From: mbutts@cs.mentorg.com (Mike Butts)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.info
Subject: Portland Creation Con 7/11/92 - Frakes
Followup-To: rec.arts.startrek.misc
Date: 22 Jul 1992 20:15:51 GMT
Organization: Vulcan Science Academy, Tau Ceti Sector
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Reply-To: mbutts@cs.mentorg.com
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Originator: griffith@xcf.Berkeley.EDU

We (me, my wife Dianne and 11-year-old Cathi, all major fans) attended
Portland's Creation Con with Jonathan Frakes on Saturday.  Dianne and Cathi also
attended a Writer's Workshop with Ron Moore in the morning.  This is all
from memory, so I beg forgiveness for any inaccuracies.
 
JONATHAN FRAKES
---------------
Frakes was a riot.  Very entertaining, wild and crazy, obviously having fun. 
He told good anecdotes about what he's had to go through:
 
    - The "Skin of Evil" was Metamucil and Black Printer's Ink - after
submerging himself in that, and lying there after the take, LeVar came over,
looked him over, and said "I'd never do that."
    - After he grew a beard in the off season for fun, the STNG staff liked the
idea ("It's nautical"), and proceeded to put him through several iterations of
style mangling, including gluing some of the beard back on, before they settled
on one.
    - One Klingon dinner scene had him reaching into a bowl of live, wriggling
grubworms, getting a handful, and holding them over his face (the director
thinks it'll be a *great* shot).  One fell into his mouth.  Yum.  And then they
didn't use the shot after all.
    - On the other hand, responding to a question - (paraphrasing) "Yes, Marina
is a good kisser.  Gates isn't bad either (grin).  But (his wife) is the best."
So the job isn't all grubworms and Metamucil.
 
He's very happy playing Riker, considers himself very fortunate, since it's rare
for an actor to be working as steadily as he is, and will play Riker as long as
they ask.  His two big unfulfilled dreams as an actor are to be in a feature
film (he's done all sorts of TV, and never one screen role), and to have a big
role on Broadway someday.  He *loves* the idea of STNG movies.
 
My Cathi chose trombone for middle school band last year, largely because of
Riker's example, and she considers his performance in the holodeck bar in
10010101 (whatever) to have been her first trombone lesson.  She brought it
along, held it up in question time, and requested a performance.  The crowd went
wild, so he picked up this beat-up middle school rental trombone, remarked "This
is a first" and cracked off a minute of nice hot jazz riffs.  A real crowd
pleaser, and a big thrill for Cathi.
 
They're shooting again, and just finished part 2 of Time's Arrow.  No clues, of
course, besides "we all show up and save the day", but we will get to enjoy them
all in 19th century garb having fun in Twain's SF.
 
RON MOORE
---------
Ron is one of the STNG staff writers.  He gave a good talk about episodes he's
written, with slides and comments.  He remarked that the writers have trouble
getting feedback - they write, it's filmed and shown, and they wonder how people
liked it.  Ratings don't tell them much.  He invited +/- feedback from the
crowd.
 
He got his start by submitting a spec script, got to working with them, and they
eventually invited him onto the staff - pretty remarkable!  He feels a great
debt of gratitude to the dear departed Great Bird.  He says they're the only
operation in Hollywood that reads *everything* that comes in - they promise. 
(So long as it's a real, complete, screenplay, you sign the release, and max 2
per person unless you have an agent)  They handle 5000 scripts per year. 
There's a group of readers who screen them, write a brief synopsis of each one,
and Michael Piller reads *all* those synopses.  Some small percentage of authors
are asked in to present, and on from there.

Randomly from my flaky memory:
 
- (The recent one where Geordi and Ro get 'out of phase') "Why don't they fall
through the floor?"  He's been asked that a lot.  They actually had a line of
explanation about that in early versions, but it mistakenly dropped out in
revision.  They were to have observed that they could walk on floors, sit on
chairs, etc., but if they pushed really hard they could pass through.  A surface
tension effect sort of like Jello.  "How could they breathe, etc.?"  He draws
the line here and pleads "dramatic license".
 
- Yesterday's Enterprise: They did this one intensively over a Thanksgiving
weekend, but kept worrying that it was too complex, too far out, "wait a minute,
they won't get it...".  They were relieved when it was so well received.  He
says they have similar worries about Time's Arrow.  He asked what we thought of
it so far and was gratified to hear our loud applause in reply.
 
- Family:  One of the few where a character went through hell and wasn't 
all better next week.  After getting de-Borged, they felt it just wouldn't be
credible for Picard not to need some R&R and working it out time.  It takes
place in France "Where they all speak in British accents - you see actually
England invaded France in the 22nd century and finally won ;-)"  Trivia point:
This is the only episode in ST, STNG or any movies which never once gets onto
the Enterprise bridge.  The house was in Sherman Oaks, Cal., and the vineyards
in Lancaster, 50 miles away.  There's a scene where Picard hits his brother in
Sherman Oaks, and he lands in Lancaster.  "Picard's got some right hook!"
 
- (The one with Worf's wife)  The original script for this one did not kill her
off.  In storyboarding, out of the blue, Piller said "what if we kill her off?"
 
After everyone reacted in horror, Piller convinced them how compelling that
would make the story, and now Ron feels this was a good choice. (Paraphrasing:
"After that you really *want* Worf to go kill that bastard!")  He did agree she
was a great character.
 
- (the one which starts with Data's scene from Henry V)  Originally, this was to
be a scene from Sir A. C. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.  But Paramount has been
squabbling with Doyle's estate over Young Sherlock Holmes, so they asked if
something else couldn't be used instead.  They chose Shakespeare, and Moore
feels it was a great choice. (I do too.)

- Futures: There are several Q episodes coming.  There is a tie-in with Classic
Trek this year, which he seemed pretty excited about (separately, Frakes said
James Doohan would be in an STNG this year.)  He says as far as he knows the
sense of the staff is that they will do a seventh and hopefully an eighth
season.  Big disclaimers that it's Paramount's business decision, etc., but
that's his sense of the situation.

WORKSHOP
--------
I wans't there, but Dianne and Cathi said it was mainly a presentation on
writing in general and for ST in particular, and some Q&A time.  They felt it
was well worth their time and the fee.
 
All in all, the con made for a fun day.
 
                             --Mike
---
Mike Butts     KC7IT     Research Engineer                mbutts@qcktrn.com
Quickturn Systems, Inc., Mentor Graphics Campus,        voice: 503-685-1302
8005 SW Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777     fax: 503-685-7987
Any opinions are my own, and aren't necessarily shared by Quickturn Systems

-- 
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