#the shit us writers go through we should be paid 1 million dollars every time This happens

[uomo-accattivante]

(Photo by BACKGRID)

SCREENPLAY REVIEW - TRIPLE FRONTIER

Below is a review I recently came across. (I’m not sure if this version is the updated one which includes input by JC Chandor.) 

Pope - Oscar Isaac

Redfly - Ben Affleck

Ben - Garrett Hedlund

Ironhead - Charlie Hunnam

Catfish - Pedro Pascal

Be forewarned - the following review contains SPOILERS:

***

Screenplay Review - Triple Frontier

Genre: Crime/Action

Premise: A group of ex-special forces come together to steal 90 million dollars from a drug lord in the most criminally potent area of the world, the Triple Frontier.

About: Triple Frontier is one of those projects that’s been impossible to get made. It’s had more starts and stops than my neighbor’s 1999 Volkswagon Jetta. But no matter how much talent has come and gone, the project has always been able to replace them with either equal or better talent. That’s typically the sign of great material. That’s because when you have bad material and A-listers drop out, you never get any A-listers back. Your project is doomed to second-tier status. Well, all that waiting has paid off as the film is now in post-production. It stars Charlie Hunman, Oscar Isaac, and Ben Affleck. J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, A Most Violent Year) directed. Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) wrote the script.

Writer: Mark Boal

Details: 136 pages

The heist is one of the most bankable structures in storytelling. Get a group of contrasting characters together (Act 1), give them something they want to steal (Act 3), then slowly build a plan for achieving their goal (Act 2). It’s almost full-proof. And yet, we don’t get a lot of good heist films. In fact, I can’t remember the last one I saw.

That’s because the heist film is one of the most difficult genres to come up with something fresh for. Most of the heist scripts I read involve stealing money from a bank. There just aren’t that many ways to make that premise original. So I was thrilled when I picked up Triple Frontier, which promised to be a new take on the heist genre. Let’s see if it succeeded.

Ex-Special Forces operator Pope has gotten tired of missions to remote parts of the world where he guides local police to take down giant drug dealers. It’s more death, more destruction, and he thought he left all that behind with the special forces. The problem is, a man needs to make a living. And these missions are the only thing Pope knows how to do that pay good money.

Then one day, a Brazilian drug runner discloses to Pope the location of one of the biggest drug runners in the world, Lorea. Lorea has a home in Paraguay right off the criminally infamous Triple Frontier (the nexus of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina), where he’s holding 90 million dollars. With Pope’s unique skillset, he believes he can break in the house and get that money. But he’s going to need some help.

Enter his ex special forces buddies: the all-American Redfly, the bipolar Ben, the wily old vet, Ironhead, and the cool-as-a-cucumber Catfish. Some of the men are reluctant and others reared up and ready to go. But in the end, because there wouldn’t be a movie unless they all signed up, they all sign up.

Once in the Triple Frontier, the group begins doing surveillance and planning. And when I say planning, I mean planning. Pope gets his hands on the blueprints for Lorea’s house and builds an EXACT REPLICA in the jungle so that they can practice the heist. But that’s only the beginning of this mission impossible, as they have to figure out shit like how five men can carry away 4500 pounds of money on foot, and how they can escape through a backyard that rings an alarm if anything over 20 pounds steps on it.

After extensively perfecting their plan, they wait out an unexpected rainstorm and sneak in. Everything goes according to plan until they arrive in the money room and… it’s gone. Not a single bill. Just as everyone starts freaking out, Pope notices that the ceiling is leaking. They moved the money during the storm so it wouldn’t get wet! But that means going through every room one by one to find it.

As you’d expect, this leads to them being spotted, and within seconds there are three dozen guards converging on them. The soldiers go into fuck-all mode and start shooting everyone. They know the gig is up. They know they should leave. But they’ve put so much effort into this that they must have that money. So after the money they go. Will they get it? I’m thinking they’ll find a way. But the real test may be what happens AFTER they get the money.

Uhhhh…

This. Was. Good.

Wow.

I’m talking really really good.

Where do I begin? Let’s start with the heist itself. What’s the number rule for writing a good heist film? It’s not what goes right, it’s what goes wrong. Your job, as a writer of a heist flick, is to have your criminals cover all the bases, make sure they’ve found contingencies for every situation, and then when they show up, something goes wrong. And that thing that goes wrong leads to several other things that go wrong. And quickly, the whole damn heist falls apart.

I LOVED when they arrived in the money room and the money wasn’t there. Even when my cynical screenwriting analyst brain kicked in and said, “Of course they were duped. That’s what always happens!” But then Pope looked up and saw the leaking and realized the money had been moved and I said, “oooooooh, that’s good.”

I loved how the script evolved from there. Because what I was expecting to happen is what always happened in these mid-point heist films (a script where the heist happens at the mid point instead of the third act): They get the money home but then the bad guys come and hunt them down.

Triple Frontier instead focuses on the complexity of getting this money out of the country. The special forces guys rent a helicopter, only to find out that the money (which has increased from 90 million to 600 million at this point) will be too heavy. But they decide to risk it anyway, and fly their copter through the endless South American mountain forest. When the mountains start getting too high, they have to make the unthinkable choice of dropping the money and living or keeping the money and likely spiraling into the most hostile terrain in the world.

That was one of the best scenes I’ve read this year, besting even the Mission Impossible Fallout helicopter chase. And I’ll tell you why. It wasn’t just a simple helicopter chase. Difficult choices needed to be made. They MIGHT have been able to make it through the mountains if they kept the money. But they likely wouldn’t have. How do you make that decision? The decision to throw away 600 million dollars?

But the script isn’t just the heist. Boal made the bold choice of using the entire first act to get the band back together. This is a controversial screenwriting choice because modern screenwriting outlets will tell you to move this section along as quickly as possible. A short burst of scenes that has the band back together and ready to go by page 10, page 15 at the latest. They’re afraid that if you include an entire opening act of characters reuniting and talking and establishing their jobs and lives, that the average audience member will get bored.

But the great thing that happens when you extend your character intros out that far is that we get to know the characters better. I mean, it’s simple math. The more time you spend with someone, fictional or real, the more you’re going to care about them. Therefore, when these guys flew off to the Triple Frontier, I felt like I knew each of them. The extra time really paid off.

Now there’s a caveat to this. You have to be good with character to pull it off. You have to know how to set up a flaw. You have to know how to make your characters unique. You have to give each character a defining personality that’s easy for the audience to understand so they can label him properly (Chris Kyle was the introspective sniper). Each character’s dialogue has to be unique and interesting. If character isn’t your strong suit, don’t spend an entire act getting the band back together.

The fact that this script has been sitting on the shelf for so long is insane. I’m guessing it’s because Ben Affleck has a million projects to do and he’s in rehab half the year and they had to wait for him. I’m just glad the wait is over. Cause this movie is going to be damn good.

[ ] What the hell did I just read? [ ] wasn’t for me [ ] worth the read [x] impressive [ ] genius

What I learned: Find a unique place in the world that isn’t well known and build a story around it. What makes Triple Frontier so good is that we’d never heard of the Triple Frontier before. It hasn’t been in any movie. It creates the all important “strange attractor” we can exploit for one hell of a heist film.

###

[hannahharrington]

CRYING IN EUROPE (postcards from italy)

I struggled with whether or not to post this; I still am, honestly, because it is very raw in every sense. This is something I wrote a year-minus-two-weeks-ago, holed up in an AirBNB in Rome, about losing my good friend Jaymee and the bizarreness of having the best and worst time of your life simultaneously. I did not look at it ever again until a few days ago. It wasn’t written to share with anyone, only because I needed to put thoughts down at the time. Any editing has been very minimal.

The last section I wrote yesterday.  

CRYING IN EUROPE (postcards from italy)

1. The first time is on the first day. I land at Heathrow only to find out the express train isn’t running because of the snowstorm and the tube is beyond fucked. I nearly cry out of frustration and jet lag exhaustion but I don’t. I end up emerging from Shepherd’s Bush Market half a mile from the hotel and have to drag my suitcase through blustery snow that whips me so hard in the face it makes tears leak out of the corners of my eyes.

2. The second time is the next morning, five minutes after I first find out you’re dead. I guess the first five minutes are a mix of me just having woken up, an hour before my alarm, still on New York time as I scroll idly through my phone messages only to see it blowing up with the news; and maybe shock can be used as an excuse, even though we all knew it was coming.

3. Over the Hilton London Kensington breakfast buffet for Hilton Honors Members. I’m telling Barry how I was supposed to see you before it happened. My voice cracks and eyes overflow with tears, and I’m apologizing and Barry is being so kind about it even though I can tell he’s not really sure what to do or say, which is okay because I don’t know either. It occurs to me later that in all the years we’ve known each other, this is the first time I’ve ever cried in front of him.

You said you were terminal, and released to home hospice care, and I told you I would fly to California if you wanted and read you mean celebrity blog comment sections, like how I did for you when you visited me in Brooklyn (I’ll never forget how we laughed until we cried like middle schoolers at a sleepover). I followed your lead in trying to blunt reality with a joke because that’s what you always did. The last thing you posted on any social media was a repost of our Facebook “Friendaversary”, saying how you were due for another one of my dramatic readings. I was going to buy a plane ticket when I got back from this trip. I was supposed to be there.

4. The first cigarette I smoke.

5. And the second, all while thinking about how terrible a person I am for smoking because you hated it and hated having cancer and hated that I would do something that could make me sick. You wanted me to stop, and if this were a movie I’d quit on the spot. But it isn’t and so instead I stand chain-smoking and hating myself.

6. In the shower.

7. We go see the Hamilton matinee hours after we find out, and it’s the cruelest twist of fate, experiencing this thing you loved so deeply and brought into my life and that we shared together. You’re the reason I saw it with everyone else at the matinee Obama attended. I lost the lottery, the lone one of all of us without a way in, and I was feeling a little sorry for myself and about to leave. I went to say goodbye to you, and immediately you pulled your Jaymee magic and got me a ticket at the literal last minute. And it really did feel like magic.

When you first saw it at the Public, I tried the lottery and lost, and I joked for you to go on without me, to die a million happy deaths. You said if I were being mugged and you were the only one who could save me, you’d still make me wait until after the show. I know if I skipped it you’d literally come back to life and kick my ass. But that doesn’t seem like a bad deal. I’d never see Hamilton again, I’d burn all of my playbills, even the one from the off-Broadway run I got signed by the original cast at the stage door. I’d tear the donut bag in half, the one we joked about being good luck, the one I had Lin-Manuel Miranda autograph. I’d do all of that if it gave me five more minutes with you.

I keep my shit together more or less until the second act. When Hamilton pleads to Washington with Why do we have to say goodbye?, I start crying and don’t stop until curtain call.

8. Right before I left on this trip, I threw together a playlist for my phone. The last song I added was Eva Cassidy’s cover of “Fields of Gold”, thinking it’d be pretty background soundtrack for train rides through lush, rolling Italian countryside. A year ago I went down one of my weird little Internet research rabbit holes and read all about Eva, her melanoma, how she died and her last performance, and wondered why there hadn’t been a movie made about that particular beautiful tragedy. After Hamilton I tell Barry I feel better, like it was an emotional release, but then the next afternoon we go to a pastry café and they play a jazz standard cover of “Fields of Gold” over the speakers and my chest seizes.

9. Friday night we’re supposed to meet up with Jen for dinner before she flies back to Philly. I’m sick to my stomach in the cab ride over to her hotel, and when we get to her room I drop my purse and hug her and don’t let go. That thing happens where I’m trying not to cry and it makes me cry harder and I can feel Jen crying too. We sit and Jen and Danielle talk about their travels and the whole time I feel on the verge of throwing up. Finally I say we need to talk about you, about what we’re going to do. Jen says June told her sometimes in Filipino culture they ask for donations for the family instead of flowers, so she’s not sure what’s preferred. I don’t know why I was expecting Jen to have more information, something to make me feel better, but nothing she tells me does. I take one of the Ativans my mom gave me for the plane ride because I can’t calm down. You said they gave you Ativan at the end. You said it helped. It helps me too.

I excuse myself from their room and get lost in the dimly lit maze of their hotel, until finally I find a side exit to the courtyard, and I light a cigarette and text my mom, who happens to be around. I try calling, but this stupid SIM card I got won’t let me connect to the US, so I wait until I’m back at the hotel and Barry is out at his show. The instructions to dial out don’t tell me the overseas rates, but I call my mom anyway, and spend twenty minutes on the phone with her sobbing like a child.

When we check out of the hotel, I’ll find out the call cost me over a hundred pounds, which probably with the obscene exchange rates approximates to three hundred dollars. I rationalize that’s what I would have paid out of pocket for an emergency therapy session anyway.

10. I find your aunt on Facebook and ask her what the family wants done. An hour later she messages me back to say flowers would be lovely. Your mother is beside herself with grief, she says. You were her best friend, she says.

It feels better to be doing something, to feel productive, so I make it my mission to organize the flowers for your memorial. The whole next day between sightseeing at Kensington Palace I’m looking up florists in San Mateo, figuring out who wants to contribute, making sure everyone is included. Bridget agrees to place the order. It’s midnight my time when I run downstairs for a smoke. Bridget and I are trading texts, trying to figure out what to write on the card. I’m not a writer, she says. You should do it, she says. I start crying because I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this. When I go to head back into the hotel, a British girl with blue hair sees me wiping at my eyes. She calls me love and asks if I’m okay. I’ve been in New York too long; my own public meltdowns don’t even embarrass me anymore. I’ve forgotten that the rest of the world doesn’t politely ignore you when you’re losing your shit on the sidewalk. I know how I must look, crying messily in my pajamas, walking around like an open wound just bleeding over everything.

I try to stop the tears long enough to assure her I’m fine, really, and when I stumble out the words that a friend of mine just passed away, she grabs me in a hug before the words finish getting out. She’s so nice that it makes me cry even more and I let her convince me to take the free cigarette she offers. She tells me she’s here with her gay husband and I joke through tears that I’m here with mine too. We stand and talk about Camden Market and the magic of New York at Christmastime, and when she’s satisfied I’m not a suicide risk she adds me as a friend on Facebook.

11. Things feel different in Venice. I start to feel like maybe I’ve hit the bottom of this, it’s only up from here, and even as I’m thinking it I know it’s delusional. I had the same feeling when my dad died, and I learned then that grief is not linear. There can be moments where it’s all temporarily bearable, only for a fresh wave of pain to knock you flat on your ass a minute later.

But for most of Venice I feel lighter, like the darkest clouds of the storm have passed. We get lost in the labyrinth of alleyways and eventually I duck into a Murano glass shop. Back in January when I went to Fort Myers, I took an Uber from the airport, and for the first time ever I had a woman driver. During the drive to the beach somehow the subject of this trip came up. I mentioned I’d be in Venice, and she told me how her day job was at an art gallery. They made jewelry from Murano glass, a Venetian technique. She made me promise to seek it out when I went.

The shop has all kinds of figurines, and in the back corner I discover these thimble-sized cows. Cows were your thing. Not just thing—borderline obsession. I still don’t know what it is about them you loved so much, but you did. When I was in Amsterdam I passed by an actual Cow Museum, snapped a photo of the storefront and sent it to you. You couldn’t believe I didn’t go inside. Now I’m here in Venice, looking at these little cows and thinking of you, and of course I have to get them. I scoop four of them into my palm and go to the cashier and whatever part of my heart that’s been healing over gets ripped open raw again. My throat burns too much for me to manage anything more than a cursory grazie as I watch him bundle them delicately in bubble wrap. It almost feels selfish to hurt this much, when there are people in this world who loved you longer and harder and better than I did. But I do.

12. In Florence Barry and I split up for the day. He runs off to the Duomo while I visit the Ambrogio market, the one the owner of our B&B tells me is for locals. I pick up random ingredients for my mother, whose burgeoning interest in the culinary arts still baffles me considering I subsisted on almost nothing but microwave dinners as a child, and two sweaters for myself. 

I’m back at our apartment-sized suite, arranging the packaged pasta and sun-dried tomatoes on the wooden table for an Instagram photo when I click some random button that takes me to my inbox.

There’s only one message in there and I realize it’s from you, from over two years ago. I click to see it’s a video taken in Marie’s Crisis. Some pitch perfect soprano sings bars from an unrecognizable show tune at the piano, and then you turn the camera to yourself, bobbing your head along with a coy smile. I can’t believe it. I click out accidentally and have to Google for instructions on how to find it again. The video is only fifteen seconds but I watch it ten times in a row and then put my head down on the table and cry until it hurts.

13. Bucket list items have a greater sense of urgency now than they used to. At the last minute I find a woman who agrees to take me to a horse farm in Tuscany. She meets me at the Piazza Cavalleggeri behind one of Florence’s countless gorgeous ancient basilicas and takes me to meet her business partner so he can drive. He’s an old guy who speaks zero English, and it becomes evident when he climbs into the driver’s seat that he has Tourette’s. Every ten seconds his tic makes him jerk the steering wheel so the whole car swerves. We lurch our way up narrow roads that wind up huge hills, endless greenery on all sides, the woman chattering happily about vineyards and olive trees as I brace myself in the backseat, positive the guy is going to tic us right into oncoming traffic and certain death. It rains on the way there, and the woman worries it’ll be too wet to ride, but sure enough we arrive and the sky clears up just long enough for me and two other American girls to go for an hour-long trek. It’s been ten years since I’ve been on a horse, and I’m nervous about it, but the second I’m in the saddle everything comes back to me. We ride through steep hills, surrounded by the kind of scenery that’s beyond picturesque. It’s so gorgeous it doesn’t look real, like an oil painting. For the first time in days I feel a weightless kind of happiness. I know as it’s happening that this is something I will remember for the rest of my life.

When the woman drops me back off in Florence, I trip over myself thanking her profusely, holding back tears because I don’t want to explain that that was maybe the most beautiful experience of my life and I’m so grateful that for three hours the Jaymee is dead, Jaymee is dead, Jaymee is dead track stopped spinning in my head.

14. Rome is a welcome change of pace. I like big, bustling, metropolitan cities; they make me feel comfortable. Safe. Even just through glimpses out the taxi window I can see Rome is bursting at the seams, vibrant and colorful and a startling clash of ancient and modern. Our driver asks where we’re from and I say New York. He laughs and tells us he doesn’t like America, but he likes New York.

On a tour of the Vatican museums, our guide shares all the juicy stories of how Raphael and Michelangelo loathed each other, and the illicit love between Antinous and Hadrian, and we marvel at the frescos on every wall and the breathtaking scope of the Sistine Chapel and the inside of St. Peter’s basilica.

I was skeptical as I always am of anything to do with organized religion, but you liked the new Pope. You thought he was progressive, refreshing. You’d joke all the time about your “Jesus problems”, how you struggled to reconcile your Catholicism with your personal politics.

Afterward Barry scurries off to scale the bell tower. I ask our guide if there’s anywhere in the basilica to light candles, like how you can do in St. Patrick’s. She tells me it’s not allowed—it’s too much of a hazard, especially after a crazy man declared himself the second coming of Jesus and attacked Michelangelo’s Pietà with a hammer, chipping off fifteen pieces in the mayhem, including Mary’s nose.

Instead of waiting for Barry outside in the square I retreat back into St. Peter’s, to the closed off chapel. The guard asks me if I will be praying. It forces me to confront what I’m really planning to do, and after a heartbeat of hesitation I stutter out a yes, slip through the parted curtains to the pews. I’ve never prayed in my life; I have no idea how to do it. I look to see how others around me kneel and try to imitate the stance, hands folded in front of me, knees against the padded rest. It all feels clumsy and awkward until suddenly it doesn’t. Suddenly I’m just crying. I watch my thick tears plop onto concrete and absently wonder how many people before me have spilled salt on these floors. Probably a lot.

I don’t know how to pray. In my head I’m just screaming please forgive me, and I don’t know if I’m saying it to God or to you. I guess I know now what Catholic guilt feels like.

I should’ve been there. I should’ve brought Schmackary’s cookies and the good luck donut bag and flown out to California and seen you. Why didn’t you tell me how bad it was? Why did you have to make your yes a joke? (A quip about doctor’s orders, it comes as no surprise you embraced the gallows humor.) Why couldn’t you be earnest? Why couldn’t just say I need you right now, I don’t have much time, please be here? Did you even know? Because I swear I didn’t. I thought I could wait. I thought you had more time. None of it fucking matters because I can’t forgive myself, not ever.

…And that’s it. That’s where I stopped writing. I didn’t cry on European soil again after that. Not because the last cry was cathartic or healing; it wasn’t. The healing would come later, long after my plane touched down again in New York. It happened in ways I can’t explain, slowly, until one day the thought of you didn’t automatically bring me to the brink of tears or knock the wind from me like a sucker punch to the gut, where the tenderness of loving memory ran parallel with the heartbreak rather than being subsumed by it. Eventually the day came where I could think of you and how you were and what we shared, not only of the ways I failed you. A year later and I still think of those too, sometimes. And there are still tears, sometimes.

I feel like I always had this idea that you go through The Worst Thing and life just evens out after that. My Worst Thing happened when I was in my teenage years and I was supposed to be in the clear afterwards. But life doesn’t work that way. There’s no plateau, no neat ever after. And every so often we break in ways where yes, you can scrape the pieces together and carry on, but you’re never made whole again. You’re never the person you used to be. You become a new version of yourself, mismatched and full of jagged lines, and you find a way to forge ahead.

In the immediate soul-crushing wake of the 2016 election, someone created a Subway Therapy project in the tunnel of the 14th Avenue station that stretches from Sixth to Seventh. I went to see it then, a modern day marvel: the long tiled wall papered with thousands of bright post-its, each full of encouragement and commiseration from fellow grief-sick New Yorkers. The sight was a life preserver in the sea of misery I’d floated in that entire week. I was not alone in the feeling, however singularly devastating it felt.

Countless others have been here. I am not the only one to have shed my tears on ancient chapel floors, unable to imagine I would ever feel okay again. Experts painstakingly restored the Pietà after the attack, but if you were to find your way behind the bulletproof glass and touch the Virgin Mary’s cheek, you would still feel hairline traces of their work, a difference of texture; if you were to peer close enough, you would see the faint lines on marble that belie its pristine repair. It was broken once. It could not be remade exactly as it was. It’s no less a masterpiece.

That day in the 14th Street station, I peeled off a blank post-it and wrote out an Abraham Lincoln quote I’d read once: Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better… And yet this is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again.

Time buffers out the rough edges. It is the only thing that does.

[andreagillmer]

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Source: Bob Moriarty for Streetwise Reports   05/31/2018

Bob Moriarty of 321 Gold finds parallels between “A Tale of Two Cities” and resource investing.

I’m told that is the most famous opening line of any book in English literature. It comes from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.”

The paragraph continues: “…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

The quote came to mind because I got two emails a short time ago. One from Keith Barron talking about a press release he put out today about his Lost Cities Project in Ecuador; the other announcing the closing of a $4 billion dollar financing of a blockchain company without a product.

My reaction was, “You gotta be shitting me.”

I am quite happy to suggest along with two others, I managed to pretty much nail the top of “Bitcon” and the “cliptocurrencies” in December. I’ll skip the false modesty and humility. People are usually humble for very real reasons. I’m not; I don’t do with false modesty. I called the top of the $800-billion dollar fraud perfectly correctly. It will be another 2–3 years before it hits bottom with 95% of the money flown off to Bitcon heaven. People pissing $4 billion down a cliptocurrency rat hole deserve everything they have coming and they will get it good and hard.

We are near a tradable low in the metals the same as we pretty much get every summer. Billions of dollars are pouring into the biggest financial fraud in world history yet very real resource stories are going begging. It will change soon.

Keith Barron began tracking the two Lost Cities of Gold almost 20 years ago, well before his discovery of Fruta del Norte. In 2017 Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU:TSX.V) picked up 42 mineral claims with 2080 square km in Ecuador that Keith believed would hold the homes of those two projects.

It’s a simple story. The Spanish had seven major gold mining districts in what is now Ecuador. They treated the natives poorly, the natives rose up and killed as many of the Spanish as possible and two cities or properties were deserted and eventually lost to time.

Ecuador went through some bad times when the government got stupid and literally held mining companies up for ransom. So they all left and there was an eight-year period where nothing happened in the country in mining.

While they are a lot smarter now and there are some wonderful results coming out of the country, their terms are stiff. Aurania just paid $2.5 million in concession fees and have a $1 million+ yearly exploration requirement that doubles in another year. But they own 100% of the 2,080 square km and Keith believes he has narrowed down the location of the two Lost Cities. From the data it appears he is on to something potentially giant.

I happen to be a big Keith Barron fan. He points out on a regular basis that I am not a PhD geologist and I point out, “so what?” I was buying shares when the company hadn’t even done the deal on the projects. I participated in the PP at $2 a year ago and paid $3 to exercise the warrants. I am a believer.

If you want to see the opposite of pissing billions of dollars down a cliptocurrency rat hole, go to Aurania’s web site and wander around. Keith Barron is one of the most knowledgeable and best writers in mining. In 2001 he wrote a series of educational articles about the basics of mining that every investor should read. Two years ago I formatted some of them into a book titled Straight Talk on Mining available on Amazon.

The Aurania team is busy doing the basic ground exploration work necessary prior to putting the Truth Detector (drill) to work in Q4 of 2018. I’ll cut to the chase here for my readers. He has found at least one major deposit. It will take drilling to prove it but if you look at the pictures and read the information you will begin to understand how I feel. This is the real deal and the shares are eventually going to go much higher.

The price for Aurania shares has been as high as $7.20 in January after someone put in a market order to buy and bounced the price from $3.20 after someone came out with a write up. The price settled to about $4.50, Keith accelerated the $3 warrants and got cashed up.

He will need to do a financing soon; it’s expensive keeping the government happy down there. It’s expensive enough that you aren’t going to see any of the Vancouver scams run by drillers or cab drivers operating in the country. Word has gotten out and people who want in the financing cheap are dumping shares to make the price go down. It’s part of the Vancouver/Toronto games.

I believe he has found exactly what he was looking for. It will take more work, more money and drilling but I think he is on to another big discovery. They have just put out an updated presentation. Take a look at it and you figure out if I am right.

Aurania is an advertiser. I bought shares in the open market, in the PP, exercised warrants and I’m back buying shares in the open market. I suspect $2 is pretty much going to be the floor for now. Do your own due diligence.

Aurania Resources ARU-V $2.00 (May 31, 2018) AUIAF-OTCQB 29.5 million shares Aurania Resources website.

Bob and Barb Moriarty brought 321gold.com to the Internet almost 16 years ago. They later added 321energy.com to cover oil, natural gas, gasoline, coal, solar, wind and nuclear energy. Both sites feature articles, editorial opinions, pricing figures and updates on current events affecting both sectors. Previously, Moriarty was a Marine F-4B and O-1 pilot with more than 832 missions in Vietnam. He holds 14 international aviation records.

Want to read more Gold Report articles like this? Sign up for our free e-newsletter, and you’ll learn when new articles have been published. To see a list of recent articles and interviews with industry analysts and commentators, visit our Streetwise Interviews page.

Disclosure: 1) Bob Moriarty: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Aurania Resources. Aurania Resources is an advertiser on 321 Gold. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector. 2) The following companies mentioned are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports’ terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

( Companies Mentioned: ARU:TSX.V, )

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[goldcoins0]

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Source: Bob Moriarty for Streetwise Reports   05/31/2018

Bob Moriarty of 321 Gold finds parallels between "A Tale of Two Cities" and resource investing.

I'm told that is the most famous opening line of any book in English literature. It comes from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities."

The paragraph continues: "…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

The quote came to mind because I got two emails a short time ago. One from Keith Barron talking about a press release he put out today about his Lost Cities Project in Ecuador; the other announcing the closing of a $4 billion dollar financing of a blockchain company without a product.

My reaction was, "You gotta be shitting me."

I am quite happy to suggest along with two others, I managed to pretty much nail the top of "Bitcon" and the "cliptocurrencies" in December. I'll skip the false modesty and humility. People are usually humble for very real reasons. I'm not; I don't do with false modesty. I called the top of the $800-billion dollar fraud perfectly correctly. It will be another 2–3 years before it hits bottom with 95% of the money flown off to Bitcon heaven. People pissing $4 billion down a cliptocurrency rat hole deserve everything they have coming and they will get it good and hard.

We are near a tradable low in the metals the same as we pretty much get every summer. Billions of dollars are pouring into the biggest financial fraud in world history yet very real resource stories are going begging. It will change soon.

Keith Barron began tracking the two Lost Cities of Gold almost 20 years ago, well before his discovery of Fruta del Norte. In 2017 Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU:TSX.V) picked up 42 mineral claims with 2080 square km in Ecuador that Keith believed would hold the homes of those two projects.

It's a simple story. The Spanish had seven major gold mining districts in what is now Ecuador. They treated the natives poorly, the natives rose up and killed as many of the Spanish as possible and two cities or properties were deserted and eventually lost to time.

Ecuador went through some bad times when the government got stupid and literally held mining companies up for ransom. So they all left and there was an eight-year period where nothing happened in the country in mining.

While they are a lot smarter now and there are some wonderful results coming out of the country, their terms are stiff. Aurania just paid $2.5 million in concession fees and have a $1 million+ yearly exploration requirement that doubles in another year. But they own 100% of the 2,080 square km and Keith believes he has narrowed down the location of the two Lost Cities. From the data it appears he is on to something potentially giant.

I happen to be a big Keith Barron fan. He points out on a regular basis that I am not a PhD geologist and I point out, "so what?" I was buying shares when the company hadn't even done the deal on the projects. I participated in the PP at $2 a year ago and paid $3 to exercise the warrants. I am a believer.

If you want to see the opposite of pissing billions of dollars down a cliptocurrency rat hole, go to Aurania's web site and wander around. Keith Barron is one of the most knowledgeable and best writers in mining. In 2001 he wrote a series of educational articles about the basics of mining that every investor should read. Two years ago I formatted some of them into a book titled Straight Talk on Mining available on Amazon.

The Aurania team is busy doing the basic ground exploration work necessary prior to putting the Truth Detector (drill) to work in Q4 of 2018. I'll cut to the chase here for my readers. He has found at least one major deposit. It will take drilling to prove it but if you look at the pictures and read the information you will begin to understand how I feel. This is the real deal and the shares are eventually going to go much higher.

The price for Aurania shares has been as high as $7.20 in January after someone put in a market order to buy and bounced the price from $3.20 after someone came out with a write up. The price settled to about $4.50, Keith accelerated the $3 warrants and got cashed up.

He will need to do a financing soon; it's expensive keeping the government happy down there. It's expensive enough that you aren't going to see any of the Vancouver scams run by drillers or cab drivers operating in the country. Word has gotten out and people who want in the financing cheap are dumping shares to make the price go down. It's part of the Vancouver/Toronto games.

I believe he has found exactly what he was looking for. It will take more work, more money and drilling but I think he is on to another big discovery. They have just put out an updated presentation. Take a look at it and you figure out if I am right.

Aurania is an advertiser. I bought shares in the open market, in the PP, exercised warrants and I'm back buying shares in the open market. I suspect $2 is pretty much going to be the floor for now. Do your own due diligence.

Aurania Resources ARU-V $2.00 (May 31, 2018) AUIAF-OTCQB 29.5 million shares Aurania Resources website.

Bob and Barb Moriarty brought 321gold.com to the Internet almost 16 years ago. They later added 321energy.com to cover oil, natural gas, gasoline, coal, solar, wind and nuclear energy. Both sites feature articles, editorial opinions, pricing figures and updates on current events affecting both sectors. Previously, Moriarty was a Marine F-4B and O-1 pilot with more than 832 missions in Vietnam. He holds 14 international aviation records.

Want to read more Gold Report articles like this? Sign up for our free e-newsletter, and you'll learn when new articles have been published. To see a list of recent articles and interviews with industry analysts and commentators, visit our Streetwise Interviews page.

Disclosure: 1) Bob Moriarty: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Aurania Resources. Aurania Resources is an advertiser on 321 Gold. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector. 2) The following companies mentioned are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

( Companies Mentioned: ARU:TSX.V, )

from https://www.streetwisereports.com/article/2018/05/31/it-was-the-best-of-times-it-was-the-worst-of-times.html

[topicprinter]

Hi all,I know this sub gets filled with a lot of self promotional bullshit. That's not my intention.Not trying to promote my business at all. But wanted to take a look back at my first year as an entrepreneur and offer some thoughts. Thought I might also be able to answer questions from other entrepreneurs or service-based business owners.First, the back story: I previously worked in marketing/growth/SEO for about 10 years. Almost 2 years ago, I left my job at a startup--burned out. Decided I was going freelance for a while as a writer and content marketing strategist.It only took me a few months to fill my dance card. I got kind of bored without the hunt for growth and new business. So, I decided to take the next step and start a content marketing agency.We officially launched in December of 2016.Now, as of December 2017:6 long-term (retainer) clients$480k annual run rateFeels good. Obviously, still a lot of room for growth. But I feel great about the progress we've made so far. Feels like we are on this really good path.I didn’t use any bullshit “growth hacks” or cold email. I'm not a sales guy.So, I did what I know.We grew the agency organically through content , SEO, and inbound leads. In total, we had ~35 inbound inquiries throughout the first year. These opportunities represented an estimated $2 million in annual revenue for us.Of those, many were not a fit. I turned away about half of them after having initial conversations or after doing a pilot/trial project. About 8 more deals are/were stuck in our sales pipeline (can’t get internal buy-in, budget is tied up, etc).The rest we've signed.Some keys to our success:#1 - Agile/flexible structureI didn't have six figures in the bank to go out and hire a team right out of the gate. Instead, I decided to build a network of full-time professional freelancers to work on long-term client projects.This is a mix between a traditional agency model and an outsourcing operation. All of our freelancers work together as a team (12 in total). Most work on multiple client accounts and stay on client accounts for the long term.Obviously, this means much less risk/overhead for me/us. Also helps the freelancers by delivering consistent work load and guaranteed rate.These aren't bottom-barrel freelancers. They're professionals being paid a competitive rate (up to $75/hour). Everyone is US/Canada based. One freelancer in South Africa.I did this for both strategic/financial reasons and also because I liked being a freelancer more than having a full-time job. IMO, the future of this kind of creative/technical work is some kind of ad-hoc model like this. It has all of the upside of an agency, but much less risk and overhead. We're able to scale up and down to meet the needs of clients, reconfigure our teams as needed, and we can bring in new talent for specific clients as needed.This is probably the most unique thing about our agency and it's worked really well so far.#2 - Sell results, not just "content"If we were just out here slinging bulk blog posts, we would have failed.There are a lot of agencies much cheaper than us. Instead, we focus on generating results. Specifically, growing organic search traffic. (Average 7% WoW growth is our goal/benchmark).From our client perspective, this is obviously a lot better than just seeing posts published every week and nothing else to show for it.It's also better for us because we're able to control the entire content marketing program. This gives us ownership of strategy/planning, content creation, and outreach/promotion.I think any kind of agency or service-based business should try to take ownership over more than just the deliverable and find ways to continue to create value.#3 - Focus on recurring revenueMany agencies struggle with cash flow issues.We have experimented and done some project work and one-off content campaigns. In most cases, though, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. We actually end up losing money a lot of times because the initial startup phase with any new client is time consuming.So, for anyone else starting a service business, I would definitely advise that you figure out how to sell something with recurring value rather than one-off projects if possible.Retainers are king, in my opinion.All of our clients pay a flat monthly fee for a pre-defined scope of work. We've scoped/priced different types of content and built it into a package based on their specific needs/goals/strategy.We have some flexibility on deliverables (usually, 6-8 posts/mo, for example), depending on the type of content we're creating. But this also goes along with our pricing being value/results-based rather than just based on the number of words we crank out each month.#4 - Get rid of shitty clients ASAPThe biggest risk for any service-based business (in my opinion) is having shit clients.This could be clients that just don't pay, clients that put you through a gauntlet of reviews/revisions, or clients that just don't have the same strategic vision for what you're trying to accomplish together.These relationships suck for everyone.They kill morale, cause tons of stress, and usually waste enormous amounts of time/money.So, it's super important to try to identify these red flags as soon as possible in any client engagement and then end the relationship as soon as it becomes apparent that things are not going well.Pretty early on, we decided that any new client would go through a pilot/trial project. For us, this is pretty simple. It's usually 1 or 2 pieces of content that we create on a project basis.This gives us the opportunity to work together on a short scale and make sure we were happy working together.It also gives the clients a chance to evaluate our work with less upfront investment/risk (keep in mind most of these people are hiring ostensibly strangers from the internet for $5-10,000/mo).We had a few pilot/trial projects that turned out to not be a fit—but that was mostly our decision to part ways with those clients.I’m happy to say that we have had no churn from our long-term clients.#5 - Great contentObvious key is obvious.If the client doesn’t like the work, it’s bad news right out of the gate.Trial project and our portfolio help us to set expectations for new clients. But, we must be able to consistently deliver good work at the end of the day.We have a pretty streamlined process that has worked really well for us and allowed us to do pretty seamless hand-offs. Each person ultimately owns their piece of the process and everyone has a stake in keeping the client happy.Because this isn't just a normal outsourcing operation, our team has buy-in to the overall project.Each person has a role, clear expectations, and clear deadlines. So far, this has proven to be just the right framework for us to keep things moving with minimal management/overhead.We continue to tweak the operations process and find ways to improve it for everyone.Obviously, this will never be a billion dollar company. But, we've grown quickly and shown great results for our clients. It will easily scale to over $1M annually and there are other opportunities beyond that.It's been exciting and fun. Honestly, the best year of my life.So, I'll leave it there.Would love to hear from other people. Ideas, thoughts, questions.I'm pretty transparent, so happy to provide specifics.Cheers!Tyler

[andreagillmer]

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Source: Bob Moriarty for Streetwise Reports   05/31/2018

Bob Moriarty of 321 Gold finds parallels between "A Tale of Two Cities" and resource investing.

I'm told that is the most famous opening line of any book in English literature. It comes from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities."

The paragraph continues: "…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

The quote came to mind because I got two emails a short time ago. One from Keith Barron talking about a press release he put out today about his Lost Cities Project in Ecuador; the other announcing the closing of a $4 billion dollar financing of a blockchain company without a product.

My reaction was, "You gotta be shitting me."

I am quite happy to suggest along with two others, I managed to pretty much nail the top of "Bitcon" and the "cliptocurrencies" in December. I'll skip the false modesty and humility. People are usually humble for very real reasons. I'm not; I don't do with false modesty. I called the top of the $800-billion dollar fraud perfectly correctly. It will be another 2–3 years before it hits bottom with 95% of the money flown off to Bitcon heaven. People pissing $4 billion down a cliptocurrency rat hole deserve everything they have coming and they will get it good and hard.

We are near a tradable low in the metals the same as we pretty much get every summer. Billions of dollars are pouring into the biggest financial fraud in world history yet very real resource stories are going begging. It will change soon.

Keith Barron began tracking the two Lost Cities of Gold almost 20 years ago, well before his discovery of Fruta del Norte. In 2017 Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU:TSX.V) picked up 42 mineral claims with 2080 square km in Ecuador that Keith believed would hold the homes of those two projects.

It's a simple story. The Spanish had seven major gold mining districts in what is now Ecuador. They treated the natives poorly, the natives rose up and killed as many of the Spanish as possible and two cities or properties were deserted and eventually lost to time.

Ecuador went through some bad times when the government got stupid and literally held mining companies up for ransom. So they all left and there was an eight-year period where nothing happened in the country in mining.

While they are a lot smarter now and there are some wonderful results coming out of the country, their terms are stiff. Aurania just paid $2.5 million in concession fees and have a $1 million+ yearly exploration requirement that doubles in another year. But they own 100% of the 2,080 square km and Keith believes he has narrowed down the location of the two Lost Cities. From the data it appears he is on to something potentially giant.

I happen to be a big Keith Barron fan. He points out on a regular basis that I am not a PhD geologist and I point out, "so what?" I was buying shares when the company hadn't even done the deal on the projects. I participated in the PP at $2 a year ago and paid $3 to exercise the warrants. I am a believer.

If you want to see the opposite of pissing billions of dollars down a cliptocurrency rat hole, go to Aurania's web site and wander around. Keith Barron is one of the most knowledgeable and best writers in mining. In 2001 he wrote a series of educational articles about the basics of mining that every investor should read. Two years ago I formatted some of them into a book titled Straight Talk on Mining available on Amazon.

The Aurania team is busy doing the basic ground exploration work necessary prior to putting the Truth Detector (drill) to work in Q4 of 2018. I'll cut to the chase here for my readers. He has found at least one major deposit. It will take drilling to prove it but if you look at the pictures and read the information you will begin to understand how I feel. This is the real deal and the shares are eventually going to go much higher.

The price for Aurania shares has been as high as $7.20 in January after someone put in a market order to buy and bounced the price from $3.20 after someone came out with a write up. The price settled to about $4.50, Keith accelerated the $3 warrants and got cashed up.

He will need to do a financing soon; it's expensive keeping the government happy down there. It's expensive enough that you aren't going to see any of the Vancouver scams run by drillers or cab drivers operating in the country. Word has gotten out and people who want in the financing cheap are dumping shares to make the price go down. It's part of the Vancouver/Toronto games.

I believe he has found exactly what he was looking for. It will take more work, more money and drilling but I think he is on to another big discovery. They have just put out an updated presentation. Take a look at it and you figure out if I am right.

Aurania is an advertiser. I bought shares in the open market, in the PP, exercised warrants and I'm back buying shares in the open market. I suspect $2 is pretty much going to be the floor for now. Do your own due diligence.

Aurania Resources ARU-V $2.00 (May 31, 2018) AUIAF-OTCQB 29.5 million shares Aurania Resources website.

Bob and Barb Moriarty brought 321gold.com to the Internet almost 16 years ago. They later added 321energy.com to cover oil, natural gas, gasoline, coal, solar, wind and nuclear energy. Both sites feature articles, editorial opinions, pricing figures and updates on current events affecting both sectors. Previously, Moriarty was a Marine F-4B and O-1 pilot with more than 832 missions in Vietnam. He holds 14 international aviation records.

Want to read more Gold Report articles like this? Sign up for our free e-newsletter, and you'll learn when new articles have been published. To see a list of recent articles and interviews with industry analysts and commentators, visit our Streetwise Interviews page.

Disclosure: 1) Bob Moriarty: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Aurania Resources. Aurania Resources is an advertiser on 321 Gold. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector. 2) The following companies mentioned are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

( Companies Mentioned: ARU:TSX.V, )

from The Gold Report - Streetwise Exclusive Articles Full Text https://ift.tt/2JiVb3I