Saturday, August 9, 2014

Felicia Day Makes a Legendary Decision

Felicia has something to smile about
Late to the news, but huge congratulations to Legendary Entertainment for managing to broker a deal with video legend, Felicia Day, for the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel.

Ms Day has a fearsome reputation for insisting on being fairly compensated for her ground-breaking work and keeping control of her intellectual property (it sounds logical, but how many creators have lost these rights to their own work over the years?) In 2009, when The Guild was the subject of intense negotiations with various parties, Ms day stuck to her guns and came out with a deal with MSN/Xbox that allowed her to keep ownership of her work.

It's too early to know what this might mean in terms of cross-platform work, but there is every reason to be excited about this news.

From GMAOnline:

Day reiterated her excitement: "As someone who's been working in digital entertainment for eight years, I am excited to see my company grow with Legendary, and to be able to keep making award-winning content within the changing digital landscape. And as a creator, I look forward to making fantastic things together, bringing projects I am passionate about to all platforms."
 Read more on GamesIndustry.biz

It's easy to forget that YouTube was launched less than ten years ago, Amazon is only just ten years old, and iTunes was released less than 20 years ago. In that short time the way entertainment is created and distributed has undergone a phenomenal change. Creators have not always negotiated the new reality well, and future-proofing contracts to protect works is an on-going challenge.

Congratulations to Ms Day (and Kim Evey and Sheri Bryant, who set up Geek & Sundry with Ms Day in 2012) for showing that it is possible to forge your own path and create a future that is, well, legen - wait for it -


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Feeding the Homeless - Prank It FWD (Watch This!)

Greg Benson, from his website
Greg Benson has been making videos for ever and knows how to tickle the old funny bone (and then some). Even though a good many of his videos involve pranking members of the public in various ways, he has a fine sense timing and compassion for his victims subjects.

Greg is a good guy, so I shouldn't have been surprised at this new video from MediocreFilms, but I was. This just blew me away:




The concept is simple, but powerful. The execution is brilliant. Mr Benson M.C.s with grace.

A YouTube commentator says it all.

We get to see some of the background work, too, and Greg Aronowitz and his team really helped make the event special.

For every thousand views, $1 is donated to dosomething.org, so feel free to watch it multiple times, and share it with everyone you know.

Thanks, Greg. This video really made my day.

#allthefeelz

Check out Greg's work on his YouTube Channels:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MediocreFilms 

http://www.youtube.com/user/mediocrefilms2 


And who can believe it's been over three years since I interviewed Greg?


Friday, March 14, 2014

Happy Pi Day!

Freshly baked on http://www.memecreator.org/ this morning


It's Pi Day! An excuse to be cheesy on the inside - and out :)

I might try to recreate a classic from yesteryear [image not available], or I might just cheat and buy a delicious pie and gussy it up. Either way, it's an excuse for flaky, crusty fun...

What will you bake/do/recite?