Issue 15: Long Away in post, comics, and more pitches!

Tilly Bridges

21 May 2025 — 5 min read

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Why are we screaming?

Well why not?! Have you seen the state of the world?

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

Long Away visual effects are done! It’s officially off to sound and color, and our composer is composing!

We’ve got a complete draft of the score already, and it’s so fabulous watching it with the right scoring that amplifies and adds to everything already on screen. Magic magic magic. We’ve also seen the color-corrected version, and dang it’s so pretty. Revisions are in process on both!

We’ll talk more about vfx in Process Stuff in the paid version of this here newslettery-type thing, if you’d like to check that out.

There’s a sound studio booked for our re-recording sound mix next week, and by the time we get there, color and score should be done. So we’ll sit down with our sound mixer and go through the film step by step and be sure it’s all sounding right, and that’s the day we’ll first see the final completed version of the film! That’s pretty damned exciting.

The week following, on June 4, we have our cast and crew screening! In a real theater! With a huge screen! It’s exciting and terrifying and wild to even think about. But given that is also when the next issue of this newsletter would go out, we’re gonna take that week off. But it’ll be back on June 18!

WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON

Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming keeps truckin’ along in the script department. The first issue was really tough… summing up a show from thirty years ago, and its finale, and then setting up the story that we’re telling and how it fits into the show’s (and Star Trek’s) continuity, all in twenty pages, was daunting. But with subsequent issues we only have to worry about our story, and that’s made it much easier. We’re closing in on the end of issue 3’s draft, which will be off to editors at the end of the month.

We’re planning a couple short pitches, both of which were requested, from different publishers/publications. One’s for a work for hire comic, and the other is for a prose and poetry anthology! We’ve thought about dipping a toe into prose for a while, so we’re intrigued by the possibility. But the deadline’s pretty tight and we might not be able to hit it, given everything else going on. That’s part of what we’ve got to figure out.

Between all of that, we’re watching Long Away over and over again to give notes for revisions on color, sound, and music. If we’re going to hit our June 4 screening date, we've gotta turn those notes around really fast so those talented people can get on revisions right away. Just this past weekend we watched and gave notes on three entirely different versions… a half-done vfx version with scoring, a mostly color-corrected version with no sound, and and un-color-corrected version with new sound effects. It’s bananas. So if you see lots of steam rising into the skies over Burbank, that’s just from our brains working overtime and trying not to combust.

TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE

We dove into a little topic that Tilly dubbed “pushback overkill.” It's something that happens a lot in the trans/queer communities, where people who are so used to having to fight for every little thing they deserve accidentally keep fighting when it’s no longer warranted. And it can end up hurting people and causing unintended damage. It’s kind of hard to explain, but much easier to see in the given examples!

And then we discussed something that’s plagued Tilly, and a lot of other trans folks… while yet other trans folks might find it euphoric. What on earth could it be? Why, it’s body hair! And it’s more complicated a topic than you might think.

RECOMMENDATIONS

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

Did we recommend The Pitt last time? Okay, yes.

Are we recommending it again? Also yes.

Because now we’ve finished the season, and we can confidently say that it’s some truly great television all the way through. But also something really surprising happened.

These characters… you get attached to them. And that happens in any show with great character work, writing, and acting, sure. But when the season ended, it felt different. Like we missed them more.

And it’s because we got fifteen episodes with them, as opposed to the new streaming model of ten, or eight (or sometimes six!). We got to spend from a third to over double the time with them than you get to spend with most characters from brand new shows these days. The end result of that is feeling more connected to them, missing them when they’re gone, caring about them more than you thought you would.

And that’s so very different from the streaming model where you get half that number of episodes, if you’re lucky, and then you don’t see the characters again until the next season in two years . And by then you’ve forgotten what happened and why you liked those characters in the first place.

This is one of the huge things we lost when tv shifted from the classic model of ~22 episode seasons. When you spend that much time with characters you love, you’re going to get even more attached to them. It’s going to make you want to watch the show even more. And that’s really tough to replicate, maybe even impossible, with short seasons that are spaced super far apart.

Anyway, go get attached to these characters, because they’re fabulous.

THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH

Portrait of a lady who likes to sleep under the covers with us in bed, but then CHOMPS on your heel at 2 am for reasons.

Izzy on her back on the sofa, with one paw covering one eye, and her other eye peeking at the camera

Henry’s eye infection came back again for a little while, as it is wont to do, and again Izzy was trying to comfort him. And he let her! A little.

LOOK AT THEIR LEGS TOUCHING.

Izzy and Henry lying on top of a blanket, facing opposite directions, with their hind legs up against each other. Each is looking up at the camera.

One day we’ll catch them in a real cuddle.

ONE DAY.

WHAT’S IN THE BIG TIME?

Big Time issue 15 goes into the process of getting visual effects for our short film, and how they need to enhance everything else around them. And how if they don’t… maybe it’s time for them to go.

And we have another audio drama script, this time a dramatic piece from Susan titled “San Diego.”

THE END

Do something for us, please?

Be kind to yourself.

You’re dealing with a lot and deserve a little grace, especially from yourself.

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