Painkiller Jane: Creator Jimmy Palmiotti's blog on SCIFI.COM

A while ago I got the opportunity — because it was written into my contract — to work with the writers' group a couple of times in Los Angeles, in particular to work on an episode that I was going to write. That episode is called The League, and it's on this Friday night (July13th).

Everyone in the writers' room had a ton more experience writing TV than I did, and their assistance sure helped me, along with the episode. Special thank yous go out to Larry Hertzog, Gillian Horvath, Lisa Klink, Gil Grant, Matt Carpenter, Charles Heit, Kerry Glover, and Mike Goldberg for being patient, considerate and great teachers as well as comrades. I have to mention that without Larry on board and at the wheel, this would have been one rough ride. Larry, I owe you an extra-large pastrami sandwich when you come to New York.

 

 

So… we outlined for a week what would be going on, broke it into acts and then I was sent on my merry way to write the full script based on the outline. Well, as with anything I do, I went in and did my best. I changed some stuff that made no sense to me, questioned the pacing on other things and then changed and added a few scenes as well. This is what you do when you get down to the details of the script.

 

I found it interesting that I wrote only two scenes in the main "subway station/computer room," but by the time Larry got the final copy to Canada it was up to five or six scenes in the room. Stuff like this drove me nuts, but at the same time I totally understood what he was doing and it wasn't something I was thinking about at the time. Changes were made because of budget, limited shooting and prep time, and so on. Years of experience taught him how to work these things out, and I was very much still the student. I wanted a lot in my first draft and am glad a lot of it stayed in — but things were lost as well, which was, again, a learning process all the way for me.

 

The cool thing is, writing the episode meant I got to head out to Vancouver to the shoot. When I arrived at the main show office, a revision of the script was waiting for me. A few things had been taken out and moved around… and this is normal. I met with the whole crew while I was there, went out daily with the director, Paul Ziller, and the heads of the art department, Paul McCulloch and Rudi Grant. Also along for the ride was the producer of the show, Richard Bullock, Abraham Fraser and a few more people I'm forgetting. We scouted locations, hit Starbucks like clockwork, and Paul, Matt Hastings and I did the casting for the episode the first week. I had a blast working with such cool people and watching so many excellent actors try out for the smaller parts. I think when you watch the episode you'll understand why these people were picked. All did a great job.

Click on the link to read more.

 

We also had some artwork that was needed for the episode and I enlisted Amanda Conner and Paul Mounts to draw a fake comic-book cover that the main bad guys of the episode used to read as children. This is where the title "The League of Five" came in. Originally it was just "The League," but we had to change it for legal reasons. My guess: another comic named that out there.

 

Anyway, long story short: Paul started shooting with the supertalented Todd Williams with the director of photography by his side (the trusty Linda Strathdee, who I found was probably the most knowledgeable person on the set). I was there for over a week, probably annoying the hell out of them. I'm a detail freak, so it goes with the territory. I got to once again bond with the cast — they had a ton of ideas for their characters, and with me around for the shoot they were able to voice those ideas, and I got to put some of them into the episode. Some were used, and some were dropped in the final cut. Thank you, Matt Hastings, for once again being open-minded and just a down-to-earth nice guy. Matt is the consulting producer on the show, by the way, and he let me put back into the script a scene where Jane comes out of a crash and re-aligns her shoulder and arm, among other things.

 

The day-to-day details are probably interesting only to me, so I won't bore you with them… I'll just let the photos speak for me.

 

Overall, the episode is about 80% what I envisioned, and I hear that's pretty damn good for a first-timer's script. The great thing is that this gig led to other things; since then I've written or co-written with Justin Gray everything from episodes of Speed Racer for Nickelodeon to a screenplay for an animated feature and have sold a screenplay for a horror film, with more on the way.

Please give the show a shot this coming Friday. Please visit the message boards and ask me anything you want. And yes, its OK to say it sucks — just tell me what sucked and why. The general "it sucks" helps no one.

Thanks, and enjoy.

Jimmy Palmiotti
Paperfilms.com
Brooklyn, NY

Posted by Jimmy Palmiotti at 06:00 PM | Permalink