Radiohead For Free - An Indie Perspective

Early on in my blogs, I had written about piracy hurting the indpendents more than the majors primarily because the independents don't have the alternative income streams.

Radiohead is making an interesting move.  They are giving the "fans" a chance to decide what downloading their album is worth.  Is this a viable strategy?

The fact is that Radiohead recently finished a major label contract.  The easiest way to think of a major label contract is as a "loan."  The label loans y...Read more

Creating a Cinematic Composite - Magazine Article

A few months ago I was interviewed for an article about creating a cinematic composite.  The article just came online moments ago:

To sign up for your own print copy, please visit:

http://www.creativecowmagazine.net

To download the read-friendly Spread Edition, with facing pages...

<...Read more

Birthday for a Chicken

My mother told me today that she went to the birthday party of a chicken.  All her old friends were there and I'm sure the chicken, "Mr. X," was very surprised and pleased.

I thought about how this party came about and it made me think of a couple recent blogs I wrote about secret codes and my common subject of storytelling and I remembered an email I wrote about 14 months ago which will explain the chicken party.  (Not that chickens need to have a justification for having birthday parties.)

I'm ...Read more

Secret Codes

A while ago I was driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles and while desperately searching for something to listen to on the radio I briefly heard a moment of Christian Radio where the caller was quoting verse complete with all the antiquated language "Thou, thine, shalt, unto" and the incongruity of his voice and the language made me think of something.  These are translations.  That means there is no real reason to use the "Thou, thine, and unto's"  In fact, there is a lot of overly complex language and sentence struct...Read more

Rejection

Rejection is a tough thing for any reason. 

There seems to be a handful of common responses:

1.  Running away from it, hiding and getting out of sight.  Perhaps thinking you're being gracious, but possibly simply running away.

2.  Arguing with the point of view.  Not accepting the rejection.

3.  Accepting the rejection as an event, but not accepting that there might be a justification for it.

4.  Giving in to it entirely and letting it own you and conforming to every single complaint.

I realize t...Read more

Punishment as Commerce

I decided to write a little bit about why I don't believe in punishment.

It's hard to address the issue when it comes to crime and such because usually those types of problems could be addressed by the way we are treated by family growing up.  So, I'm going to talk about punishment when it comes to the family.

First off - Let me address the most obvious punishment - physical punishment: spanking, beating, belting and so on.  There are so many studies which show that beating children only leads to them beatin...Read more

Sharing My Music

I haven't shared any music on this site, so I decided to post this one work in progress privately.

I improvised the piano part, played it through a couple times to add a little structure, recorded it live, then went back and added some strings to fill it out. 

It's a pensive and quiet unfinished song.  It doesn't need to be critiqued, I'm just casually sharing it.  :)

click here to listen

The Paradox of Brilliance

This was written to a friend a while back who I felt was quite brilliant in many ways and I was certain she was on a path to never achieving what she wanted.

If you look at most of the people who became major players in any field you would not actually find the most genius or creative people in the world.  Yes, there are a few - but for the most part, they're only common denominator was their ability to focus on one task.

I've been involved in the film industry for many years now.  I've watched some frien...Read more

Story Twist & Oscillation

There are two structures which have attracted people's attention for many years:

Courts and Poker.

Breaking them down a little you can see a similar pattern.

Courts:

Procecution presents their case.  Fair enough - they should, we're establishing why we are here to begin with - what exactly is the problem?  By the end of this, you pretty much know the defendant is guilty.

Next - Defense presents it's case.  Suddenly a new revelation and whatever the prosecution had said is seen ...Read more

All Work

All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play makes Mark Allen a very bad blogger.  All work and no play mak...Read more