The Fifth Sacred Thing Update – December 2014
It has been quite a busy summer and fall for us as we continue to move The Fifth Sacred Thing project forward, and we have some exciting updates to share!
First, Starhawk has continued to wow our team with her amazing creative output, and has now delivered the final draft of the TFST sequel, City of Refuge. No spoilers here, but it is just as exciting and possibly even more epic than The Fifth Sacred Thing!!
And secondly, we have re-imagined our vision of this story told in film to include the option of making it as an episodic television series. It began on Starhawk’s northern property in June, the dry time of the year in the Bay, the producers met to discuss and create the vision for an episodic television series. The gathering was one part “TV intensive” and two parts ceremony and magic. Our goal was to take the sage advice of all the wise filmmakers working at studios, create a TV pitch, and then ask the Gatekeepers to hold space and uproot any impediments to our project’s forward momentum. After days of hashing out key elements in very compelling story cliffhangers for various TV seasons, holding space like Council members in the novel, Starhawk guided us to walk a dry labyrinth while conjuring metaphors of drenched earth and rivers unbounded.
We left with a draft of two seasons of a cable series, 20 hours of content instead of just 2, covering the entire novel. Starhawk was delighted to be adding in so much character development and nuance that had been cut to suit the film format. The easy pairing of episodic television to the novel, in the vein of Game of Thrones with no intermissions, was readily apparent to all of us. The world of Madrone, Maya and Bird was suddenly able to breathe a little, like an ember with just a touch of breeze.
In subsequent months Starhawk finished the City of Refuge final draft, and we eagerly read and drafted that story into two more seasons, making a total of 40 hour-long episodes for non-commercial subscription-based networks, such as HBO, Netflix, Showtime, etc.
As of today Starhawk is on her way to Los Angeles to convene her annual Southern California Winter Solstice ritual and meet with several of our team members, partners, and advisors – so please send your lucky thoughts and blessings her way and continue to watch this space in the coming weeks for more TFST news!