I've been ranting about 3D for some time now (poor quality, gimmicky at the expense of story, yet another fad), but a big player in the industry has come out with a fairly definitive slam today on Gizmodo.

His (or her - it is anonymous, so take it for what it is) main points: (1) Avatar looked great but, (2) most 3D is fake 3D or 3D from 2D source and (3) it is too dark, besides (4) simply looking like crap and is really just (5) a "scam" by the studios to get people into the theaters, either to watch a converted movie a second time or because movies at home aren't 3D. Yet.

I for one hope this marks the beginning of the end of this iteration of the 3D movie craze, but with major theater hardware upgrades and manufacturers looking to sell us all new televisions even though it seems like we just bought new 1080p TVs last year, I anticipate 3D will NOT go away.

References:
* The Movie Studios' Big 3D Scam

If, like OUR HERO, you have a movie in your head and you need to get it out, there’s no time like April 2010. April has 30 days, a screenplay might have 100 pages and Script Frenzy has the motivational tools, virtual workshops, events and community to help you knock out three or four pages a day until it is done.

Script Frenzy in April is the bastard child of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November and is an extremely fun “contest” and challenge to write a movie in a month. What can you win? Well, you’ll get a warm fuzzy feeling, a sense of accomplishment, you'll be able to authentically introduce yourself to hotties at you local indie coffeehouse with the words “I’m a screenwriter” and, of course, you’ll have a 100-page draft of your movie. That’s a pretty extraordinary prize, in my opinion.

The “contest” is entirely self-judged, which ironically makes cheating entirely irrelevant. I entered NaNoWriMo 2009 and failed spectacularly, although I did knock out 10,000 or so words before I had to drive from Wisconsin to Florida. (If you think texting and driving is dangerous, you should try writing a novel on I-285 outside of Atlanta during rush hour on a Friday, driving a Toyota dragging a U-Haul.) I did, however, set aside a couple of hours in the evening every day I could to write, which was a reward in and of itself. AND I had a lot of fun, since I had a couple of friends who were doing it, too. There are even online events and local writing marathon meetups if you live near a larger city.

Script writing involves a lot of formal formatting and technical mumbo jumbo a real scriptwriter needs to know to really finish a script, but there are some great, free tools you can use to help you out. I use Celtx – poorly – but it helps my motivation to use a real screenplay tool. For the Script Frenzy contest, however, I'd just forget about all that and write your story and get into a daily writing discipline. So go sign up, friend the soon-to-be-famous future screenwriter “def” (that’d be me) and we’ll see what we can come up with, starting at 12:01 on April Fool’s Day. I’m thinking of writing a rom-com set in a submarine in a near-future post-apocalyptic American lake…

References:
* http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/
* Script Writing Resources

(h/t to Dave Dougdale for finding this)
Wanna know how to create a news piece, shot-by-shot? Look no further than this Charlton "Charlie" Brooker (British journalist, comic writer and broadcaster) piece. It's funny, but if you study it, you've got an instant template for your own programs. (Warning: a single f-bomb ahead.)

Charlie Brooker's meta-television programs are fascinating and entertaining if you can find them. Newswipe deconstructs the news media and Sreenwipe goes deep behind the scenes for television programs (programmes?) in general.