In the folder on my computer where I found "Haven", I found tons of in-progress images, and alternate angles and even some of the original sketches and tests. Some are pretty neat. Some look a bit disturbing... Enjoy.
And now here are some of the alternate angles.
It's lonely being a hockey fan in the South. Rarely do you ever find yourself in a random hockey conversation with a fellow fan. But it was my first sports love and remains a big part of my life to this day. While I'm not the hockey nut I was fifteen to twenty years ago, I still get chills when I hear this song:
The 2008 playoffs started tonight and the team I'm pulling for, the Pittsburgh Penguins, won their opening game with a 4-0 shutout. I'll be surprised if the Penguins don't win the Stanley Cup this year. With young superstars like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury (as all the non-hockey fans' eyes glaze over), this team is on the verge of becoming as exciting as the 1980's Edmonton Oilers led by Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, Kurri, Anderson, Fuhr and all the others. 
So the playoffs start today, and will finish sometime in early June. It'll be a long three months, but as long as the Pens are in it, I'm glued to my TV.
This is making the rounds lately and amused me enough to post it here. I'd seen a couple of these clips, but most of them were new. Enjoy!
And seeing those reminded me of this classic:
I'm in the mood to blog something, but don't have anything relevant to blog about, so I went looking through some of my old creative works and came across one of my favorite things I've ever created.
I like to draw and do design work, but it's not a total passion for me. But every once in awhile, I get inspired and become totally obsessed with getting an image out of my head and onto paper or canvas or whatever. "Haven" is one of those inspirations that turned into an obsession.
As is usual with my artwork, my best stuff is stuff that I did for someone else, either as a gift, or as a challenge ("What? YOU do artwork? Yeah, right...")
This one is called "Haven" and was done for a friend of mine's 21st birthday. Much earlier, she had mentioned that if I ever drew anything for her that she wanted it to be a Gothic Butterfly, whatever that conjured up in my imagination. Her name is Vanessa, which means butterfly, and her motif for everything she had was a butterfly, so it all fits.
Anyway, a few weeks before her 21st birthday, I remembered the challenge/request and it started percolating in the back of my mind. I did a dozen or so sketches and rough versions of a stone butterfly, using charcoal, pencil crayon, etc. Nothing looked right. I could see it in my head, but it just wasn't happening. I knew the angle had to be extreme, right above the butterfly looking down on it. In my mind, I saw a butterfly gargoyle on the side of a Gothic building. I even went and checked out a bunch of gargoyle and architecture books from the library. But it wasn't much help. Nothing worked.
Finally, I came upon the idea of using a 3D program to help me visualize what I was seeing, since you can build your model in 3D, then move your camera anywhere you want to achieve the angle you want. It was surprisingly easy to build the model and find a suitable stone texture, and after an hour or so of fiddling with the angle, I finally came across the exact image I saw in my head.
I was all set to print it out to use just as a reference for drawing it when I realized that this image was EXACTLY the way I wanted it. In attempting to draw it, I'd never even come close. So that's when I decided to compose the whole picture in Photoshop. I exported the Stone Butterfly in high resolution, then proceeded to build the rest of the image in Photoshop.
I knew from the beginning that there would be a real butterfly perched on the broken antenna of this seemingly ancient stone butterfly statue. It took me a couple of days of experimenting to get the butterfly like I wanted it. Her favorite color is green, so I knew the butterfly would have to be green. I ended up using her actual eyes as the shape on the wings. And very tiny on each wing (too tiny to see on this picture) is written "Jesus" and "Lord" in what looks to be just spots unless you really look closely.
So I put one butterfly on the stone statue, and it looked okay, but maybe a bit too lonely. So started putting a whole bunch of them resting on the butterfly. And then a bunch more flying up this vast tunnel or expanse or whatever it is that this stone butterfly is hovering at the top of. It just seemed fitting that all of these butterflies would make this vast journey just to come rest on this statue. It a way, it seemed like a fitting metaphor for the life of a Christian. To seek haven from the world in Jesus. Ergo, the title "Haven".
Since Vanessa and her family were the primary people responsible for my coming to Christ, it seemed especially appropriate that this work of art ultimately have a Christian meaning to it.
So I printed it out on my giganto printer I had back in the day (about nine years ago now) had it matted and framed and gave it go her just in time for her birthday. And because I did it all digitally, I still have a perfect copy of it that I intend to print out for myself in the near future on as high a quality stock as I can afford.
I've probably got four or five such works that fall into this category of inspired obsession, because when I look at them, I realize that they are far beyond what I am artistically capable of 99% of the rest of the time. I'll try to scan them or take pictures of them for posterity and when I do, I'll post them here.
Anyone have a challenge to inspire me to do another work?
So the other night about midnight I got a wild hair and decided to enter a Worth1000 contest. Worth1000's name is based on the "A picture is worth a thousand words" idea. The website hosts fun Photoshop contests among other things.
The contest I decided to enter was about Counterfeit Art. The concept was to take a famous work of art and change it to make it obviously a fake. I did a quick Google search for famous works of art and settled on "St. George and the Dragon" by Raphael. Here's the original:
I'm not sure where my inspiration came from, but somehow, a Star Wars angle came into my head. I found a tauntaun image that I then pasted over the horse and made it look like it was part of the original painting. I then changed his sword into a lightsaber. Then I replaced the broken lance with broken pieces of C-3PO. I then realized it would be easy to turn the princess in the background into Princess Leia. And finally, I put a Rebel symbol on the side of St. George's helmet. All in all, I thought I did a pretty good job. Take a look.
So I submitted it to the contest and waited. A little while ago I got the following email:
There are certain type of entries we do not allow, either because they are potentially controversial, contain illegal material, contain overused items, contain non-photorealistic imagery, do not follow the contest rules or because they contain elements we consider lazy. The administrators felt that your entry fell into one (or more) of these categories and disqualified your entry. The specific reasoning for this note is the following:
Your entry contains Star Wars references.
Okay, so season one had me stoked for season two, and I wasted no time in tackling it. From all accounts and reviews from trusted friends and family, season two was much better than season one, and diverged greatly from the subsequent Dexter novels. I couldn't wait to see it.
Everything started off great. It was about a month after the conclusion of the first season, and happily, it looked like continuity was going to be very important to this show. Constant callbacks to things that happened in season one, while building and expanding. So far so good.
I was especially excited when what looked like the overarching plot for season two was revealed- the discovery of the bags of body parts Dexter has been dumping in the ocean all these years. The search was on for HIM. I even liked the addition of the new love interest, Lila. Everything was going great.
But then the seams started coming apart. The awkward love triangle with Rita and Lila, Dexter's 'drug addiction' (this was tolerable at the beginning, but got silly the farther it went along, until the entire subplot was dropped from the show), the chain of command battles with LaGuerta and her replacement.
Then the show turned into "24", with innumerable sequences and subplots concerning intercepting and deleting files, destroying evidence, sneaking into and out of the headquarters, and on and on. If you like all that stuff on "24", then you'll love this. It became a bit tiresome and a lot contrived and manipulative (just for the sake of stretching out some episodes).
But in spite of all this (and many more increasingly annoying things), I was still with the show. Still liking it a lot. In fact, episode 11, "Left Turn Ahead" was an incredibly well-written episode and more times than I remember in any TV show or movie, I found myself nodding with appreciation about a certain line of dialogue, or a plot point. Very very well done. Until the last five minutes.
The short version of the events is that based on his world collapsing around him and the police about to catch him and all of his loved ones being put in danger by his actions, Dexter seemed about to really make a change and give himself up. It was a beautiful climax to everything that had come before. I actually felt sorry for him, and proud of him at the same time. But then... at the last possible moment before he's about to reveal his secret to someone close to him, he gets a revelation and has a change of heart and basically reboots himself to full serial killer status, but without all of the 'rules' his mentor (his foster father, Harry) had given to him to control his bloody urges.
The season finale is just a big convoluted, ridiculous wrap-up to the season, hitting a lot of the same beats as season one's finale, only about 20% as successfully.
Where my profound disappointment comes from is that for a brief moment, this show had a chance to really go somewhere special. It was RIGHT THERE. It could have allowed the natural sequence of events to follow through and let Dexter turn himself in and face his consequences. It would have been a great ending to the show, or even a great beginning to a new chapter in his life.
But... no.
No, we get what EVERY other TV show does, and that's make sure that even though there may be significant events that happen in the show (fare thee well, Sgt. Doakes), in the end, everything has to stay the same. Dexter reset itself at the end of season two. Everything is as it was at the beginning of season one. Dexter's a serial killer who loves what he does and has no qualms about killing. He has a girlfriend. He works in a police department lab. No one knows his secret. And in season three, we're going to get another serial killer that ultimately will have some convenient connection to Dexter, or to a member of his family, or to someone he works for. There will be people that suspect him of being the killer. There will be lots of covering of trails and destroying of evidence. There will be more awkward moments as Dexter lies to Rita and Debra about what he was doing. And at the end of the season, there will be a tidy, exciting climax that wraps it all up and resets the show for season four.
Now, I never expected that Dexter would ACTUALLY turn himself in. Even as he was contemplating it and moving inexorably on that path, I knew the show creators would nip that in the bud. BUT... the lead-up to it was so well done, and such a logical continuation for the character that anything besides that inevitable ending where he turns himself in screamed out as being totally false to the character and to the story and to the themes of the show. I felt heartsick when the show lurched back to predictability with the last-minute change of heart (back to his murderous ways).
Sigh...
It's just left me in a really deep funk. Not because of the show or the characters, but because I'm wondering if it's just NOT POSSIBLE to create a TV show that sets up a concept and a world and characters, and stays TRUE to that story, following it through to its logical conclusion, regardless of ratings or popularity. Dexter would have been a MASTERPIECE as two six-to-eight episode seasons with a definite ending after season two. But instead, we got two ten-to-twelve episode seasons, with lots of useless filler and ultimately all for naught as we reset the show for what looks to be a prolonged series that rehashes the same ground over and over.
Two other almost-brilliant TV shows are in their home stretches, Lost and Battlestar Galactica, each have formally announced definitive endings to their series, but for both, it's ALMOST too little, too late. BSG tonight begins its final season, but this only after a disastrous season three last year. After an absolutely amazing first five episodes of the season, the show totally fell apart, with silly subplots and homages and finally, a massive retcon where four major characters were suddenly revealed to be Cylons (if you don't follow the show, just nod your head and know that what the creative team pulled in the second half of season three of BSG was a major betrayal of the storyline). BSG really really WANTS to be seen as a show that has been moving towards this conclusion since the beginning, but we know that it's really not the case. They are making this up as they go along and have abandoned numerous ideas and themes and subplots over the course of the show. Such is the problem of having to fill twenty or so episodes each season while at the same time having to indefinitely forestall actually getting to the obvious conclusion of where the show is going.
LOST faces a similar crisis of trying to make it look like everything was planned all along. It's not entirely successful in that, but I DO believe that they've known where the show was going since sometime early in season two, and it seems they've more or less stuck with that plan. The second half of last season and most of the episodes this season have been great, and you can really sense that the show is no longer treading water and is actually moving towards a definite goal.
The point of all this is that some shows can go on indefinitely and others are designed to have an ending. Lost, BSG, and now Dexter definitely have an ENDING. CSI, Law and Order, ER, and most sitcoms aren't under these restraints and CAN go on forever (as long as the ratings justify it). They don't have an ultimate climax that the shows are building towards.
I just want it to be that if a show IS one that has a definite ending, then figure that out ahead of time. Make it an EVENT, rather than something you (the network brass) hopes will be a lucrative franchise for years and years to come). Announce upfront that a series will only run for two seasons. Make every episode count. Bring a story to its logical conclusion.
Please.
So in conclusion, Dexter season two squandered what had the potential to be a masterpiece. As season three approaches, I've lost all interest in the show, and I've lost all hope that we'll get something that isn't more of the same. But... I'll have to at least give it a chance to see if it can prove me wrong...
Good episode. Not near last week's standard-setter, but still good. Very dark. More than anything, it seemed to be positioning the show for the remainder of the first half of the season.
It looks like the Cylon Civil War is now in full swing. Lee's split with Roslin is complete, probably leading to his presidency later on in the season. Cally's fate was pretty shocking. Didn't see that coming, especially not at Tory's hands. Looks like Tory is the first one of the Four to fully embrace her true nature. Should set up an interesting dynamic the rest of the way. And the craziness on the Demetrius seems primed to bear fruit at some point.
Good episode. Not great.
7 teeth out of 10.
Hey! That was a pretty good episode! I can't think of a single thing to gripe about, and I'm even kind of on board with the "Final Five Cylons" angle that I felt so betrayed about at the end of Season Three. The acting was stellar all around.
Good job, guys!
I think what I like best about the first two episodes of this season (and hope it continues this way the rest of this season) is that they are just telling the story. No special homage episodes, or standalone episodes (although I'm sure those are coming). So far it's just telling the story and doing it very well.
I observed myself watching this episode, especially since I went into this episode skeptical that I'd enjoy it. I noticed that I break it down by if, or how, I buy each individual scene or line reading. I have a sense of where I think the scene should go, and if it opts to go in a stupid "only on TV" moment, I recoil. But I didn't have any of those moments tonight.
Well, there was ONE moment. When Cavill said "I'm machine enough to admit when I'm wrong." Groan. There was no need for something that cutesy.
Final verdict: 9.5 teeth out of ten.
Okay, I was pretty harsh on Season three of BSG, and deservedly so. It really went south after the first five (classic) episodes. I was a grump about the show the entire rest of the season.
But... it's been nearly a years since last season's finale. My anger has subsided. The wounds have healed...mostly. I'm going to give BSG the chance to make it all right. I'll give it a fair chance.
Tonight was the premiere of season four, and so far, so good. They've covered their tracks pretty good so far, at least as far as the 'reveal' of four of the final five Cylons from last season's finale. The return of Starbuck was handled... adequately. The amnesia is a bit too convenient, but I'll go with it for now.
Baltar's new subplot is a bit unconvincing, but I suppose there is enough precedence from last season to justify his sudden 'faith'. Terrible job on his fake beard, though.
I'm kind of dreading the new direction they are setting up Lee for, with some sort of government position. Not sure where they're going with that except to make Lee president or vice president. Seems like just a way to set up more father-son tension down the line. Yawn...
But the best part of the show, and it's been this way since the beginning, is the stunning special effects work. I really can't say enough about how amazing the battle scenes are each time, and how they all have their own flavor. I'm not sure how a weekly cable show can put the special effects (space battles, anyway) of the most recent Star Wars movies to shame. I'd love to see a BSG space battle on the big screen one day.
Anyway, good episode. I give it a solid 8 out of ten.
I'm a little late to the Dexter party, as the show is about to move into season three, but...better late than never.
For those of you that don't know, Showtime's "Dexter" is a drama about a serial killer (based on a book by Jeff Lindssy called "Dexter Darkly Dreaming"). But he's a serial killer with a conscience and only kills the really bad guys. Dexter himself is painted as a sympathetic character and is most definitely the 'hero' of this show. The debate over making a serial killer the main character is certainly a worthy one, and should be lively, but that won't be taking place here today. Suffice it to say that Dexter is one of the most intriguing and unique characters ever seen on TV.
The short review for season one is that it was fantastic. Through the first six episodes, I was sure I was witnessing a modern-day classic. The writing was sharp, the directing inventive, the cinematography stunning, and the acting top-notch. We were learning about these characters, their world and the 'rules' of this show. Everything was clicking.
But then episode 7 came along and we had our first filler episode. Not a lot of relevant stuff in it. Things looked a little cheaper and less creative than in the batch right before it, etc. It was distinct and had me a BIT worried. But it picked back up over the remainder of the season and while the last three episodes weren't as great as the first six, the whole thing wrapped up pretty nicely.
An observation I made (that would be borne out literally in season two) is that at its core, Dexter is just a superhero TV show. He only fights/kills the bad guys. He has a secret identity/life. He has a mentor. He has a special set of tools. A secret origin. And finally, he has an arch-enemy that is (almost) his equal, and in fact shares his origin. It's all there, if a trifle bloodier than most comic books.
In the rush to the climax, the show really starts to get sloppy with believability and logic, but not to the point where it spoils anything (heads up: I can't say the same for season two).
The season finale does a great job in tying all the plot threads of the entire season together and provides a few surprises (which shouldn't have come as surprises after my mid-season epiphany that this show is really about a superhero).
I hungrily watched each episode and had the whole first season finished in three days (which is quite an accomplishment considering my usual hectic schedule.) Using a secret source (okay, it's my brother), I obtained copies of season two that he had recorded off of Showtime, and couldn't have been more eager to dive in...
Here's one of my all-time favorite bits from the old SCTV series. It's funny because it's true.
Fortunately, I already have one. His name is Jim.
We've been arch-enemies for the past eighteen years. It hasn't gotten too out-of-hand yet, but I will say there has been one death threat made... *
But until you have an arch-enemy, you don't know how thrilling it is. Knowing that somewhere out there, someone hates you enough to plot against you... and make death threats... *
Oh, there's plenty of people I don't like, and who don't like me, but there's only ONE who I consider my enemy, and vice versa. And that's Jim.
THE SECRET ORIGIN OF VICTOR
It all started 18 years ago at a TV station where I used to work. I was in the Master Control department (the command center for the station) on the same schedule as Greg, who worked in the Video Tape department (he loaded the tape machine with commercials that I then put on the air at the appropriate time). We were both the same height and build and had similar personalities... to a point.
I was a relatively soft-spoken chap who kept to myself. Greg was a loud and outgoing theater major at college and was notoriously argumentative and became doubly so when drinking (which was often). A series of work problems occurred all at the same time in both Video Tape and Master Control in which Greg and I respectively were blamed (I was innocent, Greg was guilty for his errors, and in fact it was his sloppy work that resulted in the problems I was blamed for). We were both written up and were both very angry about it. Greg was the first to do something about it.
He went in on a Friday afternoon and turned in his two week notice. On the following Monday, using his boldness as an inspiration, I turned in MY resignation (It wasn't just this incident, it had been building for a while, as I had been unjustly passed over for several promotions because I was deemed 'too valuable' in my Master Control position). I had been wanting to quit anyway, and this was just the last straw. Jim was the new general manager at the station and was one of the two people in the meeting when I turned in my notice. I stated my reasons for leaving and spoke briefly with Jim and the others in that meeting and went on my way. It was as calm and civil a resignation as one could hope for. (I'm just that kinda guy.)
I went to work immediately at a TV station in another town and put Jim and Greg and everything else at that station behind me.
A few months pass and I discover an opening at that former TV station for the very job I had been passed over numerous times before. I apply for that job, go for an interview and all signs seem positive that I'll be getting the job.
But then....
...then Jim struck.
I received a call from Joe, the person who interviewed me, and he tells me that I won't be getting the job after all. I was crushed. Joe was kind enough to indulge me in why I wasn't going to get the job:
"Once Jim found out it was YOU we were going to hire, he said "OVER MY DEAD BODY!' "
At first, I was distressed by this, but then I was incredibly excited. Wow! I had someone that hated me so much that they said something like that. In a way, I was glad I didn't get that job. And obviously, since I'm still thrilled about it all these years later, it's a choice I'm glad Jim made.
It was only years later that I learned from a separate source the reason for Jim's hatred of me. Apparently he believes I got into a screaming match with him and cursed him out when I dropped off my resignation letter. That's when it all finally clicked. He got me confused with GREG. Greg had very proudly told everyone how he let Jim have it when he quit. So for all these years, I've been the beneficiary of someone else's rightful hatred. Jim's got the wrong arch-enemy.
But you won't hear a peep from me. No one needs to know. If Jim is ever taken away as my sworn enemy, who will I match wits with? Who will I measure myself against? Who will I thwart, and in turn, be thwarted by? Without him, how will I know who *I* am?
And dear reader, you might be asking why I am regaling you with this sordid tale tonight of all nights? The answer is simple. Tonight, I received a friend request on Facebook from an old friend of mine. I happily accepted this request, and then received a shock. First, my blood stopped cold in my veins, then began racing with amazement. This friend of mine had only two friends on his Facebook profile.
What does it all mean? I must know. I must discover what cruel fate binds Jim and I together. How does this mutual friend of ours figure in our ongoing drama? What does he know? What are his intentions? Why NOW?
I'm filled with anticipation and dread, knowing this little dance may soon be coming to its climax. Which of us will still be left dancing when the music finally stops?
Who indeed?
* Okay... so he made a death threat against himself about hiring me "over his dead body". It still counts. It still shows the depths to which he will stoop in his insane obsession in ruining my life. If his own life isn't safe, is anyone's?
This has been floating around a while, but I get a kick out of it every time I see it. See how many times the white team passes the ball that YOU can count.
Okay... I'm about 46 years late in getting this review out. Tough. I just finally watched it this past weekend. Blockbuster had a great sale on the special editions of a bunch of movies and I finally decided now was the time to tackle old Lawrence.
All I can say is that it totally lives up to all the accolades it has received over the years. Even though it was nearly four hours long, and featured lots of traveling across desolate stretches of desert, it never felt like it dragged. Even 46 years later, the cinematography is still stunning (watching the restored special edition doesn't hurt, I'm sure).
I didn't know a whole lot about T.E. Lawrence, so while everything that happened was a surprise to me, a deeper understanding of the history and the politics evaded me a little on this first viewing. I eagerly look forward to revisiting this film in the future.
This film garnered a lot of press for its cast, most notably introducing Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif to the world. I thought Omar Sharif in particular was outstanding and really projected star power whenever he was on the screen. I've always been familiar with him, but never really had that high of an opinion of him and always wondered how he became so highly regarded. But after seeing him here, I have no more questions.
Lawrence of Arabia is rightly considered a classic, and perhaps the greatest of the old school epics.
Nine and a half teeth out of ten.
"The Mist" is the movie that "Cloverfield" desperately wanted to be. Scary. Thought-provoking. Well-acted. Evoking a sense of wonder. Cool giant monsters (and small ones).
I picked up the two-disk special edition specifically to get the director's preferred version of the movie, in black and white. And I have to say, it gives it a totally different feel than the color version. If you get the chance, definitely go for the B&W.
Can't say too much more about the movie without giving the good stuff away. The premise is that a mysterious mist rolls into a small town trapping a bunch of people inside a supermarket. The rest of the movie is them trying to figure out what's out there (no surprise that it's some nasty creatures), and what they are going to do to survive if help doesn't arrive soon. It should also be no surprise that the worse monsters are among the people trapped inside as civilized behavior eventually starts to fall apart.
Acting is uniformly good, and for the first time, I actually thought Thomas Jane commanded a screen, playing a great everyman in this.
The ending has received lots of controversy (it's much different than the novella the film is based on), but I'm ambivalent about it. It works well enough for the film even if it crosses the line a WEE bit into "and now here's the clever movie ending."
I give this nine teeth out of ten.
In my continuing quest to be able to exist entirely online, using only online versions of software programs, I present to you what may be the first salvo in what ultimately ends the online image editing battle.
Photoshop Express.
Adobe Photoshop has long been the king of image editing software, but it comes at a price. Being a video producer, it's one of the essential programs in my toolbox. But for doing simple tasks, like cropping or making black and white, it's sometimes overkill.
Photoshop Express joins the ranks of Fotoflexer and Picnik in this newly developing war for free online image editing. At this stage, I still have to give Fotoflexer the big edge in overall usability, but being as it's Photoshop, I anticipate its functionality to increase exponentially over the coming weeks and months. But even in its stripped-down form right now, it's still got some cool functions. I especially like how when you select an effect or image adjustment, it shows you all the variations all at once. Makes finding the exact look you want blazingly fast.
Alas, there's no layer support yet.
But as I said, I'm sure it's on its way.
And like the other online image editing sites, Photoshop Express makes it easy to import or access photos from many popular image hosting sites, and Facebook. Handy.
Overall, a great first step, and one to watch.
HULU... it might not be THE competition to watching TV on actual TV, but it's close.
I'd signed up for the beta preview a couple of months back, but after looking at it for a few minutes, some other shiny thing commanded my attention and I forgot about it. It kinda came back on my radar with the well-publicized official public release (it must have been well-publicized because my non-techie wife came into my office asking if I'd heard about this new thing called Hulu). But a seemingly innocuous link to a video of Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert from 1996's Dana Carvey Show that made me a believer.
In watching that video clip, and then realizing that the ENTIRE season of episodes of this long-sought-after show (by me) was available in high quality, and for free, that showed me the depth and scale of this new service.
Arrested Development - The ENTIRE series available for free.
SNL - All the skits individually accessible (so you only have to watch the good ones)
Simpsons, Family Guy, Office, 30 Rock, and dozens of others are also offering a growing number of episodes (although no complete seasons yet, but I expect that to change).
There's DOZENS of shows, from almost all broadcast and cable networks (although I don't think ABC or CBS are on board yet, but I'm hearing rumors that that will change soon). Literally too many to list or count. I found a show I hadn't seen since I was five years old and watched a part of an episode (I'm nostalgic, but not THAT nostalgic to sit through a whole episode).
They have entire sporting events, like game 4 from the 1977 Stanley Cup Finals (that's hockey to you non-sports fans).
They even have dozens of movies available available for free, many of them relatively prominent titles. As you might surmise from the image at the top of this post, I chose to watch "Man on the Moon" with Jim Carrey. (for my review, click here).
(I'm going to embed the video of the entire film here, but I don't know if you have to registered for it to show up. Please let me know what your experience with this embedded video is)
The quality of the film was good with two options for commercials. One where you could watch a 2 minute movie trailer before the film and have no commercials during the film, or another option where you get normal commercial breaks throughout the film (but these are only single 15-second long breaks every fifteen minutes or so.)
After about 40 minutes, my office chair began to get less and less comfortable to watch a full length film in and my butt fell asleep a few times. While you CAN watch a full-length movie at your desk, you probably don't want to. But for TV show episodes? No problem. And if you're on the road and have your laptop and an internet connection, Hulu makes the perfect entertainment destination.
I know that if I miss an episode of my favorite TV shows that I'm not out of luck, or that I have to scramble to find it or hope that someone has uploaded it to bittorrent or youtube.
Hulu is a great step forward. Now we just need the nerds that are working on the box that allows internet videos to be played on our TVs to step up their game. Come on, nerds, let's GO.
(hit the pause button on the slideshow and advance it frame by frame if it goes too fast to read)
After many many months of writing and proofing and editing and book formatting and cover designing and master copy uploading and ordering, the happy day finally arrived when we were all able to hold our little book in our hands.
"Split" is the anthology written by my writing group, Humble Fiction Cafe. The theme of this anthology is 'dichotomies', or something that has two opposing aspects. Examples include War and Peace; Real and Imagined; Love and Hate; Body, Soul and Spirit, and many more. Each story examines either one side of the dichotomy, or both sides within the same tale. A group of the stories also form a loose continuity, as one story inspired another which inspired another leading us to tie them together even closer and make them all fit together.
It was a lot of fun, a lot of work, and we're all very proud of this book.
If you'd like to read this masterpiece yourself, please order your copy right here.
As of now, we're one year away from what is probably my most anticipated movie of the next several years- Watchmen.
Watchmen is the "Citizen Kane" of comic book/superhero/graphic novel literature. It's a masterpiece, and as such, any attempts at filming it will obviously be met with much hand-wringing and skepticism and trepidation by those that hold it in such high esteem. How can they possibly squeeze this densely-packed story into a two-, or even three-hour film? Is it possible?
The film, being directed by Zach Snyder, of "300" fame, just finished shooting a couple of weeks ago, and until tonight, we hadn't seen anything except for a few set photos. But tonight, we're granted our first images of how the characters have been translated to screen. And I have to say, I absolutely love what I see so far. I especially love just how DARK everything is. Take a look at Ozymandias and Nite Owl.
In an early interview, Snyder was talking about how the costumes as portrayed in the comic book wouldn't work on screen, and I agreed. He made a great point that the costumes from the comic (which was released in the mid-80's) was a visual commentary/deconstruction of how superhero costumes had been portrayed in comics up to that point. But he said that because this is a movie, superhero costumes on screen have created an entirely new visual vocabulary that film-goers have gotten used to after fifteen-plus years. Specifically, Batman, Spider-man and the X-men. Gone is the baggy Spandex and cotton underwear worn on the outside; prominent are the sleek leather and mesh fiber materials. The photos we were gifted with tonight perfectly shows that design sensibility brought to life.
Exactly one year from this moment (midnight), I'll be seeing the opening moments of this film playing out on screen (because I WILL be there for the midnight showing). I'm 90% more confident in this film than I was just twenty minutes ago. Should be a fun year until then as the fun stuff continues to be leaked out to us.
Exciting night. I just finished doling out copies of "Split" that finally came in. We ordered these about two weeks ago (112 copies) and it took a while for it get printed I guess. Regardless, it's finally here.
We met at Panera Bread to pass the copies out and spread them all out on a table (well, most of them, anyway). I'll post pictures later. I'm guessing that this is the mid-point of "Split's" life cycle. We still have to have a massive group signing where we all sign each others' books. Then we have to figure out if and how we want to actively market this book. I imagine we'll send a copy to the newspaper that ran a story on us a few weeks ago. Theresa has already said she wants to send a copy to Oprah. We can probably see if Barnes and Noble can do a signing or something for us. And we might get a Split website where we can post links to the Lulu or Amazon pages, and make it available for download if we so choose.
But bottom line, it's tangible proof that we CAN and should continue to write and if nothing else, this is our inspiration to be bigger and better things.
A week ago or so, I rescued what looked like a broken laptop from a trash pile, intending to maybe use it for a prop for a commercial or film or something. It was a Dell Inspiron, about five years old. It had no power supply and was missing three keys on the keyboard. On a whim, I took the laptop to a Circuit City to see if they had something that could power it up, just to see if it worked at all. My intention was to perhaps hack it into a digital photo frame using one of the many cool tutorials available online.
I was pleasantly surprised when the laptop powered right up. I bought a universal power supply and brought my new toy home. All I had to do was bypass the password (easier than I thought it would be) and I was up and running. A wireless mouse/keyboard combo, and the missing keys problem was solved. It took me about an hour to completely wipe out all traces of the previous owners and I was ready to make this computer my own.
I was about to start installing MS Office, Adobe's Suite of products, Final Draft, etc, when an idea occurred to me. What if I didn't install ANY software on the computer and just used the the free online equivalents? Was it possible? Could I operate 100% online?
So far, the answer is YES. Granted, I can't do advanced video editing, vector drawing or really advanced photo editing (yet), but I can do everything else I'd want a typical computer to do. Here's what I'm using so far, and I'll update this list as I discover new products.
Google Docs- This is Google's online version of MS Office. It's not yet nearly as robust as MS Office, but it does a really good job of functioning as a sturdy word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program. Better yet, all of these Google Docs are sharable and embeddable and able to be worked on in a collaborative fashion. Plus, it saves all your work online and you can access from any computer that has internet access.
Gmail - A great web-only email solution. Gmail's been around for a few years now, but it's been over the last year or so that I've migrated from Outlook and Yahoo Mail as my primary mail sources over to Gmail. Gmail has added tons of great features lately, such as chat directly inside of Gmail, and there are a bunch of really useful add-ons.
Google Reader - This doesn't really have a good desktop equivalent, but it's something you should be aware of and using if you're not already. It's the best RSS newsreader I've come across. I love it.
Google Notebook - Great notebook/clippings service. Allows you to collect and organize anything you find on the net, specifically for doing research.
And lest you think it's all Google...
Zhura.com Screenwriting - Great online screenwriting program. It's still in its basic form, but I can see this becoming a serious challenger to Final Draft or Movie Magic, especially with it's online collaboration features and ability to store your documents online.
FotoFlexer - A basic imagine editing website. Connects directly to your Flikr, Facebook, Picassa, and a host of other places where you might have photos hanging out. It lets you do interesting effects, and sort of layers. But it's really only a placeholder program until Photoshop Express debuts sometime later this year (hopefully).
Adobe also has a simple video editing program called Premiere Express, but at the moment, it's really only useful for mashing up youtube videos. But I can see the potential for doing very basic editing down the line.
Those are the biggies at the moment. As I come across new problems, I'll be sure to catalog my trials and errors and solutions. We'll see if I can operate on a computer 100% online!
Honestly, this year's Oscars are the ones I've least been anticipating in a long time. Maybe ever. I guess it's because it's been a really blah year for movies. And for the first time in a few years, I've actually seen all the Best Picture nominees prior to the awards. Also, I guess I have no rooting interest this year, except maybe "Juno", but even that has me a bit burned out with all the Diablo Cody hype (and due to the fact that I've read her next script and found it to be pretty bad and that she's likely to become the female Quentin Tarrantino, and I don't mean that in a good way).
So here are the nominees and my predictions, along with any alternate choices I would have made.
Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Johnny Depp in "Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Tommy Lee Jones in "In the Valley of Elah" (Warner Independent)
Viggo Mortensen in "Eastern Promises" (Focus Features)
DDL will win because his performance was very showy. I thought it was a bit over-the-top.
Ding! ding! ding! We have a winner! (1 for 1)
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (Warner Bros.)
Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Charlie Wilson's War" (Universal)
Hal Holbrook in "Into the Wild" (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment)
Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
Of these, Bardem stands out. The film itself had lots of problems at the end, but he wasn't one of them.
(2 for 2)
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Universal)
Julie Christie in "Away from Her" (Lionsgate)
Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse)
Laura Linney in "The Savages" (Fox Searchlight)
Ellen Page in "Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production)
I haven't seen this film, but all indications point to her winning. I thought Cate Blanchett was too over-the-top as Elizabeth, and while Ellen Page gave the most enjoyable performance of this group, I think it's too early in her career to win.
Whaa???? Marion Cotillard? Well, that only shows how weak a year this was.
(2 for 3)
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There" (The Weinstein Company)
Ruby Dee in "American Gangster" (Universal)
Saoirse Ronan in "Atonement" (Focus Features)
Amy Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone" (Miramax)
Tilda Swinton in "Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
This one is easy. Amy Ryan was as authentic and disturbing as any of the real-life Bostonians that were used in this film.
This was the shocker of the night. Tilda Swinton?????? Whatever...
(2 for 4)
Best animated feature film of the year
"Persepolis" (Sony Pictures Classics): Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Brad Bird
"Surf's Up" (Sony Pictures Releasing): Ash Brannon and Chris Buck
Haven't seen the other two yet, but Ratatouille was too solid of a film to not win this year.
All too easy...
(3 for 5)
Achievement in art direction
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
Haven't seen it, but it sure does look nice.
(4 for 6)
Achievement in cinematography
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (Warner Bros.): Roger Deakins
"Atonement" (Focus Features): Seamus McGarvey
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn): Janusz Kaminski
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Roger Deakins
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Robert Elswit
This one's a real toughie, but I think this one will take it.
Baamp! Wrong answer. There Will Be Blood looked pretty, I guess. Until Daniel Day Lewis started chewing the scenery...
(4 for 7)
Achievement in costume design
"Atonement" (Focus Features) Jacqueline Durran
This film looked really good.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age looked pretty good... I'll give it that.
(4 for 8)
Achievement in directing
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn), Julian Schnabel
"Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production), Jason Reitman
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.), Tony Gilroy
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax), Paul Thomas Anderson
Despite it's head-scratching ending, this was still the best film of this bunch. Personally, I enjoyed "3:10 to Yuma" more than just about any other film this year. "Gone Baby Gone" was a close second. And I'm surprised that "Zodiac" didn't get more play.
Out of this Group, No Country was the best directed, so this was no surprise.
(5 for 9)
Best documentary feature
"No End in Sight" (Magnolia Pictures) A Representational Pictures Production: Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
"Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience" (The Documentary Group) A Documentary Group Production: Richard E. Robbins
"Sicko" (Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company) A Dog Eat Dog Films Production: Michael Moore and Meghan O'Hara
"Taxi to the Dark Side" (THINKFilm) An X-Ray Production: Alex Gibney and Eva Orner
"War/Dance" (THINKFilm) A Shine Global and Fine Films Production: Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine
Haven't seen any of these, but "No End in Sight seems to have lots of buzz. The one I WANT to see is "King of Kong".
Guessed wrong. Taxi to the Dark Side?
(5 for 10)
Best documentary short subject
"Freeheld" A Lieutenant Films Production: Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth
"La Corona (The Crown)" A Runaway Films and Vega Films Production: Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega
"Salim Baba" A Ropa Vieja Films and Paradox Smoke Production: Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello
"Sari's Mother" (Cinema Guild) A Daylight Factory Production: James Longley
Purely a guess.
And purely a wrong guess. Freeheld was the winner.
(5 for 11)
Achievement in film editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Christopher Rouse
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn): Juliette Welfling
"Into the Wild" (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment): Jay Cassidy
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) Roderick Jaynes
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Dylan Tichenor
Didn't see it, but from all indications, Bourne Ultimatum set the bar for 21st century action films.
Woo hoo! Back on the horse!
(6 for 12)
Best foreign language film of the year
"Beaufort" Israel
"The Counterfeiters" Austria
"Katyn" Poland
"Mongol" Kazakhstan
"12" Russia
A pure guess, but from all I've heard about it, I'm interested in seeing "Mongol"
Another good guess.
(7 for 13)
Achievement in makeup
"La Vie en Rose" (Picturehouse) Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald
"Norbit" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount): Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Walt Disney): Ve Neill and Martin Samuel
Just because I despise the other two films in this category.
My bias paid off.
(8 for 14)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
"Atonement" (Focus Features) Dario Marianelli
"The Kite Runner" (DreamWorks, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Participant Productions, Distributed by Paramount Classics): Alberto Iglesias
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.) James Newton Howard
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino
"3:10 to Yuma" (Lionsgate) Marco Beltrami
Fantastic score and one of our rising film composer talents.
But not this year... Atonement won.
(8 for 15)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"Falling Slowly" from "Once" (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and: Marketa Irglova
"Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"Raise It Up" from "August Rush" (Warner Bros.): Music and Lyric by Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas
"So Close" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"That's How You Know" from "Enchanted" (Walt Disney): Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
One of my favorite films of the year, and a great song from that film. I downloaded it from Itunes right after I finished watching the film. My only real rooting interest among all the films this year.
Yay! And they let Marketa come back out and give her acceptance speech after they cut her off before the commercial break. Classy, whoever's decision that was.
(9 for 16)
Best motion picture of the year
"Atonement" (Focus Features) A Working Title Production: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers
"Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production) A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production: Lianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.) A Clayton Productions, LLC Production: Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox and Kerry Orent, Producers
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss Production: Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company Production: JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers
A bunch of really flawed films to choose from. I enjoyed "Juno" the most out of all these films, but I think it's ultimately too lightweight to win. I still don't see what all the fuss is about "There Will Be Blood". It was ultimately just a character study of a very bad man, and we got to see him do bad things. Whoopee... "Michael Clayton" was okay, but it felt like a warmed-over episode of a TV show. Nothing groundbreaking in this, but good acting all around. When I finished watching "Atonement", I said to myself "Is that all there is?" It was pretty and well-acted, but just barely okay. So by default, it goes to "No Country For Old Men". It had a really damaged ending, but it was pretty enjoyable up until that point.
See above
(10 for 17)
Best animated short film
"I Met the Walrus" A Kids & Explosions Production: Josh Raskin
"Madame Tutli-Putli" (National Film Board of Canada) A National Film Board of Canada Production Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
"Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)" (Premium Films) A BUF Compagnie Production Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse
"My Love (Moya Lyubov)" (Channel One Russia) A Dago-Film Studio, Channel One Russia and Dentsu Tec Production Alexander Petrov
"Peter & the Wolf" (BreakThru Films) A BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios Production Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman
Pure guess.
Wrong guess. I almost went for Peter and the Wolf, but changed my mind. Oh well.
(10 for 18)
Best live action short film
"At Night" A Zentropa Entertainments 10 Production: Christian E. Christiansen and Louise Vesth
"Il Supplente (The Substitute)" (Sky Cinema Italia) A Frame by Frame Italia Production: Andrea Jublin
"Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)" (Premium Films) A Karé Production: Philippe Pollet-Villard
"Tanghi Argentini" (Premium Films) An Another Dimension of an Idea Production: Guido Thys and Anja Daelemans
"The Tonto Woman" A Knucklehead, Little Mo and Rose Hackney Barber Production: Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown
More guesswork
And wrong yet again. Pickpocket thing won.
(10 of 19)
Achievement in sound editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Skip Lievsay
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins
Just a guess. But I figure they'll honor this film with technical awards since it didn't earn any other type of nomination.
My assumption about Bourne Ultimatum was, ehem, Bourne out.
(11 for 20)
Achievement in sound mixing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal) Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage): Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney): Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
"3:10 to Yuma" (Lionsgate): Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin
Just a guess. But with an animated film, sound is half the battle in making it seem real, and this film felt more alive than any other film this year.
Rats! Should have stuck with my Bourne Assumption.
(11 for 21)
Achievement in visual effects
"The Golden Compass" (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners): Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Walt Disney): John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier
"Transformers" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro): Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier
Hated these films. But "Pirates" sure did have a LOT of effects.
Enh... Golden Compass won, but I think they gave it to that as a backlash against the other guys. Oh well.
(11 for 22)
Adapted screenplay
"Atonement" (Focus Features), Screenplay by Christopher Hampton
"Away from Her" (Lionsgate), Written by Sarah Polley
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn), Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax), Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson
Tough category. But I think this film pulled it off the best of all these contenders.
Wasn't worried..
(12 for 23)
Original screenplay
"Juno" (A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production), Written by Diablo Cody
"Lars and the Real Girl" (MGM), Written by Nancy Oliver
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.), Written by Tony Gilroy
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
"The Savages" (Fox Searchlight), Written by Tamara Jenkins
"Juno" will win just because it's easily gotten the most hype this year.
No brainer...
(13 for 24)
And that wraps it up! I'll come back tomorrow night and update this post with a tally of how many I got right.
Not bad... 13 right. Especially for a year where there were no clear front-runners across the board. I can't imagine anyone got the actress categories right, except maybe the mothers of both of those actresses...
I found out about Zhura.com a few days ago from The Unknown Screenwriter's blog. As I'd just recently learned about Scripped.com from Alex Epstein's Complications Ensue blog and found it lacking, I was very curious to see if any version of an online scriptwriting software program could be viable.
Happily, I really like Zhura.com, and I'm planning on giving it a complete test-drive with a sitcom script I'm going to write with my brother (who's not a screenwriter and doesn't ever plan on buying or using Final Draft or Movie Magic). We've been tossing around this idea for a sitcom for about a year now, and Zhura.com, with it's great collaboration capabilities, will allow us to work on together (without having to involve exporting of pdfs and emailing notes).
So far, the technical people have been fantastic, responding to my suggestions and the glitches I've noticed. I look forward to seeing what they do with this.
They are competing with Scripped.com, which has since addressed some of the complaints users have had, such as auto-complete and typical tab/enter functions you find in most screenwriting programs. However, it still lags behind Zhura.com in features and ease of use. It'll be interesting to follow this battle. It'll be even more interesting to see what Final Draft and Movie Magic do to address these two challengers.
And suddenly it's seven months since my last blog post. Oh well.. Here's hoping I keep up better this time.
I'm sure there are countless in-depth examples of how some innovative thinkers envision the future of how we consume entertainment, and when I come across them, I'll append this entry with links. But for now, I just want to ramble on for a while about the subject, so bear with me. Thanks in advance.
For the last few weeks, I've been utterly enamored with the entire Web 2.0 movement. The dynamic content and direct connections with so many people at the same time-- the possibilities are boggling my mind. The future can't get here fast enough.
You probably already use Web 2.0 and don't even know it. If you do anything with MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr or any of the dozens of other sites that let you upload content and share it with your friends (or with the whole world), then you've dipped your feet into Web 2.0. These types of applications are moving from fun curiosities to becoming incomprehensibly useful. Take Google Earth/Maps. What started as a neat mapping program has evolved to where you can customize the Earth to what YOU want to use it for. Apartment listings, crime statistics, voting trends, your friends and family's locations, your business locations, restaurants in your area, and on and on and on and on. Anything that has any sort of location data in it can now be mashed up with Google Earth to create a custom overlay.
I subscribe to a blog called www.Mashable.com that tracks all the cool Web 2.0 stuff coming along, and it's an almost hourly stream of fresh news about new websites with names like jaxtr.com, nabbr.com, jobster.com, frogpond.com, geni.com, viddler.com, and jing.com. If it's a goofy sounding and spelled name, it's probably Web 2.0. What makes all of this stuff so exciting to me is that it's almost all designed to work together. You can use data from one site and use it to inform something on another site. Tell your genealogy website (geni.com) to use your Flickr photos in your family's photo album, and then use the location data entered on each individual to instantly create a custom Google map for you showing pins where everyone lives. The dates entered for birthdates and weddings and deaths can then be piped over to a custom timeline creation website (xtimeline.com) and create a family timeline that updates itself whenever anyone adds or changes a date in any of the programs that access the data.
It doesn't end. Right now, people are creating custom website startups for every possible combination of datasets and/or hobbies or activities that two or more people might be interested in. Apparently there's a knitting social networking site that has hundreds of thousands of people already signed up for it when it goes live.
So what on earth does this have to do with the future of entertainment?
Indulge me for a bit as I flash back to circa 1993. CD-Roms were just starting to become available, and 'multi-media' was the new buzzword for computing. All sorts of things were starting to become interactive, such as encyclopedias, globes, and catalogs and phone books (remember, this was slightly before the internets burst on the scene). But the one thing that struck my fancy was the concept of interactive books. I was actually thinking in some depth about it already when I started hearing great reviews of one of the first interactive CD-Rom novels. I tracked it down at a books-on-tape bookstore in Houston that happened to have it, and excitedly brought it home for when I would one day HAVE a PC computer with a CD-Rom drive. That's how excited I was about this concept.
Finally, I DID buy a capable computer and loaded up this example of the future... and was disappointed beyond belief. It was crap. The story was crap, the ideas behind it were crap. It was something about the Song of Roland (okay, now I have to track it down... hold on a moment... my aplogies.. it's called The Madness Of Roland) and was hailed as groundbreaking. I didn't agree. The dream lived on.
There have been many attempts at creating this sort of interactive/multimedia novel experience, but nothing has quite matched what I saw in my mind's eye all those years ago. The closest anything has come are what are known as ARG's, or Alternate Reality Games, which attempt to create a network of real websites about make-believe organizations and personal web pages and real-world things like newspaper ads and physical gatherings in order to simulate a fictional world for the purposes of telling some sort of story. Often they are in conjunction with something like a movie or TV show, such as the Lost Experience and Nine Inch Nails latest musical project. All the websites continue or expand upon the world of the story, often making it appear to be seamless with real reality.
But even these ultimately fail, because they are most often about solving some sort of mystery with clues embedded in the website code or within images or videos on the sites. It's a gigantic puzzle and is quite cool. But once someone (or a group of someones) cracks the latest clue, it's shared with the rest of the community playing that ARG, and it takes most of the fun out of it for the vast majority of the people that didn't have the time or stamina to solve these often VERY complex puzzles. There always comes a point where you realize you are so hopelessly behind (and/or not smart enough) to ever contribute to the greater community and you just wait until it's over to see what it was all about.
These ARG's WANT to be about stories and immersing you in a world, but ultimately, they end up just being about solving the puzzle. Rarely are the stories themselves compelling enough to hold one's interest.
Coming at it from the other direction are virtual social worlds like Second Life, where it's almost entirely about atmosphere and interaction with others. There are entire sections of Second Life where diligent users have created replicas of fictional worlds like Star Trek and the TV show Firefly. You can dress like your favorite characters and engage in virtual roleplaying, not unlike Dungeons and Dragons (but without the dice)or put on virtual plays or create virtual games for visitors to solve.
These are all interesting, but even this isn't quite bringing it all together yet like I see it.
It's like the Devil's Tower image in Close Encounters. I can SEE this in my head and it haunts me, and I'll know it when I see it when it finally becomes a reality.
It's getting closer by the day.
This whole thing is top of mind because in the midst of all of this Web 2.0 goodness came the Harry Potter book seven storm this weekend. Apparently eight million or so people worldwide snatched up the book within the first day of its release. There's still an instinctive sort of desire within humanity to READ something, to let it play out at the pace WE want to experience it. We don't just want video games and movies and youtube videos.
So it occurs to me that the one thing that's missing from this whole equation is a compelling story for readers to immerse themselves into. It' has to be both a story and a world that's rich enough to facilitate exploration beyond just the main narrative.
What I see happening is a major author or creator, like J.K Rowling or George Lucas, using a virtual world or Web 2.0 site to release the next chapters of their universe's main narrative.
Imagine in a few years J.K. Rowling announcing that the next official story of the Harry Potter universe is going to be released exclusively within the framework of a Harry Potter online experience of some kind. The main narrative would be a linear text-based story, just like it's always been. But instead of it being released in one big chunk it one book every two or three years, it's instead doled out bit by bit over the course of three or four years. And it's not just straight text. It's a constantly updated and expanded upon world filled with mysteries to solve and locations to explore.
For example, much like comic books are published today, Rowling could publish one chapter per month until the book is finished. Paying members/subscribers of the website would get first crack at the latest chapter. But this chapter wouldn't be just text. It would be an interactive, Wiki-style experience. Every character and event would be linked to information that corresponds to to where in the narrative that character is. If you're only on chapter one, it only shows you information relevant and accurate to that character through chapter one. As you advance through the story, the cloud of information increases. Connections among characters and locations and events are easily checked. Every event is linked to a discussion forum, or it's discussed in a Second Life sort of virtual venue where everyone is a character in the Harry Potter universe.
Written into the narrative can be opportunities for user-generated official story content. Perhaps there is some sort of election set to occur in the Harry Potter world. An actual procedure for members to vote can be set up, with the outcome being represented in the story itself. This would make the readers INVESTED in the story. Perhaps there are contests for members to be included in the official story as background characters. Or maybe a virtual magazine could be created and 'published' by fans/members, and this paper can be mentioned within the story. Or how about virtual quidditch matches where the outcome becomes the official version used in the story. Or a character listens to a song that is composed by a member, and whenever the song is mentioned, a link to listen or download the song is available. Or artwork. The possibilities are endless.
Fans love creating fan artwork and films and stories. Create an official framework where members can submit their creations and have them be featured. People can create machinima recreations of the story as each chapter comes out.
With this concept, it allows fans to not just read the story, but experience it in a more fully immersive way and even affect the path and outcome of the story.
Also with a model like this, it allows an author to tell the story in whatever way they want. Maybe Rowling wants to take a while off from the main narrative and explore something from the distant past in her world. Maybe flesh out Harry's father or grandfather or write a full narrative about how his parents met.
OR, maybe it's not just text for some events. Say they decide to hold the virtual wedding of Harry Potter himself. The story proper could lead up to it as regular text, but the wedding itself can be inside a chatroom or virtual wedding chapel (as of this writing, there are still issues of how many people can be in one room/location at a time, and it usually tops out at about fifty to two hundred, depending on if they allow for a four corners sort of nexus point), and allow some avatars (official ones controlled by someone that works for company producing the website) to act out the wedding using Rowling's actual official words. Can you imagine the furor over being able to ATTEND Harry's wedding? Perhaps auction off seats at the wedding if there is a space limit. Or better yet, bring Daniel Radcliff back in a few years to perform as Harry just for events like this wedding. Instead of a virtual wedding, it would be a video simulcast with real people also getting to attend the 'real' wedding. It would be huge.
But everything in this world would be clickable and cross-referenceable. Family trees, videos, artwork, wiki entries, timelines, recipes, puzzles, discussions. The conversation would be constant. The story never-ending. Fans could be permitted to create apocryphal fan fiction that links directly off of the main narrative if you choose to display that layer of data.
It allows the reader/user/member to experience the story at their own pace, and get as immersed as they desire. If they just want to read the story as is, they can read each chapter as it comes out, bare-bones, and it will be a totally fulfilling experience, just like reading the book is right now.
Maybe you just want to wait until the chapters are all collected together into the next hard copy novel, and you can read it just like any other book.
Like an ARG, there are mysteries to be discovered, either narrative-only, or hidden within the world and network of websites. But because it's tied to a serialized linear narrative, you don't have to feel like you are being left behind. Each element will be self-contained to the chapter you are currently at. It might even be structured as a Chapter One zone and a Chapter Two zone. You stay in each zone as long as you want to before moving on to the next chapter, all the way until where the story currently is at.
I think this sort of model would be successful perpetually.
Of course, Harry Potter is just one example of how this can be done.
Take Star Wars. George Lucas is getting ready to produce a new Star Wars TV series. What if instead of just being a linear TV series it was set in a virtual world like outlined above? The TV show would be the skeleton that everything else would hang on. In addition to the TV show, tons of other video could be produced to enhance the experience. Or just prose stories could accompany the TV show. Or online comics.
Or take something like a pet project of mine- Buckaroo Banzai. This is an obscure movie from 1984 that has developed a cult following (of which I am a card-carrying member). This is a world that would totally support an online virtual world/ARG sort of experience. But even more than Star Wars or Harry Potter, Buckaroo Banzai would facilitate real world events. Each town could have a physical location that the members of that town's Blue Blaze Irregulars could meet at. Real world puzzles and mysteries could be conducted, spanning the real world and virtual worlds (how about an entire virtual 8th Dimension official story events could take place in. There could be real actors hired to be the characters, and they can physically travel the world, continuing the story. Meeting real world people, dropping in on real Blue Blaze Irregular clubhouses as part of the official narrative. Buckaroo Banzai also fronts a band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers, and these actors could also play gigs here and there in character. But all of this could be in service to the overall narrative.
Characters could upload video blogs from wherever they are. This would be a slightly different experience than Star Wars or Potter, but I think it would be even more immersive.
There's so many ways this can go. But just about every one of them I think needs to have a major user-created element that leads to official content.
Could a new fictional world be created from scratch to fill this niche? I don't think so. I think they need to already have a sort of built-in fan base that's already passionate about the world. Star Wars, Potter, Star Trek, Marvel and DC Comics, or maybe even soap operas for the less-geekily inclined. Something like Lost seems like a natural fit, but it really isn't, because the world is so self-contained, at least the part that the TV show characters inhabit.
It COULD maybe work with a TV show or movie or live action experience, but the most successful (both creatively and commercially) I think would be something book-based at its core. But outside of Harry Potter, I don't see anything out there that inspires even a fraction of the passion needed for a project like this. I imagine someone like Stephen King or George R.R. Martin or Michael Crichton could come up with something that could really take advantage of this format, but I don't think any of them have anything going right now that would be readily applicable. A Song of Ice and Fire, while brilliant, is too much of a book. And Martin is too slow of a writer to ever be able to pull off something like this. If he COULD write at the pace needed, I think Song of Ice and Fire would be an amazing world to apply this model to. But it won't happen so there's no point dwelling on it.
Most fantasy worlds I don't think would support this, because part of it I think needs to be something that blends in or connects organically with our real world. The Matrix would be perfect for this if it didn't completely destroy the story with the two sequels.
Anyway, I'm tired of typing. I don't even want to see how long this blog post is. I don't think anyone but me will ever read it, but here it is, for anyone to read for all eternity.
I can see this so so clearly. I know it would work. It's turning into an obsession with me. I don't just want to write a story or create a video. I want to create an entire constantly growing and evolving story world. I want it to be heavily user-influenced and for them to share in the creation of the story itself.
I just need to figure out how to make it happen. It's my new life's goal, creatively. I'm thisclose to making a giant mashed potato computer on my kitchen table. I need to get this out of my head and into reality.
Good night.
