Continuing the last few Monday posts I’ve done about motivation, I figure it’s time to add in a link to something that serves as cold water in the face: a wakeup in both ways. Mark Evanier, whose series on rejection is one I’ve referenced, has a certain speech he’s delivered on occasions to fellow writers and creatives… and occasionally he’s needed to hear it himself. Maybe you need it because it’s Monday. Perhaps you’re just wondering…
One of the trends I casually, yet actively, watch is how “self-driving” automation is coming along. I’m sure many of us have followed Google’s efforts as well as Tesla. So I was shocked to read Alex Davies’ piece in Wired about the self-driving technology of Cadillac… which I suppose may mainly point to my pre-conceived notions of Cadillac. But I bet I’m not the only one.
Since I wanted to cover motivation for the next few Mondays, as I mentioned last week, I figured it was important to bring up procrastination. One of the most entertaining articles about the subject was written by Tim Urban on his longform blogging site, Wait, But Why. In fact, the procrastination article is actually several articles, but well worth delving into. Now, I enjoy Wait, But Why quite a bit, but what if some of…
As many of my fellow filmmakers know, I’m not overfond of most horror films (apologies to Lonnie and my other filmmaking colleagues who love ’em). At the same time, I do love “creature features.” This is probably due to two reasons. First, like many kids of my generation, I enjoyed the steady stream of good, bad, and less-than-spectacular kaiju films played endlessly on TV on Saturday afternoons. In our case, it was good ol’ WDCA, Channel 20…
Between yesterday and today, you could accurately deduce I have business plans on my mind. Today, I wanted to share another article I found on Entrepreneur. This one goes over six business plan mistakes to avoid. Many of them are ones fellow filmmakers and I have discussed (especially about #4 and money) and, hey, it may be useful to you.
The folks over at Entrepreneur created an article outlining the different types of audiences you may have for your business plan. I love this, because so many people like to harp on “your business plan” as if it’s this One Holy Thing your business needs — without defining it beyond the black box of the buzzword term “business plan.” (See also vision statement, mission statement, term du jour that boils down to knowing what you’re trying to…
My brothers and I definitely benefited from parents who instilled an enjoyment of learning in us. We like finding out more about something for its own sake, delving deeper, and, yes, we all still get a little sad thinking about what happened to the Library of Alexandria some centuries ago. Now we’re trying to figure out what our parents did specifically, because we have kids of our own. Kids who need to read, write, or…
Netflix, via its movie premieres at the celebrated Cannes Film Festival, has gotten a resounding, “Non!” (no) from the famously film-loving French. Well, at the very least there were boos. Jordan Zakarin has a piece in Inverse from last Friday about how this really reflects on Hollywood more than Netflix. Essentially, Netflix is making a bet on films Hollywood no longer wants to (because they’re so enamored of franchises and tentpole films). Alissa Wilkinson has a piece in Vox from yesterday…
I would be remiss in my duty to the Prime Directive of the Internet –that being to forward all time-sucking memes, videos, and articles t0 everyone I can– if I were not to make sure you knew about Bill Wurtz‘ latest project: a 20-minute entertainingly off-the-wall history of the entire world. Be warned: the narrator is irreverent to all peoples, religions, and himself. He also tends to swear.
As that rare group of regular readers knows, eliminating gerrymandering and related cockamamie contrivances to prevent people from voting is near and dear to my heart. As explained by German Lopez in Vox, the Supreme Court has recently ruled in a redistricting case in North Carolina in a way that may help combat cockamamie efforts in the future.