A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 1993 Intersound Inc. In December 1993, Roswell, Georgia's Intersound Inc. released The Complete Beethoven Symphonies, a five-CD box set which presented all nine of Ludwig van Beethoven's nine symphonies in digital surround sound. Along with Piano Masterpieces and other recordings, this box set was part of Intersound's "Classical Heritage" (or CH) collection. Because Intersound's business model was based on direct sales to record shops and big box stores such as the now-vanished Camelot Music and Circuit City rather than adding a separate (and pricier) distributor, box sets such as The Complete Beethoven Symphonies were not only easy to find but cheaper than similar collections by Deutsche Gramophone or Philips. And because the company focused at first almost exclusively on the classical repertoire, aficionados of Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Berlioz, Mozart, and Wagner who couldn't afford the offerings of the more prestigious labels could build up a de

Promotional graphic for La-La Land Records' Superman: The Movie - 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition 3-CD set. © 2019 Warner Bros. Records, La-La Land Records, and DC Entertainment A few weeks ago (on February 15, to be exact), Burbank-based La-La Records released Superman: The Movie - 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition: Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams, a three-CD box set that presents two versions of Maestro John Williams' 1978 score for Richard Donner's now-classic superhero film about the Man of Steel and his first confrontation with archvillain Lex Luthor. The cover art of the 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition is based on the 1978 teaser poster for Superman: The Movie.   © 2019 Warmer Bros. Records, La-La Land Records, and DC Entertainment Nominated for an Academy Award and a Grammy during the awards season for 1978, Williams' music for Superman soon became as iconic as the composer's previous scores for Jaws, Star Wars

Is becoming a journalist as easy as it seems? No. Becoming a journalist (and remaining one) is  not  easy. Granted, it’s not as difficult or expensive as studying to be a lawyer or a doctor. But it’s not as easy as, say, sitting behind a computer keyboard and making up stuff - as Alex Jones seems to like to do - for blogs or websites along the lines of InfoWars. First, you have to take a lot of classes, first in middle school/high school, and then in college. Not only do you need to take the core curriculum classes that are required for your high school diploma, but you also need to sign up for specialized classes, such as Basic Reporting, Advanced Editing and Page Makeup, and (if you want to be a photojournalist) News Photography. Second, you need to have free time after school to work on the school newspaper, learn to meet deadlines, and develop a thick skin that will not only help you deal with the inevitable writer-editor dynamic but also with difficult assignments (s

When I first watched  Star Wars  at the age of 14, I thought Darth Vader was the main villain of the movie for maybe the first 30 minutes. In this scene, as well as all the others set aboard the  Tantive IV,  the guy in the black armor seemed to be in charge of the Imperial army. He gave orders, the scary-looking stormtroopers and the various officers deferred to him and called him “Lord Vader.” And younger  Star Wars  viewers thought  he  ran the entire Galactic Empire. Then I saw  this  scene and realized that Vader, while clearly a powerful Imperial leader, was assigned to  assist , not lord it over, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of the Imperial Outland Regions and commander of the Death Star. Vader  could  give orders to field grade Imperial officers. And, even though the film never made this clear, he had an Imperial-class Star Destroyer (the  Devastator ) and its entire complement at his disposal. He could also intimidate Imperial admirals and generals with h

Prior to Disney declaring the Star Wars Expanded Universe non-canon, was 'The Force Unleashed 2' considered canon? No. Before George Lucas decided to sell Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company in 2012, the company had already stated that G-canon (that is, the Gospel of  Star Wars  according to George) only consisted of: The six  Star Wars  motion pictures that existed at the time. (There was no plan to make the Sequels until the deal with Disney was made.) The  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  movie (2008) and the TV series that was then in its fifth season. The novelizations and comic book adaptations of the films. The  Star Wars Radio Dramas  were where canonicity got tricky. Long ago, the radio series based on the original  Star Wars  Trilogy was considered canon. But sometime before 2012, Lucasfilm decreed that only the material  directly  derived from the film scripts was co-equal in canon with the films. Consequently, much of Brian Daley’s expository material (es

© 2017 Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) From what I understand, the rules for being allowed to write published and canonical  Star Wars  fiction have not changed much since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. First, you must be an author with an actual track record in the publishing business  and  a literary agent. If you have written a legitimately published novel ( not  a self-published effort or “fan-fic”) in the sci-fi or fantasy genre or have worked in the comic book business, Lucasfilm will invite you for an interview and listen to a story pitch. Second, you have to sign all kinds of non-disclosure agreements and play by Lucasfilm’s rules. You also need to abide with the established canon, be able to get stuff done on deadlines, and not try to reinvent the wheel. Furthermore, you will work with editors at Random House  and  have to be aware what other writers are working on so you don’t contradict  their  stories. What you can’t do is write a fan-fic novel or shor

© ℗ 1992 Intersound Records In 1992, the now-defunct Intersound record company of Roswell, Georgia released Piano Masterpieces, a four-CD box set devoted to - you guessed it - some of the best-known compositions for piano and orchestra. Featuring works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Frederic Schumann, Franz Liszt, George Gershwin and performances by Marian Pivka, Garrison Kent, Arthur Lima, Dubravka Tomsic, Sylvia Capova, and Svetlana Stanceva, it presents compositions from various musical periods, including the Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, and Jazz eras. Owned and managed by a music industry veteran named Don Johnson (not related to the eponymous actor) Intersound was 10 years old when it released Piano Masterpieces; starting in 1982 as a direct-to-retailers purveyor of licensed classical recordings. As a result, classical music aficionados could find good recordings by solo performers and orchestras from the Old and New World, tho

© 2014 HarperCollins (Reissue cover) In 1984, Simon & Schuster published the first edition of Max Hastings' Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy, a book that re-examined the Allied invasion of northern France on June 6, 1944 and the bitter campaign that lasted two-and-a-half months and culminated with the liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944. Based on extensive research, hundreds of interviews with veterans and other eyewitnesses, and benefitting from new insights gleaned from the declassification of the "Ultra secret  - the long-concealed fact that the Allies had broken the Germans' "unbreakable" Enigma cypher codes - Hastings' book sought to look beyond the legends and myths that had surrounded Operation Overlord and explain how the Allies defeated the German Wehrmacht in Normandy despite a "quality gap" in weapons (except artillery and aircraft), training, tactics, and overall soldiering skills that favored the Germans. At the

©2010 A&E Television Networks. Content © 1999 Lou Reda Productions and A&E Television Networks In 1999, months before the 50th Anniversary of the start of the Korean War, The History Channel (now History) aired The Korean War: Fire and Ice, a four-part television series about a conflict most Americans have chosen to forget: the 1950-1953 struggle between the U.S.-led United Nations Command and the Soviet-supported North Korean/Chinese alliance for control of that divided Asian nation. Produced by Lou Reda and written by Rod Paschall, The Korean War: Fire and Ice mixes archival footage (both color and black-and-white) from the archives of several nations and 1990s interviews with historians, former diplomats, and U.S. Korean War veterans. Though much of the archival footage is combat footage, there are also shots of non-battle events, such as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's 1949 meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, the deliberations at the UN Headquarters in N

How is downloading of pirated books not stealing? Oh, of course, it’s stealing.   Absolutely. As a writer with a couple of self-published books among my credits, I’m incensed when people (mainly males between 16 and 30) try to justify piracy in all sorts of ways. They’ll flatly straight-up tell you that “Piracy isn’t theft” if a person copies a published work (either hard-copy or digital; format doesn’t matter) and distributes it without the author’s permission. Save Me the Aisle Seat book cover. © 2012 Alex Diaz-Granados and CreateSpace (now Kindle Direct Publishing) I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter if the pirate is stealing  my  work for profit or in a “Robin Hood” gesture of taking something from the creator and giving it to those who “can’t pay.” It’s illegal. It’s unethical. Piracy is theft. Simple as that.