Tools You Can Use: Sundance 2008 and Sony

Scott Kirsner from the very enlightened and knowledgeable blog Cinematech has posted important tidbits from his Sundance panel. Especially interesting business-wise are the lessons that Paramount learned when it released JACKASS 2.5 online.

What they experienced was something they call "scraping" in the online world - that is, someone scraped your content off your site and put it up on theirs. This happens all the time in the online world - I scrape and acknowledge this very story - and it is a methodology that the studios will have to understand and brand around. That means making sure everyone knows where the source of the media came from through url's, etc... posted through the content.

You can read it here.

There's also a discussion in Scott's story about grabbing the viewer right away - in the first ten seconds - or risk having them click off the window on their computer.

That means give 'em the pulp early, people!

Another quiet yet major bit of business that happened this week was Sony announcing its move to create a MOD (Manufacturing on Demand) component to its DVD business. What this means is that Sony will compete with Amazon.com's Createspace, LuLu.com and others for the niche DVD business. What it also means is that you have the marketing power of a major studio behind you if they acquire the rights to manufacture your DVD. This has major implications as to how the business will shift in the coming years...especially since Sony is pacting with HP.

All this has major implications for those of us building our online studios. Yes, I am building an online studio and other folks you and I know are doing the same.

Welcome to the future. Learn it. Live it. Love it long time.

And Here's the Pitch!

Everyone has a story - their story - that makes them unique amidst their peers. When you hear them tell their story you become involved and caring and understanding - it affects how you feel about that person...or even that company...or that product.

Two very smart screenwriters, Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman figured out that everyone has a unique story to tell and if everyone "discovered their story," and learned to tell it effectively, then it would affect how people perceived them. In other words:

Maxwell and Dickman brought the art of the pitch to the boardroom and to business.

The two have written down their experiences and analyses of pitching in an amazing book called THE ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION (Harper Collins publishers) . It is a book I recommend not only to writers, but to career-minded people of all sorts. Inside are real world examples and concepts of how story affected someone's business in both a positive and negative manner. You'll learn how a story is constructed, and take a simpler look at the must-have elements of any good story.

By using the exercises in this book you'll learn your unique story and how to pitch it to everyone you meet. You'll be able to brand yourself in their minds and be that memorable guy who really held everyone's interest instead of that great writer who was kind of shy and sad.

Buy it.
Read it.
Use it.
End of story.