Blog Archives
Four Years Later & I’m Still Looking to the Horizon
Exactly 1/10th of a score and two years ago (4 years total), I started Jimmy’s Daily Planet.
Paying homage to the greatest (albeit fictional) newspaper of all-time, The Daily Planet, this blog was founded on my love of my favorite superhero and disguised human of all-time: Superman and Clark Kent. The scene from Richard Donner’s 1978 classic Superman that showed us Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent walk through the bullpen of The Daily Planet for the first time was the moment I knew I wanted to be a journalist. The chaos, palpable energy and big city, skyscraper setting flew from the screen and landed directly into my impressionable imagination.
These few minutes showing reporters preparing to get the scoop, watching exciting individual and group dynamics (papers scattered, people typing, talking and moving) and hearing creative storytelling pitches is arguably my favorite journalistic hook.
I wrote my first blog post (Eight Years Later & We Look to the Horizon) about what the next Facebook would be in the future. The “next big thing”/new dominant social platform hasn’t arrived yet to eclipse Mark Zuckerberg’s social network from his days at Harvard.
This revelation will be realized, it just hasn’t happened quite yet.
One of the questions in blog #1 was whether or not we are an app generation? That answer has not conclusively been determined since July 13, 2012, but people seem to be embracing a hybrid. This translates to using popular sites and social media platforms (ie-Facebook) while simultaneously choosing a diverse selection of acutely personalized social media apps.
The best answer for July 13, 2016 is that we are a splintered population (or customer base) concerning our use of social media and digital applications (sorry, apps). Individualism rules.
What’s next?
That’s still the question. Not the question that Shakespeare wrote for his brilliant play “Hamlet.” Although, in a way, it sort of is. “To be, or not to be – that is the question.” Who will we be in the near future? How will someone revamp our already complex and extensive communicative grid? How will we change as a result? This very idea is thrilling to cogitate because, as Americans, we know a newfangled innovation will collide with destiny. And destiny is a very good friend with this country.
“I know something big and new is coming because that is the American tradition of big sky-big idea dreamers. Until then, start drawing on your dorm room window and think big, plain and simple.”
That’s the final paragraph of my first blog post on Jimmy’s Daily Planet. I remember writing that four years ago and I still believe it’s true today, whatever the wildly crazy idea or dream may be.
Plain and simple.
The Core of Apple’s Genius
An apple rolled into a mall…
This blog has, on many occasions, paid tribute and explored the various reasons how and why Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak revolutionized the world with their visionary technology. Lightning in a bottle is being modest when discussing that small tech company known as Apple. Equal to its imaginative quality and inventive prowess is the seamless accessibility of the insanely great products in its store.
Apple, in somewhat groundbreaking fashion, popularized the modern mentality that its store patrons ask questions. Lots of questions. Apple’s retail culture encourages curiosity with current and potential customers. Most retail store employees (regardless of industry) will answer a few inquiries, but ultimately expect a purchase of an item or items. In other words, a more linear business model. Interestingly, the Apple store was envisioned with practice and learning in mind. Technology is a complicated field and perhaps the real genius behind the Cupertino, California-based company is not with its informative bar, but instead with its inviting culture to all those intrigued by its line of cool products.
15 years ago, the Apple store was conceptualized into an exciting reality.
The come in, sit down and stay awhile attitude altered the shopping and browsing in a mall paradigm from being more directly motivated by total sales towards a more indirect connection with customers who are returning and who are new, leading to another sale or a first sale. This is not to suggest that Apple store employees aren’t clever salespersons. Quite the contrary. However, the way they are presenting and promoting their products, and more importantly their brand, is the impressive change agent.
As technology continues to transform individuals and societies into digital ecosystems, let’s not forget the late Steve Jobs believed in bridging the past and future together and not apart. Like the Apple store, if the personal connection is the overarching priority in collaboration with its product offerings, then innovation will not only take flight, but exceed all perceived expectations.
This way, the conversation between business and customer continues far into the future.
That’s just one reason why millions of people pick-up an apple Apple each day.
Reinventing the Wheel
How do you change the wheel?
Enter 21st century innovation.
Goodyear tires, familiar to anybody who has ever seen or owned a car (or looked up during a college football game), has dedicated its resources to envisioning a wondrous future of driving. In the real world, life-altering advancements take time, brilliance, money, luck, ingenuity, patience and courage.
And let’s not forget persistence.
Will the public (and not just investors) buy-in to a game-changing innovation?
When it comes to cars and the sad realities of inevitable accidents, repairs, flat tires, and a variety of inconveniences and limitations, people are exhausted at the same old routines of car parts not withstanding basic road conditions as they were promised at the dealership. In the same spirit as Dyson and its revolutionary design (for vacuums) of a rotating ball for limitless agility, Goodyear has released a video of a tire that could very well change the way we drive in the future that doesn’t involve the terrifying concept of a driver-less car.
That’s a very cool idea.
Did I just say tires are cool?
Yes, yes I did.
Not only do the Goodyear Eagle-360 concept tires have the realistic potential to be marketable, but these tires could transform how roads are designed in the future. At the highest level, this country’s infrastructure could be directly impacted by this tire design. Innovation takes time to become a valued and reliable product with people. There are many, many stages of development, retooling and testing.
With all that being said, that daring first step is always exciting.
It gets the ball rolling.
Filming in Space, You Are?
(Colin Trevorrow, Comic Book Cast)
“I asked the question, ‘Is it possible for us to shoot IMAX film plates in actual space for Star Wars?’,” he said.
“I haven’t gotten an answer yet, but they’ve shot IMAX in space.”
–Colin Trevorrow
Filming Star Wars: Episode IX in the stars?
Let the war for cinema’s best practical effects begin.
Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, working on his second mega franchise with Star Wars, revealed this stunning news recently during a panel at the Sundance Film Festival. He and a few directors, including Christopher Nolan, were discussing the incomparable quality and necessary future of film as an alternative to digital for filmmakers when this golden nugget surprisingly made its way into the conversation.
The conversation for saving film as a means for making movies is a worthy discussion for another day.
Returning to the burgeoning and ambitious young director, Mr. Trevorrow clearly means business in preparing to tackle the Star Wars universe. If simply daring to direct his second prodigious blockbuster isn’t proof enough.
One of the primary consequences of Star Wars: Episodes I-III was a rejection of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) as central, interactive settings. This forced a return to the newest trilogy to feature locations that are rooted in practical effects. Add in supreme storytelling, better characters (ie-Jar Jar Binks) and a modern twist with a vintage, blue lightsaber glow.
Regarding the first film in the new trilogy, J.J. Abrams did an amazing job with The Force Awakens. The blockbuster utilized practical effects to the max. However, like any industry, innovation is paramount (the word, not the studio). Despite the lack of perfect effects, though groundbreaking at the time, the original Star Wars trilogy is cherished by fans for its revolutionary look and feel.
Episode IV, for example, looks like 1977. Watching this classic is like opening up a time capsule with a lightsaber inside.
Episode IX, with an expected release in 2019, could very well turn an important page for science-fiction epics in ways found only in our imaginations.
The investment in more practical effects correlating with demand for more realism in cinema is constantly increasing. The ROI has proven to be remarkable for movies that mimic real life to a certain extent, yet still give us what we want in a movie and in the theater: suspended belief.
Imagine a Star Wars battle scene, set in outer space, that’s actually filmed in outer space…
That would certainly be a new hope for the series.
Colin Trevorrow’s vision for Star Wars: Episode IX is bigger than any IMAX screen.
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