Archive for August 2005

But Don’t Have the “Squareballs” to Do So

by Steve Kayser

One particular day, after receiving a rejection letter (the first among many that I’ve never acknowledged) I got a little ticked. I mean, c’mon, I just spent three months banging out 120 pages of the best screenplay America has never seen.

A classic.

A beaut.

It has the heart of Rocky the cherubic innocence of Forrest Gump, and the underlying spirituality of Gandhi. (You are now getting very, very sleepy … think "Acceptance Bridge," and get your checkbook out.)

A quick sale for sure.

I’ll be fair and take mid-seven figures against eight. Win-win! That’s my motto. But … what do I get?

A form letter.

But not just any form letter. A little, personalized, scribbled note was attached.

It said,

"You’re a good writer, but no real producer would touch this. Too much spirituality at the end. Think more commercial. How about bankers ripping off some people? And chases. Car crashes. Viruses. Diseases. They’re big right now. Oh — special effects. Magic. Need that too. Movies are all about special effects now. Don’t be such a smart writer. Dumb it down some.

"Get some reviews from someone too — someone with a title would be great. Define what demographic market your film appeals to, what merchandising opportunities and ancillary revenue streams could be available."

Squareballs (that’s my intellectual pen name) Gets Reasonable Advice

Okay, reasonable advice. Right? It was followed by this little mentoring tidbit.

Cartoons as Structure

"Watch cartoons to guide your story structure — they do it best. And watch movies where animals are the stars. Those are great dialogue-reducers. Relate it to movies you know. Something you can make a snap judgment on. Like Legally Blonde meets Gandhi I am busy you know. Send me another query when you think you can meet my needs."

Squareballs Ponders Reasonable Advice

Dialogue-reducers?

Meet his needs?

Dumb it down?

Basement Balcony Beckons

I stifled the urge to hurl myself off the basement balcony. It was tough. I bit my tongue, but did not overdose on 33 cheese coneys with extra onions, peanut butter, chocolate jelly (my favorite), mayonnaise, jalapenos and nuclear hot sauce.

But, being the consummate professional, I felt the need to follow up on his kind offer.

Here’s what I wrote back… and just for yucks, sent out to 50 other producers. (You think I’m kidding?)

Dear Omniscient, All-Seeing, All-Knowing, Producer:

I have a recently completed screenplay titled Pig and Turkey — a classic como-drama that I would like to submit to your company for consideration.

Dialogue Reducers Introduced

Think Babe and Woody Woodpecker freeing Willie.

A pig and a turkey join together to save their farm from an unscrupulous banker who is trying to foreclose on the property because he wants to turn it into a non-profit gambling casino.

Brings in the Banker and Disease Simultaneously (and brilliantly I might add)

The banker leaks to the press that "Mad Turk’s Disease" has infested the animals on the property.

Mad Turk’s Disease is an awful virus that makes your hair and nails fall out, causes you to get really disgustingly big facial warts, engenders disgustingly bad breath and uncontrollable flatulence.

The Dastardly Banker

The banker tricks them into jumping the Grand Canyon on a tricycle with two wheels saying he will stop foreclosure if they complete the leap. The leap is televised worldwide (Pay Per View).

The dastardly banker saws the ramp in half and Pig and Turkey are hurled head and beak-first into the Grand Canyon to a certain death.

A terrible, gut-wrenching moment, sure to bring tears to anyone with the least bit of a heart.

Magic and Special Effects Covered

Just when Death opens its jaws wide to receive them, Turkey finds her wings and transmogrifies like a caterpillar into … … a bald eagle, but not just any bald eagle.

"Eagle Kneivel"

Saving Pig and their farm.

Brings in Joseph Campbell

Pig and Turkey fight heroically to save their home and way of life while exhibiting upstanding morals and fulfilling the heroes’ mythical journey.

Pig and Turkey Fast and Furious (see the sequel potential you visionaries?)
Pig and Turkey zoom toward an unbelievable climax in a 32-car chase scene throughout 51 states (including Puerto Rico).

Great Review

My great-grandmother, Elsie Grunewald, a retired English teacher and author of 11 unpublished novels, thoroughly reviewed the screenplay and thought it was the best thing she’s read since War and Peace by Leonardo Coldstoy.

She has prepared in-depth critiques and analyses for your review, and she has also meticulously choreographed the camera shots. POV by POV.

Tremendous Opportunity Spelled Out

To whom may I send this terrific, sure to be a runaway Academy Award winner nominee, 297 1/2 page screenplay?

Oops – Almost Forgot Demographics and Ancillary Revenue Streams

And … did I forget to mention that it will appeal to the family audience and has great ancillary market revenue potential utilizing dolls, toys, bacon, lettuce, and turkey sandwiches sold through … probably McDonald’s?

Regards, Steve

P.S. Contact me at my Grandma’s house.

Now is that a piece of work or what?

Sucks doesn’t it?

I got 10 requests to read the damn thing.

About Steve Kayser

Although Steve has won multiple screenwriting awards and publishes an award-winning B2B e-zine with 35,000 subscribers, he is currently busy recruiting handsome, intelligent, bilingual pigs to audition for the lead part in "Pig and Turkey." If you are a handsome, intelligent, bilingual pig and are looking to break into acting, this may be your big chance. Contact Steve at skbigm@gmail.com.

****Disclaimer****

NO EGOS! Must be able to get along with a turkey who saves the day … at least until Thanksgiving!

OKAY, Really About Steve:
Steve Kayser has won screenwriting awards from: The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science Nicholl Screenwriting Competition, Writers Digest Screenwriting Competition, and Project Greenlight. He was also named a "Purple Cow" by best-selling author Seth Godin, featured in a Marketing best practices cases by MarketingSherpa, Innovation Quarterly, and B2B Marketing Trends. His writings have appeared in several magazines, including Business 2.0 and Entrepreneur Magazine, among others. Contact Steve at skbigm@gmail.com.

Read Steve’s latest:

• Through the Eyes of a Child … the Tsunami Generation
• Master Blaster VS Master Leaker … Seven Radically Different Steps to Brilliant Brand Building Buzz – Steve Kayser interviews Al Ries
• Heartbeats of Healing – A salute and celebration of people, process, and technology
• "Veni, Vidi, Tiré a Dos Burros." or "I came, I saw, I shot two donkeys." – Steve interviews Dave Stein, best-selling business author of How Winners Sell
• My Darling, Is That Manure Stick You Have on? Some world-class marketing screw-ups

Better and more updated list of free tools and sites for writers.

This lists resources related to writing and for writers around the Web. It’s a growing list, so check back again to see new ones added. Though you can find most of these sites through your favorite search engine, it doesn’t provide you with a description of the site. Plus, searching for “writing resources” or “writer resources” could lead to results with many useless sites that abuse keywords for a better search engine ranking.

You can submit your site for review. Not all submissions automatically make the list. They’re reviewed for quality content.

Update: I’ve moved the list over to the articles. I put longer postings and resources there that people would want to find again later since this blog has too many entries to search through.

When you’re typing a paragraph and refer to a single person, what do you do when you need to mention “he,” “she,” “hers,” or “his?” Many people use “theirs.” That is wrong, wrong, wrong. Some use “he or she,” which is almost as annoying as “theirs.”

My approach is to pick one and stick with it. I take turns between the genders. “He” this time, “she” next time. Or if the person referred to is stereotypically male, then I’ll use the female version instead. For example, a tech support person is often a male (the proof comes through Paul interviewing people for his team — he gets about one female for every 10 males).

Sure, you can try working around it so you don’t use either word while avoiding “their” unless you changed the sentence to use plural.

Hank Stroll, the head guy at InternetVIZ, sent me this email he received. I think it’s funny because it asks you to stop by next weekend for brunch and coffee. Sure, Hank from Minnesota, can just take his super fast airplane like it’s a walk down to the nearest coffee shop.

It’s a waste to distribute like this. Sending email through a service isn’t free and usually involves a charge per email sent. Why don’t the company save its money and clean up its list to separate locals from far away readers? Here’s the email:

Its easy to enjoy a cooked Brunch at Columbus Coffee Dominion Road!

Dear Hank,

Got lots on this weekend? Sports? Late nights? Getting over a cold? Having a hectic working week? Hungry? (if you answered yes to any or all of these we recommend you come in for a cooked brunch quickly!)

Well don’t make life any more hectic by having to cook breakfast/lunch at home. Come in, smell the wonderful Columbus Coffee and choose a specially cooked brunch that suits you, as well as those in toe. We see it all the time – often the orders at one table are all different – e.g you like the Poached eggs, the others order the Scrambled eggs with bacon, Big Breakfast, Eggs Benedict, Turkish Breakfast Platter, Shepherds Melt, Breakfast Panini and then there’s the different drinks…! Try doing that at home or the office! And we do these sumptuous cooked breakfast/lunches 7 days a week until 2 pm just in case you are not around in the weekend!.

New Blackboard Specials
Mushroom Discovery – Balsalmic and Thyme infused field mushrooms served with bacon, rocket and 5 grain toast. $12.50
Lamb Shanks -slow roasted and served on bed of garlic mash. $14.00

Home/Office Baristas
Buy your fresh roasted coffee beans (we can grind them here) and enjoy coffee later in the comfort of your home or office. Still need a coffee machine? We can help you.

Week- day breakfast meetings
Like to pre-order your cooked breakfast/lunch ahead of time, no problems. Call us on 623-0500.

Lucky Prize draw
This week’s winner for our freshly roasted coffee prize pack is Maree Joll of the Flight Centre in Dominion Road, Eden Quarter. Congratulations.

Where are we? Open?
345 Dominion Road weekdays 7 am – 5 pm
t – 623-0500 weekends 8 am – 4:30pm

Happy days,
Ali and the team at Columbus Coffee Dominion Road

Do you think personal Web sites give a hint as to its designer’s gender? Does this site look like a male or female designed it? Never mind the lack of talent.

Interllectual.com poses this question. I use orange and blue. I’m female. Meryl is a girl’s name! Zeldman used orange in his earlier designs. Personally, I don’t think there is a “look” that specifies a person’s gender.

Some females might give their sites a feminine look, but I’ve also seen a couple of talented male designers use what people think is feminine in their designs.

Since my first child was born, I’ve tried to raise my kids as humans rather than boy / girl. I learned that there is a bit of a wiring thing happening and they gravitate toward things “stereotypical” of their gender whether or not a parent helps things along. It’s back to the old nature vs. nurture argument and to me, it takes BOTH not one or the other.

I had to write a paper on this in college and PICK ONE of them. I hated that because I support both. Nature is what makes a plant look and behave the way it does while nurture ensure it thrives or tries to help it thrive if it was a troubled plant. Boy, this is too deep for a Friday entry.

Responses haven’t been up to par with the latest . A reader needs help with ensuring high response rates with direct mail marketing. You can submit a question of your own. Hey, who can turn down free advice?

.1984.

What do you think of when you see that year? What if I add the term “Apple?”

For me, the famous Orwellian Super Bowl commercial comes to mind. Do you even remember who won the Super Bowl that year? Or even who played in it?

Super Bowl commercials had yet to become the subject of water cooler talk in 1984. How strange is it to hear that Apple originally planned to run its commercial during the college bowl games only to move it to the Super Bowl because it was cheaper? The Apple commercial is responsible for kicking off the Super Bowl super ads that have stolen the show — especially when the game was a blowout.

Why did this commercial receive such buzz? It’s not like we’d never seen a good or different one before.

Are you struggling to come up with an idea for a marketing campaign or any campaign for getting the word out there when your budget is limited and every media is overcrowded? Even in this day and age with TiVO skipping commercials and information overload, it’s possible to break in. It takes creativity and pushing at least one of six buttons.

Hughes shows which six secrets, or as he calls them “six buttons of buzz,” that Apple hit upon with this commercial. Not only does he talk about the six buttons, but also he covers the six steps to creating a buzz worthy campaign:

The six buttons to creating successful word-of-mouth campaigns:

1. The taboo – sex, lies, and bathroom humor.
2. The unusual.
3. The outrageous.
4. The hilarious
5. The remarkable.
6. The secret – both the revealed and unrevealed.

The six steps to creating a campaign while integrating at least one of the buttons:

1. Push the right button.
2. Capture the media.
3. Advertise for attention.
4. Climb the mountain.
5. Discover creativity.
6. Police your product.

Hughes writes conversationally with wit, much like what you see in the high quality blogs and he easily engages readers. Hughes could readily spout marketing jargon, but he doesn’t. Nor does he come across as a know-it-all. He genuinely wants to show how buzzmarketing works and backs up the six buttons and six steps with real life examples that experienced ‘super buzzing.’ We need more business books like this.

The examples include the Pepsi Challenge (I prefer Coca-Cola to Pepsi and have taken plenty of challenges to prove it), Rit Dye, Ford Mustang, and of course, Hughes’ own campaign coup — Half.com. It takes no time to read the book as it flows like good fiction. Whether your budget is small or large, the examples and ideas from the book show how to create a campaign worth much more without spending an extra buck.

Do you hear buzzing? That’s the sound this book is generating as the publicist behind it spreads the word to reviewers and bloggers. When I post a review, it doesn’t just show up in one place. Expect to find it posted in two other places and linked to from two newsletters. Now that’s spreading the word — or should I say ‘buzz.’ Hughes lives what he preaches.

Anyone who wants to give attention to anything will benefit from the book.

Title: Buzzmarketing
Author: Mark Hughes
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
ISBN: 1591840929
Date: July 2005
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Cover Price: USD: $23.95 Amazon: $16.29

Zork. Remember it? I think I hear a mixture of, “What the hey?” and “Oh, yeah! Wow, that brings back memories.” For the former group, Zork was a text-based adventure game from INFOCOM — one of the the first interactive computer games. It resembles the Choose Your Own Adventure books only instead of flipping pages, you enter the command and the story continues.

Play interactive fiction again (or try it out) with the series from Malinche Entertainment. After a glitch — five times over — I got the game working. It was the luck of the draw as I had a bad CD and then instructions that could be read several ways. No one’s fault except for CD problem. The First Mile is available in several versions: PC ($19.95 by download) and iPod ($9.95).

In the PC version, you enter the commands and tell the game what you want to do in the story while the iPod / cell phone version provides you with a few choices and you select what you want to do.

Want to see what it’s like to get involved with the story? Malinche offers a training academy — beware the side effect of training the academy… addiction.

The First Mile is horror fiction, perhaps something torn out of Stephen King’s notebook. As soon as the game begins, my heart thumps harder with each move I make as I encounter a body, hear a hellhound growling, and see many empty buildings and homes. Am I the only person in Dead Rock? Could this be Twilight Zone?

I try to calm my nerves by playing music while living the game, which is possible to do on the iPod and PC. Not even music or a baseball field brings comfort. I shall stop here as it’s all I can take for the time being. At least, I did this much — me who has never read Stephen King nor have I watched horror films at the slumber parties I attended as a teen.

If you can’t get your teen to read a book and she constantly plays video games, sneak this into her computer, iPod, or Smartphone and she’ll convert and read without hesitance. Good news. When she finishes the game, there are more available from Malinche Entertainment. Heck, this works on spouses, friends, and family, too.

Tips:

* The First Mile is a large story. To start back at the beginning, hold down [Menu] and the center click button at the same time — keep holding till you see the screen blink to the Apple logo, then you can let go. It takes at least six seconds for the logo to appear.

* There isn’t any way to quit and pick up where you left off due to the limitations of the current iPod software. Watch this Web site for updates. Malinche Entertainment has asked Apple to consider adding a “Bookmark” feature.

I love it when someone gets creative and mixes two things as If Bloggers Had Been Around Throughout History mixes history (pre-blogging days – The horror! The horror!) with blogging. Mena is a creative one! It’s like I have a big wall up between my thoughts and the part of my brain where the creativity lives. I’m a lefty, ain’t it supposed to be natural?

I could not recall the word for lover of books, then I figured there had to be a list of such words. Of course, there is… this is the Internet. Word List: Definitions of Words for Love, Fondness and Preference has a nice long list.

I declare myself the following:

logophile
bibliophile

School started last week, so I have to go to a PTA meeting, a first grade parents meeting, and get the PTA Web site up and running (more about that later). Heard y’all groaning that it is too early. The state of Texas wants to start after Labor Day so we can get lots of money for tourism. Geez. And they can’t even figure out school finance, which has been going on for over a year.

A word from our sponsor: Lactose Intolerance