April 23rd, 2012 | Filed under: Notes, Writing | Add a Comment »
Can I come clean on something? I unabashedly read over people’s shoulders on the Metro. If I am within five feet of you, and can see your screen or page, I’m not just glancing at the title, I’m waiting for you to turn the page so I can find out what happens next to Captain JimBob or Darcy or Slorgoth the Magnificent.
But I have a problem with Slorgoth the Magnificent, in particular. You can read whatever you want to read, I’m not judging … it’s just that, for me, the following selection from a made-up fantasy book is a huge bummer:
Slorgoth the Magnificent furrowed his brows. “You don’t think,” he said to Ral Vermal, “that Kravmir might attack by night?”
“Who can say?” Vermal replied, hancing his belmoth torpidly, “It is nigh upon Miktomberfast. The Kravmir have never reverenced the Dun Lord, since the Eve of Wilberburn. These borogroves might try anything.”
The Keep of Shu was quiet above them, but Slorgoth could not shift the weight of worry upon his halberd. “To unleash the War Bundt-Riderkin upon Miktomberfast. Such a thing was unthinkable at the time of my grandfather, Hadrid the Bunglemere.”
“These are the days we live in, Slor,” sighed Vermal, cinching the last crisscrossikins of his belmoth and making the Sigil of the Ancient Bun. “These are the days.”
AUGH.
AUGH AUGH.
I’m sorry. I love me some fantasy or science fiction as much as the next nerd, but have you seen this stuff? I snoop on people who are reading pages of prose like this frequently, and at a certain point, I just have to wonder … at what cost a “realistic” world?
I think a lot of fiction would be better if people stopped wondering about whether to date their events from the Year of the Great Crossing vs. the Annulment of the Great Friction and spent a little more time making people sound like people, instead of jargon-spouts.
(Okay, I’m through ranting for now.)
//EDIT: Kudos to @awtiren, who pointed out this diagram. Once again, XKCD hits the gravpalath on the widdenmark.
April 20th, 2012 | Filed under: Branding, Notes | Add a Comment »
In a world where everything is fast fast fast, expedited, deadlined, project-planned, and yesterday, there’s nothing fast about branding.
By its nature, it’s cumulative, communal, social, and imaginary, and can’t be turned around on any kind of executive timeframe.
If you think “branding” something is changing the logo, colors, and fonts, you’ve missed the point a little bit, I have some books I can recommend. A brand is the gradually-gathered impression that forms in the mind of an audience. It’s fickle, delicate, and powerful. It’s earned, not built.
And that takes time.
April 20th, 2012 | Filed under: Art Theory, Notes | 3 Comments »
Can’t stop thinking about…
- Immersive storytelling: Using new media to create rich narratives. See Alternate Reality Games, Role Playing Games, Choose-Your-Own-Adventures, video games, reality TV shows, etc.
- Mental real-estate: Taking personal ownership/possession of a piece of “mental space,” e.g., imagining at what location in a story you would choose to live or which ability you would have or to which relationship you would belong.
- The masking effect: Scott McCloud’s description of a relatable character that allows the reader to “enter” the world of the story.
There’s something alive at the intersection of narrative and gameplay.
March 28th, 2012 | Filed under: Art Theory, Notes | Add a Comment »
Splash News via Teen.com
Disclaimer: I’m not big on either vampires or death-matches, for personal reasons. I’m not judging you if you are, but this post isn’t the rantings of an encamped fanboy. I think that both mythologies are representative of the culture in which they gain popularity, and that’s what I’d like to spend a few minutes thinking about now.
Why are vampire stories a passing fad and post-apocalypses coming in strong? And what’s going to follow them? Keep reading to find out.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 25th, 2012 | Filed under: Branding, Film and Video, Notes | Add a Comment »
ScreenRant reports on “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” getting remade as “Ninja Turtles” because Michael Bay is afraid that “Teenage” or “Mutant” might be a turnoff to certain audiences.
I would make the connection between the fear-based re-titling that sunk John Carter, but I don’t have to — they do, in the article (2nd-to-last paragraph).
Seriously, people. Just man up and let the franchise be what it is. There’s a reason it had fans in the first place. The article nails it on the head here:
An obvious rebuttal to that idea is to point out that all of those preposterous elements working together in harmony is what ultimately endeared the TMNT series to so many people in the first place. Thus, throwing out a good chunk of the original franchise mythology will just ward off longtime fans, while not helping to convince newcomers to give this reboot a look.
I mean, if you’re trying to make the movie title cool, stop and look what you have left. “Ninja Turtles.” “Ninja …. tuuurtles.” Right there’s your problem. You’re trying to make a live-action movie about turtles cooler by taking away the teenage mutant part? Yeah, because ALIEN, NON-teenage turtles are gonna be way cooler.
Ahem.
I don’t mean to get carried away here, but I do think that the attempt to market to everyone winds up being a marketing effort to nobody.
March 22nd, 2012 | Filed under: Notes | 2 Comments »
Dear Science:
When starting a project, no matter how innocent, please stop & ask yourself, “Could this result in the destruction of humanity?”
If the answer is “Maybe,” please do not do that project.
See this article for reference: Meet Robojelly, the Hydrogen-Powered Jellyfish-Shaped Immortal Underwater Surveillance Robot
Sincerely,
David
(Kudos to the resourceful and entertaining Caitlin Fairchild for the find.)
March 21st, 2012 | Filed under: Branding, Notes | Add a Comment »
(Image borrowed from the WSJ article linked within this post.)
While I’m talking about expensive brand errors, Disney/Pixar’s Cars 2 doesn’t exactly fit the mold — yet. As the WSJ article reports, merchandise sales of the animated sequel were through the roof before the movie even opened, and I have no reason to even begin to suspect that sales failed when every adult in the world realized what a terrible movie it was.
Currently boasting a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, Cars 2 was almost universally panned by critics, called “Pixar’s first bad film” and “an out-and-out stinker.” It prompted comments that “It’s finally happened. Pixar’s mythical run of great films is over.” But it’s Catherine Bray at Film4 who hit the nail on the head, saying “Cars 2 won’t win any new converts, but will sell an awful lot of car toys.”
That sound you hear is a brand breaking.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 20th, 2012 | Filed under: Branding, Film and Video, Notes | Add a Comment »
CNN just reported on Disney’s bad egg, John Carter, which cost $300 million to make and has only returned a third of that to the studio, costing Disney $200 million. Andrew Stanton, the very talented director of not only John Carter but also Finding Nemo and Wall-E, has got to be feeling pretty low right now.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve been following the reviews and the ads with some interest — or rather, bemused disinterest. I feel like I should be interested; I’m a 20-somethings male who has in the past year paid to see more than one Marvel movie or space adventure. I like throwbacks, mashups, and classic literature, so why wouldn’t I be into a sci-fi movie based on a book by the author of Tarzan?
Bad branding, that’s why.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 20th, 2012 | Filed under: Notes | Add a Comment »
Hey, if you saw various tweets flashing in and out or have odd things popping up in your RSS reader, sorry about that! I was doing some maintenance here, moving my portfolio and sketchbook to be blog-native and changing the top navigation. (See up there? It’s shiny and re-organized!)
Anyway, hope you weren’t inconvenienced. Cheers!
March 16th, 2012 | Filed under: Notes, Sketchbook | 2 Comments »
Have you ever heard something a hundred times over and had it make no impact, only to wake up one morning and find it all suddenly makes sense?
That’s me and composition today. Inspired by the sketchbook of the previous post, I sat down to draw, and found myself using margins as advocated by Muller-Brockmann and basic “tension, rhythm, scale,” etc., as advocated by every art class I ever took, and I was able to draw doodles that blast past my prior work at the speed of light.
These little scribbles may not look earth-shattering to you, but I’ve really only had one stock drawing up my sleeve for years — a lone character isolated in a field of white. But by using basic shapes to block out a set space within the page, all of a sudden I’m drawing a courtly romance in a garden outside a pre-revolutionary French ball!
I’m drawing scenes. Therein lies the difference in composition.
