FarScape
"What It Is To Me..."

A personal Journey Log by Scorpwanna

Plus, A back story as to how this site actually became what it is now! Total Dren!

Learning of the Shows Existence

  On March 19th 1999, (the day before my Birthday) in the US, a new science fiction show premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel called Farscape. I am ashamed to admit I knew nothing about it what so ever and didn't get to see the first episode on it's original first time air date. Nor, did I even see the first few episodes at all until one Friday night when I was bored and decided to channel surf. I sat down and saw a preview/promo/trailer for a show called Farscape that was coming on next on Sci-Fi. The preview looked so cool I said to my self "I think I'll record this show when it comes on and give it a try!" I figured it was a movie and from the preview looked rather interesting. After watching and recording this (what I thought movie at the time) show, the next day I visited the Sci-Fi website and found out that it in fact was a series episode "Back and Back and Back To the Future". I then thought "Whoa this is a series, I gotta keep watching this!". So, I then every Friday night began to record Farscape.

Watching and Recording Farscape

  Since I had started watching Farscape I hated the fact that I missed a few of the first episodes. Luckily later on an opportunity came along for me to watch and record some of the episodes I had missed, the first Farscape Chain Reaction. For those of you who don't know what a Farscape Chain Reaction is/was it's a Marathon which selected episodes play back to back. I got a chance to watch and record some episodes I missed, but the first episode still didn't air. I felt kind of left out from the series. I was confused about some things in the series and knew that the first episode "Premiere" probably had some of the facts I missed.

Discovering the Farscape Chat & Chatting with other Fans

  One Friday night when I was watching Farscape (During the beginning of the first season) I noticed something I had never, well, noticed before. I hardly ever would sit through a commercial break, I'd more than likely get up and go get water use the bathroom stuff like that. But this one commercial break I didn't have to do any of that so I sat there waiting for Farscape to come back on when suddenly, I heard the Sci-Fi lady mention a Farscape Chat at Scifi.com/farscape. The next day I visited the Farscape webpage at scifi.com to check it out.
I did the java chat login thing and joined the Chat room. People from all over the country were chatting, I could barely keep up with the chat screen. I didn't stay long because I at that time I was not a fast typer. I then spent like maybe a few hours each day chatting more. Later on I evolved into using mIRC to chat, I'll get more into that later on in this.

Getting into Webpages and Creating Video Clips

  When I was in the chat one day, (back in the java chat times) I kept noticing people talking about the Farscape previews/promos on Scifi's website and how fans loved to see them. I think it was the fact that the fans loved to watch some Farscape on their computer. That gave me an idea, why not create my own video clips? I then began to research how to capture video and audio from the TV to a computer. Found out I'd have to buy an over 150 dollar capture card for this idea to work. So, I then began to save up for the capture card.
  Speeding ahead, I now had the capture card and had it installed into my computer. There was just a few problems though, 1. I didn't have anywhere on the internet to put the captures I would create, and 2. The captures I had thought of creating would possibly be very big in byte size. First, I decided I'd need to find some storage somewhere for the clips. I ran across fortunecity.com and it said "100 mb storage free!" I thought "Can't pass this up!" so I signed up for it asap and built a main page that completely sucked but was basically just called Scorpwanna's Farscape WebPage. Which as you know 1 webpage on a website makes it a webpage, more than 1 page consist of having an actual site.
  Now that I had my storage area it was time to figure out how to create video clips. The first thing I did was go to the chat and (found the scifi bulletin board) asked fans "What are your favorite Farscape scenes?" I got a few replys from people, and told them I was thinking of making some video clips and placing them on the internet. They thought it was a cool idea and told me good luck. So that following night I experimented capturing a scene from Farscape onto my computer. Took some time to figure out how many fps (frames per second) would be best and what size too. I decided to capture at 160 by 120 for starters with 15 fps and the audio bitrate as low as it could go. Once this was done the test clip was way to big for internet downloading. I thought "Crap, what am I going to do?" then I remembered something about compression. I searched through some avi editor programs I happened to have and found nothing of any use. The next day I looked around on the internet for avi compression. I didn't even realize that it was staring me in the face! I had forgotten that I downloaded Quicktime to view the Scifi/farscape previews/promos. I had remembered then that the pro version of Quicktime allows the conversion of avi to other formats. So I saved up and bought a 30 buck serial number for it and unlocked the Pro features. The dren was on then!!! >:)
  It took some time to figure out exactly which compression to use but when I found it. Things started going in motion very nicely. I'd create a few selected scenes from episodes and upload them to my little webpage. I had a problem around the over 100mb mark. I was running out of webspace. :( So what did I do? I registered for another 100 :). I knew that the way things were going I couldn't keep registering because to me that just wasn't right. But it was all I could do at the time :(. Already toping at around 5 storage areas spread all over the internet, the site stuff was getting harder. I had expanded the site for more than just video clips but a few sound clips too, as well as started an episode list.
  At that time Scifi had Preview/Promo clips of some of the first episodes. But they for some reason, just stopped making them available. A friend of mine in the chat (Pip6) asked (since I created a few clips) if I wouldn't mind capturing the missing previews that Scifi didn't have. I thought, sure, that would be interesting and the fact that I did have these previews/promos on video tape from taping Farscape. So it was then that the Previews page started. The Webpage I had created at this time grew to a little dinky Website with poor cheesy graphics and links that would go bonkers.

Meeting Cool People because of Farscape

  During site and chat times, I had evolved to using the mIRC chat client and I would join at the chat at irc.scifi.com #Farscape early in the morning. The morning chat time was slow. Maybe at most, 5 people would be in the chat in the morning, one of them being uberchorn (who never hardly spoke). During this chat time, I met a lot of cool people, fans, non-fans of Farscape and even on occasion "crew members of Farscape"! :) It was always cool to chat with a few of the puppeteers (Sean and Mario) and a stand in for Crichton (Kozy). Had some great laughs! Lots of the fans in the room became my friends in the chat. A few of these chatters at this time (the late) ChianasPet, Guyver, Jothee, Josh/wolverine/othernames, Mamamaureen, uberchorn and ZargoDhaan/othernames (ziggy). I enjoyed chatting with these people around the morning time because the chat room was pretty much empty and the scroll was rather slow. I remember this one cool moment which made me love Farscape even more. As if actually chatting with some puppeteers wasn't cool enough, during one of the early morning chats, I got to chat with someone (which I will not disclose to anyone reading this) who wanted to know if anyone in the room could make copies of the episodes for them. (Which I agreed to quickly!!!) From the chat with this person, I got to meet other fweakn cool pep's.
  Moving right along to the chat now. Since I have separated from the Farscape chat at Scifi.com, I have moved on to Farscape chat at irc.chorn.com. At this chat a few of my friends from the scifi chat visited and still do and even make their new chat home there. There are lots of other chatters that I met at scifi that I call friends too who have also moved over to the chorn chat as well. A few of these friends from the scifi chat and new friends at irc.chorn.com include Filipina, Luggage7a, MoyasManiac and yotz (chorn's evil infobot!) And I'm not going to leave out friend of mine who taught me mIRC scripting I'll use one of his nicknames (Apophis). I continue to chat regularly at uberchorn's server.

Moving the little website I had created to a much bigger place

  As mentioned above, in the getting into webpages and video clips segment and meeting cool people in the chat. One of these people I'd like to point out is uberchorn or as his friends call him "Chorn". Toward the end of the 500mb of video clips I had almost came to no more storage space what so ever. About 8months before this situation happened I began chatting with chorn regularly. He asked me once if I would like to have my site on his server, give or take a few things that would need to be changed. Of course at that time I was all "Nah, I don't need anyone's help and I don't really know you!" so I declined the offer. Fast forwarding back to the future 8 months later, Fortunecity.com started to change up the way people would view web pages. It was totally screwing my site up and I was running way low on video clip storage and it was only like the middle of the second season or a bit before. I knew something had to be done. So, I went to chorn and asked him if that offer for the website was still there, and he said yes. I asked if it would be ok if we went ahead with that and he said "sure". Chorn had a little Farscape webpage of his own on his server which I added my stuff too. Chorn also had some cool ideas as to how the site should be handled and maintained. He put me in charge of the entire site and told me to do what ever I wanted with it saying "You'll do all the work!". Which I still do to this day. There were a few agreements I had to make for this to take place, and at that time, I did anything I could to keep the site alive for fans. Chorn and I discussed possible outcomes for the site including, in the near possible future it either being shut down due to it's content (clips) or other reasons. I accepted all the terms so that the site could live. I dare say though, it looks like a possible ending pretty soon! :(

Being a Scaper

  A Scaper, "What is that?" your asking. It's a Farscape fan, like fans of Star Trek who call themselves a Trekie. I dunno if you would call a Farscape fan a Scaper. I mean, to be a Scaper what do you have to do? Have a site, actual props, videos or dvd's of the show? I think not, to me a scaper is just a typical fan. If you like the show and you like watch it when you can, or all the time. Then to me you are a scaper! Me, I think of myself as a scaper who is obsessed with the show. Not obsessed as being like I want to be able to live like that and that I think it's real. But, obsessed meaning, when it's on tv (be it reruns or new episodes) I have to watch it no matter what. I have been a Scaper ever since the first time I saw Farscape. However, I have chatted with a few people in the past who have claimed that your not a true scaper if you don't have a site or spend your hard earnings on Farscape clothing or it's videos/DVD's. To those people I say, "Shut the Frell Up!" :)

Loving this show Called Farscape

  Farscape is awesome, what's not to like about this show? You have the typical good vs evil, science, science fiction, love relationships and one frelling cool space chase! I think besides the characters themselves I love best of all, the cool visual effects and story line. The costuming and aliens kick ass too!

Thoughts on the Farscape Cancellation

  When I heard the news of Sci-Fi Canceling Farscape, I literally was shocked, speechless and of course at that time, I was madder than hezmana at Sci-Fi. I like many of the fans, wrote a letter to Sci-Fi (yeah only one letter, sorry I must not be much of a fan then, huh?). In the letter I put that it was a bad idea to cancel such a great show and mentioned a lot of what I mention on this page about meeting cool people because of Farscape. Of course, I assume that as soon as Sci-Fi got my letter they trashed it as they probably did to other fans letters, emails and faxes. I didn't care, for some reason I wasn't worried that Farscape was canceled. It was like my mind was thinking that it wasn't really happening that it must be a hoax or I must be dreaming. Only to find out I was denying that such a thing could happen. I then went on a rampage on the Sci-Fi Farscape Bulletin Board telling Sci-Fi that after Farscape was over I wouldn't watch their channel and that they totally pissed me off. Well, that kind of behavior isn't going to solve anything and I knew that just because Farscape was cancelled I would probably still continue to watch the Sci-Fi channel. I've grown to like StarGate-SG1 and (the reruns of) Roswell and other shows on their network. To tell you the truth, I now find it kinda stupid to ban watching an entire channel because of a decision that an executive made. It's not the actual workers of Sci-Fi's fault, they just do their jobs.

  What I don't like is their reason for the cancellation though. They blame the cancellation on the fact that Farscape's ratings didn't increase to an expected fan base and decreased after a few years. As if millions of viewers wasn't enough for them. They also state that moving Farscape's time slot up an hour each during season 2 and onward through 3 and 4 wasn't the reason that the ratings were going down. I beg to differ, when people are use to watching a show at a certain time they expect it to be there. Some people actually plan their time around it. Over the years of airing Farscape, Sci-Fi changing the hours until Farscape came on at 10PM est for some viewers, that's bed time and for others it's probably night shift time. Many couldn't stay awake, and people like me who would just stay awake watching all the crap before Farscape, would only watch that crap because of Farscape coming on. Your asking "Why not watch another channel, then flip to Farscape?" the truth is, I wanted to see the Farscape promo's, they give me a rush like no other. I can't explain it :(.

 
Many fans started a rally because of the cancellation and started up the Save Farscape stuff. Me, I didn't do any of that, guess that makes me less of a scaper huh? Fans donating money to a cause which wouldn't do any good. Sure the exposure of the fan base was a good thing and the idea and effort, but I knew it probably wouldn't really help. I just kept doing what I do best, (or what I think I do best) making video clips and updating our Farscape site. In the end, I hate to see Farscape go but I'm glad that it at least lasted 4 Seasons. Would of even been better that it last one more! I find it kinda weird that the last official air time of Farscape here, in the US, is March 21, 2003, the day after my Birthday!

Plan's after Farscape is Over

  When Farscape is officially over I plan on relaxing on Friday nights, not having to worry about which clips of the show to capture for the fans the next day. Also, won't have to worry about recording ever commercial break for a new promo. I will continue (if I'm able) to accept and create requested clips that fan's want to see on the net. Perhaps, finish parts of the site that aren't finish, including summaries for each episode. Might even redesign some of the site (if I'm able to). And finally, save up and buy all the episodes on DVD and me a Pulse Pistol Replica!


F.A.Q. People Have Asked Me
Q. Who's your favorite character(s) on Farscape and which character(s) do you not like?
A. Chiana is my bestest favoritest character in da whole wide space. As for not liking a character, I kind of like something from each character, so I don't hate any characters.

Q. What's your favorite episode(s) of Farscape?
A. I like them all, no favorites, something cool happens in each episode.

Q. Why do you create video clip scenes of Farscape?
A. I do this for the fans, and for those fans who don't get Farscape in their countries or on their TVs. I believe in sharing! Take for example here in the U.S., Sci-Fi provides us with episode promos which last around 15 to 30 seconds each. In other countries that may get Farscape, most have told me that their stations don't have promo's and that they enjoy that I provide them with what we get to see. Also, I think it's cool when you can watch something as kick ass as Farscape on your computer with just the click of a button.

Q. Since you capture selected video clip scenes why not just capture an entire episode and have it downloadable from your site?
A. To have entire episodes of Farscape available to download off of a site is illegal! However, tiny scenes which last a few seconds isn't I guess. I say this because there use to be other websites out there with entire episodes that don't have them available any more.

Q. What is your favorite weapon on Farscape?
A. The PeaceKeeper Pulse Pistol! I plan on owning one some day! :)

So what is Farscape to me?

It's You, me, everything that it has touched and made even better!
The fans, the cast and crew of the show!
something like this that can unite a people

My Nickname's scorpwanna, I'm a scaper!

Back To Main Back To About Us