I found this pilot that I made for ABC News Now — what at the time was billed to be a mobile phone concentrated news network, which was to be the future. With the layoffs at ABC News this past month, mentioned in this blog, I thought it interesting to revisit this moment in time — late 2004. John Kerry had just lost the election and George W. Bush had a lot of political capital. Of the THREE Anchors of a generation, only one had walked off into the sunset, another was in the process of being disgraced and yet another, didn’t know his fate. (more…)
Here’s something for those 300,000 MO-rons who just ran out and bought the iPAD without the 3G cell phone service on the very first weekend (except we all pretty much know now these types don’t care much for posterity)… (more…)
Spring is Sprunging and for those of you who still depend on your animalistic clock and are just getting up from hyber-nation, next up is the HEAT filled months of REBIRTH, Cadbury CREME EGGS and LOVE. (more…)
Let me come out with it. I’m Jewish. And I was raised in one of those households who really appreciated the change from Christmas Break to the Holiday Break. Toledo, OH is not a pro-semetic place. Its not the type of place Woody Allen could have developed his phobias in, unless he liked practicing his monologs behind closed blinds in the middle of the night when the neighbors were asleep. (more…)
In our extensive, painstakingly long study of the creative process–we thought we’d solute one seemingly common aspect of the originating mojiss for many 1980s situation comedies. First we’ll do the history–so if you want to get to the >>CONFLICT<<–most likely if you’re under the age of lets say 35.. scroll down to >>CONFLICT<< below.
You remember the 80s? VH-1 won’t let you forget–but soon enough you will forget them. It was the high water mark for the Situation Comedy–one in which there was a living room with a door on the left leading ‘outside’ a couch in the middle that sat THREE, some pictures, a staircase and a kitchen on the right–or vice versa–that’s where IT happened.
In order to understand what went into that genius–I guess you could try to understand Michael Eisner. In the book about him–DisneyWars, which I read whilst I was working under der Fuhrer as the remaining Disney brothers were failing to over throw him over Walt’s dead body, he’s given credit for creating something called “High-Concept”. Its something where you pick a star or two–TENT POLES if you will to get them in the door, wrap them around a situation with an obvious conflict like a black cop in a rich town, use a studio you already have or shoot it all in LA, do everything else on the cheap including BRONSON PINCHOT and blim, blam thank you mam–Cha-Ching.. HIGH CONCEPT. It also helps if you’re HIGH when you watch these movies.
HIGH CONCEPT in the 80s vs. the 70s, was like Pop Chart Singles were to Albums, the K-Car was to the Muscle Car and most interestingly NEW COKE was to Original Formula(for the record, I actually DID actually like New Coke better). Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills Cop II, Indiana Jones and the Lost Arc, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom–these were some of the original HIGH CONCEPTS–but my GEORGE–there were SOOO MANY and we loved them so.
How come in Hollywood, when some schmuck in Hollywood comes up with some glamorous term like HIGH CONCEPT(or his assistant does), he’s considered genius and ooo’d and aw’d and no one knows who the hell Dan Robbins is?–I’ll never know.
He did pretty much the same thing. Mike and Dan–both formulaticians–with a whiz bang idea that swept through the suburban splundor and kept people from smiling awkwardly in passing while running home to crack open another one.
How does this reflect creative cognition? What happened in the 80s was the industrialization of the media form.New distribution channels opened up. Multiplexes formed. TBS was invented–and there was money to be made like always, but this time is was A LOT MORE OF IT.
This shit needed to be cranked out like GOOSE through a SHIT factory. Those who came up with these FORMATTING tricks, became GODS, their heads as big as round bubbles.
This is very interesting for us Schmoos, generational in fact!–as we’ve experienced a COLON blow of distribution channels openning up in similar form to the upheaval of the early 80s–but MUCH MUCH bigger! Step right up and have your head be blown into a bubble too!
History lesson’s over, Hegel has been paid his due–and lets get to the good stuff.
Those sit-coms from the 80s? Why did they have such mass appeal? You look at these things and you realize the only reason why industry people long for these good old days is because the money was BIG and EASY–and it was EASY to make.
The basic formula: Middle class person, reinvents themselves into a not really fucked up situation and everything comes up roses–as sung through a HYPER POWER DEISEL VOICE that sends the dogs running in from other rooms.
Within the THEME SONG, IS the entire concept, and when it left so did the entire franchise. Just like each situation–each song has a TURN for the fucking awesome–these moments are highlighted and explained below in between the []–if we learn anything else from this creative imputus–“what’s old is new, and we should have theme songs in everything we do”… AND NOW, the FIVE RULES for 80s Sit-Com Sucess:
Rule 1:
You move somewhere. [and if anyone knows me well, now is when I insert how pitiful it is that their dreams are seemingly limitless for them in Chicago when you can’t take the train anywhere unless you transfer downtown or even find a corner there that doesn’t smell like poo]
RULE 2:
When you get there, it’s gonna be AWESOME(or at least the rich part of Connecticut)! [He lost a dream or two, .. at the end was Judith Light!–now we know why it took them like 6 seasons to not get it on–weak!]
Rule 3:
Two weirdos make a right and that’s some how intrinsic in your CABAM Happiness explosion [I might be father of the year!–or max out in 5 years on Mad about You]:
Rule 4:
This can happen too you middle class!Just move in with your financially sucessful photographer type sister who lives where she works and doesn’t have a straight staircase like the rest of the shows, but a TURNY one [How could something so good be so right.. so right!]. And no, that’s not your connection–that shocking shuffle move is an ‘effect’, so is the ‘blue sky above’.
Rule 5: Don’t stray too much from Rules 1-4. If you go too far, like making it just about Catholics(especially when none of the kids look alike and they don’t look like the parents either :o!)–despite getting most Reagan Democrats, your audience won’t be large enough like the generalist Growing Pains you grew out of and you go out of business in two seasons [stay on the ball {go to church} I might make the HALL OF FAME–what can he say?]. You know what, these rules work for just PLAIN mainstream American dreams in almost any regard–don’t they?
You know why I love these Themes so much–they took the time to actually explain to you what you were about to watch. Its all in there–Its like you’re in the PITCH MEETING and everything, no nuance about it. It wasn’t really until Seinfeld exploded this form, that they just put you INSIDE THE SHOW so you had to figure out for yourself what the hell you were watching?
What can be learned from this–if you transported yourself back to the 80s and figure out a way to make a middle class family type person feel like through an unrealistic reflection of the room in which they sit–staring back at them, and within their minds would be the promise of a brighter tomorrow and a better future–we probably still wanted that when we were humble enough to believe it was ok to have one or two TVs in the house.
In many respects, maybe we’ve grown richer as a country or a world. I know one aspect of DISNEY/ABC features now is instead of a laugh track they give you background music, implying “BOSE WAVE RADIO” for you. Or is it the Reality shows that invade our news programs.
FORGET THE DAMN THEME SONG–>SHIT, our houses don’t even look like the ones on TV anymore, nor do our situations. Who watches TV together anymore anyway–everyone’s seperated into their own worlds. We all get directly to the point now evertime–whatever we want, all the time.
We’ve gone from situation obsessed–to just right down to “strip out the other fucking filler and get me to the conflict obsessed”. All the time. YO Eisner–now adays its CONFLICT CONFLICT CONFLICT–we can’t appreciate you’re concept. What’s past that you wonder? Its already like eating frosted without the flakes. It won’t look like playing outside–I can tell you that much. Maybe its like a family guy episode, that just has punchline, no set up.
So, as we’re RETHINKING everything this year from MONEY, to WEATHERIZATION to HEALTH CARE to how to make a GM–let us consider–as SCHMOOS, how to program for the micro audiences of the future?
Is it enough to make something really good for our friends to watch? Can they handle a full 22 minute story, or even a 5 minute story–or do even they require moments? We cannot put these genies we dream about back into the bottles. Despite old being new again–its very unlikely in the specialized era of video, that people will ever tolerate a stair case behind a couch?
What I suspect, is the person who can access straight feelings in an accessible way. That’s where its at. Remember the way you’re grandparents smelled when you went to visit–PRINT IT.
Remember your gym teacher’s obsession with whistles–PRINT THAT TOO.
Finally–I don’t know how this really fits in here at this point. So this seems like a perfect place to ponder the question–how did Belverdere hitch hike accross the ocean with a cardboard sign–and why the hell would he pick Pittsburgh? We need to get back to having entertainment exist in a far away land where questions like these don’t matter AND THEY’RE SO UPFRONT ABOUT IT!–cause true love begins when you accept someone despite their obvious flaws–in fact, according to our new arrival— you love them for it.
To give you all a clear understanding that Schmoonews is about the Creative Process and holds nothing back–I’m about to peel away the curtin into some of the questions you all have been asking me about how we’ve gotten this thing together and what’s the deal with BECKMANN and his seemingly illustrious life of travel and mystery. More than anything this post documents our PRE HISTORY in creating SCHMOO.
Exactly one year ago today, Barack Obama was elected president–and that’s a critical moment in the history not just for the world, but for us. You see, I started my self-imposed exile from my place in San Francisco at the end of July 2008 to move to Chicago and join the New Media part of that campaign. When we won–and then a week later, Current TV laid off the division I had been working for, I decided in those cold dark days of November, to start something SCHMOO–although not even the name had surfaced yet.
All I knew was that so many of you who had done work for us and so many of the talented people I’d worked with were now all of sudden out in the cold–whilst I felt like I had won the lottery. Finding myself in the midst of a historic and winning presidential campaign.
Fast forwarding to now–we will get to the parts in between at another point–I never went back home. I continued to go about the country and put together the pieces that at first became our parent company, IB5k and then later our subset for the creative types, Schmooru.com.
How did I do this? As you can recall–after Obama got elected, the sky was literally falling. The economy was in shambles and people thought the banks were going to fail. Schmooru, I’m proud to say has received no investment in these early stages which means there are no strings attached while firmly developing our foundation. We control our own house and from there we can dream unbeholden.
It did cost money–and I’m happy to report, my savings are mostly intact. The first thing that’s been mysterious to me and I hope no one from the MGM Mirage corporation is reading this–but every time I’ve needed the money for something, I’ve gotten it in a casino. In a sense MGM and a few other names are investors in this company. Same way FEDEX started.
I don’t believe in gambling–but I’ve only lost one time this year. I’ve never gotten more than I needed to get me past the next post. Before Obama called in July of 2008, I had won a HUGE take in Detroit which made me feel comfortable taking the drastic pay cut to sign up–because it was so mysteriously large, I thought it meant something larger than me.
There are your curators who worked on a HOPE and a DREAM who basically did this stuff for future pay, but beyond that they deeply care in what we’re all trying to do there. Primarily, to have a lawyer, a webmaster, a business builder, a powerful DC power broker, an impeccably capable renaissance video man–but also, the girl I called one week after the election and said “I don’t know what it is, but we’re going to go out there and do something’–the most networked girl in video production–cause this thing always was conceived and lives within community–without these people–there would be no SCHMOO.
But that’s not all. It took a village. A global one–in order to build this thing. And primarily–its not having paid rent for an entire year that has really gotten this thing off the ground. By my count I’ve stayed in over 47 different spots this year, and never slept in the street unless it was on purpose(There was the one night in Chicago when I wanted to go home and my hosts were partying all night but that was good for me;). I would say a word to the wisest is you have to keep on moving every three days in order to not overstay a welcome–but below, I’ve chronicled every place I’ve stayed in the last year–and many of them were repeats.
These people all contributed to the possibility, that creative people like all of you could band together–do projects bigger than oneself–and in doing so, help to preserve a creative lifestyle and profession that’s necessary to ensure our happy futures.
CHI Caitlin Dorsey
Mike Debonis
The New Media Mansion people
STL
The Rev. Ben Schartman
NYC
Katie Beckmann
LA
Lauren Cerre & Tyler Manson-
SF
John Reed & Sarah McKinney
Omaha
Paul Tulipana & Megan Malone
Louisville
Tom Green
Birmingham
Mark Nugent & Jessica Kerley
Miami
Mark Steiner
St. Louis
Harrahs;)
Toledo
David & Esther Beckmann
Washington, DC Inauguration
Allison Archaubault
NYC
Holly Ecker and Christopher Smith
Washington DC/Manassas, VA
Mathew Taylor
David Bychkov & Nadia Madjid
SF
Richie Zevin
Bozeman, MT
Michael J. “mini” Noogent
Michael and Naomi Nugent
LA
Sarah Evershed & Julian Robinson
Dylan Ris
SF
Danny Debonis
Chicago,
Zac Witte & Goeff Domeracki
SF
Tori Taylor & Dave McMillan
LA
Saskia Wilson Brown
Wyoming
The Eversheds
NYC
John F. Brunner
Jory Cunningham
Sam Reiff-Pasarew
DC
Max Harper
Amsterdam
Dennis DeLange
Mike Glennon
NYC
Clare Sullivan & Thomas Hallaran
Great Barrington, MA
Nathanial Kerksick
CHI
Caitlin Dorsey
Mike Debonis
The New Media Mansion people
STL
The Rev. Ben Schartman
NYC
Katie Beckmann
LA
Lauren Cerre & Tyler Manson-
SF
John Reed & Sarah McKinney
Omaha
Paul Tulipana & Megan Malone
Louisville
Tom Green
Birmingham
Mark Nugent & Jessica Kerley
Miami
Mark Steiner
St. Louis
Harrahs;)
Toledo
David & Esther Beckmann
Washington, DC Inauguration
Allison Archaubault
NYC
Holly Ecker and Christopher Smith
Washington DC/Manassas, VA
Mathew Taylor
David Bychkov & Nadia Madjid
SF
Richie Zevin
Bozeman, MT
Michael J. “mini” Noogent
Michael and Naomi Nugent
LA
Sarah Evershed & Julian Robinson
Dylan Ris
SF
Danny Debonis
Chicago,
Zac Witte & Goeff Domeracki
SF
Tori Taylor & Dave McMillan
LA
Saskia Wilson Brown
Wyoming
The Eversheds
NYC
John F. Brunner
Jory Cunningham
Sam Reiff-Pasarew
There’s been a lot of questions about what makes SCHMOOru so COOOL? I love these questions — and to be honest, we’d be dead if no one asked them. I really like to consider them to be — what’s ALIVE about SCHMOORU? What’s its humanity? What does IT live FOR? What air does it breathe, or quite frankly DOES it have any POTENTIAL? — etc.. Let me ASCHOO one of them here-IS SCHMOORU this User Generated Content???? Your SCHMOORU curators have been working at the forefront of what has been referred to as the ‘user generated content’ industry for about the last 4 years and we’ve got something to say about it — UGC will not replace the pros and attempting to make it do so creates a lot of losers all around — its just one of many tools — frankly, we’ve always had. (more…)
I am thrilled to be spotlighting one of Schmooru’s most worldly filmmakers [though there’s a lot of competition out there!] who has worked in Peru, Australia and the US. Daniel was an amazing help in getting reactions to the US election in Australia for Current TV’s election coverage. He filmed, edited and delivered an amazing assortment of interviews within 24 hours [this included a hellish amount of technical difficulty] and had the best attitude during the whole thing. (more…)
If you’ve been following the news NEWS this week — you may have heard something about Charlie Gibson retiring and Diane Sawyer taking over for him on the news program, ABC’s World News. In some ways there’s been a refreshing lack of gestation over this job announcement and I don’t intend to cause any more blotation. However, I do think there’s a component missing here that needs to be addressed. (more…)
I think it bears mentioning too much with the Kennedies already! But in watching the entire funeral for some reason this mourning–I thought of their contribution to generic metaphoric political creativity over the years. (more…)