"Is Film School Worth It?"

“Is Film School Worth It?”  It's a very big deal. 

  

Tyler Mowery looks at the different ways one can become a professional guild screenwriter (or editor, or producer, or director, etc)  for a living, if that is the goal.

  

It is possible for people to get there with “alternate paths” even if some people in the industry would resist it for reasons of, perhaps, protectionism.

  

You really have similar questions in other arts fields, like classical music (playing in an orchestra, concert pianist, composer).

  

Tyler says he started in film school but switched to another major to finish college more quickly.  Economic Invincibility, who has a similar speaking style to Tyler (and also to Canadian Harvard student John Fish) has hinted at a similar past – he wanted to get to work quickly and be on his own.

Some YouTube producers, especially those who shoot raw news like Ford Fischer (News2share) could well consider migrating into careers as producers and directors of documentary film, given all the turmoil at YouTube with monetization and politics.
     

I don’t recall discussing film school before on this blog, so I thought this would be a good video to cover.
 
Another little tidbit:  Walt Disney, having bought 20th Century Fox etc, changed the names to 20th Century and Searchlight.  Will the wonderful Alfred Newman fanfare be kept?  I think it came in with "The Robe" in 1953.  Fox News and broadcasting is separately, and Disney wants to get rid of the "conservative" (Tucker Carlson) anti-woke stain. 

"Why Christian Movies Are Bad" (from "The Problem with Christian Media")

Josh Keefe tells us “Why Christian Movies Are Bad”, which is Part 2 of “The Problem with Christian Media”

The basic reason is that they essentially video sermons, the film says.  The characters are set up to make religious points and don’t behave in a way that people normally would. Film editing often doesn’t follow the actual flow of a conversation.   He compares a bad sequence from a Christian PureFlix film to a good one from “Whiplash” with Miles Teller, and another one from “The Social Network”.

Preachers are not filmmakers, the video says. They have their own calling.  

  

The end of the video shows a little clip from “Inherit the Wind” about the Scopes trial.  Like, that old time religion is good enough for me.

"COPPA Got Updated, It's Bad": well, not so fast (short)

Today’s film functions as a short, but it makes a point. It’s called “COPPA Got Updated, and It’s Bad”, by Charmx.

He describes the new “Protect Kids” act which was proposed in Congress Jan. 10 in the House.  I wrote more details Monday (Jan 13) on the BillBoushka blog and gave the Thomas link.

This is not law yet. The main provision that Charmx is concerned about is raising the age thresthhold from 13 to 16. 

This should set off a fierce debate before it goes anywhere. 

  

Nevetheless, should the age go up, YouTube could not continue behavioral advertising at all without age-gates on everyone even viewing the videos.  There are some more frictionless ways to do this (as an aftermath to COPA, a different law that got struck down) at the router level that, ironically, comes up as a result of my concerns during the immigration sponsorship debates (2016) and the ability of telecom companies to offer guest accounts on routers.  Put this together and find some good nifty programmers and YouTube could solve this and make some college kids good at coding rich (and pay off their college debts with ease), by actually employing them to do something badly needed for their business to continue.

One of my favorite memes is "it won't be so bad, or will it?" 

Oscar nominations in 2020 criticized for shunning PoC, women, creating hypocrisy among the woke in Hollywood

There a lot of talk right now about the lack of PoC and women in the Oscars this year, as in previous years, with the #OscarsSoWhite meme.

Krystie Lee Yandoli writes the politically correct account for Buzzfeed News.
     

Only Cynthia Erivo from "Harriet"  (as Minty / Harriet Tubman who help run the underground railroad to free slaves before the War Between the States) was nominated for a significant Oscar (for best actress, and best song).

Now BuzzFeed gets criticized for artificial wokeness, from commentators ranging from Tim Pool to gay male fitness guru Eduardo Sanchez-Ubanell (who himself produces short films).

John Matrixx, in the video above, says that the award shows are nothing more than opportunities for celebrities to pimp their wokeness.

   

A bigger issue for me in submitting my own material for movie consideration (which may happen in February) is expectations of casting diversity, when in my material some key characters have to meet some specific criteria for personal appearance, to make sense at all.   

As for other comments about the Oscars, at least two of them (Best Picture) were Netflix films, one of them “The Irishman” which I will make time to watch, I hope on Thursday.  Another such film is "Marriage Story". 

"The Politics of Gay Body Hair" and the paradox of a second puberty

Bradley Birkholz and “The Politics of Gay Body Hair: My Manscaping Routine” (15 min).

This video will show up if you search YouTube for "manscaping". 

  

Bradley presents his argument in three parts, and starts out with a historical perspective on how men and women were supposed to look, especially in Victorian England. He doesn’t mention that this varies by race.  Generally “white” people have more body hair than blacks or especially Asians.  That seems to have to do with having evolved in colder climates and then the way cultural norms about what his desirable compounded things. Skin color is lighter and skin thickness is less in colder and darker climates often to allow for more Vitamin D.  It’s conceivable that Neanderthal genes could have mattered, but no one has said much about that.  “White” includes most peoples in the Middle East and even some peoples in India.

But in the gay community, “smooth” was in for some people, especially in the 80s and 90s.  He notes the paradoxical or inconsistent “bifurcation” of his own body appearance, and discusses his previous work as a drag queen.  He is 22 and says he is suddenly experiencing a second period of post-puberty and likes it.  His values are changing.

  

In decades past, this sometimes was an issue with fraternity or even college hazing, as “leg shaving” parties were mandatory for incoming freshmen, as if they could prove they were not too sensitive to the expendability of their own bodies, when they would still be expected to reproduce and have and support families.  This was an issue at William and Mary in the fall of 1961 (actually contributing to my expulsion for refusing to participate).

"Living on a Generation Ship": Your legacy would be all that matters, and family values would be enforced

Unveiled, with “Noah” narrating, describes “Living on a Generation Ship”.

This would be a 15-20-mile long cylindrical rotating O’Neill Cylinder with perhaps a thousand families, moving to other solar systems and planets, needing to bear several generations to get mankind a new home.  Making artificial gravity work well will be a challenge;  it is not as effective as mass-induced gravity. 

    

This would have a profound effect on the lives of people living out their whole lives, with no other purpose but to keep humanity going on until it could land many generations down the road. Every able-bodied adult would need to have children and the political system would be authoritarian. You have to belong.  The hive owns your consciousness.
    

Wikipedia attribution: Public Domain, Link

"Could a Goldilocks Zone Galaxy Exist?" This video is not as encouraging as a lot of us want!

Unveiled has an important new speculative video “Could a Goldilocks Zone Galaxy Exist?”

Not only does an individual star have a goldilocks zone where temperatures are right for planets supporting life to exist, galaxies have a similar concept.  For the Milky Way, it’s about 17,000 light years to 33,000 light years from the center with its supermassive black hole. It’s dangerous for a solar system to pass through the spiral arm of a galaxy, and a circular rather than elliptical orbit is safer.

Finally, galaxies in some parts of the Universe are more conducive to life than others.  Essentially, older galaxies have a better chance because they will have more older stars and more supernovae in their past that could have created heavy elements necessary for rocky planets and for the enzymes necessary for biology.

Our own civilization may be a relatively early one in the history of at least our galaxy.

   

We could also look more systematically (and mathematically) at what does it take for individualized consciousness to form and persist? Once it forms, can it really be destroyed?