A universal plot summary, summer 2009 edition
It’s time to test my theory of computer animated film plots against the latest examples of that form, DreamWorks’ Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar’s Up. In case you are too lazy to click through, here’s the theory again in its entirety: After the worst of a long series of well-meaning but destructive deeds, an anthropomorphized creature protagonist is shunned by… read more
A universal plot summary
After the worst of a long series of well-meaning but destructive deeds, an anthropomorphized creature protagonist is shunned by his community. He enters into a series of adventures in the pursuit of a seemingly impossible task to prove his worth. During this pursuit the protagonist meets a rival and, to the former’s surprise, they have more in common than not.… read more
Built-in DVD players forbid screen captures with software constraint
Recently, I had the need to capture a still from a DVD a Persuasive Games client had sent over as guidelines for some game assets. I didn’t want to rip the whole DVD, so I went to use the built-in screen capture facility in Apple OS X: the old standby Command-Shift-3. I was surprised to see the following result. The… read more
Every day, the mail still comes. My postal carrier drives her proud van onto the street and then climbs each stoop by foot. The service remains essential, but not as a communications channel. I receive ads and bills, mostly, and the occasional newspaper clipping from my mom. For talking to people, I use email and text and social networking. The… read more
Like text and audio, it can be manipulated and interpreted for political ends.
The White House has revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, after a testy exchange between the reporter and President Trump at a news conference on Wednesday. Acosta posed a question about the Central American migrant caravan, challenging Trump’s framing of it as an “invasion” meant to reap political advantage. An irritated Trump tried to… read more
Film, television, and literature all tell them better. So why are games still obsessed with narrative?
A longstanding dream: Video games will evolve into interactive stories, like the ones that play out fictionally on the Star Trek Holodeck. In this hypothetical future, players could interact with computerized characters as round as those in novels or films, making choices that would influence an ever-evolving plot. It would be like living in a novel, where the player’s actions… read more
The president-elect’s history in Hollywood might offer a clue.
Many years ago, when I was working at a Hollywood production company, a coworker went out to dinner with an out-of-town friend. When conversation turned to work, my colleague explained that he was producing marketing for a film by the director Michael Bay. His friend was no fan of Bayhem, it turned out, and issued a tirade against the director’s… read more
For wealthy geeks like Palmer Luckey who seek vengeance against the institutions they perceive to exclude them, “The Donald” is an obvious ally.
The classic battle between nerds and brutes is one of brains versus brawn. In the geek films of the 1980s that introduced and immortalized this conflict—Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, Ghostbusters, Sixteen Candles—the nerds are always outcasts and misfits. And these fables all end the same way. Through a combination of smarts and good fortune, the nerds demonstrate some… read more
40,000 years of visual media in one surprising White House photograph
This remarkable photograph of President Obama wearing VR goggles in the West Wing looks like the very image of futurism. But new technologies will become old and familiar, just as all those before them have become invisible to contemporary eyes. But there they are, preserved in the amber of history, just waiting for the VR headset to join them.… read more
An elegy for the machine that let people travel through time—but only by a little
The video store, as it is nostalgically remembered, looks like a record shop, or a hookah parlor. Staffed by scruffy burners or neo-hippies who “really know their stuff,” splayed with shelves at all angles, plastered in posters, encrusted with knick-knacks. Some such stores might have existed, but the earliest video stores were nothing like them. They were modernist celebrations of… read more