Entry 60: "Un-Convention-al"

Yo!

....Crap. Late yet again.

....I wonder what this "team blogging" thing is all about...........

I forgot to mention in my brief tribute to video editors last entry that the guys who put together TV commercials and movie trailers. Those guys are really uncredited because their work doesn't have any credits giving them their moment in the sun, or an awards... Um... Thing, I guess, during awards season. Big props to those guys.

Moving on... July seems to be big media conventions month....

E3 was this month! Comic-Con was this weekend!

The Electronic Entertainment Exposition is a video game trade show held yearly in Los Angeles. At least until last week when, after years of just anybody managing to sneak their way into the show with a friend who works for one of the game publishers or magazines, or just REALLY knew their way around Photoshop to make their own press pass (a method I myself successfully used back in 2004), the ESA decided to make the entire show happen behind closed doors, preventing anyone from entering the area unless you were specifically there to cover or do business with the big three (Nintendo, Microsoft & Sony). Also, the show was moved from the Los Angeles Convention Center to an intricate system of hotel conference rooms... In different hotels. Microsoft alone reserved an entire hotel, using the whole place as their biggest E3 booth ever, and also arguably the largest one in E3 history.

...Or unless you were willing to pull an Ethan Hunt and do some sort of elaborate wire-drop from the ceiling ventilator system to gain access to the floor.

...Or something.

Anyway, this year's E3 saw several interesting things happen, including:

-The revelation that a PlayStation 3 price drop is iminent, and unfortunately, temporary....

-The big reveal of the long-overdue Simpsons Movie being spun off into a longer-overdue 745th Simpsons Game. ....Heaven help us.

-That nutty plumber Mario's big return to platform gaming... Is surprisingly lacking in gravity (literally)... And it doesn't look as bad as we all feared.....

-The list of former Sony PlayStation exclusives slowly shifting over to PS3/Xbox360 shared release dates... Grand Theft Auto 4.... Devil May Cry 4.... and this just in, the Metal Gear Solid 4 rumors JUST WON'T STOP....

Comic-Con, on the other hand occured in San Diego, California over the weekend, a convention known less for, well, comics news, and more for Fall TV previews and the big movie studios' big chance to unveil upcoming movie info... Especially comic-book-movies... Especially Jon Favreau, who seized the moment to premiere what we're assuming is the first trailer for his big, shiny, live-action, red-and-gold-plated Iron Man movie. Paramount pulled down that footage from YouTube literally as I'm writing this, but footage from the Iron Man movie game due out around the same time as the movie, I guess (May 8), is still viewable here.

Other Comic-Con 2007 highlights include:

-Warner Bros. Animation continuing to demonstrate total unoriginality (do we really need two Superman[s] in the same show at once?!?)

-Fox's 24 will be back for season seven in January, this time with a continuity-breaking TWELVE-HOUR TIME GAP during the season!!

-Leonard Nimoy will have screen time in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek XI movie next Christmas (that's it? Figures. Captain Kirk is understandably busy lately, what with negotiating Priceline travel rates and all. Busy work.)

-Some comic-book movie ideas just can't seem to die off, after all... Better not mess it up, studios (Shazam! and Green Hornet, anyone?)


Bottom Line: Well... you gotta see this stuff for yourself. A bottom line for this would just spoil the surprise(s). Here's this year's E3 coverage from IGN, GameSpot, and the official straight-from-the-horse's-mouth e3expo.com version. Comic-Con's taken care of by ComingSoon.net, TV.com, and... well, itself.

See you next week, I hope...

-D.

P.S. One final note: I don't know how many of you readers are into game console hacking (specifically regarding PlayStation Portable), but I found one site in particular I feel I must promote, and not just because the checks cleared:

http://homebrewheaven.freeforums.org/

Those forums have all the info you need to get started with the wonderful world of homebrew! If you're into that stuff, check 'em out; it's worth it.

Entry 59: "More Than Meets the iPhone"

Yo....

Yes, I'm still around.

I bring news.... This past month... I've just completed a pilot, if you will, of the top-secret media project I first mentioned last summer... I now better understand the chaos and stress of putting together a television program. I'll confess, this is nothing compared to the every single week stuff the big guys do, well, every single week, but directing, producing, and especially WRITING and EDITING carry job duties that unjustly go unnoticed by the masses who are too wowed by what they're seeing on-screen to think about how much work went into making it happen... All the Red Bull and Aspercreme used to keep awake and working just a few hours longer to meet the deadline... Converting and compressing the final product after countless hours of work, only to discover glitches and inconsistencies you have to pray don't require re-filming with time you don't have. I want to use this first new opening paragraph in over a month to say to the folks basically living in front of their computers, sometimes painstakingly putting things together frame by frame, only a handful of whom get their moment in the sun once or twice a year during awards season, if they win... Thank you so much for making things worth watching. Too few people put in Disc 2 of your movies, so too few even know what it is to be a producer. You are all too important to the media world today to be granted honorable mention in an applause line by the people who only have their awards because of how good you made them look, if they remember you up at the podium.

Moving on...

Piracy in the film industry is... let's face it, not really going away anytime soon. Yes, I agree with those ads they show in the theaters discouraging downloading movies, music and video games... I, like many of you, have rightfully and legally purchased many a media item, even falling victim to the purchase that proved to be not-so-worthy of the money (*cough, X360 Spider-Man 3). But everyone knows there is a convenience factor with piracy that even Ben Affleck can't hold back. People, consumers, do tend to enjoy not so much the money itself, but the saving of money, and what could be a bigger, better saving than 100% off? Also, what part of the industry seems to get hit harder than music? Films, of course. Well, maybe not harder, since it's kinda easier to mass-distribute, for free, Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight album than, say, At World's End. Less filesize. This past two weeks alone gave rise to two massive movie leaks, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie that came out in April, and of course Michael Moore's latest film, Sicko. After the downloading of course comes the fun part, figuring out the answer to this question:

"What format do I copy this movie to first?

....MP4 for the cellPod I just stood in line at the Apple Store two weeks for?

....AVC MP4 for my PSP?

....MPEG2, and then burn it to DVD?

----WMV so I can stream it to my television with my Xbox 360?

....WXYZ, now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me?

..............Ahhhh, decisions, decisions....."

I'm also noticing, according to certain message boards people like this post on, the higher-profile the content is, the less likely you'll get the real deal movie when you start up those file search programs. Most of the time, apparently, stuff gets taken down (big powerful lawyers, of course) and you get what looks like the real deal, but is actually either an extremely graphic porn clip or the wrong film entirely (who downloads Blankman on purpose???? Anyone????????) Proof of the lawyers lies solely in Sicko's leaking because the recent reviews appear to be five-star across the board-- liberal AND conservative, for a change-- and the file stays up for days, while the bigger, showier movies that are basically the slam-bang moviegoer's wet dream... Spidey 3... Transformers... Die Hard 4... Those movies have some industrial-strength saran wrap over them, 'cause they never leak. A sure testament to what films have the most money and power behind them, if the TV advertising time (or lack thereof) isn't enough of a flashing, neon Vegas-style interstate highway sign. Sure, there are legal download methods out there that try to do their part to fight piracy by charging money for LEGAL, temporary downloadable versions that expire eventually... MovieLink... CinemaNow... apparently NetFlix is offering downloads now... and of course iTunes made movie downloads an art form, didn't they? But again, no matter how competitive these guys and the industry try to be, the best they can do is pull a LendingTree.com and compete amongst each other. Let's be real about this. The way the internet community is now, eliminating unlicensed, copywritten content sharing is the ultimate uphill battle, I don't care how much money they've got.

...Mainly because the consumers they try to lock out just don't have it to risk on something they might regret.

"Rent Ghost Rider or buy an extra gallon of unleaded gas...?

.....Decisions, decisions......"

Bottom Line: Buying DVDs is, like, SO 2006.

As Sonny & Cher once sang, the beat, like war on piracy, goes on........

See you next week. For real, this time.

-D.