I’ve Said Too Much

Robin Sloan nails some important truths about “new writing” by applying the logic of the Old Spice campaign which was everywhere this week:

Why Old Spice matters:

The Old Spice videos weren’t one-liners. They actually pretty quickly established running themes and in-jokes. Taken all together, they mapped out a coherent world—a very small, weird world, populated by one man and one towel, but still: a world.

Now imagine for a moment that this hadn’t been the brain-child of some smart ad guys. Imagine instead that it was the opus of some young Lucas.

Imagine that all the parameters were the same: One actor. One scene. Simple, rich cinematography. Live production stretched over a couple of days. Lots of audience interaction. But the story he’s telling—the world he’s creating—is much more interesting. Maybe the scene is the cockpit of a spaceship; maybe it’s a cramped room in an interstellar hotel.

What would the Old Spice campaign look like if it was directed by Joss Whedon?

(Via Snarkmarket.)

Still no luck in securing an agent for my book. Every now and again I get another rejection and the day is temporarily ruined. But then this:

I’m afraid I thought this one as dire as its title:

“In May of 1974, after reading through a pilot script written by John Cleese and his then-wife, Connie Booth, a clearly unimpressed ‘comedy script editor’ by the name of Ian Main sent the following memo to BBC Television‘s Head of Comedy and Light Entertainment. Luckily for the general population, and thanks in no small part to the persistence of Cleese and Booth, Main’s opinion was ultimately ignored by his superiors and a year later the script had evolved into a programme which to this day is considered one of the funniest ever to grace our screens. The show was Fawlty Towers.

Speaking in 2009, John Cleese said of this very memo, ‘It just shows you people have no idea what they are doing.’
(Via Letters of Note.)

From what I’ve heard of BBC script editors, this doesn’t surprise me.

An interesting little post on what happens when algorithm (aka, the crowd) takes over from an elite:

How to Have Culture in an Algorithmic Age — The Late Age of Print:

In the old cultural paradigm, you could question authorities about their reasons for selecting particular cultural artifacts as worthy, while dismissing or neglecting others.  Not so with algorithmic culture, which wraps abstraction inside of secrecy and sells it back to you as, “the people have spoken.”

 

During a question and answer session after his speech, Fry told the audience: “If I wanted to be angry … I would say infantilism’s the problem.

“The number of times I turn on the television and I think ‘Gosh, children’s television’s gone on, that’s a really good art documentary … Oh my God, it’s nine o’clock in the evening. This is for grown-ups’ It’s just shocking.

“The only drama the BBC will boast about are Merlin and Doctor Who, which are fine, but they’re children’s programmes. They’re not for adults.

“And they’re very good children’s programmes, don’t get me wrong, they’re wonderfully written … but they are not for adults.

Fry said he was not arguing that all television should be pompous, academic or intellectual.

“But they ought to surprise and to astonish and to make us feel perhaps the possibility there is a world outside that we know nothing of to provoke us, to provoke in the best sense of the word, sometimes in the worst sense,” he said.

via Stephen Fry: Doctor Who is a children’s programme | Media | The Guardian.

YouTube – David Simon rants about New York.

First off, the author creates a main character which is an empty shell. Her appearance isn't described in detail; that way, any female can slip into it and easily fantasize about being this person. I read 400 pages of that book and barely had any idea of what the main character looked like; as far as I was concerned she was a giant Lego brick. Appearance aside, her personality is portrayed as insecure, fumbling, and awkward – a combination anyone who ever went through puberty can relate to. By creating this “empty shell,” the character becomes less of a person and more of something a female reader can put on and wear. Because I forgot her name (I think it was Barbara or Brando or something like that), I'm going to refer to her as “Pants” from here on out.

via How Twilight Works – The Oatmeal.