I Should Just Never Sleep

Adapted from a nightmare I had tonight:


I knew HE was coming again but I was older and wiser now. I could call upon all the guile that 33 years since it had happened now afforded me. I could not let him steal the same things from you.

I ran down the wet street my strides seeming smaller as I ran and he chased me, I turned up the narrow street of the old city and past the men I had hired to intercept him... and I kept running. I heard them call out through the light rain "we will take care of this one... run along now" I knew that you would soon be safe from him... and I kept running. I was smaller now for sure.

Eventually I made it to the doorway of the shop. The man who was the boss of the other men I had hired, greeted me in gleeful haste asking if I had the components for him... I reached into the pockets of the coat that was now so large on me and pulled out the package for him. He didn't need to mix anything or chant, he just kicked open an azure painted wall to reveal a contraption which had a large wheel that he cranked twice with grand, fluid gestures. Then he tossed my package in the top and the sky opened up making the street even more wet and filling the air with a loud hiss from the hard rain. Even with all the noise when he leaned in close and spoke I could hear him as if it was snowing instead. "it's done, he is gone. The one you were protecting is safe."

I sat down in the chair he offered me rain falling on us both. I was so small now, so helpless and young, very hansom in my youth like I used to be... like you would be some day. "Do you hear the music coming from upstairs? Would you like to come up for a while and get dry?" Something was wrong with me... I was having trouble moving or speaking. I started to tell him that I was leaving but he reached out and I recoiled and froze as he touched my face... I could not move and I was falling backwards in my chair at an impossibly slow rate. I now understood that the money I had paid was only part of the price... I was helpless, powerless, young, beautiful and in the control of another man with no empathy for my horror.

I felt myself being carried away... but I knew you were safe.

Creepy I know... But thats how my brain works when I fall asleep in my office chair!

More Amazing Short Film

This one comes from a  man named Shane Acker. He and his cohorts have created a very dark and twisted dystopia... in miniature! 

Many of you who know me understand I have a fascination with the minuscule. Mr. Acker builds a strange place from the broken, rusted, discarded gimcrack of the world we know, and somehow in that landscape of heaped refuse, something resembling life has taken hold using that same junk as raw material for itself. Of course, wherever there is life, there is struggle...

Behold "9"

*Warning* turn down your volume if you are at work.... its out of context, but the creator started the film with some "distant badly recorded sex cries" I think its supposed to  set a mood of discomfort... It's only faint at the beginning but I didn't want anyone to get in trouble.

Beautiful enough in its own right... A feature length film based on this short is in the works. I hope they don't loose what is good about it in extending it, but I am sure they will get my money regardless.

The internet and its effect on the concept of an original idea

Recently we got a comment on our youtube posting of Coda from a person who seemed pretty upset and claimed that they and another person had essentially made the same film 2 years earlier. By her tone, we felt she was implying that we had seen the film they made and duplicated key elements from it.



Well, for the people involved in Coda we know this to not be the case. Whatever direct influences we had, we were largely unaware of them... well except for rules of the race of course. Old Twilight Zones, Hitchcock, M. Night Shyamalan and other such broad influences, sure, I think were clear about those... but none of us had ever seen a film exactly like what we were quickly writing and we had certainly never seen their film which was never distributed and played once at a film festival in Florida as near as I can tell. We simply would not have had the opportunity.

I still haven't seen their film, but I am taking it on faith that it has some strong similarities. (They seem like nice and honest people after getting to know them a bit) Thats really interesting to me. I have been speaking with the person that made the post and I think I have convinced her that we never saw their film. (they are trying to get it up on youtube, I hope they do I am dying to see it) If it really is as similar as they say, then it will have some interesting social ramifications to me.

Like I told her in a message "I really do understand, I know it must have been shocking to see something that appeared to be a copy of your work. Having done creative work professionally and personally for 20+ years I know that feeling... and Its always disturbing. The internet is only going to make it worse I think. In the past we may have lived the rest of our lives never knowing we did films so similar! But I suspect this is a good thing, It allowed us to meet, have a great story to tell, and perhaps have a few more people seeing our projects because of it."

Will people feel less compeled to create if they feel all the good Ideas are spoken for? what If you have a concept for a film 10 years from now and you search the web wich by that time is overflowing with films and videos from vast millions of people. and you find that in 2011 some person did almost the exact concept withsome friends on handhelds an barebulb 3 point lighting... will you keep going knowing that you will likely get accused of ripping them off?

With so many people making so much media, duplication of ideas is almost guaranteed.

The real answer of course is to not care and ignore the crys of foul... interestingly this is the same answer for both the person that honestly arrived at the concept on their own as it would be for the person that DID steal it. I just don't know if I can "not care" because I really pride myself on supporting the creators of content and just the idea that someone thought I would blatantly steal from someone else would make me ill.

By the way if you haven't seen Coda, and liked it... go give it a good rating. : )