I've been working on a documentary called "Two Seasons and Home" about a group of migrant workers who came from Jamaica picked apples in Vermont and then cut the last crop of sugar cane by hand in Florida (the next season it would all go to machine harvesting).  Here are a collection of 4x5 view camera photographs I took of the men and their families.

I'm in post production on my movie "The Brass Teapot" starring Juno Temple and Michael Angarano.  Therefore, good trailers have been on my mind.  I have a passion for watching movie trailers, perhaps because I am a director of commercials, which in many ways are short stories. I can literally sit and watch a dozen good trailers and feel deeply fulfilled.

I will be posting the trailer for my movie in the next few months and so I've been thinking a great deal about the subject.  There are many ways to measure a trailer’s quality, from the persuasiveness of its salesmanship to the cleverness of its copywriting. Ultimately, I have decided that the best trailers are those that most effectively combine art and commerce, and that sell and entertain with equal skill. Some of the trailers below are for classic films, but many are for mediocrities - some are for absolutely bombs. That speaks to the magic of the trailers.  Obviously, it is the job of those in marketing to construct a movie commercial that is so amazing that the audience will want to go see the film even if it's not good.  In many ways, what I love is that trailers provide a version of cinema that’s essentially utopian, in which every film is perfect, if only for two and a half minutes.

Marketing a movie is incredibly hard; specifically making a trailer that works and reaches an audience. The art of the movie trailer is one that is rarely appreciated. Someone must edit an entire movie's general themes, imagery and mood, into 2 minutes or less. Sometimes, it's a lose-lose situation. If you show people too much of what the movie is about, people will whine that you've spoiled the entire movie. Give people too little, and they'll have no idea what the **** to expect and may just not even go see the movie. But some people find the perfect balance. To me, the best trailers are not only the ones that generally sum up the movie being advertised, but are also stand-alone works of art.  I love the ones that transcend the expected notion of being just a mere advertisement and become a great piece of entertainment on their own.

Here are 20 that I find remarkable for various reasons...

 #20: Close Encounters (Steven Spielberg, 1977)

 The first trailer I can ever remember seeing in my life.   I remember that when I saw this for the first time I was wearing my footie pajamas and sitting on the couch with my family.  My parents were extremely excited by the idea of this movie.  I remember that I was scared.  This is a TV trailer so it's short and sweet but it blew people's minds and was effective.  I imagine at the time this was speaking to people's desires to let go of the cynicism and war mongering of the past and have their ideals of a good, peaceful world actualized.   I wish I could have found the original theatrical trailer but this was pretty fun to watch.  Is it me, or does it seem extremely primitive now?

 #19: Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)

 This trailer does something extremely rare, especially for the time period.   The conceit of having the filmmaker and actors speak directly to the audience is fun and speaks to the tone of the movie. Whether this would work in present time, I don't know but I think it's remarkable that in the 1950s a marketing team created this.  In addition, the poster for this movie has become a tremendous piece of art.  Changing the way creatives approached poster making for movies because of its pure creativity.  This might be a good topic for my next blog!

 #18: Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)

 Here's a modern version of the Anatomy of a Murder approach.  This trailer sets up the concept that wild and twisted things happen in real life.  The performances are the real treat with this ensemble cast, many of whom worked together on Anderson’s prior film “Boogie Nights.” Conscious of that, the trailer highlights the best part of the film, its actors.

 #17: Underworld 3 (Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein, 2012)

 I've never been a fan of this Underworld series but after watching this trailer I actually want to see this one.  The trailer has Kate Beckinsale as Selene doing graceful, impossible leaps that make me literally swoon.  Her awesome, super slick suit flexing as she does kung fu on a group of unfortunate opponents is riveting. Selene blazing her guns and occasionally using them as drawing tools? Check. Selene tossing blades around like a circus performer? Check.  I guess this is classic Underworld territory but I feel like I've been roped in.  I have to say that I'm a sucker for girls that can kick ass.

I love the Swedes.  Some of my favorite directors are Swedish - Fredrik Bond is one who I idolize.  Swedish TV-turned-film directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein look like they've done a good job of creating a new-but-familiar world of Underworld to play in. It’s hard to look at the footage in this trailer and say that the film looks poorly shot, low-budget, or amateurish. It’s extremely slick, polished, and in general, well choreographed. In short: it looks like a solid slice of genre entertainment.

#16: Hannah (Joe Wright, 2006)

The imagery, atmosphere and design felt like that of a Jason Bourne movie, yet it was mixed with innocence.  Saoirse Ronan almost makes me believe I am watching a character from a fairy tale.  This is what is so alluring: A trailer that shows the child-like qualities of a she-woman who can really kick ass.

Mike Nichols told me that the key to making a successful movie is to find the "Cinderella Story" and make it your own.  Stories that show a person who is about discover that they are special.  Or stories that show a person discover that their life isn't what they thought it was. Hannah does this in a very modern way.   I think the movie is better than this trailer but the trailer is still pretty damn good.

#15: The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

Oh how I love that opening with that locked off camera and the incredible typeface.  Does anyone know which font that was??  This trailer is not my kind of trailer... I don't like the idea of a blood bath - but it does an incredible job of marketing this movie.  It's a truly genius trailer.

"Kubrick was a compulsive perfectionist, so while it only took three takes to nail this moment on a miniature set (each time spending nine days to reset the shot), it took about a year before he was happy with how the blood itself looked. This is especially ironic, since Kubrick still convinced the MPAA — who, at the time, would not allow trailers to feature blood if they were to be approved for all audiences — that the blood was merely rusty water." - IFC

#14:  Knocked Up (Judd Apatow, 2007)

Judd Apatow is a master of the funny, natural comedy.  This trailer had the audience roaring.  I thought it was hilarious.   This trailer sets up the story so well and then makes you fall in love with the characters.  It also straddles a very difficult line - it's funny for men and women.  It's not a romcom in the traditional sense.  My husband actually went and saw this film alone with his best friend.  The trailer made men believe it was for them and women believe it was theirs.   If only, the voice over guy was replaced.  Seriously the guy almost ruins it.

#13: The Strangers (Bryan Bertino, 2008)

I had to post this trailer because during my film shoot for the Brass Teapot the actors kept talking about "The Strangers".  We had rented a farmhouse in the boondocks of Upstate NY.  A very spooky place about 20 minutes outside of town on about five acres of land.  One night they decided it would be a good idea to come over with copious amounts of alcohol and watch this movie.  I couldn't make it through the first five minutes.  I was terrified.  Not my kind of film but the trailer certainly does a great job of creating a taut, scary environment that you want to see...

#12: Pi (Darren Aronofsky, 1998)

I love codes and mythology.  This has been one of the most exciting elements of making the Brass Teapot, to reveal a secret.  I have always been inspired by Pi since the first moment I saw the spray painted Pi signs all over NY when I first graduated college.  I thought it was brilliant.  These little bits of graffiti blew my mind and have stuck with me ever since. This trailer for Pi is excellent because of the use of music as well as the quick editing, the black and white visual palette, comes together in a gratifyingly pulse-pounding minute and a half.  This was Darren Aronofsky's first film.  I thought his last one, Black Swan, was a very interesting exploration because I love love love Dance.  The story was inherently histrionic which wore me out but I was inspired by the ballet and how he filmed and choreographed it.  This director has an incredible sense of timing and you can see it in this original trailer.

#11: Watchmen (Zach Snyder, 2009)

My movie is based on the comic book "The Brass Teapot" which I co-wrote with Tim Macy.  I grew up with comic books and have always loved them.  Watchmen was one that I was extremely excited to see.  Even if “Watchmen” couldn’t live up to its hype as the most anticipated graphic-novel adaptation of all time, the trailer is at least the greatest Smashing Pumpkins music video of all time, as set to the apocalyptically suspenseful strains of their 2007 “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning.”

The cheering at Comicon was deafening when it was played.  This is a trailer that had every fan boy and girl frothing to see it.

#10: The Comedian (Christian Charles, 2002)

This is like Oz, where you pull the curtain back and see what's really going on.  How fun is it to see Hal Douglas? And connect him with his incredibly iconic voice.  This is a fairly remarkable trailer in that it doesn't use any footage from the movie.  It's a great and playful way to set up the tone and overall feeling of the film.  I think this is a good piece of advertising.

#9: Matrix (Wachowski Brothers, 1999)

The trailer for the Matrix was a revelation to me when it first came out.   The Zen-like story of seeing beyond what is in front of you.  Using more than just your eyes.  The bombardment of images from a futuristic world.  The idea of a man who is a savior - like Jesus - come to change reality.  All of these elements combined to make a spellbinding trailer.

#8: Little Children (Todd Field, 2006)

The trailer for “Little Children,” the adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name, creates a horror film intensity and is a trailer of total, badass excellence.   I was absolutely captivated by it.  I loved the sexuality of the trailer and thought it was riveting.

With a focus on sound design, the trailer begins with a distant train’s horn cooing through the sound of rustling leaves: the very soundtrack of idyllic, suburban tranquility. The sound is laid over a series of images of different configurations of the main characters; both the editing and the sound begin to accelerate as the configurations grow more fraught, beginning with Patrick Wilson’s pained, stolen look down Winslet’s body in a red one-piece. The image of a toy train collision aligns with a crescendo on the soundtrack — that train is headed right for us! — and then the trailer goes slightly bananas, pulling every dramatic image in the film, from sob shots to dangerous exhilaration, and arranging them in a collage to present to us the perils of suburban life.

#7: The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

When I first heard about the movie about Facebook, I couldn't figure out how it was going to be a feature film.  I literally thought it was an advertising ploy.  When I saw this trailer, I was blown away. From the opening of the enigmatic shots of people's Facebook pages all the way through to the chaos of Mark Zuckerberg's creation of facebook, this trailer made me want to see the film.

As you probably know by now, my favorite trailers are the ones that use remarkable music - and the use of the Scala choir's rendition of Radiohead's song Creep was used brilliantly, as it not only fit with Zuckerberg's (or any computer nerd's) anti-social mindset, but also generally felt incredibly moody, and beautifully atmospheric, and surprisingly really sad.

#6: Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)

When this trailer came out it was such a clever delivery and homage to the whole genre of pulp culture that I was blown away.  I remember when I saw the trailer, the summer of my freshmen year at college.  I was in the movie theater with my brother and afterwards we just looked at each other in awe.  I knew enough to know it was an incredible film that had ripped off dozens of films that came before it but half the references I didn't understand.  Still I knew that it was brilliant.  The whole introduction of a new John Travolta, the raving Samuel Lee Jackson, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman with a black bob and doing the twist!  This trailer was so jam packed with incredible cameos that was enough to suck us in.  I felt a mixture of delight and jealousy.   Sitting there in the theater I couldn't help but be faced with the question of whether this kind of genius would ever be mine. 

#5: Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996)

One of the first in the big tent pole summer movie trailers, this one has set up the bar for all others to follow.  You know who those other directors are, there's no need to name names but this trailer has since been ripped off by... well, everybody.    The idea that THE earth is being invaded in such a massive way (not by little green aliens) by an enormous mother ship. The patriotic swelling that it calls forth as we see the iconic images of our country:  the White house and various monuments. This was seductive. It was a rally cry to fight against an enemy (or at least go watch the movie).  The horrified awe in the people, regular folks, all looking upward to the sky as they watch the destruction begin. The incredible tag line:  July 4, The Day We Fight Back!  Holy moly. This set up the template for dozens of filmmakers.  Hopefully someday, I too will rip it off.

#4: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher, 2008)

This trailer to me is more like a short film.  I think that it goes beyond a trailer and reveals so much of the plot as to give away the whole story.  The way all of these moments from Benjamin Button's life are cut together in progression and unfold to gut wrenchingly beautiful music feels so powerful, so full of promise and magic.  The trailer is perhaps better then the movie.  I say this not to be mean but to say that it stands alone as a work of art.  What the movie gave me that the trailer didn't was my own personal connection with the flickering, rapid passage of time.  After seeing the film, that night I went home and kissed my sleeping children's foreheads and somehow it was an eerie feeling.  As if they were there, yet not there.  I could see them already grown up.

#3: Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)

Masterful editing, images of an egg cracking and a monstrous sound coming out.  Sigourney Weaver, so beautiful, running through the hull of a ship.  The build up of tension as the crew wakes up, a close up of a frightened eye, the cat (why the cat??), the sense that something was coming, the crew tiptoeing in space coming to a frenzy as people were shaking with seizures (or was something inside them?). The clean titles rising above the planet.  All of this came together to make an incredible trailer that is remarkable for its time and closely resembles what we see in the theaters today.  It's the tagline though that really makes this trailer. One of the best taglines of all time: "In space, no one can hear you scream."

#2: Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008)

When I was sitting in the theaters and this trailer first started I thought I was watching a trailer for a romcom.  I was stoked. I like trailers for romcoms; they are my guilty pleasure. Surprise is the fulcrum to the “Cloverfield” teaser, which — without any known stars to pivot its sales pitch around — instead expertly plays up its film’s reality-caught-on-tape conceit.

Hiding its action in the sweetly ordinary is the trailer’s (as well as the film’s) grand stroke of inspiration, creating such relatable, everyday circumstances that the sudden mysterious roar that interrupts the festivities — and the subsequent, fiery explosion spied from the building’s rooftop — proves fantastically chilling. From there, one is jump-cut-plunged into an unexpected scene of chaotic monster mash terror that, taking a page from “Independence Day’s" monuments-loving playbook, culminates with one of the most chilling money shots — Wait, did something just throw that into the street? — in trailer history. There’s not even a mention of a title, in part because one wasn’t finalized yet, but also because the creators seemed perfectly confident that a release date was all that was necessary.

#1: Where the Wild things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009)

For my movie I've been trying to get the use of a couple of Arcade Fire songs.  I can't afford them but God I really want them.  Don't get me started...  That's one of the reasons that I think this is probably the pinnacle of movie trailers. Everything I've always wanted is here in one trailer. Director Spike Jonze's incredible images and child-like vision; it wrings out every single central idea and emotion without outright saying anything, and the use of music (In this case, being Wake Up by Arcade Fire) is simply just too perfect to comprehend. And while Where The Wild Things Are was being marketed as a family movie, it too had Benjamin Button syndrome in that even if it had been the greatest movie of all time, it couldn't even live up to this trailer. And especially if you read the story as you were a kid, the nostalgia of seeing the images of the books come to life in a respectable and artful way is enough to shed tears of joy.  Yes, I sat and cried when I watched this trailer... and I still do.

There's one last one that didn't make it on my "list" and that's the trailer for Blue Velvet.  This is a bonus.  Enjoy!

When I started directing commercials 13 years ago, I had just finished college.  I knew nothing about advertising and I believed commercials would be a fantastic, creative outlet for me... I was right.  Yet, early on, I met many people who were burnt out by advertising, both on the production and ad side.  In the beginning, I was surprised and came to almost loathe the negative talk about the business.    I noticed that people loved to go back and forth, rolling their eyes about how painful it is and how challenging it is to work making commerials (usually an artist whose day job is a prop master, or a copy writer who really wants to be a screenplay writer). 

The reason that many people find this industry a challenge is because they are in a creative business in which they perceive have no real freedom.  They work diligently on creating ideas, each one better than the last, and when they are kicked down, it is heart wrenching.  Soon, sarcasm takes over.  Many creative people find themselves feeling beat down.   Not me, I started out of college, now thirteen years later, I feel just as excited to be here as when I started.  How? Why? I've come to practice the zen art of attach and release. 

Trick #1.  Realize that you are an endless fountain of ideas.  Come up with ideas, then let them go.  The ones that you're attached to - go make happen on your own.  Have confidence enough to truly hear what is needed and wanted by the agency and client.  Shoot for them and then shoot a little extra for yourself. Stay positive.    If nothing else, the editor will enjoy watching your film. If you're not exercising your creative freedom on set enough, then go out and shoot more on your own time.  Write on your own time.  Make images with everything and anything you have (iphones, video cameras, old bolexes, pencil and paper).

http://www.ramaamosley.com/grace.html

(Grace:  This is a clip from a short film I directed in a day with a video camera and some fine actors)

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Most of the work that I have enjoyed has been directing real people or action.  My favorite is story telling that feels anthemic.  I like to pretend that I'm making short films or short documentaries. 

Trick #2. "007" - This is a code word I came up with (and patented) which I use when I want to film and not let the subjects know they are being filmed.  I usually talk to them, give them some sort of business to do and then pretend I'm very concerned about a light on a C stand nearby.  I spend a great deal of time fussing about that poor little C stand, while the DP shoots the unsuspecting "real person" just naturally being.  I realize that I often look foolish but I'd rather be the one looking foolish than make the people in front of the camera feel awkward.  This technique works really well.  When it doesn't, I resort to fart jokes.

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When I first started directing 13 years ago, the working directors were big.  Tall and very powerful.  In my mind, they had big egos.  Their commercials were great because they were in charge and made the spots out of sheer guts and will.  They yelled a lot, kept the agency over 100 feet away at all time and had complete power and control.  This is what I thought a director was...  The problem: I've never been a screamer, it just doesn't suit me.  I care too much about wanting everyone to like me.  I have about 8 to 10 good ideas on any given shoot and the other 6 to 20 come from my crew, the agency and, yes, even the client.

Trick #3 Surround yourself with the best, most creative people.  Trust your crew to be smarter than you. Trust that everyone has ideas that can be good and useful.  Have one or two creatives from every job stand with you at the monitor.  This saves on time and walkie batteries. Never yell unless it's to save a person from danger.  Be nice.

http://ramaamosley.posterous.com/the-ramaa-mosley-expose-0

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Back, when I first started directing at the ripe old age of 22 years old, to get a job you had to get on a conference call and talk with the ageny.  Rarely I was asked to write a treatment with images.  Rarely.  The call was everything. I realized quickly that this was essentially being good at sells.  So I bought a book written by one of the best car salesman on the planet and I read it.  One of the major and most impactful chapters was about asking questions:  Finding out what the customer wanted.  I realized that my customer is the ad agency.  Up until reading that book, I would leap onto the call and proceed to tell everyone what I wanted to do with all of my creative ideas for their script.  Soon, I found that this didn't exactly book me jobs.

Trick #4 Ask what is needed and wanted.  Listen carefully.  Be enthusiastic, people have been working on their scripts for months, sometimes longer.  Show some respect and point out what is good about their work.  Ask questions.  Come up with at least one or two inspirational things to say on the phone.  Make creatives feel good about their work, or good about the potential of their work.

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Staying in touch with people I have worked with hasn't been my strong suit.  I've always been like the aloof girlfriend.  I figure if people want to work with me again, then they'll call.  Facebook has changed all that.  I've realized that making connections and keeping in contact is crucial.  The friends that I have met on projects have been some of the best and most important in my life.  And, truth be told, I'm very focused on my work and creative endeavors and if it wasn't for commercials, I'd spend a great deal of time alone.  My social life comes from my work life. 

Trick #5 Stay in touch.  Stay in touch.  Stay in touch. 

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My first break came when I graduated college and an editor at Crewcuts edited my music video for the Fizzy Bangers (he was also the lead singer of the Band).  Then someone at the company sent my music video to a producer at Propaganda and within a week I had seven offers from other major production companies.  I will never forget that kindness and I have worked to make sure that I do my best to help others around me.  Currently, I'm mentoring seven interns and one high school student who is studying video production.   It is a joy to help others.  It is a revelation to assist people realize their dreams.

Trick #6  Be grateful.  Even when you're tired, smile and offer to help.  Find someone who needs mentoring and mentor them.  Then, do it again a dozen more times.  Always be working in the service of others.   Help motivate and inspire people and then they will do the same.  This is why I will always love commercials.  There's always an opportunity for something new to happen.  For an endless flow of ideas to catch and release.  And a new crop of people who come in with fresh excitement.

 

 

 

 

I was recently contacted by a filmmaker named Stewart Nelsen who is making a documentary about the Legend of the Brass Teapot.  Stewart has gained access to the Theosophist Society in Yunnan Province China and been interviewing various specialists in Alchemy and at the State Department. He's keeping a video journal about the process of making the documentary.  Take a look.    I can't wait to see the finished doc.

Here's an entry from his blog.

After almost every commercial production I receive handwritten letters (or itunes gift cards if I'm lucky) from the actors I've worked with.   Always I receive an email or text from the creatives on the job and, on occasion, I will also get a note from the client, thanking me for my work. 

I've never received fan mail... that is, until I shot spots for Walmart.   Since I directed a back-to-college spot about a mother saying goodbye to her daughter at college - and a spot about a little boy who loves football, I've received a dozen or so messages via phone or email from friends and family who have seen these spots and written to say that it made them cry... That's nice but much better than that is the handful of letters I've received from total strangers!  Let me tell you, as a commercial director, there's nothing better than fan mail...  (Unless, of course, it's a Gold Lion from Cannes), which means that hate mail is the worse but I'll get to that in a moment...  Now, for all who made this moment possible, I want to say thank you (Martin agency, Walmart, my reps, Trio, my mom)...

I've received a couple of emails from moms and daughters about the "Goodbye" spot; here's the version that most of them saw - it's a :30 with lots of product but still made an impact.  

I, of course, wrote Shannon back immediately and offered to mentor her but by then she had already received a response from Fredrik Bond and turned me down...

I have no idea who "Stevie" is (nor which spot he's talking about) though I do appreciate that he likes my work and his choice of postcards. 

In closing, let me say that with the good comes the bad. I have in fact received hate mail about my work as well. After I directed an anti-smoking PSA (youtube version here: PSA)  I was sent messages from various bloggers and their pro-smoking followers calling me "vile". I received a message post that said I should be "strung up and shot", as well as this jewel: "Stupid stupid stupid, you're an idiot".  Obviously my finest hour.

To read more about the small fire storm the PSA caused check out these links.  The Tobacco Analysis is a pro-smoking blog that asked it's readers to write me personally - and if you scroll down and click on the article about the PSA the best part is definitely the comments addressed to me.  There's 94 in total and it's a full take down.  Clipmarks is more moderate though does have some hate mail there.  And Barely dressed is another pro-smoking blogger who had lots of venom.   

 

 

http://www.studiodaily.com/blog/?p=4734

http://blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/briefingroom/2010/10/28/trio-films-director-ramaa-mosley-directs-moving-campaign-for-milk-bone%C2%AE/

Okay, I've been working on a project that's taught me a tremendous amount about how to promote a product and target a specific audience using social marketing.  In all the years I've been directing commercials I honestly haven't given much thought to guerilla style marketing techniques.  I've been happily directing commercials with an enormous focus on making creative, captivating and memorable short stories that appeal to viewers who watch main stream television.   This has been fulfilling but I've now gone to the next level in my consciousness about advertising.  I directed a campaign for Milkbone in which part of the media was created to play out on the web as well as broadcast.  In many ways, the web component was as important as the television spots.  This led me to start thinking more about the possibilities.

Most of you, I know,  have been thinking about this topic for a long time but for me it's like I've discovered the earth isn't flat.  I suppose it's because now I have my very own product to sell - and that product is a comic book and a feature film which is shooting in March.   I have a small budget and need to figure out how to distinguish myself amongst the hundreds of other films that are going to be screened and sold this next year.

Luckily my feature film has the benefit of being based on a successful short story called The Brass Teapot written by Tim Macy... sure, you're thinking "A successful short story?  Is there such a thing?"  Well this one has been receiving 300,000 reads a month on the web.  When I researched who was clicking and reading it I discovered that it was primarily 15 - 30 year olds.   Then a friend went on youtube and found that six or seven high school students had already made their own short FILM versions of the short story.  Here's one:    They range from hilarious to hilariously bad but doesn't matter - youth love this story and want to make it their own.   When I saw the films - this was the moment I knew I had something special.  This was the moment I knew I had to target that age group and the only good way to do it was to use social marketing.  

My whole life I've loved comic books.  Especially when I was between the ages of 8 and 13 years old - mostly Archie's comics, Wonder Woman, Charlie Brown, but then as I got older it felt uncool so I stopped reading them.  A few years ago. after a shoot, my friend Ken Marcus (creative director at Martin Agency) shared his passion, part-time, project - an amazingly good comic book series called "Super Human Resources".  Ken was and is so immersed in reading and loving comics it made a big impression;  he's the first to call himself a geek but the truth is he's an incredibly funny and talented creative and extremely cool.  That was the moment I realized it was ok to love comics again.   So I jumped into the world.  Started reading and studying what he gave me - mostly indy stuff - and I fell in love with it all over again.

So how does this apply to my film?  In my spare time, when I'm not shooting back to back tv commercials, I've created a whole bunch of mythology around the main story of the magical brass teapot and then (because it fits perfectly with the main story of the Brass teapot) I've been creating a comic book series called "The Brass Teapot" with Tim Macy -- who BTW is a finalist in the Nicholl's fellowship this year!  Our "Brass Teapot" comic comes out at the end of November just after he finds out if he is a recipient.    I started a brass teapot website to host the comic book and all of the mythology around the the object because I know that comic book fans (like myself) really dig mythology and story. 

All this is just fun unless people go to the website and actually want to become a fan... A fan who wants to know more.  I'm learning what many great viral marketing experts already know - facebook and youtube are key to making this idea spread and gain attention.  And it's not enough to sell people some product such as a comic or even a film.  No one cares about a product - they care about stories, jokes and getting something back for their 10 seconds of attention. They care about being entertained.  In other words, no one cares about your product but you.  You can't set up a facebook fan page for everyone to "like" your shoe brand - you have to set up a facebook fan page and offer interesting media: videos, questions, music --  make people like your shoes by first getting them to let you entertain them.

This past summer my friend Stephen Harlow, who was one of the first people to reach retirement age as a Web Designer (and was a great social marketing producer for many years), sent me an article about social marketing platforms and how to best use them.   This information has now opened up a whole new world.  I read this article about twelve times and have been using almost every piece of advice.  You should read it too.

I've created the Brass Teapot fan page and in the first day had 130 "likes"... I've decided to start releasing the teaser comic pages when we reach 1,000 likes.  So please go there and like it.

Okay, the truth is that there's a lot more to this than what I've told you above... There's also the Theosophist Society which has gotten involved and is searching for the Brass Teapot...  but I can't reveal all my secrets quite yet.  At some point I will and I'll let you in on all the other weird stuff I've done to get this project going.  Crazy stuff, kind of torrid and strange but so effective.  For now, just know that I've really hit a new level - an outer level.  I'm geeking out and I have to say... I like myself better now..

I've tried to suppress this for as long as possible but finally the truth comes out...

Just finished a six day shoot for Walmart for Global Hues and Lopez Negrete agency.  I had the opportunity to work with Vida Cornellius, a creative director who I had worked with years ago on a Qwest Campaign.  10 years later and Vida looks more gorgeous than ever and she was a blast to work with.    I also made many new friends at Lopez Negrete: creative directors Miguel Moreno and Fernando Osuna Munoz (who hopefully didn't get kidnapped when he left our shoot to fly to Mexico for the weekend), as well as agency producer Claudio Milczewski and executive producer Marlo Baker.

During the tech scout, my producer James and production manager Dylan stood on a high school race track talking - who could run the 100 faster?  As the film shoot began, the news spread that there was going to be some sort of show down. Quickly people started making bets and soon it was a full on competition.  The last day of the shoot was the race.  See below for the actual footage.  I want to go on record saying that this moment, more than any other, made me respect James.  After a month of back to back jobs, then 6 days of shooting straight, then getting some bad news, and then getting more bad new, James kept his agreement and raced: the whole 400, in front of the entire crew and agency.  Humbling to say the least.   Many speculate that Dylan had an unfair advantage because of the socks...  You decide. I was proud of James and look forward to the next race. 

Click here to download:

IMG_2002.MOV (33.67 MB)

I've been quietly working on a few photography projects for years now.  Photography was where I started but quickly took second seat to directing moving pictures.  I've struggled for many years with how photography fit in my life.  The biggest question has always been - to show my work, or not to show my work.  This may sound like a strange delimma... Let me explain:  The people I've photographed have become very important to me.  The experience of photographing a person is a very intimate experience for me - it seems strange to put the work up on the wall and look at it from a disconnected place.  Therefor, I've held back from showing my work - the photographs have sat with me until now...  I'm finally working on a book.  It will be ready this fall, I hope.