Agree! Cornerstone of my Children's Lit Teaching! Alexandra Sokoloff on The Rule of Three (excerpt)

In the Three-Brother or Three-Sister Structure, it’s Fail, Fail, Succeed. In The Godfather we see older brothers Sonny and Fredo are not up to the task of running the Corleone family, but unlikely youngest brother Michael is. In Jaws, we see scientist Hooper and ship’s captain Quint go up against the shark and fail, but in the climax, very unlikely Sheriff Brody actually kills the beast. In Cinderella, the two eldest stepsisters fail utterly with the Prince, then youngest stepsister Cinderella wins the crown. Sorry, I mean prince.

Think about character names: Dumbledore, McGonegall, and Hagrid. Flora, Fauna, and Meriwether. Do you see that change in rhythm? Same, same, different. Serious, serious, joke.

So it is essential for you, writers, to be aware of the existence of the Rule Of Three so you can start being alert to its use in storytelling. You will find it in act structure, in dialogue, in character clusters, in critical events – it is rampant, ubiquitous, and shamelessly used in storytelling of every genre.

The ancient Greeks had it down, and named it, of course, as was their wont: in rhetoric it was called a Tricolon, a sentence with three parallel words or phrases. I’m not going to test anyone on this, but I think it’s important to understand how very long this rhythm has been in use (we’re talking 400 BC, if not earlier!). The Greeks delineated two types of tricolon: the ascending tricolon (tricolon crescens) and the descending tricolon (tricolon diminuens). In the ascending tricolon, the words increase with each pause; and in descending tricolon, the words lessen in length after every break.

read the full post:

http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/2011/05/rule-of-three.html#

@ZakForsman Genius! DIY 'How To Build Your Own VOD Portal (in a matter of hours for less than $100)' #infdist

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"WHY DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

About a year ago, there was a lot of talk about the merging of broadband internet and the televisions in our living rooms. That has since been subplanted by a shift in focus toward the creative process and making better films. However, when Google TV was announced not long ago for a Fall release, I found myself revisiting the importance of discovery and distribution for a 24 hour period in which I built my own video on demand portal. If Google TV is able to populate amongst our TVs and other home theater devices as quickly as Netflix Watch Instantly did, we could be having some interesting conversations a year from now. In anticipation, I began digging into what it would cost in time and money to launch such a portal online for the films of Sabi Pictures and the films we’ve curated via the CINEFIST Screening Series. We’re calling it CINEFIST TV.

First I looked into services offered by Youreeka, Maxcast and others – disappointed at the cost, how little of the purchase price would go into our own pocket and the fact that the customers had to start accounts with these other companies. So then I began to look into doing what they do, but on our own site. I wanted to mimic the Netflix Watch Instantly experience — streaming video, a simple interface, a way to pay for the content with the option to make it free, and I wanted it cheap.

Now, I’m sure there are a few of you that are ahead of the curve on this one. This might not be for you as these are the discoveries of someone who has never done this before, but maybe you could offer some insight that would improve it a bit. That being said, this article assumes you know how to compress videos for the web and that you’ve got a handle on building web sites, registering domain names and setting up a hosting service. What follows is just the first incarnation of our VOD portal. It will evolve.

THE FOUNDATION AND PORTAL INTERFACE

First I needed a platform that would work in any browser. I’ve long been using Wordpress for all our sites and have become a great admirer of the premium video-based themes designed by Jason Schuller at Press75.com. For purposes of this VOD portal, I chose the appropriately named “On Demand” theme. They have a number of themes that would work equally well...."

read the full detailed DIY post:

http://workbookproject.com/newbreed/2010/06/21/build-your-own-vod-portal/

TUNNEL - kinetic, immersive and interactive sculpture quakes beneath your feet

"Tunnel is a kinetic, immersive and interactive sculpture, composed of 92 porticos that become disordered in function of the position and body mass of the interactor.
Numerous users can simultaneously enter and interact with the machine. Interactors agency the machine via their position and weight. An example of interaction is: you go into the Tunnel and stand by one of the sidewalls. In this case, the relative position and the gravitational force of your body provoke variations of floor height. The floor inclines up to 5º, the associated porticos progressively rotate in the corresponding direction and angle, and this propagates undulatory movements throughout the entire installation. For the outside observer, the internal movement or your displacement in relation to the installation produces kinetic optic effects. "

News-O-Rama: Interactive TV News Round-Up (V): Oberon Media, Redux, Google TV, Rentrak, Rovi | InteractiveTV Today

-Oberon Media Brings Tetris to Samsung Connected TV's
--Redux Launches its Social Video Discovery and Curation Service on Google TV
--Rentrak Re-Designs OnDemand Essentials to Reflect Multiscreen Video Consumption
--Rovi Launches Solution to Bring its TotalGuide Platform to Legacy Set-Top Boxes
--Rovi Launches Multi-Device Video Distribution Solution