Oh, all right, Dr. Seuss I ain’t

Anyway, last night I decided to show my dad the trailer for the new Batman movie; my boss had showed me at work, and I’d written down the URL so I could find it again later. Unfortunately, I wrote it down wrong. It wasn’t ATasteOfTheTheatrical.com, it was www.ATasteFORTheTheatrical.com, which is much more entertaining and less frustrating.

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Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

I haven’t mentioned it, but some time back I joined a YahooGroup called FilmBudgeting. At the time, I was still trying to become a film producer on my own terms, so a group of active producers discussing the actual budgeting of films struck me as potentially educational. It’s more strictly moderated than any other group I’ve ever seen (sometimes I want to tell him to lighten up, but, well, it’s his group - he can do what he wants), but there is real discussion there. Of course, I’ve since determined that I’m more interested in the digital side of things, but I haven’t left the group because it’s still sometimes interesting.

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Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

I wonder if I may be a bit too vocal about my opinions on the state of copyright; I had two different people tell me about the article on Slate yesterday (and it’s almost the day before yesterday - I’m staying up too late!). One was my boss, who told me about it at work. I checked it out and sent myself a link so I could refer back to it when I got home. When I checked my email, I had two messages with the same link - the one I sent myself, and one from my mom.

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Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

After I came back from DragonCon and started corresponding with the lawyer I met there, I realized I didn’t understand enough about copyright to properly discuss some of the things I wanted to discuss, so I decided I should fully read the book I got at SIGGRAPH back in 2003 – Digital Copyright by Jessica Litman. I’d only skimmed it before. I didn’t expect to really get into it, but she writes in a very conversational style, and the issue is one that interests me very much. Before I knew it, I had half the book marked with random slips of paper and old mailing envelopes – whatever was close to hand. I have written before about what I think should be done to solve the “fanfic violates copyright, and if we try to make money on it TPTB will come down on us” problem. I seem to recall that during that incident, someone posted a comment that “George Lucas is going to eat your face,” which was so amusing that someone on F_W immortalized it in icon form. But that’s neither here nor there.

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Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Again I started a reply to a comment and got long-winded.

The question is, are you looking for a job or starting a business?
( Cut for length )

I've been wanting to say all that for a while. I feel a bit better now;)

Started as a reply to a comment, but got long;)

I'm inclined to favor independent/self-publishing in many forms, partly due to my own experience in graduating with a Cinema & Video Production degree and not being able to get hired by anyone doing anything remotely like film or video, but I've also seen enough of the dreck on FFN and elsewhere to know that a lower barrier to entry will mean an increase in the junk that gets produced, not just the rare gems that no one could find before.

Of course, a lot of professionally published books have been less-than-impressive, too. I'm thinking of one Mercedes Lackey paperback I have that actually misspells the queen's name several times. Ironically, there's one page that has her name on it three times, and it's spelled two ways on the same page. It's a technicality, but there are plenty of pro-books that have major plot and style issues as well. I firmly believe that scriptwriters should not try to write novels; the Andromeda spinoff novels are horrible, as are most based-on-screenplay novels that accompany certain major motion picture releases. Screenwriters can depend on the actors, directors, and art teams to create the mood and visuals of the story, so they tend to leave them out or write things that make no sense when you try to imagine how they would look.

The major thing, IMO, is that self-publishing used to be so expensive that only the truly confident (or those who had their own presses) would spend the money for it. This, of course, meant that the good ones caught the attention of the institution, and the bad ones were generally ignored, especially with the retail system the way it was. Now, though, the technology has made it possible for anyone to self-publish. Even if the would-be author doesn't have the money for a short-run printing, there are places like CafePress or Lulu to POD, or the option of selling a PDF ebook on the web - no upfront costs at all. It's the ultimate in ease-of-entry, which means anyone with the inclination to write can be published. In film/video, there's CinemaNow and iTunes and MovieLink and Amazon for download sales, and CustomFlix for POD DVDs. CafePress will do POD data or music CDs, for the musicians wanting to go that route, and then there's iTunes and Buy.com for those downloads, too.

Technology has all but eliminated the barriers of entry. Anyone who wants to try can write a book, make a CD, or create a video. As is evident on the web, though, not everyone who wants to be published is worth reading. I think PODdy Mouth or FantasyPOD commented on this - if POD and self-publishing becomes the norm, people will seek new filters to screen out the garbage. I have done this on FFN by finding a story or two I can stand, then checking that author's favorite authors list. It works a lot better than trying to wade through the recently updated stories list. Translated to non-FFN writing, I think the web will gravitate toward genre-specific blogs recommending the best of the genre, and people will rely on them to filter the slushpile for them.

The hard part has always been getting people to buy. Even the major corporations don't always know the best way to market their products, but the average would-be author/musician/filmmaker doesn't want to pay anyone to help edit/market their work. This is particularly ironic considering the conventional wisdom that an independent movie must be submitted (including paying entry fees) to multiple festivals, in the unlikely hope that a major distributor will see it, like it, and put it in theatrical distribution. Such filmmakers also desperately hope that an established film company will see it and be impressed and hire them. Better to use the festivals as a marketing opportunity to find your audience (if only most of these people knew who their intended audience was) and convince them to buy your movie on DVD or download.

In terms of production, it's still cheaper per book (T-shirt, mug, button, poster, CD, DVD, whatever) to do a massive print run like the major publishers do, but for a newcomer to the field, there's no reason to bet the farm on an all-or-nothing like that. POD is the cheapest way to get started.

So I was checking my RSS feeds and came across Sci Fi home to NBC 'Heroes' - Show touted as cross between 'Lost' and 'X-Men', which puzzled me at first. NBC-Universal owns the US Scifi channel, so that was odd, until I figured out they meant UK. I had thought that the UK scifi fans only had the Sky channel, but apparently I was wrong.

Also, I thought they meant the Stan Lee "Who Wants to Be a Superhero?" which finished up on the US Scifi channel a couple of weeks ago, but they mention WWTBAS at the end of the article as another show the UK Scifi channel had gotten. So what is this "Heroes" thing? NBC is taking scifi to the mainstream? I guess that's appropriate - they've brought mainstream to the geeks in that new BSG :P~

There are two primary Point Problems in fiction:
1) Making No Point at All
2) Using the Moral Sledgehammer

When I was in college, I was required to take a literature class. Since I prefer novels written no earlier than the 1950s, I was less than thrilled to be limited to British Literature or American Literature, neither of which makes it into the 1950s, let alone later. Of the two, American Lit was the more recent option, so I went with that. The professor stated in class one day that all fiction makes a point of some kind. Wanting to get a good grade, I dutifully wrote that down, but in my head I rebelled, thinking of the long, complicated ramblings that people sometimes claim the author intended, even when the author in question has had a chance to state categorically that no, he'd never meant that. It wasn't until later that I realized there was a middle ground.

The people who get carried away with creating complex messages in relatively simple stories and poems can ruin it for others, but if a story has no point at all, the reader gets to the end and thinks, 'That's it? Why did I read/watch this? Who cares?!' In the case of the second problem, the author's pet issue can get in the way of the story, beating the reader/viewer over the head until he can't see the story for all the preaching. Aesop had a tendency to be pedantic like this - if a ten-year-old can watch it and say, "and the moral of the story is..." then you're being too preachy. Again, the reaction tends to be 'Why did I bother with this thing?'

At the end of your film, you want the viewer to feel something - patriotism, love, inspiration, anger, etc. If the viewer gets up and says, "Well, that was a waste of an hour and a half," then you have failed to stir the thoughts and emotions of your audience. If you can't name the point or theme of your story, you need to rework it until you can figure out what the point is. If you're preaching too blantantly, you need to back off and work the message in a little more subtly. It usually works better to have a central character stand for the issue you're promoting - have the protagonist live as an example of your "better way" without filling the dialogue with slogans and catchphrases. The only way to work preaching into a story without thoroughly annoying the audience is if the main character is a preacher.

Apple plants seeds for pic downloads - iTunes going to the movies

The main sticking point is price.


Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been personally involved in the talks, initially proposed selling all films at a flat price of $9.99 -- an offer the studios flatly rejected.


"We can't be put in a position where we lose the ability to price our most popular content higher than less popular stuff," said a studio exec close to the negotiations.


Apple has traditionally sold digital content at a single price: 99¢ for songs, $1.99 for TV shows and musicvideos. It has recently experimented with some longer video content, however, selling the Disney Channel telepic "High School Musical" for $9.99 and the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries for $14.99.


Apple gives TV and music companies a 70% wholesale rate and is offering the same to film providers.

Okay, I can understand the appeal of having one price for all files. It simplifies things immensely, and makes a great marketing tool. Also, every retailer should have the right to set prices as he sees fit. HOWEVER - the retailer does not have the right to dictate price to the wholesaler/producers. This is one of the major gripes I've been hearing about Walmart, and Apple doesn't need the kind of bad PR that Walmart has earned through this same behavior. The film distributors should be able to set their prices as they see fit, and if Apple wants to price the downloads so low that it is essentially paying the studios to allow people to DL films, well, let 'em. I can guarantee you that's not what Apple wants to do.

Online retailers Movielink and CinemaNow are paying DVD wholesale prices to get digital copies.


There are signs Apple may bend, insiders say, and allow price points ranging from $9.99 to $19.99 in order to differentiate older titles from new releases.

That sounds much more reasonable.

During negotiations to extend their deal with Apple last year, music labels tried to persuade Jobs to allow variable pricing for songs. But thanks to iTunes' 80%-plus market share in U.S. digital music, he had the leverage to stand his ground.

Unfortunate. The law of supply and demand should allow more popular material to be priced higher. Granted, in the world of digital files, supply is pretty much a constant - there's no threat of "running out" of copies - but the less popular something is, the less people will be willing to pay. The principle remains the same, despite the newer technology.

Since Apple does not license its antipiracy software, other online retailers can't sell copy-protected music or video that works on an iPod, and other manufacturers can't make players that work with iTunes content.

I can't say I like this, but there's really no case for an antitrust accusation, either. It comes down to the fact that Apple did a better job of marketing their audiovisual entertainment solution than the alternatives, and until someone manages to create another juggernaut capable of taking on iTunes, it's going to be a major element of digital distribution to be available on iTunes.

Microsoft developing rival to iPod

Microsoft Corp. is developing a music and video device to compete with Apple's iPod and creating its own music service to rival Apple's iTunes, sources familiar with the plans said on Friday.

Not surprising. Microsoft has always seemed to me like it was trying to be all things to all people. Makes for a very scattershot approach, and can be quite annoying when, say, your home computer that only you use requires username login info in order to set it up. There are certain features of XP Home that make sense on a company computer, but have no place on a one-person machine. Besides, if you bother to read the EULA of XP Home, you're not allowed to operate a business using XP Home.

Microsoft's software technology has provided the copyright protection framework for a number of subscription music services globally, some with well financed backers including Yahoo Inc. But Apple Computer Inc. remains dominant in the multimillion-dollar field of music and device sales.

One of the major reasons for iTunes' dominance in the download industry is the fact that they are the only ones providing Mac-compliant DRM! Given how popular the iPod is, and given the fact that there are a lot of Mac users in the world, it's not surprising that the webstore that provides content for Mac computers is the one that rules. Windows may be the dominant opsys, but that doesn't mean there aren't other opsys users out there, and insisting on using Windows-dependent software for selling digital content is short-sighted and foolhardy. There is a strong anti-Windows backlash out there, and it continues to build with every arrogant "Of course you need Windows" seller.

Most iTunes rivals charge monthly fees to access a catalog of entertainment, but some allow consumers to buy single songs for about $1 each. Microsoft's service will emphasize the pay-per-download, or a la carte, model, sources said. A subscription component will also be offered, according to early accounts of the planned service.

That is also part of the iTunes advantage - who wants to pay a monthly charge when you only want a few songs? Besides the question - when you have a monthly subscription, do you get to keep the files, or do they only work as long as you're subscribed? Personally, I hate paying for stuff that I can only access as long as I keep paying for it, month after month. I like to keep my files; that's why I was less than pleased with the new Napster, which I only tried after it had become a pay service.

One source, who has seen a demonstration of the service, said it was an improvement over iTunes.


"They have been developing technologies that have really good music discovery and community," another source said. "iTunes is the 7-11 (of music stores). You don't hang out there."

One thing that would be an improvement, IMO, is having a web store that doesn't require users to download and install a whole new program. I have a web browser for a reason - I don't like having to use iTunes' clunky UI. Same goes for Sony Connect - took forever to get it to work for me. Users want to be able to decide for themselves which program they use to play their audiovisual files. I, personally, prefer Winamp, because it's free and customizable and works with almost everything. Others prefer Windows Media Player because that's what comes on their computers. Frankly, the number of independent software packages for playing AV files is huge, and almost every one of them has a following. To the best of my knowlege, the only reason anyone uses the iTunes software is so they can download files from iTunes' website. (I also objected to having to create a personal account complete with credit card number in order to download files labeled as free - if it's free, you shouldn't need my credit card number, thank you very much!)

Still, "hang out" at a webstore? Why in the world would anyone "hang out" at a webstore? Or any store, really? Amazon has been adding messageboard capabilities, but seriously, while I love Amazon and make lots of wishlists (and sometimes lots of purchases) there, I can't imagine going there every day to see what someone has posted about this or that book or DVD. Is this "source" trying to compare iTunes to MySpace or what? They're two totally different animals; websites with different purposes have different measures of success, and I would venture to say that any webstore selling digital content is going to have to pass on the "hang out" factor that makes MySpace and LiveJournal successful. You don't judge a sedan by its ability to pull a horse trailer, and you don't judge a work truck by its ability to carry a family of four in comfort.

Microsoft joins a crowded field of competitors in the music service sector, including an entertainment device and service expected to be launched by Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc.


Amazon plans to heavily subsidize the cost of the digital device, much like wireless service companies do with the cell phones they sell, one source said. Some of the devices will come preloaded with music.

I think that no one has quite gotten the hang of this digital sales world yet. The winner will be whoever finds a way to offer downloads to anyone in the world, using any opsys and any browser.