September 17, 2016

My name is Leonard Wilson, and Welcome to my little corner of the net, Days Without Incident.

I’ve been writing about movies for a while now. Just simple stuff, really.  About 5 years ago, I joined Through the Shattered Lens, an entertainment review site with some very talented writers. I’ve shared some thoughts on films and learned quite a bit in the process. I’m having a fantastic time there, but I also ran into two problems:

1.) A number of people ask where they could find me online, and though I always make the Lens that point of reference, I get this question:

“Yeah, that’s great and all, but what if I’m looking for just you?”, to which I give them my Author page on that site.

Easily fixable – make a site of my own. I’ve seen some of the other Lens writers do it, and a number of professional film critics have personal pages too.

2.) A wild thing happened around my 2nd year – my “popularity” boomed. Well, it boomed as much I would allow it. I networked, talked to various other critics and reviews and even met a few in person, which was awesome. My Twitter, which was made of up of the 15 to 30 friends I knew from sites like Vox and ones I knew from before then, suddenly shot up to about 500 over time. It’s small scale compared to many of the major players in writing, but it’s a much larger audience than I was used to. Articles I wrote were being shared amongst co-workers at my Day job, and even my boss has complimented me on my writing (which has also lead to other opportunities). Before the end of any given week, I’d find myself faced with at least one person asking what was the next movie coming out and what I thought about it. Add to this the thousands of readers on The Shattered Lens, and I freaked out.

My writing output slowed to a near halt.

Some people are discouraged by negative feedback. I’m someone who practically stopped writing because people liked what I created.

Days Without Incident has been in existence since October of 2015.

So, what is this all about?

I had this dream one night.

I was standing on the Concession stand line at a fictional movie theatre, waiting to receive my refreshments when I noticed a sign that read “We have had 5 Days Without Incident. Please make wise film choices.” Receiving my popcorn, I smiled and bought the sign to the cashier’s attention.

“Hey, What constitutes an Incident?” I asked.

The fellow, who happened to look like my little brother, chuckled at the sign.

“Have you ever watched a movie so bad, you wanted to walk out of it? So bad that you’d rather not tell anyone you saw it, out of the fear of being known as ‘That person who actually paid to see that crappy film.”?

“Yeah, I can come up with a few, actually.” I said.

“Well, there you go.” The concession stand attendant replied and smiled. “Every extremely bad film is labelled an Incident and we bring the counter back to Zero.”

As luck would have it, a young couple approached the nearest ticket taker, visibly upset.

“I’d like to speak to your Manager. I demand a refund! This movie was so bad, my love clawed their eyes out!! Help me, Please!” the moviegoer barked, waving her ticket. Her partner’s face was pointed towards the sky with blood running from their eyes. Within minutes, I caught sight of the Manager as they walked over to the couple, with a medical crew.

“Damn. We were on such a run, too.” The concession stand attendant said. “Oh, well, back to zero, I guess.” He added before walking off.

That’s basically how this site works. If I find a film that’s particularly bad, it’s labeled an “Incident”. If not, it’s just a review.