It’s Here! 

SCRIPT DOCTOR! Hereditary has AMNESIA

In a potentially new series, you get to look at my slack-jawed mug as I bloviate about film scripts and the changes I'd make to them. If you have any films y...

Hello all! I just started a video series on screenwriting and editing. I’ll hopefully be going over some general advice, common mistakes and even sharing some stories from my time in script editing.

Also, this is my ugly mug.

If there’s anything you’d like me to talk about, let me know! The first episode is on the film Hereditary, and sacrificing thematic value for story.

A video I made on Nostalgia Culture and the representation of Millennials in film,  I’m quite proud of how this one turned out! If you like it, please do feel free to like, comment, share and subscribe. It’d mean a lot!

And, of course, check Brigsby Bear out if you’re interested! It’s a great little film, and I wish more people knew about it.

Castles in the Air, Episode Three:

Bird of Passage

Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.

A strange man visits an isolated Trucker's Diner along the open road. He hasn't slept in days, and can't bring himself to eat. After some coercion, the patrons get him to reveal what troubles him; nihilistic and disturbing visions, brought on by the appearance of an ethereal crow that flies beside him as he drives.

Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson

Listen and Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068

Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/49018534?autoplay=true

Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/bird-of-passage

RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss

This episode features voicework by Deejay Montez, Paul Brion, Austin Nebbia, Sam Leigh and Vianka Ayala.

Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.

Closing theme is “Dark Bargain with the Antlered King” by Elves and Dwarves

Episode art by A. Rehman.

Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson

If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.

Once again, thank you to everyone for being so supportive and sending so many nice messages and the like. Next episode in two weeks!

Jordan Peterson is debating Slavoj Zizek! For money! For only a thousand dollars, you can watch two old men read a script where they luke-warm agree with each other so as to not look bad!

I am very sick and this was easy to make. Give me a like, share or sub if you can, it means a lot!

I have to disagree here. The only thing punching a nazi does is make a martyr out of them. Cultural wars are only won by hindering and lessening sign-up rates for the opposition. Sure, it’s possible to get people to leave the side they’re on or have a change of heart, but you’re never going to “win” that way. You’re only going to win if you can stop people from joining.

And punching these people doesn’t work. Young, dumb and disenfranchised people who have the potential of siding with this ideology are absolutely not going to see an asshole getting their just desserts. They are going to see someone they view as similarly disenfranchised getting hurt for their beliefs. That’s what they’re going to see. They’re going to see evidence that the opposition are “PC thugs” as they’ve been told. They’re going to see the masses cheering as someone whose ideology they agree with (or have the potential to agree with) gets hurt - and that doesn’t dissuade evangelism.

No matter how much you dislike it, and how wrong you feel it is on a moral level, engagement with the young and vulnerable to adopting this ideology is the only way to make progress, because if we all write someone off who is on the verge of adopting these beliefs they will only have one place to go. Treat people on the verge with sympathy, speak to them reasonably and with respect, and try to change their mind. The old vanguard, and those who will never change - the public figures of hate, though, need to be fought with mockery. These are people who should be not be shouted down as they speak, but be viciously made the fool afterwards. Tear down the idols and heroes of hatespeech, but engage the young and vulnerable. 

I know I am coming from a fairly privileged position here, and admit it may be easier to accept this form of rhetoric having never been the victim of right-wing extremism. I hold no ill will to those too tired or flummoxed to expend any energy on these people.

The point I wanted to make, simply, is that if you want to feel good, punch a nazi. If you want to win, engage the young. 

“You couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today!” is an adage I am so sick and tired of hearing that I made a half hour video debunking it. It also goes into exactly why the film is considered one of history’s most disruptive classics, and if you have time, you should check it out!

My channel is tiny, so any subs/shares/likes/comments you have are highly appreciated. Thanks in advance, pardner. 

Like a breath

Raising her head skyward in frustration, her eyes glide over a choppy, crystalline sea. The only sky the Forager has ever known, as if the air itself ruptures into a tumultuous gray just above the mountains. With her limited understanding of the world, she used to assume the atmosphere a physical thing, that thinned out as it approached the ground. Up there, she figured, the air was like a mighty ocean.

Sighing, she digs her hands back into the muck below. A thick, shapeless assembly of dirt and clay – all that remains of whatever structure once stood here. However old this building was, and whatever import it held, to her it was merely something to be dredged. An unspecific mass incarnadine, to be hopefully panned for gold.

The cracks along the ground were filled with this rubbish; great splinters through the earth at the bottom of unimaginable gorges, into which all the works of civilization came tumbling down into. A single split like this had the potential to contain centuries of progress – countless artifacts and trinkets, buried within the rubble. Their individuality now faded, together they lie as a great amalgamation, and a monument to inevitability. If she were to grab hold of something – some old keepsake or remain – it may well be all the we would ever see of a certain snapshot in time. To the Forager, it meant an exchange and a meal.

Indeed, it is hard to say how many priceless heirlooms and invaluable relics she had herself broken in search of a more easily quantifiable trade.

One false step and she herself could be swallowed by antiquity.

To say the history of the objects she held in her hands had ever crossed her mind would be a half-truth – a lie to flatter the ghosts of whatever world she trudged through. Only the immediate past of a given object – how pristine it appeared – ever factored into her thought process. After all, “worth”, and especially human worth, is an invention. Despite lofty connotations, the scrap she neatly folded and tucked away now carried with it a newer, more objective value than what previous generations might deem it to have.

With an ache of pain, the forager arcs her neck skyward. Long before her time, vainglorious scholars waxed poetic about the idea of the convergence. In the now, the reality, the word had lost it's meaning. She had never known her celestial body as a singular identity – only as a part of the twisted amalgamation. Everything had been drawn inwards, you see. As the universe drew ever closer to its inevitable conclusion, it's satellites and travelers were dragged towards its center. It was like a great homecoming, in a sense. Every atom was called home, to be reunited in their single point of origin. In time, it would all be crushed together – every star and every world. There would be a great unification before the end. Out with creation, and in with destruction. Like no more than a breath, with another perhaps to follow.

But for now, and for another trillion years, this will be the shape of things. A tumorous mass, growing larger by the century, and then shrinking into nothingness.

And all sentience throughout all time would amount to - this final stage of evolution – is rats on a ship. Hungry and cold, rummaging through the trash of their forbears.

With her head held high, the foragers eyes glaze over the continent of another planet. Her peers, also raising their heads, might look at her own. It gave her solace, before she got back to work, imagining that she herself was to others a similar, tumultuous sky.

Martingale Episode 1: Cold Open | RPG Roulette

The year is 1886, and the place is Montana. The Great, Mythic Frontier lets out one last stifled gasp before the cold sets in, and the final nail is hammered...

An actual-play podcast where we’re playing DEAD IN THE WEST, a game of my own creation! Please give a listen and tell me watcha think!

The year is 1886, and the place is Montana. The Great, Mythic Frontier lets out one last stifled gasp before the cold sets in, and the final nail is hammered down into the Old West's coffin. Join RPG Roulette and me for an acyual-play miniseries where Our intrepid players set out into a world of deceit, desperation, and unforgiving winter.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, check it out here (a rating or review would go a long way!): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rpg-roulette/id1403097671

Or here: https://rpg-roulette.simplecast.com/episodes/martingale-ep-1-cold-open

And also Spotify!

If you're interested in DEAD IN THE WEST, you can download or order a hardback copy here: https://deadinthewest.gumroad.com/

If you wanna support RPG Roulette, you can do so here (they’re good lads): https://www.patreon.com/rpgroulette

More episodes soon! Thanks for listening and lemme know your thoughts!

I find the days for which I long the most are not those where I was happiest, but where I had the most before me.

Jepthah in “Lilytooth” a work in progress.

Here’s a video about Arrested Development! And editing! And the magic of both!