Weekly Wrap Up: TMI Movie News / Cassie at YALLFEST

Earlier this week I posted about The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones movie trailer teaser, which is being released this Thursday with the Breaking Dawn 2 movie, and will also be featured on Entertainment Tonight. MTV News also reported they'll have a teaser from the trailer teaser as well:

“The film doesn’t hit theaters until August 23, 2013, but we’ll have your first look on Thursday, November 15, at 10:30 p.m. ET on MTV.com—a day before it debuts in front of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2” in theaters.”

The TMI Movie page posted this picture yesterday. I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THURSDAY!!!!!

Cassie, along with Holly Black were this year's keynote speakers at this weekend YALLFEST. Here's a brief re-cap from Cassie's keynote speech here:

• When Cassie began writing she didn’t have the Internet or the interaction she has now. She showed her friends her work. She said there was a lot of anti-genre fiction feelings towards it by those who wrote serious novels, causing her to feel unsure. She started talking to people who wrote in book discussions groups. It wasn't until after she received a copy of one of Holly Black's books did she in the genre. 
• Holly & Cassie became friends after they met at one of Holly's signings. 
• Cassie says when writing with a group of literary friends, it helps them write better and faster. 
• Cassie has based characters off her friends. Maureen was based off her friend Maureen Johnson and Eric was based on her doctor friend Eric, which she said was weird now they've cast Eric in City of Bones.
• With this panel being about friendship, Cassie talked about the famous literary friendship between Fitzgerald and Hemingway. They were extremely close, but unfortunately circumstances involving differences in opinions led to a break up.
• Cassie talked about the importance of treating literary friends with respect, being honest and generous with them.
• About Cassie & Holly's joint book series they're writing Magisterium, ”We’re writing a five book series which means five years of punching.”
• When asked who Holly would replace Cassie with any historical literary friendship with she said, "William Butler Yeats"
• When writing, Cassie starts off with a couple of characters and then weaves out their relationships, which expands the characters and how they evolve as people. She then adds in subplots, their choices/action, and builds the story from there. 
• CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE question: YES, CoHF is the conclusion to the TMI series. There will be lots of changes for the Shadowhunters. THE DARK ARTIFICES, which will be out 2015 will featured some of the TMI characters. There we will find out who's still alive, who got married, but, the main focus of that series will be about the younger generation. 

You can watch some of the video from this panel here.

Cassie was also part of the Movies 2013 panel which also featured Beautiful Creatures authors Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl. There she talked a lot about The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones movie. Here's a re-cap from Cassie's comments during this panel:

On The Casting Process

• Cassie was very much involved in the casting process. They had a meeting and the process for choosing actors, where they went back and forth with ideas for who should play who. 
• Technically they weren't supposed to give Cassie the casting director’s number because they thought she’d harrass her about casting. But she discussed ideas for actors
• 11 people watched the auditions in person
• Jamie & Lily were the hardest to cast, because they had to have chemistry.
• Cassie loved Robert Sheehan from Misfits, and she explained to the director, who hadn't heard of him, about his acting. 
• Cassie talked about being on the phone with the casting director, along with Lily and Jamie, when she asked them who they preferred and they both said Robbie.
• Some of the more established actors barely auditioned at all, like Jared Harris, because they knew they could deliver. They spoke to director Harald Zwart over Skype about their role. After which they would put the video up on the server so everyone could watch it. 

The Adaption: From Book to Movie

• Not every little thing in the book to the movie is going to be exact. 
• She wasn't allowed to look at the screenplay and had no say in choosing the director.
• She did get some ground rules set in, and was very adamant they wouldn't change any of the relationships. Like Magnus & Alec's relationship.
• Cassie feels like the adaptation process will allow fans a chance to see a book in a different way.

On Jamie Playing Jace

• Jamie knows EVERYTHING about the TMI series. 
• He's read ALL the books and even memorized the runes. So much so that when he was accidentally given a marriage rune he said, "It's a wedding rune. I'm not married! Get it off." 
• Jamie played music on set.
• Jamie is a TMI excerpt, and would even correct people on set. 
• Jamie learned a Bach piece on the piano, which Jace does play in the movie. *remember the scene in the institute when Clary walks in to see Jace playing the piano.

Religion

• When asked about the role Jewish traditions play in TMI, Cassie said it does. 
• Cassie did a lot of research into mythology and incorporated that as well in her series. This included Christian mythology, Judaism mythology and others. 
• She didn’t want a specific religion in the books, so she incorporated them all together.

Finding Character Names

• Cassie got her character names from hotel registers, and found names on patient logs at doctor offices. 

Criticism for Writing a Gay Relationship

• Cassie wasn't criticzed for writing Magnus & Alec's relationship by her publishers. That came from some reviewers. 
• Luckily Cassie hasn’t heard anything bad back from libraries or things like that. 
• Alec and Magnus’ relationship is preserved in the movie. 
• She says there is value in having a book where there's characters who are happy to be gay, and they go on to have relationships like straight characters. 

On Movie Criticism

• Cassie doesn’t read book reviews. She sends them all to her husband. 
• She steers clear of online reviews places like Amazon and Goodreads.
• She doesn’t plan on reading any of the movie reviews.
• She plans on living a normal life as much as possible.

You can watch the video for this panel here.