Issue 14: key art, pitches, and comic writing ahoy!

Tilly Bridges

— 6 min read
Tilly and Susan directing on the set of Long Away, inside a comic shop. For reasons unknown in both heaven and earth, Tilly is pointing upward with both hands. It’s a mystery!


We’re so busy.

And yet, and yet, we’ve had almost no income all year.

Ya girls need a gig! Hire us, willya?


NEW STUFF

one hand reaching out, palm upward, holding an enamel pin displaying four circles, and another hand reaching out, palm downward, the two hands touch at the fingertips and are bathed in pink light. text reads: LONG AWAY WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY TILLY BRIDGES & SUSAN BRIDGES SPACETIME PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS GRIFFIN KELLY JUSTIN LAWRENCE BARNES JEWEL CAVAZOS in “LONG AWAY” MUSIC BY AMY SUMMERS COSTUME DESIGN MARY-MADISON BALDO EDITED BY JESSIE EARL PRODUCTION DESIGNER AARON LOSS DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ILIANA IPES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ERIN MACDONALD JOHN HARDIN KIT ISAMAN PRODUCED BY ERIN MACDONALD AARON LOSS JESSIE EARL


Look at our amazing key art for Long Away, now with an official logo and everything! Holy dang, we love it so much. It captures the heart of the film so well. It was first released as an update to the film’s crowdfund page, so keep an eye on that and follow the campaign! It’s free, and still helps our visibility on the platform a bunch, even though fundraising is complete.

There’s more we’d like to say about this poster, but it’s all kinda spoilery, so that’s for some future date after the film’s out in the world.

We do want to note our credit up at the top, because the first version of this we saw said “A short film by Tilly Bridges & Susan Bridges.”

But remember how in the very previous issue of this newsletter we talked about how much we dislike the “film by” credit? Because no one (or two) people make a film, it’s a film by everyone who worked on it. We feel it’s not right for directors to take that credit, and we said so. And then it popped up right on our own poster, and we asked to change it.

We wrote Long Away. We directed Long Away.

But it’s a film by every single member of our cast and crew. <3

Meanwhile, Long Away marches through visual effects! We’ve got most of them set outside of small tweaks, and a version with in-progress vfx is already off to the sound mixer. She can’t do the final sound mix until the visual effects are final (so she can match sound design to what’s on screen), but she can get started on ideas for the vfx, as even early drafts had the right spirit of them.

There’s also other things she can do, like clean up the sound on outdoor scenes, make sure the volume levels are consistent across the whole, etc. So she’s working her audio magic while we fine tune all the vfx details.

We’re shooting to have the entire thing completed by the end of the month, with our cast and crew/friends and family screening in early June, and then it’s off to festivals (which it hopefully gets into)!

Also we are sad to say that the original comic pitch we were hoping would get picked up… did not. It stinks, but rejection is all part of the process. The editors at this publisher all love us, and in fact this is the sixth pitch of ours they’ve all approved and sent on for a final greenlight from The Decider. And each time The Decider has turned them down.

And that also stinks, but it’s also fine. It just means whatever The Decider is looking for, it’s not what Tilly & Susan are cooking up. People have different sensibilities, and that’s fine. WE GUESS.

But that pitch is fully formed and ready to go, so once things with Long Away slow down a little, we’re going to pitch it to a few other publishers. So keep those fingers and toes crossed!


WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON

We’re still at warp 9.9 (because we all know what happens when you hit warp 10…) on the Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming comic series from IDW. Still no release date, but keep your eyes open. It won’t be too long now before the first issue is solicited to comic shops! Some early art from it popped into our inboxes, and it was delightful.

Our two (still officially unannounced) graphic novels are still going through art stages at their respective publishers, no new updates there. Your eyes, keep open, etc.

There’s still one comic pitch we’re waiting to hear back on, but it may be a few more months. Waiting is hard! Boo!

We’ve also been doing a ton of watching and sending notes on vfx shots for Long Away as mentioned above, and it does get odd over time. You’re watching two second clips and trying to know if it’s going to work as part of the whole, and then when you see them in context of the larger scene it can change the way you think about them. And of course we’re going to watch them in the context of the whole, but that’ll be for once we think they’re ready (or as close as can be without seeing the whole film). It’s just not practical to render a new version of the entire movie, or to watch the entire movie, for a tweak to one two-second shot. So this is definitely the way to do it. It’s just weird!

And the movie’s got credits now! Makes it feel that much more real. And then we see the names of all these brilliant people who helped us make this thing and it makes your heart swell and your eyes get misty. It’s pretty great.

Our composer is also off and working on original music! We had a spotting session last week, which is basically watching the movie with her (she’s in the UK! It was on zoom!) and talking about not just music styles, but the different important emotional beats, what the characters are feeling, and what we want the audience to feel. Music can absolutely make or break any scene… the wrong music can make a great scene feel average, and the right music can make even a bumpy scene feel like magic. Not that we have any bumpy scenes! We’re just sayin’ it’s important, is all.


TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE

Trans Tuesdays are back up and running! First up was a talk about RECOVERING TRANS CHILDHOODS, because when all of society lies to you about who you are and forces you to be someone you’re not, you end up not getting to be yourself as a kid. Which can mean you feel like you never had a childhood that was yours, and how we try to find ways to connect with a past we don’t have.

And then we talked about one of the biggest topics trans people deal with, and which everyone’s undoubtedly heard about in the news (because bigoted republicans are trying to ban it), HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY. Learn what it is, what it does and does not do, and why so many trans people want (and/or need) it.


RECOMMENDATIONS

Actiony shot of the cast of The Pitt rushing a patient on a gurney through an ER



We thought a medical drama was the last thing we wanted to be watching, but dang it if The Pitt isn’t some really excellent television. It feels like a throwback to television (as opposed to what it’s become in the streaming world), and the character work on it is really tremendous.

Doesn’t hurt that it’s got a great cast, and is really inclusive across the board.

We’re not done with the first season yet, and it does get intense and there’s a lot of heavy emotions, but it’s also “competence porn” in the way Star Trek is. Here’s a bunch of people who are very good at what they do, doing the thing they are very good at. It’s also pretty Star Trek-y in that it’s full of characters who have compassion and care about people, and genuinely want to help. And that feels amazing in this present climate we find ourselves in.

The more shows in that Star Trek mold, the better.


THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH

We want nothing more than for these two to get along. But they’re cats, and Izzy’s very headstrong and Henry is… Henry. So.

Izzy on her back on the sofa, as Henry stands above her and holds her down with one paw (he’s twice her size). One of her back feet is kicking him in the jaw.


They were both fine, they never actually try to hurt each other.

They’re just hoopleheads.

Henry is gone, but Izzy is still on her back on the sofa, with her feet in the air, and her body is twisted all weird because: cat


WHAT’S IN THE BIG TIME?

Big Time issue 14’s got an extensive breakdown of the film editing process, and how incredibly vital it is to the final product. It’s magic! Almost. (but really it’s magic)

And we take a break from comics for a bit with our first audio script share, a short comedy piece Tilly wrote called “True Horror.”

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


THE END

Never forget that the world needs you in it, and it’s so much better with you here.

We love you. And so do lots of other folks, too.


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

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