Jacob All Trades #317
The WGA Strike Support Plane, Grindr for Grants, Dangers of Minimalist Design, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tim Curry Replaces Johnny Depp, and my work in Backstage
Hello!
Firstly, if you’re a new follower just looking for an update about the WGA Strike Support Plane, skip to the bottom or check out this post which I’m updating regularly with info.
It’s been so fun to run into friends and colleagues on the WGA picket line. I’m in the DGA, not the WGA, but I strongly believe in what the writers are asking for and believe this strike will be a lightning rod not only for the entertainment industry but for workers’ rights across the country. Anywho, I’ll keep this intro short. Enjoy the newsletter!
HERE’S AN IDEA: DATING APP FOR PATRONS
There should be a dating app for people with money to find people who make art.
A few weeks ago I did a deep dive into grant funding for an upcoming project and I was floored by how difficult it is to get information on grants. There are hundreds of sites that list grants. Each collects different information, which it displays in completely different ways (or sometimes not at all), many are behind paywalls, and others are scams. I paid good money for one — which will remain nameless — only to find out many of the grants listed haven’t existed for years. On others, I had to click several links deep before I realized the grant wasn’t available to me even though I had listed my gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age, location, area of interest, etc. on a sorting field before it showed up.
It’s hard enough to be an artist and most of us are not great at business. Finding, sorting through, and applying for grants is a nightmare. And, after all that, you likely won’t even get the grant.
Where is the Bumble of benefactors, the Grindr of grant money, the Raya of residencies, the Plenty Of Fish of patronage?! Why can’t I just enter information about my projects and swipe until someone wants to hand me some dang money?!
There could even be a section for people with lots of money but no creative skills who want to be involved in the arts to find projects that’ll list them as a benefactor.
Whadya think?
CONSUMPTION JUNCTION
Three things I’ve seen, heard, or otherwise experienced recently that have been on my mind.
Hamilton Nolan’s op-ed in The Guardian articulates my feelings about the current writers’ strike more eloquently and impactfully than I could ever hope to. IMO it’s required reading to understand what is fully at stake.
On our honeymoon, my wife and I visited Tel Aviv, Paris, London, and Berlin. It was my first big outside-the-US trip and I loved it. But, more than anything I was shocked that each of those cities felt more like New York than they did like Israel, France, England, or Germany. Why is everything starting to look the same? This is a fascinating thread about the Dangers of Minimalist Design and the Death of Detail.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus has a new podcast called Wiser Than Me where she interviews women who are older (and wiser) than her and it’s even more charming than you might expect. I’ve just finished listening to the first episode with guest Jane Fonda which covers parenting, aging, sex, death, and more. I get the sense based on some AARP interviews that this is a podcast aimed at women over 50, but I absolutely loved it.
DO SOMETHING!
The 118th Congress is getting ready to re-introduce the Energy Innovation Act, which would complete many of the ‘one-two punches’ set up by the climate provisions in 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Citizen’s Climate Lobby has a super easy and quick form to send a message to your representatives urging them to co-sponsor this landmark environmental bill.
MAKE THIS SO I DON’T HAVE TO
I have so many ideas that are merely thousands of hours of work away from finding out “Is this anything?” Here are a few. If you’d like to wrangle any of these into being, please do so and let me know so I can find out if they are, in fact, “anything.”
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 6 TRAILER
Can you believe they have made five of these movies? Well, the sixth film in the franchise may or may not be happening. We don’t know much about it but the Internet is abuzz (I imagine, but have not checked) about the one thing we do know: Johnny Depp is not returning as Captain Jack Sparrow. So… who is?
This is where you come in by carefully editing a new trailer featuring old clips from POTC movies with clips of Tim Curry as Long John Silver from Muppet Treasure Island. Thank you for making this so I don’t have to.
BIG RED COMMERCIAL
Okay, you know those classic Big Red commercials and the classic Big Red jingle?
Great. Now use that and clips from the Clifford the Big Red Dog movie. Is this anything? Thanks for finding out so I don’t have to.
WHITE (TIKI ROOM) LOTUS
You know the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland? This one is really simple. Just take footage from that and sync it up with the White Lotus Season 2 theme song. Thank you for doing this so I don’t have to.
LITERALLY JUST A BRAG
One of my favorite campaigns was featured in Backstage recently in an article about how and why to use a medium shot. Quote below, full article here. Thanks to Backstage writer Gregory Lawrence for the feature!
In this branded spot directed by Reed with DP Eric Bader, Reed began by framing tough-looking men in close-ups, “then we pulled out to a medium to reveal more context showing that the guys were actually just being overly festive for the winter holidays,” he says. In the close-up, “the focus was the intensity of the actor’s performance, and you got just enough of a hint around them to make an assumption about their surroundings… When we snap to the medium shot you can see more context and the juxtaposition provides a comedic reveal.”
PAY THE WRITERS, YOU AI-HOLES!
This weekend, I joked to a friend that someone should do skywriting above the studios to support the WGA Strike. Some googling later, I found out that skywriting (the one where they use vapors to write giant illegible letters) is crazy expensive, but a sky banner is actually kind of affordable. I posted to my Instagram to ask if people would chip in and the whole thing escalated very quickly.
As of this posting, we’re about a hundred dollars away from the goal but assuming we’ll get there, I have sent the money to a sky banner company, and on Monday, May 15th, from roughly 12-2:30pm, the studios will be treated to something that looks like this rendering (which, ironically, was partially created by AI):
I’ve got a separate post here on Jacob All Trades where I will be putting up-to-date info as we lock in the specific timeline. It also has more info about who donated and how the whole thing came together. If you’re someone who knows anything about reaching the press, please lmk if you can help, or feel free to just alert them yourselves by sharing that post directly.
For lack of a better idea, maybe we can get this trending by posting photos with the hashtag #AIHOLES
Alrighty, that’s it for this issue. Feel free to leave a comment or share the newsletter using the links below.
Party on,
Jacob
So much good stuff in here jeez Louise also thanks for introducing me to what will ASSUREDLY be my favorite podcast of all time !!!!!!!
Strike plane banner saying "PAY YOUR WRITERS" about 12 seconds into this tiktok video of the Boston University commencement where Zaslav was heckled last weekend:
https://twitter.com/Dai_Photoshoots/status/1660623328636223488