Sunday, December 19, 2010

Another symptom of Print's demise

Older people are growing more frustrated with print every day searching for items that are intermittently migrating to the Internet. One glaring example is advertising by movie theaters.

My mother nearly ripped the State Journal-Register to shreds looking for the movies this Sunday. She grabbed the Illinois Times and was frustrated with that too. She saw a movie advertised on television that piqued her again. "What's the point of advertising a movie on television? Once they come to Springfield we forget about them! We never see them advertised and then their gone!"

Older people have lost sight of the changing stream of communication. There is still a need for print as long as there are people still alive who were born before 1950 who never adopted new technology. They still have their pensions, remember what a pension is? It's a salary they used to give to retirees for the rest of their lives. Don't tell me they still have them, if you think you're getting one your being duped.

Anyway I digress. If anyone here in Springfield consistently prints movie schedules for theaters in Springfield, leave a comment on this blog, I'm sure there are a lot of people still around who might subscribe to it.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Random notes on compelling media

What is it about a book, play or film that motivates one to cease acting on one's own survival instinct for a period of entertainment? This question was answered partially by the PBS series on "Mirror Neurons." To quickly summarize, some of the same parts of the brain are used when we do something and when we watch others do things.

Reading triggers the imagination in the same way. We have the unique ability to use symbols, letters and numbers, to stimulate images and then stimulate those images into actions purely in our mind.

So, what's so compelling?

One's own fantasies of happiness portrayed by others? One's own ideal emotional transactions carried out to desired conclusions by others? Basically, someone or something showing us what we want to see. What do we want to see?

Children seek expressions of stability, peace, community, comfort, safety, abundance among other things. Basically, visualizations of satiation.

As we grow up we become compelled to see more complex expressions of satiation, such as mere hints or implied expressions of sexuality, control over situations not normally controllable, victory and dominance.

Depending on who we want as an audience or customer, we can distill these expressions from simplistic to extremely abstract.

More later.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

My plates came


I finaly got my personalized plates in the mail today: "SPFLD TV"

I'm wondering if I jinxed myself because my sister got personalized plates for her business and now she's closing her store.

It will be much easier for people to see me drive too, so I'll change my evil driving ways and behave myself behind the wheel.

My dream is to have my own studio. I'm thinking of converting a step van into a mobile studio. In the back I may either cut large backdrop windows for an anchor background, or green-screening it and keying a rooftop camera shot.

That's a dream. Right now I'm just struggling to get by as a minimum wage security guard until this economy recovers, if ever. I would rather be working at a Television station.