It is November 2nd, officially one year ago today I made the deliberate decision that I was going to get myself back on TV again. It was a re-energizing of my commitment to what has always been my primary career and it lit a fire under my ass to take the steps that I really should have taken a while ago.
A lot has happened this year, which I talk about more in the video, but these are the two big points that I came away with after I thought about the past year:
I have not yet accomplished the goal.
I really want to be on a genre show.
Check out the video for all the details!
If you want to see ALL of the year you can find the videos and blog posts here:
It’s been a rough week post Memorial Day week so I’m glad to post something that can make people laugh. I’ve featured videos from Bad Lip Reading before – but it never hurts when you add Iron Man to the mix.
That’s a good question. Probably not, but there’s no evidence for it even though the math says that it’s possible. This is known as the Fermi Paradox and this week I’d like to share a great animated video from Kurz Gesagt – In a Nutshell.
So, what do you think? Will we ever make contact with intelligent life? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
A friend once said, “You know a good song when you can play it on an acoustic guitar around a bon fire and it still sounds good.” I subscribe to that idea and would expand it to say that a good song can survive new arrangements in new styles as well. The folks over at Post Modern Jukebox are regularly doing this with popular songs. I’m not the first to find PMJ (as the kids call them), they’ve been posting great versions of pop tunes for years and they appear regularly in pop culture and geek blogs. In fact they are going on tour! I’m not getting paid to bring that up, I just like in supporting cool creative things.
Back to the song…
Permission to Land was my favorite album of 2003… and 2004… and most of 2005 and ’06. It’s a solid, fun, driven rock album and was the perfect anthem for my late 20’s. “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” is a song I still love to listen too even though I’ve heard it thousands of times. The New Orleans version below gives it a different kind of energy that still fits the spirit of the song and it never hurts to have a strong female voice driving a song.
And here’s the original:
What are some of your favorite tunes? Pop some links in the comments.
A few months ago I shot an interview about my favorite horror movies and monsters that didn’t end up getting used anywhere. It’s just been taking up space in my editing computer and I came across it yesterday when I was working on a new project. Since Fun Size Horror Volume 1 is coming out on Friday I thought that this might be a good time to release it.
What is your favorite horror movie? Do you have a favorite monster? Tell me in the comments.
I talk a lot about the changing entertainment industry in this blog, mostly from the perspective of an actor, but the business of movie making itself is in constant flux. I rarely talk about the projects that we are working on until they feel like they are in a position where they look like they are definitely going to happen.
“But Curtis, ” I hear you saying, “you’ve talked about things that have totally gone belly up before. What about those?”
Well, dear readers, those projects that I’ve talked about that ended up not working were all victims of a dangerous calculus known as Independent Film Finance. Getting a film made is a metaphorical tightrope walk over a mile deep chasm filled with razor blades and sulphuric acid. At any moment a stiff breeze could come by and destroy you and everything you’ve worked on – but the promise of a completed project is enough to make you try and if you get to the other side…? Oh there is no sweeter feeling of satisfaction!
However the realities of film finance are not well known among the audience. If you knew what filmmakers know you’d be amazed that any movie ever got made ever and how terrible movies are getting made at all. In the interest of education I’d like to share with you a video made by indie filmmaker Adi Shankar, he’s the guy responsible for the gritty Power Rangers remake that hit all the blogs in late February/early March. He is also the guy behind DREDD which was a great adaptation of the popular comic hero judge Dredd. He breaks down, in a wonderfully efficient way, how independent films get made currently. It is beautifully succinct. Oh, and there’s adult language so be aware.
How do you feel about all this? What movies would you like to see happen? What movie would you erase from existence if you could?
It is the bane of the modern entertainment industry.
It has completely changed the paradigm of the music industry and altered the business of television and film distribution in ways that have yet to be realized.
For many consumers, media piracy is thought of as a new thing. Something that the industry has to cope with in a world full of modern marvels that allow for quick duplication and distribution. But that isn’t actually true. Piracy is something that is as old as the entertainment industry and CineFix has done a great job explaining it in their latest Film School’D video.
Another lesson from this video? Edison really was a prick. An industrious prick, but a prick.
How do you feel about piracy? what do you think the industry can do to combat it? Let me know in the comments.
I was cruising around Reddit the other day, just burning some screen time, when I stumbled on this little tidbit:
According to this post TBS airs reruns of Seinfeld faster than the shows were originally broadcast to gain extra ad-time to sell. This notion isn’t new, radio stations have been speeding up songs for years to help cut run times, but I haven’t ever heard of it for television. If it’s true (and in the link it does say that it was reported by CBS news on 2/20/2015) then I’m not surprised. The changing ecosystem for television has seen a drop in ad revenue as audiences have found new ways to consume the shows that they like. Since they can’t charge the same for the current air time they have it makes sense to try and create more of that air time.
The way networks used to do this is by cutting actual run time – the shows would actually have additional cuts made to remove a minute or so that could then be sold for commercials. This used to bother me a lot, especially when I was a kid. I’d specifically remember something in an episode and then in syndication it wouldn’t be there. When I finally did find out that the shows were getting trimmed it was relieving, but also still sucked because the shows was shorter.
An example of this is an episode of Diff’rent Strokes called “A Haunting We Will Go.” It was the Ghostbusters episode where Arnold and Sam think the house down the street is haunted. It looked like this:
At the end of the episode they find out that the ghost is fake and that the man who supposedly died in the house was an inventor who faked his death. More HERE including the whole episode. In the episode, when the ghostly things would begin, the doors to the parlor would slam shut. Once everything has been resolved at the end they all go for ice cream and walk out with the parlor doors doing one final “slam!” When I was a kid I was convinced that this meant that the house really was haunted and that the door was open for more spooky business. Problem was, when I watched the reruns that last slam was always cut out. I started to think that it was cut because it was too scary and then that I was imagining it completely. Many years later I got confirmation that I had remembered it correctly when I finally saw the complete episode again.
If TBS is only speeding up the episodes then it might not be that bad. You’ll see in the video below it’s hardly noticeable. But if they’re speeding up and trimming…? Well let’s hope there’s still enough episode to watch.
What do you think about this? Fair game in a declining market? Total greed from corporate overlords? Let me know in the comments.
Is TBS Speeding Up Seinfeld?
I was cruising around Reddit the other day, just burning some screen time, when I stumbled on this little tidbit:
According to this post TBS airs reruns of Seinfeld faster than the shows were originally broadcast to gain extra ad-time to sell. This notion isn’t new, radio stations have been speeding up songs for years to help cut run times, but I haven’t ever heard of it for television. If it’s true (and in the link it does say that it was reported by CBS news on 2/20/2015) then I’m not surprised. The changing ecosystem for television has seen a drop in ad revenue as audiences have found new ways to consume the shows that they like. Since they can’t charge the same for the current air time they have it makes sense to try and create more of that air time.
The way networks used to do this is by cutting actual run time – the shows would actually have additional cuts made to remove a minute or so that could then be sold for commercials. This used to bother me a lot, especially when I was a kid. I’d specifically remember something in an episode and then in syndication it wouldn’t be there. When I finally did find out that the shows were getting trimmed it was relieving, but also still sucked because the shows was shorter.
An example of this is an episode of Diff’rent Strokes called “A Haunting We Will Go.” It was the Ghostbusters episode where Arnold and Sam think the house down the street is haunted. It looked like this:
At the end of the episode they find out that the ghost is fake and that the man who supposedly died in the house was an inventor who faked his death. More HERE including the whole episode. In the episode, when the ghostly things would begin, the doors to the parlor would slam shut. Once everything has been resolved at the end they all go for ice cream and walk out with the parlor doors doing one final “slam!” When I was a kid I was convinced that this meant that the house really was haunted and that the door was open for more spooky business. Problem was, when I watched the reruns that last slam was always cut out. I started to think that it was cut because it was too scary and then that I was imagining it completely. Many years later I got confirmation that I had remembered it correctly when I finally saw the complete episode again.
If TBS is only speeding up the episodes then it might not be that bad. You’ll see in the video below it’s hardly noticeable. But if they’re speeding up and trimming…? Well let’s hope there’s still enough episode to watch.
What do you think about this? Fair game in a declining market? Total greed from corporate overlords? Let me know in the comments.
See you next time.
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March 2, 2015 · 8:00 am