• Inside Entertainment,  Life of the Mind,  Little Diva Rising

    Chasing the Magic

    It might be surprising (← humour) that (at times) I can be difficult to work with. I take the creation of story very seriously, so if somebody’s screwing around it can frustrate me. That’s not to say that creation can’t and shouldn’t be fun, but there always times and places. When it’s not one of those times and places, I want to get things done because getting things done moves the process forward. The process being advanced invites new ideas. That generates evolution. Evolution realises the vision. That vision is something that can be diluted when the focus shifts, or it can be lost when there’s too much disparate discussion.…

  • Inside Entertainment,  Media Rants

    Relating to Characters: Part I

    The premiere of The Rise of Skywalker (2019) nears. Scuttlebutt around plot leaks are discouraging. One of the scariest is that test audiences laughed at how easily Rey disposed of the Emperor. Sigh. Even if that’s not true, or it is true but has been corrected, I’m not expecting much. Disney’s Star Wars movies have featured an array of unrelatable one-dimensional characters. They have no depth and take no real journey (unless, like Rey, it’s to discover who they are). They’re flash and style with little substance. Just because these characters belong to an extraordinary sci-fantasy premise doesn’t mean they have to be unrelatable. You can create relatability in characters…