{"id":2372,"date":"2009-12-18T17:17:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T23:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2009-12-18T17:36:12","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T23:36:12","slug":"extracting-the-signal-from-the-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/2009\/12\/extracting-the-signal-from-the-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"Extracting the Signal from the Noise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over on Twitter today, I linked to three of the seven parts of an analysis of the Phantom Menace that was posted over on YouTube, and which I initially found on \/Film:\u00a0 70-Minute Video Review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reason I didn’t link to all seven videos? I didn’t want that to be the main thing I linked to today.<\/p>\n

Some folks retweeted it and seemed to enjoy it… others were put off by the video’s… odd tone.<\/p>\n

Which I totally understand.<\/p>\n

How should I explain this tone?<\/p>\n

Ahh…<\/p>\n

Okay, you know the serial killer guy in Silence of the Lambs?<\/p>\n

Not Hannibal Lector, but the other guy? The “It puts the lotion on its skin \/ or else it gets the hose again.” guy?<\/p>\n

Yeah. Him. Imagine if that guy, in between skinning girls to make a woman-suit, sharply and insightfully analyzed all the (multiple) failings in Phantom Menace… and periodically went off his meds.<\/p>\n

That’s the video. It even sounds just like him.<\/p>\n

It’s not to everyone’s taste.<\/p>\n

The problem is, the insight is really good<\/em>. It’s really useful, from the point of view of story construction and character building and even the use and purpose of cool-ass fight scenes.<\/p>\n

But can I legitimately recommend a video like this to someone when I know the humor might be distasteful?<\/p>\n

Yeah, I probably can. I’m sorry if the humor is not funny to you, or it goes over the line, but dammit, the analysis is too sharp to ignore. I always knew I didn’t like Phantom Menace, but I’d never put a lot of brainsweat into why<\/em>. Thanks to this guy – his fucked-up sense of humor notwithstanding – I understand why, and I take away tools I can use to make my own stories better.<\/p>\n

I guess I just have to remind myself it’s a joke. It’s part of the ‘brand’, maybe, and that’s his choice, but it’s also his problem – I’m just focusing on the useful signal. Sometimes I have to ignore the joke.<\/p>\n

I mean, we all know Chuck’s<\/a> not actually gaining carnal knowledge of vegetable or animal produce, right? We know Warren Ellis<\/a> isn’t boiling hookers and shooting their cerebral juices into his femoral artery, yes?<\/p>\n

Maybe this guy jumps over the line here and there. Fine. Yes. Not every joke is funny. Fuck knows I scratch my head at some people’s idea of humor sometimes, and<\/em> at the twitter retweets that link back to my<\/em> site with a parenthetical “Warning: NSFW”.<\/p>\n

Really? Where the fuck do you work? I’ve known pastors that swear more than me.<\/p>\n

Anyway.<\/p>\n

If you really can’t stomach the meat because of the seasoning, I’ll try to summarize the guy’s points, below.<\/p>\n

But I still think you should check out the video.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Keep people around who will push back on your work and force you to make it better… or just make sense.<\/li>\n
  2. People need to care about your protagnist – someone you can identify with – especially if you’re writing genre stuff. Get really basic. People should be able to:\n

    “Describe the character without saying what they look like, what kind of costume they wore, or what their profession\/job is.”<\/li>\n

  3. ACTION: in part two of the video, the guy’s analysis of what the first scene of the original movie conveys is brilliant.<\/li>\n
  4. You might be able to skip part three, because it’s JUST about the movie’s plot holes. So’s part four and five.<\/li>\n
  5. “Welcome to Coruscant, Home of the Mid-air Collision.” Heh.<\/li>\n
  6. Part Six: five minutes in. What Fight Scenes Do.\n

    “When you’re worked up with emotion […] you expose your humanity a little.”<\/p>\n

    Temptation, revelation, anger, redemption.<\/p>\n

    “Lightsaber duels have less to do with the fight, and more to do with the characters.”<\/p>\n

    “We need a deeper meaning to things.”<\/li>\n

  7. Part Seven: the Ending Multiplication Effect — the simpler endings have more force and interest because we can focus on the important elements and the story.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So… yeah. The summary doesn’t really do the points justice. Not really.<\/p>\n

    I completely agree if you found the noise ratio too high to get anything out of the signal. Okay. I respect that. This is, I suppose, simply my explanation of why I chose to to the recommend the thing anyway.<\/p>\n

    (Also: I’m a huge Star Wars fanboy. There’s that too.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Over on Twitter today, I linked to three of the seven parts of an analysis of the Phantom Menace that was posted over on YouTube, and which I initially found on \/Film:\u00a0 70-Minute Video Review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The reason I didn’t link to all seven videos? I didn’t want that to … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Extracting the Signal from the Noise”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,8],"tags":[167,168,166,169],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geeky-fanboy","category-musing","category-resources","tag-nsfw","tag-objectionable-content","tag-star-wars","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2379,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions\/2379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}