Sorry

Even though last night's Community was very entertaining, their 'hook' of referencing 70's and 80's movies, TV, and pop culture may be starting to wear out its welcome a little bit. Last night it was Animal House getting alluded to quite often, including Abed doing a spot on Bluto...though no one will ever do Bluto like Belushi.




Because it makes me smile.


(Oh and my porn name (according to Community) is Davin Crush Cream Soda.)

Your Brother??!!

Oh kids these days, with your editing machines and your Star Wars Youtube mashup video jokes...I don't understand the why exactly, but it's still pretty funny.




H/T Matt Watts


And speaking of funny (but also actually kinda instructional), after blowing Phantom Menace out of the water Plinkett (aka filmmaker Mike Stoklasa) takes on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones in seven parts HERE.

Try out Part One below...it's tasty!

Fashionable People Wear Denim On Denim

Both of these happening indie pop artists deserve their own post, but this turned into a 2-fer.

Joel Plaskett hails from Nova Scotia. He's been making music for a long time here in Canada, but I'd never heard of him before seeing him open for the Barenaked Ladies recently. He has a website.



Library Voices hail from Regina. They've only been making music for a couple of years but I had never heard of them before seeing them play this past weekend (even though they're from my hometown). They have a MySpace page.

Joel Plaskett performed semi solo when I saw him (joined by guitarist Peter Elkas), but he fronts a three piece band called the Joel Plaskett Emergency which has an Elvis Costello Neil Young Big Star kinda thing going on.

Library Voices is an 8 piece collective, fronted by singer/guitarist Carl Johnson and keyboardist/lyrist Mike Dawson, but they truly are a band...in a Brian Jonestown Massacre Dandy Warhols The New Pornographers kinda way.

Joel Plaskett won a Juno last week for Best Adult Alternative Album for his CD Three.


"Fashionable People" isn't on that CD, but it seems to be the song he's most recognized for.




Library Voices just released a new CD entitled Denim On Denim.


They talk about the making of it HERE. "Haunt This House" is one of the songs on it.

Library Voices - Haunt This House from Andy Dixon on Vimeo.

Joel Plaskett wants to "Go Nowhere With You."




Library Voices want to "Step Off The Map And Float."




Bottom line? Both rock the house live. Smart. Fun. Infectious. Soooo entertaining. Buy their tunes, and definitely see them in concert if you can.

That is all.

(And I've just learned these are two of my eldest daughter and her boyfriend's fav Canadian artists and have been for a while...so I guess this is what the 'kids' are into. Welcome to the present day, old man.)

The Neverending 4 Chord Pop Song Story

Even though it does make me wonder what is 'original' anymore when it seems most everything being made today references or borrows something from the past, but still...some Friday musical Fun and awesomeness from Australia's Axis of Awesome. This will make your day.



Double time!


Because it makes me smile.

Guessing Game

"Random strangers would have very strong opinions about your every slightest move."

"Everyone would expect everything to be free, and excessively convenient."

"*Attention* would be considered an acceptable substitute for *money*."


No I'm not talking about what shows TV networks are going to renew, or what pitches they might put into development, or what series they might greenlight into production, or even Canadian TV in general (though I could understand if that's the first place you went)...I'm talking about the amusing 'If real life were more like the internet..." comic in Salon.com, which you can see HERE.

I'm running on fumes and fighting off a cold and it still made me smile.

Some Days I Feel Like That Guy

...days like today in fact.

Everyone has probably seen this already but The Onion totally nails it with this aspiring screenwriter 'which writing software to use?' bit...read and smile HERE.

Great time this weekend at the WGC National Forum...met some great writerly folks, listened to some very interesting speakers regarding product integration and the BBM ratings system...capped off by another fun time had at the WGC Awards party last night. Great to see everyone again and put a lot of names to faces, finally.

"Hey I know you from the internet!"

Thanks again to the Writers Guild of Canada for inviting me out, and if you ever get a chance to take part in National Forum in the future....do it. Nothing more...just do it.

He Adored New York City, But Loved TO Even More

I wish someone would make a movie opening as good as Woody Allen's Manhattan that celebrates the great city of Toronto in the same sort of way, that would be Friday Fun worthy. Or maybe someone already has, and I just haven't seen it yet.

As long as it wasn't too angry.



Because it makes me smile.

Johnny Mnemironic?

So was scanning today's Twitter headlines and wondering what it means, if anything, to learn from TV/film scribe @jamesmoran that:


...when he was at last night's Streamy Awards (for web series), which reading HERE at Web Series Today were apparently an unmitigated disaster and embarrassment...

In the coming days there will be plenty of finger pointing. However, the award show blunders in no way detract from the work that was supposed to have been honored at the event. The nominees should be proud of what they accomplished, even if the award show designed to honor them treated them like a joke.

...the same morning I read HERE in the Globe & Mail that online revenue for broadcasters and specialty and pay TV companies accounted for a paltry 2.3 per cent of overall advertising revenue in 2009...

"When you contrast the amount of TV revenue … to the online numbers, they are drops in the bucket,” said Brahm Eiley, principal at the research firm. “Even if [online revenues] go up steadily for the next few years, it's not going to do anything for the business.”

...and thus reports of TV's death were greatly exaggerated.


I KNOW we're in a period of transition, and getting ANYTHING not just made but FINANCED for television OR web is going to be a tough slog for next while (because we keep getting told that TV is dead and New Media or Digital Media is the future except that business model is not quite here yet so we don't want to pay for it and yet we don't really want to pay for TV either cuz it's, you know, DEAD), but still...geez...does it really need to be this HARD?

Everyone Into The Pool!

It's that time of year again. No, not the Genie Awards (though they are on tonight)...I'm talking playoff time, of the hockey variety. And therefore it's time for you to pick your players and join the 4th Annual Infamous Writer's Hockey Pool, hosted by yours truly and the Legion of Decency himself Jim Henshaw.



It costs nothing and is strictly for fun and no, you don't have to be a "writer" to participate.


From Jim's place:


HERE'S HOW IT WORKS

You join "The Infamous Writer's Hockey Pool" by sending me (Jim) an email at seraphic@sympatico.ca with "POOL PICKS" in the subject line between 8:00 AM EST Monday (today) and 7:00 PM EST Wednesday night (April 14/10) when the first pucks drop in Pittsburgh and New Jersey.

In your email, list the 10 skaters and 2 Goalies who make up your team. They can be members of any of the 16 teams competing in the opening round.

HOWEVER…

This year, at least THREE of your picks must come from one team. Three skaters, two and a goalie, your choice. The point is to make a small commitment (25% of your roster) to a team you think is either going to win it all, go deep or roll up a lot of points.

The scoring is as follows:

For every goal or assist scored by your skaters you earn 1 point.

Every time your goalie wins you also earn a point and seven points each time he earns a shutout.

Shutouts in Stanley Cup play are rare and skaters will always earn more points than a Goalie, but this is a way of evening things up.

The 12 players you choose are yours for the entire tournament. As the teams your players represent fall by the wayside, they cease earning you points, but their totals remain a part of your total. In the end, the poolie with the most points wins.

I'll post your team online. From then on, you can check your progress by going HERE. All players will be provided with a password so they can check their progress throughout the playoffs.

Once you're inside the pool site, you'll see all the information on the poolies and their teams. You'll also receive a twice weekly update of the pool standings, which either Will or I will post for all the world to see on our blogs.

See -- easy and fun! The only thing missing is the chance to share the beer and wings and make fun of each other's choices. Anybody who wants to open a Facebook group to handle the trash talk or Twitters their opponents has our blessing.

Now, playing in a hockey pool is very simple but a certain amount of strategy is involved. I've seen poolies pick players from teams that exited early still win because those players racked up so many points in the early going. I've also seen poolies with terrible picks come out on top because they had a hot goalie in their pool.

Like everything else in the game, it's ultimately up to the hockey gods.

WHAT DO YOU WIN?

Well, since gambling is technically illegal, and the entrants are going to come from a lot of disparate currencies, we've decided that your entrance fee must be something either related to your career or a sports souvenir you've gathered along the way.

Once the winner is decided, all entrants must ship he or she a DVD of a film or TV episode they made, an autographed script, their Bobby Orr lunchbox or even that old Honus Wagner baseball card that's just gathering dust in grandpa's desk.

There will also be prizes for the poolies finishing 2nd or 3rd as well as side contests along the way.

There are no other restrictions to participating. Just join up, pick your players and set aside your victory swag.


There you have it...easy peasy. And more fun than you'd think. Or at least makes the next couple months of endless hockey on Canadian TV a little easier to endure.

Read all of Jim's post HERE, and we'll see you in the pool.

Game on.

My Name Was Earl Dammit!

This was creepy. (Nike keeps taking ad down from Youtube...weird)




This is funny.




Because it makes me smile (but not smile too much, cuz the initial Nike ad was still really creepy).

Killing Us Softly With Your Prolong(ing)

In Canadian Televisionville, the big stories of past couple weeks have been a new TV policy report from the CRTC and the release of the new CMF (Canada Media Fund) guidelines. But in my opinion, there is an even bigger story out there that hasn't been getting the press it deserves...though it was recently touched on by Karen Mazurkewich in the National Post Financial section (You can read the article HERE)

Canuck content providers are getting killed.

Arnie Gelbart has survived the cyclical waves of the Canadian broadcast industry before. But there is no way to sugarcoat this recession. "It's been a tough year," says the president of Montreal-based Galafilm Productions Inc.

"Canadian broadcasters ordered very little new material compared to other years," says Mr. Gelbart, who admits to laying off some of his staff last year.

Mr. Gelbart's fears-- and the overall production blues of the industry -- were lost in the cacophony around the CRTC hearings last November to determine whether or not cable operators should compensate over-the-air broadcasters for carrying their signals.

As the rhetoric flew in Ottawa, production houses wobbled.

You see, this past year has been a sort of 'wait and see' limbo for most TV and Film creatives and producers and craftspeople in Canada. Wait and see what the old CTF new CMF is going to look like. Wait and see if tax credit rebates in various provinces are going to go up or stay the same or be reduced. And most importantly, wait and see if our broadcasters will or won't receive some sort of value for signal or fee for carriage from the BDU's/cable/satelite providers (aka you the consumer) so everyone can get on the with business of MAKING CONTENT AGAIN!

But even though the CRTC granted broadcasters the right to negotiate value for signal, it still has to clear the Canadian courts and then and only THEN can the Broadcasters and BDU's get on with business of negotiating.

Wait and see.

"The way the issue had been framed, misdirected the discussion entirely," says Michael Prupas, president and chief executive of Muse Entertainment Enterprises. It devolved into a battle over the survival of local television versus a so-called television tax, he says. But it should really have been about the survival of Canadian production and whether or not cable and satellite would lift a hand.

--------------------------

How the industry reshapes itself going forward depends on how the CRTC will handle television licence renewals in 2011 and how much cash there will be for producers within the revamped Canadian Media Fund (CMF) now new media players and broadcasters can dip into it for some in-house production.

Also at stake is whether or not Canadian producers will be able to monetize their shows online, and increase sales in overseas markets. While international sales rose to $2-billion in 2008-09, they have not returned to the heights of 2002-03.

Yep, you read that right. It's the 2011 television licence renewals that are so important apparently, as in next year. And EVERYONE is still trying to figure out how to monetize online programming, not just Canadian content producers.

Wait and see.

Everywhere I look or turn, companies are laying off personnel or even closing down...very little new work is being commissioned...writers and producers are giving up....craftspeople and technicians are packing it in and finding another line of work. It's BRUTAL.

We're dying out here CRTC and Broadcasters and Cable Providers of Canada...you're killing us softly but surely with your song of indecision and indifference.

Do you even care?

Uma...Oprah...Uma...Scarlett?

I sure hope Ironman 2 is better than The Avengers movie...




...even though it looks like they are modeling Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow character after Uma Thurman's Emma Peel, or the hair and wardrobe at any rate.




Not to mention: Stark...Steed...both five letter words that begin with letter "S". Coincidence? I think not.


Man The Avengers movie sucked ass.

Fridays Fun

I realize it seems pretty tame by today's standards, but I remember witnessing Wendy O Williams and the Plasmatics on the TV show Fridays way back when and thinking it was the end of the world as we know it. Now, it's just good Friday Fun.

Release the Chainsaw!




Because it makes me smile.