Month: December 2004

Over the past couple of days, the following things occurred:

• I watched the appendix materials on the Return of the King Extended Edition DVD, which, like those that came before it, has filled me with creative envy for all those involved in the production.
• I watched the extended Empire of Dreams documentary on the Star Wars Trilogy DVD, which (among other things) talked about how Lucas *didn’t* make his money from the original film, but from the tie-in merchandise.
• I got the latest issue of my subscription to WIRED, which featured an article on Bittorrent. I’m reading the article last night, and come upon the following statement: “Peercasting” drives the final nail in the coffin of traditional must-see TV….Normally the buzz for a show builds gradually; it takes a few weeks or even a whole season for a loyal viewership to lock in. But in a Bittorrented broadcast world, things are more volatile…the pass-around effect of blogs, email and RSS creates a roving, instant audience for a hot show or segment.” It goes on to talk about Gary Lerhaupt, a Stanford grad student who convinced the producers of the documentary Outfoxed to let him put a chunk of the film online as a Bittorrent. Within two months, 1500 people downloaded it. Because of the way Bittorrent works, he only had to poney up the bandwidth costs for getting the original 500 Mbyte file out there, and the peers then took over hosting and sharing themselves, of over 750 gigs worth of traffic. His quote, which hit me like a ton of bricks: “It’s amazing – I’m a movie distributor. If I had my own content, I’d be a TV station.”

If you smell smoke, don’t worry. It’s just the wheels in my head, turning rapidly.

Wheels within wheels…

Over the past couple of days, the following things occurred:

• I watched the appendix materials on the Return of the King Extended Edition DVD, which, like those that came before it, has filled me with creative envy for all those involved in the production.
• I watched the extended Empire of Dreams documentary on the Star Wars Trilogy DVD, which (among other things) talked about how Lucas *didn’t* make his money from the original film, but from the tie-in merchandise.
• I got the latest issue of my subscription to WIRED, which featured an article on Bittorrent. I’m reading the article last night, and come upon the following statement: “Peercasting” drives the final nail in the coffin of traditional must-see TV….Normally the buzz for a show builds gradually; it takes a few weeks or even a whole season for a loyal viewership to lock in. But in a Bittorrented broadcast world, things are more volatile…the pass-around effect of blogs, email and RSS creates a roving, instant audience for a hot show or segment.” It goes on to talk about Gary Lerhaupt, a Stanford grad student who convinced the producers of the documentary Outfoxed to let him put a chunk of the film online as a Bittorrent. Within two months, 1500 people downloaded it. Because of the way Bittorrent works, he only had to poney up the bandwidth costs for getting the original 500 Mbyte file out there, and the peers then took over hosting and sharing themselves, of over 750 gigs worth of traffic. His quote, which hit me like a ton of bricks: “It’s amazing – I’m a movie distributor. If I had my own content, I’d be a TV station.”
  

If you smell smoke, don’t worry. It’s just the wheels in my head, turning rapidly.

Ho, ho, ho and all that jazz.

Another Christmas survived. We did the immediate-family gift exchange thing (, Allie and Yours Truly) at a very respectable 11-ish (Thank the gods for teenagers and their propensity for sleeping in, even on Christmas), then puttered about the place until 3, when we headed over to ‘s folk’s place for the extended family gathering. Pretty much felt isolated and alone most of the evening–these people have very little in common with , apart from blood relation, so you can imagine the effort that they make towards making me feel included. Found myself again explaining, as I do at every one of these gatherings (and usually to the same people), exactly what it is that I do for a living. Saw ‘s Dad out of the corner of my eye, shaking his head in his usual disapproving fashion. I think I should be congratulated for not stopping in mid-sentence, turning to face him and asking if there was some problem….but these are the same folks who, earlier this month, asked me if I was “even looking for a job,” so I’ve pretty much written it off as a No-Win situation. I give up.

Swag-wise, it was a Very Merry Geekmas for me, as I scored (via various sources):

• The DC Comics Encyclopedia
• Odder Jobs (the second collection of Hellboy short stories
• The much-anticipated Return of the King Extended Edition DVD
• The complete Indiana Jones DVD boxed set
• The Star Wars Trilogy DVD boxed set
• Conan: The Complete Quest–both Conan movies on DVD in a slipcase
• Cityworks, Darkness & Dread and The Monster’s Handbook (D20 hardcovers grabbed with Parental-XMas-Cash)

…and non-geek-specific swag like a nifty shirt in burgundy suede, a new belt, etc.

Best Christmas gift of all, though, was the fact that Adamant Entertainment has had it’s best month ever…sales have more than doubled last month’s total, and have already exceeded the lofty ceiling that I had been shooting for…and there’s still a week left in the month. It looks like 2005 is going to be a good year.