Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

Today a radio broadcast Sparked my memory of a seminar I attended not so long ago about “type theory”. The broadcast was about introverts and how these personalities react to an online environment. All very interesting stuff and worth a listen. However, the introvert / extrovert topic and the subject of personality type theory that we were taught about in the seminar was quite different.

I should say, type theory is this hugely complex Jungian psychological subject only the tip of which I know anything about. So it’s certainly not deserving of the simplification that I’m going to reduce it to. I do so only as an introduction to how cool it is, and how cool it can be when applied to character development in creative writing. This is the way it was introduced to me by Dr. Carolyn Mamchur at the seminar.

Here we go: There are 16 different personality types. Sounds like pseudo-science already, doesn’t it? Or a Cosmo quiz. Ignore that, it’s very cool, I promise. The personality types are made up of one of two opposing traits in four different categories: Introverts/Extroverts, for example, is one category.

This may be easier illustrated than explained so lets go on a field trip… Personality types can be deciphered by filling out what’s called a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire and then assessed by a professional or – thanks to the web – in a totally unprofessional manner by dweebs like me. You can do your own MBTI test here. I’ve been assessed by a professional and also taken the preceding test and they both yielded the same result, so props to the online test. But don’t take my word for it. Once you’ve got your four letter MBTI results code head on over to this site to read your profile – they use the term “temperaments” rather than personalities.

It’s like reading an autobiography you don’t remember writing.

If you learn a little more about the MBTI letter codes then you may find yourself quickly becoming obsessed with mentally diagnosing your friends and family members. But if you can get past that for a moment you may just realize the value of this theory as a source of character development.

Creating a character is all about creating (or recreating) a psychology. At least that’s the way I look at it. To make a character believable, their personality has to make sense as it guides their behaviour. An audience can detect if it does not. Measuring out that personality to get there can be like trying to put together Frankenstein’s monster. Well this MBTI stuff, is like a blue print to every character you’re ever going to write.

Again, way too much information for one little blog post but stuff worth sharing. Go now. Be amazed.

Got an email recently asking me about copyrighting work so I thought I’d answer it here.

Basically the question was do I copyright my scripts to protect myself. As this is really a legal question, you can imagine how many different ways there are to answer this. Moreover, as copyright laws differ from nation to nation things only get more complicated the more questions you ask. But the short answer is yes, I protect myself.

I’m going to state some things now but lets bear in mind that I’m just a schmuck and nothing beats consulting a professional entertainment lawyer (as I’ve stated previously) in your country.

The fact is, purely upon creating a work, you also create and own that copyright. No forms to fill out, no governing bodies to register with, you are the copyright holder of that work (unless you’re under contract that says otherwise). The real issue with regard to that copyright is being able to prove that you are the original creator of the work.

The easiest way to legally make this claim (in Canada) is to register your work with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. There’s a fee and you receive a pretty little paper that has your name on it. When I was a teenager my friends and I used to print t-shirts. For kicks, or maybe delusions of grandeur, I saved up my allowance and registered my favourite t-shirt design with the copyright office. Even then I couldn’t understand how they could issue a certificate for the copyright without ever seeing the work… Amazingly – or perhaps not, given the bureaucratic nature of government – this practice hasn’t changed. When you register a work with the CIPO, all they ask for is a title. None the less, this is still the most legal of legal documents proving your ownership of the work.

Next up, the guilds. This type of registration makes a little more sense to me because both the Writers Guild of Canada and of America both allow you to submit and will store your script for the duration of the registration period. What’s that? The registration period? Ah, there’s the rub. The WGC and the WGA both only honour your registration for five years. A good chunk of time if you’re actively out hustling a project, but it’s no lifetime protection. Both guilds have online registration forms. I register with the WGA West because it’s half the cost ($20 USD) of the WGC (sorry WGC, but c’mon).

As mentioned above, you own your work’s copyright simply by having created it; the real issue is protection. What you need is evidence that you created the work so that if it is stolen (which sucks by the way, believe me) and it ever comes before a judge you can prove the work was yours first. So as a failsafe for every script I still practice the age old mail-it-to-yourself trick. You take a hard copy of your work, you seal it in an envelope and you send it through the mail to yourself. What’s important here is the date that will appear on the postmark and that the envelope stays sealed so that if and when it is ever opened, it is done so by the judge.

That said, I’ve never heard of anybody actually ever having to fall back on this method. The reason for this is probably that, according to a lawyer I once spoke to, only 2% of copyright claim cases ever get as far as a trial that would ever involve a judge. Most are settled out of court.

So that’s copyrighting from your side of things. I’ll need to do an entirely new post at some point on the basics of what to look out for when signing documents that involve your copyright. That’s where the real fun begins.

The horrible, horrible fun.

When I was a kid – I don’t know, ten or something – I was family bound to a cottage in Northern Ontario for a day. The cottage was on a lake and I was apparently into fishing at the time. I sat myself down on a rock on the shoreline and began fishing. The memory is hazy. I don’t quite remember if I’d been told about an elusive pike just off shore or if by process of sitting there and getting strike upon strike on my line I’d created the mythology myself. There was, however, this pike prowling the waters off shore with whom I became locked in a mortal battle. I’d snagged and lost him a dozen times. He’d claimed at least two of my lures – the tree branches above my head had claimed a third. Each time he struck, he escaped. And each time he struck, I got better at reacting to his attacks, drawing him in. I sat there all day. Alone. I sat there through a rain storm. Fish on, fish off for hours. Night was coming. My family was fixing to leave when I finally reeled him in, landed him… Didn’t have a clue what to do with him.

His face was bruised. I don’t know if fish bruise but I swear his face was bruised from where I’d dragged him over the rocks over and over again. I held him up so that someone could take a picture of us. They told me to wait while they killed and cleaned him so that I could take the fillets with me. Kill him? This worthy adversary? In my daylong battle this ultimate outcome had never even occurred to me. Nor even that there would inevitably be an outcome one way or the other.

We let him go. I let him go.

Patience is a funny thing. I’m a big believer in the notion that a every day you wish away is a day closer to your death. So I don’t wish away my days. On the other hand, I am patient. And patience, by definition, dissolves away time. Finding harmony in both philosophies is a careful balancing act.

I let a big fish go this week in order to pursue another. A big fish that’s put up a good fight and that I’ve never quite landed. With enough patience and yet without wishing away those days in between, maybe someday I’ll find myself back on that shore, back on that rock, pursuing that worthy adversary once more.

I like names. Specifically the etymology of names. Maybe it’s name envy. Perhaps being someone saddled with a given name that is derived from the profession of laying roof shingles or tiles is responsible for this.

For this reason I usually have a hard time labeling a character that I’m creating without attaching some form of significance to their name. Ironically I usually hate it when writer’s do this because if I can quickly root the etymology of a character’s name while I’m reading or watching the story unfold, it usually pulls me right out of the action. That said, I can’t really help myself. I think I’d rather have an audience snicker at a metaphorical name than be bored by another hackneyed hero named Jack.

One of my favourite resources for researching names is website BehindTheName.com. I can spend hours there.

On a particularly trying (self-imposed) assignment, I was looking to name a husband and wife couple for a script I was writing. The thematic nature of the script teamed with the roles of these principal characters had me looking for monikers that would signify that these two were hosts, proprietors, stewards of a home which served as the main set piece of the story. That led me to my first name, Stewart, a derivation of steward. For my female lead I found a name that embodies the mistress of a house, Marta, which led me to its English derivation, Martha. Perfect names for my domestic couple.

However, my own domestic partner was no more than ten pages into the script when she chuckled uncertainly and called out to me, “Martha Stewart? Is that supposed to be a joke?”

Yup. Wrote ninety pages without realizing it. Fortunately this was an easy fix but none the less left me feeling a little silly. Names are fun, but there are obviously some perils if you’re not being careful.

Now… Is anybody else more than a little struck by the fact that domesticity guru Martha Stewart‘s name actually echos her professional calling as perfectly as if it had been written for the screen? Could I be wrong about this whole entertainment thing? Maybe there’s a roof out there not getting tiled because I’ve been deluding myself!

Nearly eleven years ago I launched Boneland.com and this year it may have to shut down forever… Unless, you can think of another solution?

In its heyday, Boneland was my raison d’être. The bullhorn through which I broadcast my whims and the source of my fortune – and lets not mince about; back in the day the web was a printing press for money.

Then came the pop. The fizzle. The return to reality.

I boarded up the Boneland homestead and launched a new pursuit, a new career. I fully expected to watch Boneland.com succumb to the fate of all things left untended. To become outdated, overgrown, derelict… Forgotten. At least, however, it would always be there.

But lo!

A decade has passed and Boneland.com’s traffic remains incredibly strong. Barring a couple ill advised attempts at resurrection the site has not received any new content for years yet still the people come. In 2010, the site saw an average of eight to ten thousand unique visitors a day; an average of 11,000 page views.

Why, Tyler, you must be living like a king after all these years of steady traffic visiting your ad supported website that you alone own and operate!

You’d think that wouldn’t you…

Sadly however, Boneland’s revenue stream has been on decline for as long as its content has remained strong. This has been unfortunate for many years, but expected, so I wasn’t crying in my beer over it. But recently the unfortunate has turned into an actual cause for concern. For a long while now, Boneland has only been breaking even where its hosting costs are concerned. And 2010 saw the site finally fall into the red. You see, Boneland has always run into a rather unique problem: Too much traffic to be welcome on an affordable shared server and too little revenue to occupy a dedicated server.

A little technical for the uninitiated but sufficed to say, without more revenue to keep the lights on Boneland.com may very well have to shut down despite an audience of thousands of people a day.

I recently asked my primary ad broker how I could improve upon this situation. I was told I could add more ads to the site. Brilliant. That’s why Boneland.com now looks – design wise – like a pile of garbage (have your pop up blockers armed and ready). Unfortunately even this abominable solution isn’t really cutting it, which is why I have turned to you, world.

What can be done about Boneland.com?

I’m open to suggestions – and, I’ll just put this out there – if you’ve got something, say a YouTube video you want rocketed into rev-sharing numbers within a week in a completely legitimate way, I’ve got a homepage for rent.

Get in touch if you have any ideas. Oh, and happy 2011! It’s going to be a special one, can you feel it?