Beyond the Matrix is an excellent article for a number of reasons. Not only does it give a peek to how a major movie came together, but it also gives insight into the difference between writing a book and making a movie.

Here is a paragraph from page 7.

The set was rudimentary: the control room of the satellite-communication center would be completed with computer-generated imagery, imagined by the Wachowskis down to the minutest detail. The scene in the control room, for example, features an “orison,” a kind of super-smart egg-shaped phone capable of producing 3-D projections, which Mitchell had dreamed up for the futuristic chapters. The Wachowskis, however, had to avoid the cumbersome reality of having characters running around with egg-shaped objects in their pockets; it had never crossed Mitchell’s mind that that could be a problem. “Detail in the novel is dead wood. Excessive detail is your enemy,” Mitchell told me, squeezing the imaginary enemy between his thumb and index finger. “In film, if you want to show something, it has to be designed.” The Wachowskis’ solution: the orison is as flat as a wallet and acquires a third dimension only when spun. Mitchell, who had been kept in the loop throughout the process (and has a cameo in the film), was boyishly excited by the filmmakers’ “groping toward exactitude.” “I was like Augustus Gloop in the Wonka factory,” he told me. “I’ve witnessed a long sequence of decisions, which I never had to make while writing a book. Intellectually, I know it’s a replacement, but I don’t feel a loss at all.”

It is this sort of detail that appeal’s to my tester’s mind. And one which I have been noticing since hearing an interview with L. E. Modesitt, Jr. on Writing Excuses (I think it is this episode, but didn’t double check) where he discusses things like the support logistics of great fantasy battles that authors seem to forget [ignore].

And now, you will notice them too.

(You’re welcome)