FUCK NO!

I took a full time job. It’s all comsuming. At the time it seemed like the right idea. At the very least I wouldn’t be suffering the freelancer’s curse (my last 5 tax filings resemble an vicious roller coaster that could be called “The Vominator”).

…

I still ponder that decision but you don’t want to hear me bitch. You want pretty web stuff so here’s an infographic that haunts me.

Created by: MastersDegree.net

Also, let me know if you find my will to live.

I’m trying to not let it frustrate me.

I’m trying.

F**k.

Heck, the only reason I’m doing this is so that I’ll have posted something in June.

Yeah, okay… gotta keep trying to kick.

• James Cameron has signed on for not one but two AVATAR sequels.
• Peter Jackson will direct the two HOBBIT prequels in New Zealand
• Chris Nolan is moving forward with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.
• Brad Bird is moving forward with MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL.
• Ridley Scott found an actress for his ALIEN prequel.

So all of these huge director are making sequels. What the F**K happened to any semblance of originality? Okay, I’ll give passes to Nolan because of INCEPTION, to Jackson because he has directed nothing but duds since THE LORD OF THE RINGS, to Ridley because no one saw GLADIATOR 4, I mean ROBIN HOOD, and to Brad Bird because it’s his first live-action film.

But Cameron? Dude! What possible reason could he have to make two more AVATAR movies? Is it because he didn’t win Best Picture? Does he need more money? Why not CLEOPATRA? Why not BATTLE ANGEL? Christ, I would have rather he hijacked SPIDER-MAN.

Sigh. Maybe I’m just jealous that I don’t have these high class problems.

Still, I make this promise to you: if I’m subtitling AVATAR 2: NOT WITHOUT MY IKRAN in 2014 then I will commit suicide live, on the internet… if we still have an internet in 2014.

(and yes, I’m in a bad mood)

I went off the rails… way off.

Goals went out the door.

Everything just crumbled.

I’ll try my damnedest to get back on top of things. This blog is one of the few daily activities that holds me accountable to myself. Actually, I think it’s the only life preserver I may have in this ocean of nothingness.

(WTF?!)

First priority: my film. My editor dropped out. He was just too busy so it’s back in my hands. I have just under 20 days until the Sundance deadline. I wish I could quit my jobs for a month, hole up in a room far away from the world and just edit but that ain’t gonna happen. It’s gonna be hours of editing after 10-14 hour days on jobs that grind away at my soul. Anyone got any good tips for staying awake and focused for 20 days straight? Or how about a quick and easy method for burning the world around me to the ground?

Jesus! That! That’s the kind of s**t that’s been swimming through my head. I blame Europe. Europe was awesome. Too awesome. I came back and saw my life for what it is.

Ack, there it is again!

Okay, enough. I’m gonna stop writing because I’m sounding like my 17 year-old self (he thought THE STRANGER was the first work that really spoke to him). Anyway, I gotta run to the post office while resisting the urge to go postal and then it’s off to work where I get to sit in a dark room resisting actual darkness.

…

Who am I?

(For Ted: at least I didn’t say that while staring at myself in the bathroom mirror.)

(For Everyone Else: If you’re ever watching a movie and someone says “who am I?” while staring at themselves in the bathroom mirror you know you’re watching a real piece of s**t. Also, apparently I still have a sense of humor. That’s something, right?)

1. I didn’t see THE LAST STATION but it has a shitload of quote-unquote big indie actors, a studio director slumming and zero box-office mojo so why wouldn’t FIND pick them up off the streets? It’s like their own… what’s that classic… about making that chic acceptable to society… oh, yeah, PRETTY WOMAN.
2. Didn’t see GOODBYE SOLO but I did see A SERIOUS MAN and I’m calling it backlash for the Coen Brothers’ new idea of what makes an ending. Seriously guys, why do you keep jerking us around? It ends just as a tornado touches down? You fucking bail just when something is about to happen? You could have put TWISTER to shame and it’s hard to top Jan DeBont but you chickened out. Get fucked!
3. Dude, it’s the indie world. They like stories about, you know, minorities, especially when they’re told by other minorities. As for that one that was just like the one from last year but was total bullshit, you know the one, by that guy that spends way too much on music videos, fuck, I mean, FIND needs some pretty people at their event and they don’t get prettier than the vapid looking magic-pixie-nutty girl or whatever the fuck that fucking new movie cliche is.
4. You’re gonna dog PARANORMAL ACTIVITY? That guy made billions of dollars by cutting together home videos of his annoying friends. That guy should be made CEO of GM.
5. Who?
6. They’re the kings of making fake indie movies that make real money. Hey, make those guys in charge of GM.
7. I once partied with that fucker. No, seriously, I did, and he thought I was a crazy fucker.
8. Man, one’s about tuna additive and the other, shit, who the fuck watches documentaries?
9. The world needs some fresh tail.
10. That lot, you know they loved getting slapped. That’s right, you’re a bad girl. You want another?

Jesus, that guys is an a**hole! Thank God he’s only a guest commentator on my blog… but for the record, one of those ten rebuttal points is true.

Welcome to Dark Tony and his NSFW review of the Monsters of Folk

First and foremost, although some of the music was super pansy, it was a pretty fucking awesome show. The band was tight and while it was often low and mellow, occasionally it rocked (thank Satan). Now, I should mention my predispositions. I hate Conor Oberst. I’d like to send his head through a plate glass window. I bet the fucker hates being compared to Bob Dylan but I bet he gets more pissed when someone doesn’t. Now, M. Ward (does it really stand for “Montgomery” as Jim James said? If so, and if you’re not the heir to that department store for old ladies, then your parents really fucking hated you). First, props to this fucker because he can fucking shred on his axe. Yeah, it’s all that acoustic bullshit but if he really applied himself and sacrificed a virgin to Odin he might actually have a chance at slaying the beast known as Malmsteen. That said, dude, could you be more creepy and disingenuous? You look like the kind of fucker that would try to roofie my girlfriend at a bar… if I had a girlfriend… HEY, FUCK YOU FUCKER! No, the only righteous dude was Jim James. Okay, this bullshit spelling of his name, using Ys instead of your real name, that’s just… geez, I live so close to West Hollywood and I’m not supposed to be using that word but… oh, I know, I’ll do what they do on those stupid bus ads. That’s so “dude that listens to Queen and got really excited when he heard about David Bowie pounding Mick Jagger’s fudge maker.” No, but, hey, that fucker can rock. Like, when he screamed out “yeah!” it was like calling to the hounds of hell to unleash their unholy metal upon the Greek Theater. Fuck, I can’t wait any longer for My Morning Jacket to tour. Put out a new album and tour you fuckers!

…And so ends the brief reign of Dark Tony. If you’re looking for a great concert, go! And like Dark Tony said, when the hell is My Morning Jacket touring next? What, you say you’re not familiar with MMJ? You can get all their stuff on eMusic. What the fuck are you waiting for?

Oops, sorry. Dark Tony slipped out. Must be because Halloween is so close.

Personally, while imbued with a healthy does of skepticism and prone to ranting, I’m looking for a glimmer of hope on the horizon. It is with those glasses and crash helmet that I begin this series I’m calling “Filmmakers are Dead” (we’ve talked about Dark Tony, right?). My goal is very selfish: I hope to better understand what’s going on and hopefully get your two-cents in the process. In order to give this series some structure, I’m gonna release one installment per basic reporter questions (i.e., who, what, when, where, why and how).

Welcome to the first installment:

Who?

As I’ve already mentioned, this is very much the old guard (mainstream media such as the studios, broadcasters and all those that profit from working with them under the current structure) versus forward thinking up-and-coming artists.

Allow me a tangent here (the first of many). Let’s breakdown these artists of the internet age into the major disciplines addressed by Scott in the interview above. We can safely say that the majority of internet artists are either musicians, animators or filmmakers. I’d like to permanently break filmmakers out from under this umbrella. Why?

1. Unlike musicians or animators, filmmakers can’t make movies by themselves in their bedrooms. Filmmakers need crews, locations and actors/subjects.
2. Films, on the whole, will always cost more than the output of musicians or animators. While Jill Sobule can hold a web-a-thon to raise $75,000 to comfortably record a very polished album, a filmmaker would need to raise anywhere from three to ten times that amount to create an equally commercially viable and polished film.
3. Independent feature films don’t lend themselves to the internet by simple virtue of their length. According to Scott, five minutes is the longest any internet video should run (after that, viewers bounce). And again, unlike the musician who can put their full length album up as individual MP3s, the feature filmmaker can’t really present their film as a chopped up series of shorts.

Let me tackle another tangent. The popular term for filmmakers of the internet age is content creator and personally, I hate that term. I know it’s meant to expand the understood scope of what filmmakers create (features, shorts, websites, web series,  games, ARGs, etc.) but it makes me sound like I’m some corporate shill pumping out widgets for customers. It strips the art out of what we do. Yes, I understand that one of the keys to survival under this is new model is identifying your audience and targeting them with laser like precision but that also means you need to brand and market yourself as a specific kind of content creator. You are the dude that makes motorcycle films, period. Me, I’m still exploring my artistic voice but I beleive all my works are steeped with the themes that drive me, Look at Scorsese. It doesn’t matter if he makes a period romance, a gangster flick, a horror thriller or even a music video, you can recognize his works by their themes and style. Me, I’m a filmmaker.

Now, let’s get back to the “them” that I simply described as the old guard. Yes, it’s easy to boo the major studios and broadcasters, their corporate parents and all their related media spawn but don’t we all want to play in their yard? I know we’re all in an economic crisis and I don’t know where they get the stones to say “instead of giving you a commercial with a six-figure budget we’re gonna demand a high quality product with a two week turn around but we’re only gonna give ya pizza money and we’re gonna call it a viral video, which we’re gonna post all over YouTube, Hulu, you name it, but we’re not sharing any of the profits. The exposure is your profit. BTW, since we’re the copyright holders we’re not gonna let you post it on your own website. Cool? My lawyers tell me it’s cool” but don’t we still do the job for the exposure and the pizza money? Hey, cold pizza will feed ya for most of the week. Plus, aren’t they scouting us, hazing us, testing us to see if we might be the right person to direct the webisodes based on their new Christian Slater series? I know it’s terribly unfair but…

Another tangent: I love how clients ask for viral videos. Um, you can’t make a viral video. You make a video, send it out into the world and it either becomes viral or it doesn’t. That’s for the internet to decide.

So now we have some idea of the players, their motivations and how they clash and commingle but let me leave you with this question: Unions and their members are always confronting major corporations (as they should) but how do they interface with new media? I’m not talking about television shows repurposed for the internet but rather original content. How do they (or any of us) make a living from new media, much less collect dues to pay for benefits? Before you answer so quickly, have you seen the budgets on new media programs? They’re all over the map: Joss Whedon‘s DOCTOR HORRIBLE cost in the low six figures, John August‘s THE REMNANTS cost over $25k and I know some folks that make internet shorts for less than $100 a pop. Want one union’s answer to new media? Check out SAG’s New Media Rate Sheet?

Next week: What?

After glancing yesterday’s news, it seems like I should expect a giant press event from the major broadcasters peddling any of their shows that might possibly have a geeky male audience.

Hey, hold on, I’m not trying to be snarky but why there hell will there be a GLEE press event? Do we have to provide our own cabbages?

(Dark Tony’s Conscience: That one goes out to my buddy, Mr. Big Hollywood Producer.)

(Tony’s Conscience: No, no, no! Don’t go negative. Stay positive. There’ll be a FRINGE event. Your TV crush Anna Torv might be there. Sure, you probably have a better chance of talking to her at the Sunset Coffee Bean but…)

Okay, anyone that’s gone before, what should I do? What should I expected? What kind of trouble can I get into and will she be wearing a Princess Lea bikini from RETURN OF THE JEDI?

BTW, 1) yes I am Dark Tony but I do have a sense of humor, 2) I would never condone any of the things the 8-bit Mr. Tyson expounds upon and 3) I am so envious and jealous of animators. I wish I could what they do. I also tend to fall for animator (yeah, Ellen, I still think of ya.)