Notebook
This is my public “Reporter’s Notebook” about the art and business of storytelling — and beyond. Also available via dhowell.substack.com.
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Pong 2: Be the Ball, Danny
Pong’s Legacy Returns with a Twist In something of an early Valentine to Gen X, Atari has announced an upcoming sequel to its groundbreaking, industry-launching, classic video game… Pong. “Sequel” is a loose use of the term since the new game is essentially a wholesale reimagining of the rudimentary dual-paddle-battle save the inclusion of its…
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Movies, Marketing & Mayhem
Making movies is hard. Making movies that make money is even harder. Perhaps hardest of all is facing the stark realities of the American Film Market. I attended AFM a few weeks ago as part of the frontline marketing efforts for our second feature film, Werewolf Serenade. (And, yes, that’s the title—you voted, and that’s the winner—an instant cult…
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Name That Movie: Werewolf Edition
As some readers may know, the FMRL filmmaking cohort is in the near-final throes of completing a werewolf-themed romantic comedy. Beyond the fine-cutting of the edit, sound design, scoring, mixing, and color correction (not to mention the various creative conundrums and cinematic MacGyvering), there is the issue of the film’s title. We’ve had many. Too many. Enough that…
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Wake Up and Smell National Coffee Day
Americans consume 491 million cups of coffee every day, and a disproportionate amount of that is due to me. Had the National Coffee Association, who conducted the survey, called me, I might’ve helped get that number to a cool half billion. I’m one of the 65% of Americans who drink coffee every day, not because…
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Sept. 23: Autumn Ode
What’s in a name? Autumnal Equinox, to my ears: hot buttered rum then a horse smashing stained glass. Onomatopoeia, synesthesia? A Mary Poppins duet? The Latin antecedent is “aequinoctium” a.k.a. “equal night” followed by “sequel night” or Nextnoctium a sleep aid For procrastinators. If we were stamping passports Some say the Autumnal Equinox arrives the Friday…
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If you’re going to shoot at an elephant…
Gary Larson’s One-panel Master Class in Narrative Of those of us who came of age in the 80s, many are fans of Gary Larson’s The Far Side — the irreverent, nerdy, sadly extinct, single-panel cartoon that anthropomorphized cows (and their tools), brought beehive hair-dos back to national consciousness and gave us “Anatidaephobia: The fear that somewhere, somehow, a…
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The Lunar Codex, Or…
Lunacy Codified as a Dick Pic? Like any artist, notions of posterity occasionally creep into my consciousness: Will my work outlive me, or will I outlive my work? Right now, me and my work are neck and neck, though I sometimes suspect my work is killing me (though the result, I suppose, would be a…
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Hollywood and AI, the Pas de Deux
If there’s any question that major entertainment studios plan to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) in creative contexts that were once solely the domain of humans, look no further than your local job board or business networking event. As Intercept reported to the consternation of many a creative in late July, “Netflix is offering as much as $900,000 for a…
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Talk is Cheap… And I Like It
Check, check… Is this thing on? And… we’re back! One of the pleasures of being a local media gadfly is getting down with O.P.P. — Other People’s Podcasts — yeah, you know me. Daedalus Howell | Story Desk is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Here…