which is instead used on Doctor Who, Torchwood and indeed a lot of British dramas. This is because HBO have commissioned the entirety of Season 1 and will show it and give it a chance to grow regardless of initial ratings. This is the same attitude of a lot of British shows. The block system is not used in the States because it is only possible to use it if the entire season is being filmed in its entirety some time before transmission, which of course is not possible for network shows that want to be able to cancel shows at 3-4 episodes' notice if the ratings tank (I don't know if the production block system is used for American cable shows which are filmed in their entirety before transmission).

The block system sees several episodes combined into one solid block of filming and production lasting many weeks, maybe a month to two months. This block will involve the same behind-the-scenes personnel, and will be designed to maximise efficiency and minimize costs, so episodes set in the same location, using the same guest or recurring actors and so on will be combined, regardless of the actual transmission order of the episodes. Most notably, the same director will be assigned to the entire block. The block will be prepped, read-through, go through pre-production and budget meetings and then filmed and put through post in one long process. Usually whilst one block is filming, the next director will be stepping up and prepping the next block so the actors go from filming one block to the next (sometimes with a short break between them).

As an example of this process, on Doctor Who the episodes Rise of the Cybermen, The Age of Steel, Army of Ghosts and Doomsday (Season 2, Episodes 5, 6, 12 and 13) were filmed in one large block. This was done because the expensive Cybermen costumes could be fabricated and used immediately across all four episodes rather than being put into storage and then pulled out again, and because these episodes reused a lot of the same guest cast who could film their scenes right through rather than having to take a few months off inbetween. These episodes, whilst filmed mostly in the standard Cardiff studios, also used significant amounts of location filming in London, which could be again done in one go for all four episodes instead of having to truck back and forth between the two cities.

Doctor Who also sometimes uses a deviation of this system to maximise filming efficiency. An extra episode is sometimes added to a filming block which is in fact directed by a different director and indeed an entirely different filming crew. This extra episode is then filmed whilst the rest fo the block is being recorded elsewhere. These episdoes by definition cannot have the Doctor and/or his companion in significant roles, resulting in the 'Doctor-lite' episodes like Blink, where the main actors only appear briefly and the focus of the episode is on guest cast. The episode Love and Monsters kickstarted this trend the previous season. For the show's fourth season this process was furthered by the episodes Turn Left and Midnight. In the former, the Doctor is almost completely absent and in the latter his companion Donna is completely absent. This allowed these two episodes to be filmed almost completely simultaneously, which saved filming time and money.

It appears Thrones will use a similar process. We have three directors already but apparently there will be more. If there are five directors for the season, for example, the most efficient model is for each director to handle two episodes in one production block (with one of these directors handling a full episode and a reshoot of the pilot), based on what locations are needed and ready, which sets need to be reused and which actors are available. This likely explains why some actors have been able to take other jobs very close to GoT filming even if they are in Episode 1 or 2; these will not necessarily be the first episodes shot. This appears to be confirmed by the news on WiC that the current focus of read-throughs and costume fittings is Episode 4, and this may be the first episode to be shot.

Where this process helps Thrones is that it solves the riddle of how they were going to handle the Daenerys scenes. The idea of the production crew filming for 10 days, flying to Malta (formerly Morocco), then back again to Northern Ireland for the next episode's Westeros scenes and then back to Malta again seems hideously inefficient. Under the production block system they can simply combine all of the Dany/Illyrio/Viserys/Drogo scenes into one shooting block and have the individual episode directors fly out to direct their portion in turn, or for one director to handle the whole lot and be dual-credited on the appropriate episode.

Needless to say, if it turns out that they are not using the UK production block system I've just wasted 40 minutes of posting, but certainly this sounds like the process they are using :)

Driver is that game series no-one really gave a toss about because it was a bit crap and the fact you couldn't run people over (they always jump out of the way, even when you've just power-slammed an 18-wheeler into them that Spider-Man would have trouble dodging) was ludicrous.

Anyway, they are making a new game, Driver: San Francisco, which precisely no-one is excited about. But they have included a new feature which is almost mind-blowingly surreal.

At any point in the game you can shift into another car, possessing its driver and making him do your bidding until you tire and transfer to another car (or you total the one you're driving and kill the driver, whichever comes first). If you possess an official vehicle like a police car then you can trigger missions and stuff like that. As the game continues your ghostly powers increase until you can possess any vehicle in the San Francisco Bay area instantly and at will, through a disturbing zoomed-out mode that has you poised as an unholy angel perched above the city.

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Word.

Avatar: The Legend of Korra is a sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender (renamed The Legend of Aang in some countries, probably the inspiration for the new title). From the single piece of art unveiled, it looks like it will be set in different, slightly more advanced time period with more advanced buildings (though the traditional Asian art style is still visible).

Interesting to see what they do with this, whether there will be callbacks to the original series (I assume Korra becoming the new Avatar means that Aang is dead by this time, so it's presumably decades, if not centuries, in the future) and what they will bring to the table beyond a female protagonist.

Rock-Paper-Shotgun has an excellent article on the downfall of the once-noble genre of the flight sim (accompanied by some brilliant screenshots). The conclusions that are reached are pretty obvious - overcomplexity of modern sims, lack of differences between one sim and the next apart from slightly better graphics and so on - but still an interesting debate about what has happened to this once-proud genre.

Hope they do something similar for space combat sims, another genre that is in need of a reboot.