film

Randomness for 2/4

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1) Detroit, a city in decay. Apparently, the crapsack future will be unevenly distributed. Great source material for art directors planning the next post-apocalyptic novel.

2) Planetary bodies, if they orbited the Earth at the distance of the moon. Video.

3) With these skills, this actor is sure to be a star.

4) Are you ready for marriage? Advice for young women, circa 1971, in comic form.

5) Predator’s teenage son. Video.

6) This is more like Call of Duty than Call of Duty is! Video. This made me laugh and feel pathetic at the same time.

7) Better Book Titles. via James Macdonald on Absolute Write

Randomness for 1/29

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1) Best Worst ad placement ever.

2) Marketing ebooks in brick-and-mortar stores. This is pretty damn cool. Too bad I don’t have any of this tech.

3) To respond to a previous Randomness: The United States of Awesome. Fucking Delaware.

4) Wall decorations that prove you’re a total grownup. “I simply haven’t met a boy yet who interests me! And until I do, I’d rather walk alone than date just anyone!”

5) “Hand monster!!!” Video.

6) Why I’ll never eat at a Chick-Fil-A.

7) Axe Cop… The Movie!

Five things make a post.

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First, early reaction to the sample of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark is pretty good. I have to write much more of it before submission (it’s about 30% finished) but early signs are positive.

Second, there’s a gorgeous sunrise outside my window, all blue and pink. The sun will be above the cloud level soon, turning the day into the usual dismal gray, but this was nice.

Third, I’m making good progress on the synopsis of The Twisted Path aka Twenty Palaces 4

Fourth, I’ve seen exactly two of the movies on the Oscar nomination list, and both of those are up for less showy awards. I’m not particularly embarrassed by this lack but it does mean that I’m unable to take part in the blog discussions of it. See also:

Fifth, I skipped last nights State of the Union address, so I can’t comment on it. See? No blog material.

Back to work.

Randomness for 1/25

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1) A dating service for people who like white hats with anchors.

2) A hotel that’s free to stay at… but it’s decorated with beach trash.

3) You should date an illiterate girl.

4) From boiling water to instant fog. Video. Now that’s cold.

5) Casting the 1940’s version of Harry Potter films. Too many of the biggest stars of the day, but fun to think about.

6) Phelps family protests the movie RED STATE. A counter-protest breaks out. Some NSFW text.

7) Five Angry Birds status updates.

“Quiet on the set!”

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While I work on the notes for book 4, my son has roped a handful of neighborhood kids to do voice over to his latest Lego animation. They’ve already had to rewrite because one of the “artists” didn’t know (and couldn’t say) the word “apocalypse” as in “zombie apocalypse.”

It’s hard to focus, what with all the cute.

Randomness for 1/20

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1) A Wrinkle in Time in 90 seconds. Video. So. Effing. Cute.

2) MEOW. Video. Zombies uber alles, yeah?

3) A jury of your peers, not a jury of your purrs. I deeply regret writing that previous sentence.

4) Before and after photos of the flooding in Australia. Mouse over the pics to change them.

5) Why I don’t pay much attention to reader reviews.

6) “Impossible” physics w/out special effects. Video. Trompe l’oeil made awesome.

7) Edgar Allen Pooh.

Let’s see if this works

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I’ve talked enough about my book trailer, haven’t I? You’re not sick of it yet?

Well, get this: the guys who are making my trailer now have their first documentary (which won Best Documentary at San Diego Comic Con when it played there) online for free. If this works correctly, you can see a preview below.

They’re damn good at this, and that’s why I’m really looking forward to the trailer.

Watch more free documentaries

Randomness for 1/15

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1) Why you shouldn’t text and walk. Video.

2) Five self-defense books for women who want to lose a fight. Comic Life put to good use, I say. via Martha Wells.

3) Casey Kasem might curse at me for following a funny bit with a sad one, but Reading as Comfort.

4) Perspective on the “Tiger Mother” book, via Douglas Triggs. It’s interesting to hear the way the WSJ edited Chua’s book to make it seem like she’d written a manual for creating “model minority” children. And by “interesting” I mean “fucked up.”

5) Nothing is Forgotten. A webcomic.

6) Pixar’s sculpture zoetrope. Wow. Video. via Tor.com

7) “But if you’re going to go there, you have to go there. If this feels safe, comfortable, or affirming, you’ve done something wrong.” Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Confederacy, but there’s a lot to think about for anyone who needs to do a little world-building.

Randomness for 1/13

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1) “That’s why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child.” Quality parenting advice from Amy Chua. More from NPR. And NMA TV in Taiwan offers one of their video parodies.

2) An alternate ending for RETURN OF THE JEDI: Video. At least we could have avoided the Ewok party at the end. via Tor.com

3) I’ve seen a couple of reviews that deserved this treatment. Video. via James Nicoll

4) Should you work for free? A flowchart.

5) The cost of torrented books, with numbers. The problem is, you can never get people to believe that what they’re doing is causing harm in a way that matters, because they refuse to see themselves as bad people. They just can’t imagine themselves that way.

6) Top ten fonts for book designers.

7) What is it about social media that makes people write these ridiculous articles?

Things you can do with a camera

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Also, do you recognize the name Bragi Schut? No? Well, he’s the screenwriter who wrote SEASON OF THE WITCH, the new Nic Cage movie currently getting 5% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Unfortunately for Mr. Schut, his name is on the movie, but much of what’s up there is someone else’s… stuff.

FYI: The spec script for SEASON OF THE WITCH won the 2003 Nicholl Fellowship, which is THE big wannabe screenwriter competition. The winner gets $30K to write a new script, plus a whole slew of Hollywood meetings. The problem is that once the script gets a lot of interest, it also gets a whole lot of people who want to change it, and those people aren’t going to defer to the original writer’s expertise. He’s just the dude that wrote it, after all.

Rumor is that this is pretty much what happened to DRAGONHEART. The writer teamed up with a director to put together a story idea. The writer wrote it. Producers loved it, some being reduced to tears when reading it.

Suddenly, it becomes this “big” project, much too big to be entrusted to the people who created it in the first place. The producer passes it off to a director who Doesn’t Get It, the whole thing is miscast, the dragon is introduced with a “Heeere’s Johnny!” bit of dialog, and they tried to make a pivotal scene “funny” by having starving villagers trip over a whole herd of pigs.

It’s one of the reasons I’m glad I write novels now. The people asking me to change this or that are good with story. From what I’ve heard, the whole third act of SEASON… is stuff the producers demanded.

Development kills.

There’s one more shooting day left for the Twenty Palaces book trailer. I’ll post pictures if I can.

Also, my son has gone back to his stop-motion animations. (Yay!)