2003 Nebula Awards

seattlenerd writes "The 2003 Nebula Awards were awarded late Saturday night in Seattle (for the first time ever) by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Winners: The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, "The Empire of Ice Cream" by Jeffrey Ford, "What I Didn't See" by Karen Joy Fowler (the previous two both published on the SCI FICTION site), and the script for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Noteworthy were comments made by GrandMaster honoree Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison, who introduced Silverberg, along with guest speaker Rick Rashid of Microsoft Research. To say nothing of Cory Doctorow's acceptance speech he didn't get to make, but has made available for "alternate historians."" I was at Penguicon this weekend, along with Neil Gaiman - congrats to him on the win, and to all the others.

Comments

hmmm

[spangineer]

I could be mistaken, but wasn't the script for The Two Towers written long before 2003? And even the film itself opened in 2002, right? How then does it win the 2003 award?

Re:hmmm

[MenTaLguY]

Remember, this trilogy includes an Oscar under its belt for best editing. Read that again: the (complete) film is twelve and a half hours long. And it apparently was the best edited film in 2003. Does this make any sense? What was it before they edited it, twelve and a half days long?

I believe they were working from at least a week of raw footage, yes. On any film you're going to have a LOT more stuff shot than will find its way into the final product.

What did you think was involved with editing, though? As someone who's actually done film editing, the hard part is not just cutting down a lot of material. It's selecting just the right pieces and fitting them together seamlessly (or as seamlessly as possible ... sometimes you have to make compromises).

As you may know, each scene in a film is typically filmed multiple times, from many different angles. Most of the time the scene you see on screen has been pieced together from many different such takes. Since actors aren't machines, each one is subtly different and you have to pick your cuts carefully so the separate performances blend together (this is called continuity).

Usually you have to live with some mismatches (e.g. Morpheus' hands shifting behind hs back in long shots in the first Matrix, or Gandalf's staff strap shifting about in FotR) because those are the best takes you had to work with (bonus editor points for cutting in places that distract the eye from necessary discontinuities).

Another factor in chosing cuts is pacing -- when to linger, when to move on, to heighten the intended dramatic effect. This can even have a radical effect on the actors' apparent performances. Sometimes entire scenes are reshuffled relative to the shooting script during editing.

There are a lot of other issues too -- matching this mixture of different cuts to consistent-sounding music and sound tracks in effective ways.

But the point is that editing in film isn't just about how much was or wasn't cut away. Oftentimes the unsung editor deserves just as much credit for the finished product as the director.

You know.

[Kiryat Malachi]

There's something sort of arrogant about publishing your acceptance speech when you didn't even win.

Re:You know.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Cory Doctorow is like that. Trust me. He's a very clever guy, but not as clever as he thinks he is.

Re:You know.

[patternjuggler]

There's something sort of arrogant about publishing your acceptance speech when you didn't even win.

I think he just really wish he could have said "holy fuck, I've won a Nebula" after winning a Nebula. And thank the people who have helped him, which deserve thanking either way. It is weird on the face of it, but I'm not seeing the arrogance.

Re:You know.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to win a Grammy for my music, but I'm not expecting to, so I sure as hell wouldn't write and publish an acceptance speech.

But if you were nominated for a Grammy, like he was nominated for a Nebula, you'd sure as hell write an acceptance speech, and arrange for someone to give it for you if you couldn't make the ceremony. So "arrogant" is the wrong word. I'd suggest "normal" as a better word.

Re:You know.

[theLOUDroom]

There's something sort of arrogant about publishing your acceptance speech when you didn't even win.

Dude, it was on his 'blog.

Blogs are a place where people often post their casual musings, like what they'd say if XXX happened. It's not really any more arrogant than posting what you'd do if you won the lottery on slashdot.

Both ways...

[Allen Zadr]

I took it the other way. It is that the artist called himself out. In a way, after winning a Hugo (already recognized once) it's not out of the ordinary to imagine himself having won another award.

It's embarrassing enough that he thought that he could have won, but couldn't make it anyway. But to go as far as finding someone to read the acceptance speach by proxy...and then NOT win. My goodness. Well may as well tell the whole world himself.

The other way to take it? He thought his short speach to witty to deny the world it's creation.

a plea

[moviepig.com]

(Hope this isn't way off-topic...)

Reading the awards-list makes me wish I read more sci-fi.

I recently finished a piece of horror-fiction, Michael Gruber's Tropic of Night, whose literary quality was high enough not to require the reader to make allowances for the genre. In my experience, such a requirement is a pervasive shortcoming of both the horror and sci-fi fields.

If there are astute slashDot readers out there who understand my lament, and who know an elusive sci-fi title (or two) that does manage the rare crossover, please identify.

alternative Gaiman...Pullman?

[hcduvall]

Hmm...I think American Gods is better Gaiman book. Neverwhere was adapted from a BBC miniseries he wrote, and while enjoyable, it ended up a bit too loose, it even ends with sequel bait. The plot is straightforward, but it feels like the setting is the star of the show. American Gods, while it has a couple of long digressions, has a stronger showing I think.

That said, I've read a lot of Gaiman, so whats vaguely uninteresting to me, may be new to other readers.

If we're going for younger fare, I've enjoyed what I've read so far of The Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. Its not got the straight fun aspect of the Potter books, but the world from the start is a more adult and complex one.

Arrogance - was Re:You know.

[Jack William Bell]

Dude, the day you are nominated for a major award, by your peers, and don't win, and then don't tell anyone what you would have said, is the day you get to call Cory Doctorow arrogant.

Futurama Vs. LOTR?

[aslate]

When it was announced on PEELified that Futurama was to be nominated for another award (2 years after cancellation now) we were surprised to see that it was in the same category as LOTR and 3 other films, "Best Script".

Does this not show the high-quality of the show, being able to be nominated in the same category as 4 other films? Of course, we weren't surprised when it was beaten by LOTR, but it was reassuring that, try as they might, FOX can't ruin the show's brilliance and reputation.