Lawrence C. Connolly's Blog, page 6

Cabrini Opens Friday

Jonathan Sanger, Bradley Eisenstein, M. Jones, and the 21st Century Scop at Tuesday’s cast & crew screening of Cabrini.

I haven’t posted in a while.

There’s a reason. It’s one I’ve written about before, most recently in a piece titled Walking and Talking, in which I wrote about my inclination to focus on one thing at a time.

That’s what I’ve been doing. Focusing.

Following a round of meetings on a new film project last fall, I’ve been pretty much focusing on meeting a fast-approachin...

Happy Holidays

Peace, frohawk, and rollerblades: Poppa Scop as Santa, 1997

I first posted the above photo for a Christmas 2016 installment titled Santas, Wizards, & Life behind the Curtain. But the photo is older than that. From back in the 90s, when my father was enjoying a successful third act as a professional model.

I believe the Santa gig was part of an ad campaign for a major department store. At any rate, for a few weeks in the winter of 1997, my dad could be seen kicking back on bigger-than-life...

AFM: Breaking the Boundaries of Today’s Film Marketplace

AFM panelists Christian Vesper, CEO at Global Drama; Mark Gooder, Co-President of Cornerstone; panel moderator Steven Gaydos, Executive Editor at Variety, and Syrinthia Studer, EVP of International Productions at Paramount Pictures

It’s piped into your home, available at the flick of a switch, provided at a monthly charge, and pretty much taken for granted.

It’s a utility. You know—like gas, electricity, phone service, internet … and entertainment.

That was one of the opening points mad...

AFM: What Do Audiences Want?

“Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection.” So said , the Russian-born standup comic who immigrated from the Soviet Union in the mid-70s and went on to become a cold-war-era hit in the US.

But such belief in the power of comedy didn’t begin with Yakov. Years earlier, comedian Red Skelton performed a series of pantomime skits at the United Nations. The show, which later aired on CBS, was titled Laughter, the Universal Language.

...

This Week at AFM

This week, filmmakers from around the world are heading for Santa Monica to attend the American Film Market.

According to their official website, “AFM is the premier film acquisition, development, and networking event where more than $1 Billion in distribution and film financing deals are closed each year on completed films and those in every stage of development.”

Exciting stuff! And we’ll be there. Or, more specifically, my brother and collaborator Christopher Connolly will be attend...

Into the Gray: Rediscovering Richard Connell

You know Richard Connell, right? If you came of age in the days of high school and undergraduate textbooks, you were probably assigned his story “The Most Dangerous Game” in one of your English classes. If not, you have likely encountered one of the dozens of film, television, or radio adaptations that began with Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1932 classic starring Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong. And if you have somehow missed those, you’ve possibly caught wind of the controversy surrounding the late...

An Interview with Sheldon Higdon

Halloween is coming, and to help get us in the mood, Sheldon Higdon’s Middle-Grade novel The Eerie Brothers and the Witches of Autumn is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite bookseller. New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry calls it “a fun, freaky, and frightening novel,” and if Sheldon’s previous works are any indication, it’s sure to be hit with horror fans.

I first met Sheldon while serving as one of the residency writers at Seton Hill University’s gr...

An Interview with Michael Libling

Author photo by Matthew Cope.

Ever wondered if murder is genetic? Michael Libling has, and the result is a serial-killer novel unlike any you have read.

Due out early next month from Wordfire Press, The Serial Killer’s Son Takes a Wife is the follow-up to Michael’s excellent Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels. And like that book, it’s a winning blend of mystery, horror, and dark humor. It’s the Coen brothers meet Thomas Harris, and I can’t recommend it enough.

I’ve been a fan of Mi...

AI: The Future is Now

Cover illustration for the Corgi paperback edition of The Darftsteller and Other Stories by Walter M. Miller, Jr.Early Warning

Sometime in the 21st century, human actors and writers will become obsolete. Movies, television shows, and even stage plays will be performed by automatons, created from scans of the world’s top human actors and controlled by programs that have replaced human writers and directors.

Surprisingly, that is not a contemporary prediction. It’s a summary of the scien...

Same Site, New Design

Last week I attended the Confluence science fiction convention in Pittsburgh. I had a terrific time, and I hope to cover the event in more detail soon. But for now, I’d like to consider a point some of the folks were discussing there: Namely, the way digital advancements affect the lives of sf writers.

Case in point, this website.

First launched in 2011 with a fixed-width layout, LawrenceCConnolly.com was designed for viewing on horizontal (16:9) monitors. That configuration worked f...