#151 When the lights dim at the movie theater
Okay, you know what’s awkward?
That ten to fifteen minutes before the movie starts on opening night.
Seriously, it’s a jumpy whisper-fest in red plushy tundra as everyone runs in, jockeys for prime seats, and elbows for armrests. Saving seats gets stressful and without rules there is Seat-Saving Anarchy, with jackets lying everywhere, tense questions, and evil eyes. Commercials start booming in the background as toothpick teens amble past bony knees holding giant slippery Cokes and spilly bags of popcorn. Tall guys sit in front of you as cell phones ring and friends debate moving while constant streams of people pour in and quickly fill the place up.
It can be very stressful.
And it can be great when the lights finally dim and turn it all off.
Yes, that’s when everyone stops, everyone shushes, and all worries fade way back to the background. Suddenly nothing matters when the trumpets blare, previews roll, and lights flick to black. It’s like a big heavy wooden door slowly creaks open and welcomes you down a dark path to somewhere you’ve never been.
Slip away from your worries, slip away from the world, and slip and slide right into the
AWESOME!
Hey everyone,
Hope you’re having a good week.
Okay, do you want to hear a crazy story?
Two years ago I asked my publisher if we could do a kid’s book. “What kind of kid’s book?,” they asked. “With stickers and crossword puzzles?”
“No,” I said. “Can we do something visually stunning and hyperrealistic? Something that sends people’s minds to crazy places? Something that teaches them mindfulness and meditation without banging a rubber mallet on their foreheads about it? Oh! And can we let them control the entire book? Like, their fingers make the book zoom in, their breath blows the waves bigger, and they flip the book to flip themselves underwater?”
They blinked with completely straight faces for several seconds.
I think this is what’s known in the book industry as a no.
But several big meetings, dozens of photographers, hundreds of pictures, and two years later, we are finally finished this journey and finally able to tell you all about it.
I’m really excited to announce that right here, right now, we are launching the first ever fully interactive, hyper-photorealistic children’s book in the entire world.
Want to see it?! Check it out here.
And how did this book get made??
Well, all kid’s books up till now are illustrations or photos. But we partnered with a Discovery Channel animation studio to stitch together images from NASA, electron-microscope-wielding scientists, and beach and wildlife photographers from around the world. (My favorite was a guy from Cuba who took pictures of crabs for us.)
And that whole story brings us all to this, to here, to now. I’m excited to share this new book in the awesome series with all of you. Where the other books are the observation of awesome this is the first one that shares the experience of awesome.
Awesome Is Everywhere is available for pre-order today on Indigo or Amazon.
I hope you like it,
Neil
The post #151 When the lights dim at the movie theater appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.