The Strikes Are Down

The writer's strike is over, as of yesterday. Though I haven't been able to ascertain the exact terms of the new contract, I think it's safe to say that AMPTP made a few concessions. Now I can rely on BSG not being delayed and the season completely finishing. Oh, and the Academy Awards will still go on too.

Scientology Rick Rolled by Anonymous

Check the below video at the 4:25 in the video. That's how you know the Internet is Real. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was a nice touch too.



Edit: In case of YouTube censorship, an alternative link is immediately available here. Thanks to a fellow digger pdoyley.

Edit: You can watch a face to face rick roll of a scientologist in Ottawa here on YouTube.

Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law Wii

The first game I rented from GameFly is the Harvey Birdman game available on a variety of systems. All and all, it's an interactive cartoon. Puzzle over the weird cases to the cartoon animation of the game. Be a lawyer and use common sense. Sometimes not completely intuitive in what you're supposed to do next, but you can stumble around until you find everything. Shallow, yes. Fun, yes. Buy, no.

Writer's Strike Over?

It appear that the Writer's Strike may be over soon. It's been agreed on by the union and it's up for a vote of the Writer's (on the 14th). More at the WGA Site.

Limiting Intellectual Property

DMCA, copyrights, the U.S. Patent Office, encryption - All of these are used to limit access to intellectual property. Rather it be movies, music, software code, they are all locked down. This leads to a clash in the people who consume, modify and recreate knowledge and those trying to gain an economic advantage from the work they've done.

In my opinion, we all are entering the Information Revolution. Just as in the Industrial Revolution, factory owners controlled the means of production and therefore the economy. Because of the issues that occurred, the government set up limits to what the company can do to the workers and what the workers must do for the company. But it wasn't that easy. Before unions were legalized, the U.S. government routinely sent in forces in favor of factory owners, and workers died.

I think that's to the point we're coming to today. The government is allowing the controllers of IP remain unfettered to punish it's consumers and the society we live in. Then the day will come when the people have a voice, and things will get better. You may not have your music for free, but it won't be outrageous and those who did the work will benefit from the reward. Not the person who signs the slip of paper behind the desk.

Giving GameFly A Shot

My roommate from last summer has offered me a free month subscription to the service. I am currently waiting for Harvey Birdman : Attorney At Law (Wii) and Armored Core 4 (XBox 360), which should be here in the next few days. GameFly seems like a decent way to get games that look fun enough to play, but not pay $60.00 to actually own the copy.

Val Kilmer > Will Arnett

I couldn't help but be filled with sadness when I found out two of my favorite actors were vying for the same position as KITT in the movie Knight Rider. Val Kilmer was chosen over Will Arnett for KITTs voice. Read a little more about that at Slash Film.

Careful Editing

Even though writing is a very important part of the movie making process, so is consistent editing. Today I deliver you inaccuracies in the Jurassic Park movie.



Bet you can't believe you didn't see them before. Shows you how well the movie grabs you.

Where In the World Is Osama Bin Laden?

After seeing the trailer for this documentary, I can only hope he is not faking any of this stuff. No. I hope he is. If he didn't fake it, he probably would be killed in a lot of the countries he went to. Not that I'm saying those countries are particularly savage, but heavily armed countries undergoing lots of conflict means there tend to be some civilians and tourists shot.

Anyway, check out the trailer:

Super Tuesday Is Done And I'm Tired

Super Tuesday, and conveniently enough Mardi Gras, has come to a close. As I write this, www.cnn.com hasn't shown all precincts in all states reporting in, but it appears that when the dust finally settles, McCain has a huge lead as the Republican nomination so far (having slightly less than half of the votes necessary). Clinton also appears to be widening the gap between herself and Obama. Though I hate to make a prediction this early, Obama is going to need a good late push to thrust himself past Clinton.

I've also sent in my application of intent to participate in ISU's ResHall Film Fest. Though I haven't done much work lately (I've been involved in quite a few personal projects), I'm going to be assigning roles and working out the logistics of getting the movie down on film, or whatever you want to call the DV tapes we'll be using.

If all goes as planned, I'll be able to get a hold of some HD camcorders the university has and make a decent film, while not hurting grades and getting plenty of sleep.

Speaking of sleep.

Academy Awards Predictions

After looking at the nomination list, this is what I foresee the Academy Awards turning out to be.

Actor In A Leading Role
George Clooney - Michael Clayton

Actor In A Supporting Role
Javier Bardem - No Country For Old Men

Actress In A Leading Role
Ellen Page - Juno

Actress In A Supporting Role
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

Animated Feature Film
Ratatouille

Art Direction
The Golden Compass

Cinematography
No Country For Old Men

Costume Design
Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Directing
No Country For Old Men

Documentary Feature
No End In Sight

Documentary Short
Freeheld

Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum

Foreign Language Film
Katyn

Makeup
Norbit

Music (Score)
The Kite Runner

Music (Song)
Enchanted

Best Picture
Michael Clayton

Short Film (Animated)
Peter & The Wolf

Short Film (Life Action)
Le Mozart Des Pickpockets

Sound Editing
Transformers

Sound Mixing
Transformers

Visual Effects
Transformers

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
No Country For Old Men

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Juno


Feel free to discuss the selections and perhaps your own choices in the comments.

Super Tuesday 2008

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday -- the big one. It's fairly safe to say after Tuesday, we'll have a good idea who the Democratic and Republican nominees will be...but probably not. Regardless, if you are of voting age and in a state where primaries are held tomorrow, please vote. If you're at a decent polling place, it will take a few minutes. Yes, one vote matters.

Saying one vote doesn't matter is like saying your voice doesn't matter. If that's how you feel, than don't complain. If they raise taxes, go to another war, do something you don't like, then shut up. You get the right to critique if you actually took part. The only other problem is what if you don't agree with the main candidates? Find a side party. You may think you're "throwing your vote away", but Ron Paul as a "Republican" got more electoral votes than the other lesser known Republican candidates. Even if he loses, politicians and the general public sees he at least has a following, which is all it takes.

WGA Strike to Last Much Longer

According to a statement found on the WGA website today:

This is Larry Gelbart. In all my decades as a member of the WGA I’ve learned a few lessons about strikes and negotiations, the most important being that it’s never over ’til it’s over, no matter how much the lady singer might weigh. As fellow and sister members of the Guild, you know how important the issues are for all of our futures, and for those to whom we will one day hand our pens. Over the coming days you will be getting calls asking you to join in to continue with the picketing. I ask you to set aside all the rumors, all the second-guessing, I ask you to set these aside and pick up a picket sign instead. I cannot stress how vital it is for all of us to show our commitment to our leadership during this current round of negotiations. Thank you.

This leads me to believe that talks aren't going as well as planned and/or the the producers think the writer's will eventually cave. Especially since the producers won't feel any big loss in shorter strikes.

I think the beginning is starting to set in, with the Oscars possibly being next to nonexistent and the toll is being taken on the spring lineup of television. With many Fall TV shows being prepared with spring and summer shooting, a strike into May will definitely hurt next year's lineup.

Movie's usually have long development times and an effect on the movie industry will be quite noticeable after a six-month plus long strike.

Super Bowl Showdown

Giants over Patriots, even though according to their records and the I Am Legend screenshot below, Patriots should win.

Pierre Henry's "Psychic Rock" -- Like Futurama Intro

I found this on Digg a long time ago. This video bears a remarkable resemblance to the Futurama Intro. Enjoy.

CeltX and a Couple of Good Quotes

I remember complaining about in an earlier post that I thought CeltX couldn't put subtext in the middle of character speech. I'm not sure if this was true of the version I had, but the newest version allows you to select text, left-click and give format options, such as parenthetical. You can then copy and paste the parenthetical correctly where you want to in the script. If there's a more intuitive way of doing it, let me know.


Pulled these from the Screenwriting WikiQuote page:

[Screenwriting] is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It's about as simple as that.
-James L. Brooks

So the writer is the only person who's taking absolutely nothing, and 120 pages of it, and dirtying it up in such a way that it's gonna gross hundreds of millions of dollars and make a lot of people happy.
- Paul Guay

Blogging Tools

Here's a list of the tool's I've been using so far for blogging. If you have any additional ideas or tools that you've used/seen used in blogs, let me know.

1. www.blogger.com
Obviously, I'm using this to host my blog.

2. analytics.google.com
Using this to track individual traffic data per day and seeing where people go on my site.

3. www.feedburner.com
To track RSS feed popularity.

4. www.technorati.com
To track overall relative blog popularity.