For those of you who have asked for an update:
Now on Amazon.com for digital download to Kindle, any E-reader or computer, Iphone or Ipad or whatever:
No second Chances - historical romance
Witches' Eve - paranormal romance
High Desert - suspense thriller
The Five Suitors - historical romance
Considerably less bloodshed and twice the romance of Game of Thrones.
Don't get me wrong. I am ADDICTED to Game of Thrones. But I'm getting damn tired of George (spoiler alert! )
killing off all the people I like!
What red blooded woman out there wouldn't want to bed down with Khal Drogo? Or Ned Stark? Or pretty much anyone who's not a Lannister? Except for the Imp played by Peter Dinklage, I love smart men, so his mind really does it for me. He's also a Gemini like I am, his birthday being today and mine being June 12th. Ah, the Gemini mind....
I won't hand out to many more spoilers. I figure by the time anyone reads this, the terrible episode will have already aired. I was so in love with the mini series, I grabbed the download of the book and read it almost non-stop until I hit the (spoiler alert!)
terrible part regarding Drogo and Stark. Damn it! I loved Sean Bean in the part of Stark and Jason Mamoa as Drogo. Then, to get over the terrible depression, I had to read book two so I knew the others would go on (spoiler alert!)
And it got worse! No more reading the books. Sorry George. Your series is brilliant, but I can depress the hell out of myself without your help.
I'm just saying....
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Crowd Tilt OR more buddy have you got a dime?
Crowd Tilt is now following me on Twitter. Since I like to pass these kinds of things on to you, here it is:
Have you ever thought about getting a group of people together to fund something... but then didn't do it because of the anxiety of setting up an email list, selling people on the idea, setting up some online payment method, collecting checks (checks are so 1992!), managing who'd paid and who hadn't on an excel spreadsheet (excel? sick!), and other intensive measures?
Have you ever thought of starting a project that required collecting some dough from your turtles.. but never followed through with asking even a single person because you didn't know how you should go about it?? Or maybe you started collecting money for something, only to find yourself stalled, a third of the way to your goal, and asking yourself.. "What are we going to do if we don't get it all?!"
We call this project (or objective) anxiety, and Crowdtilt was built to simplify this process.
Group-based initiatives, in our opinions, are way more difficult than they should be, and they often fall short (or never even start to begin with), not for lack of collective desire, but because of two main reasons; the inconvenience (for both organizer and the contributors) and an inherent concern from both parties that the objective or project won't get fully funded.
Sometimes it's one or the other, and sometimes it's a little of both. To further illustrate the difference between conventional fundraising, and what you can do with Crowdtilt, we had some Harvard grads come up with the diagrams below (heh, look how they misspelled embarrassment).
In addition to the ease and simplicity designed into Crowdtilt, we've tried to make fundraising more fun and interesting than ever before. When people get behind an idea that they want to 'tilt', it becomes kind of like a game, and everyone is on the same team. They are going to help spread the word through their social and professional networks, and become advocates themselves to making sure the goal is reached.
Our bet is that the pressure of having to tilt the campaign will ultimately propel contributors' activity and create a sense of urgency around the campaign. Additionally, the campaign page and users' Crowdtilt profiles give them easy and expansive sharing tools to use to make sure the most eyes see what you're trying to accomplish.
If you have a clear objective, big or small, and a network to that can fund it, then give it a try, and you might be blown away by the difference between Crowdtilt and the conventional fundraising you are used to.
Have you ever thought about getting a group of people together to fund something... but then didn't do it because of the anxiety of setting up an email list, selling people on the idea, setting up some online payment method, collecting checks (checks are so 1992!), managing who'd paid and who hadn't on an excel spreadsheet (excel? sick!), and other intensive measures?
Have you ever thought of starting a project that required collecting some dough from your turtles.. but never followed through with asking even a single person because you didn't know how you should go about it?? Or maybe you started collecting money for something, only to find yourself stalled, a third of the way to your goal, and asking yourself.. "What are we going to do if we don't get it all?!"
We call this project (or objective) anxiety, and Crowdtilt was built to simplify this process.
Group-based initiatives, in our opinions, are way more difficult than they should be, and they often fall short (or never even start to begin with), not for lack of collective desire, but because of two main reasons; the inconvenience (for both organizer and the contributors) and an inherent concern from both parties that the objective or project won't get fully funded.
Sometimes it's one or the other, and sometimes it's a little of both. To further illustrate the difference between conventional fundraising, and what you can do with Crowdtilt, we had some Harvard grads come up with the diagrams below (heh, look how they misspelled embarrassment).
In addition to the ease and simplicity designed into Crowdtilt, we've tried to make fundraising more fun and interesting than ever before. When people get behind an idea that they want to 'tilt', it becomes kind of like a game, and everyone is on the same team. They are going to help spread the word through their social and professional networks, and become advocates themselves to making sure the goal is reached.
Our bet is that the pressure of having to tilt the campaign will ultimately propel contributors' activity and create a sense of urgency around the campaign. Additionally, the campaign page and users' Crowdtilt profiles give them easy and expansive sharing tools to use to make sure the most eyes see what you're trying to accomplish.
If you have a clear objective, big or small, and a network to that can fund it, then give it a try, and you might be blown away by the difference between Crowdtilt and the conventional fundraising you are used to.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
More buddy have you gotta dime? OR Crowdfunding resources
7 Crowdfunding Websites for Film Projects
There are numerous Websites that provide a platform for creative people to raise funds for their projects. Some of them support a broad range of activities including business ideas and inventions; others are more focused, geared towards fashion designers or open source software ideas. In this little collection of crowdfunding websites you will find the ones popular among indie filmmakers and those who support them.
IndieGoGo was launched at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It is one of the most popular crowdfunding solutions for filmmakers from all over the world. Since its inception it has hosted thousands of successful funding campaigns not only for film projects, but in areas such as music, theatre, fashion and education. Successful projects include for exampleThe Bully Project, a documentary directed by Sundance and Emmy-award winning filmmaker, Lee Hirsch, which got picked up and will be distributed by The Weinstein Company, or another documentary Love Hate Love, from Emmy award winning directors Dana Nachman and Don Hardy, which also premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Kickstarter is another online platform for funding creative projects. It has been a popular website used for funding a diverse array of endeavors, ranging from indie film and music to journalism and food projects for over 2 years. It uses Amazon Payments to process credit cards instead of PayPal, and you need a US bank account and address to start a project. One of the highest funded projects on the site is Blue Like Jazz (the movie) which raised $345,992 from 4495 backers, including over 1000 credited as Associate Producer.
Similar to IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, RocketHub is an online crowdfunding website for creative projects. It was launched in January 2010. Their sister site, Rockethub.org is an educational tool with useful crowdfunding tips and tactics, helping project owners (called Creatives) create successful campaigns.For example producer/writer/director Darko Lungulov used Rockethub to bring Tribeca Film Festival Award Winning film Here and There to American art-house theaters.
Pozible is an Australian crowdsourcing platform that was formely known as FundBreak. It was developed for artists, musicians, filmmakers, journalists, designers, entrepreneurs, inventors, event organisers, software developers and other creative minded people. They also have a UK domain, most of the projects are Australian, some British.
Fansnextdoor is a European crowdfunding website founded by individuals coming from different countries like France, India and the Philippines. Creative projects include films, books, music and visual arts. Seemingly the only film project successfully funded as of today is La Répétition, a French short film which raised a little over €1500.
CineCrowd is a Dutch nonprofit crowdfunding platform. It features numerous projects by Dutch filmmakers including short films, animations, documentaries and experimental films. The whole site is in Dutch, so the target audience is smaller than in case of the other websites.
Startnext is a German crowdfunding platform. The language of the site is German, and projects include film, theatre, music etc. An example of a current projec is Iron Sky, a sci-fi comedy about the Nazis who set up a secret base on the moon in 1945 where they hide out and plan to return to power in 2018.inWhat is Crowdfunding?
According to Wikipedia,crowdfunding describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.Politicians and charities have used this method for ages, but now several online platforms enable creative individuals including indie filmmakers to raise funds for their artistic endeavors.
The first film financed by crowdfunding was the award-winning French sci-fi short Demain la Veille. In 2004 their public internet donation campaign helped them raise nearly $50,000.
Today websites like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo allow filmmakers to raise money collectively toward a monetary target. Project owners create a profile on a crowdfunding site listing their monetary targets, an explanation of how the funds will be used, and an end-date for the campaign. Supporters can pledge money toward the goal. Instead of a percentage of the profits, they are offered a variety of rewards in exchange for money: special thanks in the film’s credits, a digital download or a copy of the film on DVD, signed movie posters, invitation to a private screening etc.
Although the average project goal is under $10,000, one of the most successful campaigns raised over $300,000 and enabled the production of the movie Blue Like Jazz.
Crowdfunding websites have democratized support for creative projects by letting fans finance the work of artists directly, and more and more filmmakers realize their potential in film production.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Chris Norby is an idiot or State Assembly does the right thing!
The California state Assembly did the right thing today and voted to extend tax incentives to filmmakers who shoot in California. The only person who voted against it was Assemblyman Chris Norby. He said, if you want to support the film industry, go see a movie.
Idiotic statements like that one is part of the reason California is in financial ruin. IN MY OPINION.
By giving these tax incentives, you are keeping movie production within the state instead of allowing other states in the union (who are obviously smarter than Norby) to steal productions away by offering these incentives. Why would you want to support a Hollywood Fat Cat Producer? Because you are NOT. You are bringing work to California workers. And whenever a movie shoots in a location, that area MAKES MONEY - sometimes MILLIONS per film shoot. Independent filmmakers like myself can stay local and work toward making their smaller films. Toronto, Canada believes so much in offering AMERICAN filmmakers incentives and studios to work in, that they have spent over $700 MILLION dollars just constructing studios and stages for these filmmakers to use. Now why would they do that IF THERE WERE NO MONEY FOR THEM IN THE DEAL?
Norby says he hasn't seen a movie in years (his non-support of Hollywood), wonder how many other things he's out of touch with? Hmmmmm. Do we need someone like that in the state Assembly who is so obviously out of touch? Maybe the Norbster should get a freaking clue!
For deets, read on:
The state Assembly voted Tuesday to extend incentives for California's entertainment industry for five more years, approving up to $500 million in additional tax credits to help keep movie-making jobs in the state.
The California Film and Television Tax Credit Program enacted in 2009 has already helped keep some $2.2 billion in film and television production and 25,000 crew jobs in California, said Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, a Sylmar Democrat, arguing for the extension.
The Assembly voted 72-1 to extend the program from 2014 to July 2019. The bill goes next to the state Senate.
Supporters said other states and nations have been stepping up their incentives to lure away film and television work.
California lost production jobs for years until the credit took effect, said Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada Flintridge, and it was carefully crafted for economic benefit to the state.
"You had to create the job here to get the credit," he said.
Democrats and Republicans both backed AB 1069 as a way to preserve California jobs, though some GOP lawmakers said other industries needed the help as much as Hollywood.
Only Assemblyman Chris Norby voted against the bill, saying the tax credits tilted the level playing field of business competition.
"This is about picking and choosing economic winners and losers," Norby said. "If you want to support Hollywood, go see a movie. I haven't seen one in a long time."
Los Angeles area legislators had pushed for a production tax credit for years without success until then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger got behind the idea in 2008. His backing was pegged to a decision by the producers of the ABC Studios television series "Ugly Betty" to move production from Los Angeles to New York, costing about two-thirds of the 150 crew members their jobs on the $3 million-per-episode show.
New York had offered the producers a 35 percent tax credit.
California's credit, against income or sales taxes or both, is not quite that rich. It covers up to 25 percent of production budgets spent in the state and applies to films with production budgets of up to $75 million, TV movies, miniseries and certain series. It sets aside at least $10 million of credits for independent films from the $100 million available each year.
The California credit took effect in 2009, when the recession and tax credits elsewhere helped cut on-location filming days on the streets of Los Angeles by 19 percent from the previous year, according to FilmLA, a nonprofit that tracks city film permits. The decline would have been even larger without the tax credit, which helped keep 10 feature films in town, the group said.
Producers taking advantage of the state perk helped increase movie and TV commercial production in Los Angeles by 15 percent in 2010, the first full calendar year the tax credit was in effect. The group reported that permits showed 43,646 production days in 2010, up from 37,979 in 2009.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Big Bang Theory Episode or a WOMAN solves a decades old problem
A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break.
Undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie made the breakthrough during a holiday internship with a team at Monash University's School of Physics, locating the mystery material within vast structures called "filaments of galaxies".
Monash astrophysicist Dr Kevin Pimbblet explained that scientists had previously detected matter that was present in the early history of the universe but that could not now be located.
"There is missing mass, ordinary mass not dark mass ... It's missing to the present day," Pimbblet told AFP.
"We don't know where it went. Now we do know where it went because that's what Amelia found."
Fraser-McKelvie, an aerospace engineering and science student, was able to confirm after a targeted X-ray search for the mystery mass that it had moved to the "filaments of galaxies", which stretch across enormous expanses of space.
Pimbblet's earlier work had suggested the filaments as a possible location for the "missing" matter, thought to be low in density but high in temperature.
Pimbblet said astrophysicists had known about the "missing" mass for the past two decades, but the technology needed to pinpoint its location had only become available in recent years.
He said the discovery could drive the construction of new telescopes designed to specifically study the mass.
Pimbblet admitted the discovery was primarily academic, but he said previous physics research had led to the development of diverse other technologies.
"Whenever I speak to people who have influence, politicians and so on, they sometimes ask me 'Why should I invest in physics pure research?'. And I sometimes say to them: 'Do you use a mobile phone? Some of that technology came about by black hole research'.
"The pure research has knock-on effects to the whole society which are sometimes difficult to anticipate."
Way to go Amelia! Go high!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Damn, I wish I could draw or Here's a grant for artists!
Request for Qualifications: New Central Library (Austin, TX)
Budget: $385,000
Webcast Artist Info Meeting: June 1, 2011, 3 pm (CST)
Application Deadline: July 6, 2011, midnight (CST)
Eligibility: Professional artists who live and work in the United States
Budget: $385,000
Webcast Artist Info Meeting: June 1, 2011, 3 pm (CST)
Application Deadline: July 6, 2011, midnight (CST)
Eligibility: Professional artists who live and work in the United States
The City of Austin's Art in Public Places (AIPP) Program seeks to commission a professional visual artist to create a signature piece of artwork for the new Central Library Art in Public Places project. AIPP requests qualifications from professional visual artists who live and work in the United States. Up to three finalists will be selected and paid to visit Austin and create proposals. From the group of three finalists, one artist/artist team and one alternate will be recommended for the project. Applications must be submitted online at http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/aipp/apply/default.cfm
A web-interactive artist information meeting will be held at 3 pm (CST) on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at Austin City Hall (201 W. 2nd Street, Austin, TX 78701), and webcast live/recorded for future viewing. Art in Public Places staff and members of the project design team will present information on the project and answer questions from interested artists. The meeting will be viewable live via webinar at http://www.austintexas.gov/webcast.htm No password is required for viewing but by registering into the webinar, viewers have the option to ask questions or make comments in the "Cover It Live" chat window.
Full Request for Qualifications and more information can be found at http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/aipp/opportunities.htm
Meghan Turner :: Acting Art in Public Places Administrator :: City of Austin
aipp webpage :: aipp facebook page
512.974.9314
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