The Amazing Ozmatron

My good friend Jericho Matt Bloom has been working on a little online Oz project on the side of his upcoming book, Nonestica: Rise of the Witches. This project is an online search engine of all of L. Frank Baum's Oz books and (soon) related public domain works. He calls it... The Ozmatron!

Right now, all 14 of Baum's Oz novels are available and searchable. In addition, you can read each book chapter by chapter, thus making this already a great database of the Oz texts.

Upcoming features...

• Oz-related texts indexed and added (The Little Wizard Stories, Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, Queen Zixi of Ix, etc.)

• Complete sets of illustrations included in the texts with image searching available (The complete illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Ozma of Oz are already available for viewing at Bloom's mainsite Nonestica.com, under the "Classic Oz" tab)

• There will be links to download the books in PDF files hosted by Archive.org

With this being said, get ready to add one of the great new Oz reference sites to your bookmarks or favorites!

Great O.Z. Videos!

Hey, it's been awhile since I've done an entry in "Great Oz Videos," so here's a new one. This time, these are fan-made music videos using clips from the Sci Fi Channel's Tin Man mini-series, which premiered last month (lots of people either taped it, or got ahold of video files through file sharing...), and will be released on DVD March 11.

Oh, and I'm trying this little thing out... Now you can navigate to which video you want to see in one embedded player. I'm putting in a list below.



We kick off with two fan-made music videos for Breaking Benjamin's "Home," which is a great song! (Nice videos, too.)

Then, everyone thinks there should have been a romantic subplot with DG and one of her human companions. First off, we have a music video dedicated to DG and Glitch, set to Imogen Heap's "Breathe In." Then, there's one for DG and Tin Man Wyatt Cain, set to "Saving Me" by Nickelback.

Finally, we have two more humorous videos. One is a video set to the famous "Numa Numa" song, made famous by some chubby guy named Gary doing a lip-synch. Then, we have a video that gets really funny: "Popular" from Wicked, except instead of female characters singing it, we have Glitch instead of Galinda, and Wyatt Cain instead of Elphaba... I was laughing...

My Take On Thompson

Out of the Famous Forty Oz books, I've only read Baum's fourteen and two of Thompson's. I have nothing against the other authors, I've either not gotten around to reading them, or the author has struck me the wrong way.

In the case of Ruth Plumly Thompson, I have been unable to really enjoy her Oz books. Let me shed some light on her background history...

Thompson was a writer for magazines and newspapers, churning out many short stories and poems for children. After L. Frank Baum's death in 1919, she was selected by Reilly & Lee, the publishers of the Oz books, to continue the Oz books. The choice was also approved by Maud Baum, L. Frank Baum's widow. She took the job, mainly to support herself and her invalid sister.

Thompson turned out 19 Oz books between 1921 and 1939, when she eventually ran out of ideas. However, she wrote a few new Oz books later, now published by The International Wizard of Oz Club.

Thompson's books have been both loved and scorned by Oz fans. There are are several reasons why.

Baum's original vision was not shared by Thompson. Baum envsioned a truly American fairyland, with few resemblances to the traditional European fairy tale. Thompson swerved more to the more traditional tale. Her Oz is full of miniature kingdoms with traditional princes, princess, witches, sorcerors, and boy heroes.

Thompson's writing style is more fitted to her fantasy work for the magazines and newspapers. Baum, on the other hand, could write in a variety of tones and styles.

Thompson was writing about something she'd read about. Baum created Oz.

With that being said, I think Thompson deserves less flack than her work has gotten recently. I do not consider her a hack, just not the best choice to continue the Oz books.

After all, you have to admit, others have done worse.

The Wonders of Oz Episode 7

At last! I got it up! Yay! You'll notice that I didn't mention that there are alterations in Volkov. If people are interested, let them look up the information on Volkov themselves and discover it, so they have the enjoyment of discovering it on their own... You can't expect a YouTube video limited to 10 minutes to cover it all...

A few announcements

Okay, haven't blogged in awhile. Been busy. I've been doing more screenwriting, working on Wonders 7, and set up an Oz fan fiction forum.

The screenwriting, I can't talk too much about. But if this movie gets made, you'll be in for a treat.

Wonders 7 has progessed slowly. TOO slowly. You see, when you see a video that I ripped from a DVD in an episode of "Wonders," I ripped it to an AVI video file encoded with DivX. I use Windows Movie Maker (2.1, if you're interested) to edit the videos and well... Windows Movie Maker hates DivX! Supposedly my computer lacks proper memory to use DivX videos in Movie Maker, and the project file was taking 1 to 2 hours to load, and then the program would crash in five minutes! I have found a semi-solution, and hopefully I can get it done soon. However, when we get to Wonders 8, chances are, I may be using some new, more DivX-friendly software...

Tuesday, I had the idea of setting up an Oz fan fiction site, and eventually decided it'd be easiest if I set up a forum. I mentioned this to Matt Bloom, who I contact frequently, and he had a domain and server I could use! He installed the forum software to the site, and gave me the login info so I could start administering on the forum. Due to the already set-in-stone domain name, I had to name the Forum The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Fan Fiction Forum. Here is the link:

www.wonderfulwizardofoz.net

There's a section for every type of Oz fan fic you could think of, and all are welcome! Plus, there's now a forum just for chit-chat. It's awesome!

So, go and register and have fun! (Just read the Terms of Use before posting. They're not too restrictive, but I'd appreciate it.)

Why Wonders Is Exclusive To YouTube

Over my time as a YouTuber, I have been asked to post my videos elsewhere. No, YouTube hasn't warned me about content, it's that some people have accounts on multiple video hosting site.

Well, given some recent developments, I'm not going to. Here's why.

I recently discovered that Cory Williams ("Mr. Safety" of SMPFilms) removed almost all of his original music videos (comprised of original footage he filmed and songs he wrote and recorded) from his YouTube Channel, due to "copyright infringement" notice by Viacom, owners of the other popular video hosting site, IFilm.

It seems that Cory posted some (if not all) of his videos to IFilm as well. Apparently, IFilm claims exclusive copyright to submitted content. In my opinion, that's wrong: it should remain the intellectual property of the creator, who recieves no payment for the broadcast of their work. (In Cory's case, he is a YouTube partner, one of a select group who attracts people to YouTube with their videos, and recieves some of the revenue YouTube earns with the advertising.) So, when they found it on YouTube, they claimed that Cory had infringed their copyright...

So, that's why I stick with YouTube... And YouTube only...

Because I don't want some corporation telling me that I can't use my own work how I'd like.

Contact Information

E-MAIL

I prefer that Oz fans e-mail me at scarecrowandtinman2002@yahoo.com

INSTANT MESSAGING
I do Instant Messaging with a program called Pidgin, which can connect to most instant messaging services. I'm online often, but not all of the time.

I have four accounts open for Oz fans, ever want to chat, give me a holler:
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM): jaredd1986@aol.com
Google Talk/Jabber/XMPP: youtuber86@gmail.com



I am also on Skype, and my Yahoo address is the one I have connected to my account. If you want to connect with me that way, please e-mail me to arrange a time.


Privacy
Everyone's contact information that I have stays with me. I do not share contact information with anyone without consent.

AUTHORS AND CREATORS OF MATERIAL THAT MAY BE REVIEWED
If I review a book or other media created by you, the statements in my review reflect my own opinions from the first exposure to your work. All reviews will be unbiased, except in the case of series, where the logical comparison to previous entries will apply. Any quotes or use of images are used under the terms of Fair Use.

If I am asked to review your work, this does not promise a positive review. You, as the author or creator, must accept what review I write. I reserve the right to remove the review with or without notice to you.

Copyright owners
Embedded videos, unless otherwise noted, are not hosted or uploaded by me. If I have used a copyrighted image, I have done so under Fair Use. If you feel your rights are being violated here, please contact me. I do not support copyright infringement, and any infringing material I may be displaying here will be removed promptly after receiving your notice.

My blog URL... what it means

Okay, probably some of you have wondered what my blog's URL means. I mean, newwwoz? What on earth?

Well, those who have been following my blog for a LONG time, you will know the blog was originally about my scripting of a new film series based on Baum's Oz books. (Yes, I am still doing this, but screenwriting is not quite is as easy as you'd think. There is plenty of re-writing and revising involved. Plus, if I can get these sold, the less revealed to the public, the better. So, anything I posted from my script, it's not there anymore.)

The newwwoz meant "New Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Well, blog entries were going about the rate of molasses through a pin hole, so I decided to expand the scope of the blog, and change the name. I didn't change the URL though. I didn't want anyone who had linked to my blog, or any links I'd posted, to break. So I left it.

And now, over 150 posts later, I've finally figured out what it could mean.

"New Web Wizard of Oz"

I guess I deserve that, at least...

See you around.

New Year's Resozlutions

2008 is upon us at last. We are nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century. And with every year, I intend to make some changes in my life (though... the very personal ones I try to do ALL of the time, not just make a goal to work on in the next year), and some of these affect my involvement in the Oz community...

• Get a new, better-paying job with more flexible hours. I may be on the verge of this... wish me luck! This would allow me more time on my Oz projects.
• Finish The Wonders of Oz. This should work out... There are 7 more planned episodes!
• Go to an Oz Convention... if the job-thing works out. We'll see... I'd prefer to go to Winkies. Hmm... Maybe as a late birthday present to myself?
• Re-design and re-launch my Oz website. Already working on it...
• Contribute to The Baum Bugle. Already contributed something, but it's just a news item. (Don't keep your eyes peeled to see what it is... Believe me, if you've been reading this blog entry so far, you already know.)
• Get the Oz screenplay pitched. Oh... yeah...
• Follow up on e-mails better. I usually do this, but there are some I've let slip through. There is a reason for it, though. Someone will e-mail a question, I'll answer, and suddenly I am expected to begin a long correspondence of e-mail. I do correspond with a few people, but these are collaborators: I am working on something with them. I don't mind answering questions, but I can't keep up a pen-pal. (Or key-pal.) By the way, for anyone who has not recieved mail from me, I just did not wish to continue the correspondence like that. It's nothing personal, I just don't do it.