Props and believability & Ben look below

Finally figured out a way to handle the portable Memex. My first thought was to make it a digital device, you know, type in "ex nihilo" and the Memex responds "searching...., searching....," etc. Then I thought that idea was too far-fetched for the way it looked. So I had the idea that the Memex would be an audio/video radio/TV receiver that connects to an off-site microfiche reader. Still too far fetched. So I rethought it and came up with a solution I like. The Memex will actually be just a portable encyclopedia. It contains several rolls of microfilm and Ben uses a pot to scroll through them. There's a little pointer (probably a paper clip) that shows him where he is within the alphabet. That's it. A pure analog device. I've become so steeped in internet thinking that I was assuming this box had to have access to ALL information. But one encyclopedia is enough and is believable. Plus I think the visual of information scrolling quickly sideways will be nice. BTW, what you see is the earlier pre-encyclopdia version of the Memex. The viewing port will move down to the box itself. Nothing is glued on or assembled at this point.

Here are my two favorite passages on believability and props. The first is from The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield written back when classic Star Trek was thought of in reverent tones (pg. 380):

It has been said that if you repeat something loud enough and long enough, people will begin to believe it. Perhaps Gene's insistence on the Believability Factor has been responsible for the attitude I have observed in the cast and crew of Star Trek. Or perhaps it is a number of other things. At any rate, time and again I have observed indications that those connected with Star Trek really do believe it all.

For example, I was on the set one day recently observing a scene that was taking place on the bridge. George Takei was standing beside his Helsman's position. The director was going over some of the action that would take place in the scene they were about to shoot. After reading through a few lines of dialogue with Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, the director turned to George and said, "Okay, and at this point Sulu fires the phasers. So you hit this button and fire the phasers." And the director indicated a particular button on Sulu's instrument panel. George promptly replied, "No that's not the right button. The phaser button is this one over here." And George indicated a button on a different part of the panel. The director gave him kind of a funny look and said, "What are you talking about? What difference does it make? This is a set on a sound stage, remember? Push the button and let's get on with the scene." George steadfastly refused to push that particular button saying, "If I push that button, it will blow up the Enterprise!"

On another occasion, during a scene in the transporter room, Jimmy Doohan refused to move a lever in the direction requested by the director. He argued with the director, insisting that he was being asked to do it the wrong way. You move the lever one way to beam a person down, and the other way to beam a person up. He actually refused to do it the way the director wanted, even though the camera was all set up for the shot.

This sort of thing happens all the time. A director might ask an actor to activate a certain set of controls and then immediately report the results to the Captain. The actor will object and say he can't do that because it takes a couple of seconds for that to happen. Therefore, he will have to wait a few seconds before he can make his report to the Captain. No amount of pleading from the director will make them change their minds. They really believe it.

My other favorite passage comes from the just-released DV Rebel's Guide. If you don't have this book, get it now! From page 32:

You know how to use a computer. Your mother knows how to use a computer. So why do characters in films and television always use bogus terms and silly, outdated computing concepts? Does a list of 20 or 30 names of international spies need to be transported on a high-density optical disc? The text-only file would compress down to about 2 kilobutes and could be stored as a tet message on a cell phone, emailed from a Blackberry, or encrypted into the barcode on a box of cereal. Does an analyst in a high-tech counterterrorist organization need to put a file on a Zip disk and scoot her chair across the room to hand it to a colleague? And why is every computer in every movie running some non-Mac, non-Windows, non-Linux operating system wth a giant font and a text window for entering plain-English commands like "find the information" or "shut down the reactor"? Most 10-year-olds know enough about Photoshop to realize you can't enhance a blurry photograph to the point where the nostril hairs of the bad guy leap into crisp focus.

Below is a picture for Ben. Ben, being a wise ass, asked if the Memex was going to project an image into space like a holographic image in Star Wars. Uh... yes!