Author Archives: Chris

Audience Development for Revision3

I’m doing Audience Development for Revision3! Revision3 is a digital studio in San Francisco that creates roughly 20 original HD programs that you can watch online, on your phone or on a fancy internet TV box thing. I interned there a few years ago.

Audience development includes a lot of cool stuff but it basically means that I’ll be doing what ever it takes to earn more views for Revision3’s shows. I’m just going to work on getting the biggest bang out of my 8-hour days. If, somehow, adding pictures of Jason Derulo to the thumbnails for every episode of every show turns out to have the best ROI, that’s what I’ll do. But things like solid title copywriting, keyword optimization and forging new distribution agreements are likely to have more of an impact on viewership.

Thumbnails are going to make a big difference. But including pictures of Jason Derulo won’t be that important. Including pictures of Justin Bieber will.

Lesinski’s Favorite Movies of 2009 — Just in time for Oscars

Oscars tonight! What what!

But c’mon, who really cares about best sound design? I don’t. You don’t. Probably sound people don’t even care. We’re all in it for the best pic. So, with that in mind, I’m rolling out the red carpet for my best pic picks. As in: These are the 10 movies I enjoyed most in 2009, in order:

A Single Man

Everyone in this movie is beautiful. I’m not gay, but even the guys in this movie are beautiful. And this movie deals a lot with homosexuality — but homophobes needn’t beware — there’s no such Broke Back Mountain spit-in-my-hand kind of stuff. And that actually says a lot about this film. It subverts the whole ridiculous stereotype that gay people have lots of gross hook-ups and instead develops them as real people with real relationships. And Colin Firth gives a performance that has to win Best Actor tonight. HAS TO.

Goodbye Solo

THANK YOU FOR AN INDIE FILM THAT ISN’T QUIRKY AND HIPSTER-FAKE! The characters in this story are so mindblowingly genuine and the performances compliment that. If that fact doesn’t sell you, I know what will: A cab driver is asked to transport a client to an obscure cliff – one where the guy is going to presumably kill himself. And the cab driver has to convince him not to do it. Heavy.

State of Play

An all-star cast in a political thriller with musings on the future of journalism. If you do not like this movie, you will not like me either. It has everything I love. Though this wasn’t my favorite movie of the year, it’s one I insist everyone see. Look out for a special appearance by my car.

The Hurt Locker

Yes, please, I would like to watch a guy disarm several IEDs in Iraq.

Bomb-disarming scenes are the best — and I’m not even being sarcastic. So, this movie is just a whole movie of that. It’s just bomb-disarming. In fact, the bomb inside you that makes you like Avatar just a little bit — this movie will even disarm that!

Moon

Every year there is at least one really good sci-fi movie. No, this year’s wasn’t Fern Gully 2.0 (Avatar). It also wasn’t that movie which was one-half “The Office” and the other half, suddenly, a sci-fi crap-thing with where the writer realizes, “OH MAN! I have to wrap up this ‘plot’ thing — I forgot about that!” (District 9)

Instead, the sneaky-good sci-fi movie was Moon. This is the directorial debut of David Bowie’s son! What’s not to like? You’ll be watching it and thinking, oh — I know this sci-fi movie. I know what’s going to happen. And then THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN. That’s what makes good movies. And that’s why Avatar and District 9 blew. Moon is truly top-notch sci-fi.

Drag Me to Hell

Sometimes it gets hard to see through all the Saw movies. And all the Paranormal Activity. But there ARE good horror flicks in the mix, and Drag Me to Hell owns it. This movie is exactly how visual effects should be utilized in modern horror — it’s subtle but still makes you terrified. And if you think a talking goat sounds like something from a children’s TV show, think again. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I love genre movies.

Sin Nombre

If you live in an area that might have gangs, Sin Nombre movie will make you deadbolt your doors every night.

An Education

A girl is all prissy and wants to go to Oxford. But then this guy exposes her to culture in the REAL WORLD and she changes her whole perspective! Get it? It’s like asking the question: “What is AN EDUCATION?”

How cliche does that sound? It sounds like a script based on every study abroad conversation you’ve ever had. And yet, the writing in this movie is pristine and rings true. You’ll fall for Sarsgaard as hard as the girl in the movie does even though he’s a freakin weirdo! He’s like a pedophile in this movie! But you’ll love him! What a dirty trick.

In the Loop

If you think it’s too pretentious to list “Dr. Strangelove” in “favorite movies” on your Facebook profile, but you still like Dr. Strangelove, then this movie should instead take its place. It’s like if Arrested Development were about warfare. The characters just explode with personality and the writing is WITTY!

The Cove

Going to SeaWorld turns out to have these ridiculously nasty upshots. Seriously. This doc will make you FLIP. (Get it?)

Other noteworthies:

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Yes! I liked this movie! It actually pulled off slapstick like 9/10 times, which hasn’t happened since Chris Farley died.

Inglorious Basterds

If you think bomb-disarming is tense (The Hurt Locker) you should see what Quentin Tarantino can do with a glass of milk. It’s really good. But as usual, it’s complete director overindulgence, which disqualifies it from my list. That’s like student film shit. Too long and too being-about-obscure-German-film-history.

Bright Star

It might be boring for the first half… but it has one of the best villains of the year. And it will make you reconsider making out with random people. Because this is a love story betwixt two lovers who BARELY DO THAT. What the F?

Movies I hated, probably more so because people like you wouldn’t stop talking about them:

Avatar

Note that I regret not seeing these things: A Serious Man, 35 Shots of Rum, Crazy Heart, Let the Right One In, Precious, Bad Lieutenant, Antichrist

Mentioned on Diggnation

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article that poured one out for GeoCities, the ancient network of websites that Yahoo axed after buying it for way too much money. The article, “Goodbye GeoCities: 7 Retro Things We’ll Miss Forever,” hit the Digg front page and top in all topics with over 1400 Diggs.

But more importantly, it earned a spot on last week’s episode of Diggnation (skip the intro, it’s the second segment above… or follow this link). That’s right. Being mentioned on an actual television show every week isn’t enough — I’d like to be mentioned by two drunk guys on a couch in a web show instead.

It’s been a goal of mine for about 3 years to get an article on Diggnation. Check that one off the list.

Quoted in eCampus News

eCampus News

Open universities offer students a shot at learning for free and the freedom of doing so remotely. It’s a really cool movement in education. eCampus News just did a feature on the subject and I was lucky enough to be one of their sources. Here’s the pertinent chunk so you don’t have to register on their goofy site:

Chris Lesinski, a blogger who tracks education technology trends, credited institutions like MIT and Stanford University for making lectures available online for anyone to download and watch, but said an entire college education via the internet and without cost could remain a foreign concept for traditionalists in campuses’ Ivory Towers.

“Universities aren’t exactly forward thinking all the time,” Lesinski said. “I think it’s the main thing that holds back open universities. … There’s a technophobia there. People who are still using AOL for their eMails are the ones running the universities.”

Hot, huh?

[via eCampus News]

Researching for Tosh.0 on Comedy Central

tosh.0 logoSome how, I landed an incredible job. I get paid to browse the internet — don’t we all?

Tosh.0 is a weekly half-hour variety show hosted by Daniel Tosh that makes fun of the internet and my job is integral to that concept. I pitch the best of the web to the writer’s room and what they don’t use, I write about with my own take at the Tosh.0 blog. I also manage some of the social media presence and a lot of the video distribution.

It’s been more than a month. Here are a few of my posts so far:

“Coffee Making Robot”

Cover of The New Yorker Created on iPhone

5 Lego Fashion Trends That Never Took Off

A Dictionary Informed by the Internet

Long-Hair Brusher Guys

Is That How You Treat Your Mother?

A Site Dedicated to User-Submitted Street Mattresses

Tron Guy Forced to Sell Airplane

If you want more you can check out my latest posts or subscribe to a feed of my Tosh.0 contributions.

I’m starting my own magazine. Not.

Hooray! It’s my first official LA Times Tech Blog post! It’s about how I’m starting my own magazine. Or how I could if I wanted to.

And you thought starting a blog was easy…

Why start a blog when you can start a nice, glossy print magazine? Hewlett-Packard recently launched a new service called MagCloud, which flattens the entire magazine distribution process into one website. Give HP the content in PDF form and out comes a magazine. The cost: 20 cents per page. HP handles all the printing, mailing and subscription management. Users can set the subscription price for their rag (above the base price plus postage), leaving some room for profit if they choose. Gutenberg would be proud.

…Read the full story at the LA Times Technology blog

Insanity:

Another day at the L.A. Times. In case you didn’t know: the Tribune Company, its owner, is dying along with every other newspaper on the planet.

The thing that strikes me day after day — whether I’m at the L.A. Times, or talking with a studio friend, or sitting in a film class — is this: You can’t do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. The economy is no excuse — some media companies are doing okay right now.

New Media is hard, but it’s not as un-paved as people keep saying it is. There are ways of making money. There are ways of finding an audience. But they aren’t the same as the old ways.