A Matter of Pace
Sometimes the pieces of this little project known as Night Zero come together and fit in such a perfect way, one has to consider cosmic intervention as a factor. Sometimes, not so much. This is one of those times.
Episode Four’s two story arcs were designed in parallel, wherein the dramatic curve of the Claire/Edge storyline was synchronized with that of the Nazarov/protest storyline. Like the combined planetary, space, and lightsaber battles of Endor, the two tales of Episode Four were meant to rise and fall together in true dramatic fashion. Unfortunately the production side of Night Zero was unable to keep pace with this plan, which is why we’re just now catching up with our star-crossed lovers.
As it happens, one of our actors is a Canadian citizen who spends quite a bit of time up north of Seattle in the lovely city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Just prior to the scheduled shoot date for the opening Claire/Edge scene, a car break-in and a stolen passport put the brakes on our work and the shoot was suspended indefinitely. The Nazarov office scene was already shot, as was the complete protest scene (since September of 2009, in fact), so the decision was made to go ahead and run that storyline until we could get Christian and Tamara on set for their shoot. Once we had them, the Claire/Edge thread would be inserted in the next available break-point.
Ultimately it was a ten-week delay before this opening scene was produced, a smooth and enjoyable shoot at the Sandpoint Way Naval Base. The then-current segment of the protest scene had a possible break the following week, at which point the story jumped (back in time) to cover the pages you’ve seen this week and last. What does this mean for the pacing of the episode? For one, it means that the buildup of tension and action during the protest scene is unfortunately being stalled rather than complimented, and for two, it means that the tail-end of the protest battle is being cut into more snippets than I’d like. Since the two storylines were meant to cut back and forth over the span of the entire episode, there are three gaps in the Claire/Edge line originally meant to occur before the first office scene, after the arrival of the scratchers, and just prior to today’s page… and now all of these cuts have to take place in the last two segments of the protest battle. In fact, the original script for the Claire/Edge story had a four segments, but one section was ruthlessly deleted simply to reduce the number of cuts we’d have to force into end of the other storyline.
When the episode completes its online run, I will go back and rebuild the episode as originally intended (for the archives and the eventual release of Night Zero: Volume Three). There won’t be any new pages or content changes (that I forsee), but the overall pace and dramatic arc will become as they were meant to be. Such is the nature of this long-term, all volunteer, low-budget production: sometimes things work out perfectly as planned, and sometimes we just make do with what we got.
Consider me as already being in line for Volume 3! I’m a huge fan. Thanks to everyone at Nightzero!