Category Archives: Journal

This is me rambling about me, mostly. Current stuff: home, family, my head’s on fire… that kind of thing. This also includes everything imported from LiveJournal.

Essays, Journal, Reviews

The Daring, Marvelous, Marvel/Netflix Daredevil

I’ll keep this as spoiler-free as possible. The Daredevil series on Netflix is worth the investment in a Netflix membership. It’s richer and more powerful than any cinematic superhero story, and while it is dark, it is not the trendy kind of dark. It’s the kind of dark a good storyteller uses so that when we get light, the light is blinding and brilliant.

If you don’t mind spoilers, this discussion of Catholicism in Daredevil is worth reading. If you’ve already finished the series that article will deepen your understanding and appreciation of the series.

The story of Daredevil goes well beyond what’s actually in those 13 episodes, and I’m not talking about what’s coming next season. The very existence of that story, in that format, on Netflix, is the beginning of a much broader narrative about the future of entertainment.

I’ll stand by that statement.

Back in 2013 Kevin Spacey said similar things when he talked about how House of Cards couldn’t be the show they wanted it to be without Netflix freeing them from the “shoot a pilot episode” business model of the networks. Here he is, saying those things.

I got chills when I first watched the excerpted version of Spacey’s speech back in 2013 (full version is here.) I watched it again last night after finishing Daredevil and I am convinced that Kevin Spacey has correctly prognosticated the future of the entertainment industry. House of Cards (which I don’t much like, but that’s irrelevant) and Daredevil serve as proof that Netflix can provide a superior business model for episodic storytelling, and that by so doing they’ll give us better stories.

We talk about storytelling quite a bit over at Writing Excuses.  Brandon, Dan, Mary, and I have recorded well over fifty hours of discussion in bite-sized chunks, and one thing we keep coming back to is the power that can be wielded by storytellers who know what they’re doing, and who have the skills and the space in which to do it. Episodic television has gotten much better in the last twenty years, and it will get far, far better once it finally breaks the shackles of legacy network business practices.

That doesn’t mean that all the stories will be great ones. It means that the great ones are going to amaze us. I’m really looking forward to this.

Food, Journal

And Now, Cookies!

It’s like this: for the next 25 days I’m going to be burning through whatever social capital I’ve accumulated in order to drive eyeballs and open wallets at this thing. But I don’t want that to be all I talk about. You’ll get bored, and I’ll get stressed out, and then I’ll just get louder and oh! Look! COOKIES!

Puckerdoodles

Long-time reader, first time cookie-sender Blaine sent me this box of shortbread cookies topped with lemon rind, a recipe inspired by the “puckerdoodles” from Force Multiplication.

They were baked by Blaine’s partner Lysander of LDOriginals, and I must say he did a solid job with them. I should also confess to sharing them around generously. My family got one half of the batch, and I got the other.

Journal

The Planet Mercenary Kickstarter is Live

The Planet Mercenary Kickstarter is live!

PM-Kickstarter-HeaderGraphic3

Head over to the project page for the full story. Here’s a stripped down summary:

  • The project runs for 34 days, and will close at noon Mountain time on Monday, May 18th
  • $45,000 is the bare-bones funding goal
  • The $150,000 stretch goal is Karl Tagon’s personal, annotated hard-copy of The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. Oh yes…
  • You probably want the $75 pledge level. $45 will get you the book, but $75 automatically includes some goodies out in Stretch Goal country.

Thanks for your support, everyone. This has been a long time coming, and we’re looking forward to making something awesome.

Journal

Kickstarter Prep: It’s Time to Shoot a Video

Most successful projects have a video, and mine have been no exception to this rule. For me, however, unless a project is about making videos I have no desire to watch a video about the project. Words and pictures are plenty.PlanetMercenaryLogo-250px

This is one of those cases where I have to own up to the fact that I am not my customer. That’s why today Alan and I will be heading down to the Hypernode warehouse and shooting some videos, including a bunch of stuff the kids are calling “B-roll.”

The Planet Mercenary Kickstarter goes live just 72 hours from now, which probably doesn’t give Alan’s video team much time to edit, but even if they’re hurried I suspect that won’t be why I look awkward and uncomfortable on camera.