Sunday, November 02, 2008

Sunday Morning...

And it's raining here in southern California. I'm here at my favorite coffee shop (Groundwork on Sunset & Cahuenga) and it's a dead zone. Perfect for warming up the fingers and thinkmeat for some serious writing (ha)... which is why you get this semi-caffeinated musing.

Hats off to all of those participating in the NaNoWriMo novel writing event. One novel in one month. Lester Dent would be proud. Walter Gibson would call you a slacker.

Designed 10 sell sheets, several key arts, designed and printed 11 posters, designed a press kit folder, and a catalog in the space of several weeks. It's printing now and if there's any mistakes...well, it's too late to fix. Now is the time we wait on the edge of our seats for the final product. I'm still operating on adrenaline, which isn't good because I have to go to AFM this next week and talk business.

Been looking into this lately... all part of the idea of finding ways to monetize, monetize and monetize.

Still digging through this. Mind-blowing stuff.

I have several scripts, books, and proposals to read today.

I received an email the other day from a blogger, asking if I was mad at him because he was removed from my sidebar. No, I'm not mad at you - I'm trying to keep the sidebar down to manageable levels, and since I read a ton of his stuff through Google Reader, I just didn't link it in the redesign. I am sure this has happened to me as well. No harm no foul intended.

That said, if you follow me, I will follow you. See sidebar >>>>

Thanks for the feedback on what to include in The Pulp Filmmaking Manual. Figuring out how to make it a manageable tome / resource for the first-timer and a rethink for those already doing it. I have it broken down into four sections: Writing, Pre-production & Production, Post & Delivery and Marketing & Design. Lots of my personal experience and examples will be in there along with a healthy slice of philosophy.

I could have used the Marketing & Design section these past couple of weeks, as I 've recently had to take several clients to marketing and design school in order to get them to understand certain things that will eventually make their lives much easier. Things like:

  • You don't try to sell wine to a beer drinker. You try to sell them your brand of beer.
  • You can make your beer bottle look like a wine bottle, but it's still beer inside.
  • Trajan is still the pretentious asshole of fonts.

Is everyone else as tired as I am of this whole "breaking the fourth wall" and addressing the audience in online serials as I am? Can't we get past that crutch? And yes, it's a fucking narrative crutch. Worse than voice-over. It pains me to think that this is what we've come to... Bad online theater. I never thought I would get tired of looking at Rosario Dawson, but sheesh!
(I've said that before, and I still mean it). It smacks of cheapness and webcam porn (and if that's where they're going I better start seeing the "special effects").

Whatever happened to the idea of putting the value onscreen?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Bill,

Thanks for calling out the trend on "breaking the fourth wall." For seem reason this style of web production is becoming a standard. Most likely because of the success of Lonely Girl 15 and the mistaken belief that speaking to the camera makes the internet experience more intimate for the viewer. Maybe it’s the success of shows like, “The Office.” I don’t know, but I know I don’t like it.

Unknown said...

Your beer and wine comments remind me of the features on the Willard remake DVD. The movie tested well with young adults but poorly with teenagers. So what do they do? They bend over backwards to try to get that teenager audience.