Summerlands

To give you an idea of just how much time and attention went into creating the pilot episode for Summerlands, consider that our first meeting was in August 2006, when Kat, Roger, Gene, Shell, Derek, Scotty, John Till, and myself all crowded into 32 Westland and tossed around ideas for a modern fantasy story.  Back then, the project was simply called Trolls on a Train, homage to Samuel Jackson’s attempts to rid his domestic passenger liner of a certain reptilian nuisance, and a hint about what to expect with this series.  Today, both troll and train are still in the opening scene and the ToT nickname survives as the title of our YahooGroup.

 We went on to hold numerous discussions regarding cosmology, archetypes, and storylines that we wanted to play with.  Tossing these ideas around took us into the first part of 2007, when we finally nailed down a strong cast of characters.  Then it was time to put together the first episode.  Just coming up with the framework for this pilot was a ton of work.  In fact, it wasn’t until April or May of 2007 that we finally nailed down the outline.  Once that was done, there was nothing left to do but write the damn thing.

The writing team divided all the scenes from the outline and we got together once or twice a month to review what each of us had written.  It was a lot of fun reviewing what everyone brought to the meetings.  So many of the writers had amazing flashes of insight or introduced really nice touches or surprisingly vivid characters.  From May to September, a number of minor characters were upgraded, certain plot elements were shifted to the second episode, and a readable script had finally been developed.  That script spent most of October being reviewed by gracious critics who gave us some fantastic feedback.

 And what a script it is!  I think the writing team has succeeded in creating a story that is not just a fun tale of modern fantasy, but also an engaging and interesting take on how ordinary people deal with extraordinary situations.  We’ve worked hard to make this a story about individuals struggling with new concepts, and I think that’s going to strike a chord with you.

So, almost a year and a half after that first meeting at 32 Westland, we’re moving on to pre-production.  When we started this, I don’t know how convinced I was that we would make it this far, but I was determined to give it a hundred percent.  I’m really glad I did.