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Script Tales: “The AVL Commitment” (Part 1)

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

If you’ve been following along with my scriptwriting series, you now know that a script can be almost anything, as long as it provides a blueprint to tell a story. Words, interviews, sounds, music and of course pictorial descriptions are all fair game. Pacing notes are fair game.  Stylistic comments (Quick paced montage of team building the house)” are fair game.

Which brings me to writing about in some detail the story of the “AVL Commitment” script.

Working for AVL is a bit like an actor or comedian being asked to host an awards show. It’s a great honor, there are limited opportunities, and you can make or break your career. There are smart producers that avoid this kind of thing entirely. But at Sorgel-Lee, we had made our reputation on high-risk ventures. Impossible situations. Tough clients. Drunk and impatient audiences. The type of situations that put you on the map or erased you forever. The type of situations where clients could get a major bonus, a promotion and a raise, or be shunned out of existence. Yes, there were some bumps in the night, but for the most part we had succeeded in working ourselves onto the national scene as a “regional leader” in the audio-visual multi-image business.

Multi-image was the adopted name of the creation of “shows” or “events” or “spectaculars” through the use of multiple slide projectors, animation stand special effects, sophisticated soundtracks and a major piece of computer equipment to tie all of that together into something that was often called a “film” or a “slide-movie” because the music and words matched the picture. It wasn’t film, but the use of multiple slide projectors and carefully photographed sequences gave the impression that it was.

The leqding provider of this kind of equipment was a company called “Audio Visual Laboratories, or AVL. There were other companies, but theres always a number one– a company cloer to the user, more clever in engineering and marketing, and m=better at customer service, and for many producers money (which wasn’t all that much money– thus wasn’t Hollywood, after all) AVL was the choice for people who wanted to do more, satisfy their own creative urges, and make audiences “eyes fall out”.

Being asked by AVL to produce a demo show for their equipment was equivalent to a coronation. Of course, you had to deliver  And a handful of great in the multi-image industry (oh yes, it WAS an industry) had: Richard Shipps, Dough Mezney, Chris Karody, Duffy  and Sherry White. New York, LA, Denver, Detroit.

Why would they ask a couple of guys from Milwaukee to do their next show?

They didn’t.

We had already won a couple of “AMI’s” at the annual Association for Multi-Image” awards banquets, so our name was somewhat known.

With that under our belt, plus other at-home “Big Show” successes, we decided that if they weren;t going to call us, we’d call them. We’d had our picture on the cover of our industry magazine, I was a monthly columnist writing about computers in that same magazine, and Ric was working up the food chain to be president of AMI. Why not?

But we needed an angle. We needed to do what we did best. We didn’t want to just show off equipment with nifty programming tricks, we wanted to tell a story. The AVL story.

So we pitched it, the old fashioned way.

We called Randy Klein  then Vice President of Marketing at AVL, and suggested that we had something important to discuss with him– a marketing proposition.

“Go ahead”, he said, perhaps sarcastically  since he was nestled in New Jersey on the east coast near the Big Apple and were in, well, Milwaukee.

No, we told him, we have to do it in person.

Flights back then were plentiful cheap, and not the hassle thay are today– you could get in and out in a day if you had to. We had some business in New York; we had been working for AT&T and Playboy’s Fashion Magazine, and I was finding whatever excuse I could to go back home.

We took a North Central Airlines Jet to Newark, rented a car, and drove down the Turnpike, then the Garden State, to exit 117, which said “Keyport / Aberdeen”, but was also the gateway to the shore, and Atlantic Highlands, Monmouth County, New Jersey.

We arrived at the AVL Headquarters, which at that time was an old abandoned grade-school building. AVL’s operations were actually spread over three locations. There was another space on Atlantic Highlands main street, where engineering and manufacturing took place, and a location in the San Francisco area where manufacturing and engineering took place as well. (That location would become significant later, for another story.)

We had written one of our classic proposals– Who What Why, How, and Whats in it for me, the client.

As usual by that time in our careers, I started by reading, then let enthusiasm take over as I went into the ad-hoc, from the heart, Don Draper-at his-best pitch.

Sold.

A minuscule budget was set, and we came home triumphant, although smarter folks on staff (including Linda Duczman and Tim Dodge) were probably thinking “What are we in for… that’s a budget?!”

But we were looking at this from a marketing perspective. There would be no argument now that we could stand head and shoulders with the biggies in New York and LA– if we pulled it off.

 NEXT: Developing and writing the script.

Filed Under: Corporate Media, Creativity, History Lesson, Proposal Writing, scriptwriting, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Corporate Video Scriptwriting 102: Write it Out Loud

January 7, 2013 By Leave a Comment

“What you’re reading here is meant to be read, not heard. So my words must do all the work. The writing is necessarily complete, formal, and structured like the sentences we diagrammed in grade school. Each sentence has a subject, verb, and object.”

If you read the sentence above aloud, you’ll find that it sounds like a lecture, not a conversation. It’s simply not the way people speak (except maybe your college professor.)

That’s because those words are written for eye, not the ear.

It’s simply the biggest mistake would be scriptwriters make. Because writing involves, well, writing, they write like they’ve been taught to write… as if they were writing a letter, or an essay.

Let’s say that the person writing the script does know how to write for video. They know the end result is not words on a page, or text boxes, or PowerPoint slides. It is an audio-visual melange, made up of visuals, music, graphics and words. And a picture is worth a thousand words, at the very least.

So the writer goes about the task differently. He or she writes “out loud“, visualizing what will be seen, heard, and said. Visualizing what parts of the story can be told purely visually, what parts of the story can rely on music to deliver impact, and what parts of the story need text on the screen, or when necessary, word written to be heard… out loud.

What do we mean by writing out loud?

Simple. Open your mouth and read what you’re putting on the screen. If it sounds convoluted or wordy, it is. If you need oxygen to read it, it’s too long. If it is so convolutedly complete in its coverage of every concept and fact, it’s a guaranteed video fail.

If you’re not sure from looking at the words you’ve put on the page are right for the ear, there’s only one way to tell– read them out loud.

Is your face turning red as you realize the pain the audience will be going through? Good for you– you’ve at least got a sense of self-conciousness, and an ability to feel shame.

Does your reading out loud allow you to hear music where there are no words, and envision picture sequences, sounds, interview voice clips, and animations that become part of the audience experience simply guided or led by the words?

Bingo.

When I started in this business, my job was the words and the soundtrack. I wrote the words, and I cobbled together music, words, sound effects, and interviews on two Sony 2-track recorders. We didn’t have an office, just a one bedroom walkup apartment in Milwaukee. And that bedroom had one closet.

I was just married, and just starting the business, and after I wrote the script, I had to narrate it by reading the words into the tape recorder. I was terribly self-conscious, so for that reason, and for better acoustics (this is Wisconsin– there were plenty of wool coats in the closet) I brought my tape recorder, microphone, a flashlight and words on paper into the closet. Doing my best “annoucer” voice, I began to read.

Within a minute my face was read, and I had stopped the tape.

This didn’t sound like Ed McMahon, Don Pardo, Dick Clark, Betty Furness, Kate Smith, Garry Moore, Durward Kirby, Arthur Godfrey, or any of the other great pitch-people of my father’s generation. It sounded like– like– a bunch of words!

I turned on the TV. I watched Ed McMahon, Arthur Godfrey, and others pitch products. There weren’t a lot of visuals  but the product was always prominent, along with simple graphics and the pitchman or woman. The person on screen sometimes did a demonstration, and sometimes just, well, talked., like he or she was leaning over your shoulder as you ironed or folded clothes (this was before two career families became the norm). And the “out-loud” words were succinct, brief, to the point, and not always in complete sentences. Just like a conversation.

Arthur Godfrey Time-C U

If you’re under 40, you may have no idea who Arthur Godfrey was. But he was big. He was a CBS TV and radio personality who defined that term. He was a talker, singer, ukelele player, daily TV and radio variety show host, and pitchman. People paid Arthur big bucks to get behind their products. He was known for ad-libbing a lot of his endorsements, the best known of which, in the fifties, was Lipton soup, which he would slowly savor in front of you from his panel discussion hosting desk on his daily morning tv show.

As daytime variety shows faded, and game shows and soap operas dominated the airwaves, Arthur was still busy, making movie cameos and endorsing products in commercials– although, to his credit, he was selective on which products he would risk his well-earned reputation of trust.

In the late 60′s, he was paid to introduce a new product via a series of commercials– the first laundry  ”enzyme pre-soak”– Axion.

His conversation, simple demonstration pitches were classic and sold tons of the stuff. Watch:[pb_vidembed title="Arthur Godfrey Introduces Axion" caption="" url="http://vimeo.com/55230386" type="vem" w="480" h="385"]

His use of conversational language and “you and me” familiarity is phenomenal. “Look,”, “uh-huh”. “Someone got punched in the nose”, “it would take an hour and a half to explain it to you, take it from me it works.”

Hell, his magic logo reveal is pulling a piece of tape off the box!

I’m not proposing minimalistic production values a a solution to communications complexities. I am proposing that the use of human conversational language in a medium partially intended  for the ear is a pre-requisite for corporate communications success.

Arthur GodfreyA good story, credibility, and decent visual proof. That’s at the heart of a successful product or image story.

By the way, Godfrey, an environmentalist, eventually stopped doing Axion commercials when he found out that the sponsors had withheld some information fron him: Enzyme action got clothes clean, but made rivers and streams a problem for wildlife.

Filed Under: Corporate Media, Geezersayswhat?, Historical Perspective, History Lesson, scriptwriting, Talent, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Corporate Video Scriptwriting 101: Words Only Where Necessary

November 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The most under-praised and misunderstood part of any video production is the script.

First of all, there is always a script, even if it’s only in one’s head. (Who is “Number One”, by the way?)

Also, can you really trust a writer that uses nothing but parentheticals?

Okay, back to the point: Scriptwriting is the center of any production, even those without words.

The scriptwriter will get to know the client and the subject matter better than anyone else on the crew. He or she will be the only person familiar with the products, descriptive terms, visual features, physical surroundings, client goals, hot buttons and politics surrounding the subject matter of the video.

Scriptwriters are thought be word experts, but they must also think in terms of images, sounds, and rhythms, or a video could fail.

They know how to surf the subject matter, place it in order, and reveal it in the fits and bursts that can compel an audience to believe or buy, or whatever else the client’s goal is.

So, if I had to give advice to someone who could write, generally speaking, but hadn’t written for video, I’d start with these basics:

A corporate, business, industrial (whatever you want to call it) script is different from a a screenplay. They’re written differently, on different templates, and serve entirely different purposes. What they share in common is that time is money– except Hollywood has a lot more money.

The corporate script uses an “audio-visual” style: two columns, audio on one side, video on the other. This allows for more video detail than the narrative style of a screen play. Product names, shot description, text call-outs, shot listings, etc. are all fair game for inclusion. The audio side is for the words, audio descriptions, sound effects, etc.

The first trick to a/v style writing is to develop the discipline to know when you should let the visuals do the talking. Why say what we see?

The second trick is to write for the ear, not for the page.

“This truck has the new Dynaflow® (a registered trademark of Megacorp) style engine. Its chrome exterior belies the power inside.”

The A/V equivalent, assuming you’ve got some great product shots?

“This baby has Dynaflow.”

or

“Dynaflow.”

Finally, the third trick is to know that “prose poetry” is not often called for in most scripts (There are exceptions). The poetry will be in the music, the visuals and the overall pacing you create knowing where and how to build this mix of elements on paper so the rest of the team can execute the plan and pacing you have outlined.

There’s a lot more to this, but knowing where to start should at least give you an assist in hiring a great scriptwriter or becoming one.

Filed Under: Corporate Media, Creativity, scriptwriting Tagged With: , , , , ,

How Experience Makes Each Learning Opportunity Easier and Faster (Happy B’Day, Interwebs!)

August 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Problem-solving capabilities are one part experience, one part nature. Your ability to solve  work-related problems depends on your field, your place in the time-continuum (maturity) of that field, and your own adaptive nature (or simple curiosity).

World Wide Web, 1991

World Wide Web, 1991

This week marks the 21st year of a Hypertext, Interactive World Wide Web. My experience with the Web (or internet) began with Mosaic, one of the first, if not the first, true graphic interface web browser. But prior to that, Tim Berners-Lee had already demonstrated hypertext on the web, the ability to click on a highlighted word and have that click “branch” to another page entirely. What a concept.

But not a new one. To producers of interactive video discs, it was a concept they understood only too well.

I produced my first interactive video disc in 1983, for AT&T International. Using their control technology, which involved touch sensitive monitor screens overlaid on graphic interfaces playing back on videodiscs, screens seemed to magically interact with any button push by the user. Of course, getting people to touch a screen back then was a different challenge no one had anticipated.

AT&T Interactive Display

AT&T Interactive Display

It was our job to plan and write the creative plan and pathway possibilities the end user could choose. The basic question was always “where do you want to go next”, which was represented on screen by buttons. To prepare the “plan” for the choices consumers could make (or branching), we had to lay out a flowchart. This was before the Macintosh or graphic software, so any branching plan would have to be done on paper. But this was a new concept, one hard to get our heads around. So we literally created pathways of paper and masking tape on a floor to plan out the choices users would be offered. Early hypertext if you will.

AT&T "wireframe" 1983

AT&T “wireframe” 1983

Later that same decade, Apple introduced Hypercard, which used black and white text and pictures to allow authors to develop learning and entertainment “stacks” that could be distributed on floppy disc. I found it relatively easy to adapt, since I already had hyperlinking experience.

This merged into interactive cd-rom, which allowed for the inclusion of high-density graphics and movies.

While the web was interactive, it was also slow, so interactive cd-roms enjoyed a gaming and e-learning period of growth despite the web’s appearance.

Macromind Director (Later Macromedia Director, and later, Adobe Director, and still later, Adobe Flash) was used as an authoring device for cd-rom, but soon also circumvented web speed issues through clever graphics compression and a similar use of the hypertext concept. Now you could load your entire project to the web, offering the end user what had taken large proprietary interactive boxes and videodiscs just a decade earlier. Again, I got it.

So doing a web page– essentially an interactive videodisc or DVD– was no challenge for me or my team. We had done it all, on slower, more challenging equipment  and when clients came to us for e-learning systems and interactive web training, we knew exactly what they were talking about. Heck, we had literally walked through this virtually world nearly 15 years earlier. There was very little learning curve. Given our past experience, we could offer these new solutions to clients, quicker, better.

So corporate buyers,  next time you’re buying production solutions, think age before beauty. There will be less risk and quicker prduction times.

And producers, sometimes older is better.

 

 

Filed Under: Corporate Media, Creativity, Geezersayswhat?, History Lesson, I know I'm old, Talent Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Customer is Always Right– Always?

August 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had lunch with a music composer some time back, celebrating a successful video project he and I had worked on together, when we got to discussing clients. This is sort of standard operating procedure when creatives-for-hire get together.

We both shared something in common– we both as part of our modus operandi retained creative control over the projects we produced, at least most of the time.

He said, “I have a philosophy. I tell potential clients ‘if you know what you want, you don’t want me.’”

I tried to put my head around that, since clearly they wanted him, or they wouldn’t be discussing a project with him.

He went on. “What I mean is, if they have already figured out what they want musically, without even discussing the their need, goals, expected results, and more, then they want to skip the best of what I can offer them.

“How’s that?” I said, channeling Jack Webb.

“I offer problem-solving”, he replied. “If they’ve figured out the answer, then I’m just a contracter, not an architect.”

Which reminded me of the single most often asked question we used to get at Sorgel-Lee in the old slide days. After a pasrticularly successful project, one in which we had analyzed a need, suggested an approach,wrote a script, shot the picture sequences, created dazzling animations, and put the whole thing together to a remarkable, Hollywood-style soundtrack, the client would declare:

“That was great. What kind of camera do you use?”

Like the camera was going to grant that individual the sudden talents of the 10-person team it may have taken to create the multimedia project that had just gotten him a promotion or corner office.

Which is why we never worked by the hour, only by project quote. You need some video shot? There are freelance shooters for that. Our shooters are working on projects that we have written and are directing.

You’ve got a script? Good for you. There are plenty of production companies that will risk their reputations and highlight reels producing your script. But we had a style, and it including certain script-writing techniques, rhythms and meters we had spent yeats perfecting.

You want a hundred copies? There were far cheaper places than us, and we didn’t want to risk our reputation and your trust in us with an attempt to make a quick buck by hooking up a couple of VHS machines and given you muddy copies, or burning single DVD’s with paper labels that only worked on SOME DVD plsyers.

Put another way, if you want to hire us, you want to hire us, not our equipment.

And our most successful professional relationships are built on that fact, and the trust it implies.

Filed Under: Corporate Media, Creativity, CYA, Historical Perspective, History Lesson, Managing Creatives, Partnerships, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

R.I.P. Frank Pierson: Cool Hand Luke, Cat Ballou, Dog Day Afternoon

July 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Cool Hand Luke Poster

What we have here… is a failure to communicate.

Frank Pierson, the writer of some of my favorite movies, especially Cool Hand Luke, died recently, and the New York Times had a particularly insightful tribute piece featuring interviews with those who new him or his work best (Including his current employer, Matthew Weiner of Mad Men;

Media Decoder: The New York Times/

Filed Under: Corporate Media

The Voice is Silenced: Steve Lutomski

February 8, 2012 By 12 Comments

As I was preparing a post about my fortieth anniversary in the audio-visual business, I got a phone call informing me that Steve Lutomski had passed on. I knew Steve for nearly all of those 40 years.

Ric Sorgel and I began Sorgel-Lee Multimedia (Also known as Sorgel-Lee-Riordan, SLI Multimedia, and Sorgel-Lee) February 1st, 1972. It’s easy to remember the date– it was also the day my wife of 6 months Barbara and I moved from the west side of the river to the east side. It was an easy move, and Ric borrowed his father’s GMC “Jimmy” to help make the move a bit easier.

We moved into a 3rd story one room apartment in the “Colonial” apartments on Cass Street. Across the street was a Drug Store and a Meat Market. Two blocks down was Northwestern Mutual, which had not yet taken over the far eastern portion of Mason Street.

It was in this apartment that I produced out first soundtrack, for Kiefer Corporation, a kitchen stainless steel fabricator. It was a virtual freebee. I narrated the script myself, doing my best Ed McMahon impression and reading into the winter coats in our one large closet (my first sound booth).

I didn’t want to be the voice of Sorgel-Lee; I just didn’t have the pipes.

That Christmas, I met someone who did: Steve. He came to a small Christmas party Barbara and I were having in our small living room. The Christmas Tree dominated, until Steve arrived, a plus one for a mutual friend. Steve was the life of that party, funny, wry, with a voice that simply could not be denied. This was a young Steve– he wasn’t quite yet a baritone, but he cut through the noise nonetheless.

At 23 years old; I was seizing every opportunity to make our business work creatively. We started with no money, just our talents, determination, and a devotion to the product– it had to be better than the other guys’– whoever they were.

By the end of the year we had landed a few small projects and a deadline was approaching: an “industrial” Corporate Overview for Milwaukee Valve Company.

I offered Steve the job on the spot– read the script for $25 bucks.

By the time we were ready to record, we had moved into our “palatial” offices at the Metropolitan Block Building, on what is now called Old World Third Street. If you ever saw 3rd Street back in those days, the name–at least the “old” part– was certainly appropriate.

We recorded on a Shure M78 line in to a 4-track Teac tape recorder. Steve had to be his own compressor, limiter, and noise gate. Of course, editing helped. In fact, and it is a fact, 100 takes were not uncommon. I was not going to let anything less than perfection go into our first for money “big-time” show.

The end result was, to my ears, perfection. Steve rolled with the punches, punched back, and always delivered, weaving and parrying a virtual symphony of human sound. The funny part was, we never let go of the leash; music was so important to our soundtracks that there wasn’t an announcer we used over the years that we didn’t have to subdue– the better to bob and weave in between the music flourishes.

Soon, he was always nailing it, although I never settled for one take, or even two. He was our voice for five years straight.

________________

Milwaukee in the early 70′s didn’t have much of skyline, despite being dense with large industrial companies. The First Wisconsin Bank decided to change that with a 44 floor Tower.

To explain the roots of this “modern” monolithic building, we were asked to create a two-projector slide show telling the history of First Wis as it related to the history of the state of Wisconsin and City of Milwaukee.

Written by Rob Riordan, shot by Ric Sorgel, Soundtrack by Brien Lee, voiceover by Steve Lutomski, who was very patient while I tried to extract a more “depressing” depression era interpretation out of him.

_______________

In those days, Steve worked at Radio Doctors, a perfect home for his encyclopedic knowledge of music, from DooWop to Classical. Being just two blocks away, he could “drop in” to schmooze whenever he felt like it, and we in those days had time on our hands.

On Saturday’s, on his lunch break, we would meet at Major Goolsbie’s for a mixed solid and liquid lunch– three gin and tonics, and a burger or brat. When my father was in town, he’d join us.

As Sorgel-Lee-Riordan got busier, I found my workload increasing to the point of exhaustion. Ric was likewise encumbered; we each chose people to hire. Steve Lutomski, as an audio producer, and Greg Latsch, as a photographer, joined Rob Riordan, Linda Duczman, Dave Sorgel, Ric and myself as our first full-time staff. Things were going well, until:

It was Steve who called to give me the news… “The Building’s on fire!”

Our second floor world overlooking Odd Lot Shoes, Donge’s Gloves, and Lenrak’s Restaurant was gone, for the most part charred beyond recognition. A client in the Steinmeyer building down the street on Highland offered us temporary space, and things were never quite the same. They were serious, at times somber. Not an atmosphere Steve could thrive in. We were taking ourselves too seriously, and those who know Steve know that wasn’t his style. A few years later, he left, actually driving east to visit my family for comfort (my family loved him.)

There were hurt feelings,but our friendship continued outside of work, basically repairing itself over time. He attended my sister’s wedding, dated a friend of my brother’s, and help Barbara and  I move from an apartment on Newberry to our house on Prospect. The song that was playing that weekend was one I’ll always associate with Steve– “Baker Street.” The music– and lyrics– fit.

Soon thereafter, we had a kid. Matthew. You would have thought he was Steve’s. He treated him like his own, with amazing generosity. Always the biggest presents (sometimes so big Matthew had to grow into them), always over for Saturday night dinner and Mystery Science Theater 3000. And of course, the holidays.

He was doing fine on a mix of income from radio stations gigs and voiceovers. But his continuity of employment was interrupted with two bouts of cancer, both of which he conquered. We’d visit him nearly daily at St. Joseph’s Hospital and later Columbia.

Steve eventually recovered and returned to form. If we hosted a party, we made sure he came early– he could turn on the charm and engage and entertain a crowd.

But the 21st century presented him with challenges.

Many helped whenever they could, and Steve was a survivor. He continued “schmoozing,” and if you attended any of the big sponsored events in town, he would be there. He was no shrinking violet, despite his health issues.

In the early days, we called him “the voice.” And he was– the voice of humor, the voice of music, and the voice of “the loyal opposition”, always willing to poke holes in the positions of employers, politicos, talk show hosts, even his friends and family.

But that was Steve: loyal, stubborn, funny, smart, and vocal, anywhere and everywhere.

Now, Steve is speechless and so are we.

Filed Under: Corporate Media

The Corporate Communications Choice: Creativity or Committee

January 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Let me first say that I’ve been around the block. If I were a tree, I’d have 62 rings… Of hell.

And in February, I’ll have been doing this– this being creating visual communications projects– for 40 years. Slide Shows, museum events, audio-visual theater in the round, multi-screen extravaganzas, video in all its permutations, wide screen meetings, business theater, web video, interactive DVD’s, you name it. (Go ahead name it– I’ll wait—- yup, did that too.)

So, I’ve created a lot of media. Yes, that was my job. Create. Analyze a communications need, through research, meetings, reading, talking and listening, and finally, offering a solution that would accomplish the change necessary. I was right on the money about 94% of the time (that’s an educated guess; I’m guessing I was probably involved in nearly 1000 various projects throughout the years, some as a creative director, sone as writer, some hands on. Generally, because I either owned the company producing, or because I was a high level executive with the company producing, I had final responsibility for sduccess or failure. I took that pretty seriously.

But not always. Contract corporate communications– where a company executive or a communications or video department executive hires outside assistance– is a very complex thing. Some companies have media departments that produce much of what they do internally and hire out turnkey responsibility only occasionally. Others develop a relationship with a producer (or to make it even more complex, an ad agency) and rely on them to create solutions and accept responsibility, which CAN be two different things.

Corporates can choose to be their own producer– hire a writer, shooter, editor, graphics, editor, etc. Or they can hire me (alright, and thousands of other like me.)

When my partner Ric Sorgel and I began, we had the advantage of being early adopters of a technology– slide shows. But out love of the technology did not blind us to wanting to just play with the toys. We wanted to make complete, stand-alone, hey ma, we did this ourselves shows. The technology was so new (and the budgets compared to 16mm film so enticing to potential clients) that we were busy almost from the start. The clients– had no idea what we did or ow we did it, they only knew the end result. Despite our having conceived, outlined, written, shot, done interviews, created soundtracks and edited them altogether, the clients first question after applauding the show was– “What camera did you use?”

I wonder if Hemingway ever got the question, “What typewriter do you use?”

This syndrome continues to today. Avid or Final Cut? Red or Canon DSLR? Mac or PC?  Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter? (or Word with two columns?)

The questions are more complicated because video has become part of the language of communications, movable type was to the book. And the tools of video are more affordable. Thus, everyone’s a director / shooter, everyone’s a producer, everyone’s a creative. And almost anything can be seen by anyone… i.e., YouTube.

But pens and pencils and typewriters were used for many things– grocery lists, love letters, invoices, instruction manuals, summons, and, yes, novels, great and not-so-great. So, was the grocery list writer considered an “author?” Is anyone with a camera or web access a “creative?”

Add to that the interactive world– iPhones, Twitter, SMS, GotoMeeting/Seminar.com, chat groups on Facebook and LinkedIn, and we can be connected all the time! We can live, therefore, in a virtual committee. I’m not talking about production teams, where everyone has a specific role.

I’m talking about virtual groupthink, where quiet time vanishes and creative ideas are ground by a group of peers into sausage. I know, you like sausage, but is it really good for you?

There is a way to be successful on both sides of the fence in corporate communications. I’ve made enough mistakes to know how. In these pages, over the next few months, I’ll share– wait, I hate that word– I’ll provide– for free– ideas on how to avoid the sausage of creativity and allow the prime grade AAA meat  to sizzle.

 

Filed Under: Care and Feeding of Suppliers, Corporate Media, Creativity, Historical Perspective, Ideas, Managing Creatives, Partnerships, Talent, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,