Thursday, January 31, 2008

This is a blog.

This is a letter to the Public Relations department of ABC Studios.
(This is not a flash forward).

We at Lostpedia would like to officially request an interview.

I watched the enhanced version of Through the Looking Glass, and (we're about to share a big moment): I was enhanced.

The Powers that Be (including script supervisor Gregg Nations) have denied having a hand in the enhancement captions. "Papa is very angry." They gave away all those mirror secrets.

But I really enjoyed the writing. I mean: WHAT writer's strike?

So let us please have an interview with the writing intern from ABC's marketing department responsible for the enhanced captions. He/she was amazing. Let me list the ways.

I had forgotten who Rousseau was, but luckily there were those popup pics to remind me. She looked crazy.

And most of all I'd forgotten who the scary dude was. He seemed awfully familiar.
You read my mind, and said:
"This scary dude is Ben Linus, the leader of the Others."
Oh yeah.

The ABC intern did his homework, maybe on the Internets. The Black Rock is a 19th century slaving ship. St. Sebastian is a protector from the plague. Pascal Flats is a reference to... ooo my mind was spinning.

But what about Richard Alpert? He's Ben's advisor, but there was no Ram Dass explanation in the caption. GRRR. And he highlighted Pascal Flats, but why did he ignore where Richard was actually taking all the Others? THE TEMPLE THE TEMPLE. WTH.

Wait wait, let me calm down, and get back on topic.

I was truly impressed. The ABC marketing intern read up on the last name Nadler, and labeled the Nirvana song playing in Jack's car (I guess Sarah sold his BMW).

And, yes, yes, YESSSS:
DHARMA is always all-caps, because it's an acronym-- have the caption writer go educate the film crew, since the prop master apparently doesn't know that. High five.

The sad part was all those boring parts when I had to sit through the actual show, when the captions dropped out. (More captions next time!)

Thankfully these caption dropouts were few because who actually wanted to watch the acting? Oh, the emotion in the enhanced caption, just tell it to me, it's spoonfed to me like Heroes:
"Clearly Jack is in great despair".
"Ben knows that he is SERIOUS"
"Jack and Kate are about to share a big moment."
"That's right, all three are highly motivated." (List)

Thanks ABC intern! That's what television is all about.

I was just drawn right into... "our gang."
Psst: Our gang = the characters we are rooting for.
(Remind me to put a new entry in the Lostpedia nickname article.)

And did I mention the quality of the sublime writing?
I'll say it again: WHAT writer's strike? We have lines like:

"hang on everybody, our triangle has just become... a quadrangle."
"Patchy, regrettably sans patch"
"It's not easy to be the leader of the Others"

And there was even fan service:
"Jaters are no doubt gleeful."

Ok, ok, I know ABC has to cater to the least common denominator and not the Lost-fan-without-a-life (i.e., people reading this blog, Jaters, and of course myself). Lost must capitalize on the barren landscape of WGA-less shows in the midst of the strike, and we can't afford to lose any audience due to the complex story. Here's the chance to Heroes-ify Lost without the creators of Lost having a say. Good for you.

So back to my first request.

May we have an interview with the ABC intern(s) responsible for the enhanced captions? We'd love to get in contact with him/her, but don't know how.

And in case you didn't get it, this is a STAR WARS reference, when Princess Leia triggered Artoo's message:

Help me ABC PR Dep't, you're my only hope. Please grant us this interview.

Friday, January 18, 2008

What the DGA might mean for Season 4

The hot news in the entertainment world is that the Directors Guild of America (DGA) has just signed a tentative contract with the producer's group (AMPTP), the same group the Writer's Guild (WGA) is currently striking against. The DGA has a reputation for negotiating early (their contract doesn't expire until early summer), and also a reputation for getting what they want.

One line of conventional wisdom is that the WGA and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) will use this agreement as a template for their own negotiations. The WGA's ranks are not impervious during the course of this strike, and a quick agreement based on the DGA contract will be a likely demand of much of the membership. For now, SAG, which has historically been more friendly with the WGA, is also likely going to adopt a wait-and-see game, as their contract expiration (and possible strike date) isn't until June.

As for Lost, I have recently had the feeling since the Christmas season came and went without a writer's deal that the second half of Season 4 would likely be scrapped for the season. Hiring back the laid-off film and post-production crew becomes more logistically difficult the longer the work stoppage lasts. However if the WGA can bootstrap their own deal based on the DGA's template within this month, the finishing of the second half of Lost Season 4 might be an outside possibility. Remember that even the DGA's deal is only preliminary, and has not been put to vote by either their executive board or general membership. Further if the WGA does not want to back off its initial demands (for example, see Marketwatch), the writers' goal would probably be to extend the strike until June when SAG could potentially join them in a truly industry-stopping dual strike. In that case, we might not see new episodes of Lost until Fall 2009. But if you're a television fan, remember that (if the current pilot-season structure is preserved) this would further mean that we may not see any newly minted television series filmed until 2009, and not actually broadcast until 2010.

For more information see: see the DGA's announcement, and detailed articles by The Washington Post and industry journal Variety, as well as Google News.)

UPDATE: As expected, talks between writers and producers may be kickstarted next week, when they will be meeting again. Read more at Variety. Apparently the WGA leadership is now under immense pressure to settle from different factions among its own membership. Is the posturing and spiteful atmosphere that characterized the previous negotiations finally going to give way to actual. . . negotiating? Next week will tell.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Find 815 Chapter 1 Part 2

Note: All of the following aren't considered spoilers here on Lostpedia, so be careful if you want to solve the game on your own.

Well, we got our 2nd update today. Here's a summary of the day's events:

It is discovered that after e-mailing the address zkillen_t99@hotmail.com which was found on Sam Thomas' laptop an automated message is received back. In addition, the recorded message on Georgia Cavanagh's voice mail reached using the contact information from the Oceanic press release has changed. Also, it is found that Sam Thomas has a profile on the networking sites Facebook and a MySpace account. New information is added to Find815.com which reveals Sam waking up in the night to a loud banging noise which turns out to be a tree banging against the window. He then sees an image of Sonya in the glass which startles him. We, as the participants are then left to search his bed room for clues from Season's 1, 2, & 3. You must then go to ABC.com or Yahoo!7 to find the clue from Season 4 (a simple word) which you can enter back in the ARG screen and reveals a new phone number for Oceanic.

In more detail:

Earlier in the day, some users had emailed some of the emails which were found on the "email" section of the Find815.com website. One emailer, zkillen_t99@hotmail.com, emailed users and stated:

"Since the dawn of our species, man's been blessed with curiosity. Your curiosity will be rewarded.

Namaste

Zeke Klotho Freundlich"


Zeke is of course the nickname that Sawyer gave to Mr. Friendly (Tom), and in fact "Freundlich" is German for "Friendly."

There was also a new message found at the number on the Oceanic press release:

To log into your mailbox, press 81. To call an attendant, press 0.

The numbers on the keypad corresponded to several commands, which can be seen on our wiki pages.

Networking sites were also found for Sam. A Facebook account here, and a Myspace account here.

An update at about 02:00 GMT gave us a clue hunt to search for. First we got a video of Sam sleeping, as he saw his girlfriend Sonya in a reflection. We were then shown Sam's room, and you had to find clues that corresponded to the first three seasons of Lost.

Season 1 Clue: CD of Driveshaft: "Live from Jakarta." Shows scenes of Driveshaft performing.

Season 2 Clue: Pearl necklace. Corresponds to The Pearl station.

Season 3 Clue: Rocking chair. Corresponds to scenes of Jacob in The Man Behind the Curtain.

You were then told to go to a sister site, such as Yahoo!7 or ABC.com, where you were instructed to play the "Pack Sam's Bag" game in order to progress and get an exclusive Season 4 Clue. The code was either "Matthew" or "Abaddon."

You were then given the final clue for the night, the Oceanic Hotline number: 888-548-0034. Late in the evening, the clue was changed to this:

Thank you for calling the Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 Hotline. Information is updated as the investigation proceeds. Investigations are thorough and as such may take a period of time to complete. At this time we do not have any additional information regarding crashed Flight 815. If you are a family member or relative of a passenger on Oceanic Flight 815, we are sorry for your loss. Detailed information is given during the daily family briefings. This briefing updates families on the progress of the investigation and allows for questions to be asked of the medical examiner or coroner and other parties connected to this investigation. Please contact your accident coordinator or call back later for more information.


That's all we have for you today. Remember to check this blog, the Lostpedia forums, and the wiki site for all of your Find815 resources.

And for all of your Find 815 information, check our wiki pages:

You can search through individual days of clues here.
You can look at each Chapter as a whole here.
And the overall portal for the ARG is here.

See you next time.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Find 815 - Chapter 1

The new Lost alternate reality game has kicked off without warning, but Lostpedia is ready for it. It would appear that the new Lost Experience as it were is working in chapters for the next few weeks until the beginning of Lost Season 4. Exciting stuff, and an excellent surprise to us all.

So what's been happening so far? Well we've managed to summarize Chapter 1 as best we can here:

Chapter 1

Essentially, the new Oceanic website appeared with a message from Sam Thomas hacked into the video. He directs us to Find 815 (presumably the title of this little mystery show). Here we begin with the story.

It seems Sam is disgruntled by Oceanic Airlines, who intend to announce soon that all the 815 passengers are deceased, despite still having not found the plane wreckage to prove it. Sam holds firm that no search should be cancelled when they've made no results, but Oceanic seem determined to get back to the skies (remember they supposedly suspended all flights until the investigation was finished - and as they're having no luck, they wanna stop the investigation so they can make money again). Sam's vested interest is his girlfriend Sonya, who was a flight attendant on the doomed plane. It seems like he had intended to propose to her, as he's holding an engagement ring in a vid.

Sam's been contacted by someone connected to the Maxwell Group (looks like we've got ourselves a new evil corporation to deal with guys and gals who loved Hanso). Sam has clues - black rock, sundah trench, Christiane I, and the promise of grave consequences if he talks. But what does it all mean? All we know now is that Sam's figured out that there's a Sunda in the Pacific Ocean, east of Christmas Island. Looks like he might be heading there.

Keep your ears to the ground and your eyes peeled guys - this game has well and truly started!

Find 815


A new ARG has sprung up in the early morning hours of 2008. It is scheduled to run throughout the month of January, up until the Season 4 premiere.

The storyline revolves around an Oceanic IT technician Sam Thomas who is intent on finding his love, Sonya, who was on board Oceanic Flight 815. The player learns of FIND 815 through a hacked video placed on the flyoceanicair.com website.

We at Lostpedia will keep you continually updated on the blog, forum, and wiki. Stay tuned for more developments.
 

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