Some might say I have an unhealthy obsession with Taco Bell. To those people I would say, what other kind of obsession could I have with Taco Bell if not an unhealthy one? I posted about the Bell before when they took away my beloved Bacon Club Chalupa. (I also think of this as they day I became an atheist.)

While I still remain angry with Taco Bell for withholding that blessed bacony goodness, I still make a run for the border once in a while. I went last night, and I’m happy to report that they have redeemed themselves somewhat by introducing another bacon related menu item: The Bacon Cheddar Gordita Crunch.

I doubt any fast food joint will ever come up with a concoction more delicious than the Bacon Club Chalupa, but the Bacon Cheddar Gordita Crunch is a decent substitute. This might sound like mild praise but, if you consider how good the Club Chalupa was, it’s more like saying I would cut off my little toe just to keep it on the menu. (The Club Chalupa probably ranks somewhere around the big toe, or maybe even a finger.)

Sadly, the fine print under the ads for the Bacon Cheddar Gordita Crunch say “limited time only.” It’s only a matter of time before Taco Bell goes back to being a barren baconless wasteland. Damn you Taco Bell! Damn your cold black hearts!

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Topics: Bacon, Food, Misc

The Bleam Corp Annual Chili Cook-off part 2
(see part 1 here)

John sat upright in his cot with a startled gasp. A thirteen-inch TV/VCR perched on top of wilted cardboard box bathed the dismal space with a bluish light. His breathing slowed. Just a bad dream. He glanced at the alarm clock. Four a.m.

John fumbled for the remote control on his nightstand, knocking over a half-empty beer bottle in the process. He found the remote, turned off the static coming from the TV, and went back to sleep. He paid no heed to the beer soaking into the green shag carpet.

At six a.m. the alarm clock squawked its obnoxious wake up call. John lay with a pillow over his face, groping for the snooze button. Three snoozes later, John shut the alarm off and slinked out of bed.

A few steps from the bed, he realized his sock was wet from stepping in the beer soaked carpet.

“Ah, crap,” he muttered, pulling the sock off his foot.

“I can tell this is gonna be a great freaking day.”

#

Two hours later, John stood next to Carlos in the Bleam Corp cafeteria. The sound of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing 16 Tons accompanied a murmuring crowd.

“Now this is the reason you’re here.” John indicated the large purple banner dangling from the center of the cafeteria ceiling. Green lettering announced, “The Bleam Corp Annual Chili Cook Off.”

“This is it, Carlos, The worst day of the year.”

“What’s so bad about a chili cook off? I kind of like chili,” Carlos said.

“I like chili too. It’s not the chili that’s a problem; it’s the aftermath. They made such a mess last year it took me the whole weekend to get everything back to normal. That’s why they agreed to let me hire extra help this year. And I’m not just talking about the mess in the kitchen.”

“Great,” Carlos said.

In an earlier draft I actually described the nightmare that woke up John. I was trying to use it as a way of foreshadowing a rather ludicrous event later on. Rather than making that event more believable it ended up just creating two segments that didn’t make any sense.

There was also a part where John annoys some random bar patron with a lot of drunken rambling before going home to pass out and fall into the dream sequence. It was more failed foreshadowing, so I cut it. I only left this small bit about John’s apartment because I thought it helped build his character.

In the second half of this post, you can see the beginnings of a major pacing problem. I feel that the first two sections do a good job moving a long quick, and setting up the main character. After the dream sequence we begin what will turn out to be a much longer section.

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Topics: Excerpts, Short Stories, Writing

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Figure 3: Birth of a Nation posters (1915) – Birth of a Nation was one of the first films to be promoted with multiple poster designs.

Mister DeMille, I’m Ready for my Poster
D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. de Mille were two of the earliest directors to make feature length films. In her book, A Century of Movie Posters: From Silent to Art House, Emily King writes:

Longer films such as those produced by Griffith and DeMille require higher budgets and must be justified by greater box-office returns. These epics were heavily promoted, by early 20th-century standards, and the development of the feature film went hand in hand with that of the film poster. (21)

Figure 4: From left to right: Alien Resurrection (1997), I Know What you Did Last Summer (1997), Seven (1995) – Even the horror genre isn’t immune to the floating head poster phenomena.

Big money meant big advertising campaigns. Films started enjoying promotion from more than one poster design. (See figure 3) Throughout the history of film, increasing budgets continually impact the production of posters.

The Floating Head Poster

Figure 5: Metropolis (1927) – Heinz Schulz-Neudamm’s poster for Metropolis is iconic.

One of the earliest trends to form in film posters involves the dominant presence of actors and actresses. By the mid 1910’s film studios began to realize the power of the Movie Star. (Learn About Movie Posters) Posters began to showcase big name actors and actresses. Not only do the images get bigger but so do the type sizes of the names. Horror movies are often considered pure B-list affairs, but even in this genre we will see the rise of “big names” such as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Perhaps the unfortunate result of the rises of the Hollywood star is what some call the Floating Head film poster. These are posters in which the entire composition is dominated by giant headshots of the film’s stars. (See figure 4) This trend was lampooned on the web site FunnyOrDie.com

The Roaring 20’s

During the 20’s movies grew into a real industry. In 1919 The National Screen Service was founded. This institution would later play a major role in the production of movie posters. The NSS was like the Gestapo of movie promotion for roughly 40 years, starting in the 1940’s. (Learn About Movie Posters) The 20’s gave birth to the first major film studios, most of which are still with us today, including Warner Brothers, Paramount, and MGM (Dirks) Last but not least, the 20’s gave us The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie”. (Jolson.org) With movies becoming such big business, the studios spent even more money on poster art.

One of the last silent films of note was released the same year as The Jazz Singer. Metropolis is considered one of the most influential films in the Science Fiction genre, and its poster is one of the most recognizable ever made. (See figure 5)

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Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School

I’m throwing in the towel on the first short story I actually tried to get published. After roughly a dozen rejections I’m pretty sure it’s just not going to find a home. I’ve debated with myself for some time now over whether or not I should post the story here. Do I really want to subject my audience (all 2 of them) to my failed fiction?

I came to the decision that I will post the story in sections, and after each section I’ll post some analysis. When the whole thing is up, I’ll do a wrap up explaining what I think the story’s overall problems are, and why it failed to find a publisher.

So, here is part one of The Bleam Corp Annual Chili Cook-off:

These are the piss buckets of kings. John had just finished cleaning a row of urinals. He now stood admiring the gleam.

“To get to the top of this game, ya gotta know which restrooms to clean, and when. See, I used to be just another toilet monkey, but now I’m somebody important around this place. I’m the head janitor! I’m the boss. You wanna get to where I am you gotta know your crap.”

“I see,” Carlos said.

“All the big shots go home by five o’clock, ya see, so I always clean their crappers at the end of the day, so they’ll be nice and fresh for them to foul up in the morning.”

“Why not clean them in the morning, so the big shots can see you working?”

John paused. No one had ever questioned his knowledge of the intricacies of the janitorial profession.

“You don’t want them to see you working. Important folk don’t wanna see the guy who cleans their crapper.”

“But if they don’t see you, how do they know who’s responsible?”

“No, you don’t understand. When it comes to latrine maintenance, it doesn’t matter who cleans em so long as they get clean. See, the trick isn’t to get em to notice you; it’s to keep em from noticing a mess. They ain’t never gonna notice a lowly janitor, but they will notice a crappie looking crapper quicker than crap-cramps after the chili cook off. A mess they’ll notice, and they’ll complain. That’s what you want to avoid.”

The two stood in silence for a moment looking upon the sparkling fruits of their labor.

“But if they are never going to notice you, what’s the point of trying to impress them?”
John sighed, running a hand over his receding hairline.

“Never mind for now; that’s enough for today.” He pushed his yellow mop bucket toward the door.

Analysis

While I love the opening line, I think it’s awkward. I toyed with making it spoken, rather than though, but nothing seemed to fit just right. Other than that, I think things were off to a good start. Silly, but good.

What about you, dear reader? Do you have any analysis of your own? I’m always open to feedback.

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Topics: Excerpts, Rejection, Short Stories, Writing

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Figure 1: L’Arroseur Arrose (1885) – This poster focuses more on the experience of watching a film, rather than the film itself.

I recently turned in a research paper about science fiction and horror movie posters for my History of Graphic Design class. Not only did I get an A on the assignment, but the teacher asked if he could use it as the model paper for future classes. (Of course I said yes!)

I want to share, but 3000 words is a bit much for one post. So I’ll be splitting it up into a series of posts, starting with this one:

Introduction: Two Designs Enter, One Design Leaves

If you tossed all known forms of graphic design into the Thunderdome, and sat down with a tub of popcorn to watch them fight it out, movie poster design would have a good chance of emerging at the end, covered in the blood of its enemies. Of course, it would depend largely on what criteria were used to determine the winner.

The movie poster would have a huge advantage, were you to judge such a contest on public adoration. People love movie posters. They represent the dream of any marketer: advertising so effective that people yearn not just to look upon it, but to display it for others to see, and are even willing to pay for the right to do so.

Were you to judge such a contest on importance to an advertising campaign, the movie poster would be a fierce competitor against the mighty logo. Similar to a logo, the poster is the lynchpin of a film’s advertising machine.

The Birth of an Art Form

“Even though everybody hates the Americans, they’re still watching American movies.”
-Roland Emmerich

Figure 2: Trip to the Moon (1902) – This might just be the first “floating head” poster. More on this later.

My discussion will revolve mostly around American movie posters, specifically those of the science fiction and horror genres. Cinema may have been born in France, but by the 1920’s it had grown up and moved to California. (Sklar 4) This is not to say that Europe ceased making movies, but that Hollywood has long been the nexus of the film universe.

By examining the trends of science fiction and horror movie posters throughout the years we can use those genres as a lens to look at movie poster design as a whole. As a basic foundation, a brief history of movie posters in general, as well as cinema it self, is in order.

Jules Cheret, famed pioneer of posters, gave birth to the movie poster with an 1890 lithograph advertising the short film Projections Artistiques. (Learn About Movie Posters) The films from this period more closely resemble today’s home movie than the blockbusters on the big screen. The art form was so new that people were entertained just by watching a picture move. The posters for such films reflected this. (See figure 1)

The novelty of watching moving pictures for the sake of seeing pictures move faded, and before long films began to tell stories. In the early 1900’s, a magician by the name of Georges Melies saw the potential for trickery in the new medium and developed the first special effects. (Encarta) His innovations gave birth to narrative filmmaking. His Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon) is an icon of the birth of the modern film, and is regarded as the first Science Fiction movie. (Dirks) The poster for this film represents the film rather than the theater going experience. (See figure 2)

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Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School

We thought it might be nice to close out our weekend by taking our dogs on a nice relaxing trip to the park. We had a nice time for about 10 minutes, after which some giant hell beast with a spiked collar comes running up to us. I’m pretty sure that this creature was the spawn of a Rottweiler and a German tank.

Anyway, the tank really just wants to wag its gun barrel at us and play with our dogs. The only problem is that our dogs are over the rainbow, crazy. The little one, Lily, turns into some kind of whirling dervish, yapping her head off and nearly pulling out of her leash before I can scoop her into my arms. Our slightly larger dog, Molly, thinks we are being attacked by a Nazi K9, and also goes ballistic.

The idiot who owns Hitler’s long lost puppy stands about 15 feet away with a look of horror on her face, being as helpful as a turd on a stick. Valerie and I try to walk away with our dogs in our arms, but the tank keeps advancing. Molly is making sounds that can only be described as an air raid siren mixed with the sound Satan would make if he stubbed his toe.

I’m a very mellow guy. I’m usually as tranquil as a bucket of valium on a deserted beach. But this moron and her out of control dog really damaged my calm. I start scaring the fragile psyches of all the nearby children with a hand grenade of obscenities hurled at the idiot, who is still standing in the distance like a mannequin.

We finally mange to get away, but our trip was ruined. The moral of the story is: keep your dog on a leash! Unless it’s a dog park, you can bet that there is a sign posted somewhere requiring all pets to be on a leash. You are not special. Just because you think your dog is well behaved doesn’t mean you don’t have to follow the rules. Even if your dog has the discipline of a service animal, that doesn’t mean all the other dogs at the park are equally well trained.  So get your head out of your ass, and put your dog on a leash.

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Topics: Dogs, Misc