Thursday, November 29, 2007

99MB Revolving Door: jazz performance: Art Pepper

My friend Don LaVange told me about this video. Cool stuff. I'm going to play with text a bit more on this blog. Thanks Ashley.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Una Vida Mejor

Here is the first trailer for the film that Marissa and I worked on as editing supervisors, associate producers, and boom operators. The film has been submitted to thirteen film festivals so far. Check it out!

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut: Rules for Writing Fiction

From: http://www.troubling.info/vonnegut.html

Kurt Vonnegut

Eight rules for writing fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Saturday, November 03, 2007

The Shock Doctrine



This video is interesting to me on a few different levels: One, I'm interested in the ideas contained in the video and, more specifically, in the book. Two, I'm fascinated by the idea of short documentaries to introduce books (this has amazing implications). Is this the way to reach people who need motivation to read? Three, it's amazing to me that Alfonso Cuaron put together this video (the director of Children of Men, Harry Potter 3, Solo Con Tu Pareja, etc). What an interesting way to communicate such important ideas!