Rebooting Tales of a Failed Filmmaker

A couple years ago I started blogging about my experiences in the film industry.  It's a story my mom's practically begged me to tell because I witnessed so many odd things.  I've also wanted to share them as some of the events are behind the scenes looks at things people know about.

However, it's always been last priority as these events are not things that effect me today, and it's not like this is a book I'm planning to publish any time soon, regardless of what my mom wants me to do.  So as a result, it's been constantly pushed in the background.

But now I've given myself enough time to sit down and do what I need to do.  Plus I'm going to post some of them on this blog as well as an extra incentive to get me to do it.  (I've been making a point of posting every week on this one, so adding them to this cue will force me to make them.)

I'll be starting these posts next week over at http://talesofafailedfilmmaker.blogspot.com/

Looking on to my next nonfiction book

I'm finishing up my book on tales and stories from the Vietnam War, and I'm looking ahead to my next nonfiction book.  One of the reasons why it took me so long to write this latest one is because I had such high expectations of Two Gun Hart and The Great Heist.  I expected at least one of them to become a best seller, and to get made into a movie.

When neither of those things happened, I became very discouraged and sort of wondered why I was bothering to try.  To be perfectly honest, I still feel a lot of that discouragement, but I owe it to the subjects of this Vietnam book to complete it and release it.

And I owe it to myself to keep going.  I love writing and I love telling stories.  I've focused a lot more on my fiction work, particularly Relic Worlds.  But I have several nonfiction stories that I'd like to do.  So I'm going to write up a chapter and summary on each, and send them out to agents and publishers again and see what happens.

I read one writer say that he has his nonfiction published traditionally and his fiction published independently.  I thought that was an odd way to do it and to me it should have been done the opposite way.  But now I see the guy's point.  Publishers bring better promotion opportunities, especially for nonfiction.  Fiction work can be series, and it's easier to promote a series on your own as you can just keep talking about it.  I'm finally learning how to do it with Relic Worlds.  But nonfiction is a one-shot deal, so you need that support.

With that in mind, here are the ideas I'll be developing:

The story of one of the Roman emperors

The making of Lord of the Rings

Tales of people's lives during the Iranian revolution

The Cornhuskers championship season of 1994

We'll see what happens next.

The Value of College is Going Down While the Cost is Going Up

We all take for granted the value of a college education.  Unfortunately, the universities themselves have recognized that belief and have raised tuition costs beyond reasonable amounts.  They are taking advantage of the situation, and, frankly, are nothing more than extortionists.

Now understand, I do believe a good education is important, especially in a society such as ours.  However, to take that logic and say it's therefore okay to charge someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for that is downright immoral.  When the head of a pharmaceutical company sees that someone needs a certain medicine and charges huge amounts for it, we shout that person down.  Why is it any different for universities to take advantage of the need for an education in the same way?

What's particularly ridiculous about all this is the fact that the need for universities for their knowledge has dropped ever since the invention of the internet.  Most majors have all their information listed somewhere online.  What people really need is someone to organize it all, and then someone to test the students on the information afterward.

And if we really need a professor to provide information, then why limit the amount of students to only those who can fit in the classroom?  Why not have a camera stream it to thousands of people in the world?  Sure, they couldn't ask questions on the spot, but they still get to hear the lecture, and the cost would be spread out, and could therefore cost less per student; at least enough to hire some TAs to answer questions placed in the comments.  The whole excuse for higher costs comes from the idea that a few students are bearing the burden of everything.  (Of course those costs are exaggerated, but that's another subject.)  With thousands of students carrying the cost, there's no longer an excuse for the cost being so high.

This also rids universities of the elitist practice of rejecting most students that apply.  There would be a select few who get accepted and pay more to be in the classroom at the time of the lecture, but with a streaming service, everyone gets to attend college.

So if all this information can be achieved at a low cost, why is the old system still being used?  The answer is simply because those in charge of hiring still believe in it.  As long as the heads of HR departments and presidents of companies still believe in the archaic, elitist system of universities rather than a strictly merit based system, this will continue.  It is time for this to change.

And some universities have.  Lydia.com is an example.  Certain universities, too, are beginning to make a stronger online presence, and teaching locations are increasing on Youtube.  And as it expands, more people will see its value.  The real change will happen when people who have grown up with that system begin to run companies.

And then those systems will be to places like Harvard what Netflix is to Blockbuster.

Is Miniatures Gaming Dying?

My first exposure to miniatures gaming was at Hobby Town in Lincoln, Nebraska where I saw the boxed set for Johnny Reb.  I was drawn to the idea of having huge dioramas with miniature figures moving around it.  Miniature train sets were big at the time, so I had seen a lot of their fancy setups.  The idea of adding a game to that seemed like a load of fun.

I couldn't wait to play, so I cut out a bunch of cardboard squares and began playing with those while I collected and painted miniatures.  I played other people's historical games as well, and even eventually invented my own called Command Combat: Civil War.

However, something's happened over the past 20 years that's bad news for people who loved this hobby.  With the rise of video games that can accurately show battles and the ease of which it is to play on a computer versus learning tabletop rules, more and more of the young audience have turned away from miniature war gaming, or never trying it to begin with.

This has been aided by the refusal of the old guard of mini wargaming players to adapt.  Most of the time you hear complaints from them about how young people are just impatient and stupid rather than trying to understand what they like and reaching out to them.  Instead of streamlining the rules or making the games more friendly to new players, they often nitpick on details and turn a cold shoulder to anyone who's not already in the no.  Rather than showing off their incredible dioramas online as much as they can, they complain about how the internet is ruining everything.  Everything is everyone else's fault, and their hobby is a victim to attention deficit disorder.

But that's not how it has to be.  A few companies ARE listening to younger people, and even some older people who never got into the hobby because of complicated rules and expensive minis.  They're making games with easier to learn rules based on properties that everyone's familiar with, and they're showing them off in every medium that are being looked at today.  Rather than complain about people who are different from them, they're studying what they like and embracing what they learn.

Probably the best example of this is Fantasy Flight Games.  Upon releasing miniatures games, they always have enough minis to play with right out of the box.  Expansions are sold at reasonable prices, and in logical groupings.  For instance, rather than just selling a bag full of overpriced random minis, as was done a lot in the past, or selling seven pieces when eight are needed, as Games Workshop did, Fantasy Flight sells a full unit in a box.  So if you need a unit of eight soldiers, the box comes with eight soldiers... already placed on their bases so you don't have to go out and buy balsa wood bases!

The result has been a huge and loyal following, and a renewed interest in miniatures war gaming.  Yet strangely, you still see a lot of grumbling from the very people who claim they want to keep their hobby alive.  Rather than celebrating the heightened interest, you hear them in their little echo chambers complaining that the young people only want to play their simple games and won't try any "real" games.

Well, they can have their "real" games and miniature war gaming will rebuild with this new audience.