GEnie posts from July 1992?

[JoeD80]

What happened to the posts from July 1992? The original casting announcements were made in this range; I wrote some down in my notes but they don't seem to appear anywhere now. I think I got them from this site...

[Brandon Klassen]

Always interested in discovering new messages that aren't archived here. Not sure exactly what you're looking for, perhaps you can list some more details from your notes?

Casting Delenn:

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-21087

Casting Sinclair:

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-21090

And this seems to be the first mention of many of the others:

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-21083

[JoeD80]

I have a few notes here and there. Apologize for multiple posts here but I reached the character limit for a single message:

Will name names as soon as contracts are signed.

Found a great Dr. Kyle and an equally good Garibaldi the other day.
Things are looking up.

As for directions in space...remember, the station rotates, so it is
already at an angle to just about everything else. Ships incoming will have
to rotate to orient themselves to the station, such that all other ships are
at different angles. So yes, that's something that has already been included
in the design of the show.

BTW, does anyone here who was also at Westercon remember the name of the
woman from the Kennedy Space Center who attended the B5 presentation? She
offered some good thoughts and suggestions, and would like to follow up on
that, and on an offer of additional support. (Apparently, from what she told
me, a lot of folks at the Kennedy Space Center have been tracking the progress
of B5 for some time, even publishing little news bits in some newsletter or
other...they like the fact, as do I, that we're trying to be as scientifically
accurate as possible.)

Okay, so I quashed that one, I let the 20 other in jokes slide....

About vocal range...what you look for when putting together an ensemble
is different than what you look for when you're putting together a show built
around only one or two stars. What you want is sythesis, how they relate,
how they look together, how they act together, and for a range of looks,
heights, mannerisms and voices. They've all got very good voices...hard
biting for Garibaldi, mellifluous and enticing for G'Kar, exotic for Delenn,
firm for Laurel, deep and entrancing for Sinclair, cultured and sophisticated
for Dr. Kyle....

You want to create a certain kind of effect with an ensemble show that's
very unique. HILL STREET is a good model for that. Just from the few hours
we had virtually all of them together in the same room, they got along
tremendously and there was a good sense of a group in action.

As for the actor playing G'Kar...hmm...what can I say that I can get away
with...well, you've seen him as a Romulan, three times. As well as in many
other things. (New series Romulan, not the original show.)

Bear with me; I should be able to post the cast list by week's end,
barring a request from Warners to wait a bit.

Jeez, nearly 20 messages since last night...yeah, without saying anything
more specific, I think most of y'all are on the right track about G'Kar.
(Man, I didn't think it was that obvious.) He brings a wonderful aspect to
the character.

I suspect that the actress portraying Laurel is American born, though I
didn't ask, but there is something of an accent there, to answer the question
about accents; the actor playing Dr. Kyle has a definite African accent, and
there's also an Eastern European accent in one of the other roles. (Which
reminds me...there's a big surprise in one of our cast members which we've
managed to keep fairly quiet until now...not a name per se, but rather a
take on the casting that will, I think, come as quite a surprise.)

Overall, the cast is very close to what I saw in my head when I wrote
the script.

[JoeD80]

Some more:

Any further involvement by Harlan...will wait for future developments (he
said, being deliberately vague). And yes, I plan to be at MagiCon, as soon as
I can get my act together to finish making arrangements.

Cast...hmm...well, here's a funny thing. See, I'd created the role of
Lyta Alexander (the rent a telepath) along with every other character 'way
back when. Between then and now, I saw the remake of "Night of the Living
Dead," and was blown out of the room by one of the actors: Patricia Tallman.
I'd always thought that Lyta should have eyes somehow bigger than they should
be (no makeup, just the perception), should be a redhead, and should be
physically capable of handling herself. So when time came to revise the
script, update it and stuff, as I wrote Lyta's part, I kept thinking of
Tallman (and expanding the part commensurately).

As we began auditions, I kept an open mind...but always kinda hoped that
Patricia would be the one that we all liked. And, sonuvagun, that's how it's
worked out. So she's Lyta. (In addition to NOTLD, she's also appeared in
"Knightriders," "Roadhouse," "Monsignore," in the upcoming "Army of Darkness,"
and in television on "Generations," "Tales from the Darkside," "Texas" and
"Guiding Light.")

Basically, about half our cast members have backgrounds in the genre,
like Katsulas and Tallman and, nominally, Tomita and Jurasik. The rest do
not. I think that makes for a good mix.

Another cast member to announce: For the part of Dr. Benjamin Kyle
we have Johnny Sekka, who has been featured in such films as THE
FEVER, HANKY PANKY, ASHANTI, A WARM DECEMBER, THE SOUTHERN STAR, KHATROUM,
WOMAN OF STRAW and others (working, along the way, with such folks as
Ryan O'Neal, Sidney Poitier, Orson Welles, Lawrence Olivier and Sean
Connery, to name but a few), and in such television projects as MASTER OF
THE GAME, ROOTS: THE SECOND GENERATION, KINGSTON CONFIDENTIAL and
PASSION IN PARADISSE...Johnny Sekka comes out of the Old Vic in London,
the Royal Court theater, and the Strattford Theater, classically trained.

He's a wonderful actor, with a great sense of elegance and style and
power. Like so many others, when he came in the door, we knew instantly
that this was the one for us. (And the kind of accent you wish every
doctor had...you'd trust him immediately.)

So let's see...so far I've announced....

Laurel Takashima.............Tamlyn Tomita
Ambassador Londo Mollari.....Peter Jurasik
Michael Garibaldi............Jerry Doyle
Ambassador Kosh..............Himself
Lyta Alexander...............Patricia Tallman
Ambassador G'Kar.............Andreas Katsulas
Dr. Benjamin Kyle............Johnny Sekka

So that leaves Commander Sinclair, Delenn, and Carolyn Sykes to be
heard from.

Just by itself that would be a great lineup...but there's more to come.

Very curious...yes, there are plans for an organic ship in the
works...no, it's not the Vorlon ship, despite appearances. You've basically
hop scotched ahead to an actual planned episode, AND to one of the ways it's
detected, via Lyta. (Have to watch myself around here...you're a sharp
bunch.)

As for pockets...we've got 'em, don't worry about that. Like I said from
the beginning: PRACTICAL uniforms only.

And as for Ambassador Kosh...no, he's not computer generated...and who
said ANYONE was doing his voice?

Mysteriously yours....

[JoeD80]

Last one here:

No voice actor has agreed to work without credit. (I've got to stop
enjoying myself as much as I am....)

Thanks for the comment re: POWER. Yeah, I was involved in that, and in
large part, I think it holds up fairly well...though there are a few that I
wouldn't mind dropping off the deep end of a pier off the Jersey coast....

As for lettering/alphabet/fonts...your timing is excellent. Today, while
down at the stage, I swung by the art department (some days it astonishes me
that there IS a Babylon 5 Art Department....) and picked up copies of the new
fonts. One is a wholly alien looking symbolic language, rather like
hieroglyphs; another is for a kind of Interlac, a language form used in common
by most civilizations (sort of an interstellar Esperanto, I suppose); and
then there are two possibilities for an English speaking font that I have to
choose between. One of them was custom made for us, and looks vaguely
Russian; the other is a rather obscure commercial font. Of the two, I think
I'll go with the customized font.

(Another example of our anti traditional TV think: we're making up signs
that will front offices and the casino and quarters and medlab and so on...and
at first there was talk of putting up a symbol, like an international No Walk
sort of thing, AND the english word for it. We were looking at the
illustrations for production, and Richard Compton, our director, said, "Leave
off the words, just leave in the symbol; if people are sharp enough, and they
probably are, they'll pick up on it on their own and start recognizing the
symbols. Plus it's usually self explanatory in the subsequent action." In
other words...trust the intelligence of the viewers. If they get it, fine, if
they don't, it won't interfere with their enjoyment of the show one whit.)

For those curious, by the way, we've worked out the B5 logo that will
appear on patches and elsewhere on the ship. To best communicate that to you,
I have to describe the 5 we're using. Break off the top of the 5 just before
the circular part, and notch the bottom, so you have what looks like a catch,
a sideways L. Make the bottom half circular, with a section missing. So what
you have, if you were to, say, put it in motion, is the circle turning, the
gap comes up, and the notched part drops in to form a 5. (And there's a dot
within the circle.)

So what we have on the patches is this: a silver background shaped like a
stylized B, and within that silhouette is the 5. The dot within the circle
of the 5 now sells the B against the silhouette. The 5 is in black. It looks
vaguely machine like, and it's WAY cool. (The silver won't be too bright, or
metallic...sort of a silver grey.) If you look at the B and the 5, you can
see that they share pretty much the same silhouette, so it's a perfect
match...just make the B a little larger and drop the 5 on top within its
borders.

One more bit of casting news: for Commander Sinclair's lady friend,
trader Carolyn Sykes, we have Blair Baron. If you've seen "League Of Their
Own," she's in the opening sequence as the daughter who encourages her mother
to go out and attend the Hall of Fame opening. She's done a LOT more than
that, but her credits are at the office, and I'm at home.

Sets are coming together beautifully; VERY impressive, and just plain
huge.

Eleven days to filming.