9:06 PM CDT posted by Michael Calore
# 
“It’s been my fantasy project for years and years. I thought, ‘What could I do that would be totally inaccessible and non-commercial that nobody would see, let alone understand?’ And this is it.” — Filmmaker Andrew Bujalski, director of the surrealist techno-indie movie Computer Chess.
Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired
8:01 PM CDT posted by Michael Calore
During his keynote talk with Anil Dash, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley was wearing a Jawbone Up, a Nike Fuel band, and a Basis watch. Dash called him out on it. Three health-tracking devices?
“I’m the super-quantified self,” Crowley says. “Just on my arms, I’m generating a lot of data. This is what nerds do right now.”
If you follow Dennis on Twitter, you’ll know that he tweets frequently about his workouts, his health achievements and his weight (using a hacked Withings scale). When pressed about why, he said: “Why not?”
“All the data we’re collecting and generating, nobody’s really doing enough with it right now. I totally want to see that change.”
Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired
4:45 PM CDT posted by Angela Watercutter
# > “People will do ‘Between Two Ferns’ that will not do my TV show. I’m not getting Anne Hathaway.”
— Comedy Bang! Bang!’s Scott Aukerman on being able to get people to appear on his other creation “Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis” who wouldn’t appear on his IFC show.
2:56 PM CDT posted by Angela Watercutter
# 
Poor Carlton Cuse. That guy will likely be answering questions about Lost for the rest of his life.
During what was supposed to be a Q&A following a screening of the producer’s new A&E show Bates Motel at South By Southwest, the Lost showrunner got asked almost as much about his former ABC show about plane crash survivors on a super-weird island as he did about his new one about the wonder years of Norman Bates. Even his questioner Guy Slattery, the head of marketing for A&E, couldn’t resist – opening the discussion by asking “What was the deal with that polar bear?” (Yes, the even the marketing guy for Cuse’s new network wants to know about Lost.)
“This is a Bates Motel panel, not a Lost panel,” Cuse responded before caving to the will of the people. “It was a Dharma Initiative thing, OK? They were doing a little research.”
Bates Motel is Cuse’s modern-day reimagining of the years leading up to the events in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. And even though that means it (probably) will not have anything to do with Lost, the two shows will have one thing in common: transmedia elements. Cuse avoided giving too much away, but did mention that a book of illustrations Norman Bates (Freedie Highmore) discovers in the pilot will have a story that lives off of the TV set.
“My metaphor for when you create a story for television – film as well – is building an iceberg,” Cuse said. “Eighty percent of it is under water but you kind of have to know what the whole iceberg looks like in order to get that part that’s above water. Transmedia gives you an opportunity to show other parts of the iceberg.”
However, the most chilling part of Cuse’s iceberg may be Vera Farmiga, who plays Norma Bates. The Up in the Air actress was Cuse’s first choice for the role and, based on the pilot, she could be the reason audiences keep watching. Cold, funny, vulnerable, and just plain tough – she’s insanely watchable. It’s hard to tell if there’s magic in Bates Motel yet – the first episode was a bit uneven – but if there is, it’s in the person of Farmiga. “I think as the show goes on, Vera’s performance just gets better and better,” Cuse said. “I think people will really be amazed by her talents.”
Kind words from a television big-shot about his new star. But no matter how many people move into his M**otel, they’ll never really get off the island.
Bates Motel premieres March 18 at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central on A&E.
2:54 PM CDT posted by Michael Calore
# Cut your own vinyl with The Vinylrecorder T-560. It’s a fully functional record-making machine — just plug in a CD player, laptop or some other source and it cuts a groove into a vinyl blank. The results are pretty good. You’ll need to bring your own record player to spin the disk, and blanks are about $5 each. The rest of the machine costs 3,200 euros (it’s made in Germany). Visit vinylrecorder.com for more info.
2:34 PM CDT posted by Laura Hudson
What will comic books look like in the future? It’s difficult to say whether anyone knows the answer to that question yet, but Marvel Entertainment continues to explore the possibilities – and reach out to new readers – with a three-pronged digital initiative it announced at SXSW.
Until late Tuesday night, you can download 700 different #1 comics for free as digital issues in the Marvel Comics app. Also, Marvel will be releasing weekly content in the Infinite Comics format specifically designed for mobile devices. Finally, the publisher will add adaptive audio soundtracks to its digital comics through an initiative called Project Gamma.
The window for free #1 comics began on Sunday, and lasts through 11 pm ET on Tuesday, March 12. The 700 comics range from classics to recent issues, and while Marvel SVP of Sales David Gabriel told Wired that readers will still have access to any comics they download after the window closes, “after Marvel #1 ends the comics will return to their regular price, so we encourage fans to download as many as they can.”
1:16 PM CDT posted by Michael V. Copeland
Photo: Turner Broadcasting/Victor Hernandez
“As a basketball player I always learned that simplicity wins. As an investor I am also looking for simplicity, and something that will help people with their enjoyment of things and their enjoyment of life.”
“We as tecchies and geeks, we are so powerful now. I am from Texas, and I see how much this event has grown. Now it’s all about us geeks. We are definitely taking over the world.”
“I have always lived by the philosophy that you can’t do it all yourself. I am a big believer in partnering. I can come in and help people with their vision, and on organizational leadership but when it comes to the tecchie stuff I bring in the experts.”
“In our earliest days as technologists we would write on walls with stones, AKA Twitter, then technology advanced to pictures and now video. It’s about the show-all, rather than the tell-all. That’s what (video sharing service) Tout brings.”
“Here’s my formula for life and everything. It’s 60 percent make you laugh, 30 percent inspire with a quote and 10 percent sell something. You still gotta sell.”
– Basketball great and self-confessed geek Shaquille O’Neal.
12:35 PM CDT posted by Peter Rubin
# I hope everyone at this Sexual Robotics session feels as creepy as I do.
12:19 PM CDT
# History of the future. Without the Newton there’s no iPhone, right?
12:17 PM CDT posted by Peter Rubin
# Good morning, Austin! Saw Edward James Olmos this morning, and regret both not taking a picture and not throwing him a “so say we all.” (And not telling him his season of Dexter was so bad it made me stop watching.)
12:06 PM CDT posted by Laura Hudson
11:12 AM CDT posted by Angela Watercutter
Director Fede Alvarez still remembers the very first time he saw The Evil Dead. He was a 12-year-old living in Montevideo, Uruguay, and he begged a clerk at the video store for the scariest thing they had — despite the fact that he was way too young. Eventually, the clerk slid Sam Raimi’s 1980s horror classic across the counter. What Alvarez saw on that VHS tape became burned into his impressionable brain.
“That’s why when they asked me to make [the Evil Dead reboot] I had to,” the director told Wired following the premiere of Evil Dead at the South By Southwest Film Festival. “Because it’s payback; hopefully the grandchildren of the video store guy will see it.”
When fans of Evil Dead first heard first heard that Alvarez — a director with no feature film credits to his name — would helm the remake, pretty much everyone presumed it would suck. Most reboots do, after all, and it seemed impossible to recreate the magic that made the 1981 flick a cult favorite.
Even Bruce Campbell, the star of the original film who also co-produced the new version, acknowledged the uphill battle for fan approval. “It was a tough sell,” Campbell told Wired. “We knew people were very opinionated, but we didn’t know how opinionated until this [remake] came up. Then it was like, ‘Jesus Christ, is it that serious?’ And they’re like, ‘Yes, it is.’”
10:01 AM CDT posted by Ariel Zambelich
# It’s always nice when you can find some peace and quiet, away from the madness, along the river.
Can I just say how happy I am the sun’s finally out?
8:43 AM CDT posted by Aaron Colter
# [#video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/STylMPRatGA]
Comedy superstars Michael Cera, Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, Sarah Silverman, and Reggie Watts have come together to create a new comedy variety show for YouTube called JASH. The group appeared on stage at SXSW to talk about the new project, and why the creative freedom they have on the show is so important.
“SXSW is a nightmare… YouTube is a nightmare; we wanted to create a little space with JASH that isn’t a nightmare,” said Wareheim.
Silverman kicked off the panel by giving a foot massage to Heidecker, who was quick to admit, “We’re not exactly sure what we’re doing.” One thing the format does allow the comedians and actors to do: conceive of and shoot ideas in a matter of days, instead of weeks or months like a standard television program.
Heidecker and Wareheim — better known as Tim & Eric — will film a reality show by wearing head mounted cameras and pretending to fight with one another. The duo came up with the idea because they received GoPro cameras as gifts and wanted to make a reality show where nothing happens.
In Gregory Go Boom, Michael Cera’s short coming in May, the Arrested Development will play a paraplegic who drives around in a motorized wheelchair and eventually goes home with woman of questionable character.
“All we can promise is that the stuff we put up is our cup of tea,” Silverman said. “You’ll like it or you won’t.”
For now, most of the shorts are created independently of each other. “We’re not an improv group. We’re not a comedy troop,” said Heidecker. And no matter what the team decides on, one thing’s for sure: They’re not doing it for anyone but themselves. Asked if their writing is tailored to a specific audience, Watts said, “We’ve never written for the audience, ever.”
Heidecker agreed. “Fuck the audience. We’ll make what we want.”
7:02 AM CDT posted by Ariel Zambelich
# Folks are gettin’ straight comfy in the Austin Convention Center.
2:24 AM CDT posted by Ariel Zambelich
# > “I ended it there because I wanted you to dream on it. Why do you want to be told everything all the time? Anything can happen.”
— Harmony Korine, commenting on the ending of his latest movie, Spring Breakers, at a Q&A following the SXSW screening
2:19 AM CDT posted by Michael Calore
The “Milo” team, from left to right: Director and writer Jacob Vaughan, co-writer Benjamin Hayes, and actors Gillian Jacobs, Ken Marino, Stephen Root and Kumail Nanjiani.
There’s no easy way to get into this, so I’m just going to put it out there: Milo is a movie about an evil demon baby that lives inside of a guy’s ass.
The main character is a meager do-nothing type (Ken Marino) who lacks the confidence to stand up to his amoral boss (Patrick Warburton), overbearing mother (Mary Kay Place), self-centered wife (Gillian Jacobs) and absentee father (Stephen Root). So the demon baby, the physical embodiment of his rage-filled subconscious, crawls out of his anus periodically and unleashes terrible, deadly revenge on those who have wronged its host. You know, the old monster-as-id gag.
Written by Jacob Vaughan and Benjamin Hayes, and directed by Vaughan, Milo’s greatest achievement may be that the big-money joke — a pint-sized demon pops out of a guy’s rectum to kill his enemies, then pops back in when its bloodlust is satiated — never really gets old. The seventh egress is just as funny as the first.
The film is rife with classic B-movie levels of raunch and gore. The monster is a physical puppet, not a CG stunt, so the effects have a classic Cronenberg feel (at the premiere screening here at SXSW, Vaughan admitted The Brood was a big influence). And no matter how ridiculous things get — and really, it couldn’t get more silly — the actors play it almost totally straight, which only amplifies the comedy.
Vaughan attributes Milo’s comedic success to smart casting. “You pitch an ass movie to somebody, and they either say yes or they say no. These guys all said yes.”
Milo was executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, and it should see a wide release soon. I’d be surprised if the guys could hold it in much longer.
1:59 AM CDT posted by Angela Watercutter
# > “Mostly it’s like I love Reddit because it’s a space that I can be really honest [in] because I’m – obviously – on there anonymously. It feels like [I’d be] sullying my Reddit experience … It would feel like to be very diplomatic – which I try to be because I’m not a big fan of publicly hurting people’s feelings even if I do think they’re kind of dicks – would be difficult. I would feel really gross about lying to redditors. Is that weird? Even if it was white lies to just be nice because it was something I didn’t want to say publicly, I would feel like I was betraying their trust.”
— Drinking Buddies star Anna Kendrick on why she’s conflicted about doing an AMA, something redditors would really like. (More from Kendrick soon. Promise.)
12:07 AM CDT posted by Michael Calore
# Portugal. The Man, live at The Mohawk in Austin.
