Post-Traumatic Tech Disorder

Imagine an age where the average house cost about $4000, the average car sold for under $800, and you could get a gallon of gas for around 10 cents.  In 1937, $1.5 million probably wasn’t easy to part with for a movie… especially an animated movie.  But on this day back in 1937, that movie hit the theaters and had itself a successful run over the years.

The movie?  Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

And it’s original domestic gross take?  $66 million … a return of over 40 times the original investment.
Plus, it’s been re-released to theaters three times for an additional $118 million in domestic gross (for a total return of over 120 times the original cost).

I wonder what Hollywood would be like if someone was ever able to match that kind of success with one of these $100 million movies.

It seems like everyone in Hollywood is against me and trying to keep me out. How do I get past all the industry “gatekeepers”?

Wiley C., Tuscon, AZ

Dear Wiley,

You really wanna get past the people keeping you from who you need to know? Get yourself a copy of the secret catalogue of industry insiders… Gate Gear. Here’s an excerpt of career-changing listings available from Gate Gear:
… Read the rest of this Creative Adviser article here.

Been catching up on my spec sale logline reading (so we’re not as timely with this as The Beat) and noticed an interesting announcement a few days ago:

The Shadow
A crime-fighter skulks in the shadows wearing a hat and cape, and has the power to cloud men’s minds. Produced by Buckaroo Entertainment and Comic Book Movies.

Let’s see… took ’em 12 years to consider taking another shot at bringing this character to the big screen (maybe this one will have less Baldwin in it).  But that’s not really what I want to discuss.  I want to discuss this production company, “Comic Book Movies”.  Why?  Because of the name, of course.  With all these companies and people out there trying to get those fancy (often times crazy) names to establish something cool, hip, trendy, different, and odd enough to push through a trademark without hitting one held by someone else, it’s nice to see a simple name that says what it does right there in the title (we’ll just overlook the fact that they’re producing a film about a comic book based on a radio show and popular pulp magazine series).

From what I can tell, the production company was established by Michael Uslan.  Uslan’s listed as a producer on such comic-to-film epics as Swamp Thing (and The Return of Swamp Thing), Batman (pretty much all of them since the late 80s… live action and animated; good and bad), Catwoman, and Constantine.  He also shows up as a producer for the movies (in varying stages of development/pre-production) The Dark Knight, The Spirit, and one I’ve mentioned in this blog before… Shazam!  At the very least, he does have some comic-2-film street cred (yeah, I know… there are some not-so-great movies in that bunch, but on the streets, a rap sheet still gives you some rep), and the Comic Book Movies production company does have a strategic partnership with LucasFilm’s Skywalker Sound.

And besides all those comic book films, I did find another tidbit on Uslan that earned a little respect from me (within the realm of comic books)… looks like he once donated 30,000 comic books from his private collection to the Lilly Library (Indiana University).  I know I have a lot of comic books myself (longboxes stacked practically to the ceiling), but I don’t think I have even half that many comics… and if these were donated out of his private collection, that probably means he has a lot more stashed away somwhere.
Okay, enough rambling from me for now.

… well-rested. ^_^

Oddly enough, not being able to sleep at night used to be normal for me. For over a decade, I had sleep apnea, and since I wasn’t really getting much benefit from sleeping, I’d stay up working until the wee hours of the morning working on stuff (for a long stretch of that time period I was actually up late doing work work). Before that, I had an extremely hyper metabolism. Yep, I used to be one of those people hated because of the ability to eat two or three double bacon cheeseburgers, chili cheese tater tots, and a couple milkshakes for lunch without gaining a pound (“used to be” because I blew out my knee and had to cut back on my running, so all that eating finally caught up with me). There was the other side of being hyper… having so much energy, you have trouble getting to sleep at night, and I dealt with that for many, many years before the sleep apnea kicked in.
So, why am I having trouble sleeping tonight (and for the past few nights as well)?

Well, the sleep apnea was fixed via surgery (and allergy immunotherapy), but it looks like my metabolism is making a comeback. I’ve been getting back to regular workouts, eating a little better, and drinking my fair share of green tea (along with a ton of water). Part of my reverse resolution (resolution made in November to be completed by January 1st… give it a more immediate deadline rather than giving it a year and allowing procrastination to sink in) was to get my workouts started again and hit a specific weight goal by January first. Well, i’m one-third of the way to my weight goal, and it’s getting later and later at night until I get tired enough to fall asleep. I’ve been working on different things each night to kill the time until the drowsiness kicks in… tonight I decided to blog.

Mind you, I don’t have work in the morning, so that’s a good thing (and I’m hoping to have this under control before I start back at work again). And the time has been productive. Been tinkering with my websites (in case you didn’t notice the new digs here), getting ahead on Brat-halla (so Seth and Anthony can relax a bit over the holidays), fleshing out plots and story ideas for the new webcomic Seth and I will be launching early next year, and I’ve managed to get 12 pages into my next screenplay (I’m shooting for sending it out as a Nicholl entry in early January). I’ve also been catching up on a lot of movie watching (and analyzing) I’ve missed out on (I love movies, and I went through a serious dry spell for a while as I hopped from critical project to critical project at work).

The bad thing is… a lot of that productive work has been at the cost of other projects. I’ll start working on an article or pitch that I need to get done, and when I hit a snag, I’ll go work on something else for a little while to let the thoughts percolate. And a little while quickly becomes a few hours (or in one case, half a day). Sure, I can say, “Well, you’re getting stuff done. And it’s stuff that you’ve been meaning to do for a while.”, but it still feels like procrastination in disguise.
And that’s why I’m writing this. It’s a reminder to me that next time, I need to just power through those pieces I’ve been jumping away from to work on other things.

Of course, by taking the time to write this, I’ve jumped away from those other projects I should be powering through right now. I should get back to those.