Brian and I talk a great deal about Art and Aesthetics. Not just here but amongst ourselves. Through our exploration there of, I've stumbled upon a weird conclusion. Aesthetically, comedy is a strange thing. I feel like its separate from humor and in a lot of ways deserves more respect. Not just because the ability to genuinely make people feel better is immensely valuable, but because of the grace with which they circumvent a loathsome social convention. But I'll get to that, lets go over where comedy diverges from humor first.
Humor is great, I've no intention to down on it. Comedy is just an infinitely superior art. Humor, to my mind, tends to play to general irony and schadenfreude; attempting only to be amusing. Once again, no problem there. Sometimes all you really need is a good laugh. Hell, sometimes humor is funnier than comedy. But comedy is almost always more fulfilling in the end at the end of the set, even if you didn't laugh as hard. I think that's because proper comedy is earnest as fuck.
People tend to not phrase it that way but that is exactly what it is. Comedians take their own states; fears, hopes, joys, hatred, everything, and feed them to us in a way that is not only acceptable, its enjoyable. This started to twist in my head last night watching Q.I. One of the panelists (the incredible Sue Perkins) made a joke about her relationships unerringly observing the law of entropy. Now, I've intentionally relayed this joke in the most boring fucking way I could. Imagine how that kind of thing would sound divested of comic intent. That is essentially saying, "I'm terrified that, due to factors beyond my control, I'm doomed to perpetual loneliness as I repeatedly watch my relationships crumble to dust." That's dark as fuck. If someone you know came up to you and said that, even in the context of a conversation about relationships, chances are you'd awkwardly try to console them whilst frantically seeking ways to flee the scene. If a stranger did it you'd probably just get a panicked, bovine expression and walk away. But a comedian does it and we laugh, we empathize. It's fascinating to me.
The empathy bit is especially important to me because it turns comedy into, not just a shared experience, but a healing experience. Patton Oswalt talks about struggling with his depression and we don't feel so alone. Brian Posehn talks about fighting through insecurity and deep seeded social hangups and we better engage our own bullshit. Now, I understand not everyone interfaces with comedy this way, at least not consciously, but that's true of any art. Its not important to me who falls into what category so much as that its recognized that there's a difference.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Let's Do The Time Warp Again!
One of my favorite topics covered by science fiction is time travel. It's awesome. There are lots of cool ways that people can fuck with the time stream, and you get to explore how small changes in the past can affect the future. Exploring the idea of how time works is great. But with questions of time travel a problem arises for me that is troubling. Is it morally or ethically right to time travel?
I would argue that it is wrong to fuck with the time stream, though it depends on the situation. "What about going into the past and stopping Hitler?" I hear you say. Well sure, you could do that. But despite that being the stereotypical, some would say "correct", response to the question "what you would do if you got to time travel?" it also poses a few problems that make it totally not worth the risk. So you go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby. Great! You just prevented millions of deaths! You are a hero! That is, unless someone worse than Hitler rises to power in his place, then you may have caused more deaths and as such are now a monster yourself. What if you have grandparents that met due to the turbulence caused by the war? Wouldn't you have never been born? What if by preventing world war 2 you prevented, or at least delayed, certain inventions that became life saving? On that list some things that only got invented because we wanted to be better at killing people, and at the same time prevent our own people from dying. These may have come about eventually, but how many lives would be lost in the interim? What about paradoxes? If you solve a problem in the past what reason would you have had to go back and correct it? If you didn't go back and correct it how did it get corrected and so on. We don't know if/how these would affect the process of time travel, but they are potentially fucked up.
It is a classic trope that time travel has unintended consequences. If you believe in a time stream that is mutable, then going back in time can have massive effects on the future. Most people have heard of the butterfly effect (or saw the kind of crappy movie): that a small change, or set of small changes even, will compound into bigger changes down the line. Even if you don't change something when you go to the past your presence there is something that didn't happen. You displace air. You breath out bacteria that may be fatal to the environs. You shed genetic material in the form of skin and hair cells. We have no idea how this would mess with the future. The introduction of small changes into a system can gum up the whole works. And, If you believe in a timeline in which nothing can be changed, or at the very least that certain major events are predestined, going back in time changes nothing, so trying to change the past becomes a useless action. In your defense though, going back in time to observe in that type of timeline to observe events in history, that would be invaluable, but mostly due to the lack of world ending possibilities. The problem here, however would be finding a way to be certain that time really is an absolute. Which brings us back around to really bad idea territory.
As for the other direction, going to the future starts the same problem. By going into the future and grabbing information or tech and using that in the past, it may cause a paradox because depending on what it is/how you use it, you might prevent it from being made. Paradoxes aside you might just fuck up the general future anyway by causing turmoil now. Since we have a hard time dealing with super weapons now, imagine if someone went into the future and got an even more world ending device than a nuke? It would cause chaos. Not might, but would. Because people are ultimately fucked up and selfish and introducing a way to get badass super weapons means that everyone would try. "But what if you don't let people know you have a time machine and just used it yourself?" I imagine some might say. Do you really think that something like a time machine wouldn't get noticed? Between funding and governments/companies reading emails someone would notice something, it wouldn't stay a secret long enough to matter. Interestingly enough, if you believe that the time stream is a set structure then going into the future changes nothing and is therefore useless unfortunately. Unless you just want to know stuff for yourself and in no way can let other people see it.
"So if someone finds a way to time travel, they shouldn't, right?"
Damn you're talkative today! But anyway, here is where I will slightly contradict myself. If you have somehow found a way to time travel accidentally, you should totally do it. Not in an intentionally destructive way, but with the intent of answering questions. Progress is above ethics, at least to some degree. How else will we find the answers to questions like: how does time work? Sure it is dangerous, but take as many precautions as you can. Don't do big things like killing a dictator, experiment with minor things first, like guessing whether a coin flip will be heads or tails. See if it is actually totally random or if it would be the same every time. See if you can just make a window from which to observe the events of the past without messing with it. Imagine seeing if Christ was actually a magical god-baby sent to perform miracles via a deity that loves us, or what if he was just a variation on a mythological theme with really good PR? What if you could see the beginning of everything? Think of the questions you could answer!
Just remember there are consequences to your actions, even minor ones that you would need to be responsible for. So see if you think that the answers to questions are worth the risk. These answers would expand our understanding of the universe we live in and would be amazingly useful to the future. Unless you destroy the world. Then oops. But then hey, who is going to notice, amirite?
Friday, July 25, 2014
Late Night Science Fiction Double Feature Picture Show
I love Sci-Fi as a genre. It allows authors to come up with fantastical ideas about the universe and make their own decisions about how species (including humanity) will progress. Contrary to how most fantasy is written (most fantasy universes fall into the same Tolkien-esque universe set up) you will see far more creativity and diversity in universes. Sure, sometimes (I am looking right at you original Star Trek) you get the racist "all people of a race are exactly the same in terms of personality/outlook that plagues fantasy, but sometimes you get depictions of truly wonderful, expansive worlds (Now I am looking at you, Star Trek: The Next Generation).
I bring this up because I just saw this. Fuck yeah! Go evolution! How great is that? Microbes that eat straight up electrons! Sure they are microscopic, but it's a start. This isn't the only odd lifeform that interacts with the world differently than one would have expected. It's amazing! Therein lies the point I would like to make about movies and sci-fi in general (I know that a lot of non-mainstream science fiction actually goes into this stuff) that most pop culture seems to try to propagate.
Most of the people reading this will have seen Independence Day, Mars Attacks, or myriad other flicks about aliens deciding to take over our planet. This stems from our innate fear that since we in the western world have a tendency to oppress peoples with less technological advancement than ourselves, could have the same thing happen to us via a group of people/aliens with better technology. History is rife with examples of foreign species doing this: West v. Native Americans, West v. Indians, China v. other place China thought should be theirs, etc. So it is a clear possibility/certainty that it would happen to us. Horror movies tend to use this particular fear to poke at us in unsettling ways. They use fears that are in the recesses of the mind to illicit a response. In movies about aliens they always show up and fuck up the world with advanced tech, just like we did, but we always win in the end because plot. In any rational universe we would lose. There is no way that Jeff Goldblum, no matter how sexy a man he is, would be able to use a virus made using our tech to shut down the alien's computers and deliver it with a computer made on Earth. How would the computers even communicate? What if the aliens used mac computers instead of windows? We would be fucking toast. I get the whole "yay humanity binds together to overthrow oppressors" thing, after all it's an OK enough ending that makes people feel better than if we were all turned into stains on walls. But realistically when the aliens have giant, fuck off, city-destroying lasers and impenetrable shields, we lose. Anything that could travel that far would have the tech to drop us like a bad habit. That's why they are scary.
Here's the thing though, despite what certain people think, we don't know at all how interactions with alien life would go down. You see, one of the great things about science is that science tends to work within a paradigm, a set of rules based on experience and tested theories that create a set of rules by which we organize the known universe. Science is also great because it shifts these rules every time it comes up with evidence that calls them into question. This can happen by accident, or because people go out to push the boundaries. When scientists encounter something, they tend to compare it to already discovered things to try and make sense of it, and this makes perfect sense as a starting place. Scientists then move on from this position and test the subject on its own terms when they don't quite fit the paradigm. We haven't found alien life yet (and I do mean yet, we live in a big universe and we aren't special, just lucky) but when we do we have exactly 0 ideas as to what it will be like. Its totally unprecedented.
We expect to find life that falls within certain bounds because that is how it worked here, but what if life evolved in a way that is anathema to everything we know? If this life is sapient, what if they developed cultures that didn't seek to oppress others? What if they visit as anthropologists (or would it be xenologists)? By trying to make sense of something by comparing it to things you already know about you make some basic assumptions. I don't want to say that this way of doing things is bad, it isn't. Science gives us the best understanding of the world that is possible given the tools at hand, and using that understanding when looking at our own world has been helpful. Its just that when pop culture talks about a hypothetical alien species it comes from a very different location that we have no real information about, so trying to project a level of intention onto them is damaging. I am not saying that you should assume in the other direction, that all aliens would be hippies that want to spread love.
You need to interact with things on their own terms. Don't Judge Aliens by the ideas that are imparted by pop culture. When thinking about the possibility of life on other planets, it is easy to imagine something similar to us, but what if it isn't? Wouldn't that be amazing? We would get to interact with something that understands the universe with a very different understanding than ours, and through that, we might understand the universe in a more complete way! That's fucking awesome!
I bring this up because I just saw this. Fuck yeah! Go evolution! How great is that? Microbes that eat straight up electrons! Sure they are microscopic, but it's a start. This isn't the only odd lifeform that interacts with the world differently than one would have expected. It's amazing! Therein lies the point I would like to make about movies and sci-fi in general (I know that a lot of non-mainstream science fiction actually goes into this stuff) that most pop culture seems to try to propagate.
Most of the people reading this will have seen Independence Day, Mars Attacks, or myriad other flicks about aliens deciding to take over our planet. This stems from our innate fear that since we in the western world have a tendency to oppress peoples with less technological advancement than ourselves, could have the same thing happen to us via a group of people/aliens with better technology. History is rife with examples of foreign species doing this: West v. Native Americans, West v. Indians, China v. other place China thought should be theirs, etc. So it is a clear possibility/certainty that it would happen to us. Horror movies tend to use this particular fear to poke at us in unsettling ways. They use fears that are in the recesses of the mind to illicit a response. In movies about aliens they always show up and fuck up the world with advanced tech, just like we did, but we always win in the end because plot. In any rational universe we would lose. There is no way that Jeff Goldblum, no matter how sexy a man he is, would be able to use a virus made using our tech to shut down the alien's computers and deliver it with a computer made on Earth. How would the computers even communicate? What if the aliens used mac computers instead of windows? We would be fucking toast. I get the whole "yay humanity binds together to overthrow oppressors" thing, after all it's an OK enough ending that makes people feel better than if we were all turned into stains on walls. But realistically when the aliens have giant, fuck off, city-destroying lasers and impenetrable shields, we lose. Anything that could travel that far would have the tech to drop us like a bad habit. That's why they are scary.
Here's the thing though, despite what certain people think, we don't know at all how interactions with alien life would go down. You see, one of the great things about science is that science tends to work within a paradigm, a set of rules based on experience and tested theories that create a set of rules by which we organize the known universe. Science is also great because it shifts these rules every time it comes up with evidence that calls them into question. This can happen by accident, or because people go out to push the boundaries. When scientists encounter something, they tend to compare it to already discovered things to try and make sense of it, and this makes perfect sense as a starting place. Scientists then move on from this position and test the subject on its own terms when they don't quite fit the paradigm. We haven't found alien life yet (and I do mean yet, we live in a big universe and we aren't special, just lucky) but when we do we have exactly 0 ideas as to what it will be like. Its totally unprecedented.
We expect to find life that falls within certain bounds because that is how it worked here, but what if life evolved in a way that is anathema to everything we know? If this life is sapient, what if they developed cultures that didn't seek to oppress others? What if they visit as anthropologists (or would it be xenologists)? By trying to make sense of something by comparing it to things you already know about you make some basic assumptions. I don't want to say that this way of doing things is bad, it isn't. Science gives us the best understanding of the world that is possible given the tools at hand, and using that understanding when looking at our own world has been helpful. Its just that when pop culture talks about a hypothetical alien species it comes from a very different location that we have no real information about, so trying to project a level of intention onto them is damaging. I am not saying that you should assume in the other direction, that all aliens would be hippies that want to spread love.
You need to interact with things on their own terms. Don't Judge Aliens by the ideas that are imparted by pop culture. When thinking about the possibility of life on other planets, it is easy to imagine something similar to us, but what if it isn't? Wouldn't that be amazing? We would get to interact with something that understands the universe with a very different understanding than ours, and through that, we might understand the universe in a more complete way! That's fucking awesome!
Thursday, July 24, 2014
The Mostly Useless Adventures Of Cheritor and Activismo
So something that deserves a bit of notice in our charitable social justice, hipster activism world is the near inevitable failure of most causes. Its a bit of a do, but lets break it down.
The first problem that I always see with various people and their causes is fragmentation. There is no such thing as a monolithic group. People have different understandings of their needs, different perceptions of inequalities; hell, just different beliefs concerning what the problem in question is. No group is free from this factioning. Part of the issue is that people only generally associated with a group get dragged into the argument. Not all women are feminists. Not all homosexuals are activists. The overwhelming majority of people don't really give a fuck as long as they can get by. In fact, by involving people who aren't actively informed and passionate you tend to force fractures in the group. There are people who claim that a story about a woman passively acquiescing to a series of particularly charming rape episodes is empowering to their sexuality. That's a thing. Not even a terribly new thing.
The worst bit about that is the context of the argument tries to cite the BDSM community, which really just makes everyone involved in either female empowerment or BDSM look like an asshole. I've written on issues of mass association before but this kind is painfully insidious, not just because it breaks the focus of people legitimately engaged in a cause but because it provides idiot fodder for anyone in opposition. The case above being especially dangerous in that it provides an apparent referential justification for rape. "I was just trying to show her that she'd like it," is not only a fucking evil thing to say, people have gotten off on less.
In addition to the unfortunately fractious nature of groups there is the simple problem that a good deal of activism revolves around either standing around or throwing money. Lets cover the last one first. Let me be clear here. If anyone, ever, tells you that they are raising money to "raise awareness" about pretty much anything; they, or the someone further up the ladder is straight up lying to you. Raising awareness for anything other that an obscure, dick-stealing monster is basically only an attempt to raise funds and justify it with high minded social rhetoric. Everyone knows about cancer, getting me to pay you to tell people that cancer is a thing is less useful than if I just payed you to stare disconcertingly at strangers. The other side of this breakdown comes from the belief that protest is effective. Its not. Seriously, its fucking not, stop it.
Protest can only ever be effective if the people you protest to give a passionate slow-fuck what you think. And they don't, they never do. If they did you wouldn't have to protest, you could just send them a nice letter asking them to change their shit. The only reason the civil rights movement worked in America was that the government started to face the very real concern of a race war, not because a bunch of people were willing to constantly stand around turning the other cheek. Gandhi's hunger strikes were only effective because they brought to mind what happened last time India had told Britain to fuck off. Protest is only useful as a gauge for immanent violence, and even then it only does anything if the oppressing group has anything to fear from your violence.
In the end the real concern I have with activism and charity in general is that they seek to act as a masturbatory congratulation to their participants. Make a token gesture, feel good about yourself. You can work every fucking day at the soup kitchen, it isn't going to reduce the homeless population. Blog about the evils of rape culture till the sun burns out, it does nothing to ensure those pieces of shit go to jail. If there's something you feel needs done, do it. Help people who are already doing it, as directly as possible. Homelessness rends your heartstrings? Go become a councilor and help them kick their drug habit or treat their mental illness. Hell, help them get a job, and keep it. Rape culture gets your shit all stirred up? Go into law, make sure people who do go to court for rape see a real trial. Someone at your work doesn't make as much because of their gender? Take up a collection, make sure they get properly compensated. Fuck, stage a walkout.
Look, standing up and saying something is great... when the person you're talking to is willing to listen. If voices aren't being heard, do something. Doesn't have to be violent, doesn't have to be loud. It just has to be something that people care about enough to change. Because if you don't care enough to stick your neck out, you don't really care.
The first problem that I always see with various people and their causes is fragmentation. There is no such thing as a monolithic group. People have different understandings of their needs, different perceptions of inequalities; hell, just different beliefs concerning what the problem in question is. No group is free from this factioning. Part of the issue is that people only generally associated with a group get dragged into the argument. Not all women are feminists. Not all homosexuals are activists. The overwhelming majority of people don't really give a fuck as long as they can get by. In fact, by involving people who aren't actively informed and passionate you tend to force fractures in the group. There are people who claim that a story about a woman passively acquiescing to a series of particularly charming rape episodes is empowering to their sexuality. That's a thing. Not even a terribly new thing.
The worst bit about that is the context of the argument tries to cite the BDSM community, which really just makes everyone involved in either female empowerment or BDSM look like an asshole. I've written on issues of mass association before but this kind is painfully insidious, not just because it breaks the focus of people legitimately engaged in a cause but because it provides idiot fodder for anyone in opposition. The case above being especially dangerous in that it provides an apparent referential justification for rape. "I was just trying to show her that she'd like it," is not only a fucking evil thing to say, people have gotten off on less.
In addition to the unfortunately fractious nature of groups there is the simple problem that a good deal of activism revolves around either standing around or throwing money. Lets cover the last one first. Let me be clear here. If anyone, ever, tells you that they are raising money to "raise awareness" about pretty much anything; they, or the someone further up the ladder is straight up lying to you. Raising awareness for anything other that an obscure, dick-stealing monster is basically only an attempt to raise funds and justify it with high minded social rhetoric. Everyone knows about cancer, getting me to pay you to tell people that cancer is a thing is less useful than if I just payed you to stare disconcertingly at strangers. The other side of this breakdown comes from the belief that protest is effective. Its not. Seriously, its fucking not, stop it.
Protest can only ever be effective if the people you protest to give a passionate slow-fuck what you think. And they don't, they never do. If they did you wouldn't have to protest, you could just send them a nice letter asking them to change their shit. The only reason the civil rights movement worked in America was that the government started to face the very real concern of a race war, not because a bunch of people were willing to constantly stand around turning the other cheek. Gandhi's hunger strikes were only effective because they brought to mind what happened last time India had told Britain to fuck off. Protest is only useful as a gauge for immanent violence, and even then it only does anything if the oppressing group has anything to fear from your violence.
In the end the real concern I have with activism and charity in general is that they seek to act as a masturbatory congratulation to their participants. Make a token gesture, feel good about yourself. You can work every fucking day at the soup kitchen, it isn't going to reduce the homeless population. Blog about the evils of rape culture till the sun burns out, it does nothing to ensure those pieces of shit go to jail. If there's something you feel needs done, do it. Help people who are already doing it, as directly as possible. Homelessness rends your heartstrings? Go become a councilor and help them kick their drug habit or treat their mental illness. Hell, help them get a job, and keep it. Rape culture gets your shit all stirred up? Go into law, make sure people who do go to court for rape see a real trial. Someone at your work doesn't make as much because of their gender? Take up a collection, make sure they get properly compensated. Fuck, stage a walkout.
Look, standing up and saying something is great... when the person you're talking to is willing to listen. If voices aren't being heard, do something. Doesn't have to be violent, doesn't have to be loud. It just has to be something that people care about enough to change. Because if you don't care enough to stick your neck out, you don't really care.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
The Internet: Not just for Porn!
Something I have mentioned a lot on this blog is kickstarter and websites like it. With sites like these, as well as with sites like youtube and blogger you can post your creations online and get funding/exposure for free. I keep bringing these up because I love the idea behind them. Patton Oswalt (one of my favorite comedians and personal comedic hero) talked about this subject in his "Letters to the Industry" keynote address at the Montreal "Just For Laughs Comedy Conference" back in 2012.
"Because all of us comedians after watching Louis CK revolutionize sitcoms and comedy recordings and live tours. And listening to "WTF With Marc Maron" and "Comedy Bang! Bang!" and watching the growth of the UCB Theatre on two coasts and seeing careers being made on Twitter and Youtube.
Our careers don’t hinge on somebody in a plush office deciding to aim a little luck in our direction. There are no gates. They’re gone. "
If you don't know what he is referring to in that block quote about Louis CK, Marc Maron, or Comedy Bang! Bang! please look them up. Louie is one of the best TV shows on the air (most of which is on Netflix if you don't have cable and don't want to pirate) and Louis CK releasing a self funded comedy tour for free is one of the best things I have ever seen. He didn't need sponsors. He released it so that anyone could download it and watch, and it was funny as hell. And Marc Maron's Podcast is well worth the listen, His TV show Maron (also on Netflix) is also very good.
But I digress. What Mr. Oswalt was talking about is the crux of why I love websites like Youtube and Kickstrarter. You can produce without worrying about funding, getting producers to green light or studios fucking with your content. Don't like how video game companies treat their employees and have dangerous hiring practices? Fuck em. Produce your own game. If you have a good idea that other people will get behind it will hopefully get funded. Sometimes they don't, unfortunately, but try again! What is the worst that can happen? That is the greatest thing about websites like these: the internet is a huge place, and on it somewhere someone will want to support your project, you just need to be able to reach them.
Some people do take unacceptable advantage of this. And by people, I mostly mean assholes who try to scam people and major companies/celebrities who try to use crowd-funding to pay for product development to save money when they don't need to, so not really people I guess. The former are the sort of folk you will always find when people find a way to make money. They take advantage of a new system that hasn't developed a system for dealing with them yet, and until Kickstarter gets its shit together you have to take the word of the people on it. This is a hard thing to regulate since the funding is supposed to help something get produced, not be given after it is produced, which would guarantee people get what they pay for. All I can say to the wary is don't give them your life savings (most Kickstarter projects I have seen you can fund for like 5-10 dollars), and you will be less disappointed if they are liars.
The latter group are companies who miss the point and are just in it to make money. Things like Kickstarter are meant for people who don't have marketing departments and R&D divisions. People or small companies who don't have funding. Big companies have all of this, so what they are trying to do is save money by making their customers pay for the development costs of what they will produce. I get that Kickstarter is also a great way to get noticed, but at the same time it exists to help the little guy, so when Zach Braff can fund a movie and make all of the profit without sharing it with investors (like how movies are made now) he is abusing a system set up to help independents. Braff is a big enough name that he could have found some production company to fund his movie (also did Garden State really need a sequel?)
Go forth and support/get supported! post silly videos! Create! The internet is only getting better for those of us who seek to strike out on our own.
"Because all of us comedians after watching Louis CK revolutionize sitcoms and comedy recordings and live tours. And listening to "WTF With Marc Maron" and "Comedy Bang! Bang!" and watching the growth of the UCB Theatre on two coasts and seeing careers being made on Twitter and Youtube.
Our careers don’t hinge on somebody in a plush office deciding to aim a little luck in our direction. There are no gates. They’re gone. "
If you don't know what he is referring to in that block quote about Louis CK, Marc Maron, or Comedy Bang! Bang! please look them up. Louie is one of the best TV shows on the air (most of which is on Netflix if you don't have cable and don't want to pirate) and Louis CK releasing a self funded comedy tour for free is one of the best things I have ever seen. He didn't need sponsors. He released it so that anyone could download it and watch, and it was funny as hell. And Marc Maron's Podcast is well worth the listen, His TV show Maron (also on Netflix) is also very good.
But I digress. What Mr. Oswalt was talking about is the crux of why I love websites like Youtube and Kickstrarter. You can produce without worrying about funding, getting producers to green light or studios fucking with your content. Don't like how video game companies treat their employees and have dangerous hiring practices? Fuck em. Produce your own game. If you have a good idea that other people will get behind it will hopefully get funded. Sometimes they don't, unfortunately, but try again! What is the worst that can happen? That is the greatest thing about websites like these: the internet is a huge place, and on it somewhere someone will want to support your project, you just need to be able to reach them.
Some people do take unacceptable advantage of this. And by people, I mostly mean assholes who try to scam people and major companies/celebrities who try to use crowd-funding to pay for product development to save money when they don't need to, so not really people I guess. The former are the sort of folk you will always find when people find a way to make money. They take advantage of a new system that hasn't developed a system for dealing with them yet, and until Kickstarter gets its shit together you have to take the word of the people on it. This is a hard thing to regulate since the funding is supposed to help something get produced, not be given after it is produced, which would guarantee people get what they pay for. All I can say to the wary is don't give them your life savings (most Kickstarter projects I have seen you can fund for like 5-10 dollars), and you will be less disappointed if they are liars.
The latter group are companies who miss the point and are just in it to make money. Things like Kickstarter are meant for people who don't have marketing departments and R&D divisions. People or small companies who don't have funding. Big companies have all of this, so what they are trying to do is save money by making their customers pay for the development costs of what they will produce. I get that Kickstarter is also a great way to get noticed, but at the same time it exists to help the little guy, so when Zach Braff can fund a movie and make all of the profit without sharing it with investors (like how movies are made now) he is abusing a system set up to help independents. Braff is a big enough name that he could have found some production company to fund his movie (also did Garden State really need a sequel?)
Go forth and support/get supported! post silly videos! Create! The internet is only getting better for those of us who seek to strike out on our own.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
I Wanna Be the Very Best?
The idea of competition; socially, culturally, philosophically, has always been a bit of an issue for me. As a teenager competition was a constant factor in my life, as I'm sure it is for most teens. Encountering a rival is an emotionally complex event. Feelings of aggression, fear, insecurity, resentment and pleasure all come together to create a weird and kind of disturbing bond between you and your opponent. If you overcome them you feel amazing, victorious and justified in all actions taken in their defeat. Until you start to think about what that defeat meant.
That you have a rival at all is evidence of a perceived limitation in resources, in this instance meaning athletic, social or academic success. Really only one of these resources is genuinely finite and only because sports are by their very nature dichotomous. Social success is only limited by local personalities and their relative doucheosity, and academic success isn't even really a resource; it's a skill.
So you defeat your rival, embracing the perceived value you take from their defeat. Simultaneously depriving them of those same resources. But did you actually gain anything above bragging rights? Unless you went to the school that inspired Battle Royale probably not.
Therein lies the problem that I have with competition. In an environment where resources are in short supply and no one has the ability to really innovate, competition is a vital part of survival, but I certainly never lived there. I'd wager a good many of us didn't. Competition is bad for survival. If it wasn't evolution wouldn't work. It relies on one side losing, ideally in terminal fashion. There's no real reason for us to live in that world anymore though. There are enough people out there and enough valuable vocations that necessities and innovations can be pretty well taken care of without the backbiting and pettiness inherent in competitive endeavors. I know I sound like a fucking hippie here but think about it. Do we really need to compete in our day to day lives, or would cooperation be a better long term plan all around? I'm legitimately curious about how people feel on this one. Feel free to engage us on this one.
That you have a rival at all is evidence of a perceived limitation in resources, in this instance meaning athletic, social or academic success. Really only one of these resources is genuinely finite and only because sports are by their very nature dichotomous. Social success is only limited by local personalities and their relative doucheosity, and academic success isn't even really a resource; it's a skill.
So you defeat your rival, embracing the perceived value you take from their defeat. Simultaneously depriving them of those same resources. But did you actually gain anything above bragging rights? Unless you went to the school that inspired Battle Royale probably not.
Therein lies the problem that I have with competition. In an environment where resources are in short supply and no one has the ability to really innovate, competition is a vital part of survival, but I certainly never lived there. I'd wager a good many of us didn't. Competition is bad for survival. If it wasn't evolution wouldn't work. It relies on one side losing, ideally in terminal fashion. There's no real reason for us to live in that world anymore though. There are enough people out there and enough valuable vocations that necessities and innovations can be pretty well taken care of without the backbiting and pettiness inherent in competitive endeavors. I know I sound like a fucking hippie here but think about it. Do we really need to compete in our day to day lives, or would cooperation be a better long term plan all around? I'm legitimately curious about how people feel on this one. Feel free to engage us on this one.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
The End is Nigh!
All things come to an end. It is the way of the universe and is a necessary outcome from a system in which entropy is a thing. So why the hell don't most series; be they comic, manga, television, or movie, end? I know that most end up finishing at some point, typically only because they get canceled, but that material has often just gotten continually worse. Why let it get to that point? Why not tell your story and then end on a high note? I know the answer is ultimately fiscal in nature, but that is the problem. When writing a story (and ultimately reading/watching a story) it is nice to have closure. The catharsis I feel at the end of a series like Watchman or Cowboy Bebop is felt because the story ends. Sometimes we want more, but from my perspective that want is price enough to pay for a story well told.
Just in case it wasn't clear; I am a fan of artistic integrity over making money. If I want to produce something that people will enjoy, I would like to think that I would make sure the story gets told in the way that it was meant to. I understand the corporate perspective on this. It takes money to put together a movie/show/comic so having one that ends means that the dollar spent on it doesn't stretch as far as the dollar spent on a show like Law and Order which last for years and get a huge following. This is why shows like Law and Order get made. Shows that are episodic in nature that don't tell one long story, but instead give you story nuggets that are easily digestible, if not filling. They are easy to make (in comparison), they produce money, and fans get what they want: pulp fiction style mysteries.
This is less a problem with movies that are one shots. The movie tells a story and people enjoy it. But there is another type of problem that gets associated with this media. Sequels and/or remakes. I have written about this before, so you can read my rant there, but in short: this is companies trying to cash in on something they know works.
When movies get superfluous sequels that ad nothing to the plot, when TV shows last far longer then they need too, and when comics last for three quarters of a century they lose something. Characters become meaningless, or at the very least just lose impact. Batman locks up villains all the time, sure, but he has been doing it for 50 years and the same bad guys are still doing the same crimes. I love Batman, but clearly he is not doing anything to help the situation is it has not been resolved in that amount of time. I hate to see movies/television shows/comics that I have invested myself in turn into trash because someone wants to make money. It is disrespectful to the fans and the creators.
While writing this I struggled, and even turned to Eshi to try to find a western TV show or movie series that ended on purpose/with purpose, and not because it got canceled. I can't, and he couldn't. Please leave a comment about series you can think of, because we are at a loss.
Just in case it wasn't clear; I am a fan of artistic integrity over making money. If I want to produce something that people will enjoy, I would like to think that I would make sure the story gets told in the way that it was meant to. I understand the corporate perspective on this. It takes money to put together a movie/show/comic so having one that ends means that the dollar spent on it doesn't stretch as far as the dollar spent on a show like Law and Order which last for years and get a huge following. This is why shows like Law and Order get made. Shows that are episodic in nature that don't tell one long story, but instead give you story nuggets that are easily digestible, if not filling. They are easy to make (in comparison), they produce money, and fans get what they want: pulp fiction style mysteries.
This is less a problem with movies that are one shots. The movie tells a story and people enjoy it. But there is another type of problem that gets associated with this media. Sequels and/or remakes. I have written about this before, so you can read my rant there, but in short: this is companies trying to cash in on something they know works.
When movies get superfluous sequels that ad nothing to the plot, when TV shows last far longer then they need too, and when comics last for three quarters of a century they lose something. Characters become meaningless, or at the very least just lose impact. Batman locks up villains all the time, sure, but he has been doing it for 50 years and the same bad guys are still doing the same crimes. I love Batman, but clearly he is not doing anything to help the situation is it has not been resolved in that amount of time. I hate to see movies/television shows/comics that I have invested myself in turn into trash because someone wants to make money. It is disrespectful to the fans and the creators.
While writing this I struggled, and even turned to Eshi to try to find a western TV show or movie series that ended on purpose/with purpose, and not because it got canceled. I can't, and he couldn't. Please leave a comment about series you can think of, because we are at a loss.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Not a Fan....
I've talked about movies and the like a lot on this blog because I love movies (which I am sure you've picked up on). I love media in general; movies, TV, music, art, and such. These are great distractions from the monotony/crippling-existential-crisis-inducing-facts of existence. There is one one thing these all have in common though, that I have a love/loathe relationship with, and that is the fans. Now, this can be extended into most anything (fans of sports, movie franchises, political factions, religions): there are people who take this all too seriously. These fans take the source material as sacred in a fundamentalist sense of the word. It is infallible and if you don't agree you are not only wrong, but a lesser person for it. These guys are the types to rattle off facts to feel superior to other people who call themselves fans. These people are assholes.
I hate these fans with a passion, because they miss the point. Instead of enjoying the community of people they seek to make it exclusionary. The reason stuff like star wars is good is not because of the movies. A New Hope was ok, Empire is damn near perfect, and Return of The Jedi was a sad joke written by the marketing department. The prequel trilogy was bad, not because of what it did to canon, but because the movies were bad from a film making perspective. Star Wars did more than show us a story, it opened up a universe to people to get together and explore. Creativity blooms when people become inspired, and these movies inspired millions. For those of you who've been hiding in bomb shelters since the 70's, there is something in the Star Wars fandom known as the expanded universe and it exemplifies what I love about fans. A bunch of people came together and started writing fiction in the universe. They added characters, expanded on somewhat background characters (Wedge Antilles), and made themselves part of cannon. Lucasfilms legitimized (and marketed) a lot of this, and fans became a major part of the process and got together to create as a group. Unfortunately, Disney is disregarding most of this for the upcoming films, and putting restrictions on what is counted as expanded universe, (now known as Star Wars Legends) which is a disservice to those who worked hard on it.
These fans sought to create and inspire with a universe that they loved. Sure you've still got people who take this stuff too seriously, but I have a solution for that. If there is anyone who decides that they need to only respect "real fans" ignore them. Much like how you should deal with fanatics, the only way to win is to not acknowledge them. Fandoms are an interesting form of community that a lot of people take joy from, so fuck people who want to keep people from that.
While writing about this something stuck in my mind and I think it deserves comment. Disney and George Lucas make tons of money from the expanded universe. More effort was put into all the comics, books, and toys then was put into the movies. George Lucas has said in the past that his movies have his name on it and that they should be the way he wants them (paraphrasing). At the same time he makes boatloads of cash off of the expanded universe. I am sure that the creators of the expanded universe get paid too, but I think that they deserve more respect. They help him build up an empire, and all of their creative efforts are thrown out. This is wrong. As Eshi said in his last post: Fuck George Lucas. I am not a fan boy, I don't care about the shit he did to his movies, I care that he legitimized fan's work, profited off of it, then claimed artistic authority and turned his back on those fans.
I hate these fans with a passion, because they miss the point. Instead of enjoying the community of people they seek to make it exclusionary. The reason stuff like star wars is good is not because of the movies. A New Hope was ok, Empire is damn near perfect, and Return of The Jedi was a sad joke written by the marketing department. The prequel trilogy was bad, not because of what it did to canon, but because the movies were bad from a film making perspective. Star Wars did more than show us a story, it opened up a universe to people to get together and explore. Creativity blooms when people become inspired, and these movies inspired millions. For those of you who've been hiding in bomb shelters since the 70's, there is something in the Star Wars fandom known as the expanded universe and it exemplifies what I love about fans. A bunch of people came together and started writing fiction in the universe. They added characters, expanded on somewhat background characters (Wedge Antilles), and made themselves part of cannon. Lucasfilms legitimized (and marketed) a lot of this, and fans became a major part of the process and got together to create as a group. Unfortunately, Disney is disregarding most of this for the upcoming films, and putting restrictions on what is counted as expanded universe, (now known as Star Wars Legends) which is a disservice to those who worked hard on it.
These fans sought to create and inspire with a universe that they loved. Sure you've still got people who take this stuff too seriously, but I have a solution for that. If there is anyone who decides that they need to only respect "real fans" ignore them. Much like how you should deal with fanatics, the only way to win is to not acknowledge them. Fandoms are an interesting form of community that a lot of people take joy from, so fuck people who want to keep people from that.
While writing about this something stuck in my mind and I think it deserves comment. Disney and George Lucas make tons of money from the expanded universe. More effort was put into all the comics, books, and toys then was put into the movies. George Lucas has said in the past that his movies have his name on it and that they should be the way he wants them (paraphrasing). At the same time he makes boatloads of cash off of the expanded universe. I am sure that the creators of the expanded universe get paid too, but I think that they deserve more respect. They help him build up an empire, and all of their creative efforts are thrown out. This is wrong. As Eshi said in his last post: Fuck George Lucas. I am not a fan boy, I don't care about the shit he did to his movies, I care that he legitimized fan's work, profited off of it, then claimed artistic authority and turned his back on those fans.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal
I fucking loathe J.J. Abrams. Fucking. Hate. Him. Him and Joss fucking Whedon. I understand that they are bad ass, blockbuster directors or whatever, but fuck those guys. Now, before the nerdrage takes me, I've got to justify. I love, at least bits and pieces of, everything these guys have done. the first two seasons of Lost were wonderfully tense. Fringe was the first serious attempt at hard, contemporary science fiction on t.v. in years. Firefly... it breaks my heart how much I love firefly. I even got some kicks out of Buffy and Angel. That's why I hate them.
See, a shit director like goddamn Michael Bay I can forgive. He's just an idiot who gets paid to make boom-boom in the movin pit-chers so a wounded industry can squeeze a few more bucks out of our baser needs. Everyone has something simple they like, for many of us that thing is explosions, no shame there and it keeps Mr. Bay working on something more socially gratifying than fingerpaints. Narcissistic sociopaths like James Cameron, I can mostly forgive. I can't imagine he knows how terrible he is, but I have to at least give him a little credit for pulling in 2.7 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS on Pocahontas in space. Hell, I can even kind of forgive George Lucas for accidentally creating, and then shitting all through, one of the richest and most engaging universes in modern fiction.
The bit that makes Abrams and Whedon different is that they ought to know better. Pretty much everything either of them has done has smacked on some level of visionary brilliance. Fuck, Buffy was a serial remake of a fun but terrible movie that by all rights should have died in the cradle. Whedon made it work, turned it into a long standing cult classic. Even managed to pull a mostly watchable spin-off out of it. Abrams took a story about a plane crashing and managed to make it into a quasi-spiritual dissection of the whole spectrum of human behavior, it got all fucked up, but the potential was certainly there.
Abrams and Whedon fall into what I like to call the "visionary but" category. I have never heard someone say, "Oh, I loved Serenity" and not follow it up with, "but man the way they killed Wash...". That is their problem fully encompassed. They both have wonderful ideas and direction, but they fall flat at some vital, unforgivable point. Abrams its lens flares and mystery boxes, Whedon its trying too hard to elicit a response.
Seriously though, fuck George Lucas.
See, a shit director like goddamn Michael Bay I can forgive. He's just an idiot who gets paid to make boom-boom in the movin pit-chers so a wounded industry can squeeze a few more bucks out of our baser needs. Everyone has something simple they like, for many of us that thing is explosions, no shame there and it keeps Mr. Bay working on something more socially gratifying than fingerpaints. Narcissistic sociopaths like James Cameron, I can mostly forgive. I can't imagine he knows how terrible he is, but I have to at least give him a little credit for pulling in 2.7 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS on Pocahontas in space. Hell, I can even kind of forgive George Lucas for accidentally creating, and then shitting all through, one of the richest and most engaging universes in modern fiction.
The bit that makes Abrams and Whedon different is that they ought to know better. Pretty much everything either of them has done has smacked on some level of visionary brilliance. Fuck, Buffy was a serial remake of a fun but terrible movie that by all rights should have died in the cradle. Whedon made it work, turned it into a long standing cult classic. Even managed to pull a mostly watchable spin-off out of it. Abrams took a story about a plane crashing and managed to make it into a quasi-spiritual dissection of the whole spectrum of human behavior, it got all fucked up, but the potential was certainly there.
Abrams and Whedon fall into what I like to call the "visionary but" category. I have never heard someone say, "Oh, I loved Serenity" and not follow it up with, "but man the way they killed Wash...". That is their problem fully encompassed. They both have wonderful ideas and direction, but they fall flat at some vital, unforgivable point. Abrams its lens flares and mystery boxes, Whedon its trying too hard to elicit a response.
Seriously though, fuck George Lucas.
Friday, July 4, 2014
Infinite Brain Magic
Among all the reboots and remakes and sequels being made these days there is an escalating problem. Its always been a thing, but its getting worse. "The book was better." I hate this shit. Not because its necessarily untrue; the experience you had reading the book (in your own time, on your own terms, and with your own mind active) was undoubtedly better than the time you spent forty bucks on concessions and got to sit in a kinda smelly, dark room with between ten and eighty other people. No, I hate this phrase because it shows a lack of respect to the creative process and because it demonstrates a mind-blowing, ego-maniacal, ignorance.
First, we must take the book and the movie as absolute, independent experience. I know this is counter-intuitive, but stick with me. Any novel you've ever read is essentially made by one or two people. I'm talking writers, direct creative control, editors and inspirational people come into it, but the writer should always be in the driver's seat. This makes a novel the clear vision of one person, movies are a different beast. Even the most conscientious and charitable production company is a hundred competing visions for the same story, all the worse when that story is "based" on an established story. After a studio compensates for all of these different visions (director, writers upon writers, producers, lawyers, corporate sponsors, actors), time constraints, and budget; we're talking about a different story entirely. And that's okay. There's a reason there are so many pics out there where someone has taken a synopsis of a known movie, changes some names and its the story of another movie.
There is nothing new under the sun. People have always been moved by essentially the same tropes, that's how they become tropes. I will admit that its a bit washy for people to "reinterpret" an established story but it has been known to do well. As long as the audience realizes that it is blatantly someone else's take on an established story, not some kind of memetic cloning process whereby the story lurches deeper into the collective unconsciousness. The movie and the novel it rips off are different things, and that's fine, lets get over it.
The second point in this little tirade, and perhaps the less popular, is that by saying, "the book was better" you are being an egotistical douche-nozzle. For a good many people the reason to complain about a movie over a book comes down to either casting choices or storyline, and here's the problem with that. You don't fucking know. You don't know who was available for the film, you don't know what they could or couldn't shoot, you don't know what bits of story were important to the director or the studio. You likely have no fucking clue any of the context or capacity of the people who made the movie. By resorting to saying the book was better you are essentially saying that your imagination portrayed the story more enjoyably. Yes, congratu-fucking-lations you did better with infinite brain magic and leisure than a bunch of stressed out narcissists trying to work watchable material out of monetary constraints and producer overreach.
So yes, the book was probably a better experience overall, but that's like saying that an good meal is better than an orgasm. They meet different needs in different ways.
First, we must take the book and the movie as absolute, independent experience. I know this is counter-intuitive, but stick with me. Any novel you've ever read is essentially made by one or two people. I'm talking writers, direct creative control, editors and inspirational people come into it, but the writer should always be in the driver's seat. This makes a novel the clear vision of one person, movies are a different beast. Even the most conscientious and charitable production company is a hundred competing visions for the same story, all the worse when that story is "based" on an established story. After a studio compensates for all of these different visions (director, writers upon writers, producers, lawyers, corporate sponsors, actors), time constraints, and budget; we're talking about a different story entirely. And that's okay. There's a reason there are so many pics out there where someone has taken a synopsis of a known movie, changes some names and its the story of another movie.
There is nothing new under the sun. People have always been moved by essentially the same tropes, that's how they become tropes. I will admit that its a bit washy for people to "reinterpret" an established story but it has been known to do well. As long as the audience realizes that it is blatantly someone else's take on an established story, not some kind of memetic cloning process whereby the story lurches deeper into the collective unconsciousness. The movie and the novel it rips off are different things, and that's fine, lets get over it.
The second point in this little tirade, and perhaps the less popular, is that by saying, "the book was better" you are being an egotistical douche-nozzle. For a good many people the reason to complain about a movie over a book comes down to either casting choices or storyline, and here's the problem with that. You don't fucking know. You don't know who was available for the film, you don't know what they could or couldn't shoot, you don't know what bits of story were important to the director or the studio. You likely have no fucking clue any of the context or capacity of the people who made the movie. By resorting to saying the book was better you are essentially saying that your imagination portrayed the story more enjoyably. Yes, congratu-fucking-lations you did better with infinite brain magic and leisure than a bunch of stressed out narcissists trying to work watchable material out of monetary constraints and producer overreach.
So yes, the book was probably a better experience overall, but that's like saying that an good meal is better than an orgasm. They meet different needs in different ways.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
The Horror!
I love movies, especially comedies, sci-fi, noir, and to a lesser extent horror. The reason for my kind of love/hate relationship with horror is that there has been a few trends in the past few years (arguably even longer than that) in horror that is bad for the genre as a whole. Here is a list of a few of the most bothersome ones.
Jump Scares: This is the laziest way to make people scared ever. So our heroes are searching through a haunted house because they heard a noise (and of course they can't just leave that shit alone), when something jumps out and attacks them suddenly with no warning that may or may not be a horrifying axe murderer. No one is not going to jump at this; it is an instinctual reaction. These happen super often in movies today, and that is the problem, the fear that it brings us is temporary and if overused tends to disengage the audience. If the director/writer builds up the oppressive atmosphere of the dread one feels when they don't know if a person is going to die or survive, then uses an artfully crafted jump scare at just the right time to create a climax to the scene. Eshi gave me this, so I feel that he needs credit: It is the money shot to a horror movie. One, maybe two, as punctuation in a movie is good but more then that and they have less punch and just kind of make a mess of things.
Bad Writing: I should not be one to judge on this since I am new to the whole writing thing, but holy shit is the writing in horror movies bad. Admittedly, I will have some points that apply to other genres as well since this is not necessarily a specific problem to horror, but horror is especially bad. Clumsy exposition to show relationships between people (has anyone called their brother "bro" or sister "sis" before in real life, and not in an ironic way?) or to foreshadow scary events. The later is what I like to call "Chekhov's news report",
and it shows up in movies about serial killers escaping or zombies to poke at the audience and say "ah, ah, might be zombies". This has been effective in the past, but has become the standard thing to do when you can't think of another way to explain things in a script, so rather than use a combination of decent dialog and directing the actors to treat each other in a way that normal people behave, the directors and writers just have people yell out how they relate to events. This is the type of hamfisted writing that makes a lot of horror unwatchable to me. This always takes me out of the movie. I can understand that sometimes time restraints require that a movie gloss over some aspects, but if the information is important enough to have to leave in, it has to be more organic than a couple idiot characters grunting out relevant information.
Pulling Punches: This is something that makes pisses me off. When I am watching a movie and the story has been dark and is going in a direction that shows that people's preconceived notions of morality and truth are questioned, and instead of driving the point home and finishing strong, they chicken out and force a "safe" ending. Spoilers ahead, since this point is easily made by pointing at specific examples. Splice was a movie that was on a path to show how human beings could be monsters towards things that they do not understand and/or something that is innocent in a series of fucked up events (in Splice's case the innocent was a "monster"), but in the third act did a complete 180* and made the monster turn evil. The humans are still evil in this section of the movie, so no one is really redeemable at the end, and it kinda falls flat on its face. I am legend (I know its not really horror, but it has monsters so it is close enough :p) was an ok summer blockbuster type movie that did the same thing: the theatrical release had an ending that was classic action movie fluff and climaxes with an explosion, but there is another ending that showed that the monsters tried to kill him because he was abducting them, not because they are "Evil" and ends with him coming to an understanding with them.
Both of these changes point to the studios thinking that people as a whole are too soft-headed to appreciate a poignant narrative. This type of cop out pisses me off. If you want to make a point with a film, make it. If a film company tries to bully you into making changes by holding the film hostage (by shit-canning it or by threatening to turn it over to other people) find another way to fund it. Explain your situation on kickstarter or other crowd funding sites, I know that people would be willing to help a good horror movie get made. and that way you could make it in a way that you want.
Found footage films: These are popping up all over the place, and some of them, like Paranormal activity 1 & 2 and Afflicted are good (especially Afflicted, seriously watch that shit right now. This is text, finish it later), but a lot of them are bad. These movies are easy and cheap to shoot, so they can be made for a fraction of the cost, so they get made more and more. This is a double edged sword though since sometimes the cameras make sense, like in the above mentioned films. However, in most other cases carting a camera around with you and keeping the necessary plot points in frame is fucking stupid. In Paranormal Activity the cameras make sense. In the first movie the camera is set up to find evidence of demons so they would have it running all the time. And in the second film the security cameras are installed to see most of the house and the handheld camera is used to film the baby which are both things that cameras are used for in real life. They just also happen to catch the spooky stuff. In Afflicted the camera comes into play because they main characters are vloggers and the camera is attached to them. These cameras catching the action makes sense. The perfect example of this not working is in Cloverfield, where the main characters keep a camera rolling all the time even though dropping it would have given them more of a chance for survival. This kind of thing kills immersion in found footage films, and makes them hard to watch without focusing on wondering why they kept the camera rolling. If you have to do a found footage film try to at least make the camera have a reason to be on all the time.
I have spent a lot of time focusing on what goes bad with horror movies and I feel like I ought to sneak in some constructive suggestions. The best horror (and really all narrative forms) creates an atmosphere that draws you in, and makes you feel a sense of catharsis when the situation resolves. Instead of just using jump scares all the time, build to them. Use sound and light to create a sense of claustrophobia and dread that builds (David Lynch and Martin Scorsese do a great job of building atmosphere). I love it when horror movies make people wonder if there was a monster or if they just built up all that tension in their own heads (the innkeepers is a good example of this). I also enjoy when movies build the tension by depriving us of the monster until a critical moment and then hooking us with the reveal. Basically, horror movies are at their best when they tap the primal fear and doubt that comes from the unknown and unavoidable, it makes the pay off that much more worthy and enthralls us in the world. If you can pull people in like that, you will succeed.
Jump Scares: This is the laziest way to make people scared ever. So our heroes are searching through a haunted house because they heard a noise (and of course they can't just leave that shit alone), when something jumps out and attacks them suddenly with no warning that may or may not be a horrifying axe murderer. No one is not going to jump at this; it is an instinctual reaction. These happen super often in movies today, and that is the problem, the fear that it brings us is temporary and if overused tends to disengage the audience. If the director/writer builds up the oppressive atmosphere of the dread one feels when they don't know if a person is going to die or survive, then uses an artfully crafted jump scare at just the right time to create a climax to the scene. Eshi gave me this, so I feel that he needs credit: It is the money shot to a horror movie. One, maybe two, as punctuation in a movie is good but more then that and they have less punch and just kind of make a mess of things.
Bad Writing: I should not be one to judge on this since I am new to the whole writing thing, but holy shit is the writing in horror movies bad. Admittedly, I will have some points that apply to other genres as well since this is not necessarily a specific problem to horror, but horror is especially bad. Clumsy exposition to show relationships between people (has anyone called their brother "bro" or sister "sis" before in real life, and not in an ironic way?) or to foreshadow scary events. The later is what I like to call "Chekhov's news report",
and it shows up in movies about serial killers escaping or zombies to poke at the audience and say "ah, ah, might be zombies". This has been effective in the past, but has become the standard thing to do when you can't think of another way to explain things in a script, so rather than use a combination of decent dialog and directing the actors to treat each other in a way that normal people behave, the directors and writers just have people yell out how they relate to events. This is the type of hamfisted writing that makes a lot of horror unwatchable to me. This always takes me out of the movie. I can understand that sometimes time restraints require that a movie gloss over some aspects, but if the information is important enough to have to leave in, it has to be more organic than a couple idiot characters grunting out relevant information.
Pulling Punches: This is something that makes pisses me off. When I am watching a movie and the story has been dark and is going in a direction that shows that people's preconceived notions of morality and truth are questioned, and instead of driving the point home and finishing strong, they chicken out and force a "safe" ending. Spoilers ahead, since this point is easily made by pointing at specific examples. Splice was a movie that was on a path to show how human beings could be monsters towards things that they do not understand and/or something that is innocent in a series of fucked up events (in Splice's case the innocent was a "monster"), but in the third act did a complete 180* and made the monster turn evil. The humans are still evil in this section of the movie, so no one is really redeemable at the end, and it kinda falls flat on its face. I am legend (I know its not really horror, but it has monsters so it is close enough :p) was an ok summer blockbuster type movie that did the same thing: the theatrical release had an ending that was classic action movie fluff and climaxes with an explosion, but there is another ending that showed that the monsters tried to kill him because he was abducting them, not because they are "Evil" and ends with him coming to an understanding with them.
Both of these changes point to the studios thinking that people as a whole are too soft-headed to appreciate a poignant narrative. This type of cop out pisses me off. If you want to make a point with a film, make it. If a film company tries to bully you into making changes by holding the film hostage (by shit-canning it or by threatening to turn it over to other people) find another way to fund it. Explain your situation on kickstarter or other crowd funding sites, I know that people would be willing to help a good horror movie get made. and that way you could make it in a way that you want.
Found footage films: These are popping up all over the place, and some of them, like Paranormal activity 1 & 2 and Afflicted are good (especially Afflicted, seriously watch that shit right now. This is text, finish it later), but a lot of them are bad. These movies are easy and cheap to shoot, so they can be made for a fraction of the cost, so they get made more and more. This is a double edged sword though since sometimes the cameras make sense, like in the above mentioned films. However, in most other cases carting a camera around with you and keeping the necessary plot points in frame is fucking stupid. In Paranormal Activity the cameras make sense. In the first movie the camera is set up to find evidence of demons so they would have it running all the time. And in the second film the security cameras are installed to see most of the house and the handheld camera is used to film the baby which are both things that cameras are used for in real life. They just also happen to catch the spooky stuff. In Afflicted the camera comes into play because they main characters are vloggers and the camera is attached to them. These cameras catching the action makes sense. The perfect example of this not working is in Cloverfield, where the main characters keep a camera rolling all the time even though dropping it would have given them more of a chance for survival. This kind of thing kills immersion in found footage films, and makes them hard to watch without focusing on wondering why they kept the camera rolling. If you have to do a found footage film try to at least make the camera have a reason to be on all the time.
I have spent a lot of time focusing on what goes bad with horror movies and I feel like I ought to sneak in some constructive suggestions. The best horror (and really all narrative forms) creates an atmosphere that draws you in, and makes you feel a sense of catharsis when the situation resolves. Instead of just using jump scares all the time, build to them. Use sound and light to create a sense of claustrophobia and dread that builds (David Lynch and Martin Scorsese do a great job of building atmosphere). I love it when horror movies make people wonder if there was a monster or if they just built up all that tension in their own heads (the innkeepers is a good example of this). I also enjoy when movies build the tension by depriving us of the monster until a critical moment and then hooking us with the reveal. Basically, horror movies are at their best when they tap the primal fear and doubt that comes from the unknown and unavoidable, it makes the pay off that much more worthy and enthralls us in the world. If you can pull people in like that, you will succeed.
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