Dietrich, a short that I wrote and produced, is an official selection of the Film Festival at the 10th Annual Phoenix Comicon! The short was directed & edited by Todd Fowler and is an over-the-top noir-esque nod to live-action comic book adaptations. Dietrich is the story of an ex-cop who searches a corrupt 22nd century city for his father’s killer.
The screening is part of a block of shorts and will start sometime around 1:54 PM on Friday, May 28th. If you’re planning on attending the Phoenix Comicon I hope to see you there!
For some reason, the new edgy seems to be boring the living crap out of the audience. I don’t know when this started, but it seems to be a pattern that emerged somewhere around 2004. Movies and TV shows have found new and interesting ways to slow plots to a crawl, mysteries never seem to resolve, and our new heroes are just good-looking whiny characters with problems. Okay, so I’m speaking in extra-broad generalities, and I know several recent TV shows and movies that don’t fit this pattern. Yet, lately I seem to sit in front of my TV only to be tapping my fingers waiting for something interesting to happen.
Don’t know where I’m coming from? Well, let’s look at a quick scene for an example. This is completely made up by me, but you can see to what I’m referring:
Donna rushes in, her clothes tattered. Blood streaks down her right arm. Phil’s eyes bulge with fright as he looks up at her.
Donna: Time to go.
Phil: Go where? Who are you?
She takes out a knife and cuts him free.
Donna: Hurry, we don’t have much time.
Phil: Why should I trust you?
She pulls out a gun and chambers a round.
Phil: What do you need that for?
Donna: You should know better than anyone.
WTF?!?!?!?!!? I wrote that scene in jest, and in context I can see how it may end up to be pretty cool. But so often the above example seems to be the ENTIRE EPISODE! (Sorry for shouting…)
Let’s look at some other ways to dangle the carrot, alienate the audience, and drive yours truly absolutely bonkers:
Main character discovers big secret only to get amnesia.
Character wins true love, only to have his/her love killed, transported to another dimension, or somehow separated through some other B.S formulaic garbage move.
At the height of the story arc, the character dies. Ha ha! Sorry you invested in that one, stupid audience!
Character is about to catch the bad guy, then receives a phone call that he has to pick Timmy up at soccer practice.
Solve a mystery by starting another mystery… then another… and so on…
Never show the aliens… ever.
Never show the alien ship.
Never show the inside of the alien ship.
Never explain WTF the alien’s are doing.
Political grandstanding or other proselytizing that’s out of context with the narrative.
Ending the finale in a cliffhanger.
Maybe it’s all due to the fact that the current generation has drawn their experiences from TV instead of books, making stories feel hollow and trite. Maybe our traditions have gone from an intellectual literary scope to quick cut music video vignettes. I’m not so sure, but I am convinced that the hope and optimism that used to drive humanity and strong storytelling are all but gone and what replaces it doesn’t feel quite the same.
I propose no solutions; this is an open rant. But I just want the good stuff—the action, the passion, the narrative, and the subtext. I want to relish in a story that is free and unencumbered by guilt or disingenuous populist outreach. I want to cheer a hero that’s not shadowed in shades of gray, but who fights for us all and aspires to the best that we can be. I want a real villain—the kind we all enjoy loathing. I want a story that takes me through all the emotions, whether high or low. And I want an ending where the good guy wins and even gets to live happily ever after. Because when I sit down to be entertained, I only want to watch the good parts.
Wow! I can’t wait! I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who for such a long time. I love what Russell T. Davies did with the series, and I bet Steven Moffat will rock it even harder. And judging from the newly released trailer from BBC America, I think that he will.
We hear it all the time, that TV over the Internet will destroy cable, satellite, and broadcast networks. We’ll stream programs on demand to our mobile devices and the world economy will collapse into rubble because no one will have any idea how to monetize it all. While this may happen in the far future, I don’t think that it’s something that the big networks need to concern themselves with.
I stream all types of stuff from just about every site in creation: YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Vimeo, etc. And I have a super fast broadband connection. I just did some testing and I’m getting about 18mbps on a consistent basis. That’s really darn good. Yet whether it be a TV show, movie trailer, or some viral video I get hiccups, drops, hangs, and all that. It’s not based on resolution either; a video made on a phone will run as slow as a full 1080p movie trailer — it just depends on the temperament of the network.
It also should be noted that a solid 1/3 of the country doesn’t have broadband, and something around 15 million don’t have access because of their location. How are they going to get this new magical on demand content? Anyway, broadcast TV (over the air) is free, supported by ads. In order to get TV over the Internet these days you need a computer and a broadband connection, both of which cost considerably more than a TV with rabbit ears. And if you want to hook said computer up to your entertainment system, you better have the skills to do so, or you’ll be spending a lot of money calling the computer support folks to come by the house (at $100 per hour or more).
So if you worry about the end of broadcast TV, just forget about it. The streaming technology in it’s current incarnation is not as good or as reliable as traditional methods of delivering broadcast content. Until this changes, and the costs are in line with what consumers are willing to spend (including accessible technology) it just isn’t going to happen.
The Oscars have been given out and ‘The Hurt Locker’ brought home the gold. I didn’t watch, since the Academy Awards goes on so long and as a proud member of GenX I have the attention span…
Oh, sorry! I was distracted by a shiny object. Anyway, as a child of the information age I followed on Twitter, and as you can imagine it was a snarkfest. The snarkiest stuff was when the previously mentioned ‘Hurt Locker’ won for Best Original Screenplay. The Twittersphere lit up with nasty comments that would make Tarrantino blush. I sat there sipping my adult beverage watching in horror as folks completely dumped on the winner. Did it surprise me? No. Did it disgust me? Absolutely! But it did remind me of a similar incident a couple years back.
I was invited to a private cast/crew premier of a film out in Hollywood. I won’t mention what film, but it did go on to be nominated and win several prestigious awards. Well, to say it was amazing is just an understatement. The crowd rose to their feet at the final line of dialogue, and as the music swelled the claps and cheers drowned out all. It truly was one of the most inspirational things I have experienced over the last several years, and one of the reasons why I continue to work hard at this business every day.
But then, it happened. I walked outside the theater and overheard comments that turned my stomach. The gaffers complained about the lighting, the editors poked fun at the color correction, the cinematographers criticized camera moves, actors made fun of other actors, and the screenwriters in attendance… well, you get my point. Was it jealousy? Maybe. Arrogance? Definitely. I couldn’t come to grips with anyone being so full of themselves that after applause and hugs with the director, would step outside, light up a cigarette and start up the trash talk.
Luckily my years in corporate America taught me about the silo mentality. For those who don’t know what that is: It’s when a person is so focused on his/her specific job that he/she doesn’t understand the big picture. At the premier I looked upon the film as one complete package, and as a producer that’s my job. But the trades will look at their individual pieces and seemingly ignore how it all works together. That’s the silo mentality.
So when the snarkfest began about ‘The Hurt Locker’ winning for best screenplay, I spotted the silo right away. A film cannot win best picture unless it has a great foundation, and that building block is the screenplay. It’s the blueprint to the whole construction project. ‘The Hurt Locker’ wouldn’t have won if it’s screenplay was not worthy of winning it’s own Oscar.
Yet it’s also true, and should be stressed, that a script on it’s own is nothing without actors, grips, gaffers, a director, producers, sets, props, and all the billion little things it takes to make it into the final product. Filmmaking is a team effort and needs team players. Successful screenwriters understand this, are flexible, and work within the system, taking the good with the bad, because the ultimate compliment is to see your project up on the big screen in a room filled with smiling faces.
I guess the lesson here is that Hollywood is what it is, but just as in corporate America the formula for success is the same: Don’t be a complainer, do your job to the best of your ability, do more than is expected, be a pleasure to work with, and have the humility to work as a team member. The focus should be on the end product and on the reward of having actors speak your words up on the screen.
If you haven’t seen the new trailer for ‘TRON Legacy‘ you can check it out here. I’ve embedded the full HD version from YouTube. It looks absolutely fantastic. I loved the original TRON and this continuation looks to have all the markings of a terrific film. I love how they did a sequel and resisted doing a remake. Remakes are bad. This looks epic!
I found this little gem via Filmmaker Magazine. If you’re like me, you’re psyched about the new Canon Rebel 550 T2i coming out in a couple of weeks. It’s about $800 bucks and has a sensor that rivals the wonderful RED One. True the RED is a superior camera in many different ways, but the T2i is $800! Shooting with a DSLR has it’s issues, but if you can work around them, you can have spectacular results as evidenced in this video by Nino Leitner.
You can also check out his blog here for a full review of the camera.
Will I get one? Well, with the rumored March 17th firmware upgrade for the full frame sensored Canon EOS 5DmkII, it depends how many pennies are in my piggy bank. I think I’d like to get my hands on both and see what works best for my needs. At the end of the day, any camera needs good glass, and quality prime lenses cost a lot of money. But if I take the time to really pre-plan my shots, I can rent three or four lenses to get me through. Therein lies the plan…
You won’t have to wait long to see Matt Smith piloting the Tardis under the watchful eye of new showrunner James Moffat. BBC America announced that the new series (season for us colonists) of Doctor Who begins on April 17th!
Are you ready for the new Who? The U.S. will finally get to see Matt Smith, the youngest Doctor ever and the 11th incarnation, as Doctor Who returns on BBC America, the network announced today. The BAFTA-winning drama will make its U.S. premiere on Saturday, April 17, not long after the U.K. broadcast.
If you’ve read this blog before, you know that I’m a huge fan of Russell T. Davies and think that his stewardship of the Dr. Who franchise has been just amazing. There’s been some debate as to how it will be with Moffat, but considering he wrote some of the most iconic episodes of the new incarnation of the series, including the brilliant Girl in the Fireplace, I can only bet that it will be a continuation of the level of excellence that we’ve become accustomed.
Last Saturday The Guardian published an article titled ‘Ten Rules for Writing Fiction’ consolidating advice from noted authors such as Elmore Leonard, Margaret Atwood, Helen Dunmore, Richard Ford, and Neil Gaiman. You can read the entire piece here. There’s some great stuff… some you might have heard before, but it’s always fantastic to hear it from such an amazing list of some of the most celebrated writers on Earth.
Being a genre guy, Neil Gaiman’s perspective really hit home and I wanted to share it with you here:
[Writing Tips from Neil Gaiman]
1 Write.
2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3 Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
5 Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
6 Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7 Laugh at your own jokes.
8 The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
I particularly like Number 3 and Number 8. As writers or filmmakers it’s important to finish things. Finishing things is hard work, and there are so many people out there with half-written books or screenplays or short films that need one more edit. It’s important to push through and get it done, which is where Number 8 rings so true. Writers are extremely self-critical, but at the end of the day in order to finish something (#3) it takes confidence to make it happen. Confidence isn’t arrogance, but instead a strong belief in the project to move it to completion.
It’s great advice. Be sure to check out the rest of the article, too. [link]
Dietrich, a short that I wrote and produced, is an official selection of the Film Festival at the 10th Annual Phoenix Comicon! The short was directed & edited by Todd Fowler and is an over-the-top noir-esque nod to live-action comic book adaptations. Dietrich is the story of an ex-cop who searches a corrupt 22nd century city for his father’s killer.
