A Short Story About #Fringe Love

By Kristin (@FraggleBerlin)

The first time I „met“ other Fringe fans was in a German Fringe forum. I was looking for other people to talk about the show and to learn about the latest news and… yes… also about the latest spoilers. No one of my real life friends was watching Fringe or better to say no one was watching the new episodes. In Germany you have to wait months for the new season after it aired in the US. I am not good at waiting. Not at all!

So one day a friend from our forum told me about the video some Irish fan was planning. She was looking for photographs from all over the world promoting the hashtag #WhereIsPeterBishop.

It took me some time to learn what a hashtag is about. At this time I did not have Twitter. Actually I hated Twitter! Now – more than 12.000 tweets later - I learned something about hashtags and the power of social media.

So the #WhereIsPeterBishop-Video by Zoey Moss was my entry into the world wide Fringe madness and it is still one of the most beautiful things Fringe fans ever made. 

#WhereIsPeterBishop? from whereispb on Vimeo.

Soon I realized that this was more than just a random TV-show, it was something that brought people together, people from so many different countries.

Fringe has never been mainstream, so the ratings were always something to be worried about. In January 2012 a small group of Fringe fans started a new kind of twitter revolution. They called themselves Fringenuity (@Fringenuity). Every week they tried to promote one special hashtag into the world wide twitter trending lists. It worked! Every Friday more people attended the twitter campaigns. Even FOX noticed that and started to show the weekly fan hashtags during the episodes.

For most fans the removal to Friday nights was the worst thing FOX did to the show. But for me actually it was the best! European fans were able to watch the show live when it aired. In Germany it was three o’clock in the morning. But who cared? It was weekend, no school, no work, just fun! 

In early 2012 I co-founded the German fan movement @FringeGermany as a support group for Fringenuity. The plan was to translate all the campaigns and events Fringenuity planned into German so that we could reach more people who might attend to the world wide movement. Soon the German fans asked for their own campaigns and we started to create our own hashtags for the episodes on German TV. A lot of fans asked the German Broadcaster to show our hashtags just liked FOX did in the US. And they did! Something that NEVER had happened before. In the US it was usual to show the official hashtag, it was a big deal to show a fan hashtag, but over here they did not show ANY hashtag before! That was crazy! 

Back then I often chatted with the Fringenuity girls, especially with Aimee Long. We talked about the show and the campaigns. Aimee was a very special person. On the one hand she was one of the most important leaders of the fandom, very strong and devoted. But she also was very thoughtful and pondering. She was often complaining about the ignorance of some people and the media. Sometimes she asked herself why she was doing all the work, why she was fighting so much, if it doesn’t pay off. One day some website was looking for the most devoted fandom and the Fringe fans were not even nominated. Aimee was so angry that day. I decided that somebody has to do something for Fringenuity. Some kind of a "thank you". I discussed that with some other German fans and we decided to start a new campaign for a “Thank you” video. But who should do this? Who would edit the video? I barely knew how to upload photographs to the internet. I made some of the weekly icons for the twitter campaigns. But a video? Me? Never!

It was about three months before the anniversary of the first trending campaign when I decided to try. I started a secret Twitter account @FringeFiles and asked other fans to submit. I did not want to copy Zoeys video because it was unique and actually her editing skills were amazing and mine were… just… not! I wanted to tell a story about the hashtag campaigns and I wanted to include the art and the thank you notes of as many fans as possible!

I had three months to learn how to make a video. It was a challenge! And it was so much fun! 

Here is the result: 

Tribute to Fringenuity from Fraggle on Vimeo.

It was the first time a made a video and I was pretty sure it would be the last time. Sadly in November 2013 Aimee passed away and left a shocked fandom behind. We lost our leader and I lost the person who forced me to do something that I never thought I would be able to do. A few days before I was in hospital and I felt really miserable. It was Aimee who reacted to a Facebook post I wrote in German and I am pretty sure she did not spoke even one German word. She wished me luck and she hoped that I would get well soon. It was the last time I was chatting with her. Aimee was one of the persons who cared! I never met her in person but I felt so deeply sorry about her death and I still do. That was the day I made a second video, just for her, just to say goodbye. You will find it if you are looking for it, but I will not post a link.

Now – almost two years after the end of Fringe – real life keeps me very busy. Every now and then I come back to Twitter and find some of my old pals. Honestly I never really watched Fringe after it ended. Yes, I miss the show, but what I miss more is the fandom, the time we spent together.

Fringe, My Alternate Universe

By Sarah Proost (@SarahProost)

Hi Fringies!

I am honored to be writing a guest blog post for you guys. First of all… I miss the Fringe days. I miss our Friday nights. This is my Fringe story.

I started watching Fringe as soon as it came out. Mainly because I saw that Joshua Jackson was starring, but after watching the pilot episode, that quickly changed. And I became hooked.

As I am writing this, I am browsing through morethanoneofeverything, this website I came across, I think it was mid-season 4, and I saw they were doing Fringe campaigns. By a team called Fringenuity. Founded by Aimee (@aimeeinchains) and Annie (@birdandbear). 

And when I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to be a part of it. I just had to. At first I just joined a few campaigns, using the icons that were available at the time (Shout-out to Cheri (@cheribot), to Ian (@Zort70) and Lynsey (@Frozenaura) who also created awesome icons and banners!). 

But then I started wondering, what if I make icons too. I was studying graphic design after all. So I immediately made my first icon for #LoveIsTheAnswer, in a bunch of different colours (that soon became a standard).  I remember I made it very last minute and spent like 15 minutes on it. A spur of the moment kind of thing. Then basically spammed it to Fringenuity. I tweeted it to them, I posted it on their website. 

And so I got in contact with Aimee. And with Nik (@Nikolai3D), who invented the Art Matrix(!).

Turned out that people loved it. So I joined the campaign and it all started for me. I had become part of something so special. Little did I know at the time. I underestimated the impact of it all. 

But I loved doing it. Knowing that I was using my skills to do something good. Waiting week after week, curious about what the hashtag was going to be. Soon I was on a roll. Sometimes designing one icon wasn’t enough. I had to get all of my ideas out there. Sometimes it was really challenging, some days I had no clue what to create, but it always came together. Everyone was always so supportive. When people tweeted me saying that they love what I had created, saying they were looking forward to see what I’d make for the next week… I knew I was doing something right. And that it was all worth it. Here are some of my favourite season 4 icons: 

Getting to know Fringies, breaking Twitter, trending, in my case: staying up ‘till the crack of dawn to participate and have so much fun… It had really become something I looked forward to every week. 

Then there was this hashtag #DarkestBeforeDawn. And this girl named Natalia (@NataliaQuique) contacted me on Twitter, asking if I could turn the icon into a poster. I’m pretty sure we used to tweet before that, but I think it’s safe to say that this particular tweet has changed my life. To this day, we are still close friends, living worlds apart. We have each other’s backs. She helped me through some difficult season 5 design dilemmas. Because for some reason, season 5 was a lot harder for me. She previewed a lot of my designs and I am really thankful to her.

I have made some close Fringe friends. People I still talk to on a daily basis. Like Jane (@JaneAWilson2), Nik and Lynsey and off course Nat. This year I was lucky enough to meet Nik in person in Amsterdam! That was so much fun!

After season 4 ended, I remember us waiting, day after day, for news of renewal. And when we got it… We trended, we broke Twitter, we were all so genuinely happy. We couldn’t have done this without Fringenuity. But not just Fringenuity. Every single person that helped our campaigns week after week, in any way. It’s because of all of us. 

But we didn’t just do episode campaigns. We campaigned during Comic-Con. #InWymanWeTrust. 

We all know what happened at Comic-Con. That’s the stuff of legends. How one symbol, one flower, can have so much impact. I went to twitter jail for the first time. I remember that very well. But that’s what alt-accounts are for. For when you tweet too much ;-). I also want to re-share a poster that I did. I don’t remember where in the timeline this fits into exactly, but we also did a #WatchItLive campaign. And this is one of my absolute favourite posters of all time.

And when season 5 started, we were back in action. Because if you think Fringenuity would stop after accomplishing season 5 renewal, you were wrong. We did it all over again. With new hashtags and new icons, but with less pressure and even more fun. 

And then Fringe ended. But Fringenuity did not. We started focusing on Wyman’s new project “Almost Human”. We were doing so great. Icons, banners, posters. But then the most unthinkable tragedy happened. We had lost our founder Aimee Long. I have no words for this. We all still miss her very much. And we tried to move on the best we could. And we really tried with Almost Human, but sadly we weren’t successful due to a number of reasons I won’t get into.

Last but not least: an unreleased, never before seen (except for Nat) poster I made of Olivia Dunham.

The truth of the matter is that the Fringe void is still there. But I’m happy it happened.

All in all, Fringe gave us something to look forward to, Fringe gave us a loving community, Fringe gave us friendship, Fringe changed our lives.

Walter: “The only thing better than a cow is a human. Unless you need milk, then you really need a cow.”  

So, here is to us.

Here is to Fringe.

To Fringenuity.

Love,

Sarah (@SarahProost)

In The Time Of Rainbows

By Ellen (@fringecomix)

When the rainbows suddenly began appearing again in the skies above Manhatan, Secretary Bishop’s presidential campaign advisors took it as a very good sign. 

The agents of Fringe Division knew better. Except that they didn’t exactly know why the rainbows had returned. Or the grass and the flowers. Or the overwhelming amount of dandelion seeds - blown in on the warm wind from North Texas, some said, where the smallpox outbreaks were also disappearing. But nobody really knew where it was all coming from.

Or why the amber was melting… or why the long-lost ambered could walk the earth again.

No one felt inclined to question miracles. But it all had to be investigated.

This artwork is part of an ongoing monthly series of speculative art and is part of the Fringe Forward series.

@FringeOnSet: Remote Adventures in Set Hunting, 2010-2012

By Ellen (@FringeFridayNet - fringefriday.net)

Today, I run the general Fringe info Twitter account @FringeFridayNet - but it originally started out as @FringeOnSet, a Twitter account devoted to hunting down and tweeting information about the filming of Fringe on the streets of Vancouver, BC!  For two years, the FringeOnSet account was on the case - tweeting and retreating pictures and information on where you might see the cast and crew of Fringe filming the next exciting episode...

The funny thing is that I live thousands of miles away from Vancouver - on the East Coast of the USA. So I was pretty pumped to discover, one fine evening in July 2010, that the filming of the eagerly anticipated Fringe Season 3 premiere was happening - and people on the scene were tweeting about it - live, in real time!

Here's the first picture from the first day of filming 3x01 "Olivia" - the scene where Peter comes out of the government hearing to reunite with Walter and Bolivia.  It was filmed on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, and here right before the eyes of Twitter, were John and Josh posing for the cameras of a lucky fan. So exciting… and so far away for so many of us! Thus the FringeOnSet Twitter account was born.

Although fans have always managed to find out filming locations of their favorite shows, until the age of Twitter, this knowledge wasn't available in real-time. Now it's possible for anyone to share filming location tips and head down to a location before the crews have even set up for the day. This can be a fun thing, or a not so fun thing (for the cast and crew, who are there to work). So, over time, I and my other set-hunters gradually started to develop a sense of restraint about what to share. (For example, tweeting random Fringe star sightings when they were clearly not on the job... that's something I personally wouldn't do.)

Some time around the end of the third season, the paparazzi and set tipster stuff seemed to get a little out of hand. Someone who was hanging around the set - we never found out who, but it wasn't a fan - claimed to have retrieved a discarded call sheet from the trash, and posted images of it on Twitter. What was on the call sheet document was EXTREMELY spoilery, and even though set reports are almost by definition spoiler-friendly, I refused to tweet it out, and I'm proud that so many other Fringe fans also refused to pass it on either. We were really pretty outraged and disappointed that someone around the set would have done such a thing.
(However, since the show is now over and all danger of spoilers have passed, here's a photo of the notorious call sheet in question and its shocking revelation that "Walternate kills Olivia.")

However, that incident gave me and some of the other "set stalkers" some pause. We certainly didn't want to do anything that would make things difficult for the Fringe crew or ruin the experience for fans. So, after that incident, I think most of us took care to think a little more carefully about passing out information on Twitter. At least one of the professional photographers also decided to keep a more respectful distance. Fortunately, our spies on the streets of Vancouver were also mostly very respectful of the crew.

One fun memory of the FringeOnSet experience was when a devoted Josh Jackson fan from Australia traveled to Vancouver in hopes of seeing the filming. By sheer bad luck, she had scheduled her trip just at the time that Josh would not be on set - the beginning of Season 4 filming, when Peter of course was not in any of the episodes!  It seemed she would have to go all the way back home to Australia without ever having met Josh on set.  However, one evening, Josh unexpectedly showed up at one of the exterior sets - and those of us watching helplessly on Twitter, thousands of miles away around the world (and in real-time, mind you) were in a tizzy! "OMG, someone in Vancouver has got to find her and tell her JOSH IS THERE!!!" We were trying to find out what hotel she was staying at, so we could call her and get her quickly out to the set!  It all had a happy ending though, as she was indeed at the location already and finally got to see him. Whew…

As Fringe drew nearer to an end of filming in the fall of 2012, I think paranoia about serious spoilers somehow getting out, was at an all-time peak! Those of us who enjoyed discussing spoilers and set photos, felt we had a duty to protect the spoiler-free from anything that might come up.  

One day toward the very end of Season 5 filming, a local Vancouver guy named Sean (@scoobykoo) - who often snagged great candid pictures of meeting the cast of Fringe - posted to his Twitter account a seemingly innocent photo of himself with Joshua Jackson at an outdoor shoot, all smiles. Sean commented that he believed he was watching the filming of the final scenes of the show, although he wasn't sure. However, a few of us "trained observers" looked more closely at the photo and realized it contained a GIGANTIC spoiler for the end of the series... something that the photographer probably couldn't have known, but a fan would notice. Joshua was wearing the same gray T-shirt under his coat, that he had been wearing in the season premiere! The spoiler implications of this, were enormous... as Josh's costume implied that the last scenes of the season were from the same time frame as the first. (This, of course, indeed turned out to be the case, with the "reset" back to 2015.)

"OMG!" a fan DM'd me when she saw Sean's photo. "Should we ask him to take it down???" Well, we clucked about this nervously amongst ourselves for the entire afternoon, but in the end, wound up just hoping that nobody else saw Sean's photo and looked more closely at it. As far as we know, nobody but us diehard set watchers noticed!

All good things have to come to an end, and so did FringeOnSet. Filming concluded on the night of December 13 2012, and into the morning of the 14th. It was very satisfying yet of course, very poignant to man the Twitter account one last time and tweet "live" reports as the main cast members of Fringe wrapped the series one by one. First was Jasika Nicole... then John Noble and Michael Ceveris together... then Anna Torv... and finally, long after the sun had come up in Vancouver, Joshua Jackson.

No more vicarious set adventures from thousands of miles away... but, a probably lifelong appreciation for the people and places of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia! I probably know more about the streets and neighborhoods of Vancouver than anyone who hasn't actually visited there... yet!  -Ellen

Prophetic Scenes (Part XI - the last one)

By Danna Aissa (@DannaAissa)

During my last Fringe rewatch I took note of some scenes that give us clues to what will happen further on and I've been sharing them with you for the last 2 months an a half. But everything comes to an end and this is the last one of my Tuesday-posts. Hope you have enjoyed them!

Well, technically you're right, Astrid... he doesn't exist YET...

Indeed!!

 That's why all this amazing story started :)

THE END

A Few Memories of Tom Yatsko, Director of Photography on Fringe

By Stephen Tulley (@Stephen_Tulley)

You’ve seen them before, all those names listed at the end of movies in the credits and on TV shows and you might have asked yourself, “What does that person do?” Because I work in the business I’m often asked that question.

One of the names Fringe fans saw over the first three seasons was Tom Yatsko, who served as Director of Photography for twenty-four episodes and directed three of my favorite episodes of the series: “White Tulip,” “6B,” and “The Last Sam Weiss.” Now I never got the chance to work on Fringe since I don’t work in New York or Vancouver, but I did have the chance to work with Tom on the first two seasons of Brothers & Sisters on ABC Television from 2006-2007 where I was a stand-in.

Now to be blunt: If there ever was a slighty-crazy creative genius like Dr. Walter Bishop on a TV set, his name would be Tom Yatsko! So for this blog I’d like to relate a few “Tomisms” from set in lieu of Walterisms.


You can actually see a very quick interview with Tom on “The Massive Undertaking” feature of The Ghost Network (1.03) where he explains that the crew had not previously seen the tunnel in New York where they filmed the bus trapped in amber – they just showed up and had one night to film three scenes! And in a more hilarious inside-joke homage to Tom by the writers, Peter’s childhood cocker-spaniel was named “Yatsko” in 3.09 “Marionette”.

Now I should explain first that in the American system of filming the Director of Photography (called the DP) is in charge of all technical aspects of cinematography and all of the camera directions and set lighting. Consequently he/she works very closely with the Director, whereas in the British system (where they are called the DOP) they have a little less direct oversight of filming. As a result, almost all DP’s have been camera operators earlier in their careers. Up until recently some Chief Lighting Technicians (called the “Gaffer”) had been allowed to serve as a DP, but I’ve learned that rule was changed in the guild.

For those who are interested, setting-up a scene entails the following steps (please skip below if too technical). The 1st Assistant Director will call out for a “Rehearsal with Heads of Departments.” As the Director walks through the scene with the actors he/she will also talk with the DP about setting up the shot. The conversation often goes something like this - Dir: “I’m thinking about this angle.” DP: “Umm… How about this angle? And then coverage from this angle?” and so on. It really is quite a collaborative effort and viewers might be surprised to learn just how “on the fly” decisions are made about how to shoot a scene. After the two directors have agreed on the set-up they will then have a “marking rehearsal” with the actors. At this point the DP begins to talk with the camera operators (there are usually two, “A” and “B” on most shoots) about how to set up the shot, which lenses to use, the film speed, etc. As the actors walk through the scene the 2nd Assistant Camera Operator (the “clapper-loader”) follows the actors and marks the spots where they stop with colored masking tape. Upon completion the 1st AD will “excuse First Team” (i.e., the actors) and “invite in Second Team” meaning, the stand-ins. The actors and the Director then leave the set and the DP begins to work with the Key Grip and the Gaffer on what lights to bring in, how to organize the shot such as setting up tracks for a rolling shot, etc.

It’s at this point that DP’s earn their reputation as the “Mad Hatters” of the set, often pacing back and forth, waving at a wall, saying “a bit of this, a little bit of that” and so on.

On the reshot pilot of Brothers & Sisters I remember one such lighting set-up where Tom was eating a lollipop and having a conversation with the Gaffer John Smith that went like this:

TY: (Waving at a suspended light.) “That… what do you call that?”

JS: (Sarcastically.) “Uh, we call that a light… sir.”

TY: “Good. A little bit more of that then.”

And on another episode where I was standing-in for a day player Tom had me standing at an elevator at a nice Spanish-revival hotel. The cameras were a good ten yards away down some steps. He began yelling “Open your palm! Open your palm!” As I began to think, “He can’t possibly want to light the palm of my hand as I push the call button for the elevator?” he yelled out, “Now, light the palm of his hand!” And they did.

It’s during this lighting set-up that sets become complete chaos as the stand-ins move from mark to mark for both cameras to frame the action and the 1st Assistant Camera Operator (the “focus-puller”) for each camera measures the distance from the lens to the corner of the stand-in’s eye socket, since focus is done manually on most industry cameras. C-stands and riser stands get moved around, lights are moved and adjusted with filters and the 1st AD will often repeatedly ask the DP “How long?” meaning, how long until the set-up is complete and the Director and the actors can come back in. My job as a stand-in was to match the actions of my actor for the camera operators and try to listen to three or four important voices out of the cacophony of perhaps forty crew members talking to each other and their respective departments on radios. Most of the crew on Brothers & Sisters had worked together on Alias for years, so they felt completely at ease to chat about anything-but-the-shot, which made it an even louder set. [Anna Torv once talked about how loud the Fringe set was compared to others.]

On more than a few occasions Tom just didn’t like how the shot had been set-up and called out the ominous phrase, “Executive decision!” He would then completely change the positions of the actors and cameras, causing everyone to reposition for the shot. When the Director and the actors came back in there would have to be a small private meeting between him and the Director while the stand-ins would have to tell their actors that everything had changed. Luckily for me Tom Skerritt was nice about it, but I felt bad for my friend Candy who had to tell two-time Oscar winner Sally Field that, “Everything you did in rehearsal has changed now.” (Actors don’t like to “rethink” everything they’ve been doing in their trailer for that shot.)

On another wacky day on the pilot of Brothers & Sisters Tom was having long discussion with Director Ken Olin about a scene in a backyard pool where Tom Skerritt’s character (“William Walker”) has a heart attack and falls in the water to eventually die. There was a lot of discussion about stunt work, underwater shots, getting the right equipment, etc. I mumbled to myself, “I hope I don’t have to work in the water” right at the point when the 2nd2nd Assistant Director walked up to me and said, “Uh, tomorrow night is the death scene in the pool Steve… You might want to bring a pair of bathing trunks.”

Thankfully they used the stuntman for that lighting set-up!

So that’s a bit what it’s like working with Tom Yatsko on set, and probably gives you a better idea about why the writers wrote him into “Marionette.” Fringe fans might also be pleased to learn that he continued to work under J.H. Wyman as DP on Almost Human, and currently has served as DP on Gotham on Fox TV.

Prophetic Scenes (Part X)

By Danna Aissa (@DannaAissa)

During my last Fringe rewatch I took note of some scenes that give us clues to what will happen further on. Some of them are so big that you can't believe they're revealing that information at that point, and some of them are simply little anecdotes. I thought it would be fun to put them together here.

Milo was the first observer.

The ambered people are not dead!

Is he talking about Etta?

More scenes next Tuesday!