This is what I’m talking about my darlings, Joshuah Bearman, an ingenious journalist and author, is riding that fine line between the magic box (and by that I mean your computer) and the magic screen… AND, he is distributing his stories digital first. I love it.
By Daniel Miller for the Los Angeles Times – California, national and world news – latimes.com.
July 16, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
Last year’s “Argo” landed producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov the Oscar for best picture, cemented Ben Affleck’s reputation as an A-list director and filled distributor Warner Bros.’ coffers with proceeds from a $232-million worldwide gross.
The movie also had a major effect on Joshuah Bearman, the Echo Park-based journalist whose 2007 Wired magazine story was the basis for the film.
It led him to think about storytelling in a different way — and to go entrepreneurial with his latest project, a tale of San Diego drug smugglers…
On Thursday, a 25,000-word version of “Coronado High” was released by the Atavist, a digital publisher of long-form journalism. The Brooklyn, N.Y., company is selling the story as an e-book single and on its website, where it is augmented with audio and video elements.
“It’s thinking about a story being able to serve different purposes,” said the lanky, bearded Bearman, 41, nursing a beer on the patio of a Silver Lake restaurant. “I started seeing, once ‘Argo’ was optioned, how nonfiction and print narratives can be appealing to Hollywood and find a different or bigger audience — and, in the case of ‘Argo,’ an audience beyond my expectation.”
Coronado High | Atavist – Where Stories Begin. ($2.99 my angels, considerably less than a movie ticket!)