Your Things From The Pandora Machine

Tom Rowen needs a laptop for picture editing.
 
Dragon Girl: Steve Niles gave me a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite (or something like that.) It's great.

Fountain. It's a markup language for screenplays. No, actually it's much more interesting than that. All it is is a standard screenplay format that's easy to type in and that will import into other programs so it "looks" like a screenplay.
One big advantage is that it looks reasonable when you're typing in it. It's not like looking at raw HTML (which is just unreadable).
The other is that it's free, easy-to-use, and works with any word processor (by definition).
Right now the Pandora Machine standard is Celtx. And don't get me wrong, Celtx is cool. But Google Docs might be cooler.
+++++
Here are notes we got on the Dragon Girl script. I'd asked about the level of violence in the movie:

In all honesty, the bottom line is: just make the best possible movie that you can.

Keep in mind that kids movies set in a dystopian world really don't work that well - kids don't quite understand the difference. Not sure family movies work well in that context either. The best would be to set the story in a medieval time period...yes, I know it makes it a lot harder because you can't use brooklyn as a back drop. Maybe the girl and few knights go through a time portal into an alternate modern day in search of / or looking to stop the dragon(s).

For 14yrs old and up, as you know, they're all into the manga /world of warcraft/ call of duty-esque action/violence. To appeal to them, there has to be fun gore - like a dragon biting off heads.

Either way, you don't want to end up with a 'tweener'.

Yes, it's tough..of course if it was easy, then everyone would be doing it...

Latest versions

Yes. Instead of a whiteboard or some stickys attached to my monitor, I put my notes up on this blog. 
Trust me, it's as exciting to us as it is to you.


10013
350 Canal 
212.966.9573


PAL/NTSC DBC tapes for AI in the vault were received on 17 April 2012 -- 1101 is version "e".


0801 is version C


White glue


The smaller screws for the head need to be 1/2" longer (1" total).


You know what we need here in the Forbidden Palace? A ceiling fan. I love ceiling fans.

An interview with the costume designer of Game of Thrones.

Brain = off

I had a conversation with costume designer Melissa Schlachtmeyer the other day where she was saying that in a dramatic production you must determine the "world" first. And I was all like "You have to figure out the relationships first."

Winston doing what he does best.

And she was "I'm totally right about this."
So I realized that I was probably thinking about it upside-down and I did some more thinking.
+++++
My mistake was a common one. I was ignoring the part of production that was easy for me and focusing on the thing I had to work at. "World building" is a fairly base level thing for my little brain. It's sort of like a task that runs in the background.
++++
Of course the world comes first. And it's not built from the individual character outward. You have to know what the world is in order to (for instance) figure out what everyone is wearing. Sheesh! Why I so dumb?
Well... there's a reason I'm so dumb...
That old cliche of movie trailers where the guy intones "In a world where..." and then goes on to "One guy/girl/robot/well-meaning rabbit must..." you really have the most fundamental things about your story. You have to fill in the blanks. In a world where _________ one dude/princess/rat-of-NIMH must ________.
And although I know that, I don't actually pay attention to that in day-to-day life. I mostly pay attention to cats. Sometimes sparkly things. Sniff sniff... ooh! Is someone baking something? ;-)

More waking catzen!

Winston after temporary awakening.

What is up with that spot on Meydl's nose? It moves around, changes shape...

Meydl is obviously very disturbed about being woken up for pictures.

I Love Waking Cats

C'mon. You have to admit that waking up cats is seriously fun and entertaining.

Meydl scrunched up in the back of a chair. 

"Wake up! I want to take a picture of you!"

Meydl goes back to sleep immediately after this. Note sproingy feet. 

Staff Pick

Ian Hubert's Earthkiller is a Staff Pick over at BlendSwap.

Reading Share Thai

This is very important somehow. I'm not 100% sure of how yet. But it is. It's the algorithm for the Reddit ranking system.

I've been reading this book "Quarter Share" by Nathan Lowell. It has a shocking lack of dramatic tension in it, even though it's pretty compelling in the "ooh it would be so cool to be on a space-freighter"-way. Which it would be.
Buy Earthkiller in Thailand!

Blurrykatzen

Cats love my dad. They're also very blurry. You'll notice that the "no paws on the table" — rule isn't even a suggestion anymore. Any cat. Any table. Any paws. 

Winston

Winston is hard to photograph because he's so dark. I put a box over the flash to get this. He loves my red sweatshirt. 

Communications

Continuing my post-mortem on the shoot of The Prometheus Trap:
I'm very happy about having bought some six radios for this movie. Firstly, these kids nowadays with their cheap Family Band Radios have it good. These things are cheap. And they're rechargeable.

And they work. They probably have a practical range of a quarter a mile, which for us is all we need.
One thing I hate is having to yell all day long. And when you're in an echoic environment like a big warehouse it gives you a headache just to try to hear people.
But radios? With headsets?

That's paradise.
You don't have to yell. Everyone (who hasn't accidentally unplugged their headset) can hear. And talk.
Now, of course, this required the characters to be on radio. Which for most movies is absurd. But oh man it was nice.
Now, I'll admit that running multiple lines of audio into my brain is something I'm sort of trained to do.  I used to do audio for broadcast which involves listening to various competing conversations while mixing a show. I was not the best at it, I was at the bottom part of the top rung. Or, as I used to say, "Of the very best, I'm among the worst." Or, more accurately, "Of those who can do it, I'm the most expendable." None of the other (better) engineers ever contradicted me when I said that.
Anyway, where was I? Ah. Yes. Communication. So sweet.  O! That all the director's commands could be delivered like a whispered threat into each person's ear.
Now, we can certainly make it easier for me to hear everyone on set. Just throw a wireless lav on each actor and having someone mix to a Comtek that goes to me. As long as a big ol' limiter is on that feed to me I'd be fine.

Things for Me, Things for You

Nat Cassidy has a fundraiser for his Fringe show "Mixtape".
Have I explained that I need this T-shirt as well as this one?

 And the color is right for me too.

CLA FEH

Every few weeks now a company called Content Lizenz Agentur tells Google that they own the rights to one of my movies.

It Looks like they have a pretty good scam running. If I dispute they'll just tell Google they made an innocent little mistake. Clearly they don't bother doing any sort of check to see if they actually own any content they find on YouTube -- they just submit a claim to it and see if nobody will dispute it.

Things We Clearly Need

A crossbow "pistol" for sixteen bucks (including shipping)? Count me in.


 Twenty-sided dice in both red and green? You just know we'll need these.
 
And as you're well aware, the dragon holocaust is quite similar in size and scope to the coming zombie holocaust.
You may need to check the items on this list against your standard household zombie holocaust survival kit: Zombie Survival

Monsters for You

I post this video for my sister, just because it's right up her alley.


(Woodkid -- Run Boy Run)