John August

Video

Go on Hulu

Go, Projects, Video

Online video service Hulu is now featuring my first movie, Go. If you haven’t seen it — and you live in U.S., and you’re over 17 — it’s worth a look. It even has a great, minimalist URL:

[http://www.hulu.com/go](http://www.hulu.com/go)

(**Update March 2011:** Depending on licensing agreements, Go is sometimes available on Hulu. Other times, you’ll find it on Crackle, Netflix Instant or Amazon Streaming. It’s almost always available somwhere.)

I really doubted Hulu when it was first announced, because everything the studios touch tends to be needlessly complicated and crappy. But Hulu works great for catching up on old TV shows, and now movies. The advertising isn’t terribly intrusive, either.

Will I get residuals? We’ll see. But considering Go is easily available in hundreds of illegal sites online, I’m just happy to find it in a clean, well-lighted place with 480p resolution.

Insomnia 2008

Challenge, Follow Up, Video

insomnia_2008I’m going to be one of the judges for the 2008 Insomnia Film Festival, an Apple-sponsored competition for U.S. high school and college students. Entrants get 24 hours to write, produce, edit, score and deliver a three-minute short film incorporating specific elements they only announce on the day.

The competition begins at 9:00 a.m. on November 15th, so you have just two weeks to get your team together.

Last year, I wrote up [ten suggestions for participants](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/insomnia-festival), which is certainly worth a re-link.

The triumph of product integration

Film Industry, Video

At a USC forum last Saturday, a writer asked whether it was worth considering product integration when writing a script. She said her project would lend itself really well to a major brand like Starbucks.

I told her that I’d often heard plans of trying to bring advertisers in on the ground floor of a movie, but that it never seemed to work out. The gap between commercials and big-screen entertainment was just too wide.

Well, I stand corrected.

Strike, day 25

Strike, Video

I nearly went over to Burbank to join colleagues at the Gay Gate (NBC), but decided to stay local at Paramount. Irene, a fixture on the 5:30 a.m. shift, pointed out that the key to passing three hours is to have at least two in-depth conversations. As a group, we never reached consensus on our discussion of which was more miserable — filming in rain, or filming in snow — but there was unanimity that a certain blonde actress in her 40’s is an evil megalomaniac who should be avoided at all costs.

Jonathan Auxier, a screenwriter and novelist from Vancouver, ((Q: What is a tuque?
A: It’s the Canadian word for a knitted cap. It’s pretty much a shibboleth.)) came seeking advice about adaptations. [Samantha Goodman](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0954277/) told tales of the Nurses pilot she did last year. [Al Gough](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0332184/) and I talked comic book properties. And like that, it was done.

There’s no picketing scheduled for tomorrow.

One of my strike captains ((I’m actually listed on three different teams, though I’ve mostly stayed at Paramount.)) forwarded a link to a YouTube video that I resisted clicking for many hours. Based on the still frame, it was clearly a white guy (WGA Boi) rapping about the WGA strike. That combination felt insurmountably terrible. Even with a shield of irony, I predicted myself being annoyed or embarrassed by its existence. But too my surprise, the video is neither annoying or embarrassing. It threads a needle of impossible danger.

I got a Housewife but she ain’t Desperate
‘Cuz she knows that Marc Cherry is handlin’ shit

See it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I_tWfKM8ik).