These past 2 weeks there were quite some news about Netflix and YouTube stepping up their game towards Big Content. Netflix paid $100mil to get a Kevin Spacey drama exclusively, while YouTube is also pledging another $100mil to create original content, while creating a number of “live” channels on the side.

All this sounds good, but then I read about Netflix paying “Mad Men” $1mil per episode in order to get the rights to stream it. Personally, I found that amount of money crazy. Yes, “Mad Men” is one of the best show on TV, but these are older episodes we’re talking about, that have already been shown many times before worldwide, they’re out on DVD etc. Considering that an episode of “Mad Men” costs about $2.3mil, I find the amount of money Netflix paid, excessive. TV channels from other countries when license such a show don’t pay nearly as much.

And then there’s the $100mil Netflix paid for Spacey’s drama. That money was only partially for production costs, they were mostly for auctioning which channel will get the rights for it. That’s all crazy amount of money. And while Netflix now has over 20 million subscribers, in my opinion that’s not nearly enough to get access to the rest of the content out there, let alone the special deals for streaming, bandwidth and server support.

On the other hand, I see indie short films shot at a fraction of that money. Take a look at the FutureStates sci-fi short films for example, great filmmaking, high production values, for cheap (partly funded by PBS, which has no money itself to spare anyway).

All this makes me think that outsourcing is the only way to make entertainment and entertainment-creation affordable. No, I’m not looking at Canada/Vancouver, which is now almost as expensive as the US in terms of production. I’m more thinking of Mexico. Greece. Brazil. China. South Africa. Argentina. Portugal. India. Morocco.

“Dogtooth”, the Greek movie that was running for “Best Foreign Film” at the Oscars this year, was shot for 250,000 Euros. Consider that the rest four candidates cost between $3mil and $20mil. As for the most expensive Greek TV series, “The Island”, costs about 150,000 Euros per episode. Great production values, we’re not talking about cheap soaps here.

So it can be done for cheap. You just need to be at the right place, with the right crew.

If I had the capital, health and I was younger, I would start a studio in any of these mentioned countries. There are good directors and writers in these countries, but there are also a lot of them in the US/CAN/UK who are just trying to survive. Young (35 or younger) writers/directors who wouldn’t mind moving to such a country for 2-3 years of their life (a few months at a time, not the whole year). Pay wouldn’t be better than $10k per episode for the main crew. Same goes for the actors. There are a lot of quality young & unknown English-speaking US/UK/CAN/AUS/SA/IR talent out there who would jump to the opportunity (the rest of the crew would be locals), and get to see the world at the same time! Maybe a flight a year can already be paid for them, and maybe the production company can buy single-room apartments too to host the cast & crew. Such apartments in Greece don’t cost more than $300 per month, for example. The production company can easily own such buildings close to the studio.

Then, I envision tight TV series with no more than 3 seasons (up to 5 if the story warrants it only). Since the shows would broadcast back in the US, the actors have a good chance of getting popular, so when their contract ends, they will get better US-bound deals than the $10k per episode offered overseas. Still, making well over $100k per year (in some cases it would be over $160k) is better than the average American ($35k per year). I don’t see why the cast must be paid super-extraordinary salaries (e.g. the House actor who gets over $350k per episode, or Charlie Sheen who used to get nearly a million per episode). I believe that there are many unknown theater actors out there who would move abroad, offer GREAT performances, and accept these good-enough salaries.

I mean, actress January Jones recently said that she doesn’t make enough money on Mad Men. No! Really? Oh, God. She was only able to buy this house. Poor girl! 😛

So, if a series is supposed to take place in NY or LA etc, you can always get a small crew there for a few days, shoot some key but generic scenes, and then green-screen the actors in. This is how the last season of “24” was shot, that supposedly took place in NY.

As for cameras, thank God we can now get good-enough 1080p cameras, with interchangeable lenses, for under $10k. And there’s always the RED anyway.

Prop construction, post-production and CGI are all to be done overseas as well. I mean, a Greek computer professional doesn’t get more than 1400 Euros per month, sometimes it’s as low as 1000 Euros. Construction workers are very, very cheap — and capable.

With such a plan for example, I’d expect Stargate:Universe to not cost more than $500,000 per episode. It currently costs between $2.5mil and $3.5mil (average primetime show production cost is $3mil per episode in the US). With $500k cost it would not be canceled for low ratings any time soon. The writers would have had the time to tell their story.

Instead, we get Netflix trying to buy its way out of the Big Content menace by paying $100mil to Kevin Spacey. Give me a fucking break. Talk about sinking even deeper into the status quo. With $100mil I would be able to build a brand new large studio outside of Athens, build or buy apartment buildings, put together a post-production team, and get everything in place not for one, but for 10 TV series. Jeez.

Story would be something between Star Wars and Blade Runner, but this article is about the visual style more than the story itself. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but James Cameron’s renewed interest in 60fps, and Peter Jackson’s in 48fps, rejuvenated my own inspirations.

– Shot on a RED Epic at 5k (cropped at 4k in post). 3D optional (depends on budget).
– Shot in 60 fps, on or around 1/240 shutter speed. Tests would need to be done to determine the least amount of blur, without making the motion look jerky.
– Strong lighting, coupled with minimum motion blur making things look as in HDR. Visual shooting style like on a video game. Low contrast, but saturated, like The Fall. Costumes must be crystal-clear. CGI/grading must retain high dynamic range/detail, not that blur we usually get on today’s movies. It’s gotta be sharp and smooth baby.
– Visual style and costumes similar to Final Fantasy and Heise’s (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
– All faces would be smoothed out with CGI, to give it a semi-artificial look on the species (who would not be human). Not a similar technique to how Avatar was shot.
– Skeleton crew. My movie, my crew, my decisions. I care not about what the Studios’ wishes.
– Music from the last 3 albums of M83. Their “space classical” electronic music captures the feel of the worlds I want to create.
– I’d love to have a supporting cast consisting of Robert Carlyle, William Fichtner, and James Morrison. I ain’t no paying for big A-list names (unless the budget allows).
– In the worst case, the main cast would consist of young models that do know how to act (might take some time until we find the right candidates, but I’m sure there are gems out there waiting to be found).

Anyone can spare $50 mil or so? 😉

One of my favorite foods while living in Greece was goat soup. We would usually have it in winter, or in spring, when the just-born baby goats would get slaughtered en masse for Easter, or for their still-tender meat. Nevertheless, it was yummy. It’s a traditional dish in Epirus, the mountainous region of Greece I’m coming from. Others have spotted this Epirus dish too while on their Greek vacations. We’re lucky to be living close to a Mediterranean shop, so when JBQ spotted some goat meat there we jumped at the opportunity. I believe this was the first time I cooked goat in the 10 years living in the US.

Update: Wow! I searched long and hard online to find another authentic Epirus goat soup recipe, and I found none! In Epirus we even have restaurants that seasonally only offer goat soup, so not finding anything online about it was surely a surprise. I only found a Cretan version with tomato instead (Andy Milonakis‘ dad cooks that version apparently).

Ingredients (for 2)
* 1/2 lb (250 gr) of goat stew meat
* 1 large golden potato (on Paleo use turnips/rutabaga or kohlrabi)
* 1 branch of Utah celery (or a bunch, for Amsterdam celery)
* 2 medium-to-large carrots
* 1 small zucchini
* 1/4 bell pepper (optional)
* 1/2 of a large onion
* 1 large, juicy lemon
* 3-4 tbspoons of olive oil
* freshly grounded black pepper
* salt

Execution
1. Wash the goat meat well under running water. In a deep stock pot add 4-5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add the meat and continue boiling, uncovered. Using a spoon remove and discard the “foam” that surfaces from the boiling meat. Boil in medium heat for 15 minutes if the goat is young, or up to 45 minutes if the goat is old (old goat meat looks more “rough”). When done, using a colander, discard the water.
2. Chop the onion. Slice the zucchini. In the deep stock pot now add the olive oil, and the chopped onion. Under high heat, start browning the onion, and then add the goat meat, and a minute later add the zucchini. Stir occasionally. When the meat is browned, add 5-6 cups of water. Add more water if the goat is old and requires more cooking time. Cook under medium heat, covered.
3. Half-way through the cooking process, using your wooden stirring utensil try to mash the zucchini a bit. Then add the sliced carrots, sliced celery, and the chopped optional bell pepper. Add salt, and ground the black pepper. Use more pepper than usual.
4. Fifteen to twenty minutes before you remove from heat, add the peeled, washed, and chunked potato.
5. Ten minutes before you remove from heat, squeeze the lemon’s juice. Alternatively, you can wash the lemon, cut it half, and add it face down in the stew to cook with. Remove it from the pot before serving. Cooking time is varied, it’s until you get the consistency shown in the pictures, and when the meat is tender (usually it’s less than an hour’s time for young goat meat). Serve hot, optionally with more black pepper and some lemon wedges for those who like extra-bitter soups.

I always felt that the actor playing Dr Rush on SGU, Robert Carlyle, had the whole show on his shoulders. Coupled with his controversial actions, Dr Rush is the person of interest for the “meat” of the show (exploration & ancention). He’s enigmatic, interesting to look at and listen to, brilliant, determined, driven & focused, but also broken, and intense like hell when he’s pissed off. A man with a mission.

Of course I knew this was a strong actor, I was living in the UK the time his star exploded in popularity there, in the second part of the ’90s. But it was a single scene on last Monday’s SGU episode that made me realize how deep this actor is, and how much value he brings to SGU. In the beginning of the episode we see Rush as his usual cold, pragmatic self, not really caring much if the bomb went off or not back on Earth. But 2/3s in to the episode, we see him rush himself to Amanda Perry, after she has taken over Chloe’s body. It’s in that scene that we see the depth Carlyle brings into the character:
– While he runs towards her he jumps above some chairs to get to her even just milliseconds faster. There is so much intensity, so much desire in that jumping scene.
– When he gets in front of her, he stops cold again. He’s not sure if he wants to hug her or not, in their last encounter he blew her off after all. He’s not sure if she’s mad at him, or even if it’s her really.
– When she gives him the go-ahead, he hugs her, gives in to his feelings, and his whole face and body language shows it. We learn that he’s human after all.

This is the kind of acting that it’s up to the actor to think about his role, and improvise on — not to the “director of the week” (most TV shows usually work with different directors each week). I wish the rest of the SGU characters were as fleshed out as much as Rush is, but they’re not. Except possibly Eli, a character that all us geeks can identify with, all the rest of the main characters are an unknown quantity:

– I mean, who’s Col. Young, really? I don’t really understand the man, compared to Rush (who’s supposed to be the enigma). Sure we know some of his back story, but I don’t feel that I know the man. Actor’s fault.
– Chloe is whiny, bland and boring. Part actress, part writers’ fault, but possibly mostly the actress’. Unless that was what she was asked to deliver.
– The Lt Scott actor can’t act on intimate drama scenes — he only excels on military scenes. When Chloe wakes up with nightmares and he tries to comfort her I felt that I was watching Hayden Christensen on Star Wars: Episode II. Oh, my, God, the terror.
– Sgt. Greer actor is a good all-around actor, but too much of a stereotypical jarhead at times. Writer’s fault.
– Wray is the only strong female character in the series, but somehow I find her redundant in the grand scheme of things. Part actor, part writers’ fault.
– As for TJ? That was a clear miscast. She has a single face expression: baby-doll. Casting agent’s, actress’, producer’s and writers’ fault.

I’m willing to bet that while the writers could have done a better job fleshing out characters, it’s mostly the actors’ fault for these shortcomings. Look at Adam Brody for example (portrayed by Peter Kelamis). We know nothing about the back story of this supporting character, apart from being a scientist with one-liners. However, I feel that I know Brody more than I know Col. Young. There are key moments in the few times he has a line that make me understand the guy: he’s short on temper, he’s not taking shit from Rush, he’s ready to take hard decisions if the situation warrants it, but he’s also goofy at times, and he’s generally laid back. And I believe that all this is because the actor himself has sat down, and fleshed out the character himself in his mind. If the writers didn’t help, he did the job for them as best as he could with the material he got.

Which brings me back to Carlyle, and his ability to flesh out characters even if key points are not spelled out in the script. I wish more actors were like that. Especially the TV land would be a better place. Carlyle won a well-deserved Gemini award for his portrayal of Dr Rush, for the episode “Human”.

After SGU’s cancellation Carlyle has now signed on ABC’s “Once Upon a Time”, a new fairy-tale show that will premiere next Fall. It’s a show written by key members of the LOST writing team, so it’s got quite some backing from ABC. It’s also shot in Vancouver, so Carlyle won’t have to move to LA, since he seems to dislike most-things Hollywood.

Tonight Amazon announced its Cloud Player for Web & Android. They give 5 GB for free, upgraded to 20 GB for one year, if you buy any MP3 album. Any new album you buy and you add it to the Cloud service won’t eat out your storage allowance. All this is not a bad idea, I’m myself a supporter of streaming, when this is done right. The problem is that Amazon doesn’t do this right. RDIO, MOG, ThumbPlay, Real, Napster, Spotify, do. The problems I have with the Amazon deal are:

1. When you purchase a new album you can only add it EITHER on your cloud drive, or download it on your PC. If you must download to your PC (as I do), and later want to have it on your cloud drive as well, you have to manually upload it! This is stupid. Sure it makes sense from legal point of view (so Amazon doesn’t go on record selling you two copies), but it sucks from the user’s point of view. There is no other reason, apart the legalities, why Amazon couldn’t automatically link your purchase to your cloud account. It already does not use your storage to store new purchases, so the technical part of just “linking” music with accounts is obviously in place.

2. I have to upload manually my previously-bought Amazon music. I don’t see why Amazon shouldn’t automatically link my account with these past purchases too — apart the legal shite again.

3. There is no “offline” mode. If someone uses wifi or 3G to listen to music from the cloud he will find his smartphone’s battery go down within 2-3 hours. RDIO/MOG/etc offer the ability to sync up to about ~4 GB of your collection, and access it “offline”. Their servers create an encrypted blob of data that only their player can playback. This way you can listen everything from the cloud when you’re using a wall socket, and the checked items directly from the flash drive when you’re mobile. Perfect for travelers.

4. Ultimately, this service is not good enough. RDIO/MOG is a better deal at $10 per month with an ~unlimited music selection (not just your own library). Given that I spend about $80 a month on music (mostly from Amazon these days, since they’re considerably cheaper than iTunes), if I wanted to go subscription I’d just go with MOG or RDIO.

Sitting down and manually uploading gigabytes of files to Amazon’s servers is one thing I won’t do though. No way.

In the six months after buying the Roku box (my full review), quite a few things happened: I canceled our Comcast subscription, bought an indoors antenna, we bought a GoogleTV (wish we hadn’t), Netflix added lots of new streaming content, bought a laptop with HDMI-out, while Roku added Hulu Plus and USB local playback support. So how things are going on? Great! Just great.

The Roku is now my primary way of getting entertainment: Netflix and Vimeo are my primary channels, with Hulu via my laptop (mostly for Stargate:Universe), while our aerial antenna is used no more than 3-4 times a week (The Event, V, Vampire Diaries, Fringe). The Roku has a few bugs (e.g. some horizontal lines for videos that are wider than 16:9, rebooting occasionally after becoming slow), but overall it offers the best experience. It’s richer in content than our AppleTV, and way simpler to use than the Frankenstein GoogleTV.

Research found that many people can’t cut the cord because they have kids/wives that require specific kid/reality programming, but Netflix now carries lots of that on its streaming service. For $10 per month you should be able to get a lot of such programming, which surely beats Comcast’s $90 per month I used to pay for the basic package of HD+DVR. Add an indoors antenna too, maybe get a laptop with HDMI-out for the free version of Hulu (if you can’t wait for the shows to show up on Netflix), and you’re in business!

Here’s my matrix, with 100 being the best:

Winner in my book is the Roku. Best $60 I ever spent (by far the cheapest of them all, except for the indoors antenna that cost me $36).

The original Stargate movie was entertaining, but both SG-1 and Atlantis TV series were a classic case of cookie-cutter television. The writers introduced some nice big themes in the storylines, but ultimately their mainly episodic nature, flat characters, and black-n-white bad guys, reduced the series to a painful old-fashioned experience.

Then, StarGate:Universe (SGU) came around. SyFy Channel tried to copy the look and feel of BattleStar:Galactica (BSG), by making it a more character-based show, with inner conflicts, and a more dark, gritty premise. And it failed. Ratings were terrible not only in the US, but in other countries too. After just two seasons, SGU is now canceled, with the remaining episodes broadcasting every Monday. This is so unfortunate though, because in my opinion SGU is one of the best show on TV right now, and the best sci-fi one by a mile (I don’t hold Fringe into as high esteem as some others).

In my opinion, SGU is on the top-10 of the best scifi TV shows EVER. But this article is mostly geared on what went wrong, not what its virtues were. So why was it canceled? Here’s why:

— Some old SG fans, that apparently are mindless drones who can’t get used to watching modern and thoughtful television. As a result, they undermined the new series by giving it a bad name every way they could. Hating it just because it wasn’t the same la-la-la show that SG-1 and Atlantis were.

— The writers of SGU are also to blame. Some episodes were useless, ridiculous, or too good to feel true. As much as 70% of what SGU is it’s great, the rest 30% is lackluster. Here are some such examples:

1. The communication stones are a complete and utter cop-out. I don’t disagree that the show needed some way to connect to Earth, but this exchange-of-consciousness was too unbelievable. I mean, if Destiny’s huge stargate can’t dial Earth, why do these self-powered stones work?

What should have happened instead is that these stones should have been a mystery at first (we could see Rush caressing the case for a few episodes, without us knowing what’s inside) and then having him modify the technology to be able to send short messages to the each user’s consciousness. This way, when TJ is supposed to perform a delicate medical operation, instead of having her exchange her consciousness with a surgeon, we could have her receive instructions from a surgeon, and we could have her scream: “I’m a paramedic, I can’t do this! How do you expect me to operate on an open heart when all I have is two pages of scribble?”. THAT, is drama folks.

2. Instead of the regular traveling consciousness episodes, 1/4 of the episodes in a given season, for about 1/3 of each episode, could be regular a’la LOST flashbacks, that explain certain mysteries about why some characters are the way they are. Having their lives continuing on Earth takes us away from the main storylines upon the Destiny which can be rich and plentiful. For example, “over 80% of the ship is inaccessible without spacesuits”, Telford once said. Plenty to explore!

3. Some episodes are just stupid or too convenient. For example, the recent episode with the double Destiny, or the left-behinders returning the second shuttle (after the writers killed the other shuttle a few episodes back), and then dying. So basically we have episodes of convenience that only serve the writers. Dear writers: if you need a shuttle, don’t blow it up. If you need replacement hardware, don’t kill the aliens’ spaceship that had compatible technology. And then, we have Telford getting saved on the 1st episode by ending up back on Earth, then bringing him back to Destiny (because the writers needed him), and then being able to make it back to Earth, alone. Or TJ getting pregnant all of a sudden and then losing the baby 4 episodes later. This is just HORSESHIT. You give us impossible storylines, just to fix your previous fuckups or to convenience your SLOPPY writing.

4. Leave God and religion out of sci-fi. No problem having Dr Rush mentioning God once or twice, just to manipulate his peers to join him in his quest for the alien entity, but anything beyond that is too much.

5. Relationships among the crew are not always believable, for example Chloe is hooking up with that hotshot pilot (Lt. Scott) on episode 3 already (literally hours after her dad dies), with very little previous connection between them. As for Young & TJ, we never really understood what kind of relationship they had. Come on, be serious. Also, the dynamics of some of the characters need to change a bit, e.g. TJ needs to stop being a doll (miscast?).

The writers should have also focused on the lower decks, let us know more of the characters on the ship. Should have showed us more of their struggle to survive, rather than just these 5-6 first episodes where they find seeds, air and water and then all is good. Instead of the main 9 characters and the extra 6-7 on board the ship, make that an extra 20.

And how cool would it be instead of having that recent love story for Dr Rush that felt out of place, to have a crew member working on lowly tasks. She would not be equal to Dr Rush in any way, but she would fall for him and do his bidding to help him manipulate the other crew members (instead of managing it alone). Rush would use her at the beginning, and only towards the end of the series he would realize that he also loves her. And that would be his redeeming as a character for his arrogance and all the pains he caused to the crew on his personal quest for knowledge. She’d die, and he would go on and become the first human to ascent to the same plane of existence as the Ancients, while everyone else makes it safely back home.

Telford’s character is completely useless and should have never been in the series. Instead of having Young vs Rush trying to get control of the others, add to the mix that Lucian Alliance guy who currently sits on a cell all day doing nothing. What a waste for paying a pretty known Canadian actor for doing nothing. In fact, the few Lucian Alliance soldiers should have arrived to Destiny the same time every one else did (as part of their invasion of the planet). As I explained above, all the Milky Way affairs should not have been part of SGU after the 1st episode. Clean slate from that point on.

Ultimately, SGU is (or should be) a philosophical study of the question: “When the opportunity arises, do you run back to safety, forfeit your cosmic responsibility for exploration as a sentient, curious being, or do you march forward towards knowledge no matter the risk to your person?” And it’s that important question (through Dr Rush) that still holds the show together in my eyes. Take that away, and SGU becomes a mashed potato.

As mentioned above, mistakes were made on the show, but I’m willing to put away these and blank them out in my mind, in order to enjoy the rest, which is absolutely fabulous.

The first season of SGU is available via Netflix Instant, if you live in the US, give it a go.

Update 24-03-2011
Some immature kids in some Stargate forum are beating this post down because it didn’t satisfy their need to read the positive of SGU, even if this was an article about what went wrong, and not about why SGU is a good show. Here you are, here’s a list as to why it was a good show, let me satisfy your unjustified personal attacks:

1. Serialized premise, my No 1 need when it comes to TV shows. I hate episodic TV, it hurts our intelligence.
2. Dr Rush is one of the most amazing characters ever to grace TV. Intense, not a black-n-white hero by any means.
3. Aliens are not like laughable humans in masks, or just plain humans. More realistic this way.
4. Complex plot, in many threads. Some episodes require good thinking. REALISTIC plots most of the time.
5. Most characters are not single dimensional. Everyone’s carrying baggage rather than being that stereotypical TV hero.
6. When there’s action, there’s intensity. Well-directed, well-paced (no, not boring at all as some people think).
7. Artistic premise (e.g. the episode with Dr Rush reliving his wife’s death).
8. A number of philosophical questions asked. Show tries to appeal to humans with reason rather than brainless twats.
9. Dark, serious, gritty, and not bruhaha “medieval village with human-alikes outside of Vancouver episode of the week” style show (*throws up*).
10. Great cinematography, shot anamorphically. Amazing CGI, some of the best ever on TV.

The future of music, right here. One of the most amazing songs and great videos that I experienced as of late. Only listen with headphones, and fucking LOUD.

Today, NYTimes unveiled a new subscription and pricing model. A pretty convoluted one, too. Like Havoc wrote:

* con­tent + phone app = 15
* con­tent + tablet app = 20
* con­tent + both apps = 35
* con­tent + dead trees = 30-ish [or $72]

In my opinion, this model will fail, and then NYTimes will join MPAA and RIAA to whine back at us about copyright infringement. The truth is that I, and most people, would never pay a minimum of $15 per month for news that I can get elsewhere.

To me, the only model that works is a $5 digital subscription. Movies cost millions of dollars to make, and Netflix is able to charge just $8. Music subscription is also between $5 and $10 for a 15 million songs catalog (RDIO/MOG/Spotify). So I don’t see how NY Times can charge that much for content that can also be found elsewhere in one form or another (even if with diminishing journalism compared to NYTimes’ high standards). So far, all-you-can-eat subscription is the only model that has worked for me in my experimentation with multiple ways for getting my entertainment.

I would personally seriously consider a $5 news subscription with them, if they had support for up to 5 devices per household that they offer an ad-free client for (e.g. smart mobile, tablets, whatever), plus unlimited web browsing (with ads). Also, no reason for 20 free articles per month as they currently offer, it’d be fair to bring that number down to 5 on a $5 subscription. See, the people who truly need NYTimes’ news will buy a subscription no matter the price, but the ones that are on the fence, can get by with 20 free articles a month, so you don’t want to give these for free.

5 is the magic number: $5 subscription, 5 registered devices (+browser), 5 free articles.

I believe the underlying reason for their shortsighted decision, a reason they would never admit not even amongst themselves, is that they suffer from the same illness that their counterpart execs at MPAA/RIAA do: they don’t want to lose the “old way of doing business”. They are afraid that if they give a cheap digital subscription, no one would ever buy their paper version. Within a few months, or 1-2 years, that would mean the end of the way they do finances, or the way some old laws might now be protecting them compared to digital news outlets, their contracts with their pressers etc. I guess nobody wants to be “the CEO that killed NYTimes” (as some misguided people would undoubtedly see this), so they try to devise unnatural and artificial pricing schemes like this one today, to try to delay what’s inevitable: going fully digital.

Dear CEO of NYTimes, get a grip. Take hold of the company and move it to the 21st Century. Fix your mobile apps to be truly bad-ass, modern, and innovative, rather than simple “header_link -> article” paper-version-style stories! If the market demands to go digital, because the low pricing (compared to entertainment equivalents) makes more sense to your consumers in this medium, then do so. What’s the hold up?

In the meantime, Al Jazeera is gaining lots of new readers/viewers online daily, becoming more and more THE place to go and read stuff, while it’s the FIRST major TV channel to provide worldwide streaming without a per-country-IP-address blocking. That’s right folks, your competition now is Al Jazeera, not Washington Post.

Friends, the international indie filmmaking revolution has started!

So here we are. The first feature film shot with a dSLR (7D), with a $1 mil USD budget, and which actually uses very popular actors!

Carla Gugino (Faster, Watchmen)
Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, “Heroes”)
Danny DeVito (Get Shorty, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”)
Josh Hartnett (Thirty Days of Night, Pearl Harbor)
Rosario Dawson (Unstoppable, Grindhouse)
Emmanuelle Chriqui (“Entourage”, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan)
Aaron Tveit (Ghost Town, “Law and Order: SVU”)
Robert Forster, Academy Award nominee (Jackie Brown)
Amber Valletta (Hitch)
Gil Bellows (“Flash Forward,” The Shawshank Redemption)
Kevin Zegers (“Gossip Girl”)
Alexis Bledel (“Gilmore Girls,” The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)
Michelle Ryan (“The Bionic Woman”)
Xander Berkeley (“Nikita”)

The movie feels like a theatrical play and what’s even cooler, it’s offered for free viewing on Youtube (switch to 720p):