THE NEXT BIG THING: DEFIANCE

I've been tagged by prolific writer pal Brian Hodge to participate in an online viral roundtable called The Next Big Thing.

Started by horror writer Tim Lebbon, The Next Big Thing is a quick Q&A session that lets creative folks sound off about current or upcoming projects. I'm also tagging a good friend, the multi-talented writer Kira Snyder, to sound off on cool things she's doing. And if more friends decide to chime in, I'll link to them from here as well.

So big thanks to Mr. Hodge for letting me take this opportunity to tell you a little more about my work on an upcoming TV show called Defiance.

What is the working title of your next project?

A one-hour TV drama called Defiance, which premieres in April 2013 on the Syfy Channel. And I'm going to feel like an idiot if I don't point out that this is not my project. I was just fortunate enough to have been hired as a member of the writing staff.

Where did the idea come from for the project?

For years, Hollywood and the videogame industry have been looking for ways to better interconnect story properties. Recently, the profits of some videogames have outgrossed the take of blockbuster films, but it's not just about the money. There are challenging and innovative narrative possibilites to be explored here. Audiences are looking for something new, and so are storytellers. This convergence might be the place to find new forms of storytelling.

 

Defiance is a collaboration between game publisher Trion Worlds and the Syfy Channel. With online MMOs like Rift, Trion was already rocking the game side of things when they came up with the basic scenario for Defiance and pitched it around Hollywood. Syfy knew a fantastic opportunity when they saw one and, as this Forbes article points out, they're betting $100 million that we can pull this thing off. But although everybody instantly understood the world of the videogame, the big question was: how do you make this into a weekly TV drama?

 

Lots of writers came in to pitch their take on the characters who would live in this world and the kinds of stories you could tell. But it was Farscape creator Rockne O'Bannon's original pilot that finally got the big ball rolling. I'd worked with Rockne on the ABC series V and he liked me well enough to bring me along for the ride. For that, I'll be forever grateful. And I think I'll be forever washing his car or something like that. I really need to take another look at the fine print on my contract.

 

What genre does your project fall under?

This is balls-to-the-wall science-fiction with a bizarre canvas and a wide-ranging mix of human and alien characters. Our storylines also coincide and cross-over with the MMO videogame of the same name. It's still TBA, but I believe the Defiance MMO goes live six to eight weeks before the pilot movie airs next April. You don't have to play the videogame at all to enjoy the show, but if you do, you'll see characters and events crossing over from the show to the game and back again. Setting up and executing such cross-platform events is trickier than you might expect. Over the course of the project, we all learned a lot about the videogame industry's workflow process. And they learned how TV shows are created. Now both sides think the other is completely crazy for working that way. And both sides are right.

What actors would you choose to play the parts of your characters in a movie rendition?

I cannot imagine a better cast than the one we were lucky enough to land: Grant Bowler, Julie Benz, Tony Curran, Jaime Murray and Graham Greene. Plus a lot of lesser-known faces, like Stephanie Leonidas, who are going to blow people away. I've been watching dailies and rough cuts of episodes and this ensemble cast is flat-out amazing.

But before any actors had been hired, each of the writers had their own idea of the perfect cast. When you're sitting in a room spitballing stories for months, you've got to have something to hang onto. Often we'd point to an actor as more of a character-shading thing than an actual casting suggestion. For example, when talking about our lead character, Josh Nolan, more than once someone would reference Gary Cooper. There's a solid, everyman core that Cooper radiated in almost all his roles. We wanted that for Nolan and Bowler nailed that as soon as he walked into the room.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your project?

In the aftermath of a war that drastically changed (and almost destroyed) planet Earth, humans and aliens struggle to rebuild civilization.

Will your project be self-published or represented by an agency?

 All the usual Hollywood agencies are repped here via cast and crew.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the project?

It's my understanding that Rockne pitched and cranked out his original pilot in just a few months. But it underwent many more revisions as the project gained steam. Even after hiring a full writing staff, the network and game publisher encouraged us to revamp much of the original concept. The world and characters of Defiance went through many iterations before we landed on the show we all wanted to make.

I was aboard the writing staff for 54 full weeks, which is pretty much unheard of for a show with just a 13-episode order (most 22-episode network shows wrap in far less time). Due to the extensive conceptual revamps and detailed coordination with the videogame side of things, we generated a vast amount of story material, far more than we could use. Some if it might carry over in some form to future seasons, but most of it will probably never see the light of day. It all served its purpose to propel us onto the stories we landed on. Onward, as they say.

What other projects would you compare this story to in your genre?

The above-mentioned Forbes articles says Defiance has elements of Deadwood meeting District 9. That's pretty accurate, but for my money I'd add the 1990s space opera Babylon 5 into that bowl before mixing.

Who or what inspired you to write this project?

My work at Defiance (contributor to many scripts, mad prophet blabbing ad nauseum in the first five show bibles, and a solo writing credit on the eighth episode) was inspired by everybody I worked with. I know it sounds like I'm being a suck-up but I'm just giving credit where credit's due. The writers room was amazingly open and collaborative. Our showrunner Kevin Murphy set the tone by declaring everybody had to check their titles and seniority at the door each morning. That made the writers room a safe place for anyone to speak up. Ideas and characters could grow organically without any politics or other distractions. I can't stress how valuable that is.

We all watch a lot of TV and no small amount of time was spent admiring and analyzing what other shows are able to do, from Breaking Bad to Homeland to The Wire to Sons of Anarchy and even Louie. Each of those shows is a great example of how cable television has the freedom to break new narrative ground. We let them inspire us as we worked to push the serialized story of Defiance into unexpected territory.

Once we shot the pilot, all of our individual and sometimes very separate visions of the show coalesced into something that inspired us to write more. From the incredible sets and detailed costumes to the actors nailing down characters who had existed only in our heads, the show was suddenly real and alive and therefore much more fun to flesh out. Our choices got bolder and more confident. Once other parts of the project began to clock in -- Gary Hutzel's mind-blowing visual effects, Bear McCreary's thrilling and emotional score, and the skilled editing of our post-production team -- Defiance became a very generous muse indeed.

 

For months after my gig ended, I walked around with this world and these characters churning in my subconsious. I had trouble writing anything new because as soon as I'd start typing -- boom! -- I was back in Defiance. Only recently have I begun to emerge from the show's influence (which is great because I owe my very patient agents a new pilot very soon -- as in yesterday).

What else about the project might pique the viewer's interest?

Defiance is a grand and cinematic sci-fi tale the likes of which we haven't seen on TV in many years. It's a bold and multi-layered story, at once familiar and alien, filled with an array of characters seeking to survive on a strange planet that used to be Earth. For all of its genre trappings, however, it's ultimately about survivors who have found themselves far from the world they once knew and how they are trying to build a new home. That makes it an immigrant story, and therefore a very American story.