Author: Kevin A. Ranson

Film Critic & Horror Writer. Heeding a macabre calling listening to “Mother Ghost Nursery Rhymes” in kindergarten, Kevin A. Ranson wrote in grade school and filled countless notebooks with story ideas while touring the Mediterranean in the US Navy. Author of The Spooky Chronicles, the thriller series The Matriarch Vampires, and critic for MovieCrypt.com as host Grim D. Reaper #grmdrpr. Sith master of Google-Fu, Bing-Jitsu, and buttered toast (you want some toast?)

Anti-Bullying Campaigns Are Useless

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, Existentialism, PhysicalityLeave a comment

I was born in September. My parents divorced when I was in the third grade. I had hay fever as a child. I started wearing glasses in junior high.

Oh, and I was bullied, too.

When I started kindergarten, I was only four years old. Since I was judged intellectually competent to start school early, I didn’t have to wait until I turned five a year later. Had I waited, I would have been physically ahead of my classmates in the same grade, but it didn’t work out that way. This, too, wouldn’t have been an issue by itself since I started school with everyone at the same time, but there’s more.

My parents got a divorce when I was in the third grade. My mother won custody and moved us to a new town without a dad. At some point, the local county school system decided that I needed “special disciplinary instruction” because I might have somehow been traumatized by the divorce. My new third grade teacher was “certified” (I found out later she was “certifiable”) to help in these areas, and so I was placed in her class. As an outgoing and encouraged child, I performed as I always had done and did things the way we did them in my old school. Yet now the teacher publicly called me out on every mistake (which I can only assume was to alter my behavior through peer pressure) and on things I didn’t even know were wrong, even yelling at me sometimes in front of all the students who had just met me. It didn’t take the bullies long to figure out the teacher had decided I was a problemed youth (even though she had created the situation), and as a result, I socially withdrew to stay out of trouble. Like sharks that turn on one of their own when they noticed it’s wounded, the mob mentality is you’re either with us or with them (and no one wants to be “them”), so the feeding frenzy began.

Next slide, please.

Continue reading “Anti-Bullying Campaigns Are Useless” →

Create Awesome Online Content for Fun and.. Wait, What?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, Creativity, Hollywood, Internet5 Comments

It’s come to my attention that many online outlets are feeling their share (and maybe more) of the financial crisis. Before getting into all of that, let’s take an unscientific yet completely random poll: how many people out there enjoy web content for free? Music, videos, ebooks, reviews, articles, news, how-to blogs, and whatever else? The follow-up question is, would you watch or participate if you could only do so by paying to get it?

With the exception of The Guild, Ask a Ninja, or perhaps videos made by Key of Awesome, how many of you think the makers of that content make money? Enough to live on? If you go to a night club to see a local band, a cover charge is expected, or at least a two-drink minimum. Web content, however, is so plentiful that people expect it to be free; if they have to pay, they can always go someplace else. The counterpoint to this, however, is “What is being sold?” If the content is being created to gain eyeballs, how does that translate in making money for time spent and the creativity that went into it? We’re not even talking about the material costs of props, photography or video equipment, or travel expense; the people who create these things have experience and give their time, so shouldn’t that be worth something?

Continue reading “Create Awesome Online Content for Fun and.. Wait, What?” →

Now Officially Plugged In

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Acquaintances, ConspiraciesLeave a comment

My old college buddy Greg commented on a Facebook post I made recently when I mentioned being a guest at Ancient City Con in Jacksonville, Florida. His exact words were “Why would you be a guest at a con? Are you exaggerating about something?”

In an official response to that, I’d like to invite Greg (and everyone else) to check out my profile on Officially Plugged In. It’s a site that helps distinguish who real people are online and their credentials, and I wouldn’t want you to mistake me for anyone else, Greg.

Trilogies and Bay-bashing

On By Kevin A. RansonIn HollywoodLeave a comment

The first Transformers movie was passable. The second was a mess. I do not have high hopes for the third except in the area of state-of-the-art special effects. As always, I hope I’m wrong, but there it is.

Now, before anyone nails my foot to the floor for generalized Bay-bashing, I’d like to go on record that I actually defend many of his films such as Bad Boys II, Armageddon, and The Rock. Even The Island wasn’t horrible, but I think Jerry Bruckheimer kept Michael Bay in check far better than Steven Spielberg has. Budget limitations and being forced to use smaller brushstrokes in filmmaking appear to, in my opinion, yield a far better result for a final product than having an unlimited budget and a infinite blank canvas (mostly).

If It’s Written Too Quickly, It Can’t Be Good, Right?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Creativity, RoleplayingLeave a comment

To those coming down on people who can turn out the written word very quickly, don’t be too quick to judge or be jealous. Writers on television shows often crank out between six and twenty-four episodes a year (some are even watchable!) from script to screen; why is it so hard to imagine that any writer couldn’t do the same? Here’s where we’re going with this (from my post on a thread over at Dark Media City).

Besides the thirteen-plus years I’ve spent honing a narrative voice writing reviews as a film critic, the series I myself am working on right now was born of a tabletop role-playing game that created the seed of a larger idea. It was far-fetched overall, but having a large yet fuzzy canvas to start with, it was simpler to weed out what made no sense and distill a huge mural into a firm, focused Polaroid of an idea that lent itself to creating plot. With the main character and his world years in the making and an over-arcing story in place, writing the first book felt more freeing than like actual work: the initial draft poured out of me in a week. When I went to work on the second one, it took four days. Keep in mind that these are 7k-10k stories more the length and feel of a television show than a feature-length film.

What I think I’m trying to say is (after that ramble) that the actual writing didn’t take so long as the time it took to prepare to do it. As I continue now writing and tweaking plot outlines to help keep facts straight and ensure a comfortable flow, I can’t wait to write the next one because I LOVE having that feeling. My only other hope is to find an audience for it that appreciates my creation as much as I have creating it, but fulfillment in its realization (after all this time) is already mine.

Read “Crypt of the Crystal Lich” Inside “Savage Insider!”

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Cemetery, Conspiracies, CreativityLeave a comment

Savage Insider asked me to write them a four-part serial, so I did! Savage Insider is an all-around eZine with adventure seeds in multiple genres and highlights of licensee companies. The price is free, and it will be available in PDF download form via DriveThruRPG. Check out “Crypt of the Crystal Lich, Part 1: Birds of a Feather” inside! http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=92629

Spooky: the Dead Little Boy Who Continued to Grow Up

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Creativity, ParanormalLeave a comment

On sale now for one measly dollar ($1.00) at horror.drivethrustuff.com for your PDF reader or iBooks.

At the age of six, the pale little boy became ill, and although he was already small and thin, he grew smaller and thinner still. His skin turned a pallid gray, but the smile never left his face and his mother never left his side. When he turned seven, the tumor in his chest finally overtook his heart, and he died.

It is whispered that everyone dies alone. But the pale little boy wasn’t alone when he died, and on the other side, he met a crooked man with a crooked stick who pointed at the dead little boy with a crooked finger. The dead little boy opened his eyes only to find those of his mother closed. Somehow he knew that his mother had taken his place and that the crooked man had caused it; what he didn’t know was why.

The Checkout Gauntlet of Temptation

On By Kevin A. RansonIn ConspiraciesLeave a comment

Everyone knows by now that grocery stores are laid out to tempt you. Even if you come in for a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter, all these things are usually in the back of the store, meaning the least you can do is choose which isle of temptation you’re going to walk down and back again with the one or two things you promised yourself that you’d only buy. Waiting at the register, there are plenty of cheap impulse buys within easy reach (ask any two-year old), but that’s nothing like the higher-priced items on an actual store-long isle.

Now, however, some electronics retailers (Best Buy, Frys Electronics) have come up with something far more insidious. Instead of several lines of registers to choose from (assuming they’re open, Walmart), everyone is herded into one line where they wait for or are directed to the next register. But to get to the end of that line, you must brave “the checkout gauntlet of temptation,” a narrow row of shelves brimming with accessories, gadgets, batteries, magazines, movies, toys, and other items far more costly than a mere bag of chips or pack of gum (and those are there, too, of course.) You can’t move to another line; all who enter and wish to purchase must pass the same way.

What’s next? Minimum purchases? And don’t think you can escape online. Just ask anyone who’s tried to complete a Vista Print purchase.