Archive for July, 2012


This Or That

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July 30, 2012

Hey peoples, Flobo here!

If you’re like me, when you were in school you both looked forward to and dreaded the days when a substitute teacher walked into the classroom. Sure the was the feeling of not having to work as hard, but there was also the concern of trying to find something to entertain yourself with for the rest of the class period.  Some people made “fortune tellers”, others had an epic Tic-Tac-Toe war. For me, (and my desire to not have a paper trail) it was playing This Or That. Give someone two options about anything and watch them squirm in trying to pick one. The game wasn’t invented by me, and even big companies do it:

Yet, there’s always one guy who picks RC Cola

Why? Well, because companies know you have a choice. If you are having a craving for SODA (I’ll accept Cola, but “pop” is a sound effect, not a beverage), you literally have dozens of options. So what better way to try to get consumers to try your stuff than to say “Hey buddy, our stuff is better. Honest.” Remember these ads from a few years ago?

Mac Vs. PC

Apple drew a line in the sand. Either you are a Mac person or not. For me personally, I rock both equally. I type this on a Mac desktop, while my PC laptop is charging. I listen to music on my iPod, while my Nokia Lumia 900 cellular phone runs on Windows. It’s a not a big deal for me, but people do pick a side hardcore. In the film industry, most equipment is Mac, full stop. Someone who goes “I’m a PC guy” there is asking for it. In gaming, it’s the opposite. Apple is gaining ground, but PCs are the kings and queens of gaming machines.

So what does that have to do with your writing? Well, we see how external “battles” make consumers pick a side, but what about  battles within your own works? Drawing that same line in the sand along character or story lines can actually drum up interest in the further events of your book/screenplay/graphic novel. I can’t believe I’m using this as an example, but remember the whole “Twilight” bonanza from a while back? People wore shirts that claimed their allegiance to either “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob”. I haven’t read the books or seen the movies, but I’m assuming their conflict was an essential part of “Twilight”. With that said, the campaign had done it’s job. I had no knowledge of the book before, but after the “Which Team You Are On?” thing, I had just enough information on the books to decide whether or not I would be interested in it. Side note: I wasn’t, but that is not to say the campaign wasn’t successful. Then again, we all know who’s team I’m on:

Now, with 150% more controversy!

Hey, she wasn’t that bad in Zathura! And Zathura was pretty underrated. *Off Soapbox*

As a writer, it is easier to drum up interest for something like this through social media. Creating dueling Twitter accounts and/or Facebook pages is a way for you to get this “battle” across. Let’s face it, everyone loves a fight, and why not cultivate one that benefits your work?

–Flobo

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The Price of Admission

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July 23, 2012

Hey everyone, Flobo here (naturally). Once again, we are going to talk about the creation of entertainment, no matter what medium you are most comfortable with. As always, this blog takes more of a writer’s approach, but you can apply everything we talk about across many platforms.

Today I want to talk about spectacle. When I say that word, the first thing I think about is fireworks. No, I’m not a pyromaniac (anymore) but fireworks are the simplest way to get the idea of spectacle across. They are big, colorful, and attract people from all over. Though it’s sometimes uncomfortable to stand in one place to watch them, I can’t say I’ve met anyone who DOESN’T like that sort of light-show. When I approach my writing, I am usually asking myself, “How can I put fireworks into this piece?”

Obviously, in genres such as crime and action, you can get away with putting  in actual explosions (and the cool characters that nonchalantly walk away from them), but it runs a little deeper than that. I think about the book I’m going to write, already completed, on the shelf. I say “What can I do to make the customer feel that they are getting a good value?”

Or “bang” for the buck, if you’ll allow me to be punny.

I guess Quentin Road was “too Brooklyn” for them.

Last night I had the pleasure (for the second time) in watching the musical “Avenue Q” live. Unlike my first experience in London’s theater district, this production was shown in an academic theater in Fullerton, CA. Though the venue was small (but still considered “Off-Broadway” going by the seat counts), they gave a show very comparable to the bigger one I watched six years prior. This coupled with the fact the tickets were about one fifth of what I paid, I felt as if I got more than my money’s worth.  If you hadn’t seen the show the best way (and often most common way) to describe is: Imagine if the writers of South Park did an episode of Sesame Street.

Spectacle: Getting people to ooh and ahh.

Let’s take the firework analogy further.  Sometimes doing “too much” can end up in a mess for your work. There is a difference between offering a powerful show (or book, or screenplay) and offering up a loud one. I’m sure you’ve seen the now infamous San Diego fireworks video from July 4th 2012 in which all of the fireworks went off at once:

Or to use a more accessible example: Do you guys remember “Transformers: The Dark of The Moon”? Well, I don’t, even though I was dragged there opening night. One thing stuck with me though. The last action sequence was damn near forty minutes long, and after which I was utterly exhausted. I found myself not caring which team of robots would come out on top. In that case, it was way too much. A movie about toys had no business being the better part of three hours long. None!

Some genres you wouldn’t expect to have spectacle, often do. A couple of years ago, there was the family Tragi-Comedy “City Island”

One of the few “Quirky Indie Films” I actually like.

Not giving anything away here, the story starts off with Andy Garcia’s character keeping a secret from the rest of his family. The secret (and other secrets the family keeps from each other) snowball until it hits a crescendo.  When everything “hits the fan”, the audience is immediately hooked as they are trying to figure out how everyone is going to level with each other. I recommend the flick personally, because my synopsis doesn’t do it justice.

As artists we want to consider our work as nothing but art, but there is that commercial component as well. Don’t think of it as “selling out”, as much as it is keeping your audience in mind. Give them a show and leave them wanting more.

–Flobo

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Country Music and Hip-Hop (And Writing)

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July 16, 2012

Hey everybody! Flobo here. Once again, we are going to chat about the writing craft in my little corner of the Internet.  I was actually going to discuss this last week, but after a recent outing to a  cowboy bar, this is become more and more relevant:

You know what I noticed? The people who love Country music dislike Hip-Hop and people that like Hip-Hop dislike country music. Obviously this isn’t true for everyone (and I’m being anecdotal), but it just seems that fans of these genres tend to stay on their respective sides like a junior high school prom.

Then again, I never went to my high school prom.

Fans of one side of the musical divide  usually poke fun at the other. For example, Country fans think Hip-Hop is this:

Murder, Murder, Murder..Kill, Kill, Kill. Save some time for degrading women, yo!

And Hip-Hop fans think Country music is more like this:

I parked muh pick-up truck outside. Now I reckon to do some dancin’ before listenin’ to dat nu Tim McGraw. *Guffaw*

Hip-Hop and Country are nothing like that. You know, unless they ARE. That’s the problem with stereotypes, there’s always a little bit of truth.

In Hip-Hop’s case, a ten year diversion with the fascination of the gangster life has given detractors enough fuel to not experience the music wholesale (despite the fact the genre has moved on to CEO/businessman worship). And in country’s case, most outsiders can’t fathom wearing a cowboy hat if you aren’t actually a cowboy, so the genre at large gets written off as anachronistic. Seriously, I’m sure you’ve heard:

“Man, I don’t listen to rap. It is all about killing, violence, and doing really bad things.”

Or

“Country? It’s all about tractors, singing about your dog dying, and how you work the farm, right?”

The tragically awesome part about this whole deal is that the genres are closer than anyone thinks. In both Country  and in Hip-Hop you have a musical genre that appeals to the poor and working class. Each music exudes a lifestyle that laments about simpler times while at the same time striving for more. Most songs are about braggadocio, romance, and the reversal of fortune. And in the case of Taylor Swift and Jay-Z, a few of the artists have crossed over into the mainstream.

Flobo Fact: Both Jay-Z and Taylor Swift make a lot more money than I do

Country and Hip-Hop have tried coming together before, with varying results. Check out these vids:

“Okay Flobo,” I can hear you say. “What does this have to do with writing?”

Well, I could say “songwriting” but that would be a cop out. Well, I guess I’ve realized that both Country and Hip-Hop are two sides of the same coin. In my post, Genre Blendin’, we talked about mixing genres in order to make something new. This is about aesthetic. There’s many different ways to tell a similar story but with a tweak of setting, characters, or dialogue your story could appeal to a completely different demographic.

Here’s some bias for you: Being a minority from NYC, Hip-Hop is my first “musical language”. Still to this day, I appreciate music based on tempo, fluidity or “flow” of lyrics, and its beat. This, and because NYC doesn’t have a country music station, I wasn’t exposed to the genre that much. Sure my mother played Skeeter Davis and Elvis (his gospel years) when she was cleaning the house, but I wrote that off as my “momma’s music”.  When I went to college in Florida, and got a show on the school radio station, I had to learn a bunch of genres I wasn’t exposed to before and quick. Why? Well, as a DJ you have to mix songs to have a seamless show, knowing what you have in your inventory is half the battle. Anyway, I came across this Dolly Parton song, that is one of my favorites of all time:

I still do this song on karaoke nights. Seriously, you should come see me sometime.

The fun part for me as a DJ was mixing that song with songs like these:

But I digress,

While I openly admit I would look equally silly in a cowboy hat as I would in a pair of Air Force Ones (I’m more of a Puma guy myself), people who wear them walk just that much taller. When you are writing your next piece, just think about the appeal your work has with not only your audience at large, but the smaller subcultures within.

–Flobo

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Paying It Forward

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July 9, 2012

Hey Flobo here and I have something to confess.

I’m an independent author and filmmaker! I know, earth shattering right? I mean, I say that practically every week. But you see this week, allow me to be a little existential.

 

If no one buys my books, am I still a writer? If no one sees the  films I make, am I  filmmaker?

 

Deep right? I have dreams of you, dear reader, checking out my blog and being so impressed with my posts that you buy a book or two. The odds of this are slim, but I do it anyway. I know that you in fact have to “take a chance” on me by dropping your hard earned cash on something I wrote.  While I know I’m in this creative line of work for the long haul, every so often friends and colleagues try their hand at a creative endeavor that means something to them. Do you know what I do? I. Buy. In.

Either this……or with a coupon to The Pottery Barn

 

Why? Well there’s that whole “karma” thing about putting good into the universe will only bring good vibrations back your way, but there’s something else. In fact, let me tell you a story:

 

Before I was a poor and starving writer, I was a poor and starving film school student.  I admit that this seems like an oxymoron as most film students have SOME kind of money, but this guy willed himself to attend on luck and student loans (I should tell you that story one day). I’ve made films as per the course requirements, no matter how confident I felt about the project. Why? Well for us, the big deal was getting into film festivals. No matter how vapid, how insipid, or outright stupid a film was, film student directors tried forcing their opus into the “film festival circuit”. You could argue the reason was because every director has some odd fantasy of being scouted by Scorsese himself at these things, but I’m trying to keep the blog positive.

Short story even shorter: The films I worked on? They pretty much went nowhere. Now, the last year I was in school a classmate needed some financial help with getting a film made for his directorial thesis. While the subject matter wasn’t exactly my cup of tea,I chipped in, as an “associate producer”. Of course, the flick becomes the “most successful”  film (in terms of festival appearances) I was ever involved in.

 

So that’s why when another  former film schoolmate was looking for funding for his next project…..

 

…I bought in. Sure there’s the immediate enjoyment I will receive if the film goes somewhere awesome like Cannes. You know, so I can brag about it to my friends and such. Beyond that, I am taking a chance in a project that would have been out of my scope if it were up to me, but it is a project that another person seems passionate about.

You could think of it like how “Steven Spielberg Presents” was slapped on every entertaining cartoon in the nineties, and so his brand was engrained into a new generation of people. Or you can think of yourself of those wealthy renaissance patrons that kept artists on retainer so they can commission new pieces on a whim. I guess what I’m saying is SUPPORT THE ARTS because you’ll never know what you are going to expose yourself to unless you take a shot on something. This should go “doubly true” for us creative types. Wanting someone to consume our works without sampling art from other sources could end up hurting us from an intellectual standpoint.

 

Or karma. Definitely that karma thing.

 

–Flobo

 

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The Wall XIV: July Update

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July 3, 2012

High Desert Run now available On The Nook, Kindle, and Smashwords

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