John August

Video

Gender-specific douchery

Video, Words on the page

In this [YouTube clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUcVj31QaM&feature=PlayList&p=FC7BDC8774187EAE&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=53), Jonathan Coulton gives some backstory on the Portal videogame before performing “Still Alive.”

COULTON

This song is sung by one of the characters in the game. She’s an artificial intelligence, and she’s kind of an asshole.

That got a laugh, and for good reason: we so rarely refer to women as assholes.

And I don’t really know why. There are many gender-specific terms for hateful men and women, so it’s surprising that one which should be equally-applicable is almost always used for men only.

And yes, I got the sheet music to “Still Alive.”

Writing better scene description

How-To, Scriptcast, Video, Words on the page, Writing Process

My occasional [“How To” articles](http://johnaugust.com/archives/category/how-to) tend to get a good response, but it’s hard for me to show the difference between the process of writing and the product of writing. No matter how long the article, I can’t go through word-by-word, explaining my decisions. [Scrippets](http://scrippets.org) only go so far.

So today, something new. I work through a scene on video with the goal of improving the scene description. This is still very much an experiment, so let me know what you think.

As usual on YouTube, buttons in the bottom-right corner let you go full-screen and/or HD.

Redbox, video and economics

Film Industry, Video

Dawn C. Chmielewski of the LA Times today has [an article about Redbox](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cotown-redbox30-2009mar30,0,3496501.story), the company that operates automated kiosks renting DVDs for a dollar a day. The company was originally part of McDonald’s, but has since been bought out by Coinstar — a great fit, since they already have a business running change kiosks in supermarkets.

Dave Poland thinks the story marks [The Day The Movies Died](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2009/03/the_day_the_mov.html). As usual, he makes some good points. But he also over-reacts:

> I keep hoping that the sky isn’t actually falling… that it will not all be television… that there is an answer in technologies that I think are overhyped (though sometimes excellent), like 3D or IMAX… but this $1 rental kiosk and the industry’s failure to stop it is exactly the kind of thing that makes me despair.

I grew up in Boulder, Colorado. I had $1 video rentals at my grocery store (King Soopers) since the late 1980s. Sure, you can adjust for inflation, ((Adjusted for inflation, $1 is $1.65.)) but one dollar is mostly a psychological price point. Videocassettes and DVDs have been available at that figure for a long time.

I’m not dismissing Redbox. I’ve always admired Coinstar, and these kiosks seem to have the potential to finish off the remaining brick-and-mortar video rental stores like Blockbuster. ((That said, Blockbuster has been the subject of obituaries for at least a decade.)) No kiosk is going to have the depth of Netflix, the expertise of a genre video store, or the immediacy of pay-per-view. But for the casual video consumer who doesn’t want to register for Netflix, it’s slightly more convenient and attractively priced.

My friend Jeff has made his fortune finding money in dying industries. He sold clip art packs for home publishing programs and CD-ROM backups of programs people had already downloaded. He kept his prices low and his costs even lower. Redbox is doing the same thing. It won’t kill DVD. In fact, it may keep it viable a few years longer as we transition to digital various forms of intangible digital delivery.

I don’t think Redbox is going to convert DVD buyers into DVD renters. But then, I don’t really understand why people buy DVDs at all, except for kids’ movies that get played 200 times.

Shiny discs are becoming less important and less profitable. That’s changing the industry, but I don’t see Redbox as a specific harbinger of doom.

Let the right subtitles in

International, Video

I found [this post](http://iconsoffright.com/news/2009/03/let_the_wrong_subtitles_in_to.html) about the uproar over the DVD/BR subtitles for Let The Right One In very interesting. Seemingly arbitrary changes really can impact the scene, and you wouldn’t know the difference unless you’d seen (that is, read) the theatrical version.

Warning: Some spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie. (Which you should. It’s terrific.)