Bunny Blog

We have a lot of assets here at Psychic Bunny and when you have tons of different people working on the same project, both off the network and on individual hard drives, it can get a bit messy sometimes. Which is the latest file? Did we make sure to back up everything?

Check out this program from Deltopia called DeltaWalker - it has a really easy compare feature for syncing drives, and tells you immediately what’s an older version, which files you’re missing, and has really easy to understand bird’s eye views. Cost? $40.

Okay.

Blah, blah, blah, iTunes, digital music, DRM, RIAA, vinyl/warm/anaolog, joy of owning a record, convenience, can-tell-the-difference-between-MP3-and-CD- shut up.

So we love paradigm shifts here at Psychic Bunny and I fucking love rock and roll. I love music of all kinds, actually, but I wanted to swear in the blog post and rock makes that easy and feel cool. No matter what side of any of those bullshit debates or buzzwords you’re on, there’s no denying that music is an industry in a crisis of delivery. It is a HARBINGER, say I for the crisis games and movies will be going through soon soon SOON, so we should all pay attention, especially when indies are involved and trying desperately to break onto a scene that is now literally flooded with too many choices for consumers to ever find the good stuff.

So let me tell you about this awesome band KILLOLA.

(more…)

To promote their bar and get in with the indie filmmaking community, Locals Sports Bar & Grill is offering an AMAZING deal:

- Free filming at their location (a great sports bar)

- Free lighting (a couple Kinos, among other lights)

- Free use of their camera (A Canon XL, not great but can’t complain about the price)

- Free security during shooting

- Free catered lunch and craft services. WHAT? Well, they’re a grill, so they’re going to cook for you for free.

- Free post screening and wrap party location for your movie as well.

What are the buts?They have a few requirements…

(more…)

Yeah. So this happened.

So some of you out there might have been following a (film critic I’m not going to call by name since that will drive up his google numbers and thus play into his hands)’s recent attempts to become relevant again by reaching out and picking a fight with games for no good reason.

I’m not going to link to his blog post as that would definitely play into his hands, but the short summary is that in 2005 this person decided to say something inflammatory about a different medium than he made his living critiquing and got himself a nice little storm of comments like you can count on the Internet to predictably provide. Then a few weeks ago, because, it seems, he’s at least managed to embrace one tenet of the 21st century (if you say something inflammatory on the internet, people will pay attention to you again!) he decided to revisit this unbelievable assertion and milk it like he was James Cameron hoping for some extra Avatar 3D money.

P.S. Mr. Cameron, we love you carnally.

Full disclosure: In revisiting this goldmine of “no such thing as bad free publicity,” the critic in question chose to go after a rebuttal talk delivered by one of my schoolmates, dearest friends and fellow game designers, Kellee Santiago. When this happened, I stayed out of the fray since I have an obvious conflict of interest. But then someone brought the above tweet to my attention, which appears to be another more shameless attempt to provoke outrage. On that I will comment.

(more…)

Is the iPad business model a way to survive and thrive as a creative?  Or is it an evil trap?  The impetus for this post was a couple of unrelated articles I’ve read recently, so… this might be rambly.

First up is Clay Shirky’s eloquent appraisal of the global condition (and specifically the entertainment industry), The Collapse of Complex Business Models.  He manages to take a lot of threads I’ve heard before and tie them together neatly and sensibly.  One sentence summary?  People and organizations become hard-wired into a way of doing things, and when the ecosystem no longer supports that way of life, they are not only unwilling but actually incapable of changing.  As a business owner and filmmaker, this article is striking and frankly a little apocalyptic.  After all, what I do for a living is expensive – and all I really want is to be able to afford to keep doing it!  New technologies that allow us to cut costs still aren’t moving as fast as the market is bottoming out.

Enter article two, Cory Doctorow’s Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either).  The premise of this one is pretty clear.  Primarily he is calling Apple (and the long trail of followers accumulating around their magic device/big iPhone) to task for creating a “walled garden” of content.  Yes, it is a path for revenue.  For people like me it’s a feasible path to that Holy Grail of actually getting paid for the work we do, but at the same time Cory’s right: it smells a lot like serfdom.  You work the fields, they dictate the terms of your existence.  The Apple bet is that if you like working the fields, you won’t notice you’ve made yourself a subject.  Evidence of this: the EFF’s analysis of the App Store Developer Agreement.

Section 14 states that, no matter what, Apple will never be liable to any developer for more than $50 in damages … So if Apple botches an update, accidentally kills your app, or leaks your entire customer list to a competitor, the Agreement tries to cap you at the cost of a nice dinner for one in Cupertino.

That’s just one of many draconian edicts.  But guess what?  In a world with no competition, you’re stuck with it!  So what’s the way forward for creators?  Should we deal with it and line up at Apple’s teat?  Join a commune of Kickstarter creatives?  Or just start gathering canned goods and ammunition?

If you’re considering contacting a bunch of strangers (potential clients) in the hopes of getting paid work, then it’s probably not a great idea for that initial contact to be an email blast in which you write only one useless sentence (”Let me know if you have any projects coming up!”) and then attach a 20.5 megabyte PowerPoint file that presumably explains your business.  I’ll never know, because I deleted it instantly… once the email bottleneck finally cleared.

Sorry Randy _______, next time I’m looking for animals for my film productions, I’ll probably still look elsewhere.

"Sorry, Randy."

The numbers are in, and the Wall Street Journal put together a graph of consumer movie spending in 2009, compared to 2008.

This echoes a lot of Hollywood whining about slumping DVD sales, but as usual I find it hard to have much sympathy for their plight.  In every other category (including DVD rental!) sales are up versus the year before.  Growth in theatrical spending, in fact, nearly compensates for the loss in DVD sales alone.  So I would like to offer the world’s tiniest violin as a concession to those who thought DVD was going to be a cash cow forever.  Maybe I should offer a history book as well.

(image blatantly stolen)

Online transactions are still a tiny slice of the pie, but nearly doubled over the past year.  If that trend continues then digital delivery will be a viable mechanism within a couple of years, which bodes particularly well for indie filmmakers with direct access to the means of distribution.  Despite a lot of big talk, it didn’t happen last year.  Will 2010 be the year when someone steps up with a substantial platform for online film?

If you follow sports at all, you can’t have missed the news recently about pitcher Mark Buehrle’s perfect game for the White Sox – a remarkable feat that’s only been done 18 times in all of big league baseball’s 170,000-plus games).  But while Buehrle and the Sox didn’t miss a beat in their 5-0 victory over Tampa Bay, Major League Baseball has been missing all of the most critical beats when it comes to building and maintaining their brand online, in an age when many people already find baseball irrelevant.

(more…)

I’ve recently completed Scott Kirsner’s Fans, Friends, & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age, and if ever there was a book worthy of discussion for young media creators, this is it.  Kirsner’s fairly well known as a panel speaker and the creator of the excellent blog CinemaTech.  His new book is a mecca of advice for any creative trying to self-start their career in an increasingly fragmented world.

This is no easy guidebook, though.  There are no 1,2,3 steps for success, and Kirsner never presents it as such. He acknowledges that everyone is still looking for the “magic bullet” that will make it obvious how to build a profitable career as a creator.  So instead he takes the show on the road, and this book is largely a compilation of interviews from people who have tried something new and created.  Advice and real stories from the trenches are here from people like Jonathan Coulton, Ze Frank, Mark Day, Michael Buckley, the Homestar Runner boys, and many more.  Each is a case study in how to build a brand, whether you’re a filmmaker, a fine artist, a writer, a comedian, a musician, or even a magician.  The interviews are presented not exactly as advice, but as “here’s what worked for me”, with the understanding that your mileage may vary.

(more…)

After months of planning and effort, we are pleased to announce that we have just launched LEAD BALLOON, our new original content banner. Our first two projects to launch under Lead Balloon will be the indie feature film “The Echo Game” and comedy web series “Coma, Period.” Along with feature films, web series, and TV, we’ll also be developing games, mobile, and interactive projects.

The much-maligned actual lead balloon really can float (we saw it on Mythbusters!) and we take our inspiration from that hearty little guy, flying high against all odds. Lead Balloon is all about ideas that are risky, exciting, and (though improbable) truly soar.

Stills from some of our upcoming projects after the jump: (more…)