Dealing with Silence, Part Two

Through the back-channel of blog links, I found Gabrielle Harbowy from Dragon Moon Press linked to my blog post, Dealing with Silence and Rejection, as part of an excellent post of her own: Dealing with Rejection.

I highly recommend you read the entire post. Gabrielle is an editor for Dragon Moon Press, and really offers the much-needed insider view on this issue.

My thoughts on her post after the jump.

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Google’s Coming Monopoly on Knowledge

Found this (admittedly somewhat slanted in tone) breakdown of the Google Books lawsuit currently underway:

The Fight Over the Google of All Libraries

It’s worth reading for yourself, as well as following the most recent update here (as of Sept 25).

Key points to consider:

• “Google’s mission is to ‘organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.’”  It doesn’t say what that will cost, and it begs the question: if one has a monopoly on all the world’s knowledge, do they have a right to charge for it, especially when it can be transferred to anyone else at zero cost?
• Google isn’t known for charging for its services…up to this point.  Right now, thanks to “free,” Google has been able to stake claims in the markets for email software, office document processing, telephony, and a lot more.

Whenever I hear about something Google is doing, I think back to an old Star Trek episode my father used to tell me about (Ep 41: I, Mudd).  A group decides the human race is too dangerous to be free, so they decide to take control of us. When asked how they will do it, they respond thusly:

Makes you realize how open to interpretation a phrase like “Don’t be Evil” can be.

A Question about Stranger Things DVD

I posted this on Twitter at on September 14, 2009, at 6:50 PM EST:

How many of you would be interested in a numbered, limited-edition Stranger Things package that would include:

• A Stranger Things DVD with Episodes 1-4, and bonus content galore
  
• A documentary about Stranger Things, especially the move from low-budget show to TV in 14 months
• An e-book containing extensive notes regarding the show and the people, along with script excerpts and other materials
• A graphic novel version of an unproduced episode
• A gorgeous 11×17 print of a painting inspired by the series
• Also, branded swag like jump drives and more
• All of this, of course, will be signed.
  

Would you be interested in that?

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Indies Go Solo Part 2 (Video Games)

The other day I posted a link to a New York Times article about indie filmmakers self-distributing, and erosion of the mainstream film market.

The most interesting aspect of this discussion, to me, is the lack of discussion about the role of video games in eroding the film market.

By and large, the movies that sell the most are escapist entertainment. The problem is: movies don’t have the corner on escapism any more.
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Juggling Real Life and Writing

Mur Lafferty (author of Playing for Keeps and the Heaven series, amongst other celebrated works) posted a terrific article about the problem of juggling “real life” and writing*.

Welcome to Real Life

* replace writing with drawing, composing, editing, dancing; whatever your particular passion is.

NY Times: “Indies Going Solo”

The New York Times posted this article today: Independent Filmmakers Distribute on Their Own. (Thanks to Joshua Smith for the link)

More than ever, it’s the wild west out there now.  Right now, studios are less and less interested in developing new material, turning back again and again to remakes and derivatives of pre-existing properties.

As a storyteller, that scares me, not because of any artistic choice, but because once any industry stops investing in the future, they start digging their own grave.

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Destin Log article

An article about my entré into filmmaking was recently published in the Destin Log in Destin, Florida.  It talks a lot about what first drew me into storytelling.  Fraser Sherman penned the article, and you have to hand it to him: it has a killer opening line:

When Earl Newton was 10, he convinced his friends he was born on another planet.

The article hasn’t been posted on the Destin Log’s website, so I’m linking to a repost of it on TMCnet.com.

Read the full article here.

Horror House: Messengers II

In the confusion of heading up to Pennsylvania (for some quality time with @GoZombieGo and the Zombielets) I forgot to post the next Horror House project I did with Scott Sigler for Mevio.com.

This time we featured Messengers II: The Scarecrow, a new movie from Ghost House Pictures, available in stores and on Amazon.com. (I get no kickbacks for the link, I’m just helpful like that)

New upgrades to look for:

• We added some fun “interview cutaways” for fresh takes on Ghost House and their new flick (featuring novelist J.C. Hutchins in Episode One, Messengers screenwriter Todd Farmer in Episode Two, and me)
• Moving cameras!  I wanted this in the first series, and there just wasn’t time to develop it.  Now the camera cruises constantly as Scott lays out the dirt on Messengers II.  Groovy.

Post some comments, thoughts are welcome.  I want to smooth out the cameras in the next version, and I’m looking to revamp a few other things too.

Future of Entertainment

As a member of the media, the unstable environment we’re in right now is both exciting and pretty unnerving.  How things will shake out is still to be determined, and the only certain relief I take right now is that I didn’t blow $30K on a film school education which would be irrelevant before graduation.

I found a link to Barrett Garese’s article “Scarcity, Experience, and an Old Seat at a New Table“, via ArtfulWriter.com.  A lot of what he talks about are ideas I’ve been working on since I started Stranger Things, but like any good writer, Garese really clarifies the problems and challenges we face in the new media landscape.

The entire article is worth a read, but there are several passages worth more careful attention…

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No, Netflix, I DON’T think I’ll enjoy that.

UPDATE:

This photo has been uploaded over at FailBlog.org.  If you like it, go vote on it.