Tag: Burn Hollywood Burn

It’s At Least Possible That I May Have A Stable First Act

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At LAST, it’s possible that I MAY have something akin to a stable first act. A lot of my problems with the first act are bullshit and arbitrary. From what my Beta Readers have told me, the issue for most people is they just want the story to flow and make sense.

My heroine KINDA looks like this.

All this futzing around with the specifics of scene sequence is not something that most readers notice or care about. They just want to be able to read the novel all the way through.

Now, issue that I’ve found myself worrying about is the number of spicy scenes in the first act. Too often, I’ve leaned into the nature of my heroine’s personal life to show some sexual activity and I just don’t know how much people will tolerate it — especially in the first act.

But I’m doing all of this in a vacuum. I just can’t keep spinning my wheels. I have to, at some point, realize that the point is to get this third draft done so I can go through and edit it.

So. As such, I’m trying to write as much as possible as quickly as possible now so I can get out of the first act by the end of October, 2023.

Yet More Mulling The Mysteries Of This Website’s Webstats

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a nobody at the moment. Sometimes, I feel like I could walk off the edge of the world and it would take a while — if ever — for anyone to notice. So, ANY attention I get is of note to me. But I’m not going to complain about how I have one stalker(?) who obsessively checks this site.

No, I’m interested in those curious instances where someone looks at this Website, but clearly doesn’t want me to know where they’re really coming from. It’s no big deal — whatever — but it is curious that anyone would care enough to hide their domain name.

There was a moment in time, when such things really got me excited. But, now, not so much. I just don’t care. It’s no big deal. The idea that someone of note would be interested in me and would go out of their way to hide their URL is intriguing.

I will note that I find it really interesting when it comes to celebrity’s relationship to social media. I think there is a spectrum, with one end a celebrity being too busy doing dope shit to worry about social media and on the other end you have very insecure celebrities with a lot — A LOT — of burner accounts.

One of the most curious situations is people who not only come out of nowhere, but they find some random link deep in the site. It’s very curious. I sometimes think there is a lot going on in my Webstats that I’m not seeing. I think some of it comes from my Webstat software mistaking some people looking at this site as robots and, as such, I don’t see what they’re looking at.

Or something. Something like that. But, in the end, it’s all value free. It is going to be very interesting to see on the backend once I start querying. Of course I’m going to see a deluge of normal people with real careers and real money look through all the drunken ranting I’ve done on this site.

But I know this novel is getting really, really good. And that’s all that matters.

Idle Rambling About Alexa Chung & My Novel’s Heroine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The only reason why I even bring any of this up is I’m a bit intoxicated and I want to see if my FBI agent monitoring me for any mention of Alexa Chung swoops in to look at this. Anyway, it is amusing to me that the heroine of my first novel definitely looks — in my mind — like someone in a fuzzy continuum that ranges Olivia Munn to Alexa Chung.

What can I say, I have a thing for brunettes with vaguely Asian looks.

Anyway, the thing about Alexa Chung for me is her personality. While it’s her appearance that catches my attention, its her witty personality that causes me to linger. I’m well aware that she’s rather vacuous all things considered, but, yet she still in interesting enough to make her my celebrity crush.

And, yet, I have to admit that as I grow older, the very idea of having a “celebrity crush” seems rather…quaint. I just don’t care. Any potential interaction with someone like Ms. Chung I want to happen on my own terms after I blow up with my DJ money for having written a break out hit first novel.

So, in essence, I just don’t care anymore one way or the other about Ms. Chung. Live long and prosper. I am WELL AWARE that if any of her “people” became aware of my low-grade infatuation they would freak the fuck out. At the moment, at least, I’m the quintessential nobody.

And, if you really wanted to be honest, I’m the quintessential freaky weirdo nobody. I am who I am. I am — at least in my own mind — rather harmless, but, lulz, everyone is hateful and judgmental.

A Half-Assed Hot Take On ‘The Creator’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I did not finish the movie “The Creator” — I walked out. But I do that all the time, so it’s not that big a deal. But I saw enough of the movie to get some sense of it and why I couldn’t sit through the whole thing.

One issue I didn’t like was what I saw was clearly anti-American. The movie seemed to say, with a wink and a nod, “Look at those ignorant Americans, unwilling to embrace the future that is AI.” I also thought the plot was rather turgid. It seemed like I was watching a B+ TV movie, not “real” Hollywood movie.

But I will say that the premise of the movie was very cool, even if the world building associated with it was piss-poor. They just didn’t give the concept much thought, it seemed to me.

In general, however, “The Creator” hopefully will be “The 13th Floor” to another, much better movie that will be an AI “Matrix.” Or something. Something like that.

A Hard Reboot of The ‘Terminator’ Franchise

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are a number of scifi franchises that have been so strip mined over the years that they just need to be left alone for a little while. But the time will come when they can finally be hard rebooted for a new generation.

Here’s an idea for how to do it with the Terminator.

The movie ostensibly is simply a near shot-for-shot remake of the original, but with a far bigger budget. Maybe get someone like Jason Momoa to be the new Terminator.

But there would be a trick ending — Sarah Conner dies at the end of the second act!

The remainder of the film would be an exploration into an error on the part of the people who sent Kyle Reese back in time. They thought they were sending him back to the same timeline as their own, when, in fact, by definition, time travel causes a new timeline to be spawned the moment you appear in the past.

This is a way to bring new life into a very old and beat up franchise. I think Gen Z would really dig the use of the multiverse concept.

An Interesting Hard First Contact Movie Concept

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While we’re rushing towards Hollywood being “moneyballed” by the AI revolution, I do continue to dream up movie ideas. I only share this one because I’m too preoccupied by my first novel to do anything with it. And, besides, I’m so fucking old that by the time I go around to doing anything with it, AI will have taken over.

Anyway, someone write a screenplay about the finer points of the after effects of hard First Contact by, say, some sort of “Galactic Empire.” What if the entire planet was run as a vassal state of that empire? Who would run it? How would it be administered? What would its capital be?

The current idea I have is something like this — we have hard First Contact and our “Governor General” for the empire is some sort of huge insect-like creature who puts earth’s new capitol somewhere in the tropics because it needs the damp and warmth to lay its eggs in.

I find the idea of Luang Prabang in Laos being earth’s capitol as rather amusing and interesting. The specifics of how that might happen are very intriguing. Then there is the issue of what happens if our new colonial rulers totally ignore the political boundaries that our “tribe nations” have agreed upon?

There is a lot to explore. It would be an interesting novel, yes, but an even more interesting movie because of the visual element of seeing 6-foot-tall insect aliens walking around, telling humans what to do.

Anyway. Lulz. Nothing matters.

The Potential Implications Of Google’s Gemini LLM For Hollywood

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, Google is coming out with a next-generation LLM called Gemini later this year, in December. It’s allegedly going to be four times as powerful as OpenAI’s ChatGTP4.

The thing I’m interested in is the implications for Hollywood. It’s well within the realm of possible that the two strikes that Hollywood is experiencing at the moment will still be going on. If Gemini turns out to be as powerful as Google claims, I wonder if it’s possible that Hollywood suits might begin to turn to Gemini to make the strikes…moot.

Or, put another way, it could be that all my “hysterical doom shit” about the future of Hollywood could happen a lot sooner than we might think. It could be that the Hollywood suits will simply sit on their hands until Gemini is up and running. Then, this spring, they will start to spit out the first AI-generated movies.

Or not. I don’t know enough about what’s possible. But the point remains — things are moving very quickly with LLMs and I think we have to begin to understand that Hollywood is about to go through a massive technological shift in ways that we can barely begin to understand.

AI Is About To Transform Hollywood

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m old enough to remember the dawn of the Internet. And, but for how my brain is wired, I probably would be on a yacht today snorting cocaine off the asshole of a “yacht girl.”

I just can not, for the life of me, process how to code. So, 30 years ago, I could understand the implications of the looming Internet revolution, but there was squat I could do on a practical basis to benefit from it. And even when I did benefit from it, I found myself wanting to be a writer.

Go figure.

Anyway, the point is — all signs point towards AI totally and completely revolutionizing recorded media of any sort, be it TV, movies or even — gulp — novels. There is going to be some serious futureshock at some point in the next 18 months as we lurch into a future where there are two types of people involved in entertainment — plutocrat suits and software programmers.

There will be no other humans involved.

And I say this being well aware of the fact that the courts have recently decided that you can’t copyright AI-generated art. Given the billions of dollars on the line, the suits will figure out some way to work around this particular problem soon enough.

We need to adjust our expectations as to what Hollywood will look like in a few years. Our only hope at the moment, it seems, is after the novelty wears off, that people will begin to seek out “artisanal art” that they know was created by the hand of Man.

That’s just a sliver, but that’s all we got at this point.

Mulling A Scifi Screenplay Concept

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m officially at an age where I am constantly reminded of how precious my remaining days of life are. I wasted way too many years grieving over the demise of ROKon Magazine and now, here I am, at 50, troubled by all the doors that have closed behind me for good.

And, yet, I continue to be consumed by delusion to the point that I still have hope that somehow, someway, I will “blow up with my DJ money” and pull of a third hattrick — this time for a national / international audience.

As such, I continue to chung away at a mystery-thriller novel that I hope will be the cornerstone of a six novel project. What’s more, despite all the mental energy devoted to such an endeavor, I still find myself dreaming up other story concepts.

That sort of thing just happened to me today when I returned to a time-travel story that has been rolling around in my mind for some time. I like it because it deals with multiverse concept while also addressing some major issues of the day.

The more I’ve thought about the idea, the more I’ve come to realize it has the storytelling dynamic of a screenplay rather than a novel. The thing about screenplays is you can get away with a lot of things that you simply can’t with a novel.

I have long wanted to write a screenplay, but I fear I’ve just waited too long. Or, to put it another way, a screenplay would be something I might be able to pull off once I blow up with my DJ money. I’m delusional, yes, but I am still connected to reality enough that I’m not prepared to spend all that much time on a screenplay when I’m both too old and live in the wrong place for it to ever be produced.

But I just don’t know. I really like this scifi concept enough — and I do continue to have a lingering interest in writing a screenplay — that I might just dabble in writing such a screenplay to get it out of my system.

The Hollywood Strikes May Last So Long They’re Moot

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I can’t predict the future. So, it’s possible that as many people have predicted, the current creative strikes taking place in Hollywood will wrap up sometime in mid-September.

That definitely seems to be a viable possibility.

And, yet, I worry. I worry that Hollywood suits know that if they just wait long enough that the whole thing will be moot. AI will advance just enough that they can realistically produce the usual formulaic drek they always do and they can go about their merry business without any regard to the either writers or actors.

I could totally see suits looking at it this way — all they have to do is endure some pain upfront long enough that, say, 18 months from now, they can atomize things to the point that there are only two types of survivors in the new age of AI: suits and programmers.

Because that definitely seems to be the future we’re careening towards. The vast majority of recorded entertainment will be AI generated and it will be just good enough that the average person won’t even notice. Nearly all of what Hollywood currently generates is extremely bland and forumlatic. It follows a well-worn, well-established beat structure to the point that AI could easily follow it once technology is up to it.

There might be .1% of recorded entertainment that will be grandfathered in that will be human-generated, but, in the end, if you want your entertainment manmade, you’re going to have to go to live theatre.

Again, I am wrong all the time. So, it’s very possible that this will be yet another instance of that. Everything will be wrapped up in mid-September and we’ll punt all my concerns down the road a few more years.

But I worry. I worry a lot.