This site serves as an information repository to help creative professionals develop quality entertainment.
Introduction
Welcome to the New Media Production Guide!
This site is meant to be an open reference for anyone interested in the advancing possiblities and opportunities in entertainment media. Exciting new technology has opened unexplored distribution channels and business models that promise to change the way we interact with all forms of media in an even more profound way than the introduction of television less than a century ago.
Step-by-Step Guide
The guide within the guide, this series of numbered pages is a step-by-step overview of the entire process of creating, advertising and distributing media products. No matter the size of the project or the particular medium, this guide can serve as a checklist of everything needed to be addressed throughout the creative process.
Contribute to the New Media Production Guide!
The New Media Production Guide thrives on user interaction and input. If you have anything to contribute to the guide please use this form to submit your information.
Are Stars Going Nova? Part II
"We are all made of stars"
- Moby
A little while back I floated the idea that stars are beginning to lose their power to pull in a guaranteed audience. Apparently, I'm not the only person questioning the foundational principles of Hollywood business models. The concept of "content is king" is penetrating every aspect of the entertainment industry.
Are Stars Going Nova?
"A movie star is mythic, a movie star is like no one you've ever seen walking around in daily life... You don't see these people walking to the drug store, and the ones that you do aren't stars, they're actors."
- John Waters
Hollywood has gone through many changes in it's just-over century long history. The introduction of sync-sound, color, television and home video, each changed the basic business model of feature films, but throughout the history of film the star has been a bankable commodity. Recent years, however, have shown a decrease in the reliability of a star's box-office draw.
Hollywood is Nucking Futs
"Nobody knows anything"
I had the pleasure of attending a Q&A with William Goldman and John Cleese last week, an entertaining couple of hours all around. The audience was full of working and aspiring screenwriters, and the common theme throughout most of the questions being asked was, "What should I be doing to best advance my career?"
Unfortunately, the common theme through most of the answers to these questions was, "I don't know."
Breaking in won't happen
"If I can make it there I'll make it anywhere"
- Frank Sinatra
"Breaking in" to the entertainment industry is even harder than you think - and even fewer people than you realize have begun a career by "breaking in". Hollywood is perceived by outsiders as a closed system, but really it's not much of a system at all. It's so hard to break in because there's nothing to break into.
Do the thing
"Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly"
- Oscar Hammerstein
Actors act. Writers write. Producers produce. If you aren't doing what you claim to be, you are merely posing. Learn your craft, build a work ethic and develop your craft - these are the only roads to success in your career.
Your story has three acts - Part II
"Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out!"
- Michael Palin
I wanted to continue the topic I began in a previous column because the topic is terribly complex, and it happens to hit close to the root of my true passion: story.
Your story has three acts - Part I
"Thou shalt count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number that thou count, and the number of the counting shall be three."
- Michael Palin
Your story has three acts. It doesn't matter if it's a two act play, a five act television show, a single feature film, or a three act play. Your story has three acts. Unless it sucks.
