Alex Kelleher’s Blog

A couple of years ago I helped a friend (@JulianFriedmann who is a UK film/book agent) launch a site  for screenwriters, TwelvePoint.  I’ve talked to him many times over the years about storytelling.  In fact I contributedpart of a chapter to his book “How to Make Money Screenwriting“.   That chapter talked about the physiological/psychological effects of watching a movie, and what screenwriters might do with that information.  For instance, did you know that if you sympathise with a character on the screen who is running, your leg muscles will twitch in sync to their running?

Of course one of the basic truths about screenwriting (particularly US screenwriting) is the common structure of movie screenplay.  There’s a focus point in the narrative around page 15, a turning point around page 30, another focus point around midway, and a final turning point about 15 pages or so from the end (each page translates roughly to a minute).  Analysis shows that the vast majority of US movies are based on this formula – next time you watch a movie, check it out, it works.

This, and countless books and research, all point towards stories having a basic, common structure.  So it made perfect sense to me when I read about people looking at the concept of an ”Automyth“.  People (mainly in and around computer gaming) are looking at this, so there’s a lot of reference to fairy tales and ghosts and wizards and everything Terry Pratchett-esque.  For instance someone has created an online “Fairy Tale Generator” at http://www.brown.edu/Courses/FR0133/Fairytale_Generator/gen.html which does an okay job of fixing up a tale based on a bunch of selected inputs like “victory”, “rescue” or “difficult task”.

True, mainstream Automovies or Autobestseller novels are a little way away, it seems, but can it be that long before the first computer-generated bestseller hits a screen near you.  The technology to create the visual image, spoken word and automated music are there already.  All we’re missing is a piece of software that can generate a decent story.

UPDATE: Julian just sent me the following tweet: @alexkelleher I am the friend Alex helped; great blog in light of claims the 3 acts doesn’t work. Read Bettleheim Uses of Enchantment.

admin AI, software

… no doubt in the upcoming hours, days and weeks about Google’s new browser.  From the official Google blog:

In yesterday’s post on Google Chrome, we promised to let you know when it would be available for everyone to try — and that time is now. Visit http://www.google.com/chrome to download and start exploring.

I’ve tried it, and so far it seems okay, and very Google-like – quick, simple, no fuss.  I don’t see any immediate reasons to switch, but no doubt over time it will become more interesting, and one of its stated primary uses (to bring web applications more effectively to the desktop) is worth watching.

It remains to be seen how may services users will want from one company, and whether Chrome can make long-term inroads on the browser market.  With IE8 coming out later this year, this will be an interesting battle!

admin software

I can remember as far back as 1996 when Larry Ellison started to proselytise the “network computer” – a dumb terminal that provided an interface to processing power that was stored centrally.  it was going to cost $500, which back then seemed a snip for access to that sort of processing power.

Here’s a quote from that article:

Oracle has already acknowledged that the initial price target was ambitious, so it is planning a family of devices, including a high-end machine and an entry-level network computer. The high-end model will reportedly have a keyboard, mouse, flat-panel monochrome or color screen, modem and connection for ATM or ISDN, video conferencing microphone and camera and 4 Mb each of dynamic RAM and flash RAM in a two-pound, laptop-sized box. It will employ a version of the ARM RISC processor from Apple’s Newton MessagePad, giving it the power of an early 486 machine.

Well, you’d expect a bit more than 4Mb of RAM and a monochrome screen for your $500 these days.  But this isn’t meant to be an exercise in nostalgia.  What Larry envisaged is coming true, a little bit more each day.  The apps we can access online are getting increasingly powerful.  And I don’t just mean the things that we couldn’t run on a home PC (eg Google’s index), but apps we’d traditionally run locally.  Of course, it’s all in a bit more of a distributed / cloud-style network of the 21st Century, but still.  Some notable examples are:

• Photoshop Express.  The app that made me think of this whole note – and the single most impressive Flash browser based product port I’ve seen

• Google Apps – becoming more and more of an Office-competitor every day
• Apple TV – one day (soon) probably replacing most set-top boxes and linearly broadcast TV (quite a way to go with download speeds and HD though)

There’s a lot also happening in online desktops, but I’m less convinced of those in the short term.

Ironically, as all these apps become better and more powerful, so do the PCs we access them with.  In fact, hardware is becoming so much of a commodity (viz Carphone Warehouse moving into the “free laptop” game) that there isn’t any need any more to go “dumb”.  We can have both – powerful local processing for games and when we want to be standalone, and network-based apps for the always up-to-date versions, and access-from-anywhere-ability.

Going fully network-based is going to take a long while to happen, but with certain apps (TV, for instance – or where the business model means we get great apps for free online), it’ll happen very soon.  Larry, the Oracle, probably feels vindicated.

admin software dumb, photoshop, sas, software, terminal