John August

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Tracking a comment thread by RSS

Geek Alert

geek alertUnlike some sites, where the number of comments on a given article can reach triple-digits, most of the threads at johnaugust.com stay pretty short. Still, sometimes you want to keep on top of an interesting discussion without re-visiting the site every hour. That’s where RSS can be your friend.

On every article, down by the “Leave a comment” section, you’ll find a link for “RSS feed for comments on this post.”

rss feed screenshot

If you click it, you’ll get gibberish. Rather, copy the link (which ends with ‘/feed/’) and paste it into your newsreader of choice (such as Bloglines, NetNewsWire, or the new Safari RSS). You’ll then get every comment on the article as it appears, without ever having to go back to check the original page. And when you’re done following a conversation, just delete the link. No fuss, no muss.

Incidentally, this technique works for almost any blog you visit. So definitely try to make use of it.

See also:

Finding the RSS feeds
More about the RSS feeds

Printing words on-screen

Formatting, QandA

questionmarkWhen you want a title to appear on the screen (i.e. “Two days later” or “September 1987”) how do you write it exactly?

— A. B.
via IMDb

Printing words on screen works much just the way you’d think. You write TITLE OVER, like this:

INT. JOHNSON FARM – DAY

Robin pulls open the curtains, so tattered they begin to rip from the rod. Bright light floods into the dusty room.

TITLE OVER:

21 HOURS AFTER ABDUCTION

With a trained eye, she surveys the dank livingroom. Her attention focuses on a chest of drawers, which has been pulled out slightly from the wall.

Note that many times, you simply want to provide clarifying information to the reader, and have no intention of showing an on-screen title. In these cases, it’s completely acceptable to append the info to the end of a scene header.

EXT. POLISH GETTO – DAY [1945]

INT. MARGE’S KITCHEN – NIGHT [WINTER]

EXT. CENTRAL PARK – [THE NEXT] DAY

Of course, only append this bracketed information if it really is crucial to helping the reader understand the scene — for instance, if your story moves back and forth between two timelines. Otherwise, you’re just adding clutter.

New Charlie posters up

Charlie, Projects

charlie onesheetAin’t It Cool News has the six new one-sheets for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Five of the posters feature the young Golden Ticket winners, while the final one has a new image of Willy Wonka, with the appropriate tagline, “semi-sweet and nuts.”

I hadn’t seen any of these one-sheets before this morning, but I strongly suspected these single-character portraits were on their way, given the somewhat-iconic characters of Veruca Salt and company.

New Charlie poster

Charlie, Projects

Charlie PosterI haven’t seen a physical version of it yet, but JoBlo.com has the artwork for the second Charlie and the Chocolate Factory poster. This one shows Freddie Highmore as Charlie, along with his four rotten tour-mates (Mike Teavee, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde and Veruca Salt).

Before you ask:

  • No, I don’t get any input on posters. I’m just happy my name is spelled correctly.

  • No, I don’t know if this is the final poster, or if there will be a different one for Europe/Australia/Loompa-Land. My hunch is that the marketing people are pretty industrious folks, so there are many other potential one-sheets which may eventually become foreign posters and/or newspaper ads.

  • July 15th is the opening date for North America. I don’t know yet when it will open in the U.K. and other countries.