Long time no see! New haircut? You look good!

I have been inexcusably remiss in sending new updates of (required field) Transmissions to you. But hey, it’s back! I’ve been thinking a lot (A dangerous pastime / I know), making plans, and have returned, rested and ready to commit to a weekly cadence of this most sincere newsletter. I’ve even got a new format—here’s the first new header now!

What’s going on?

I have a new short film on the festival circuit, the horror comedy Your Parasite and You. Here’s the trailer. This is the first time I’ve ever animated a scene, then thought “I have I gone too far?” Test audiences told me “nope!”, so I sent it out.

YPaY premiered at Necronomicon in Rhode Island earlier this month, and has been selected for two of my favorite festivals in October, both run by some wonderful folks:

• The HP Lovecraft Film Festival will be entering our reality Oct 4-6 in the beautiful (palatial, even) Hollywood Theater in Portland, OR. Three theaters, live performances & panels, vendor tables, a snack bar with beer on tap, and movies, movies, movies. With a fantastic vibe from an enthusiastic and warm audience of horror fans.
• Smaller, newer, and no less delightful, the Poulsbo Film Festival happens on October 11-13 in thoroughly charming historic downtown Poulsbo, WA. The movies are spread throughout several venues in town with glorious names like “Poulsbo Sons of Norway” and “Moe's on Liberty Bay.” I enjoyed the intimate feel of last year’s fest, as well as the appreciative and attentive audience.

So try out one of these. Or some other film festival. There’s one near you, I guarantee it. Go to Film Freeway, enter your geographical deets in the filters, find one you like, buy a ticket, and go. Where else can you become a bona fide patron of the arts by spending an entire day (or days!) watching as many movies as you could ever want? Bliss…

Something that occurred to me while making stuff

When I start writing, I don’t really know if the idea is going to make a good script. It might not have the heft to support a script, or maybe I don’t have the heft to execute it. There’s no guarantees, no matter how fun and engaging the initial idea. So when I start writing, I’m always nervous. Until I discover—

The “yes” line

The yes line is a line of dialog, a joke, or a visual that makes me excited to finish the script. The “yes” line what shows me that the idea works. It becomes a focus for tone and voice that I can build the world of the video around.

A yes line showed up in my very first animated short, Book Return. This was the first time I used presentation software to animate icons. And while I was coming up with some fun visuals, I couldn’t tell if the story—a Miskatonic University librarian tries to retrieve an apocalyptically dangerous book without panicking the hapless patron who accidentally checked it out—was going to work out. Then, the librarian explained:

We lost three librarians just cataloging the thing before we thought to put the barcode on the outside.

It wasn't the funniest line in the script, and I still had to do the work of finishing the piece. But it was a signpost, a reassuring signal that this idea created a world with depth. Enough depth to support a strange side comment about barcodes, for instance.

And this line told me so much about the library, about the book, and about the librarian himself. It gave me that double-edged sense of true menace being barely held in check by a kind of benign, highly-educated incompetence.

This yes line even made me go back and add a “voice” to the book itself. The growl of a Demon Pomeranian.

I said, the yes line doesn't tell me that I’m done. But it does encourage me to keep going.

Fun fact: Punchlines are different

I almost always get those at the end of the project, during editing. It’s like the video itself tells me that last joke. Even in Book Return. Go take a look. That final line is a last-minute add.

Subscribe now

Links I shared this week

(I promise to have full attributions next time. Odds are most of these are from kottke.org.)

• The greats don’t deflate, they mutate: An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue Kind of Bloop
• I know that feel, bro: Massive biomolecular shifts occur in our 40s and 60s
• Sign me up (for the 2-year waiting list): I found the book lover's dream holiday in Scotland
• Nature is wonderful: ‘David Attenborough’ Explains Cybertruck Behavior

I forget where I found this, but it resonated, especially the small print:

Over to you

What is your “yes line?” When do you know you’re on the right path, whatever that path might be? Let us know in the comments.

And as always, you are the best for reading this. The very best! If this was forwarded to you, you can attain even bester status by subscribing. Here’s a button:

Subscribe now

Until next week, I remain,

Your pal,

Jamie