New Yorker on Magic

Interesting piece in the New Yorker about Magic and Magicians.

Back in the Saddle Again

I'm about to do something very different, very dramatic. It's something so drastic that it has me lying awake at night in excitement.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be living in New York City.

I've accepted a position at the New York Film Academy, which, believe it or not, is actually headquartered in New York. They have programs all over the world, including one in Princeton, New Jersey which I attended a little over a decade ago. And now I'm back.

I look forward to it.

How Not to Conduct an Interview

From Jack.

Internet Rumors on the Daily Show

I love the Daily Show's commentary on the media, and this is definitely a good one. I'm tired of receiving the odd email forward, and hearing people taking such as actual fact. Few people question them.

The fact that such rumors end up on the news media really doesn't help.

Most of the work I do is for an educational institution (see Math2Success, and a lot of the time, even as an editor, I check the math. I'm not a math expert. I could easily just put pieces together based on what we're given, but no - I fix it in graphics. I make sure what we put out there is real math, and 2 + 2 doesn't add up to 5.



This being said, there are several internet rumors against McCain (my personal favorite being that one spread in 2000, about McCain's lack of environmental policy - no not the illegitimate black child - that rumor was just cheap).

Memes have a way of spreading influence:



Which is to call a spade a spade, really.

Gossip and rumor have been elevated to a new state with the internet, and it requires better discernment, and education in critical thinking.

Sending Doritos to space

Cut and posted from Warren Ellis's Livejournal on 6/13/08

Given the choice, how would you prefer to announce the presence of your species in local space? Imagine all the ways you could describe the emergence of a digital-age society on this planet. All the ways you could explain our species and our environment and biosphere, and explain that, no, we’re not perfect, we’re still fighting, we still haven’t resolved our relationship with nature, there are still hungry people and sick people. But we’re trying, and in some places we’re winning, and although we can’t reach you, we could really use a friend. All the ways in which you could hope to open up a conversation with the Other, wherever it may lie.

Or you could just send them a Doritos ad.

Because, yes, on the morning of June 12 2008, the EISCAT high-powered space transmitter station on Svalbard used its array of radars to beam a Doritos ad at a solar system 42 light years from here.

For six hours, the MPEG video file was repeatedly pulsed at system 47 UMa, in the Ursa Minor constellation, which was chosen because it seems to have a circumstellar habitable zone. 47 UMa does have two Jupiter-class planets outside the HZ, although one of them is so massive that it very probably does weird gravity things to the outside edge of the HZ. This means that, if there are Earth-like rocky planets inside the habitable zone that we just can’t see yet, there’s a fair chance they’ll be small, lumpy, thirsty and ugly. Like a man in a Foster’s commercial. Or, presumably, a Doritos one.

EISCAT, which has had funding problems, has received an undisclosed but presumably substantial donation from Doritos in return for the broadcast, which will help them meet their actual aims of performing radar astronomy experiments. The director of EISCAT is quoted as saying: ""Some years in the future, the money that comes from this kind of commercial service could be used to fund pure research."

This would seem to open the door to polluting local space with the grottiest capitalistic artifacts conceivable in return for being able to do a bit of science. That’s a pretty high cost — of a piece with the recurring nightmare in fiction of the Coca-Cola logo being permanently sprayed on the surface of the moon. Others will champion this as private enterprise giving science the boost it needs, which is usually where I’m told to wave my hands in glee that Richard Branson and his mates have created a zippy goshwow 21st Century space business on the same kind of suborbital lob Alan Shepherd managed in 1961 (and a fair distance short of the full orbital flight Yuri Gagarin made).

Fuck that. I don’t care. Attempting to announce our presence to any intelligence that can get in front of the signal by sending them something made by a company that sells crunchy shit in bags is not the way to the maturity of the species.

According to the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence’s Permanent Study Group, it’s been argued that "a civilization which hopes to detect radio evidence of other civilizations in the cosmos is obligated to reveal its own presence. Others maintain that it is suicidal to shout in the jungle." There is, therefore, a San Marino Scale measuring risk in these matters. You can play with an online calculator, if you know a few specifics, to work out whether or not a signal broadcast into space will in fact bring down the alien hordes ov chewy doooom. And if it does, you know damn well that their first words will be "Sponsored by Doritos?"

Amazingly (to me), it’s not the first time we’ve fired signals at 47 UMa. Notional lifeforms in-system will also one day be privy to The 1st Theremin Concern For Aliens. They’re due to get that in the summer of 2047. The funny thing about that, of course, is that the theremin was usually used to announce the presence of spooky space aliens in 1950s science fiction films…

We’re just asking for it, really.

Race and Representation on Film

Recently, Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood had a bit of a scuffle.

While I think this was mainly the press baiting controversy from two talented directors (yes, I do believe Spike's got talent, and I know many who disagree with me), it opened up an interesting bit of commentary on the nature of race in Hollywood. Is it "revisionist" now? Is it reverse racism?

Spike Lee's latest film, Miracle at St. Anna (that's the article where I got all the above links), follows an African-American soldier's story. Like most true stories, I'm fairly certain it takes liberties with history to make an interesting story, but it's based on something that may have happened.

Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima has no black extras or actors, despite some evidence that black soldiers were there. Unfortunately, due to the fact that camps were still largely segregated back then, it would be largely inaccurate to place some of these soldiers in the larger scenes. In fact, they would be relegated to background in combat sequences. These soldiers served heroically, and would deserve more recognition. To do so would shift the focus of the narrative to issues of race and segregation. It is, at its core, a story about soldiers and propaganda. White soldiers and there propaganda. Since Flags of Our Fathers is about the use of imagery in propaganda, the irony isn't lost.

Yes, Spike Lee has a point.

But so does Clint Eastwood.

In another example, Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor" follows a narrative about fictional white soldiers and a fictional white nurse in a fictional love triangle tied into the story of American involvement in World War II. Inserted into the narrative is the story of Doris Miller, the first African American to receive the Navy Cross. Despite a good performance by Cuba Gooding, Jr., this story seems inserted in, and not an organic part of the story that the film was trying to tell (talk about revisionist, the scene where Roosevelt stands to deliver his speech about going to war is atrociously revisionist - especially since American entry into World War II was reluctant, not proactive).

Countering this, in the world of this film there are apparently little, if any, Hawaiians on the island territory of Hawaii. The children looking up to the sky were white, blond, and blue eyed. As an Asian-American, a Pacific-Islander-American, I couldn't help but notice the lack of representation. As a lot was filmed in Hawaii, it wouldn't seem difficult to find the occasional Hawaiian extra to be in Hawaii.

A few years ago in my screenwriting class, I wrote a screenplay about Asian-American representation. My white teacher applauded me, and brought up how you'd never, say, see a Chinese gunslinger. One of my colleagues, a white student, said "Isn't that historically accurate, though?"

That comment specifically led me to research said history. Not through "revisionist" sources, but through news reports of the day.

The answer is yes, and no. There were no gunslingers in the traditional sense. The gunslinger is also a fabrication of propaganda. There are newspaper reports here and there about Chinese men having confrontations involving guns. In back issues of The San Jose Mercury News, dated around 1890, there was a huge search for a Chinese servant who murdered his boss. The Chinese Massacre, probably the first L.A. race riot, began, according to some reports, by two Chinese men pulling guns on each other, killing a white policeman in the crossfire.

Of course, because of this, I'm plotting out a Western at the moment involving the Chinese experience in Old West. There is no denying that they were there. The main character is fictional, doesn't know kung fu, and almost serves as Shaft in the slum of Chinatown. The story is actually set in San Jose, but plays around with geography of the Bay Area for narrative's sake. At least one event (the San Jose Chinatown Fire of 1875 - remains of which can be found at the University of Santa Clara museum) is actually true. It is, essentially, Gangs of New York set in the Bay Area.

Is it revisionist? Hell yes. Our main character serves as an amalgam of gunslingers, Chinese figures, and, well, Shaft. However, it pulls from many sources, including "The Barbary Coast" a blatantly racist tome about Chinese and Australian gangs in San Francisco, from Herbert Asbury (who also wrote Gangs of New York).

Am I Chinese? No, I'm Filipino-German-American. I have had a minority experience as well as a non-minority experience, and while I grew up in San Jose and the Bay Area, I never grew up in the Old West. I maintain that I need to be a certain race to tell a certain story oversimplifying.

My hope is that no one would read it as historical. It's a Western, after all, and it's rare to find one with any real accuracy beyond researching a dime novel.

Still, though, remember when I said that Spike had a point?

While it may be impossible for one person to understand another person's experience, I must maintain that the Minority Experience is universal. Take a look at My Big Fat Greek Wedding, especially in how it was marketed. It was my "Big Fat Italian...Danish...Jewish...Chinese... Greek Wedding". It reminded me of how tight-knit minority families react similarly in weddings, partly to preserve their culture, partly because they're close out of necessity. The premise of the marketing came from that particular surprise - that people from all minorities respond similarly enough to relate. The last time my cousin got married, and now that my sister is going through the same, I see elements of that film throughout this joining.

Ultimately, what must be done is true to story.

In most Hollywood films and TV shows, minority characters are rarely front and center, and most of the time part of an ensemble. In this case, they must stand in for whole peoples, and rarely can be seen as fleshed out characters.

"Ugly Betty" is an excellent exception to this. A family of hispanics are the main supporting cast. A work family of crazy, zany, white people and Vanessa Williams make up the rest of it. The appeal is universal. Two gay characters (well, one that may or may not be gay, but certainly shows the younger gay experience) also make up the cast - one as a sympathetic nephew, the other as a villain with some sympathy.

"Lost" is a more complex example. While one of my favorite shows, and one of the most diverse shows, it deals with race oddly. Michael Dawson returned, abandoning his son, and died. Harold Perrineau had a lot to say about that. And he does have a point. Out of the three major black characters (I use "black" opposed to African American since Mr. Eko is African, Michael is African-American, and Walt is African-American-Australian-American) in the cast - Mr. Eko, Michael, and Walt - we had a drug warlord, and now a murdering father who abandons his child, and a child who longs to know why. All black stereotypes. Two of the three of them are dead now. That being said, it was a more complex story - Michael didn't abandon Walt to begin with, her mother took Walt away and then Michael clinged to his son once he accepted the responsibility. Walt than took to his grandmothers after learning his father had killed two innocent people. Here we have two characters that didn't begin as stereotypes, but organically became them. None of these characters are two dimensional either, they are products of their environments, and one could understand them.

A new Korean-American character named Miles has just arrived on the island. He's actively defies a stereotype, playing an impolite, driven, con-artist and ghost-talker.

Both Korean National characters are played by Korean-Americans. They speak mainly in Korean, and use a dialog coach to get there accents right. One speaks in broken English as he learns. These are interesting characters in and of themselves, but, speaking as an Asian-American, I can't help but see a stereotype at work there. Still, Daniel Dae Kim became a sex symbol because of this show, the first Asian-American male to do so since Bruce Lee, and that makes me proud.

Then, there's my new favorite - Eric Foreman on House. Race rarely enters as an issue, and when it does it isn't contrived. Eric Foreman is simply a brilliant physician, and a punching bag for House (which could have racial implications but never does). He does get the brunt of racial teasing by House, but then again, House is an equal opportunity asshole - he drives everyone away from him. It's one of his quirks. New minority characters - a bisexual female and an Indian-American man (with the non Indian surname "Kutner") have joined the cast. They've received recognition of their minority makeup, as well as some playful teasing, but this seems to come out of themselves as well-rounded characters, not "token" minorities.

Wow, that's a lot.

These are examples that I just wish to put forth, look at, and analyze.

Was Spike right? Was Eastwood right?

Yes and no, and not entirely.

I realize that, like Lost, I've just raised more questions than I have answered. This is a complex issue that deserves complex discussion. I hope it can continue.

The Successful Writer

A biography of a successful writer by Ed Champion

read more | digg story

Ed Champion on Junkets

Ed Champion discusses being a junket journalist. Audio included.

Scott McCloud analyzed on iFanboy.

An excellent video summation of Scott McCloud and "Understanding Comics".

Understanding Comics is one of the most influential works on me creatively.

On "Jericho" The Next Great American Civil War

Since Jericho is cancelled yet again, I feel compelled to talk about this awesome show.

It isn't art, but it is. It isn't revolutionary, but it feels new. It's grounded in the Western and Conspiracy tradition, but its storytelling defies traditional genre. Some of the acting is sub-par, some of it hammed up (as the scene in the finale between Alicia Coppola and Brad Beyer demonstrated). Sometimes it was a soap opera, others it was an excellent adventure.

It was clumsy and dirty, yet oddly endearing.

And I loved it.

Please, watch the finale on CBS.com, watch the episodes available there.

A few throwaway lines told the audience what would have been that the next step for Jericho would be something huge, and that was always the promise of the show - that that huge moment is always around the corner. In this case, it didn't, but it was still a fun ride in anticipation. The Next Great American Civil War. The issue? In this case it isn't slavery vs. industrialization, but rather industrialization vs. freedom. For a show that took place in the Midwest, and appealed politically to both liberal and conservative, the politics was quite left wing (though a case could also be made for a libertarian anti-corporate stance as well).

Like every Conspiracy-based show, there's a challenge in the ultimate reveal and final action to conclude a series. "The X-Files" chose to just recap and show the conspiracy (revealing exactly how convoluted such a thing must become if a TV show goes on forever). "The Fugitive" also had the same problem, but chose to keep it a chase, and not deepen the mystery too much. "The Prisoner", possibly the best in this subgenre, simply didn't reveal anything up to the very end, and just kept the surreal, odd feel. They all have the same problem, that after several seasons, a continued conspiracy would become larger, more amorphous, and stranger and more convoluted as time goes on. "Lost" and "Heroes" have this problem coming up, which is why it's so exciting that "Lost" now has an end date.

But the Conspiracy is only one of the threads from which Jericho thrived. It faced a challenge in this last pod of episodes - only an 8 episode order to conclude something that would normally have been done in 44, or even perhaps decompressed to 110, a typical 5-season order. Likely, though, the American Civil War would have been that last season, filled with action, after the end of the Conspiracy reveal in season 4.

Nuts to that.

Jericho was about people, about family from the very start. Sometimes this led to soap opera moments (Erik's cheating on April with Mary, omg!), and sometimes it led to engaging drama (the relationship between Johnston and his son, Jake), but it was always about people, and how they'd react after this. After the September 11th attacks (I doubt that the repetition of "September attacks" on the show hid any allusion to this disaster), we got just a taste about how people would react to any great disaster. Anger, disillusionment, the need to unite, to unify, to come together as a coalition of the willing, to organize, to feel safe. To do anything to feel safe. And so Jericho imagined the attacks 23 cities stronger, and focused on a small, fictional midwestern town with its own class/political problems as a microcosm of the American populace. And as such, it was probably hard to watch.

Now I'm probably the very definition of an educated liberal elitist. I would talk about this show with my conservative christian co-worker in amazement. We both latched onto the same things, the same hopes, the same fears that this show echoed.

The promise of Jericho was this:

A small town would become an important history-making battleground after an inconceivable terror attacks. Much like Gettysburg, or battles like Custer's Last Stand, something IMPORTANT would happen here. The next great American story would start in Jericho, because the last great American story almost ended there (though no one knew about it - yet).

The Conspiracy in this case, was a financed rival Jennings & Rall employee pushed up the plans that the company prepared for anyway. The military industrial complex - represented by "Jennings and Rall" - made possible the unimaginable, and took full advantage of it - creating a fully financed, corporate-sponsored government - the ultimate fear of our private citizenry. It was, essentially, a hostile takeover of America that initiated too early.

The message of Jericho is ultimately anti-corporate and pro-brotherhood, local government, self-determination, all of that. It's pro-family (the Greens provide the majority of the drama), pro-small business (Dale Turner, a young stockboy takes over the local Market, hires his own bodyguards and men, and becomes one of the most important people in the town), pro Civil Liberties (the mayor runs to the new Capital of the U.S. and becomes an outspoken representative of personal freedom against security, including the 2nd Amendment).

There hasn't been a series that explored this issues as directly as "Jericho" in a long time, if there ever has. There were adventure stories (The Green boys go to a neighboring town for some medicine, only to find raiders in the way), relationship stories (Emily's missing husband makes his way to Jericho, just when romance sparks between Jake and her), political stories (Gray Anderson calls for a special election to oust the current mayor, Johnston Green, over some illegal refugees), etc.

I've rambled on enough. I'm continuously impressed by this series, and sad it's gone unless it becomes resurrected (yet again).

Watch and Enjoy.

It isn't great, but it's fun.

Viral Tangential Marketing?

Is this group of clowns part of Warner Brothers' marketing campaign for the Dark Knight, or just a group of fans expanding on the original meme?

1000s of things...

Let me introduce you to Holly and June of 1000s of things, two 20-something film graduates hanging about LA. They will post about art and things. Subscribe to the RSS and stay tuned.

Athenian congratulates me.

From Athenian Alumni News

Alumni News

Athenian alumnus John M. Osborne '97 recently became a finalist at the Slamdance 2007 Teleplay Contest with his teleplay entitled "Dr. von Kaiser." In the following press release, John receives wonderful feedback about his writing and the comedic animated series, which features fictional evil scientist Dr. von Kaiser and other fun, devious characters. Congratulations, John, on your continued success!

ANTIKAISER PRODUCTIONS CONGRATULATES SLAMDANCE TELEPLAY WINNERS
Pilot script for "Dr. von Kaiser" not selected as a winning teleplay, but honorably takes its place among the top twenty finalist entries.

SAN DIEGO — December 14, 2007: AntiKaiser Productions would like to congratulate the three top finalists in the Slamdance Teleplay Competition: "Fairy" by Anthony Roberts; "Stage Six Pandemic" by Barbara Marshall; and "The Union" by Matthew Patrick. This year, over 500 entries were submitted in the Slamdance Teleplay Competition. "Dr. von Kaiser" advanced to the finalist stage — amongst only 20 total scripts at this level — and is considered to be among the top four percent of this prestigious contest.

"Although we are disappointed to not have been selected as a winning teleplay script," said Aaron Matthew Kaiser, co-creator and producer of the property, "we understand that there was tremendous competition this year and we are honored to have made it as far as we did. This is still quite an achievement for an animated series."

"Drs. Von Kaiser, Nemesis, and Sapphire are the kind of devious, fun characters that I can't help but write," said writer John M. Osborne, who penned the teleplay from a story by Aaron Matthew Kaiser and Michael Callahan. "There's nothing they can do or have done to them that won't be hilarious."

As part of the competition, Slamdance judges provided script feedback in the form of coverage. AntiKaiser Productions would like to share the following excerpts:

• "The pilot story is thus a neat, rather charming and thoroughly simple and coherently told little tale just right for a half-hour episode. It is an especially good story in that it manages to introduce all the necessary principals, as well as involving them in a fully rounded story, all within format constraints ..."

• "Not uncommonly, spec television writers fail to tell a complete pilot story, try to introduce too many characters and end up with a pilot story both incomplete, too long and with much too slow a pace. The writer here is due much credit for very professionally avoiding these pitfalls."

• "The writer here presents a very neat and promising concept for a comedic science fiction fantasy that could prove appealing and marketable, not to mention highly 'brandable' and merchandisable. In effect, the series could become a franchise with copyrighted and trademarked characters and gizmos from the shows appearing as lunch boxes, action figures, puzzles and the like.

• "It's a very cute and imaginative piece. The writer has a great imagination and weaves an original world with wonderful characters, elements and details."

• "This presentation has a number of noteworthy strengths in terms of adherence to format, pilot plot and narrative structure, including good pacing."

While the fictional evil scientist himself, Dr. von Kaiser, could not be reached for comments, he has been heard screaming the word "Affenüsse!" from his castle laboratory.

AntiKaiser Productions is currently seeking private investments and/or distribution agreements for "Dr. von Kaiser" as it continues development and production on the animated series. Interested parties should contact series producer Aaron Matthew Kaiser at (619) 328-6758.

About AntiKaiser Productions: AntiKaiser Productions is an independent development company for film, television and new media. It has produced multiple award-winning projects since its inception in 1998. The company has corporate headquarters in San Diego, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.antikaiser.com

What I really wanna do - series mockup