by PJ Foley | Feb 13, 2017 | Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:22:02 — 75.2MB)
Subscribe:
So full of excuses, we are. Here's what we've been up to.
Brought to you by Cayenne Diane, Heat Seeker Box, Endangered The Movie, Lawn Couch, Story Trix and VFX Jams.
And, yes, there are missing episodes. We will be coming back to those. Promise. Probably.
Show notes? We don't need no stinkin' show notes! Let us know if you miss 'em.
As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there’s anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.
by PJ Foley | Jun 22, 2016 | Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:38 — 52.9MB)
Subscribe:
We're talking about our level of burnout and the sort of distractions that get us through it all. And sort of a love song to Burbank.
With unsolicited props to 3DRetro!
Show notes? We don't need no stinkin' show notes! Let us know if you miss 'em.
As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there’s anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.
by PJ Foley | Jun 2, 2016 | Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17:40 — 71.2MB)
Subscribe:
The boys discuss influential medias in this luckiest of episodes.
- The TGR website gets HACKED by hackers!
- MAIN TOPIC – What media has influenced or inspired you?
- Efram relates this suggestion to creature design
- Sean compares how filmmakers behind Minority Report met with futurists to create the world of their film:
…with how Star Wars uses fantasy and sometimes silly design to shape their worlds.
- SciFi as metaphor and the danger of being too literal in story worlds.
- THX 1138 sets its world so far into the future that anything goes.
- Lucas also uses sound to great effect.
- PJ points out that good directors know how to use sound to help tell the story rather than always relying on expensive visuals.
- Sean describes Ben Burtt’s approach to the lightsaber noise.
- Efram talks about how Ben Burtt redefined sound for movies.
- Tie Fighter Noise – what is it?
- Ben Burtt designs the sounds of The Dark Crystal
- —-BREAK—-
- PJ harkens back to the pre-digital days of Optical Effects
- …to discuss the iconic sounds from Predator.
- PJ’s tired of Crappy Holograms in movies.
- Efram’s beef with the holograms in Jurrassic World.
- Sean references the “Peppers Ghost” trick:
- Our Inspirations:
- PJ recommends “Save the Cat”
- Sean recommends “The Power of Myth” Bill Moyer interviews and Joseph Campbell (Hero with a Thousand Faces)
- And the screenwriter’s companion book: “The Writer’s Journey” – Chris Vogel
- Sean also recommends Carl Yung (influenced Joseph Campbell)
As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there's anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.
by PJ Foley | Mar 6, 2016 | Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:16 — 58.0MB)
Subscribe:
A hodgepodge of topics. We work for TV while also cutting the cable.
- Apologies for working more and podcasting less
- PJ has the new AppleTV
- What it does
- And now it has apps and games
- The cool part and the ugly part of it
- And now it's time for cable company bashing!
- What is and isn't available on AppleTV
- Update: You can now enter passwords with the Remote app on Apple TV
- Pondering if a laser keyboard would be a good input device
- Keeping up to date with software and skills
As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there's anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.
by PJ Foley | Feb 29, 2016 | Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:30 — 54.6MB)
Subscribe:
An in-depth conversation about Brad Bird’s latest Clooney vehicle: a “Tomorrowland” that never arrives.
- Disney owns everything.
-
- Star Wars
- Jesus (optioned with right of first refusal)
- The original “Tomorrowland”
- Tomorrowland the movie
- PJ was going to blow it off.
- Efram was intrigued by the “touching of the pin” in the trailer.
-
- Sean saw trailer on duct tape.
- Brad Bird also did Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (his first live-action film)
- Tomorrowland: No there there.
- How to deliver on new, magical place – good example, Harry Potter – Diagon Alley.
- Good exploration of magical places:
- Oz
- Blade Runner
- Things to Come
- Metropolis
- Bait and switch with no satisfying resolution on layered mysteries.
- Sean’s Rant: Mystery Box is hipster bullshit
- The MacGuffin: A person or object that the good guy and the bad guy both pursue. To gain control of the MacGuffin is to have the upper hand in the story and “win” the outcome of the movie.
- Hitchcock MacGuffin – Meaningless. Just designed to drive story forward.
- Modern MacGuffin: MacGuffin has meaning beyond just being a plot device.
- The Ark is the MacGuffin. It also has special meaning beyond just wrestling for its control. It defines the boundaries of Indiana Jones’ character.
- Flakey MacGuffin (mmm… delicious):
- Hipster Bullshit: Pretending to take a risk without actually taking a risk.
- Desiring to imbue the MacGuffin with special intellectual meaning (a la Raiders of the Lost Ark). The storyteller’s desire to demonstrate their cleverness with a Modern MacGuffin but chickening out at the last minute for fear their idea is weak.
- Actually having an idea and landing on it might be embarrassing or underwhelming. A fate worse than death for the Hollywood filmmaker.
- Avoiding landing on the idea but pretending to have one is faking intellectual content where there is none. aka “Hipster Bullshit” – pretending to be artful while only having the trappings of it.
- Efram: Read where Abrams and Lindelof think the question is more important than the answer.
- Sean: Disagrees. He goes to movies to see points of view.
- Joss Whedon: Pays off and entertains the whole way through a story. And the whole thing isn’t resting on the mystery box.
- Star Wars (the original): Mystery AND payoff throughout.
- Too much “getting to Tomorrowland”.
- Hugh Laurie explains “plot” towards the end. Meanwhile, the director tries to divert you from the lame, confusing explainer with a big portal on a beach action sequence.
- Topic: “Artist Exceptionalism”
- Sean doesn’t like the “better than you” character device.
- We’re also looking at YOU, midichlorians.
- The exceptional are always being beaten down by “the man”.
- The only authentic voice is the “special voice”.
- Efram: Getting an answer to anything was impossible. Efram’s wife describes it perfectly: Like a bad relationship: No answers until you’ve almost lost interest and then, at the last minute, suddenly gives you a crumb to draw you back in.
- PJ: Doesn’t like the journalist who goes everywhere. In a fighter jet. In space.
- Pretending there’s a “there there” is an empty experience.
- The boys wax poetic on how to be great in a relationship.
- Fear of being a fraud.
- And be cool.
- Cultivate fake mystery when there’s no there there.
- Luke is the real kind of “special”.
- He’s a hero because he’s very average. Works on a farm.
- Only stumbles into his innate power later. And even then he doesn’t trust it.
- Sean: The character in Tomorrowland is special because “she’s pretty”.
- PJ goes to her defense: Because she’s a scientist and is anti-government.
- The boys did really well on the Heisman-Boseman test.
- The utopian future is always a weirdly Ayn Randian fascist future.
- Sean thinks an actual future should always have punk rock.
- PJ calls out the ridiculous flying Eiffel Tower.
- The boys can’t figure out what world we’re supposed to be in.
- Efram: Ending should’ve been meaningful… not a reveal by Hugh Laurie.
- Sean asks “What is a better Tomorrowland than the one in the movie.”
- PJ proposes that there may have been more of an explanation but got cut in the final movie.
- Efram points out that “gray characters” round out binary “good and evil” type stories. i.e. Han Solo and Lando Calrissian from the first three Star Wars movies.
- Efram irritated by constant re-directing of audience to force fake dramatic tension.
- Sean brings up Hitchcock’s definition of “suspense”.
- Here’s a great video of Hitchcock explaining the difference between mystery and suspense and how he prefers Suspense because it emotionally engages people throughout the entire story.
- The boys imagine Damon Lindelof telling a campfire ghost story.
- Guesses on how to improve Tomorrowland.
- Efram compares J.J. Abram’s Super 8 to Tomorrowland in terms of withholding information from main characters (and audience).
- PJ suggests that midichlorians are great for keeping whites white and darks dark when doing laundry.
- Efram loses his shit. Paramedics are called.
by PJ Foley | Feb 23, 2016 | Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:32 — 51.9MB)
Subscribe:
The boys see green with Ridley Scott’s foray onto the red planet with “The Martian”. They also ponder whether there’s too much damned TV!
- After “Prometheus” rose from the dead and immediately turned to dust, Ridley Scott is back on track with “The Martian”.
- Does “The Martian” bring back the science procedural? We make a call-back to a previous episode where we ponder whether a science procedural could be commercially viable entertainment.
- Sean thought “The Martian” got the story structure right compared to its cousin, “Cast Away”.
- PJ gives a tip-o-the-hat to the Jeff Daniels’ character for playing a version of a villain but rooted in a person with complex decisions that must be made.
- PJ and Efram point out and discuss a mixed-bag using comedic actors (Wiig and Glover) in serious rolls.
- PJ wonders if “The Martian” will inspire future scientists like Star Trek?
- Potatoes.
- Hands together all-around for the visual effects of “The Martian”.
- The centripetal “gravity” spaceship. It’s good. But like any law of attraction, it’s complicated. Nonetheless, the guys liked the interplay of the crew on the spaceship’s gravity wheel.
- PJ’s unnerved when a character jumps outside the spaceship without a tether. Which then sparks Sean’s “fake drama” rant: He has a problem with unnecessary drama thrown in over the top of an already dramatic situation. Efram thinks Sean’s being overly dramatic.
- The boys talk about sterescopic 3D movies. All agree James Cameron owns this game.
- PJ and Sean teach Efram about the witchcraft that is turning a 2D movie into 3D on the fly.
- Riffing off of “The Business”’s interview by Kim Masterson with FX Network’s John Landgraf, the guys discuss Landgraf’s “Too Much Television” theory.
- The Gatekeeper Theory: Gatekeepers artificially limit content output thereby potentially protecting its value. Gone, now, with cheaper production costs and unlimited broadcast bandwith via streaming video.
- Efram doesn’t buy what Landgraf is selling.
- Sean thinks Landgraf’s theory suffers from Big Tent Theory in the age of the Long Tail.
- The role of the curated watch list is brought up.
- PJ needs the opposite: He needs a curation drill sergeant. Someone who’ll help him winnow down from the things he has on his watch list. (Is PJ secretly agreeing with Landgraf?!)
- The boys pontificate on a “smarter” curated media website.
As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there's anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.
