In the past, the only tribe you could market to was “local.” That still works great for brick and mortar businesses, but as more is revealed about the lockdown (at least in the US) it seems we are not going to go local with entertainment any time soon.
Having a focused, small and local tribe is great. Being the #1 rock cover band in Buzzard, OK is way easier than being the #1 rock cover band in OK, which is even easier than being the most OKAY rock cover band in the world.
It can be tempting to try to be a big fish in the big pond when our small pond is taken away, but its better if we find a puddle. A fish will not thrive in the puddle at first, but when it rains, the fish will know every aspect of that puddle and be able to expand to bigger, pondier areas nearby.
Okay, too metaphorical
Find a small tribe and be the #1 choice in that small tribe. Let’s try…
Being the best standup comedian for people who like reenacting wars
Having the best burlesque show for adults who play minecraft?
Making the only video game for UCLA professors?
Fred Armisen made a comedy show for drummers. Slipknot made a band for whoever that’s for (not as small an audience as I’d hope).
From what I know of badass entertainers, it’s unlikely that we’ll focus too small. Its far more unlikely that we’ll broadcast too big.
This is especially important when we’re making new projects and new work after mucho other success. It is near impossible to come out with something as awesome as what we’ve created over decades for a big audience at the same level. Let’s make something that’s big for a small group even though we can’t go local.
Pitch meetings are not what they used to be. In the world of video chat, there are new opportunities and new challenges.
Geography be damned
No driving, no flying. We can now have 12 meetings in a day around the world. We don’t need a conference room or a fancy venue.
The rules have reset
We don’t need the same people to be there. Not every meeting needs to be the same length. We can ask the big questions, hangup and return for round #2. Things can be more casual. Things can be more succinct. Following up digitally isn’t as abrupt as it would be with an IRL pitch.
The stakes are lower
If we cut the crap out of our meetings, they don’t need to be so long. We don’t need to fill up our schedules with all the side-effects of IRL meetings. It makes our time less rare and each meeting less important. Personable people benefit strongly from being collaborative under these conditions. Rigid people might have some issues with it.
Solutions get more creative, and problems get solved with more flow when the stakes are low.
Overcome the downsides and we’re the heros
There are a bunch of problems with doing pitches online, but when we make those problems disappear, we become magicians that folks actually want to be around.
Newness – Since this technology and way of doing biz is new, we gotta practice a lot. Let’s practice the way a ventriloquist practices, not to make our adeptness more obvious, but to make all the normal stuff less obvious.
Lag – The slowness of video & audio, mixed with the fact that my speakers will mute while I’m talking, can lead to a very stilted conversation. It can also lead to a feeling of brashness. The best way to combat this is with extra tongue biting and extremely deliberate talking. When we start on a statement, follow it all the way thru to the end, clearly and quickly. Slowing down or pausing could be seen as a cue for another party to speak, which leads to a verbal pile-up.
Apathy – Because of the casual nature, it’s easy to take someone’s behavior as aloof at best or, more likely, lifeless. There is no over-doing it with attention to detail, preparation, and intention. We can try to deliver double the courtesy we would share IRL and it will probably still come across as half.
Slug-likeness – Being in front of the camera takes the wind out of our sails. Our audience can feel that wind, so let’s amp it up. Enthusiasm is generous.
Tech Support – Watching someone try to figure out how zoom works can feel like doing tech support for an 80 year old. Watching a musician run their own mix on stage is the worst. I’m doing several zoom calls per day and I still have moments where I’m squinting at the camera, trying to poke at my screen. This is horrible body language. The biggest thing we can do is get physical. Can we change our powerpoint to an easel presentation that we do in front of the camera? Can we use physical props and our body to demonstrate things? Can we send materials later instead of trying to bring them up on screen?
Soullessness – Because so many micro expressions and subtle cues are removed from the interaction, the human connection fades away. Being more physical, more candid, and more positive all contribute to a deeper connection.
Loneliness – Again the disconnection. The feeling that we’re talking to a camera and not a person. Get our faces close to the screen for more intimacy. Look directly at the camera when talking if possible. Soften our expression and nod silently when someone’s talking. Take notes on paper instead of on a keyboard. Listen a little bit longer than they talk.
ADHD Paradise – There is very little reason for us to pay full attention to the screen and it’s exhausting to do so. If we pour ourselves into these meetings, it will initiate reciprocity. If we focus on empathy and generosity, it will give our co-meeters something worth their attention.
It’s such a mindfuck to expect an audience to do something. Trying to figure out motivations in an ever-changing world is as dependable as meteorology.
We’re seeing how this works for the quarantine right now. Expecting big changes for a big collection of people – the world’s population. People are not predictable. The twists and turns it’s taken have been incredible to me.
How do we figure out whether people will do what we want them to do ( eg: cry / laugh ) at the right times?
Focus on the small
We gotta focus on small audiences for small time periods and experiment vigilantly… or do tried-and-true things for big audiences, but make small improvements. Many creatives want to do big new things for big audiences and it’s just not a winning game.
I’ve written about how people don’t want good stuff. And sometimes it seems like there’s no way around it. We have something great to offer that’s great exactly because it’s new! It hasn’t been done before, so it’s not wanted. It’s not even understood.
When people are comparing our services to those of others, that’s a marketing challenge, but when they aren’t even looking for anything like what we’re offering, that’s something completely different. As the world of entertainment is changing, we can offer bad versions of old things, or we can harness the modern powers of everything and offer something amazing and new.
My favorite book is short but dense and intense. “Propaganda” by Edward Bernays is a tour of his genius marketing techniques from 1928. It’s scary what he did back then. Marketing has advanced even more today, but even then, there was no way you’d know you were a target of some of his techniques. The book made me realize I will never be too smart to be fooled by corporations or governments.
Besides being a cautionary tale, it’s also a peek into the deep empathy of a marketer.
Bernays was hired to sell a certain brand of pianos, and he had to figure out how. He saw there were many people who might like a piano but didn’t want them. Not just this brand, ALL brands.
The major reason: pianos are big and people didn’t have room for them. That’s a good reason to not buy a piano. It wasn’t practical and it wasn’t even a longing. It was a non-starter.
Bernays not only discovered the cause, he also figured out what would encourage people to buy them. And it was a million miles from a good magazine ad.
He enlisted a group of leading architects to introduce a new trend in home building: music rooms. He got it printed in design publications, and home builders convinced owners of the new trend.
“The music room will be accepted because it has been made the thing. And the man or woman who has a music room, or has arranged a corner of the parlor as a musical corner, will naturally think of buying a piano. It will come to him as his own idea.”
Edward Bernays
There is no going to far…
…if we’re determined to serve people something awesome. How do we…
reach our audience,
understand what they need,
understand how they need it,
understand why they don’t see it,
understand what they do see,
understand how they talk,
understand what they trust,
speak to them in a way that leads them to our great thing
Only half of you need to hear this…collaborate! The other half need to hold on to their voice. This is the balancing act of specificity we all play.
I love a strong voice, I love powerful personalities and daring creative choices. That’s why I was extremely solo in my pursuits for a long time.
100 theater cooking shows of loneliness
In San Francisco, I was idiotically isolated in my production of CuliNery Tuesdays which became Crash Course. I was holding on to the creative reigns so tightly that I really messed myself up.
I was cooking, cleaning, rebuilding the stage, promoting, writing, inventing recipes, performing, and whatever else mostly by myself. When the ticket person got there, I already had a list of attendees ready to go. When the tech guy got there, I had the powerpoint and the lighting cues all setup.
It was hard.
I identified as an entertainment underdog and I thought that it had to be hard. I thought struggle was the measure of success. I had tunnel vision and, although some great things were created, I could have done so much more with help.
The worst part…I was sick a lot, probably malnourished (funny doing a cooking show) and definitely under-rested. It was all silly. I was feeling close to quitting entertainment when the run of Crash Course was over.
My biggest fears were…
If I delegated anything besides a little dishwashing, the show would be off track
If I asked for help, that time would take away from the work that I was putting in.
It would not be mine anymore
I will run out of favors
Collaborating means giving up some of it
There is some truth to the idea that collaborating dilutes the ownership of a project. That’s how it is. When this dilution turns into fear, it’s a weakness. Nobody’s independent. There are many people who want to see us succeed and all they want is to witness their impact on good work. It’s not a land-grab and it’s not a zero sum game. We can share the effort and still get glory.
Also, the glory is really in the pursuit of cool work, more than the result. If we’re seeking validation from our creations, it’s gonna be a pretty empty existence.
Collaborating takes time and energy
It also gives back something different to the collaborators. It helps define the mission. It helps clarify intentions. It helps take a big picture view. Being forced to turn theories and dreams into words makes things more concrete. So, while we’re spending our time and energy on something besides the direct work, we’re getting more benefits that exponentially fuel other parts of the work.
Working with other people also forces us to justify the ludicrous ideas we have. That can feel dangerous, but most of the time, it either strengthens our voice or helps us compromise and find more positive and effective paths to our genius.
Collaborating doesn’t have to mute our voice
If we feel that it’s too early to collaborate on a project because our voice isn’t formed, we are wrong. The important modifier is the scope of collaboration. We can ask for help on rewriting a sentence, or get feedback on an email we’re about to send out, or ask a designer what colors to use. A simple straightforward question in a small scope will not do anything but simplify things for us and empower our collaborators.
Getting help leads to more help
When I give someone advice, they take it and come back to me with the results, I am pumped! I am so glad to help them. This, I think is true for most people.
I don’t do favors and I don’t ask for favors. Favors are transactional. I want to do things for others because I enjoy doing them. I ask for the same from others. We don’t need to keep track because we’re all having fun!
It’s not so heavy, probably
I have stuff that I think is heavy. I think it’s a lot of work to do a certain thing, but for others it’s cake. A big part of that is emotional detachment. Making a phone call or taking care of some business might carry some baggage for me. When we ask for assistance from someone, we can get all the lightness they bring.
We are not solo animals evolutionarily. We need people. We need to be around people. We love ourselves thru people.
This kinda relates to the Burger King thing… Entertainment pros who don’t step up and do what needs to be done because it doesn’t feel right. We don’t need a performer to walk on stage and be completely honest with us. We need them to serve us.
We want something that *looks* real for sure.
No matter how real it looks, we don’t need to believe it 100%
We don’t want the suspension of disbelief to be too difficult. The easiest way for a creator to make that environment is to bring a lot of truth into what they do… but that’s curated truth. That’s the truth that helps the mission. That’s truth that helps them lead the audience. That’s the truth that moves us forward.
I’m not talking about partial truths to tell a lie. I’m talking about how there’s lots of truth in the world. We don’t need to express everything as it comes up, just like a painter doesn’t have to use every color just because it’s on their palette.
This came to my mind when someone was talking about lighting for online shows. They said, “Just doesn’t feel natural to sit with these blazing in my eyes… ” I responded…
It’s not natural! It’s showbiz!
I immediately thought about the performers I’ve seen enter the stage and hold their hands over their brow, blocking out the stage lights so they could see the crowd. That irks me. Stage lights are bright, don’t act like you’re surprised by it. Don’t get thrown off because there’s water on the stage. Don’t bring your depression to the stage because your dressing room was far away.
Give us truth
When we hone something until it connects with people deeply, that’s truth. That’s the truth we want from entertainment. A deep, seismic, human truth that we all need to connect with each other. The badasses bring that truth as consistently as possible no matter what’s going on in their lives. That truth can look like an 8 bit video game, or a tap dance, or a superhero movie. It isn’t reality. It’s beyond that.
Promoting our stuff happens so fast now. Videos are under 1 minute long and webpages are super short. If we were lawyers defending our right to provide entertainment, we’d be in 20 minute court.
“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
Blaise Pascal
It’s not easy making it simple and powerful, but the technique follows the “instant lawyer” technique.
Make an opening statement summarizing the value
Prove it with evidence (resume + awards usually) & witnesses (social proof = quotes + reviews usually)
Before we get to the opening statement, we gotta figure out what’s important to the jury. Before that, we gotta figure out who our jury is. Before that, we gotta figure out the plea.
Once we have that together, we make a super succinct statement like “The world’s most engaging book for cats.” After that, we prove that statement as quickly and effectively as possible. Then, we have nothing further.
An opening statement or proof will not do the trick on their own. Either the jury will not believe, or they’ll believe, but not come to the conclusion we want. We need both parts and that’s ALL we need.
Customers, now more than ever, want polarizing, straightforward communication. They don’t want to spend time connecting the dots, and there’s no reason they would. All the options in the world are at their fingertips.
I performed in a variety show a few years ago and the host was just dragging ass. No charm, no jokes, no vibes, no consideration, no energy. I was on deck soon, and I did not want the room he was setting up for me. I pulled him to the side and asked “Are you on morphine?”
“What?” Good, I got his attention.
“What the fuck, dude? Why are you asleep out there?”
“Well, yeah, the crowd energy is really low tonight.”
“It’s not their job to decide the energy level. That’s what you’re here for. Go, kick their butts. Don’t accept it. Tell some jokes! Force them to wake up!”
He did. He turned on all that he had, one act before me, and I got the best crowd energy of the night. I like this story because I was the hero.
It’s happened to me plenty
It’s easy for us to forget that we’re the leaders. It’s easy to forget that this is our domain. Entertainment, the way we choose to do it, is our position of power and that’s what people want. They want to come in and play by our rules and experience the mastery that we provide.
Sometimes we fall into a popular vote mentality, creation by committee, or a belief that we are limited by our genre.
So, I understand the zoom drag
I keep seeing these zoom shows where the host of the show says “Let me see how this thing works” “Is my audio on” “Ok, what’s next” “We’re having a little bit of a technical issue” or all the other complete oxygen sucking phrases that entertainers think they need to say…I understand it…BUT NO!
We don’t have to do it like this, people. Get off the morphine. Quit succumbing. Quit sucking. We might be doing the best zoom show we’ve seen, but that’s not good enough. We need to make leaps and bounds right now, but we’re sitting in our chairs in front of a cameras squinting at the comments, degrading ourselves and our audience.
Make it move.
Do we sweat on stage? Heck yeah! So we better be sweating twice as much on zoom, because sacrificing our energy doesn’t mean as much on camera.
Quit stopping
There’s no stopping on stage. There’s no apology. There’s no accidental breathing. C’mon everybody! Give more!
Imagine starting a show with “What would you like? This whole show is your way.” That would be the worst show ever. It isn’t up to the crowd, it isn’t up to the technology. It is up to us. What do we want to bring?
The stage is a wooden box. If we let the box call the shots, the show wouldn’t be tres great. It would be a lot more about wood and rectangles than most audiences would like.
In Scot Nery’s Boobietrap, we have weird acts. We have a category for them called “weird.” They’re really great for mixing it up and destabilizing the show. I didn’t always like weird.
In San Francisco, I had been exposed to Dadaism, art films, nonsensical Burning Man art and all kinds of funky things that were not entertaining to me. They were surprising and unusual, but they didn’t bring me in as powerfully as Jurassic Park or Chris Rock. I don’t just mean odd acts like “pancake juggling,” I mean mostly performances that don’t have escalation or an arc.
Most of the time these kind of acts seem like they’re for audiences who really want to claim that they “get it.”
The most masterful exhibitor of weird, I think is Reggie Watts. The first time I saw him was in a bar in Echo Park, Los Angeles. I loved it immediately. It was a very unique experience for me at that time. I love watching great entertainers to see the things they create and to see what it does to the audience. My personal taste comes very little into the picture. I’m mostly interested in seeing an audience be dragged into the riptide of an act. The surprising thing about Reggie’s performance was that I didn’t care about what he was doing on stage. He had incredible skills, but it was so weird I was turned off to it. I wouldn’t have watched him do it if I was the only one in the room. It only took a few moments to notice that I wasn’t alone in the room at all. The audience was roaring ( together ) at all the right times.
Reggie has a subconscious, emotional rhythm that doesn’t need to connect with words, logic, or physicality. It’s just like a standup comedian’s rhythm that can get you in the flow, but without the extra baggage.
Watts converted me to appreciating weird. I saw him in that show and all other shows generate the same or more power as any amazing linear act. Since meeting him that night, I’ve gotten the chance to understand weird acts more. One thing about the experience of a weird act – especially in a safe framework – is they show how much brain breaking people can handle. It’s fun to watch with your friends and see if they get pissed off or delighted.
At Boobietrap, one of my favorite moments was this 65 year old dude who had never seen the show before came up to me. It was an insanely great night filled with awesome acts. He said “A lot of good stuff, but that feller who talked about the taco truck… he was incredible!” That feller was Reggie. I loved it. I loved that this man who was probably carrying a couple pistols in his waistband had been dragged across the surreal rainbow bridge that Watts created and was grateful for it.
Five legendary clowns in a 30 year old theater company developing a retro style show. Nothing good could come of it.
I recommend always collaborating with badasses, but the hangup is badasses can easily bloat your budget and timeline.
Two things about badasses:
They’re driven by challenge – that’s how they became what they are
They’re burdened by cognitive biases – they don’t want to lose everything
The clowns are not going to make something good, I promise you. Even clowns – extremely creative, seemingly no ego, socially liberated, progressively motivated – are held back in this scenario.
It’s like getting in the ring with an eight year old kung fu master. You might be curious about what will happen. Unfortunately, if you lose, you get beat up by little a kid. If you win, you beat up a little kid.
The theater company thinks putting these five clowns together is going to make a magic cocktail, but they’re missing the ingredient that matters. “NEW”
Of course they’re seeking new
They’re trying to make a new show, but a little bit of new is dangerous. What they need is “NEW!” They need an opportunity to start from scratch.
These clowns work for three months and make stale nonsense. They are running out of time. The company is over budget.
They have some wrong idea about who they are and how they got there.
They don’t want to take a new approach to work because then, it will prove that they’ve done it wrong.
They don’t want to accept help from the outside because that will prove they’re not badasses.
They don’t want to throw away all the work they’ve done to make new work.
They want personal validation for who they are and not for the work they do.
Candor will be blocked to protect reputation.
Risk will be avoided.
They have ideas about how things work and those ideas might conflict with their collaborators, so they get more intrenched in fighting for their ideas.
This is not how to create.
The solution in this case was a NEW director
Bringing in a NEW collaborator isn’t always the solution, and it would not work without the theater company’s willingness to go all in. If it was just a fresh face, it wouldn’t matter. They needed someone who could start from scratch and really have the authority to burn it down.
This new director
Respected the individuals, but didn’t respect their status. They were starting from scratch
Threw away all that they had worked on for three months
Trashed the idea of being retro. He figured whatever they did, they could dress up in old style clothes and that would serve the retro part.
Brought in new technology that the clowns hadn’t worked with
Repeatedly pointed out that this is a new show
Gave them all characters they had never tried
Observed how they worked and deliberately changed the entire process
Removed all the self-imposed burden of the clowns by being a decisive leader
Brought in non-badass clowns for rehearsal to show that the work matters more than the person and get the competitive juices going.
A NEW Show in a week
It took a week to get this new bit made. All the shittiness got peeled away and these creators were able to bring their value to the table. They didn’t have to prove anything, or conquer anything. All they had to do what create the way they loved, the way they did when they were new.
Don’t start at 100%
Start with the best in the world theater company, best in the world director, best in the world clowns, on an old problem: how to make a better show… You’ve got failure. Everyone’s coming in at 100% quality. In the best case scenario, they will stay 100%. Nothing to fight for, a lot to protect.
We, as entertainment pros, want to work with badasses. We also want to come in on time and on budget with an incredible thing. To do this, we have to establish a culture of NEW in personal projects and group work.
Our messaging is our mission and reiteration that everything is NEW when one part is new.
A video game has never been made with a character like this. Anything goes.
We are at the bleeding edge of novel writing for a new generation. We need innovation.
This movie is being made based on the latest statistics from Hulu viewership and modern collected theory on storytelling. What are we going to do to change the game?
It’s not “How do we build on our past success?” Instead it’s “How do we make something out of nothing?” Badasses love starting from 0%
I flinched even the first time I heard the phrase “TV executives have no imagination.”
Now I’ll tell you what’s up.
I’ve heard variations over and over and it’s nonsense. Here are some people that have “no imagination…”
Studio heads
TV Producers
Casting Agents
Teachers
Networks
Marketing clients
Bookers
Publishers
The logic of this phrase stems from the fact that we can’t present partial work to a gatekeeper and get a pat on the back, or an accomplished mission ribbon, or sell the completed work. Since we can’t show them a quarter of a pizza and ask them to bet on the rest of the pizza, they must have no imagination.
They’re imagining your failure.
These people are insanely creative and insanely imaginative. Even if they weren’t there isn’t such a thing as a person with no imagination.
What they are imagining is the millions of decisions that are left. Chances are, those decisions will be bad decisions. 99.99% of stuff sucks. The whole point of entertainment is to entertain. Even after all the decisions are made and the product is out there, will it work? Will it entertain? Probably not.
When we ask someone to back us based on partial work, we’re basically saying, “Hey! Bet on this race horse. It’s brown. Look at this leg muscle. It has a cool name.”
ME ME ME
People tell me to book a comedian. They say, “this lady right here is funny. You gotta book her.” Well great, but I want her to directly send me a video of exactly the act she wants to do. Here are a few of the unknowns that I immediately imagine sight-unseen based on a recommendation.
does she want to do my show?
does she know what the show is?
does she care about doing a good job?
is she consistent?
is her material in line with our show?
what’s her presence like on stage?
how does an audience respond?
has she done enough shows to have a decent vid?
is she actually funny?
The questions go on and on. As a gatekeeper, my responsibility is to my audience and the other people I book. I’m risking that when I bet on an act.
Not all questions are answered when I get a good video, but it’s my way of helping me manage risk a little bit and make better bets.
Grant these people respect for their imaginations
Appreciating the imaginations of everyone we collaborate / communicate with can help us understand that we don’t know what they think and can give us more patience and more fortitude in bridging the gap.
“… too many of us think of ideas as being singular, as if they float in the ether, fully formed and independent of the people who wrestle with them. Ideas, though, are not singular. They are forged through tens of thousands of decisions, often made by dozens of people.”
Ed Catmull – Pixar
I guess Ed Catmull already wrote this post. His concepts in “Creativity, Inc.” keep helping me along. I do think he’s being modest with the number of decisions, though.
I am all for taking the mysticism out of entertainment creation and giving the world more concrete simple steps to power. Here are the parts of this quote that empower me…
A dream doesn’t matter
Some people claim to capture ideas from dreams and that’s how they make. But what if you don’t remember dreams? What if our dreams are petty dreams about painting a hotel a fresh coat of off-white for days? I’m not much of a dreamer, but I am pompous enough to say dreams aren’t the work.
Certain studiers say dreams happen in 5 to 20 minutes. Let’s say we dreamt of the perfect stage play. It wouldn’t be complete. It wouldn’t even be started. Who knows what would even happen when we put down the first words on paper. It might be totally off when made concrete. Regardless of that, we have millions of decisions to make before we have script, before casting, directing, set building. The dream doesn’t make the play any more than deciding the color for the tickets makes the play.
Anything can be the starting point, and that starting point is dwarfed by the plethora of questions to come. It’s an even playing field.
Your misstep doesn’t matter
Go for it. Make bad decisions. Don’t let a tricky decision unravel our flow. Go. We’ll fix it later if it’s bad or it may end up taking us down unexpected paths to brilliance.
Get started fast
When we think of a project as a few steps, it’s easy to spend more time on step 1. It can make us want to savor that moment and get it just right. When we see that there will be an ever-unfolding todo list, and this will not get done on time, we can prototype fast. We can quickly draft. We don’t know how much stuff we’re procrastinating on. We can’t think “oh, I’m just putting off that one thing.” It’s a million things and we don’t know which ones are going to be harder than this thing we’re on now. Jump!
Back off in collaboration
Most conflict in collaboration comes from imagining too far ahead. We can’t imagine far enough ahead to wrap our brains around a million decisions. We can’t see where our team is going.
We can let go.
We can invest more in trusting our collaborators and letting go of the idea that we know what they’re going to do.
Understand the power of trust
Speaking of trust, we can stop expecting others to trust us. Why would someone trust that a book we pen is going to be good based on a paragraph we’ve written. We can respect the trust given to us even if we’ve written a dozen good books. There are millions of potential bad decisions even a great author could make.
Don’t hold on to a single decision
I like being wrong. Probably comes as a relief from trying to be right all the time. The littleness of each decision helps make it clear that it’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to course correct. Sure it may seem that some choices have huge impact, but it’s a great exercise to allow the decisions to be small.
