Silly Observations

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Lost Time

January 25, 2010 in Silly Observations | 5 comments

Geez, has it been that long since I’ve posted? I am going to have trouble renewing my blog license.

You know how they always have stories about lost American productivity due to some activity at work? Like, “$300 million in productivity is lost every year in corporate America due to fantasy football.” (Just to make up a figure.) I hate those bullshit statistics. They never seem to take into account that every office has a certain amount of goofing off. And this type of goofing off is acceptable and human. How much productivity is lost every year due to people chatting about American Idol or Lost or 24? Or gossiping about so-and-so in sales? Or daydreaming? (Answer to all these: a lot.) The “lost productivity” statistics seem to assume that if not for activity x, the person would be working. It is more likely that if not for activity x, the person would be engaging in activity y — still not working.

You want to talk about wasted time? I’ll give you an example of wasted time. You know when you watch a DVD and you start it up and the screen that says, “The comments in the commentaries on this DVD are not necessarily the opinion of ACME Entertainment Company.” And then the message is repeated in French. (Stupid French, but that’s another story.) Did someone sue some movie studio based on a comment made in the commentaries? Is that why we are subjected to this? Thanks asshat. Or were these preemptive moves by some studio lawyer? Thanks asshat. More candidates for banishment to the Island of Asshats.

Then there’s also the Interpol warning in English and French about how copying is illegal. I’m sure that has stopped many movie pirates in their tracks! The clincher is that you usually you CANNOT fast forward through all these idiotic warnings.

Let’s say the average person watches 50 movies and TV episodes per year on DVD. (I watch more but let’s go with the average.) Let’s say the warnings in English and French (two each) last ten seconds. So I spend 500 seconds of my life every year watching these warnings. That’s eight minutes. There are about 300 million people in the U.S. and we all watch DVDs, or almost all of us. Let’s say only 200 million people watch at least 50 movies and TV episodes per year on DVD. If my calculations are correct, that means we as a nation spend at least 27 million hours per year watching those warnings.

Forget about lost productivity, how about lost personal time? Think of all we could accomplish with those lost 27 million hours. Ten seconds at a time, we can change the world.

Questions…

November 27, 2009 in Silly Observations | No comments

1. Who has the more difficult job, the comedian on the local morning show who has to be “on” at 7am in the morning…or the local morning show host who has to pretend to laugh at the tired comedian’s jokes?

2. What was more impressive, the Broncos’ big Thanksgiving Day win over the New York Giants…or that multi-blue checkered beret that Brian Dawkins was wearing during his post-game interview?

Friday Odds & Ends

March 19, 2009 in Silly Observations, Writing | 1 comment

Statement of Benefits

Don’t you hate junk mail that tries to trick you into opening the envelope? I got a piece yesterday that said, “Statement of Benefits” in bold on the front of the envelope and the return address was a P.O. Box with no company name. It looked like the statements I get for one of my credit cards.

I opened it up and it was an attempt by the Denver Post to get me to subscribe. In an apparent attempt to legitimize their deception, they stuck with the “Statement of Benefits” theme, using that language to introduce my options to subscribe. The Stated Benefits: I can get the newspaper if I pay them some money.

The Rocky Mountain News just folded and the Post’s first communication with readers after that is a scam. Nice work, PR Department!

Saving Private Ryan

I recently read an early version of the Saving Private Ryan screenplay. It’s easy to find on the web, just google “screenplay” and the name. (There are a ton of screenplays on the web, most as txt files.) I can’t be sure it was authentic but it was very interesting. It was more like a straight war movie without the morality play. For instance, the nerd translator does not betray his fellow soldiers and there was no captured German who was let go only to come back and kill our heroes. Not all the same characters live/die (I won’t reveal who in case you want to read it). But my favorite set piece that does not make it into the finished film is a sequence where the Americans at the bridge steal an 88 from the Germans and then use it in the final battle. I’m not sure how probable it is that a couple of average American soldiers would know how to use an 88 (which has a crew of nine, I believe) but it was cool. The 88 is an infamous German anti-aircraft/anti-tank gun and it’s a great idea to have some Americans swipe one and use it against the Germans.

I think this script might have made a better movie. In the film, I hate that the nerd translator guy turns out to be a weak weasel. Why does the smart guy have to be a weasel? On the other hand, that scene where the American and German struggle to the death in the second floor room might be the most memorable in the movie. And the translator failing his fellow American is very upsetting. So maybe it’s a great and effective scene?

Raiders

Alert reader Wratha told me about a pdf file that’s going around the web. It’s a 126-page transcript of a multi-day story conference that took place between Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. They were discussing the story for a little flick that came to be called Raiders of the Lost Ark. (The transcript seems authentic, it was shown in the Raiders DVD special features, which I just watched.) After this conference, Kasdan wrote the first draft of the script. Before Lucas even read the script, he hired Kasdan to write The Empire Strikes Back. Raiders and Empire, not too shabby Larry Kasdan!

The story conference was a fascinating bull session between three great movie-making minds. There are some funny parts, like when Lucas struggles to remember the name of the Ark of the Covenant. It’s hard to imagine the term being unfamiliar, but then you remember it was this movie that made the Ark famous.

Most of the major plot points are discussed in the story conference but it’s still impressive the way Kasdan turned them into an incredible script, an exceptional mix of humor and action-adventure. For example, there’s that line at the beginning when Indy jumps on the flying boat, says he hates snakes, and the pilot tells him to get a backbone. When I first saw the movie I thought that line was HILARIOUS. I just watched the film again and laughed again.

The story conference brought up some ideas that fortunately got dropped. When Indy gets on the plane to Asia to track down Marion, the plan was to have everyone but Indy parachute out of the plane — sort of an odd assassination attempt. Then Indy would crash-land the plane and slide down the snowy mountain on a make-shift sled. There was also a trip to Shanghai, a kid sidekick, and a subplot related to finding the headpiece of the Staff of Ra. And at the end, after the Ark had opened and the Nazis had melted, the plan was to have Indy and Marion ride a mine car back into the submarine base, at which point they would be dumped into the water. And maybe have the island blow up. Some of these ideas were incorporated into the second Raiders movie.

What a great opportunity to hear two creative titans discussing one of the best movies ever made. Spielberg has had an illustrious career as a director, of course, and Lucas created Star Wars, the most influential movie of my childhood. Spielberg and Lucas invented the blockbuster, and revolutionized toy tie-ins and that sort of thing. But Lucas also changed the technical side of movie-making forever, kicking it into the 21st century with digital editing, digital effects, and digital sound. It was very interesting to read this piece of movie history, these creative minds in action. I’m working on a screenplay now, in addition to my memoir project, and this story conference transcript is priceless for a wannabe screenwriter like me.

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