Issue 13: Visual effects, Voyager, and set photos!

We’re supposed to put something fun here to open the newsletter.

But see, we’re very tired.

So please just pretend these three sentences were highly entertaining.

NEW STUFF

Long Away has achieved picture lock (which was technically version ten of the rough cut)! This means all the individual shots have been chosen and edited together just the way we want them to be, and there will be no more editing. This is important for all the stages that come after! If you add visual effects or music, but then re-edit a scene and the timing changes, all that work was for naught. So picture lock is picture locked.

It’s now moved on to visual effects, and we think we’ve got the time travel bits mostly set and only needing minor tweaks. There are other effects shots still in progress, as well as a few other things we didn’t even realize fell under the “visual effects” umbrella… things like resizing a shot to crop it a certain way, or stabilizing a shot that was maybe just a liiiitle more shaky than we wanted.

Our composer is also already at work experimenting with musical styles and gathering ideas (since the timing of the film is set now that we’ve got picture lock), even though the music doesn’t officially get added until a few steps down the line. But writing and recording music takes time, so we wanted to get her started early.

There’s still a ways to go, but we’re ahead of schedule and still looking for a June cast and crew screening, and then it’s off to festivals! Hopefully it’ll get in to a bunch, and you’ll be able to see in theaters!

Also, as you saw from our lead image, we got our behind the scenes set photos in! We divided them into spoilery and non-spoilery images, because we really do want to preserve the film itself, so people can really experience it for the first time going in. So the spoilery ones will go to all the crowdfund supporters who backed at that level when the film itself does, but the others will go to backers soon.

All of these photos are for cast, crew, and the relevant crowdfund backers only, but we’ll be sharing some of our favorites here as we go. If you follow us and the rest of the cast and crew on social media, though, you may get to see some others posted! Drop by the crowdfund page and check out the lovely crew listed if you wanna try and find them elsewhere!

WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON

Work continues apace on our Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming comic series that releases late summer/early fall. We don’t have a publication date on the first issue yet, but trust we’ll let you know as soon as we do, and as soon as you can pre-order it from comic shops! Pre-orders are super vital to a comic’s success, so please do if you intend to read the book! We’ll let you know exactly how to do it when it’s time, so even if you’ve never gotten a comic before it will be easy. It’s not scary, we promise!

We also went and scouted out a movie theater where we’re hoping to have our cast and crew (and friends and family and crowdfund backers who got an invite) screening, and it was kind of amazing and incredibly overwhelming.

See, it’s a movie theater. A real movie theater! With a huge ass screen and over two hundred seats. And just imagining our film up there, and all the people watching it… it was kind of hard to comprehend, really. Especially since we haven’t even gotten to see it on a screen that big yet, and we’re not sure if that’ll even happen before the screening.

And then out of the blue, an editor we worked with on one of the two graphic novels we wrote last year (neither of which has been announced yet still!) asked us if we’d like to pitch for a new line of books they’re going to be launching, and they had one idea that intrigued us.

Thankfully they don’t need it in any kind of rush as we’re so swamped right now, but we’re noodling ideas. And it was super flattering to be asked! We’re so happy our editors love working with us.

No updates yet on the two other comic pitches we have sitting with editors already, so! More waiting.

But life is wild, y’all.

TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE

Trans Tuesdays were off for two weeks so we (and especially Tilly) could concentrate on watching and reviewing those ten iterations of Long Away rough cuts, and molding and finessing it into the final cut.

But they returned this week, with a highly (and literally) uncomfortable topic: tucking and binding! If you’re unfamiliar, you can learn what they are, why trans people do them, and maybe even discover for yourself just how truly uncomfortable they are. Fellow trans folks, hey… they’re terrible but also kinda great, yeah?

RECOMMENDATIONS

We’ve been having a blast with the Joy Who Lived theater festival here in Los Angeles. It wraps up this coming weekend, but some shows still have tickets and many events were filmed and you can watch streams online!

It was started by our friend Laser Webber, Maddox K. Pennington, and Petey Gibson as a response to queen transphobe JK Rowling’s Harry Potter play coming to Los Angeles. She’s done so much harm and damage to trans people, in the UK and worldwide, and so the festival was created as counterprogramming to give trans creators a chance to get their work in front of audiences. It included multiple shows written and performed by the lead from our short film, Griffin Kelly!

All theater and production fees were covered by a Kickstarter, and so all ticket fees went to the trans people who were putting on the shows (which is mostly unheard of). It’s been wonderfully affirming and joyous, and we need so much more trans and queer art in the world.

We hope to be part of it in some way next year.

Check out local theater in your town and support people making art!

THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH

Cats are gonna cat. You never know where they’re gonna turn up.

Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. Where there is box, there is cat.

But sometimes they are also under the blankets on your bed!

Okay we confess, this ins’t a surprise either. Izzy loves being under the blankets and as toasty warm as possible. She’s under there most nights when we’re sleeping!

(yes we have Star Trek bedsheets, so what? Shut up!)

WHAT’S IN THE BIG TIME?

Big Time issue 13 includes thoughts on working with actors, and all the amazing things they can bring to your project when you treat them as artistic collaborators (which they are!) and not line repeating robots (which they are not!).

And the sci-fi nonsense of the Cannibal Planets comic short wraps up with page six!

Sign up for it at birdguestbroadcast.com and make us so happy!

THE END

Take some time to just… be. Do not do. There is more than enough to do.

Drop those tense shoulders.

Just be.

Breathe.

SOCIALS.

Tilly’s Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/tillybridges.bsky.social
Susan’s Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/susanlbridges.bsky.social
Writing website
http://birdguest.com