Commercial Idea

Advertisers! Feel free to use this idea for your 30-second commercial spot.

We’re at a rock concert, and the guitar is reaching the meeley meeley meeley meeeeee point. You know, this is the part in the set where the guitarist starts picking the strings way up on the guitar neck.

The camera focuses on an old, hippie-type guy, a little scraggly and a little unwashed. He holds up a lighter to the music. His body language is a little “been there, done that.” He is tired and going through the motions. He is old and tired and wondering a little, “Why do I still come to these things?”

He turns his head, sees something, and his mouth drops open with astonishment and wonder. He looks up. The person next to him, who is younger, cleaner, cooler, and into the music, raises his hand, but instead of a lighter, this person has a cellphone. A glowing, shiny cellphone.

The camera tracks away from the old guy and moves down the row of concert goers. All of the audience members are holding up cellphones instead of lighters. The camera swings around and now shows what the audience looks like from the band’s perspective – a sea of shining cellphone lights.

As the music reaches a groovy crescendo, this image fades out, and up fades the corporate logo and the current corporate catchphrase. (Examples: “Express yourself.” Or “The future is hear.” Or “Now you know what happened to Glass Tiger – they’re so hard up for money, they’ll do this commercial.”

***

I have thought about getting into advertising, but the fact is that even though I could do great work from a creativity perspective, I do not have the personality that thrives in an ad agency environment. This is a fancy way of saying I have a sense of right and wrong, the kiss of death to any good advertising career.

The idea for this commercial came during a recent concert when everyone raised their cellphones to the band. At first I thought, “cellphones are the new lighters?” but then I realized that the audience was just trying to snap a good picture of the band.

It was a striking image, and I thought any technology/telecommunications conglomerate would love to use this in their ads. I don’t really want there to be a cellphone conglomerate, but I know they’ll come up with some sort of cool name and I’ll overlook all their misdeeds. Here’s one Verizon + Nokia + Cingular = Ver-ki-gular. It sounds like something Winnie the Pooh would say - Beware the Verkigular!

Anyway, part of me wanted to see this idea made real. So rather than updating a resume, getting a job at an ad agency, hiring a film crew, and getting this image into a commercial of some sort, I would rather just make a blog entry and move on to the next idea.

Tech support

And yet, I am still thirsty...

Pure Genius

I find the most amazing things on the Inernet.
Like this Photoshop Contest that challenged people to create unusual snacks. And, like most things in life, the entries that I think should win get something like honorable mention.

Seriously, don't you think this:



Or this:



Is better than this?

Subtle message, eh?

Jammin'

Snakes on a Paper Plane

Candlelight Dinner

The Lady in Red

Is it my breath?

Where am I?

Heavy drinker

We ask the big questions here

Friendly coworkers

Oh, how I covet...

I am the only member of my family that doesn't own a totally excellent digital camera and a photoblog. To be honest, though, buying a niiiice digital camera is waaaaay out of line with my current cashflow situation. So I'm going to have to make do with my camera phone.


So expect to see pictures of inanimate objects or anything that can hold still for the 10 seconds it takes for my camera phone to record an image that is not blurry.

Today's pic - Paperwork!

Let’s Reinforce Every Negative Stereotype While We’re At It

Three stories about writers.

First Story

My first job in Corporate America was for a technical writing consulting firm. During the orientation, my boss told me, “We have great benefits because the company was founded by writers. Basically, we’re all hypochondriacs and all write excellent complaint letters.”

Second Story

When I applied to college, the admissions packed gave me three essay topic choices. I responded with three essays with a note saying, “Thank you for the opportunity to make a choice. I now return the favor.” Two of the essays were written for laughs, talking about how I want to go to this college because I heard it was mobbed up and I wanted a career as a hit man or how my sense of consumer’s remorse was going to lead me to work in a sneaker factory in the Far East once I graduated. I wrote one essay about how important writing was to me, and how most forms of communication (like speaking) didn’t quite work for me, but give me words on a page, and I feel a sense of competency I lack in every other area of my life.

It was sincere.

It was heartfelt.

It stunk.

I showed the essays to a few friends, soliciting opinions. In a very real sense, I was litmus-testing them. If they could pick out the right essay, the serious, sincere, and heartfelt one, they had taste. Of course, no one picked that one because it wasn’t funny, and it didn’t connect with anyone unless they were also earnest and sincere about writing. In that case, they were only reading the work so they could tear it apart.

Third Story

In college, there was a Journalism professor who began every Journalism 101 class with this joke: “What’s the difference between a Journalism major and an English major? A Journalism major writes something every day, and every day, the Journalism major’s work is read and enjoyed by thousands of people. English majors spend years – YEARS – writing one little dissertation, which will be ready by ten people, and the only reason those ten people are reading this dissertation is because they want to disprove it.

***

I was thinking about stereotypes of writers. Of neurotic, shrill, obsessive writers. I’m always keenly aware of these because it is easy for me to fall into them. I try not to be overly protective about my work, to be overly hostile towards constructive criticism, or to be overly obsessed about the oddest things.

My latest obsession is Trigger Street.

For those of you who don’t know, Trigger Street is a website for aspiring film makers and screenplay writers. You join the community, read, view, and review submitted works, and then, after you’ve participated in the community for awhile, you get to submit your own work for approval. Basically, it is a writer’s mosh pit, with only a few pieces of work get to be the dude who surfs around on the hands of the other rabid moshers.

When I joined the website, I had to agree to a bunch of conditions. I must be encouraging. I must refrain from crude or language. I must not taunt the writer because the writer is an emotionally fragile being.

So far, however, all the website has done is reinforce all my negative stereotypes of writers. I read and reviewed a screenplay about a guy who visits a lake house community full of women who all are attracted to him and love him, even though no one knows who he is and even though has sex with a sixteen-year-old on a picnic table in full view of several major characters. No one cares, because he is just that charming. Then I read a screenplay about a screenplay writer who becomes a King of Hollywood and has a major motion picture actress fall in love with him. This all happens in less than a month because he is just that lucky.

My reviews were as encouraging as possible, focusing on the minutiae, “That one line on page 27 was funny,” or, “You write like you know this region of the country very well” before I get to the big issues, “It doesn’t seem so much like a story as it does a check list of things you wish would happen to you.”

Needless to say, I got my first piece of hate mail in response to one of my reviews. Ok, maybe “hate” is too strong of a word. Gripe mail. “Your review said I have sections of real snappy dialogue and then patches where the dialogue is slow and boring. Well, buddy, that is how REAL LIFE IS. I am a brilliant writer because I’m able to capture REAL LIFE so well. One day when you’re a real writer, you will understand how it is. Sincerely, MonkeyDude227”

(And, no, the email does not say that word-for-word. Even though there are quote marks, I’m embellishing for dramatic purposes.)

Getting gripe mail usually bums me out, but fortunately, Elaine Liner, the Theater Critic from the Dallas Observer, has been writing great little missives from a Theater Critics Camp. Sure, they reinforce all sorts of negative writer stereotypes, but you know what? They’re funny.

Day 1

Day 2

Days 3 through 9

Day 10

Last Acts

Everyone else is linking to it, why can't I?

Here's a popular video making its rounds on the Internet.

A higher quality version can be found here:

http://www.devilducky.com/media/48608/

Speaking of Scripts

One of the ways to break in as a television writer is to write a spec script of an existing show. I don’t really dream of a career in television writing, but I am tempted to write a spec script for the show Arrested Development because – hey – it sounds like fun. Yes, the show is cancelled and, yes, I haven’t seen the third season, but there is no other TV show out there that comes close to matching my writing style.

Television sit-com scripts have all sorts of rules to them. They have to be 22 pages with at least three jokes on a page. The pacing of Arrested Development is so off, though, that there can be as many as five or six jokes per page. And most of these jokes aren’t really build up build up punch line, but instead just a continuous fire hose of nonsense. How to approach a script like this? I just started brainstorming odd scenarios. I scribbled all sorts of things on yellow sticky notes and left them in my cube at work.

Imagine my surprise when, coming back from a coffee break, I found a co-worker in my cube, looking at little yellow notes with phrases on them like, “Magic trick goes horribly wrong and Gob's skin is stained red,” “Tobias tries to get George Michael into male modeling,” “Buster writes a blog, not realizing that he is sending emails to the entire company” and “You are a pee laugher! PEE LAUGHER!!”

My co-workers don’t quite know what to make of me, now.

My greatest dream, darkest nightmare is that somehow I lose one of the sticky notes and it winds up on the Found Magazine website’s Find of the Day.

Motivation through Deadlines

No blog entries for at least a week because blog entries don’t have deadlines. And nothing motivates quite like a deadline.

July 24^th is the submission deadline for the Screenwriting Expo Screenplay Competition. When I survey the 98 unfinished screenplays on my hard drive, I found four short film scripts that can be polished and submitted by the deadline, so I’m focusing on those. If they don’t win or place, I’ll post the screenplays either on the blog or on Trigger Street. Or maybe I’ll produce them myself and just post the entire film.

Oh, the possibilities.

SALON-a-thon: What SALON does for Musicians

Bridging the gap between amateur and professional is difficult in any profession, especially an artistic one. Because art is dependent on human interactions, moving out of the practice room and in front of a crowd is a big step. For musicians making folk music, there are coffee shops and cafes a plenty. For aspiring rock stars, there are open mic nights at clubs and bars.

But what is there for the aspiring jazz or classical musician? Most jazz musicians performing have been doing it for a long, long time, and newcomers are out of their depth. Many classical musicians aren’t given open performance spaces. Occasionally there is a string quartet in a bookstore, but you’ll never see classical pianists or an opera singer.

SALON provides what a musical artists needs most to grow – an appreciative audience. Folk musician Nick Drake often complained about going on tour in smoky bars where people would be drinking and laughing and TALKING OVER THE MUSIC. At SALON, the audience members are there to listen.

Every SALON is filled with human interaction. Not only is there music for everyone to enjoy, but there is a friendly atmosphere where people can ask the musicians questions (“Why did you choose this song?” “Who are your influences?” etc.). Musicians seem to enjoy the experience, the attention, and the donations.

Tommaso Cogato is one such musician. A graduate student at Southern Methodist University, Tommaso was gracious enough to let us record him playing Chopin Ballades. Here he is performing No. 1 in g, op23.