{"id":175,"date":"2004-12-26T10:59:34","date_gmt":"2004-12-26T15:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=175"},"modified":"2004-12-29T14:12:11","modified_gmt":"2004-12-29T19:12:11","slug":"hacking-my-way-to-stardom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=175","title":{"rendered":"Hacking My Way To Stardom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is storyboard art for a movie called <cite>Nightmask<\/cite>, with<br \/>\nthe interesting property that I will probably get a speaking part in it<br \/>\nif it&#8217;s actually produced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"centered\"><img src='graphics\/nightmask.png'\/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whoa!&#8221; you may well ask.  &#8220;How does a middle-aged geek with no<br \/>\nshowbiz history beyond a few singer\/songwriter coffeehouse gigs in<br \/>\nhis college days land a part in, you know, a <em>real movie<\/em>?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The answer, it turns out, is by hacking for a movie star.  And thereby<br \/>\nhangs a tale.<\/p>\n<p>Back in October I was the top-billed guests of honor at the first<br \/>\nLinucon, a convention for SF fans and Linux hackers in Austin, TX.<br \/>\nFirst night I was there, at the invitation-only dinner for con guests,<br \/>\nI found that I knew a lot of them.  Steve Jackson, Wil Wheaton, Howard<br \/>\nTayler, Eric Flint&#8230;but there was one I didn&#8217;t recognize and she was<br \/>\nstriking enough to make an impression:<\/p>\n<p class=\"centered\">\n<img src='graphics\/tamara.jpg'\/><br \/>\n<img src='graphics\/tamara2.jpg'\/>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>This woman&#8217;s charm was somehow only increased by the fact that at<br \/>\nthe time she was wearing black nerd-frame glasses; she looked like a<br \/>\nsupermodel playing a geekgirl, a guess which I discovered was nearly<br \/>\ncorrect the next day when I found her sitting in the lobby of the<br \/>\nhotel tapping keys on a PowerBook.  I introduced myself, asked her<br \/>\nname, and we were soon deep in conversation about all manner of<br \/>\ninteresting techie things.  And her name?  Tamara Gorski.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, that would be the <a href='http:\/\/imdb.com\/name\/nm0331341\/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9VGFtYXJhIEdvcnNraXxodG1sPTF8bm09b24_;fc=1;ft=4'>Tamara<br \/>\nGorski<\/a> who played Rebecca Lowell in on an episode of<br \/>\n<cite>Angel<\/cite> and Morrigan the Goddess of War (looking like Lucy<br \/>\nLawless&#8217;s kid sister) on <cite>Hercules: The Legendary Journeys<\/cite>.<br \/>\nShe&#8217;s also had parts in quite a few B movies over the last decade; she<br \/>\ntold me later that she thinks she could get A-list parts if she pushed,<br \/>\nbut doesn&#8217;t really want the pressure or the fishbowl existence that would<br \/>\nbring with it.<\/p>\n<p>I had to admit to never having seen any of her stuff, as I don&#8217;t<br \/>\nwatch TV at all and hadn&#8217;t caught any of her movies. This, however,<br \/>\ndid not bother her in the least; in fact she seemed happy to be talking<br \/>\nto someone who was (a) a low risk for going all fanboy on her, and (b)<br \/>\nwilling to teach her techie stuff, like how to program an automated<br \/>\nway to mail people electronic thank-you cards.  I launched into writing<br \/>\na Python program on her PowerBook to do exactly that.<\/p>\n<p>That program took me about three hours to write, time scattered<br \/>\nover the next two days, most of it with Tamara looking over my<br \/>\nshoulder and (I kid you not) giggling with delight as I explained how<br \/>\nthis or that bit of Python helped get the job done.  Tamara, it turns<br \/>\nout, is (a) extremely bright, (b) by her own description, &#8220;shy and<br \/>\ngeeky&#8221;, and (&#99;) intensely curious.  And yes, formerly a successful<br \/>\nmodel.  So, not exactly a supermodel playing a geekgirl, more like one<br \/>\nreally letting her inner geek out to play for maybe the first time<br \/>\nin her life.<\/p>\n<p>Tamara <em>loved<\/em> discovering SF fandom; the atmosphere of Linucon<br \/>\ndelighted her.  &#8220;I think I&#8217;ve found my people!&#8221; she said to me Sunday<br \/>\nnight.  And I was her guide to the territory.  By the time that program<br \/>\nwas finished, we were friends.<\/p>\n<p>Tamara had told me early on that she was interested in writing and<br \/>\ndirection.  She talked offhand at the con about casting me in her next<br \/>\nfilm, but I didn&#8217;t know how seriously to take that until she emailed me<br \/>\na script and a character list and asked which ones I was interested in.<\/p>\n<p>The plot is a sort of space opera with horror elements about a<br \/>\nmultispecies galactic future in which vampirism is a scourge that<br \/>\naffects every species.  The part she had in mind was Klaaghu, an<br \/>\ninitially sinister-appearing alien who dies heroically bringing<\/p>\n<p>evidence to the anti-vampire resistance.  After reading the script, I<br \/>\nagreed that of the available roles, that one seemed like probably the<br \/>\nbest fit.  It&#8217;s a nice juicy bit part; Klaaghu doesn&#8217;t get a lot of<br \/>\nscreen time, but he does get dialogue and a dramatic scene.<\/p>\n<p>The big variable here is whether Tamara can get backers to produce<br \/>\nthe movie.  She&#8217;s planning the low-budget route, shooting in New<br \/>\nZealand or Bulgaria.  She&#8217;s got a natural market, as this is exactly<br \/>\nthe kind of thing the Sci-Fi channel buys.  Tamara says &#8220;If you know<br \/>\nanyone who wants to invest at all&#8230;there will be returns, and if it&#8217;s<br \/>\nsomeone who would get their kicks from being in the film and getting<br \/>\nscreen credit as producer, that&#8217;s all cool and kosher.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There you have it.  Calling all dot.com millionaires: you wanna<br \/>\nbe a movie producer?  Have a part in an SF flick?  Your shot at stardom<br \/>\nis waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is storyboard art for a movie called Nightmask, with the interesting property that I will probably get a speaking part in it if it&#8217;s actually produced. &#8220;Whoa!&#8221; you may well ask. &#8220;How does a middle-aged geek with no showbiz history beyond a few singer\/songwriter coffeehouse gigs in his college days land a part in,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=175\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hacking My Way To Stardom<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}