The restless mind.

Hey, old media middlemen: No industry is safe. Kickstarter's coming for YOU.

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:06:00 -0500

The headline comes from Andy Baio in the comment thread from Yancy Strickler’s news that two Kickstarter projects hit $1m within 4 hours of each other.

There are crazy days and then there are days like yesterday. Kickstarter has experienced some frantic hours but nothing like what happened in the 24-hour span between Wednesday at 6:54pm and Thursday at 6:44pm. Two million-dollar projects, a major political speech involving Kickstarter, an amazing band launching a project for a comeback 20 years in the making… the list goes on.

The list does go on. And on. And somewhere on that long list, written between the lines, is the sentiment of Baio’s comment.

The internets have already robbed the media barons of their marketing and distribution monopolies. Finance was the last wall of defence, a moat of money that was too thick and deep to bridge. No longer. Kickstarter is Daniel Plainview—and he’s drinking his milkshake.

Be an enlightened despot.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:34:00 -0500

Terry Gilliam on filmmaking (aka “himself”):

Growing up is for losers.

Film school is for fools.

Auteurism is out.

Fil-teurism is in.

Put your ideas in a drawer. Take them out as needed.

All you’ve really got in life is story.

Command the audience with your lens.

Nothing can defeat a director who is one with his actors.

Surround yourself with improvisers.

Directing is not for the faint-of-heart. Or the sane.

Be an enlightened despot.

Bonus Lesson: Whatever you do, don’t work with the Weinsteins.

Via oberholtzer

Angels.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:14:00 -0500

Assistant #1: They might enjoy their lives more if they could, say, soundtrack it.
God: Soundtrack it?
Assistant #1: You know—have music accompany it.
God: That's what the angels are for. Do you know how much they cost?
Assistant #1: They can't hear the angels anymore. They use iPods.
God: So put the angels on their iPods. God, I'm so fucking tired of Jobs. What a prick.
Assistant #2: iPods are incompatible with angels.
Assistant #1: And they brick any iPhone. We tried.
[Long pause]
God: Fine. Give them Sigur Ros.
Assistant #1 & Assistant #2 nod, sharing a smile between them.

Say it with Chocolate.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:13:58 -0500

Say it with Chocolate.:

Katy Leen:

Over the holidays, a Montreal design studio called Dynamo decided to use their typographic skills to create unique gifts: a selection of chocolate bars inscribed with positive mantras for the new year. And they didn’t just use any kind of chocolate for their sweet sayings, they teamed with…

Spielberg, by Mark Seliger.

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:48:00 -0500

Spielberg, by Mark Seliger.

I understand that some copywriters have much greater facility.

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:19:00 -0500

Master ad man David Ogilvy explains his flabby copywriting skills in this letter to Mr. Ray Calt, noting:

At this point I can no longer postpone the actual copy. So I go home and sit down at my desk. I find myself entirely without ideas. I get bad-tempered. If my wife comes into the room I growl at her.

Ogivly would get along famously with Gene Fowler, who once quipped: Writing is easy. All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

My favorite line on writing came recently, though, from screenwriter Jesse Laske:

Only 10% of the writing process is actual writing. The other 90% is a subtle mix of procrastination and self-doubt.

Excuse me while I hunt for some more bon mots to avoid my current workload.

Code wins arguments.

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:41:51 -0500

From the letter accompanying Facebook’s filing, Zuckerberg writes:

Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works. There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: “Code wins arguments.”

Amen.

I loved Daytrippers, so I was eager to watch Greg...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:42:00 -0500

I loved Daytrippers, so I was eager to watch Greg Mottola’s Adventureland. Beautiful film. Good structure, great cast, fab soundtrack. But what blew me away was Anne McCabe’s cut of the film. It’s rhythm is so damn perfect and there isn’t a wasted frame. What a talent. IMDB’d her to find that she also cut Maria Full of Grace and You Can Count on Me, two other films I admire.

Love me now or forget me later.

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:15:00 -0500

Warner Brothers, struggling to hold onto diminishing DVD sales, has opted to cripple Netflix users who actually want to watch their films. Venturebeat reports:

Warner Brothers is now imposing additional stipulations for its DVD movie new releases. Starting Feb. 1, the company has decided to restrict Netflix users from adding any new DVD releases to their queue until 28 days after the DVD goes on sale in retail stores.

The delays and queue restrictions are part of an overall effort by Warner Brothers to boost its ailing DVD sales. The company thinks that by lengthening the time it takes for a movie to reach other platforms, it will increase demand for the DVD, and in turn make more money.

Flawless plan. Consumers have shown a strong willingness to care about release windows and follow the lead of studio marketers.

Not allowing Netflix users to conveniently wait out the delayed availability of new DVDs fits within Warner Brothers new strategy. The company clearly wants consumers to feel the inconvenience and discomfort of not being able to watch these newly released movies immediately because it makes the option of buying the DVD much more attractive.

Replace the word “strategy” with “jackassery” and this all makes much more sense.

It doesn't end well.

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:25:00 -0500

Amazon is now licensing their books to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for real-world penetration and to work around B&N’s “we won’t sell this unless you do that” stipulation.

Watching this ongoing relationship between New York and Seattle reminded me of the relationship between John Hurt (pictured, on table) and what is about to emerge from his sad, infested body.

A decade ago, publishers thought Amazon was a toy. Turns out toys grow into something not entirely playful.

THR: Allen had McAdams in mind for the role of Gil’s...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:23:27 -0500

THR:

Allen had McAdams in mind for the role of Gil’s demanding fiancee when writing the screenplay, selling her the part by telling her: “You don’t want to go your whole life playing these beautiful girls. You want to play some bitchy parts. It’s much more interesting for you.”

What actor in the last 20 years has needed to be “sold” to be in a Woody Allen film?

Empire.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:12:44 -0500

Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher dig into Apple’s supply chain:

Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

In China, it took 15 days.

Staggering.

“The single most important thing about Danah is that she’s the...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:18:00 -0500

“The single most important thing about Danah is that she’s the first anthropologist we’ve got who comes from the tribe she’s studying.”

-Clay Shirky in the Times on Danah Boyd.

Stop watching.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:10:00 -0500

Marco Arment thinks we can beat the MPAA by not watching their member’s films:

Even if we don’t watch their movies in a theater or buy their plastic discs of hostility, we’re still supporting them. If we watch their movies on Netflix or other flat-rate streaming or rental services, the service effectively pays them on our behalf next time they negotiate the rights or buy another disc. And if we pirate their movies, we’re contributing to the statistics that help them convince Congress that these destructive laws are necessary.

So maybe, instead of waiting for the MPAA’s next law and changing our Twitter avatars for a few days in protest, it would be more productive to significantly reduce or eliminate our support of the MPAA member companies.

In principle—great idea. In practice? Well, here’s a test. Lean over to your girlfriend or husband tonight and tell them to turn off 30 Rock. Or Harry Potter. Or the million other filmed stories they watch. When they ask why, tell them it will help avoid shutting down the internet.

How’d that work for you?

That’s the effectiveness of using consumer purchasing to stop the MPAA.

The alternatives? Campaign finance reform. Play the game. Collaboration.

Or, just kill them.

Drown the drowner.

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:16:00 -0500

Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline. But this is not an ordinary industry. The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise.

That’s Paul Graham’s call-to-arms on the day that SOPA was rubbed out.

When I was 14 I learned about being a life guard. I vividly recall the warning that drowners often drown the people who try to save them. They’re a mess of panic and adrenaline and will do anything to survive—even if that means killing those around them.

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka photographed by Matthew...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:53:10 -0500

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka photographed by Matthew Kristall for Out Magazine, January 18th, 2012

I’d also like to call him my husband. I’m not the biggest fan of the word “partner”: It either means that we run a business together or we’re cowboys. “Boyfriend” seems fleeting, like maybe we met two weeks ago. I’ve been saying “better half” for as long as I’ve been able to. I think it’s a little self-deprecating and clearly defines that we’re in a relationship, but it would be nice to say “my husband.”

Vanessa Paradis with her hubby. Have you seen her in...

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:30:18 -0500

Vanessa Paradis with her hubby. Have you seen her in Heartbreaker? She’s pitch-perect, as is the rest of the cast.

"We cannot expand our self, and our collective self, without making holes in our heart. We are..."

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:16:57 -0500

“We cannot expand our self, and our collective self, without making holes in our heart. We are stretching our boundaries, and stretching the small container that holds our identity. Of course there will be rips and tears. Late-nite informercials, and cavernous CES halls of unsellable gizmos, are hardly uplifting techniques, but the path to our enlargement is very prosaic, humdrum, and everyday. The only real progress that sticks is boring.”

- The Technium: Making Holes in Our Heart

I schlep, therefore I am.

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:37:00 -0500

Paul Graham of YCombinator writing about founders who don’t shrink from the tedious or unpleasant aspects of the business:

A company is defined by the schleps it will undertake. And schleps should be dealt with the same way you’d deal with a cold swimming pool: just jump in. Which is not to say you should seek out unpleasant work per se, but that you should never shrink from it if it’s on the path to something great.

This reminds me of one of the best comments Kaye said while we were thinking about a big/fat/scary part of the business. I fretted about not knowing how to do something, to which she replied:

Of course you do. You just jump in. You know how to do that.

Youth, stupidity, naiveté—these are important tools in a startup (and a marriage, for that matter.) You don’t shrink from things you don’t know about. You just deal with them as they occur.

This is why I love Steward Brand’s “stay hungry, stay foolish.” You fail when you think you know everything or won’t do anything.

"Charlie has taken ownership of the chocolate factory!"

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:03:31 -0500

“Charlie has taken ownership of the chocolate factory!”

- Tim Cook speaks! | brian s hall