Confirmed!

Bill Martell passed along this little bit of info from Movie City News that confirms what we all already knew:

2007 Summer 10% Over Last Year's Record Year...

But just because it was a great summer, warns veteran reporter Len Klady of moviecitynews.com, “doesn’t mean the trend away from movies in theaters isn’t happening.”

Studios make about 16 percent of their revenues from showing films in theaters, about 47 percent from DVD sales and rentals, and the remainder from on-demand and television.

“Movies in theaters are loss leaders, much like hardback books in publishing,” Klady explains.

Thanks, Bill. Nice to receive a little confirmation. Now if only the studios are listening we can get some cool movies made and into people's hands ( and DvD Players, ipods, laptops, etc...).

I Had a Lovely Dinner ...

with my new friend Caroline from Toronto. I picked her up at the historic Union Station in Los Angeles and we had a great ride on the Los Angeles subway (Yes, we have one. No, really we do...) to your Mad Pulp Bastard's stomping grounds in Hollywood.

Dinner was here at Charcoal:



We didn't have much time as Caroline was taking the redeye back to Toronto and had to get to LAX, but what time we did have was filled with good conversation, wine, and grilled things (not on sticks, but plates - sorry, Denis). It was so nice to put a face to a blog that I've been reading for awhile. Caroline is in the television sector of the business we call show, consulting with producers on several reality programs.

The world got a little bit smaller last night. Tis a good thing.

Audience Participation Time

All right you hordes of DISContented readers, I have something for you to burn some grey matter:

1) What are the top five genres of pulp?

Notice I'm looking for genres and not just titles, so THE SPIDER, THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE are all grouped in the same "Hero" genre. I'm looking for the top five genres - which can be just about anything. It gets tough because I would put characters like TARZAN or CAPTAIN FUTURE - while they are heroes - in different genres (Adventure and Science Fantasy respectively).

2) Give me an example in each genre.

So like the examples above you would write: Adventure - Tarzan....and so forth.

May You Live in Interesting Times...

The Chinese, in their infinite wisdom and understanding of the human condition have a curse which is the title of this post. I use it because Ladies and Gentlemen....

We live in interesting times.

Read through the article and understand that this time can be one of either feast or famine depending upon your perspective. For myself, I am not a doomsayer in this evolution, but one who understands we're going to twist and turn for awhile.

Oh well.

Life isn't very interesting without a few twists or turns is it? Which do you like - the roller coaster or the merry-go-round? Or the waterslide (because there's going to be that option too)?

And that's the nature of the curse - interesting times = options.

You Never Forget...

I rode my bike in to work this morning...in Los Angeles.

According to Mapquest - 6.09 miles.

It is the beginning of a new day.

W, C, S post script

Last night on the "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda" episode of the Geekerati Podcast we went over alot of stuff - SKY CAPTAIN, FIREFLY, DEMOLITION MAN, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, TIME TUNNEL, THE TERRIBLE FLASH GORDON and a whole lot more....

What we didn't do is get to some of the topics that I hinted at in the tags below. So, in the interest of giving you your money's worth, why don't you listen to the podcast by simply clicking on the player in my right sidebar -> and then we can can pick up from there.

INDEPENDENCE DAY -

Listen, if there was a franchise that was ripe for a D2DVD sequel it's this one. Imagine this - we only saw one small aspect of the war, and have seen nothing of the aftermath of a dozen or so city-sized ships hitting the earth. If you focus on the adventures of one small portion of this epic story - you have some great material with which to work.

WATCHMEN -

Forget movie. This needs an HBO mini-series. 12 episodes to tell the complete story and do it justice. I am excited as anyone that Watchmen is coming to the big screen and being directed by Zack Snyder, but it's going to lose something. It's not going to be subtle as the book was. It's not going to be as layered as the book was. I would think that these would be very big concerns to the company producing this movie, but I guess it's not.

I would settle for a trilogy of movies telling the complete story.

GLOBAL FREQUENCY -

Bring it back as a new graphic novel with a dvd inside... hmmm? Best of both worlds since it is shelved. We get a comic AND a good clean peek at the tv show.


BUCKAROO BANZAI -

When is Buckaroo ever going to get around to telling the story of his adventure against the World Crime League? (Shawna was actually the first one to mention this, and I have to agree. Write the Banzai Institute and urge them to release Buckaroo's files to Hollywood so we can at least get a movie out of it.)

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Tune in next time when we will be discussing those movies, books, television shows and games you must be watching.

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda...

or is that backwards?

Anyway, tune into BlogTalkRadio tonight for the Geekerati Podcast where the lovely Shawna Benson, masterful host Christian Johnson, the truly geeky Eric Lytle and your mad pulp bastard sit down and discuss those movies, tv shows, comics, games and books that should have sequels and/or remakes.

It's kind of the ever-popular reboot posts we do here on DISContent.

The fun takes place 7pm PST.

The labels for this post hint at the fun we will have tonight...

And the Cat is Skinned Yet Another Way...

Robert Halmi Entertainment announces that they are releasing a slate of movies for Video-On-Demand (VOD) through Comcast.

You can read the whole story here via Content Agenda.

"The films, made for about $3 million apiece, won't be blockbusters. Stars of the science-fiction, action-drama and women-in-jeopardy stories will include Judd Nelson, Gary Busey and Marilu Henner.
"We're trying to put something unique in the VOD world," says RHI Entertainment CEO Robert Halmi Jr. They'll stand out because cable currently "gets the worst product" from Hollywood."

Hmmm....

The more interesting part of the story (for many of us) is how this is integrated into an overal marketing and distribution plan. The movies will be tailored to each distribution channel - VOD, cable, DVD, etc...making each stop in the distribution plan unique and exploitable.

Unfortunately, this is the same company behind the new FLASH GORDON series.

Fast Fiction Friday #1...

Having been working my assets off this week, editing a lot of fiction, design and photography - I have come to the conclusion that many of today's photographers and designers don't understand the following:

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Every picture tells a story.

Now this is a very broad statement with no small amount of rudeness attached, but bear with me. Every time you see a picture - whether through the lens, or on the computer screen or in a screenplay, or in a comic - it should tell a story. You find the story behind the image and the image changes, becomes sharper and communicates better.

People just aren't finding the story.

The images just don't communicate. They are just images shot through a lens, or scrawled with a stylus with no thought, no storytelling behind it.

So I thought it might be fun to see all the stories people can find in a picture that I would post. Because we tend to do things on the cheap here at old DISContent (Bill, say it isn't so!) I'm limiting you to 100 words. Brief, simple, impactful. **

But most of all, fun.

If we all learn to find the story in the picture, then we can more easily reverse engineer the process and create the (word)picture to fit the story. (A-ha!)

The pictures are going to come from everywhere on the web, picked by me at random. If you want to participate then come up with your 100 rounds and launch 'em at the target. No winners. No losers.

This image comes to us courtesy of Bruce Timm. I found it on his gallery over at Pop Culture Shock. As always, if I'm treading on someone's copyright or trademark here I will take the pic down and replace it with something else. No one's making a dime off this, and I want it understood by all parties.

** as an aside, brevity is going to become a powerful tool in the creator's toolkit as the web takes a greater piece of the entertainment pie. People are becoming used to short bursts of entertainment.

A Classic Style on a Budget

The Bat Whispers - 1930 - 65mm

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This is from the 1930 film, THE BAT WHISPERS, based on the classic Mary Roberts Rinehart's stage play. It was said to be one of the influences for THE BATMAN and you can see why.

Note how the miniatures are integrated into the camera moves (long before computer-control), and that they add to the shadowy, Caligari- Art Deco -esque style of the scenes. Today, you could do everything they did back in 1930 on your desktop computer.

It isn't meant to be realistic - it's meant to be stylistic - and precisely because it's not realistic is why it works. People tend to forget that when working on a genre show.

This is how you work genre and budget together.

Thanks go to Ted Newsome over at The Retromedia Forum for pointing out this footage.

Flash! Aaaa--aw...shit.

I was just going to leave it to the critics who pretty much summed up my feelings about the new FLASH GORDON TV series on SciFi...

But let me add this: This is a show designed and produced by folks who pretty much didn't give a shit. You couldn't intentionally make it this bad, so it falls to logic that they didn't care, they cashed the paycheck and checked their creativity at the studio gates.

SciFi Channel, you get raves when you hire people like Ron Moore because he cares. You get raves when you pick up shows from people like Rockne S. O'Bannon because he cares. You get raves when you pick up shows from Andrew Cosby...

Because he cares!

Is this sinking in? Are you getting it?

The people who are making FLASH don't care, and you and everyone else involved is going to take a big red ink bath. Way to go guys! You took a classic and left it out to rot. At least these guys had style.

Thanks, Folks!

Dad is home and good.

I am picking up where I left off, and getting back to work. Thanks everyone who sent a note of well-wishes. I appreciate it.

I have two stories to finish this month and a ton of other stuff to get accomplished. I've been shooting some footage here and there (and deleting most of it) with the new camera. It's perfect for some ideas I've been percolating. I just need an actor...hmmm.

You should run over here where Jill Golick and I have been discussing JEKYLL. Great show and a great format - the six pack. I have discussed my plans with the format before (with DMc as I recall right before he did ACROSS THE RIVER TO MOTOR CITY - and no, it's just coincidence). I truly think it's a way to generate the kind of television that the medium needs right now. That is, a novelistic approach to a story with a beginning, middle and end. It's event television and a good TV DVD set.

At the very least it would be interesting to do something like the six-pack for the web, where the medium could add in backstory through text (blogs, interviews), images, audio and video. Attach free forum software and you're off and running.

Course, a lot of people are doing that very thing.

Sorry, guys...

I make a promise to various folks and I get a little sidelined by life.

--I promised a story for the premiere issue of Astonishing-Adventures and I blew that one.
--I promised to write about my trip to San Diego Comic Con and haven't gotten around to it.
--I promised to discuss the whole internet 4GM shift in entertainment.

I haven't done any of that because I haven't been in the mood.

Long story short, tomorrow morning the surgeons are doing an arterial catheterization on my father's blocked arteries. They tell me it's a relatively "safe" (WTF???) surgical procedure and he'll be home in a day if all goes well. This is the procedure they do to figure out whether or not he's going to require "stints."

(plus side, I'm doing a lot of quick research on arterial blockages so if I ever decide to do a HOUSE spec I'll be ready)

I know he's going to a great hospital - I think it's the one where I had my tonsils out when I was 20, but he's waaaay over there in SC and I'm here. Logically, it would make no sense to hop on a plane as I would be one more person in the waiting room probably driving my Mom nuts. Okay, definitely driving my Mom nuts.

Anyway - I just wanted to let you know why I've been relatively quiet lately.
It's not by choice.

UPDATE: So I just learned from my Mother that my Dad is in recovery and went through the surgery just fine. Apparently the artery on his left side are a-okay, but the one on the right is kinked. They are going to keep him on his medication to thin his blood . Thanks to everyone who emailed me your thoughts and best-wishes.

Yes, Yes, Yes...

THE FUTURE IS NOW.

We shall discuss...

For Those Wanting to Write a Scifi Channel Original:

The Scifi Channel as most of you know runs an original made-for-cable movie every Saturday night. What you may not know is that there are certain structural conditions they have in place for screenplays they co-produce and air.

This comes to you courtesy of The Retromedia Forum (see sidebar where I urge all of you to register and join in the fun) and the experience of writer-director Steve Latshaw (LIGHTSPEED, PLANET RAPTOR: RAPTOR ISLAND 2, AMERICAN BLACK BEAUTY ) :

"Actually, based on a conversation I had with their director of development in 2005...

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1. They prefer a seven act structure.

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2. First act runs around 17 minutes... opens with a 3 minute (3 page) teaser right off the top that features the monster attacking.

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3. Remaining six acts run 8-15 minutes. Each act (including the first act) must end with a cliffhanger. They monitor ratings - literally - every minute; any fall off is noted as audience disinterest.

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4. Concept must be simple for the monster, story, etc. Don't bog down with excessively confusing plot.

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5. Pacing / tone must be immediate and fast. Hit the ground running. They liked the immediacy of series like 24, where everything is happening NOW. High tension, characters in immediate trouble that gets worse. This is very important.

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6. No expanded or lengthy "coda" scenes. Kill the monster, heroes left alive, boom, into closing credits. Fast ending.

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They used, as a perfect example for tone, an excellent Brit flick called DOG SOLDIERS. They loved that movie."

--- STEVE LATSHAW
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Just like there are different script structures between theatrical and television, there are different script structures for different networks, just as there will be different script structures for the web. They are all by design.

Edit to add: My buddy, Jeff O'Brien ( INSECTICIDAL) just sent me this:

"A pal who pitched to Cinetel a few months back says they were looking for eight acts, the eighth act being a brief coda - and also that the immediate threat should be taken care of and killed, but foreshadow a greater threat still out there - sequelitis."

FYI - Cinetel is one of the companies that regularly produces these movies for SciFi. Their needs may differ slightly from those of the network - but not by much. Your mileage may vary.