Late night phone calls & decisions that aren't so difficult after all

It was almost 10 p.m. when the phone rang. 

I'd planned to stay up past midnight to finish a freelance article, a feature about a VP of a company in Japan, but my friend was desperate for advice. She said it couldn't wait. 

My friend depends on advertising to find new clients. As a one-person shop, new business makes it possible for her to pay her bills and to keep her office in a beautiful complex.

For more than a year she'd been marketing her company on an exclusive website. She needed advice because the next day was her last chance to renew her internet ad for the next 30 days. 

Her ad had been recently removed from its usual, prominent space on the website. She would only be guaranteed that it would appear prominently throughout the month if she upgraded her plan and she had been paying $1,000 a month. 

She didn't understand why her ad was being held hostage; she wanted her ad to be displayed prominently, as often as possible, throughout the month. 

A rep from the website had explained that the link in her ad that led to her personal website had received hundreds of clicks. Clicks meant nothing to my friend. 

She was also unhappy that a competitor who had purchased the least expensive contract possible was given superior placement for his ad throughout the month while her ad had disappeared.

I explained to her that because so few people were clicking on her competitor's ad, it never met the lowest threshold in his contract. This allowed his ad to languish in its prominent spot while her ad had been consumed  so ferociously that it lost its place; its popularity would cost her.

"I don't care," she said. "No one's calling."

She explained that while she had received clients because of the ad in the past, it had stopped being effective. She ultimately decided to cancel her contract and would advertise on another website.

Before we hung up, she asked advice about a client she had turned down. When she tried to refer him to a different company, he told her that wanted her. "It's like dating," she laughed. "The ones you want could care less while the dates you don't care about are the ones that pursue."

I like to think about it in another way. 

A top screenwriting agent was giving advice about pitching one's work. "It's easy to try too hard," he said. "Don't do it. If you sense the person you're pitching to doesn't like your project, let it go. If you have to work extremely hard your project may sell, but it will have problems at every step of its development."

The world wants what it wants. 

Here's to clients, friends and potential partners, who want what we have, without the hard sell.

Save yourself • The legend of the hairy arms

I don't remember who I was talking to about signing up for the humor writing class, but I do remember that a crowd of students begin to gather around us in the hallway. While I'd heard that people who had taken the class were unhappy, the teacher was well-known and I was interested in the topic.

As students tried to talk me out of taking the class, the crowd grew. They said the teacher was crazy; that the formula he taught didn't make sense; that no one could succeed in his class and that some of the program's best students had became so frustrated that they cried in class.

Then someone said passionately, "Don't take the class. Save yourself! I waited until the next year and took the class from someone else. I wish I could've taken both; there's something to learn from everyone.

The last essay I posted mentioned a professor who had found a way to control who took his class. As the class began he ranted and swore; students lined up to drop the class.

Then, when it was too late in the semester to add or drop classes he revealed his true teaching style.

The class size was reduced; the students who remained trusted him even when he didn't make sense. He also know that at the end of the semester they would fill in a survey about him and the class. The instructor had found a brilliant way to save himself.

Creative people also use techniques to protect themselves.

After work one day I was listening to public radio in the car. That day a designer was featured; the interview was about hairy arms.

The designer had heard the legend of the hairy arms while she was studying design, and often used it in her work.

She said that to save time many years ago, cartoonists from Disney knew that the company strongly disliked cartoon characters (animals) with hairy arms. Because the cartoonists wanted to protect the work they had done, they added hairy arms to the animal characters. When their work was reviewed, the response would often be, "the story is fine but GET RID of the HAIRY ARMS!" If they hadn't added hair on the arms, they knew from past experience that the people reviewing their work would begin to tamper with the story itself.

The designer gave an example about how she used the hairy arms technique successfully. She had designed a logo for a band and she knew they didn't like a specific color. She had created a strong design and wanted to protect it, so she added hairy arms to one of the logos. She used the color they didn't like (hairy arms) in one of the mockups of the logo.

While a quick web search returns many versions of the hairy arms story, I'd never heard about it and neither had my colleagues. I'm convinced that many creatives use the technique whether or not they've heard the story. I have to smile when it's used on me; now that I know the story it's obvious.

It's easy to think changes are easy to make. But creative people make hundreds of choices as they develop projects.

I remember a  director who told us that the only reason he began to direct was to protect his vision and the integrity of his work; Director Irvin Kershner often told stories about how he protected his work from intense actors and concerned studio executives.

There's also procrastination -- waiting until there's no time to make major changes before starting to work on the project.

What are other techniques creatives use to complete projects for clients that will exceed their goals while protecting their creative vision?

Ranting. Precision. Power

It was the first night of class at USC, I was exhausted and the instructor was crazy.

I wanted to take courses at the School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) as an alumni. Though I'd already studied screenwriting in one of USC's other schools, I was required to take an introductory course before I could take more advanced classes in SCA.

Several professors taught intro to screenwriting, and after studying their portraits on the school web page, I chose the person with the kindest expression.

As class began the professor ranted; he swore. He spoke in run-on sentences that made no sense. The second week of class his strange behavior continued.

I watched students line up so he would sign their drop slips, and if I'd had the energy I would've dropped the class too. My commute to USC was over an hour each way and I was working full time. I sat in the back of class, determined to endure the rants and complete the class so I could take the classes I was interested in. 

Then, the deadline for dropping classes without penalty passed. Though the class wasn't exclusive -- any USC student could sign up for intro to screenwriting -- I was surprised how many students remained. They must've really wanted to study screenwriting, or they didn't know much about screenwriting and were intimidated, or maybe the other classes were full.

As class began, the teacher changed. He was kind. He  had written pilot episodes of well-known shows. He was passionate about screenwriting and teaching.

One night I remember turning in an assignment that I wasn't happy with; I knew I hadn't done well. As he began reading my assignment aloud to the class, something happened that I will never forget. Almost immediately he realized that I'd failed. His eyes scanned what I'd written and without pausing he continued to speak, transforming my imperfect narrative and scenes into an amazing story. And I learned and was grateful.

Once, during a break I overheard a visiting student ask him to write a recommendation letter for her; she was applying to the School of Cinematic Arts. He warmly agreed.

I decided to view the class as a master class. And it was fabulous.

One evening, the teacher read an opening scene from a screenplay that a student had turned in. The story opened on a mountain covered with hundreds of trees.

The teacher paused.

"When your story appears onscreen, the screen will be immense," he said. "You describe hundreds of similar trees -- the audience won't know where to look." He then asked us to imagine that on the screen was a hillside filled with trees; an old wood cabin is halfway down the mountain; smoke curling from the chimney.

That evening, for the first time, in an intro to screenwriting course, I understood what it meant to write with precision; crafting imagery with few words that is so powerful that it can compel global audiences to train their eyes -- simultaneously -- on the same, precise spot on the screen.

Great storytelling is more than thinking about what happens next or creating witty dialogue; it's more than creating storyboards that move characters from scene to scene. It is made even more powerful through design.

Incredible.

Analytics & Stoner Pie

When I opened Facebook yesterday a message from Facebook appeared at the top of the feed. It was meant to highlight Facebook's search capabilities and used a recipe search as a teaser.

Oh Facebook I thought, you must know I don't like you as much as I like Twitter and Pinterest, you must know I love cooking and are trying to win my affection.

I collected cookbooks until my shelves were full and I watch Food Network. I also occasionally post to two blogs -- one is about screenwriting/storytelling and I've posted a few recipes on the second, a lifestyle blog. The lifestyle blog has more than 7,000 views though I haven't updated it in quite awhile.

The search option on Pinterest is pretty fantastic and some of my favorite boards are food-related. I wondered how Facebook would compare, so I took the bait. I searched for soup.

Recipes friends had posted showed up followed by soup recipes posted by brands. Among the posts were a few of the now-overdone video clips showing a recipe being made in a few seconds. NOTE: We didn't like Martha posting recipes in an extended series of Twitter posts and we're getting tired of having analytics show "views" on Facebook after just three seconds posts of food being made as we scroll past.

Not blown away but still curious, I searched for pie. I used only the word "pie" because I wanted to see what a broad search would return.

First were posts about pie that friends had posted, photos of pie they'd taken after baking and slices of pie they had ordered in restaurants. Next the search returned content posted by magazines and food companies for both sweet and savory pies. There were also more of the annoying how-to videos. I took a couple of screenshots of recipes and saved one or two posts.

I stopped scrolling when I saw a picture of a stunning banana cream pie. I haven't found a recipe for banana cream pie that I like so I looked a little closer. The photo was perfection, luscious cream pie/banana whipped cream yumminess on a golden crust. Maybe I'd make a pie Sunday night and take it to work Monday.

The account was verified. I noted the words "stoner pie," and thought, this pie looks good, stoners must make great comfort food.

The photo was so lovely that I liked the post. Just as the "thumbs up" icon turned blue I noticed the description, "...a recipe for a delicious cannabis-infused banana cream pie."

Coworkers, bosses, admin, friends are on Facebook ALL the time. I quickly "unliked" the post, hoping it hadn't registered.

How will Facebook analytics measure that interaction? It's a great example of how analytics can be dangerous.

I have friends who plan seminars. They value and carefully study every comment and create reports containing responses, ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, that attendees submit.

Recently, a friend walked into one of the seminars and immediately left when the content was not as advertised. Others also didn't stay.

My friend later said all reviews for the seminar were very good; however the surveys were given after the presentation and only captured opinions of the people who stayed to the end.

Hearts, thumbs-up, pausing or even showing up, not scrolling quickly are carefully counted and are included in analytics reports.

Maybe someday the reports will become more powerful and assign emojis such as the horrified yellow face that's half blue, or the shocked face with wide-open eyes or even the angry face to capture the reality of some of these encounters.

It will be fun to watch and see.

Robocop II -- thoughts about story

I must start keeping track of the stories I tell so I don't repeat them. I think I'm already that person to my close friends. That will be a project for the weekend, but I know I haven't told the following story.

He didn't want to direct Robocop II, he said, and there was no way he would be talked into it.

The project wasn't going well. Unhappy with the screenwriter, the current director had hired a second writer, asking the two to work separately. There were additional concerns, and the studio wasn't seeing progress. Theaters had been booked nationally for a 4th of July holiday opening, his agent told him, and opening weekend was less than a year away.

He had no interest in directing a blockbuster. His agent wouldn't give up, and when he revealed what the studio was offering, he begrudgingly accepted. 

As he told the story to our screenwriting class, he shared how exciting it had been to direct the blockbuster, the extreme size of the explosions during filming and what he had done when he was unable to make his original idea -- showing that it was possible for a human being to fall in love with a cyborg -- work.

It was the first time I understood the difference between a blockbuster (fast paced, explosions, cheap thrills) and feature film as literature (skillfully created, using masterful storytelling techniques to reveal deep layers of meaning). Learning to be able to create the latter would take years of study and work.

One of the most important things I learned while in the master of professional writing program that was reinforced later, in classes I took in the School of Cinematic Arts is that stories are powerful don't have to exist only as a screenplay.

A book or a play can become a feature film; a short story can become a bestselling book. Guest lecturers were writers who had achieved success in more than one genre.

When competing for views, clicks, shares, competition is fierce. While a post or video can go viral with a life of a few hours to several weeks, is it possible to use storytelling techniques to give content a better chance of reaching the audience that will benefit from creating a strong, positive connection with your brand?

Connecting with anything costs the audience. There is the cost of a mobile phone, iPad or flat panel;  Internet, Netflix, Hulu. They're also paying with time. Content fights for space within the constraints of their pressure-filled lives. 

The most powerful stories are packed with code the audience understands. One of my favorite teachers, Ron Friedman, asked why films created in America are appreciated around the globe. His theory -- because America was a melting pot, from it earliest days stories had to be fashioned so that people from many cultures who had gathered to watch a play or a movie, could understand and appreciate the content.

Next time I will begin to share some of these creative, storytelling theories and tools.

Excellence: Photo captions lead to dream job with Disney

An online news story; a digital billboard ad; a photo caption; the first draft of a novel or screenplay -- is every project worth one's best effort?

A couple of years ago I followed along on Facebook as a friend applied for, and was hired to be a nurse at Disneyland. Her little girl says when she grows up she wants to be a nurse like her mom so she can work with princesses all day.

I met her when she was in nursing school and applied to work in a PR/Marketing office where I was director. Last year I noticed a gallery of photos she had posted on Facebook; when I saw the detailed legends she had written I messaged her. "You have the most perfect photo captions on Facebook, and it's because you worked on newsletters when you were in school."

She wrote back, saying that she'd been told that her experience in PR while she was a nursing student was the reason she had been chosen over all of the other applicants.

Those days were grueling -- publishing a monthly newsletter, working with the media and editing an alumni magazine. As we interacted with faculty, administration and the media she experienced the multiple steps required for each project and the strategy behind each step (the "why"). The student workers often made follow-up calls after news releases had been sent to the various media outlets asking each reporter how he or she wanted to receive them. They were frustrated when reporters would request that information be resent several times, but two of our stories made the front page of the national section of the local papers, and were also featured on TV news broadcasts in the LA area. Publication deadline days were exhausting as we identified people in photos, wrote dozens of joyless but detailed captions and waited for final sign-offs.

It's easy to claim expertise but I'm confident that no matter what question the Disney interviewer asked my friend about her PR work experience, she would've been able to answer in detail. Small tasks such as writing the perfect photo caption helped her be chosen against fierce competition to secure her dream job.

Why take the extra time to create content that is so generic that it's given the byline "Contributed report?"

The analytics for Feb. for an online newsletter I've been working on arrived last week.

Some of the stories were created from flyers, news releases or lists. These stories competed for attention during employees' work time. 

We are trying to increase readership. While the online news site we will soon be using may change our process, for now means respecting the limited time employees have to glance through email. Headlines and leads are carefully chosen for each piece that is published. Photos and artwork are chosen and legends crafted with care, and included in the top 10 most-read features for Feb. were several stories with the byline: "Contributed report." 

The importance of creating excellent work, no matter the importance of the project was so important to one professor in the School of Cinematic Arts that she lectured about it during the final class session.

The course was Television Script Analysis, and the professor spoke about the reality of the industry -- new writers rarely find positions with top network or cable shows. The professor said that even as a beginning writer working on obscure shows she had always given her best. She said that some of the early shows she had worked on won their only awards for episodes she had written.

She finished her lecture by telling a story about a writer she had once worked with. He let everyone know that he was just putting in the time. He said that he was saving his best writing -- excellence --for a major show. "He died very young," she said, "before he had the chance to show his best."

NOTE: As I studied screenwriting, playwrighting and fiction writing, one of the great mysteries I tried to solve was how to create content that will make it possible for people to suspend reality and live in the story, losing track of time. I continued taking courses until professors began to tell me I was ready to "go for it." It will be fun to write about what I've discovered.