Worldwide Exclusive: The Guild's Latest Announcement

Guild fans the world over have come to expect the unexpected from Felicia Day and her creation, The Guild. Now comes the unexpectable unexpected. Which is unexpecteder.



Thanks to xtranormal for the tools.

Fear of Girls 3: High Rollers

Doug and Raymond are finally back with their continued quest to avoid meaningful human contact.

And Church.

Happily, they fail.







Looks like their venture paid off in the veritable bonanza of gaming glory that is Mohogo.com.

I've got to wonder if this is what Felicia Day went through?

PS - A new series seeking distribution, Midnight Chronicles, starring FoG's Charles Hubbell has some very cool trailers up now.

The Guild Season 2 Premiere

If for nothing other than the classic Raid at Clara's Gate, Season 2 launches with a bang.*


Link the Loot

This show is so spectacular. And as a bonus, it includes the world's best T-1 related gag ever.

*Okay, the bang is the back of Codex's head against a stack of books, but still.

Character Arc: Vork's Turning Point Catalyst

In my mind (I'm being a little arbitrary here), there are three main elements to a good turning point for a character.

1. The turning point needs to have motive.
2. It needs to be a logical extension of the character.
3. It needs to come at the last possible instant, when the character is forced from within to make the change.

Also, when you are dealing with a story with multiple characters, it is really great when the turning points harmonize, coming at different places within the narrative, but not in a predictable rhythm, and certainly not all at once. When character arcs rise and fall, seemingly independently of one another, the story can gain strength and depth. Kind of like a choir.

There have been times when I've thought something was written poorly, but it had nothing to do with style, grammar or emotional depth: it had to do with badly timed, poorly placed or unmotivated turning points.

A good example of harmonic turning points can be seen in the scriptwriting for The Guild. (ahem, you have watched the Guild, right?)

Six characters with diverse goals and objectives converge under extraordinary circumstances, and in harmony, build both to the climax of the story and to their own individual turning points.

Take Vork/Herman, played by Jeff Lewis. Vork is a man living in the shadow of society, subsisting off the social security checks of his deceased grandfather. He is thrifty, cautious, and, aside from his online persona (and recognized leader of the Guild), almost totally anti-social. If he ever goes out, which is rare, he sneaks his own beverages into restaurants. Yeah, he's that guy.

He encloses himself in obscurity at home, sealing himself from outside contact even though the people with which he associates online all live within a half hour of his house. He's a hermit, and likes it that way. The first conflict for this character arises when he's asked to venture outside.

His tipping point comes early in the storyline, in episode 3. When Codex/Cyd asks her online friends to meet in the real world for the first time, Vork's resistance to such a thing (which has already been well-established in the subtext of his character) is vocalized. Even after he exhausts his logic-based excuses for not meeting, he resorts to his base emotion:

"...and also, I don't wanna."

His turning point comes shortly thereafter, when Codex insists that it is critical to the group.

Vork's turning point occurs at about the 3:00 mark, and resolves by 3:12:

The moment of transition from hermit to face-to-face meeter passes briefly (A well-placed turning point is often subtle, and usually even more subtle with supporting characters.) but it is significant. Vork agrees to venture out.

Why does it work?

1. The motive for his change is laid early on. Vork is online leader, he's well organized, and, although he has secured his isolation by unscrupulously living off of government checks for the deceased, he was a dutiful grandson, caring for his grandfather while he lived. Herman/Vork has a sense of duty and thrift, organization and an aspiration to lead, all of which lead him to isolation...but also to his willingness to break from isolation. In other words, the conflict stems from "two divergent choices which stem from the same motive." His leadership of the online group provides justification for his hermitage, but also impetus for him to venture out.
2. It is telling that his decision is clinched by Codex's appeal to his acumen for organization. Vork has a choice of two risks, not one. If he follows his nature and doesn't meet face-to-face, he risks the online group. If the offline group falls apart, so does The Guild. More than that, by not meeting, he risks his control. Doing the thing he does not want -- socializing -- is the most certain way of ensuring that he doesn't lose what is most important to him: his (online) friends.
3. The consequences of not meeting will be immediate: Codex is at her wits' end, Zaboo is at a fever pitch, Bladezz has betrayed the Guild. The threat to the group is at the gates, and Vork must make the choice. Had it come any earlier, it would have lacked tension, any later, and it would have been too late to alter the course of events.

Also, and I think this is a key: even though all the characters are persuaded to meet face-to-face in this scene, it is only a turning point for Vork. A resistance to meeting is shared by almost all, but is only a bugbear for one.

If I get the chance, I'm going to look at another Guild character's turning point to contrast the two, and see if I can break the harmony down at the writing level.

In any case, good writers for the screen, stage or print know how to place a character's turning point in the right position.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Web Content

Trolls are incredibly difficult to own. We are messy, we are loud, we are fiercely religious and we occasionally eat our masters.

But The Guild owns me. For now. I'm sure they are going to regret it once I drain Vork's supply of orange drink and release Clara's shoats into the wild, where they'll be better cared for by the snakes and coyotes.

But this extended interview by Zadi Diaz with show creator Felicia Day from the blog of Epic Fu does a great job of getting to the heart of at least one key facet of the art of start-up media: the origin of creation.

Inside the Mind of a Troll (an inevitably short trip)

So, to the one cricket chirping in the dark corner, here's your customized glimpse inside my mind:

In the process of ignoring an unformed notion regarding Strato of Lampsacus I started to think more about the peripatetic school of philosophy, so I began to walk about without making the conscious recognition that my body was playing out the very definition of peripatetic in an attempt to puzzle out the thing I didn't know I wasn't thinking about.

I decided right there that my walking should have a purpose, so as not to appear mad or distracted, I went to get some crackers, because if I know one thing it is this: food has purpose. One cannot be mad in its quest. The only crackers I could find were Frito-Lay's "Cheetos" brand, the kind with "golden toast" flavor crackers and a pseudocheese colloid wedged between the sections.

Although instead of reading "golden toast" on the package, I thought it said "golden toads" and I thought how much more interested I would have been in an animated version of the Henry Fonda/Katherine Hepburn film "On Golden Pond," which, of course, would have been named "On Golden Toads."

Therefore I was thinking about movies and Cheetos and I thought of galactically famous movie star/internet mogul Felicia Day* who combined my favorite contributions to human culture of the last fifty years: television commercials and artificial food packaging in one masterful stroke in, of all things, a Cheetos advertisement.

In attacking hunger I thought more deeply about hunger, and that sensation's dependence on the hypothalamus to alert the body of its cravings, and how hypothalamus basically means, in Greek, "below the chamber;" the chamber, of course, being the "thalamus" of the brain, and how the folks who invented the Greek language had a descendent named Strato whose, ahem, pedestrian, if not downright non-existent contribution to the philosophy of virtue, was responsible for this entire vapor trail of thought.

So now you know. And knowing is half the battle. Which reminds me...



*Felicia Day is once removed (i.e. 2 degrees) from Kevin Bacon, by Ingrid Oliu - i.e. the original Officer Montoya in the animated Batman series. The Montoya character has eventually become a latter-day incarnation of The Question, a character who first appeared in Blue Beetle #1 and was the inspiration for the Watchmen character Rorschach, whose viscous mask resembles a "living" Rorschach test. I believe Hermann Rorschach studied under Carl Jung, who is responsible for the development of the modern concept of psychological archetypes. According to Jung, the hero archetype was nearly universal in all societies, and depicted a person who defeats evil, suffers punishment for the sake of others and rescues the vanquished. Which basically describes Codex in The Guild, a character played by -- of course -- Felicia Day.

Guild Season FINALE: Boss Fight

Guilders:

Man up.

And woman.

Up, that is.

Starlet Watch: Viji Nathan Reigns Over Beer Ad

This weekend, I saw a Heineken commercial during the playoffs. Yeah, call the President. What made it special, though, was that the new commercial featured Viji Nathan about halfway through it. I know I don't have to tell you (i.e. me) who she iss, but just in case the internet is watching I'll mention her appearance on episodes 6 and 7 of The Guild as Zaboo's mom.

Look for her at about the 30 second mark.



FoG made me aware of Scott Jorgenson at which point I noticed him in the Qwest commercial. The Guild introduced me to Viji Nathan, at which point I noticed her in the Heineken commercial. Now, if McDonald's can just get Scott and Viji to collaborate, perhaps that will lead to the starring roles in the major motion picture adaptation of Cover Girl comics. Hollywood will usher in a new Golden Age.

Why I do this, please don't ask. I haven't an answer. I do know that Jorge Luis Borges once wrote that there is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition. I'd add that there is a kind of useless pleasure in lazy and out-of-the-way visualization.

St. John in Exile

I need to point out a stage performance that thankfully has been archived on DVD. St. John in Exile is an amazing one-man show, with Dean Jones in the lead. It has to be more than twenty years old, but I saw it again a few years ago and it hasn't lost a bit of its luster.

I wish the small film companies who are nobly dedicated to themes meditating on Christ would turn to this production format more frequently. Blow the talent budget on one outstanding, impeccable stage actor, put the rest of the money into set design and staging the production, and shoot it very, very well. I would bet that for about $500,000, give or take, you could develop outstanding, admittedly small, but profitable movies. I prefer that to a lot of the movies I see that stretch the talent budget and end up simply having to pay for at least one or two devastating casting missteps.*

Of course, I'm a sucker for televised one-man shows. But I would have to say that of that somewhat narrow genre, St. John in Exile is the funniest and most moving. I like it better, just on a production and performance level, than Nimoy's Vincent, James Earl Jones' Paul Robeson, Robert Vaughn's FDR and even Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight (which would be my second-favorite.)

In any case, track down a copy of St. John in Exile one of these days.

*Incidentally, I'd like to see everything take on Felicia Day's The Guild model, too. I think the studios should completely overhaul the pilot system, and break those pilots up into tiny webisodes. I think that would be a far more effective way of measuring audience response than a) either scheduling a pilot in a time slot when people aren't looking for it or b) killing the pilot before ever once testing it on an international audience.

I also would like to see the Guild people do a stage show, film it, and distribute it online (for cash up front. I may be a skinflint, but I'm no slavedriver! Sheesh.)

Holy canolli. I believe I just broke the "one idea per post" rule. With a hammer. And a nuke.

Hollywood Yesterday and (to)Day

Hollywood motion pictures and television have been taking a beating lately. Between the writer's strike, tanking ratings for the Oscars, drops in network ratings, the consolidation of media corporations and frankly, something of a boom in anti-audience (or perhaps postmodern "audience neutral") fare, on the surface, it seems as if Hollywood has come unglued from its former lifeblood: the paying customer. I'm not talking about cashflow, necessarily. I'm talking about relevance and warm bodies and pairs of eyes.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, but many of those exceptions seem to come as a surprise to the industry. While the studios trumpet George Clooney (whom I love as Danny Ocean and Everett in O Brother) as the next Cary Grant, there are times when I'm not even sure he is as good as the last George Clooney.

There are still some stalwarts: Will Smith consistently delivers major blockbusters, and is incredibly smart about the non-major films he chooses. Tom Hanks has shifted a lot of focus to production of documentaries and historic dramas, but will still draw folks in from across the audience spectrum.

However, often the success of 300, of Tyler Perry films, of no-budget smashes like My Big Fat Greek Wedding (which, incidentally, wouldn't have gotten off the ground without Hanks' and Rita Wilson's bankrolling) and the The Passion of the Christ often come despite Hollywood's low expectations.

As budgets for films continue to bloat while receipts fall, there are legitimate complaints that Hollywood doesn't get it. I thought this the other day as I set foot in a Blockbuster for the first time in six months (and not to rent a movie. It was next door to the Papa Murphy's and I was waiting for a pizza. You don't think I keep my cinderblock-and-gristle figure on a diet of yams, do you?)

As I browsed the aisles, I noticed an awful lot of bloody axes, a bunch of obviously boring political movies, and one animated (you know, the kind that change depending on the angle you see it at) cover of a barfing zombie. Now, as a self respecting troll, I'm all about the barfing zombie: we use their natural projectile acid reflux as a household cleaner...but my type is a somewhat narrow demographic. And who wants to watch a movie about dirty bathrooms, anyhow?

Anyway, what I noticed even more than the cheap sequels of remakes of remakes, the talkfests, the hashbrown horror movies, and the really exhausting "sex" "comedies" was something more significant: an absence.

There wasn't a single cover of a DVD, not a single new release, that inspired me. No saber-wielding Luke, no steadfast Queen Gorgo, no dashing Indy, no Joan of Arc (no Joan Wilder, either), no Frodo, no Ripley, no Titanic, even. No heroes (heck, not even any anti-heroes!), no complicated women, no orignial concepts.

Just zombie barf and the impossibly long legs of presumably topless girls.

So Hollywood has fallen, yes?

I'm not so sure.

Even as an atheist, I knew Moses. Sure, he looked a lot like Charlton Heston, and with his passing I am reminded of how one talented bloke can take a run-of-the-mill "cast of thousands" bible epic and create a deep and meaningful story - one that might even contribute in some small way to a viewer's transformation.

Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs proved that a trio of septagenarian lifelong actors can together contribute a critical component to the depth and storytelling of a movie like A Night at the Museum.

The half-mad and oft-scorned Orson Welles single-handedly challenged the Hollywood mindset to get great work (like Touch of Evil) to an audience. Sure he paid dearly for his ambition/arrogance, but you can't argue with the resulting masterworks. He wasn't the only one to do it either.

Heck, even the late great Colleen Moore proved you can change things with the right haircut, (or change a child's life with the right dollhouse.)

So I know it can be done. The question is: is it?

I think yes, but not necessarily where we expect it, and probably not always from the people we expect.

For one, the John Adams mini-series airing right now on HBO is the greatest mini-series in the history of the world. Paul Giamatti vanishes as the lead role into the perfectly constructed world of Colonial and Revolutionary America.

For two, one of my favorite short film series, as you well know, is Fear of Girls, starring Scott Jorgenson and Tom Lommel. This has been produced and made free for consumption by obsessive little monsters like myself.

For three, I do think that there is some good old-fashioned, un-"ironic" (although i notice that the cool "irony" kids these days, like Fezzini's ignorant use of "inconceivable" in Princess Bride, are unaware of what "irony" really means. Which would be ironic if that's what ironic meant. Which it doesn't.) entertainment available on television and in theaters. Yes, I said it. There are still good movies and good t.v. shows to be found. Perhaps nothing attaining the greatness of Candleshoe or Quincy, M.E. respectively, but, we just need to deal with the fact that God needed those blessed diversions more than we did. I believe St. Augustine wrote about this in City of God.

For four, there are strange, geeky talents like Wil Wheaton who have somehow developed into some sort of income-generating single-employee metaentertainment megacorporation.

But probably the best example for what I see as the new rise of Hollywood is The Guild and its writer and co-producer Felicia Day. It may not be the first to have done it, nor the most widely known - but this is an ongoing short webisode series that knows its target audience (and, importantly, doesn't insult them) and operates on donations. Right now, the actors are doing it for free, hoping to raise enough money to keep things going. You know, kind of like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, putting on a show. And, despite all the challenges they faced, it worked for Rooney and Garland every time. Although life is less certain than the movies, The Guild has won numerous awards, and seems to have a growing fan base, and, one can hope, a donor base to match.

Performing for the people, and asking for our pennies.

That, my (imaginary) friend, is Hollywood.

James Cagney, Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Clark Gable, Anthony Perkins, Ann Margaret, Boris Karloff, Christopher Walken, Kathleen Turner, Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, Sally Field, Faye Dunaway...

...and Felicia Day?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so.