I’m working on a longer piece regarding Star Trek in advance of its 51st anniversary on the air and the upcoming premiere of Star Trek: Discovery. And while I was writing, I came up with a phrase that I think is too good not to share. In fact, I would be so bold as to suggest it should be spread to hither and yon among all your geek colleagues. That phase is “Vulcan up” as…
This weekend, I will be doing my 19th or 20th short film competition. I’m not sure on the number. I’d like to say “everyone loses count after a dozen or so,” but it might also be because I’ve passed the big two-five (I say this purely to make 30-somethings uncomfortable). If you’re not aware of the 48 Hour Film Project or its sister competition, the Four Points Film Challenge (formerly the National Film Challenge), check out…
This is the 30th entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. A lot has happened in the months since my last Crisis post, so let’s focus on Discovery. Fine, Star Trek: Discovery. We now have: An official launch date A more substantial trailer Fans obsessing and nitpicking about said trailer Aja Romano has a nice summary on Vox of what we…
Not long after I shared an article about some of the latest innovations in self-driving cars, news broke that Volvo was planning to have all its cars be electric or, at least, hybrid by 2019. Well, Volvo isn’t the only one with grand plans for the automotive future. Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic goes over the plans of about a dozen car companies for the cars of the future. Though, spoiler alert: none of the car…
Continuing the last few Monday posts I’ve done about motivation, I figure it’s time to add in a link to something that serves as cold water in the face: a wakeup in both ways. Mark Evanier, whose series on rejection is one I’ve referenced, has a certain speech he’s delivered on occasions to fellow writers and creatives… and occasionally he’s needed to hear it himself. Maybe you need it because it’s Monday. Perhaps you’re just wondering…
One of the trends I casually, yet actively, watch is how “self-driving” automation is coming along. I’m sure many of us have followed Google’s efforts as well as Tesla. So I was shocked to read Alex Davies’ piece in Wired about the self-driving technology of Cadillac… which I suppose may mainly point to my pre-conceived notions of Cadillac. But I bet I’m not the only one.
Since I wanted to cover motivation for the next few Mondays, as I mentioned last week, I figured it was important to bring up procrastination. One of the most entertaining articles about the subject was written by Tim Urban on his longform blogging site, Wait, But Why. In fact, the procrastination article is actually several articles, but well worth delving into. Now, I enjoy Wait, But Why quite a bit, but what if some of…
As many of my fellow filmmakers know, I’m not overfond of most horror films (apologies to Lonnie and my other filmmaking colleagues who love ’em). At the same time, I do love “creature features.” This is probably due to two reasons. First, like many kids of my generation, I enjoyed the steady stream of good, bad, and less-than-spectacular kaiju films played endlessly on TV on Saturday afternoons. In our case, it was good ol’ WDCA, Channel 20…
Between yesterday and today, you could accurately deduce I have business plans on my mind. Today, I wanted to share another article I found on Entrepreneur. This one goes over six business plan mistakes to avoid. Many of them are ones fellow filmmakers and I have discussed (especially about #4 and money) and, hey, it may be useful to you.
The folks over at Entrepreneur created an article outlining the different types of audiences you may have for your business plan. I love this, because so many people like to harp on “your business plan” as if it’s this One Holy Thing your business needs — without defining it beyond the black box of the buzzword term “business plan.” (See also vision statement, mission statement, term du jour that boils down to knowing what you’re trying to…