Deluxis Entertainment: The Blog

Films and shows, as outrageous as they can be, still operate under believable human motivations. If a character’s reasons for acting don’t translate understandably to the viewer, the story could be disregarded as unbelievable, even if it’s set in a galaxy far, far away. 

But what can a screenwriter do to compel the audience that a character’s motivations are strong enough to motivate momentous action? What could make our hero leap off cliffs, face dragons and take down space tyrants?

In Robert McKee’s Story, the established screenwriter describes this subject as “the principle of antagonism”:

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Neil Gaiman’s American Gods follows the exploits of Shadow, a man recently released from prison to find his world gone. A mysterious stranger offers him a job that ultimately leads him down a path straight between a war brewing in the heart of America between two very old and mythic groups.

Following the success of Game of Thrones, the story was recently picked up by HBO and is in the process of becoming a six-season show produced by Tom Hanks’ production company. 

Gaiman, no stranger to incorporating mythology into modern settings, is known best for his work on the Sandman graphic novel series, Neverwhere, Stardust, Smoke and Mirrors, Coraline and Anansi Boys. Below, we gather some writing tips from Gaiman himself in his thoughts behind creating American Gods.

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With the nominees for the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards announced last week, we take an opportunity to look at some of the fun events preceding this year’s ceremony. 

NPH opens with a classy big band song (2009) 

Conan gets Lost in a series of shows (2006)

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“All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes. This is particularly true of religious ideas, but the central concepts of science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule. In their present form they are variants of archetypal ideas created by consciously applying and adapting these ideas to reality. For it is the function of consciousness not only to recognize and assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses, but to translate into visible reality the world within us.” -Carl Jung

Archetypes are universal symbols, the most basic representations of behavior and personality. Think of them as prototypes, primal forms from which all characters are derived. How are they useful to a storyteller or screenwriter? Archetypes help us understand a character’s role in terms of his or her placement in relation to the story.

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Ryan Lawler from GigaOM sat down with us recently to discuss more about our plans. He wrote a thoughtful piece entitled, “Deluxis Wants to Be the Next Hot TV Network — Online.”

That headline captures the ambitious nature of Deluxis. It’s worth noting that we encourage everyone to keep a healthy dose of humility, lest our mouths start writing checks that other parts of our bodies cannot cash — which is to say we believe in the axiom, “Actions speak louder than words.”

We want to deliver the kinds of shows we would be excited to watch and anxious to tell our friends about. That’s a simple task, but by no means an easy task. So we’re going to keep working behind the scenes to make it a reality. We’ll have a little taste for you soon.

Thanks so much for taking an interest in our project. And thanks to Netflix for picking up “House of Cards.” It goes to show we aren’t the only ones who think the online world is ready for super high quality original shows!

We officially announced our plans to create a new online television network featuring exclusive original shows.

Our goal is very simple: Deliver well-crafted, engaging storytelling experiences to our audiences using the most convenient modern technologies available.

Keep an eye out as we release more details. We are looking forward to sharing the exciting projects that keep us busy every day.

You can read the entire press release for yourself here: http://bit.ly/e2Gil9

My name is Christopher Kaminski, founder of Deluxis. Considering one of our core values is storytelling, it only feels right to start off with one of my own. This is the story of how Deluxis came to be.

About three years ago I canceled my cable television subscription. I didn’t feel like I was getting my money’s worth. I asked myself, “Why am I paying so much every month for all these shows that I never watch?” It simply didn’t make sense. The only shows I ever really missed were the original series produced by some of the better cable channels. You know, all those shows that you, me, and all our friends seem to be talking about. The ones that generally clean up during awards season.

That was about the time that technology improved to the point where you could stream shows over the internet with great quality in sizes larger than a postage stamp. I found it easy to sit in front of my computer and watch a video longer than three minutes long. I was sure this would usher in a new era of online entertainment.

As the months rolled by, I watched as Hollywood stuck their toes in the water of the internet. Their efforts amounted to creating virtual DVRs. They would often limit us to a handful of recent episodes, which is fine if you’re already a fan of a show and need to catch up. But what happens when you finally decide you want to check out something like “Flash Forward” just after the first episode expires? Do you wait for the DVD? Resort to illegal downloads? I knew there had to be a better way.

To make matters worse, some of the very best shows never made it online. I suppose can’t really blame those cable networks for keeping their best programming for their loyal customers. From their perspective, it seems like a good idea. For people like me, it means having to wait until it comes out on DVD or maybe never seeing it at all.

I started Deluxis because I’m customer zero. I believe that great original stories should be available everywhere and I’m willing to bet there are other people out there who agree.

Are you one of those people? If so, I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment on the official Deluxis Facebook page or send us a message on Twitter!