Creativity

Why Originality – and Unoriginality – May Not Matter To Media Success

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(Tamara had a great post last week on the paradox of originality versus people seeking original works.  Spinning off from that, I think I've got a bead on why originality is sometimes rewarded in media – and as well why sometimes stunning unoriginality is not).

Are you getting tired of vampires?

I've been tired of vampire fiction, movies, what have you for quite awhile.  i've seen it all, heard it all, and by now I have nearly no interest whatsoever in the whole vampire genre and its spawn.  I started getting tired of it around Anne Rice's heyday, and most young people reading "Twilight" today probably think Anne Rice is a cajun dish.

I can't be the only one tired of vampires in every media known to man.  Yet they're everywhere.

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Film, Format, Fiascos, and the Future

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People hated "The Last Airbender" for many reasons.  I'm not going to argue any of them, as I've seen it (with Rifftrax) and it was mind-numbingly bad in a way that actually beat my incredibly low expectations.  But among the things people say about the film adaption of the beloved franchise – the hate of the actors, the plot, the acting, the direction, the story, the intermittent attacks of slow-mo -  there's one thing I rarely hear brought up.

Why a film anyway?  I mean let's assume that you have some driving reason to turn "Avatar: The Last Airbender" into some other media form, why a film?

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Go, Go Gamification!

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I hear a lot of talk lately about "gamifictation" – adding gamelike elements to non-gaming software and services.  It may be achievements, titles, even controls – and the goal of course is to get people interested and using the software and services.

Let me state frankly that this is a great idea.  I'm bang alongside it, and I wanted to explore just why I think it works, and why we need to pay attention to it:

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