Michael Engard

Writer & web developer. kaelri.com

[musashigouda-deactivated2019032]

hey ao3 can you like give the extra $38k you made from this month’s funds drive to charity

[blooming-wilting]

You know it legally is a charity, right?

If x charity aims for £10, but gets £15, would you expect then to give back the extra five or give it then to another charity? No. Any extra costs go into the “rainy day” fund; sometimes servers crash or break, sometimes false reports are made that require the legal team, sometimes you need to hire coders or what not to implement new features or fix bugs or deal with broken code … 

The money they aimed for is the bare minimum, which goes towards things like basic server costs and domain names and legal advice and so forth, but they don’t just “pocket” the rest (as people claim). It’s not a business. It has no advertisements. It needs some “rainy day” cash to function. 

You can’t ask a charity to give money to another charity. 

It needs what it gets to function and improve. 

[fangasmagorical]

kiena-tesedale replied to this post

They don’t “pocket” excess money. They have a publicly accessible budget - waaaay more info than most charities, in fact. In it, you can clearly see where each dollar goes. (Also, you are vastly underestimating either how much traffic AO3 gets or how much servers/hosting costs.)                    

In my experience, people who don’t work in web design and hosting just have no concept of how heavy a load something like AO3 would have. Not only is the traffic absolutely buck wild, but the quantity of data that archive needs to store is fuckoff crazy. I’m talking “more than the library of congress” crazy. The only reason it doesn’t require Netflix levels of data serving is that it’s text based rather than video.

AO3 is in the top 300 websites in the world, and the top 100 in the US. It is the number 2 literature website.

Number 2 in the entire world. JSTOR is 20.

It sees about 6 million people a day. About 250k an hour. Each of those people is loading multiple pages, many are running searches that execute on literally hundreds of potential variables per search. The demands involved are astronomical.

JSTOR, btw, makes 85 million dollars a year.

It’s 18 ranks below AO3′s traffic, and takes in 650 times the amount of money.

But let’s say you think that’s an unfair comparison. Would you say that the Project Gutenberg Literature Archival Group- another text based archive that handles literature operating outside traditional copyright requirements- is more similar?

Because it sees all of 4% of the traffic that AO3 handles.

Care to guess its budget?

Double that of AO3.

AO3 is doing shit on the kind of shoestring budget that I fully, 100% cannot comprehend. And that’s just the archival service.

The 130k also pays for the OTW’s legal team, which they use to defend the right of fandom to fucking exist.

It’s absolutely batshit fucked up that people are fighting to have the OTW defunded and AO3 shut down. They are the only organized group that actually stands directly between fandom- all the art and the fics and the vids and the music and the chats and the memes and everything we love about interactive, transformative work- and an incalculable amount of lawsuits.

[redvanillabee]

Can I also add that apart from running a legal team and the best online library around, they also run a free, peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to fan studies called Transformative Works and Cultures.. They incorporate studies of fandoms from all around the world, and are able to follow very closely with fandom trends. Studies found in TWC are leagues better than those cringey ‘I heard about this fan-dom thing from my teenage niece’ essays. 

[superhumandisasters]

Just reblogging this to remind everyone that AO3 is fucking incredible and it has singularly transformed fandom.

[sol1056]

speaking as someone who works in cloud, I’ve had some variation of this conversation so many times:

boss: that can’t be done. me: AO3 does it, and for 1/100th what you’re suggesting it’d cost. boss: they’re using blood magic. it’s the only explanation.

[supersonicart]

Gustav Klimt Brought to Life by Photographer Inge Prader.

Austrian photographer Inge Prader recently recreated Gustav Klimt’s masterworks for Style Bible, a part of the Life Ball Charity Event in Vienna, Austria.  A team of over 50 professionals worked on the demanding photography project which raises funds to help those with HIV/AIDS.  Makeup artists, costume designers, set designers, lighting specialists and many others worked with models and fully ornamented props to bring to life the fascinating, erotically charged work that Klimt is known for during his “Golden Phase.”

Keep reading

[kaelri]

I reblogged this a long while ago, and I’m doing it again today because a) it’s a beautiful, tasteful presentation of a meaningful work of art, and b) Tumblr has flagged it as “adult content that violates our Community Guidelines,” which is—in diplomatic terms—disingenuous bullshit.

Fuck you, Tumblr. I stand with the people who are about to lose yet another distinctive source of community, discovery and self-expression as a result of your cowardly, short-sighted mistake.

[kaelri]

The Tools Don’t Matter

The Tools Don’t Matter

This post by author Jason Gurley speaks to me:

The work is what matters, not the tools. In fact, it’s important, too, to acknowledge that high-quality tools often discourage the work. It’s easy to feel like you can’t make a mark on that beautiful paper, can’t sharpen away the perfect core of that pencil, because whatever you’d use it for isn’t worth as much as those tools.

Well, that’s bullshit,…

View On WordPress

[ineffectualdemon]

“Babies only cry if they are hungry, need changing, or need to be picked up”

Lies

Babies (and small children) also cry for reasons such as:

1. “I am tired and that makes me angry”

2. “I scared myself with a fart”

3. “You are the wrong parent”

4. “I ran into something with my face”

5. “I’m facing the opposite direction then the one I want to”

6. “I fell asleep in one place and woke up somewhere completely different”

7. “I am a very small person in a very big world”

8. “I got scared because YOU farted”

Babies have more then 3 states of being and sometimes you just have to hold them and bounce them gently while saying solemnly “yes it is very hard to be a baby” because frankly it is

[aconfusedbird]

you have to remember that when you’re that tiny… pretty much any bad thing that happens to you is LITERALLY the WORST thing that has ever happened in your life. they have no perspective. everything is awful. help them

[let-tyrants-fear]

#everything is happening for the first time and they cant even google it  

[kaelri]

My friends have a new baby and I’ve watched her do all eight of these in the space of a single afternoon.

[whatis2plus2]

Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular - but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place - when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.

[stephrc79]

Signal boost to this unbelievably important message.

[spyhops-blog]

I’d reblog this a thousand times if I could.

[transadvicegroup-deactivated201]

Stop attacking allies. Educate. Not hate. 

[transboysunited]

This is incredibly important. Please read!

[gokuma]

Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving.

[ithelpstodream]

[ithelpstodream]

i can’t believe all the people losing their shit over this post are the same people who make ‘triggered’ jokes.

[an-alchemy-of-errors-deactivate]

Here’s the thing.

If you at all monitor your language based on your audience—avoiding curse words in front of kids, using bigger words in front of your boss—you obviously care about the impression your words give people. 

Do you avoid talking about the attractive sex after your bestie’s breakup? Congratulations, friend, you’re being a decent human being.

Your friend wishes you call them Charlie instead of Charlotte. It’s just a nickname. Would you say “No, your birth certificate says Charlotte so I’m calling you Charlotte?”

Your co-worker tells you that he gets extremely uncomfortable when you clap him on the shoulder, due to a creepy uncle who did the same thing. Do you make a point to clap him on the shoulder every time you see him?

It is really not that difficult to be “politically correct.” It does not mean that you must eliminate all opinions completely, it merely means—at a basic level—that you should attempt to be aware of your audience and how your words and actions affect them. 

Don’t call it being “PC,” if you must. Call it being “aware and empathetic.” Being a human with decency and respect for other people, cultures, and experiences.

[ithelpstodream]

^boom. couldn’t have said it better myself.

[smarter-than-the-republicans]

Tldr: You’re not being “word policed” when people expect you to have manners.

[ravenkinlegacy]

You’re not being “word policed” when people expect you to have manners.

[klapollo]

no offense but broadway and other forms of high theater should be more accessible and should at the very least be taped and released for easy home viewing when they close

[klapollo]

people are going to pirate broadway shows regardless bc most people cant AFFORD to drop hundreds of dollars on tickets, and a working-class family in flyover country is probably not gonna have the chance to see a musical in broadway or chicago or california etc. very often! 

but their parents could probably buy them a DVD for their birthday! so why should children (especially young actors) be deprived of art bc of their class or location? wouldnt allowing people who literally cannot access theater to buy or rent high-quality, official recordings benefit the arts better than forcing them to pirate it?

and so many of these shows close and are all but lost to the majority of the population! thats fucked up. just record them!!!! fuck!!!!!

there’s a section of the new york public library that has access to theaterical recordings…..but it’s only accessible to students and theater professionals who need it to study. cmon!! people should be allowed to view this stuff. 

for a lot of people, getting to watch legally blonde the musical on mtv or listening to a recording – accessible, affordable forms of theater – made them dedicated lovers of the arts. they inspire actors and singers and animatics and composers. why deprive these people????

and people might say “well no one will buy tickets!!” which is absurd. i watch hockey games on television all the time and i still buy tickets to see it in-person because live is a whole different experience! and like…..you dont know theater people. they’ll gladly see the same show 50 times. lots of people see shows BECAUSE they already access it through stuff like bootlegs or albums already so whats the point! its not like they wouldnt make bank off of theater nerds buying recordings anyway!

anyway, high-end musicals should be recorded and released on dvd and streaming services and played on public television thank u

[themadqueenmab]

I hear you. Theater, especially Broadway, can be notoriously inaccessible for people who don’t live in NYC. But as a person who’s worked in this industry and who’s had family working in this industry my whole life, I feel the need to talk about why this does not (and honestly, cannot) happen, and it’s not because people are worried that no one will buy show tickets. 

First off, theaters already do not make enough money to run independently. Ticket sales, unless you have a runaway success like Hamilton, are just not enough to keep the doors open the vast majority of the time. That’s to say nothing about arts education initiatives, scholarly programs, and community outreach work that individual theaters may have. Theaters, like all big nonprofits, mostly depend on large donations from corporations and rich individuals. Their fundraising departments, called ‘development’ in the nonprofit world, are mainly dedicated to soliciting these major donations. Depending on the size of the organization, you only have one or two people dedicated to soliciting smaller donations from every day people, like $35 yearly memberships or something. 

This is because ticket sales and small donations are not enough to run a theater in New York City. Rent is insane, upkeep is insane, you have to pay decent wages to your artists and office workers, competing to get the rights to certain performances is expensive, and every individual performance of a show can cost thousands of dollars on its own without factoring in the salaries of all the people who had to organize, market, and usher the performance. (This is partially because the stagehand union in NYC is very powerful, and each individual set change can cost thousands of dollars every night. This is why so many shows in NYC only have one set.) 

It’s difficult enough for theaters to raise the money to keep up with the cost of shows and their arts education/artist nourishment/community outreach/insert-charitable-initiatives-here. Do you know how expensive it would be to record every show? 

First, before even worrying about the nitty gritty stuff, the theater has to pay for the rights to record the show, which are different from the rights to perform the show. The playwrights, the performing company, the actors, and so on all have to be brought on board, and they all need a very healthy sum of money (plus royalties in some cases). This is on top of the money the theater is already playing for the right to perform the show, plus the existing salaries and contracts for the performers and the performance companies. 

Then after the copyright mess is figured out–and that’s assuming that the involved parties would even consent to sell the recording rights–the theater has to bring in recording equipment, professional videographers, and so on. It’s a specialty to record stage shows in a way that looks nice on a screen, so that’s extra expensive. 

Depending on the structure/acoustics of the given theater and show, it’s possible that a theater would have to have an entire performance dedicated to recording without selling any tickets to it to avoid audience reactions ruining the recording sound quality. That would mean paying the same amount of money for a full performance, plus all the money for videotaping, and there’d be no ticket revenue to offset it. 

Then you’d have to worry about distribution. You need to find a distributor to distribute your recording, and that costs money. It is possible that there will be more copyright headaches here. Plus, you have to worry about marketing your DVD, and marketing nationwide for a DVD is very different from marketing in NYC for a show, which means your marketing department is probably ill-equipped but hiring a 3rd party marketing company is expensive. 

In today’s market, where piracy is so common, the returns on all this effort are unpredictable at best. Best case scenario, a bunch of people buy it, a bunch of people pirate it, and you still haven’t made back all the money you spent on it because, unless you’re Hamilton or something like it, the market isn’t big enough and theater marketing departments aren’t robust enough to grow the market nationwide. And this isn’t to say anything about the suggestion that theaters should just donate these highly expensive and labor-intensive recordings to public television (which would also require more rights from the copyright holders, more money for the copyright holders, and more legal headaches, because lord knows the government won’t shell out enough money to actually buy the rights at a fair price). 

All that money spent on making recordings and distributing them comes out of the money that theaters would usually spend on more shows/arts education/community outreach/whatever, and most major donors would be angry about that, seeing as they donated specifically because they wanted more shows/arts education/community outreach/whatever. Unless you can find a whole bunch of donors willing to dedicate their money specifically to this DVD initiative, you will possibly lose a bunch of donors because they don’t think your priorities are what they want them to be. Donor money is the lifeblood of theater, and there is no way that video sales could compete. 

But there’s good news. Certain theaters like the Met have gone with the next best thing and started online streaming, where for a small charge you can watch their performances on your computer as they happen. If they do well with streaming, then it’s possible that smaller theaters will try to pick up the practice, and copyright holders may be more flexible about recording rights. So I encourage non-NYC theater enthusiasts to check out theatrical streaming and pay the money to watch if something looks good! 

Basically, what you should take away from this is that DVD sales of popular shows isn’t likely to be a widespread thing any time soon, but streaming might, so go check to see if any shows you like are streaming and, for the love of God, pay to watch the streaming if you want more theaters to do it. 

[eregyrn-falls]

This is a really great – and interesting – addition!  Although, as someone not in the business, it still raises other questions for me.

I think a lot of people asking the question (i.e. why can’t Broadway shows be visually recorded and made available to those who don’t have a chance to see the show on Broadway) aren’t necessarily informed about the difference between “the theater” (in which the show is performed) and “the show”.  (I’m including myself in that group, and writing from that perspective.)  I think a lot of folks assume that to *some* extent, the impetus to record a show would come from whoever owns the rights to the show, rather than from the theater in which the show is performed; and that thus, the theater would get some kind of compensation for allowing itself to be used as the venue for the recording.

You do bring up a really excellent point about negotiating all of the copyright and salary questions.  But what that immediately brings up for me is – don’t shows already have some kind of mechanism in place to do that, for original cast recordings that are made and sold?  I understand that if you’re doing a visual recording of a show, that is complicating the matter, since you’re then not just negotiating the rights and payment with the performers and musicians, but the theater staff and technical staff as well.  But it’s not like they’d be starting from scratch with the concept, since it’s already done for the audio recordings.  (I’m also not saying that expanding it to all of the negotiations required for a visual recording would be trivial!  Just that it’s already a practice that could be built on.)

Further – I had heard (while watching a PBS special about Broadway, I think; and the OP mentions it as well – that Broadway shows are ALREADY visually recorded; they’re just available only to a very select few people for viewing.  So that accommodation with the theater is already being made, somehow, at least for archiving purposes?  

Because those recordings are so inaccessible, I don’t have a good sense of what their quality is.  Maybe they’re really low quality.  Maybe they’re made by just pointing a single static camera during a live performance and getting what they can get, crowd noise interference and all. (To be honest… I would actually prefer to see a version that somehow incorporated a live audience, in order to get that audience reaction preserved as well.)  Maybe it’s such a basic quality that the people who mount the show would be uncomfortable sharing it or even charging money for it, because it’s not as nice an experience as it would be to see the show in person.

But that’s kind of the argument I was making in the tags. For me, if it’s a choice of being able to see – for example – a very basic and middling quality film of a Richard Burton - Julie Andrews - Robert Goulet performance of Camelot in the early 60s, and never being able to see those performances at all, I would gladly watch even a “shoddy” filmed version.  There’s simply no other way to see it.

(However, I realize too that I’m just one person with a particular viewpoint.  If the shows put out “one step above bootleg quality” film versions for sale, you’d certainly get people bitching about the quality.  Because you can’t please everyone all the time.)

Finally, I do also understand that there are issues with distribution and bootlegging, that impact the decisions of people who would go to the trouble outlined above to make such recordings available for sale.  I mean, I understand that there ARE issues.  I don’t always understand the decisions, because it’s never been outlined exactly what the financial outlay would be (for recording and advertising and distribution) versus the expected income.  All I can say, again, is that this doesn’t seem to stop the creation and sales of original Broadway cast recordings, you know?    So I don’t always understand why the decision-making process is that different for visual media.  (Sidebar taken as read regarding the baffling decision by Disney not to release CERTAIN TV SHOWS as dvd/blu-ray sets.)

So very possibly my viewpoint on all of this *is* really naive. And I do appreciate the viewpoint of someone inside the industry!  Because one of the fundamental things going on here is a communication problem, too.  Audience desires, but not a lot of clearly-communicated counterpoints from the shows.

Finally, though – hmm, yeah, you’re right that I hadn’t even HEARD about the streaming services.  But now that you mention it, I certainly HAVE been seeing more advertising for theater simulcast performances.  Like, is it AMC Theaters that does that?  But I think I’ve only seen that advertised so far for like, concerts, and opera, not for a “hot” Broadway show.  

This does make me want to look into the streaming thing!  And it seems like that could use a lot more advertising to make people aware that it’s an option.  So thanks for that!

[themadqueenmab]

I’m very happy to answer questions like this! I should note that most of my nonprofit experience is in fundraising (theaters as well as advocacy and charity) (and if you have any questions about that, AMA!), not contract and copyright negotiation, but I did fact-check this post with a family member who has decades of experience in this kind of thing, so this should be fairly accurate. 

When you ask what the difference between the ‘show’ and the ‘theater’ is, what it comes down to is the ‘producer’ of art, the performing company, and the ‘presenter’ of art, the theater. It can get a little squishy because some theaters produce shows and some performing companies have their own theaters, but that’s what it comes down to. The point is, a theater and a performing arts company are not necessarily the same thing, and issues of copyright and legal disputes can crop up between them. 

When you ask where the impetus for recording things comes from–the original copyright holders or the theater–all I can really say is… it’s complicated. And it changes, depending on the specific contract and show. Original Broadway shows will almost always record a CD for distribution, but things get murkier when it comes to revivals, moved shows, or off-Broadway theaters. 

One has to understand is that one musical typically has multiple copyrights. The composer owns the rights to the music, the playwright owns the rights to the book, the director owns the rights to the direction, the theater owns the rights to how it appears on their own stage, etc. etc. etc. 

So here’s the difference between making a CD and a DVD: if you want an audio recording, all you need is permission from the music’s copyright holder. If you want a visual recording, you need permission from everyone. And the playwright and composer may be reluctant to give a theater those rights because it would hurt them in any possible future negotiations with Hollywood to make a movie, since they would have already sold rights to make a visual recording and Hollywood isn’t a fan of sloppy seconds. A Hollywood movie would make a lot more money for the copyright holders than a theater recording would. 

Plus, there’s decades of legal and contractual precedent for CD-making. Everyone involved, from the copyright holders to the unions to the recording companies, all know the drill. There’s no such standard for visual recording, and it’s a bit of a free-for-all when hashing out contracts. There are more people involved in it, and everyone wants more money, even if they don’t do anything special while things are being recorded. (For example, the stagehand union has a deal where stagehands have to be paid a lot extra if a show is being recorded, even if the stagehands don’t do anything different than they would during a live show. When everyone wants extra money, the expenses add up.) 

Now, the NYPL archive. Why can’t they make these recordings available, and why are they able to make them in the first place? Well, that gets into more copyright issues. It manages to sidestep all those above messes specifically because it’s not available to the public. Copyright is a lot less strict when records are made for the specific use of education and research. Therefore, the NYPL can’t announce that the archive is open to the public, because then it would be diving headfirst into a legal nightmare. 

And unfortunately, the NYPL doesn’t have as much funding for this project as it used to, so it’s not recording as many stage shows as it once did. (Actually, I’m not even sure if they’re recording any shows these days.) Because of that, the videos they have of shows are… not commercial quality. One can argue that poor quality is better than nothing, but theaters as well as artists don’t want to put out anything that represents them and their badly. A lot of hard work goes into these things, and it’s not very fair to half-ass a representation of so much blood, sweat, and tears and then put it out for public consumption. Not to mention, bad commercial recordings can affect future prospects for performers and theaters alike. 

Fortunately, the NYPL archive isn’t as inaccessible as it seems on first appearance–when I came along just a few months ago, I was able to access it despite not being a student nor a worker in the industry. It seems that they have a don’t ask, don’t tell situation there for walk ins, though admittedly one still has to actually be in NYC to access it. 

In a nutshell, the difference between audio and visual recording is copyright law. Lots and lots of copyright law. Also expertise, since theaters have a lot of workers who know how to work audio recording, but not a lot that know how to work visual recording (since, again, making a stage look nice on video is a specific skillset, and anything with the theater’s name on it needs to look nice for reputation and branding reasons). 

And you’re less likely to hear about this kind of thing because not only is it all back of house, but there’s no clear avenue to have your voice heard by the theaters unless you’re a member and/or go to their events. Theater people are people too, and after they’ve spent a long day running around making sure that the sky won’t fall on show night, they don’t spend their time checking Tumblr to hear suggestions about what theater-goers want. They spend their time with their families, cuddling their pets, and getting caught up on work emails. You can’t guarantee that your desires are actually being clearly communicated to the folks who work in the industry unless you use official channels. 

[lettersfromtitan]

I will add to this that for performers in unions this gets messy fast. Most AEA actors are also SAG-AFTRA, and I guarantee you that if there was a real effort to have recordings of shows commercially available there would be a big brouhaha over whether this should be handled by AEA (theater) or SAG-AFTRA (screen) or another union entirely (AGMA is also involved in a lot of shows). Now imagine this happens on a case by case basis, because there are different issues with different shows, different people with different careers and union memebeship in different shows, visiting artist issues when it’s people from reciprocal foreign unions, and on and on and on.

And just figuring out the residuals on this mess. So the recorded show with X cast is making $$ but the current cast is like “we’re free advertising for that we should get a cut” or vice versa ppl with their hands in the DVD are all “we’re keeping that show afloat, we deserve a cut” Like it’s a contract law and union nightmare.

Agree with the upthread remark just the streaming events becoming more widespread are likely the best and most efficient solution for audiences, performers, creators, and investors.

[kaelri]

Odyssey: Day 214

Well that wasn’t easy.

View On WordPress

[wasafairytale]

Y’all know when Mulan is sitting in the rain and watches her parents silhouette disappear as the candle is blown out and then her eyes squint in determination and the music that starts to play and you see her go into the family temple and light a match and bow in respect and then sneak into her parents room and switch the scroll for her hair brooch and then the way her reflection is shown as she pulls the sword and cuts her hair?? It’s literally more iconic than any marvel movie

[wyntersknight]

Y’all know that there is heavy symbolism in that scene to show that Mulan is the spirit of the Great Stone Dragon and that’s why Mushu wasn’t able to awaken it?

[kaelri]

oh

[zilliumgrist-deactivated2018123]

can you make a dnd campaign with yourself and only yourself. like u have a bunch of different characters and you play all of them and you’re also the dm

[seawardboundsammy]

That’s called writing a book

[kaelri]

Not really sure who this lady is yet, but I’m sure, like any mute, nameless video game character, she will reveal herself to me in time.

[retrogamingblog]

Red/Blue/Green by Franz Anthony

[kaelri]

With fans debating the merits of the new Star Wars movie, we offer up a The Last Jedi defense: Rian Johnson succeeds because he doesn't care what you think.

I really loved The Last Jedi. Star Wars was my first movie and the central pillar of my childhood fantasy life, and this one leaves me feeling more excited about the series, and storytelling in general, than I’ve been in a long time. The linked article perfectly captures my thoughts.

I exiled myself from social media for a few days until I had a chance to see it, so I’m just now catching up. I know I shouldn’t be surprised that fans are being fans, but a part of me is still shocked at some of the reaction. There are some nits to pick on both a story and filmmaking level—no movie is perfect—but in the big picture, I really could not have asked more from a new Star Wars movie in 2017. In every way, it’s a product of both love for and understanding of the source material. It’s hopeful and thoughtful in equal measure. I’m eager to rewatch The Force Awakens soon, because most of the choices in that movie that I had anxiety about have been vindicated; and I can’t wait for the conclusion of this trilogy, despite the fact (or perhaps because of it?) that I hardly have a clue how this story ends. It’s even made me optimistic about Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, which is not a series of words I ever expected to say. Star Wars is good hands.

[camposantoblog]

Our new game is In the Valley of Gods, a single-player first-person adventure set in Egypt in the 1920s. You play as a disgraced former filmmaker and explorer, reunited with your old partner for a project that could leave you with fame and fortune—or dead and buried in the sand. 

We’re currently developing the game for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with any potential future platforms yet to be determined. There’s a tentative release target of 2019, but that could change. Just like with Firewatch, follow our progress here on the blog and our Twitter account for the latest news and behind-the-scenes development. In the Valley of Gods is an adventure unlike anything we’ve ever made and we can’t wait for you to play it.

[shoomlah]

so hey – this is what I’ve been art directing for the past year! My team is fuckin’ amazing, I’ve poured more of my art and sensibilities into this game than I think anything else that I’ve worked on, and I’m so hyped to finally show it off.

[kaelri]

This looks really cool.

[edwardspoonhands]

will the book you're publishing have any romance aspects? if so, can we expect LGBT+ characters or-?

So…being intentionally vague here but, there are romantic relationships, and there are straight people and queer people. April, the main character, is bisexual. 

[emjineer]

Who helped influence this character? (Sorry I’m inherently skeptical of straight men writing queer female characters)

[edwardspoonhands]

This is something I’m also worried about. I’ve already had a couple of female bi beta readers and once I’m done with this revision will be looking for more. The balance between recognizing that I’m a (fairly) straight dude and wanting to tell a story starring a bi woman is something I think a lot about. 

Obviously, I’m not going to write a story that’s just a bunch of straight white dudes though, so I’ve got to figure it out.

In the end, April is a young bi white woman, and while I know a lot of young bi white women who have similar backgrounds, like any character, it’s never going to be a perfect encapsulation of the reality of other people’s experience. She is herself, I know her very well at this point. She’s a weirdo, and so not every bi person is going to see a clear reflection of their experience in her, but I think some will. 

Honestly, creating a person is very weird. I never really understood what went into it until I started working with April. Making her different from me in these ways has made that more challenging, and scarier, but also more fulfilling. I hope I do her justice, and I honestly can’t wait for you to meet her.

[kaelri]

One cannot board a ship without imagining shipwreck. Daniel Waterhouse envisions it as being like an opera, lasting several hours and proceeding through a series of Acts. Act I: The hero rises to clear skies and smooth sailing. The sun is following a smooth and well understood cœlestial curve, the sea is a plane, sailors are strumming guitars and carving objets d’art from walrus tusks, et cetera, while erudite passengers take the air and muse about grand philosophical themes. Act II: A change in the weather is predicted based upon readings in the captain’s barometer. Hours later it appears in the distance, a formation of clouds that is observed, sketched, and analyzed. Sailors cheerfully prepare for weather. Act III: The storm hits. Changes are noted on the barometer, thermometer, clinometer, compass, and other instruments—cœlestial bodies are, however, no longer visible—the sky is a boiling chaos torn unpredictably by bolts—the sea is rough, the ship heaves, the cargo remains tied safely down, but most passengers are too ill or worried to think. The sailors are all working without rest—some of them sacrifice chickens in hopes of appeasing their gods. The rigging glows with St. Elmo’s Fire—this is attributed to supernatural forces. Act IV: The masts snap and the rudder goes missing. There is panic. Lives are already being lost, but it is not known how many. Cannons and casks are careering randomly about, making it impossible to guess who’ll be alive and who dead ten seconds from now. The compass, barometer, et cetera, are all destroyed and the records of their readings swept overboard—maps dissolve—sailors are helpless—those who are still alive and sentient can think of nothing to do but pray. Act V: The ship is no more. Survivors cling to casks and planks, fighting off the less fortunate and leaving them to drown. Everyone has reverted to a feral state of terror and misery. Huge waves shove them around without any pattern, carnivorous fish use living persons as food. There is no relief in sight, or even imaginable. —There might also be an Act VI in which everyone was dead, but it wouldn’t make for good opera so Daniel omits it. Men of his generation were born during Act V and raised in Act IV. As students, they huddled in a small vulnerable bubble of Act III. The human race has, actually, been in Act V for most of history and has recently accomplished the miraculous feat of assembling splintered planks afloat on a stormy sea into a sailing-ship and then, having climbed onboard it, building instruments with which to measure the world, and then finding a kind of regularity in those measurements. When they were at Cambridge, Sir Isaac Newton was surrounded by a personal nimbus of Act II and was well on his way to Act I. But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that the opposite was true—that the world had once been a splendid, orderly place—that men had made a reasonably trouble-free move from the Garden of Eden to the Athens of Plato and Aristotle, stopping over in the Holy Land to encrypt the secrets of the Universe in the pages of the Bible, and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since.

—Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

[kaelri]

Odyssey: Day 8

You didn’t miss the first seven, I’m just jumping in here. I’m spending September on the most advanced, complex and challenging professional project I’ve ever done, so I’ve decided to journal my month in order to 1) keep myself sane, 2) maintain a light, let’s say rosy-knuckled grasp on my humanity, and 3) maybe build up a little momentum and keep this up after the 30th. The project is technical…

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