Through the LCD clearly

Still job hunting not sure how the possibility of an impending strike and the current economy are affecting things but there are still plenty of positions out there.

Brushing up on my Marketing Concepts and Strategy Planning and might even do some online campaigns for spurious products tied into some of my concepts just for the fun of it. Maybe do a history of adverts through fake products going form the Victorian era to what we’re looking at in the future.

Have the Victorian product orientated method nailed down, as well as the 1950s style “sell” approach. The modern Marketing Concept orientation still needs some ironing out. Will work on writing and the strategy for the approaches soon. Thinking one as a print ad, one as a 50s style TV ad, and the modern as an embed/pop up product reference in something seemingly innocent. Think it should be fun and educational! (I need a web-cam to impart the cheese in those sentences justly.)

Also trying to refine my script writing abilities (or garner some) I’ve not really focused on writing (ever), but find it to be much more important in growing as a content producer and being able to spot worthwhile material to work on. That being the case I’ve been trying to hit a certain page count per day, and have been following a very handy piece of advice… from Jerry Seinfeld via Lifehacker. Basically one sets a goal of a certain amount of pages per day to meet or some such objective then print out a calendar and keep a chain going across it. The longer you do it the less likely you’ll be to let it slip. Takes some willpower but helps. Know it’s old hat but some of my friends haven’t heard of it before so maybe not everyone has heard of it.

and then on to general updates/links/opinions.

Missing tonight’s Sons of Anarchy Episode as I don’t have a tv here yet (Cable hooked up just no tv). Loving the show so far it’s very Hamlet. FX has allowed Hulu to put the first two episodes up which is nice considering, new episodes have an eight day delay before being posted so I believe tomorrow I’ll be able to catch last weeks episode.

Speaking of which most of us have a presence on or are familiar with facebook ( link via digg) I’d recommend checking this out:

Hamlet as a Facebook News Feed.

I’m also catching up on Terminator: the Sarah Conner Chronicles, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and just discovered the now canceled New Amsterdam. How did Highlander get to go on forever and New Amsterdam only last 8 episodes?

There are photos of me as a child Beaming in the 1980′s circa KITT in South Africa (yes we had TV, granted only from 1979 but really!). But I don’t think the newest incarnation of Knight Rider will be around all that long. Mostly impartial polling and gauging online reactions seems to indicate 1. Poor casting for the lead 2. Val Kilmer’s voice acting work is coming across as flat with demographics aged 1-84.. Which to be fair seems to be justified. It’s a shame as the effects are pretty well done, and they have tried to update the storyline to match modern conventions. Luckily NBC Universal still has Hereos, 30-Rock, BSG (For a while), Earl, and Leno to sell advertising. Another seemingly common critique which I’ll defend the show on is the car selection, a 2008 Ford Mustang. Ford is helping make the budget and getting the show made.

Juard Van Dijkhorst

This will have to be a temporary place-holder post. Tomorrow early AM I’m off to St. Louis but will be back Saturday evening. I want to do an in depth analysis on advertising for the New Media/Web 2.0.
I’ll cover:
Metrics/Ratings – How measuring audience has changed with the shift to online viewing, peer to peer downloads, and how DVR technology might be fudging with the impact of Nielson type ratings.

The AIDA formula – How the Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action formula works and which sections need additional emphasis for the webscape.

Product Placement/Embedding – how New technologies in conjunction with ratings changes could force a shift back to more traditional means of advertising – product placement/sponsorship. Also how props, set dressing, costumes, and anything in frame can be turned into a potential revenue stream through click-thru/referral sales.

A bit more on mobile content – I’ll go a bit more in depth on the crude Photoshop mock up I’ve posted and maybe see if we can get a discussion going on advertising via phones.

I’m still job hunting, but have had some response may have some interviews early next week. I still have some fine tuning here, and at my main site to do but I want to get around to promoting/listing this blog soon.

Juard Van Dijkhorst

So I imagine most of you are familiar with Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible.

I’m a big fan of misunderstood or inept evil ala Venture Brother’s guild of calamitous intent, or Dr. Horrible. But I digress. Personal enjoyment aside. Whedon in his Master Plan discusses the origin and goals of the project.

1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

In an NPR interview Whedon boils his goals down to.

“Doing [the online series] was an effort to send a message to the community that there was another way … that we could create content and ultimately create jobs without the studios,”

Being a Firefly fan, I can certainly see why Mr. Whedon could be a tad disgruntled with the studio system. Though hopefully it won’t prevent him from bringing us another series.

It seems that Dr. Horrible will at some point be pulled from free viewing and go to a pay for download model. Also from the Master Plan

2) What happens when it goes away? Does it go to a happy farm for always like Fluffy did when mommy was crying and the neighbor kept washing his fender?

No, Dr horrible will live on. We intend to make it available for download soon after it’s published. This would be for a nominal fee, which we’re hoping people will embrace instead of getting all piratey. We have big dreams, people, and one of them is paying our crew.

And somewhat later, we will put the complete short epic out on DVD – with the finest and bravest extras in all the land. We’ll go into greater detail about that at Comiccon, but we’re changing the face of Show Friendliness a second time with that crazy DVD.

Paying the crew seems like a noble goal, hopefully Whedon more than recoups his personal investments.  To be honest I’m a bit surprised though that there was not an initial donate option as the series was rolled out.

Dr. Horrible represents what a sustainable online distribution model could look like. This has been a momentous year for alternate distribution methods. Hopefully there will be more Radiohead, Whedon, and ilk inspired releases.

Dr. Horrible still took substantial resources to execute, though certainly not by the standards one would associate with say the average episode of Lost or 24. We are fast approaching the point where online video audiences are going to start expecting greater production value. By no means will it be the sole determining factor of popularity but the days of lip synced Romanian pop song memes may be drawing to an end.

I’ll cover how the Networks have been handling the online migration in a future post and perhaps speculate on where the industry is heading.

Juard Van Dijkhorst

‘

So I promised to talk to you a bit about job hunting as a recent grad.
At the moment I’m sharing a room and still paying more than I did for a two bedroom apartment in Springfield.

First bit of advice have some money stashed away, or if you’re impetuous like myself a credit card with 0% interest before making the move out here. Most everything is more expensive out here, gas is at least 60 cents a gallon more, movie tickets are more expensive. Luckily here in the valley that’s offset a bit.

Tonight marks my third week in LA, it took me about a week and a half to find coordinate a acceptable living arrangement. Acceptable is a loose term, my roommate is a good chap, my landlord shall we say will make for very rich writing material down the line. It took a further week and then some to get Time Warner to set up internet.

Which brings me to point two. Own a laptop. I’m using a desktop, it may be six years old but it can still browse, write, and barely run old editing programs. Regardless for about a week I was getting up early every morning driving from here in Valley Village to an internet café in Glendale and sending out resumes, making lists to write in the evening and repeating the process. It would be much easier to find a coffee house and use their wi-fi.

I’ve pretty much exhausted monster, Craig list (employers provide an email addy the CL file size limit is too small to attach a proper resume), Indeed, Mandy etc. Tomorrow I start calling Studio switchboards, getting production office numbers, and calling each one to find out if they’re crewing. Fun fun.

I’ve easily sent out fifty or 60 resumes and cover letters. I’ve also managed to hear back on very few of them. Most of the positions I’m applying for are Production Assistant gigs. So far response has been muted. I have a few friends out here, and know a few more. Some of them have been kind enough to pass my resume on or offer advice. So to Chris, Molly, and Gloria thanks.  . I do need to get out and network a bit more, as that seems to make a huge difference out here.

Third piece of advice. Have a car, I do. And though the 405 and 10 will instill new reference points for traffic you can’t really rely on public transport. Better yet have a motor bike so you can lane split, or if you can afford it a helicopter. The guy in the Lamborghini is just as stuck as I am in my Taurus.

I’ll keep you posted. I’m taking a few walks a day to do my phone calls, get some exercise, and get away from the computer screen. In the near future expect a radical overhaul of Radial Sprite and the blog. I’m not so sure I like the current format.

Juard Van Dijkhorst