The State of Digital Piracy and Lifted Limitations to Storytelling

A short post of two very different videos worth pondering:

The first is a parody of sorts, one of those pre-recorded award acceptance speeches.  This one, from Brad Bird on his recent Annie win, is entertaining, but I couldn’t help consider the elephant in the room.

It used to be that the dividing line between an animated film (cartoon) and a live action film was that anything that would be too difficult to do in real life was a good candidate for animation.  Clearly times have changed and really this is no longer a valid parameter.  And while it’s very true that most animation houses (Disney, Pixar, and usually Dreamworks*) have their own story development departments that are closed to spec material.  With recent successes like DESPICABLE ME, there really is no reason to be discouraged if that is what you want to write.

*Dreamworks currently has an open writing assignment out for MONSTER MASH and Sony Pictures Animation has at least 4 open writing assignments out.

But the white elephant in the room I was hinting at is really just fun a question:

Is Tom Cruise getting younger?

Oh, and thank Dianetics, he has come to the realization that he is much more likeable when he’s self deprecating.

Video #1

This next clip is from one of my favorite creators of all things story, Neil Gaiman, here he offers his take on digital piracy.

Some will argue that he and Stephen King can afford to give away a few digital copies, but in true Neil fashion he has data to back it up.

He certainly makes a great argument for writers trying to break in, it’s easier then ever to get your work out there and THAT is your 1st step to getting it noticed.

Now if only the media studios that want to block script reading online, would realize that it would drive movie rentals/downloads, we’d be getting somewhere.

Video #2

Stay tooned…