Copyright and the Absurd

All right, so two guys, Brian Kamerer and Travis Irvine, make a funny video. They put it on youtube. Someone on Jay Leno’s staff sees it. Without asking permission or blessing (I don’t know youtube’s copyright agreements, but I’m sure NBC’s lawyers would’ve called if they needed permission), Jay Leno puts the video on his show. I assume that he mentioned the video makers names. Cool, right? Free publicity, notoriety – no harm, no foul, kinda cool, actually.

Until recently when youtube took down the video because NBC claimed copyright of it. Because it had aired on the Jay Leno show and therefore is NBC owned.

This is one of those times where I find it very difficult to defend corporate copyright law.

Here’s Brian’s open letter to Jay Leno. It’s kinda funny.

The Make Everything OK Button

Press Here.

Countdown – 36 Days Till Production Begins

We’re knocking out locations like shooting cans on a fence. I think that means that location scouting is going good, cause it is! We’ve just confirmed our comedy club, our doctor’s office, both our theatres (working on a university campus has its advantages), and got a street shut down for us. Our table read is set and we’ve already got two product placement sponsors (and hoping for more)! And we’re just about to order a fake pregnant belly. Filmmaking can be fun!

Now if someone would just throw a big dance party for us to film at…

Starting the Foodies Young

A nine-year-old girl has a blog critiquing her school lunch each day, and it’s awesome. After she does a short review, she reports on (with today’s notes):

Food-o-meter- 9/10
Mouthfuls- 44, I left the black pea
Courses- main/dessert
Health Rating- 4/10
Price- £2
Pieces of hair- 0

I love that she keeps a tally of how many hairs she finds. Today was a good day, it turns out. Check it out here.

 

10 Great Seconds – Now That Oughtta Do It!

Ruthless People. I still remember the trailer from 1986 – it ended with the scene below, and it made me want to go see it. Danny DeVito plays a scumbag, married to rich Bette Midler. He’s been waiting for her father to die, but he just keeps living, so he’s planning on having her killed. This is a comedy, by the way.

Before DeVito can act, Midler is kidnapped by Judge Rienhold and Helen Slater. They got screwed by DeVito in a business deal and want to get their money. DeVito thinks he’s now in the clear – don’t pay the ransom and they’ll do the job for him, but they were never planning on going through with it. As DeVito gets tired of waiting, this scene plays:

It’s a funny movie that deserves better than the 6.8 rating it has on IMDB.

And for those keeping track, I’ve been bumped up and am currently #5 on a google image search for Matthew Perry. Still based off the one picture I posted back in… December? I’m pretty sure I can capitalize on this to finally achieve internet fame.

Countdown – 44 Days till Production

And the real work begins. Just had a good meeting with my production heads for Sympathy Pains this morning, and things are looking to come together. We’ve got a budget, and we’ve got a cast, and leads on most of our locations. Hopefully we’ll have quite a few locked by this time next week, with still a month to go.

I liked it better when the countdown was more than 50 days…

Here’s my schedule for the next year (and some):

• June 4th – Pre-production begins full force (Prepping/Building sets, crew drills, etc)
• July 1st – PRODUCTION
• July 2nd- Editing begins
• Aug 12th – Production Wraps
• End of Aug – First Rough Cut
• Fall 2012 – Editing & Preview Screenings
• Jan 2013 – Picture Lock – Begin Sound Design, Scoring, FX, Color Grading
• May 2013 – All Post Production Elements Compiled
• June 2013 – All Post-Production Elements assembled
• July 2013 – Master Blu-Ray and DVD disks created, begin festival submissions
• Sept 2013 – UCA Sympathy Pains gala premiere

I’m looking forward to sleeping again sometime in 2014.

LunchboxAwesome

LunchboxAwesome. :)