MZPtv proudly presents... THE BLACK ZERO NETWORK

[Tony O'Black]

LAUNCHING SEPTEMBER 1st!

Welcome, gentle readers, to a brand new (sort of!) Virtual Series network. Created by Tony Black (The DSR, Star Trek: Premonition), and backed up by a trusted team of admins, mods and VS producers including Lee A. Chrimes, JT Vaughn, Jay Everington, Pete D. Gaskell, Adam Scott & Paul Robinson, not to mention various others.

Back in 2004/2005, Lee Chrimes created the Virtual Series network previously known as Monster Zero Productions, and grew a fantastic community from simple beginnings, featuring shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Faith, Slayer Academy, and many more. After a few years, the forums were moved to SMF and became MZPtv as it is today. In 2012, MZPtv eventually decided to produce only original material, jettisoning the fanfiction.

But a hunger remained.

Fast forward to 2013, and now a core group of MZPtv members have created a sister network: the BZN. Designed to resemble the old Monster Zero Productions boards, and with a similar fanfiction ethos, the BZN aims to bring you the highest quality scripted fiction available online. Written by our own community, and posted online in PDF format, our scripts will bring your favourite worlds hurtling into life.

I'm proud to announce we will open our doors on Sunday SEPTEMBER 1st, beginning a week-long programme of NEW launch scripts from a variety of different, well-known franchises by our top writers. Stay tuned to our Twitter feed for breaking announcements across August about our launch projects - you can find us here:

BZNetwork @ Twitter

I can announce here that our launch day project will be...



BATMAN: 'None But the Brave'
by Adam Scott

The feature-length pilot for a BRAND NEW virtual series featuring the Caped Crusader, exclusively on BZN during 2014...

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Thanks for reading, and please leave all comments and questions below. Oh and feel free to click the logo at the top for a URL to the board, where you can sign up all ready for Launch Day in one short month's time.

~ Tony Black & the BZN Team
Familiar Worlds, Original Stories

PS: #scorchedearth has only just begun...

[Vaughn]

(Note: MZPtv members registered up to and including 21st March do NOT need to register on the BZN, as your MZPtv account will work over there).

[Brady Brown]

Really awesome news, guys! It's going to be really exciting to see what else is to come, and starting with Batman? SCORE!

Good luck with this!

[Tony O'Black]

And here's our first ever teaser, made by yours truly.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAljdtu5b70#ws

Lots more coming! Please do subscribe on YouTube.

[Tony O'Black]

In the first of a series of interviews with our launch project writers, BZN sat down with producer Adam Scott to discuss 'None But the Brave', his feature length pilot script for a brand new BATMAN virtual series - premiereing exclusively on BZN on Sunday September 1st...

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You've been out of the fan fiction arena for some time now, so what made you want to return to the fold with a Batman script?

Short answer? It's Batman.

Longer answer: I've always loved Batman as a character and last year I had an idea how to do this thing in a way that would work as a returning TV series ... which unfortunately coincided with MZP closing it's doors on fan fiction and wanting just to concentrate on original material. As someone who's main output has been original material that didn't bother me too much, but this was a project that had to fall by the wayside as a result. The advent of BZN meant I had the chance to bring this back, and given just how fast I bashed out the first draft of this it was clear I should have done this ages ago.

Its been just over a year since Christopher Nolan's seminal Batman trilogy came to an end - hasn't the story of Batman now been told? What fresh approach will you be looking to bring to the table?

Far as I'm concerned, the Dark Knight Trilogy is the definitive take on Batman in a screen medium. That being said, the beauty of a property like Batman is because of the sheer amount of history the character has there's so many stories to tell and the movies, by definition, could only touch a small percentage of that. He's a character who's survived this long through constantly being reinterpreted, so the chance to have a go at my own version was too good to resist.

I think you'll find my version quite surprising in some ways. The fundamentals - Batman, Bruce Wayne, Alfred, Gordon, Gotham etc - are all present, but some of them have been interpreted in very different ways. That's my approach here, fitting in with the BZN ethos of "familiar worlds, original stories". It's a question of being true to the characters in their different incarnations without being worried to reinvent when appropriate. Certainly one major Batman character has been quite dramatically reinvented for the series and you'll see more of that as time goes on.

Obviously we've seen numerous incarnations of Batman over the years - what will your Bruce Wayne embody? How will he & Batman differ from the versions we've seen before?

He's Bruce Wayne. There's only a certain amount of mucking around you can do with the character. In my case, Bruce Wayne is a slightly younger version than we've really seen before. He's in his late twenties. He's just getting started. Batman's only been around about six months at the time our story starts, and he's not yet fully formed. His evolution - along with a great big mystery I've put right at the centre of this story - will be the primary focus of the series. And that's the fun of it - we're starting from scratch, all the fun stuff is yet to come.

Are we likely to see anyone from the Batman rogues gallery crop up during this pilot? What supporting characters from the verse might we see included?

Bruce Wayne, Alfred and Jim Gordon are really the heart of the show, and doing anything else would have been disrespectful I think. The main supporting cast for the series includes both Harvey Dent and Vicki Vale as series regulars, along with Barbara Gordon. Beyond that ... there's some familiar names in the movie, but I quite purposefully didn't use a famous villain from the canon in this. This movie is about Bruce Wayne. There's an original villain here because I didn't want to have the added expectation of doing a villain's origin as well. I want Batman and his world properly established, then we can start bringing in the more well-known characters.

The big question, of course... when can we expect the series to follow this script? And will you be at the helm?

All goes according to plan, there should be a 13 episode first season launching sometime in 2014. And yes, I will be at the helm - you couldn't get me off this thing with shark-repellant bat-spray!

Finally, are you excited to be part of BZN's launch? And can you give us any hints or clues about what else to expect?

Hell yes. There's a load of cool stuff coming up at BZN, including a project that allows me to bring back another character I had a great time reinterpreting in days gone by. I'm sworn to secrecy, but let's just say the conditions right now are ... elementary...

--

BATMAN: 'None But the Brave' premiering exclusively on BZN, Sunday September 1st...

[Tony O'Black]

BZN, in association with Back Room Productions, is delighted to present the first 15 pages of Adam Scott's BATMAN pilot episode, 'None But the Brave'...


^clicky clicky^

Airing exclusively on BZN, SEPTEMBER 1ST!

Graphic art by Kyle MacDonald

[Brady Brown]

Really liked that teaser! Gave us a nice little taste on what's to come. Obviously loved that portrayal of Alfred, and can't wait to see what you do with the Batman lore, and what villains/well-known characters you bring into the mix. Looking forward to it, definitely!

[Tony O'Black]

Black Zero Network is proud to announce our second launch week project will be...



BZN - Alice's Adventures - Teaser

ALICE'S ADVENTURES
by Lee A. Chrimes

A feature length adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

Airing exclusively on BZN, Monday SEPTEMBER 2nd.

[David]

I'm excited for all three

[Tony O'Black]

In the first of a series of interviews with our launch project writers, BZN sat down with producer Lee A. Chrimes to discuss ALICE'S ADVENTURES, his feature length movie based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - premiereing exclusively on BZN on Sunday September 2nd...

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Alice in Wonderland has to be one of the most well known stories in historical fiction - what made you decide you wanted to take this on now?

I wanted to write something pretty dark and nasty, taking a cue from American McGee's Alice games, but with more of a Gothic spin - like we thought Tim Burton would do. Alice is a young girl in a lunatic asylum who undergoes some kind of rudimentary hypnotic regression, causing her to lapse completely into her fantasy world. As a fan of Alice, American McGee’s games and of course gothic, dark adventure and fantasy in general, it was a perfect fit.

In terms of why now, you can also point to a gap in my production schedule. In recent years a change of home city and a few job changes have left me with much less writing time than I enjoyed in the first five years of MZP, so as a result I have to pick my projects more carefully and also allow for longer production lead times.

Committing to a two-hour screenplay to be ready for the start of September felt very feasible, especially given my interest in the subject matter, so while I was at a loose end in terms of active projects (the second half of Natasha Tyreen’s first season is still in development), the timing was spot on for me.

Your script is called ‘Alice’s Adventures’ as opposed to Wonderland – will we still be getting the traditional origin story for Alice or do you have in mind something different?

Something very different, otherwise there’d be no point approaching this!

I’m going for the ‘secret history’ approach here – taking broad beats of the real-life exploits of both Lewis Carroll (AKA Charles Dodgson) and Alice Liddell, as well as events of national importance at the time (such as the near-fatal illness of Queen Victoria’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales), and weaving a new timeline around them to suit my narrative.

My conceit is that while recorded history shows Carroll and Alice breaking off all contact a few years after the publication of Adventures in Wonderland, I instead play it as though they’ve still been in contact during this time, and that Alice has continued to visit Wonderland and tell Carroll of her exploits, leading to the composition of Through the Looking-glass, which is about to be published when we start the story.

It’s a way of paying homage but also advancing the universe’s own continuity – the events we saw in Wonderland have all ‘happened’, and both Alice and Wonderland itself have matured in the meantime. I liked the idea of a feisty, intelligent young woman on the cusp of adulthood (and marrying-off age) with one foot still firmly planted in a fantasy world, acknowledging the popularity of the stories Carroll wrote (my revision here being to suggest that rather than it being Carroll who narrated the early version of Wonderland to Alice, it was the other way round).

The main structure of my plot is still built around an homage to the classic Wonderland story, with my own spin on the locations and characters (plus avoiding some of the more obviously satirical scenes like the Caucus Race and Mock Turtle).

Tell us a little about your Alice. Lewis Carroll's eponymous girl has been well depicted, what fresh approach are you bringing to the table, character wise?

All we’ve ever seen of Alice is her as a fictional representation, a seven year old avatar for the young girl Carroll was so fond of. Nobody’s ever approached her as the real girl before – Alice Pleasance Liddell. There was a below-the-radar SyFy miniseries a few years back but I don’t think it was much cop, and American McGee’s Alice is a heavily stylised take that still feels like an extension of the fictional Alice.

McGee fused his two Alices together – the Victorian London one and the Wonderland avatar – and I’m running a similar sort of path to him because that approach fits what I want to do. My Alice is now older (19 at the start of the film), and her maturity has helped her understand Wonderland a lot better. She can deal with the absurdity of it because she understands dream logic – how to travel within it and interact with the characters there.

Where we differ is that McGee’s Alice is a troubled, possibly crazy individual, locked up in a mental home after she allegedly burned down the family home and killed her parents. She’s been told all her life she’s insane, and is more downtrodden, sour and rebelliously punky as a result.

My Alice is a bright, well-adjusted and intelligent girl who just has a good appreciation of the importance of fantasy in her life. She’s already weary of the toil of Victorian society, particularly the social pressure that she should be married off now she’s ‘of age’ when what she wants to do is take the adventurous spirit and imagination that brought her to Wonderland and apply it to the real world – go travelling, broaden her mind and live her life her own way, not be some brooding husband’s pretty little housewife. Very much an Austen-mould heroine – spunky and independent, a proto-feminist without sacrificing the fact she’s still a woman.

And then as the story develops, I’m going to be expanding on Alice’s connection to Wonderland and what it means for her in a hopefully unique and original way…

A surfeit of iconic characters circle Carroll's tale - the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat etc. - will these well known players all be in evidence?

The bulk of the important characters in Wonderland will be, yes. I’m not going near the Looking-glass players just yet to avoid overcrowding this first story.

What I’m aiming to do is apply a different filter to them. The way Alice visualised these dream-like characters as a seven year old will be very different to how she views them at 19 years of age – rather than being stylised, childlike caricatures, they’ll be a dozen years ‘older’ in a non-literal sense.

I guess a good comparison here will be the movie Labyrinth – Alice is a grown woman and will see these former childish playmates in a mature way. Whether that means a Danny John-Jules style ‘human’ Cheshire Cat strutting around is something I’m still developing.

What I also want to do is give the relationships between the various characters, and thus their role in the Wonderland economy a spruce up too. The Duchess and Queen of Hearts have a warlike rivalry – so what if I upgrade that to make the Duchess more of an underground freedom fighter, waging an endless conflict with the Queen? Would that make the baby Pig into more of a human sidekick?

Would the Queen’s entourage still be actual playing cards with hands and feet, or humans with stylised touches to show off their card origins? Once I started thinking along those lines, all kinds of neat interpretations came to mind so they should make my version of Wonderland a nicely fresh take on the material.

And then of course there’s the real world side – a good chunk of the story takes place in Victorian London, and I have a great mythology dreamed up to connect Carroll and Alice in new ways. I won’t spoil any of that for now but it will make this a very original spin on Alice’s adventures!

Given the Alice story is in the public domain, might there be a chance your script would be eligible to air on MZPtv at some point?

I don’t see why not – I think with BZN we want to create a ‘first look’ mentality, where projects that don’t affect our stated ‘all-original’ push on MZPtv can potentially air over there down the line. That’s something we’ll have to work out in time, I guess.

And last but not least, as the creator of MZPtv, how do you feel about BZN launching & returning to your fan fiction roots? Can you give us any hints as to what else might be coming?

At the time, I didn’t have a problem stepping away from fanfiction because I wanted a new challenge. I’d closed off my ‘fanfic’ series of Buffyverse shows, and while there were plans afoot for numerous spin-offs and continuations, I was focusing more on my original projects on MZPtv – Natasha Tyreen, Nine Lives, Somewhere InBetween and so on.

What we didn’t anticipate was how much fun it would be to dip back into fanfiction – how many great ideas and fresh takes we’d still be able to throw out there – I’m already resurrecting long-dormant ideas for a Star Wars series, my Godzilla VS that mashes up Fringe and Primeval with added giant monsters, the once-abandoned Ghostbusters project, even a steampunk alternate universe Lara Croft series!

And not just from me – pretty much every writer involved in the initial burst of ideas on the board had about a dozen things they wanted to do. Large scale collaborative projects have brought together the brightest and boldest, and all those little nuggets of ideas we had at various points over the years can make a comeback – I’m working on resurrecting the pitches for both the epic MZP Buffyverse finale miniseries Ragnarok and the clutch of new shows that were to springboard off that…

I think the schism needed to happen, though, because there were always going to be some people who favoured original over fanfic and vice versa. Splitting the content into these two networks means writers can now tackle any kind of show they want and still have an avenue for it – same goes for our audience. Some are only interested in reading fanfic, not original works, and vice versa once again. I’ve already seen a few old faces pop back up because BZN gives them something MZP doesn’t any more – that should strengthen both sites going forward.

[Tony O'Black]

BZN is delighted to present the first 12 pages of Lee A. Chrimes's ALICE'S ADVENTURES...


^clicky clicky^

Airing exclusively on BZN, SEPTEMBER 2ND!

Graphic art by JT Vaughn

[Alex Matthews]

wow... the Batman story looks (and reads) as something that is going to be AMAZING!!! Can't wait for the release, and confirmation as to who is playing who!

[Jamison]

I'm very excited for Batman, as well as Lee's take on Alice in Wonderland. Both should be great reads!

[Tony O'Black]

Black Zero Network is proud to announce our third launch week project will be...



BZN - New Generation - Teaser

STAR TREK: NEW GENERATION
'Encounter at Q'onos'
by Pete D. Gaskell

The feature-length pilot of a rebooted Star Trek: The Next Generation series, to air on BZN in 2014...

Airing exclusively on BZN, Monday SEPTEMBER 3rd.

[Tony O'Black]

In the third of a series of interviews with our launch project writers, BZN sat down with producer Pete D. Gaskell to discuss STAR TREK: NEW GENERATION, and his feature length pilot 'Encounter at Q'onos' - premiering exclusively on BZN on Tuesday September 3rd...

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Star Trek... New Generation? That sounds awfully like 'Next Generation'. Is there a connection?

That'd be a logical assumption to make, wouldn't it? And you'd be right - New Generation charts the adventures of the USS Enterprise-D in the 24th century, albeit from a fresh perspective!

So what made you want to start your BZN career writing a Star Trek series? How big a fan are you of the franchise?

If I'm being honest, if you'd asked me a year ago that I'd be showrunning a Star Trek show, I'd have thought you were joking! I've always been a casual fan of the show - I grew up watching both the Original Series and Next Generation - but I never considered myself a full-blown Trekkie. However, something about this just intrigued me, and I thought that I could bring something new to Trek, which is what we're always on the lookout for. New ways to tell well-known stories...

Trek has obviously undergone something of a renaissance under JJ Abrams, for better or worse - how closely will you be aping his vision? Or will you be hemming closer to the original TV series years?

Well, for starters, New Gen is set in the Abramsverse deriving from the recent movies, so there's a pretty obvious influence immediately! Aside from that, though, there's plenty of lessons I've taken from the two latest films for this - the modernisation and simplification of the universe, the heavier emphasis on action/adventure, the development of more detailed character arcs...but the big one is the ability to pull in a new audience. That's why I decided to take on the job - if I'm approaching this from a casual fan's perspective, I might be able to bring people to read New Gen who are newbies to the franchise. That's an important lesson, folks - you don't need to be read-up on Treklore to read New Gen! (Although if you are a fan, expect a fair few nods and winks...)

The characters are what make Star Trek, and the crew of the Enterprise are very well known - how will you reinterpret Picard, Riker, Worf etc... while treading new ground?

Fundamentally, they're the same characters that existed in the original series - their personalities and ideologies remain the same, however their circumstances might be different. History has changed irrevocably after the 2009 movie, so there's bound to be a domino effect down the line - but these are still the characters fans know and love - I haven't reinvented the wheel - merely reshaped it.

What can we expect from the feature-length pilot episode? And will you be running a full series in the future?

Expect a blast of the best I can offer - a great big introduction to the Trek universe told my way - with the characters immediately flung into the mire and forced to show what they're made of right off the bat. There'll be a couple of familiar foes making an appearance as well - considering the title of the pilot is "Encounter at Qo'noS", I'm sure some of you can spot at least one of them right away - and a few nods to future storylines. As yes, I am hoping to produce a full series off the back of this to air next year!

Lastly, how excited are you at the launch of BZN? And do you have any other fanfic projects in the pipeline?

I think BZN is a terrific outlet for all of us - both a place for the established writers to have some fun and dig into some of their favourite universes to have a play, and also for newer writers to sharpen their skills in familiar worlds, telling original stories.

As for other projects I may be working on, all I can say is this - you may be aware of a rather big one already, even though it might be hiding in plain sight...

--

STAR TREK: NEW GENERATION - 'Encounter at Q'onos' airing exclusively on BZN, Tuesday September 3rd.

[Tony O'Black]

BZN is delighted to present the first 12 pages of Pete D. Gaskell's STAR TREK: NEW GENERATION...


^clicky clicky^

Airing exclusively on BZN, SEPTEMBER 3RD!

Graphic art by JT Vaughn

[Tony O'Black]

Black Zero Network is proud to announce our fourth launch week project will be...



www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dj25tzmU4

007: THE UNIVERSE IS OURS
by A J. Black

The feature-length sequel to The Edge of Life & The Devil in the Detail, concluding this radical chapter in James Bond history...

Airing exclusively on BZN, Friday SEPTEMBER 6th.

[Tony O'Black]

In the fourth of a series of interviews with our launch project writers, BZN sat down with producer A J. Black to discuss his feature-length 007 movie THE UNIVERSE IS OURS - premiering exclusively on BZN on Friday September 6th...

--

The Universe is Ours? Clearly a small-scale movie you have planned here...

Yes it's actually the codename for a deceptively small-scale, indie Bond road movie about him doing a pub crawl in Guernsey. It's a clever cover title, don't you think?

In all seriousness, though, why did you choose this film to air on opening week?

Well it was originally going to be another movie project from an altogether different franchise, a popular series but not one reaching 007 levels of history and status... but I couldn't quite get the plot to click fast enough to meet the deadline, plus I'd been starting to get my head back around the idea of writing a James Bond script again, probably influenced by the fact I've been watching very little else than the Sky Movies 007 channel of late which, basically, I would want playing in Heaven after I die.

So combine those factors, plus Bond automatically has a huge fanbase who may be drawn to launch week for it, and you have yourself a no007brainer.

Now, this is also unusual in that it's the only project airing on BZN that is not beginning anew, but is in fact a conclusion of a trilogy. Would you encourage readers to have read the first two before diving into this one?

I would, I have to admit, because this is as you say the concluding part of a project, and not the beginning of something fresh and new. To help with this, both The Edge of Life & The Devil in the Detail will be re-released in the opening week build up to this script, with some new commentary material - so if people want to explore those first, great.

HAVING SAID THAT... the very nature of almost every Bond movie is that they naturally reinvent themselves each time and (with the exception of Quantum of Solace) you could probably watch any Bond movie independent of the rest and not be lost. I believe the same of The Edge of Life & The Devil in the Detail, parts 1 & 2 of this 'trilogy', and I believe it of The Universe Is Ours. I put trilogy in inverted commas there, simply because these three movies do not boast interconnecting stories at all, they merely carry over a thematic character journey for Joe Colton aka James Bond. If you read the first two, that character journey will have more impact, but if you simply read The Universe Is Ours there will be a narrative with a beginning-middle-end you can fully enjoy independent of those scripts, one full of very Bondian aspects you will be familiar with.

As a massive Bond fan, I'm sure there's going to be plenty of nods and references to Bondian lore - but is this purely a film for the fans, or do you feel it could ensnare new readers too?

I don't know if purist fans would like this script, or this 'trilogy', simply because of the fact I kill James Bond at the start of the three films!

It's one for newcomers, I genuinely believe. The Bond template is all there - the guns, girls, villains, exotic locations, big action pieces, the Aston Martin etc... - so any traditionalist 007 fan will find that here, but it's a perfectly accessible story I feel for those not fully steeped in Bond tradition, given the unique take on the character these films have always delivered.

And what should we expect to see here? Is this a huge dramatic conclusion as befits the title, or more of an epilogue to tie off loose ends?

To me, it's a thematic conclusion to the story of Joe Colton. Not of James Bond, because his story will never end, it'll always reboot to fit the times, but this three movie story of Colton serves as a conclusion, with a sense of epilogue naturally at the end.

If The Edge of Life was about the legend of James Bond, and The Devil in the Detail was about what it means to *live* that legend, then The Universe Is Ours is about whether you want *to* be that legend or not, whether you'd choose to live as Bond once you've become him. These movies--under the 007 action & fun--have always been a psychological breakdown of 007's legend, that was always the idea behind these stories, and why I wanted to finish the tale off after 2 & 1/2 years since the last script.

Don't worry, there's plenty of action, dry wit & psychotic villainy in play too. The Bond film this is most like in spirit? License to Kill. Make of that what you will...

Finally, as the president of BZN, this is an opportunity to showcase yourself - vanity aside, what do you feel that the airing of this will do for the network, and what are your plans going forward?

The release of a James Bond script will always be a big deal I think, because it's the biggest movie franchise on the planet & probably the most iconic character in 20th century fiction, so there's no doubt any 007 script deserves a place on launch week, and it seems fitting I write my fourth Bond movie for BZN's opening.

Going forward, I intend to keep carrying the 007 chalice for BZN. I guess I'm the Michael G. Wilson of BZN (Adam or Pete sharing Barbara Broccoli duties, depending on who looks better in a dress). We three have some great plans on how to reboot Bond again on BZN going into 2014 which we'll be announcing in due course. Aside from that, I'll be contributing here & there as a producer, advisor & the odd BZN script - and of course steering the Black Zero ship into its first year of operation.

I'm tremendously excited and I can say with confidence, as regards my peers involved in BZN... nobody does it better...

--

007: THE UNIVERSE IS OURS - airing exclusively on BZN, Friday September 6th.