SteveDeKnight

[heliorei]

Do you think DeKnight even reads all of that drivel anymore? I'd bet he opens up the blog threads and then doesnt even look at them. Seems to me like he's more interested in having a huge friends list

I think SDK gets tired of all those ship's wars: he mentally selects the replies that don't involve ships...1 in every 50...

 

[triplet]

Did you read that post from Jordan? I've noticed in the past that his posts are always very thoughtful and very encouraging but after the last one, I'm starting to wonder if he is an x-Smallville scribe, like Jeph Loeb.

Yeah, I did read that... it does seem like he's in the know in some manner.

*shrug*

 

[Serene]

Do you think DeKnight even reads all of that drivel anymore? I'd bet he opens up the blog threads and then doesnt even look at them. Seems to me like he's more interested in having a huge friends list

I do think he reads it all.. or at least skims it. At least that's what he claimed at one point, and I tend to believe him. I read all of it, it's not really that hard.. granted, there are a number of "regular" posters there that I just skim over because they say the same thing over and over - ad nauseam.

I guess I feel a little differently about it than the rest of you. IMO, none of the feedback he's getting should be a surprise to anyone. It's freakin' MYSPACE, for one. Shippers tend to be extremely passionate about their own agendas, so naturally, given a direct line to someone who has at least some say in the show is like throwing chum to starving sharks. I sometimes wonder if he was "forced" into doing this by TPTB in some weird PR move. It can't be that informative of what the actual viewing public opinions are.

Not all of the posts there are bad.. I post there on occasion, and so do a few of my other SHH buds. In general, I think the tone there has mellowed a bit and isn't as volatile as it once was. There is still an abundance of shipper biased comments, but I think that's exactly what they wanted to happen.
There are also a lot of comments that discuss the recent episodes, both positively and negatively.. I think that's entirely appropriate too.

Did you read that post from Jordan? I've noticed in the past that his posts are always very thoughtful and very encouraging but after the last one, I'm starting to wonder if he is an x-Smallville scribe, like Jeph Loeb.

Interesting speculation there, avid. He's definitely someone in the know about episodic TV writing... but if it were Loeb, I would think that DeKnight would have know about it, and his comment implied that he didn't know him.
I loved that Jordan's comments though. See? There are some rational people that post there.

 

[Whiteflag]

Interesting speculation there, avid. He's definitely someone in the know about episodic TV writing... but if it were Loeb, I would think that DeKnight would have know about it, and his comment implied that he didn't know him.
I loved that Jordan's comments though. See? There are some rational people that post there.

Could you please give us a link to that post? Thank you!

 

[Serene]

Oooh! I have a theory! LOL.. I'll PM though, that way I'll look only look stupid to a few people as opposed to everyone.

And Whiteflag - do you have a myspace acct? I believe you can only read DeKnight's blog if you have been friended by him. He friends everyone, so you just have to ask. The comment we are referring to is in the blog for Reunion.. on page 7-ish. If you can't access it, let me know.

 

[Brainiac 8]

Oooh! I have a theory! LOL.. I'll PM though, that way I'll look only look stupid to a few people as opposed to everyone.

And Whiteflag - do you have a myspace acct? I believe you can only read DeKnight's blog if you have been friended by him. He friends everyone, so you just have to ask. The comment we are referring to is in the blog for Reunion.. on page 7-ish. If you can't access it, let me know.

Rene, please tell me the theory. I wanna know too.
I like being in the inner circle.

 

[Whiteflag]

I have a Myspace account, yes. I didn't know where that post was. I'll check it then. Thanks a lot Serene!!!

 

[Whiteflag]

I read Jordan's post. Yes, he knows the business. I can tell, since I know the TV inside world, from a writer/creative person's perspective, quite well myself.

Very interesting read. Thanks for helping me to find it, Serene. And nice posts from some of you guys here too, btw!

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

ya know I forget the name of it exactly, but in the old Superman comics, in the Fortress he had this mirror or globe that looked into another dimestion, it may have been the Phantom Zone, I dont recall, but it was this window into some some dimension or world where Superman had sent certain criminals, and he would look into it every once in a while and all the criminals there would yell constantly about how much they hated him.

I assume that MySpace page is a similar experience for DeKnight.

 

[BaK]

I read Jordan's post. Yes, he knows the business.

Michael's into Smallville

Holly c**p !

 

[heliorei]

Michael's into Smallville

Holly c**p !

Who?

 

[AgentPat]

Ladies and gentlemen, that loud *crack* y'all just heard was the sound of a camel's back breaking under the weight of 1001 straws. I guess it finally got to him...

Ah! I look forward to watching your television show and seeing how your characters progress over six seasons. I'm certain all the lessons you've learned from our mistakes will be applied in a most artful manner. Please let me know when it premieres so I can TiVo it -- then immediately jump on the internet and tell you how I would have it done so much better.

Did that reply sound rude? Did a bit of frustration bleed out? Of course it did. I'm just as human as you are. Everyone working on Smallville (some of them sixteen hours a day) give it 100%. But we don't toil in a safe little internet bubble. We consistently have to deal with executives, deadlines, budgets, and a zillion other things that affect the course of the show. I am truly amazed when anything turns out well, and not just on our little CW show. Putting on an hour of television is controlled chaos. And sometimes the chaos controls you.

But if you truly hate what you're seeing, stop torturing yourself. Change the channel. Or better yet, go pick up a good book. That way you can complain about how they ruined it when they turn it into a movie.

Happy Thanksgiving (and yeah, I really mean that)

DeKnight

Ouch. Can't say as that I blame him. Poor guy.

 

[Whiteflag]

I posted a reply to that message.

 

[Brainiac 8]

Poor guy, I figured it would only be a matter of time before he snapped at the idiocy that he dealt with over there.

We should all give him a big hurrah for that.

 

[triplet]

Poor guy... people subjecting him to their arm chair quarterbacking.

I don't blame him one bit for being frustrated by it.

 

[Brainiac 8]

Someone should try and talk him into coming over here for a little while again, so he can be asked legitimate questions by good people.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

and people wonder why more writers dont do what he did with MySpace.

Cant say I blame him. His site's become a b!tch blog for the shippers and ******s (usually synonymous) of the fanbase. I would've snapped a long time ago and told them all to ****. These same morons can tell you how every relationship on the show "should" work, but yet have no clue who the red-eyed being who leaves oreo cookies behind is. Those people should all go watch dreck like One Tree Hill so they can fight over who's dating who each week.

 

[Serene]

His site's become a b!tch blog for the shippers and ******s (usually synonymous) of the fanbase.

Yo, dude.. I totally resemble that remark.

A few of us post there once in a while too.. ya know! I agree that the bulk of it is just annoying stuff that needs to be skimmed, but there is some good thoughtful input spaced kinda few and far between..

I guess I see it a little differently. While I completely understand anyone getting frustrated with fannish hysteria, at the same time I don't think any of it should be a big surprise. We're talking MySpace (which blows like no other when it comes to discussion formatting, btw), and we're talking an online fanbase for a show on the CW.

I also don't think that SDK was really "blowing up" necessarily, rather, just biting back a little.. as he should now and then to soothe all the savage beasts in there. Again, he's not new at this.. he had an online presence in Buffy fandom, and from my limited exposure to them; they're totally nuts too.

Anyway, I liked that one posters comments and I posted a "me too" about it. If you ask for input on a public internet forum, you are asking for ALL of it.. good, bad, insightful, and competely inane. LOL....Unfortunately, he seems to get more of the latter.

 

[heliorei]

and people wonder why more writers dont do what he did with MySpace.

Cant say I blame him. His site's become a b!tch blog for the shippers and ******s (usually synonymous) of the fanbase. I would've snapped a long time ago and told them all to ****. These same morons can tell you how every relationship on the show "should" work, but yet have no clue who the red-eyed being who leaves oreo cookies behind is. Those people should all go watch dreck like One Tree Hill so they can fight over who's dating who each week.

100% agreeing with you.

In fact, I'm surprised that he didn't this sooner. He should be rewarded for his patience, "listening" to those shippers and ******s like you said.

In a certain way, he has been rewarded with the three most important episodes of the first half of the season: Zod, Reunion and now Justice.

Kudos for SDK.

 

[bad3appels]

actually,i`m glady that we do have shippers and ******s on those blogs,they makes thing intersing other whise it will so be boring.

i think that he is losing it,hehehehe
did you guys saw his last posts??
i think it is funny (i guess i`m evil ),i didn`t knew that he will take everything so personal.

but did he really think that we will gonna praise good episodes and on the bad ones,we will keep shut??

he didn`t write static and yet he feels spoken to by the fans.
but hey,he is the one who started with" i`m gonna open up a blog for every new episode"

that was a bad idea,open a blog only for the episodes you wrote other whise you will be judge by something you wasn`t even a part off.

he is really losing it,hehehehe
i wanted to tell him maybe he should take a chill pill and think about his heart but other fans could attack me.

 

[04nbod]

how do i become his friend i can't see the option

 

[avidreader]

how do i become his friend i can't see the option

On the picture of Scarecrow Clark, click on add, and then proceed as per the instructions.

 

[04nbod]

thanks avid- its not like normal pages so i completely missed it

 

[AgentPat]

For the helluvit, and for the fact that I know a lot of people haven't heard the House of El podcast yet, I took liberty of transcribing some of DeKnight's comments from the second part of the interview. This is great stuff folks! Enjoy!!

PS: Don't crucify me on my typing skillz; there's probably a bunch of words spelled wrong, especially proper names. Sorry. My motivation to correct that stuff is nil right now. LOL

Q: Do you think Justice set the precedent for the rest of the season - storyline - film wise - anything?

SDK: Well, no... here's the thing with TV - by the time Justice is airing - it's episode eleven - we're already shooting episode fifteen, sixteen is about to start shooting, the script for seventeen is already done and eighteen and nineteen are almost completely broken. It's kind of like piloting a luxury cruise ship; you can't make a turn on a dime. It takes miles to adjust your course. It's really impossible to alter based on one episode because you're already six or seven episodes down the line.

Doing a season of TV is kind of like a big jigsaw puzzle where you try to have the borders done first, and that's like the beginning, middle and end. And then you fill in everything in the middle. It's a real head-scratcher a lot of times. This year, we had a pretty strong idea of where we were headed. That may have been altered slightly, but 33.1 and the phantoms were always a big part of it.

Q: There's a lot of Internet buzz that Lana might find out about Clark's abilities this season...

SDK: That's been a possibility since season one - it's still a strong possibility this year too.

Q: [Regarding the episode Zod] did you take the direction for the blue desert or was that James Marshall's? How did the Phantom Zone come about?

SDK: It was a combination. My pitch for the PZ was to make it like Dune. We used Dune as an example and we also used The Wrath of Khan. We talked about a lot that it was Ceti Alpha... four is it? I can't remember if it was four or five, but one of them blew up. [all laugh] For the entire time we were breaking it, every now and then I would go [in Russian accent like Chekov] 'Botany Bay? Oh, noooo! Botany Bay!' And nobody knew what the hell I was talking about. But it cracked me up. Star Trek, Wrath of Khan - I mean, my god, how much to I love that movie?

Up until [Zod] aired, it was like a crapfest on the Internet; everybody was worried about how we were going to ruin everything and so much of their concerns I couldn't comment on. One of the big ones was Lana - 'why is Lex kissing Lana?' and that whole thing.

Another thing the Internet was just livid about was that Zod's body was destroyed, which is another thing I was DYING to tell them - here's our cool take on it: This is why it's called the Phantom Zone. That the worst criminals are actually these phantoms that prey on the other criminals. It's a serious prison torture system.

The House of El crystal - we were originally planning on using the Smallville infinity symbol, and Al said, 'ya know, I think it's time we show the real House of El symbol' - the classic Superman symbol, so we decided to go with that.

A lot of people on the Internet keep saying 'they should give you more money,' but it's not like we have less money this year, it's just that financially it's a little different - a weaker dollar in Canada, the exchange rate is not favorable to us anymore. It's stuff like that that's affecting our budget.

Every now and then, things will get cut, and when I see it on the air, it's like... 'awww... now I look stupid!'

Speaking of plot lines, here's something I haven't been able to get on-line to explain - about Clark being stupid and going into the room with the Kryptonite. The problem is, I didn't explain it in the script well enough - it's hinted at, but not really explained. When Chloe tells him there's been equipment transfers, she says lead shielding equipment for tracking particles. And then later when she's with the boys, she says 'oh no, lead shielding - meteor rock - lead shielding - it's not just for Bart.'

Clark is going in; he's looking for lead shielding because he thinks Bart is contained in a lead shielded room. That was the idea. It was not articulated correctly on my end. When he gets to that door, as written and filmed, he X-Rays the door. He sees that it's lead and says to himself, lead, and then he goes in. We had to cut that attempted X-Ray for budget reasons 'cause ultimately it was going to be an X-Ray that didn't pan out.

I kick myself now because it would have been a very very simple dialog just to make that clear. You're looking for a lead shielded room containing Bart. And then it would have been, he's not stupid - he thinks Bart's in there. That was my fault. That was my intention, and I wish I would have made that clear.

Q: We always ask our guests, if they were writing or directing the finale, how would they do it?

SDK: That's tough because I have intimate knowledge of what's going to go on in the finale. From purely a producing standpoint, if I was writing and directing the finale, I would center more on emotions than huge special effects 'cause I've already spent all the money. [they laugh] Other than that, I think it's time to move certain parts of the mythology forward. I would love to bring in another classic Superman villain or maybe unleash the 33.1 krypto freaks. I gotta believe Lex still has something going on out there somewhere.

I would love to bring in Hal Jordan - even for an episode I'd love to bring in Hal Jordan. I don't think we could have Green Lantern [though].

One of the reasons plot wise that Clark needed to be sidelined by Kryptonite is he is so powerful. There's no need for the whole team to go in and rescue Bart; Clark can do it on his own. That's a constant problem - that's the one big problem with Smallville - Clark is so gigantically powerful and gets more so every year. As he becomes more and more Superman - unless he's fighting the fifty foot giant robot - which I would love, btw - it's hard because Kryptonite is the only thing that can slow him down. Or one of these super villains from the PZ, which is why I'm so glad we have these people. They're somebody that can actually hurt Clark.

Q: We know Rosenbaum is directing fifteen, is there anything you can tell us about writers and directors from Promise on?

SDK: I think I'm doing twenty, which will be directed, I think, by Mat Beck, who you've seen a little of his direction before. He actually directed the sequence in Hidden where Clark jumps on the missile, which I thought was phenomenal. Such a classic Superman moment.

Promise is being written by Kelly Sowders and Brian Peterson. I don't know who's directing it.

Crimson was written by Brian Peterson and Kelly Sowders and directed by Glen Winter, our DP/director extradinaire - who did a great job on Justice, btw.

Combat is written by Terry Myers and Al Septian and being directed by the incomparable James Marshall. [The episode] is pretty cool. Cross my fingers it won't get slaughtered by the budget ax, which is always a possibility.

I don't know who's directing eighteen or nineteen. Eighteen is being written by a new writer - Geneveve Sparling - a fantastically bright, funny, talented woman.

Nineteen is being written by Caroline Dries.

I can assume that twenty one and twenty two will be some variation of Todd Slavkin/Darren Swimmer, and Kelly Sowders/Brian Peterson. I'm calling it quits after twenty. That's it for me...

Indeed. Me too; my fingers hurt. That's it for the night. I'll let others transcribe more if they feel the urge.

Nighters gang.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

even if you dont have an iPod it takes all of about 5 seconds to download iTunes to your PC for free. People have no excuses....