Blake Armstrong

I’ve got to share something I learned from our show runner on The Chi - Jewel Coronel. When she was working for Terry Rossio (yes, THE Terry Rossio), he gave her a fantastic exercise to test any character she was writing 1/

Putting my money (and effort) where my mouth is. Will be paying to read positive scifi. Details Friday.

@pitypitypity333 @Scotterybarn IATSE grip and electrician for 13 years and counting

@RobotEatingRobo @Scotterybarn i like the way you think

if you’re doing it right filmmaking isn’t a real job, it’s a vacation spent making art with your friends for 12 hours

@pitypitypity333 @Scotterybarn Oh good! Signs of affection! This is moving in the right direction. You have a name - trash boy. This is very important.

@RobotEatingRobo @Scotterybarn g&e just throws trash at me. they call me trash boy

@LouisAnslow Didn’t someone point out exactly this already happening with e-books?

Idea: AI inserts custom targeted product placement inside fiction books, making them free to read.

@pitypitypity333 @Scotterybarn Find the grips and electricians, befriend them. They will help you.

@Scotterybarn what if im a set pa and my ads are actively trying to kill me

@gabebraxton Preproduction is exciting! Congrats!

@RobotEatingRobo Yeeep

I have yet to write a logline for my finished script that’s at the beginning stages of pre-production. Is this screenwriting blasphemy?

@pjmarino1 That’s great! Can you share a logline?

@RobotEatingRobo Totally agree. I have one I've been trying to make for about ten years. I adapted it into a novel that will most likely get published this summer (by a small publisher). The journey continues.

Science fiction forgot how to end hopefully. Here’s why that’s more dangerous than it sounds. 1/5

@DariuszKielisz2 Are you looking for specific projects to build your portfolio?

Recent material studies. Once I'm done with the new course, I have to double down on improving my skills and building a new portfolio. I have to be honest, the direction that my career took after so many years of learning is nothing short of disappointing. And I'm not getting younger either 😅

This is exactly what I was postulating in a previous tweet. Where is the next control point? Digital IDs and CBDC? Grocery store dynamic pricing?

@GlennMeder How do you feel about age verification for certain websites and content rather than something sweeping over the whole internet? I understand that’s possibly a slippery slope, but I’m trying to get a better handle on my own position on the matter.

2/ Age verification sounds harmless. It sounds reasonable. It sounds like common sense. Verify kids are old enough before they access certain content. But age verification requires identity verification. Identity verification requires digital IDs. Digital IDs require everyone — not just children — to prove who they are before they can speak, read, watch, or post anything online. Age verification is the Trojan horse. And once it is inside the gates, the surveillance state becomes operational.

🧵 THREAD 1/ Online age verification is the hill to die on. Not a fight you can sit out. Not a battle you can skip. Not a policy you can afford to ignore while you focus on something else. This is it. This is the line. This is the infrastructure that enables every other piece of the digital control grid. If we lose this fight, we lose everything.

@AtticTruther I loved Black Mirror, and its unflinching gaze. But I don’t want to see the whole genre bend toward a negative outlook. Films like “Don’t Look Up” and “Finch” are some big budgets to spend on hanging out in negativity. Looking forward to more positive hopes for the future.

@RobotEatingRobo Which SF are you talking about here? I’m not seeing this.

In the cyberpunk present, I’m thinking the way human driving becomes outlawed is through the soft power of making the insurance costs too high for most people to pay for the privilege of manually driven vehicles.

@SeanChrisLewis How about that feeling where you look back ten years and see you’ve accomplished a lot of those things that you from ten years ago was striving for. Yes, I’ve produced movies, written award winning shorts, been published, and got a feature optioned. But I still feel as before

For any comic writers, screenwriters or book writers looking for insight or advice or just info. I have started a new substack. #comics #film #screenwriting #publishing thebreakthroughyear.substack.com/p/the-breakthr…

@dmagillwrite Gattaca has a great ending! And yeah, I’d say it shockingly ends with a bittersweet hopeful note. 12 Monkeys never gave me a hopeful vibe, but an incredible film.

Well you hit on many of the biggest ones. Matrix is an all-time top 3 film for me. But Gattaca has a very hopeful ending. And 12 Monkeys has a perfect ending too. And my books meet this qualification - Future In Doubt has a terrific ending, after Essie has to crawl through miles of muck.

@William8rannick Nice pick! Any moments that hit extra hard for you? In Project Hail Mary it was definitely a moment of sacrifice I won’t spoil because it hasn’t been out that long

@RobotEatingRobo Godzilla Minus One most recently.

I think my favorite dark to light ending might be Children of Men, but project Hail Mary is definitely up there!

What’s the SF ending that made you believe something again? Drop it below. On Friday I’ll tell you what I’m building around this question.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ 5/5

Stories that go to the darkest place and then found something worth surviving for. The Matrix ending is still the clearest example of what I mean. Neo didn’t win. He fights. Hope is the mission. That’s harder to write than darkness, and modern stories got lazy. So - 4/5