I was little surprised when the next day a poll showed that most viewers didn’t stay on the channel long enough to listen to the speech. Of course not! We have 8 (!) seconds (!) in a YouTube video to engage our audience, then they’re gone. TV shows might get a whopping 90 seconds.

There are too many things tugging at our sleeve to pay attention to things at length anymore and I’m not talking about children or attention seeking pets and husbands. When I try to settle into a longer article I actually get a bit jumpy and page to the back to see how long my commitments is going to be and if I want to even start to engage. Books for fun (and I used to be a voracious reader) have been relegated to the vacation back burner and even then I have to make a time commitment to read a few books.

The other day I heard an interview on TV (while I was either cooking, exercising or cleaning up social emails) where Tom Brokaw (I think) was talking about a new book and said, that today it’s not enough anymore to read the local newspaper and a few trade magazines and listen to the radio on the way to work and watch the evening news. We ALSO need to plow through a plethora, or should I say onslaught of information form the net.

I WISH I had time to do all the things Tom Brokaw listed – I’m glad if I manage the New York Times and my Swiss weekly newspaper and the morning news. The blogs I subscribe to get a quick glance and I have an ever growing list of blog entries I have to read, I WANT to red, but oh, so little time.

We thought reading and writing was dead! Social media has changed that to a certain extent; even if the social media prose is not what we (old people) learned in school. I’m reading a New Yorker article (yes, I know) about the kid that was spied on by his roommate in college and committed suicide after the roommate blasted the internet with the news that he was gay and showed video of him engaging with another man. The article shows excerpts from the texts that went back and forth between these college freshmen and their friends. I’m reading “IDC”, what? IDC? I don’t care. My favorite was that the article was full of “WTF”. We can now officially use the “F” bomb in a reputable magazine because it’s not spelled out, just WFT. But, I digress.

So, where does this leave us? In a world where we need to be ever more expert at what we do and retreat into a smaller niches to then find out that we have kinda lost the bigger picture (think onion peel) of your work world, your kids world, your community world, your country world and let’s not forget, art, literature, the latest food fad and the newest technological advances, what your phone can REALLY do and you had no clue? This morning on the news (NY1): the app is dwindling. Today the average user uses less than five apps in a week. They didn’t say how much that’s down from before but my guess is SIGNIFICANTLY. At some point we have to do the dishes and get some work done.

I circle back to an earlier post on: Curation and the Human Algorithm. I think curation of information will become ever more important to help us manage knowledge without going under in a sea of distractions and inert information.

How do YOU manage your information flow? How have your habits change since the first onslaught of social media and blogging? Are you digging out from under?

In an earlier post I talk about the future of storytelling and how there is no linear story telling anymore as we knew it only a few years back (OK, many years back).  To expand on that discussion we should also look at the way we have learned to “read” and understand visual material, especially if it moves.

When I started working in film production some 20 years ago (I was VERY young) the images we produced where clean, clear and crisp.  We told stories literally and linearly.  Transitions where hard cuts and fade in and out or a dissolve where major effects and placed thoughtfully.  Voice over and graphic cards underscored what we felt was visually not absolutely crystal clear. We left breathing space so everybody could “read” along with us.

Enter digital filmmaking, YouTube, Flip cameras, iMovie and Final Cut Pro. Everybody is a filmmaker. Picture quality declined both in the literal, technical sense and in terms of story-telling.  Out of focus was art, so was off-kilter framing. Fragments of story lines, slice of life vignettes emerged (some fascinating and many of them truly dull).  Stories were told faster, more effects where used sometimes to enhance the message, more than not however ‘because they could’.  Audiences learned to read imagery, quicker, more intuitively; they understood what was said even if it wasn’t. 

Today no one shuffles their feet in a client meeting when an image starts with a slow focus pull that throws the background out of focus and the fore ground into focus, or if we start on a partial frame or an empty frame.  We create three ring circuses with three emerging story lines simultaneously developing in one frame. We have learned to read all three and put them together.  We read a wallpaper video in the background and a content video in the foreground and listen to a voice over (often competing with music – which always drives me nuts as a producer) and ‘get’ the message and think nothing of it.

We’ve also learned that we’re not being spoon-fed a linear story.  It all happens NOW or it unfolds backwards, or in pieces, or entire chapters are left out – we can fill them in surely – just a waste of time to show it all and be linear, because time is what we do NOT have.

We have learned to “read” movies very fast and if the tempo is not fast enough we move on to the next clip – there are so many of them after all.  The smallest common denominator is the fastest paced movie – as we all seem to have come out with attention deficit disorder.

But I’m still a sucker for linear story telling… I’m all for innovation and ‘not so perfect’ and artsy new ways of telling the story, but I want to have a beginning, middle and end. Call me old-fashioned.

Now repairs to the system shut down entire lines for five nights in a row leaving commuters in the 10 or even 100 thousands stranded for a week if they work night or early morning shifts. For most of us a 10 PM to 5 AM closure is merely annoying and might result in a big taxi bill for a night or two, but what if you are one of so many people who offer services and goods the “other 16 hours” of the day and depend on night schedule from public transport, to shopping, customer service and recreation?  How many percent of the working force are they?  What support do they get to get to work in time to serve us our first coffee at the deli when we run to the subway, or relieve us from a midnight craving of sushi?  Pick up our garbage and prepare the morning news?

One thing we always can count on is the internet – at all hours, all the time, and (nearly) everywhere. That is: until now.  I just goggled  Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) and as you  might have noticed I hyperlinked them to Wikipedia.   If you click on those links as of midnight tonight (1/18/12 and for the next 24 hours) they will NOT be operational.  Incidentally Wikipedia will suspend operation to protest SOPA and PIPA.  And Wikipedia will not be alone  www.reddit.com, MoveOn, BoingBoing, the Cheezburger Network, and FailBlog among others will join in the black out.  Both SOPA and PIPA are bills slated to be passed (or not) in Congress.  The New York Times has a very relevant article on the topic should you need some freshening up.   The key sentence, a quote from Erik Martin, general manager of www.reddit.com: “[…] it’s not a battle between Hollywood and tech, its people who get the Internet and those who don’t.”

Ok, so back to things that operate for 24 hours.  We tend to think we need to always be available.  Response times have to be under an hour. With email, text, Skype and face time (phones are now near antiquated), and our many “i ”Devices we connected at all times. I find myself hanging my head off my bed in the morning after turning off the alarm clock to totally sleep drunken look at my iPad or BlackBerry I left on the floor besides my bed (and it also gives me the right distance to read without my reading glasses), to make sure I haven’t missed anything while sleeping.  

Do we really work more and are available more, or do we just push our work around the work week or calendar year to end up doing maybe even less than when we showed up at 9 AM and left at 5 PM and had worked with less technical distractions?  Where is our focus? How much time do we have to dedicate to one task without interruption?

My sister said to me the other day: “I’m open for business from 7 AM to 8 PM”. I thought she was kidding until I realized that those were her hours of operation as mother, daughter, and employee. After 8 PM she wanted to be left alone, kid in bed and no more work or planning sessions – “CLOSED” sign on her forehead.  Might not be a bad idea to set boundaries where there are often none (especially in the mother and daughter category).  I solved the issue differently – I moved six hour time difference away from my family and that by nature of that decimates the family-operating hours.  As for the vendor, friend and buddy-hours – I’m working on those. 

I personally have a hard time with the “all or nothing” stance that I still see a lot in Europe even in Management positions. I never forget the German producer who announced, as we were wrapping out a 13-part series of one-hour TV show, that she would go on vacation the next day for three weeks with no access to phone or email. I don’t think I’ve ever wrapped a job faster and gotten the final invoice for her approval submitted.  

I’d rather check my email daily while traveling and spend a few hours a week taking care of some of the email bulk so when I get back I’m not buried in a sea of emails and pending potential disasters.  Being a small business owner of course also means that I can’t disappear for three weeks without any knowledge of what’s going on at the office. 

So, for now I’m open 24 hours, but will be sleeping for seven of those and as I don’t have a home phone and turn off the cell phone at night, all hell can break loose and I will be oblivious until I turn on the cell phone or check email hanging off my bed.   But I’m open for business 24/7 – theoretically.

1.       After you reached your goal of 10K so fast did you refocus on keeping up the momentum for further funds and if so what did you do?

We thought about this for a little bit.  To be honest, I think the relief at reaching the goal so quickly transformed into focusing our energies more on the stuff the money was for: festivals, sound, and color correction.  We made sure to keep in contact with our backers and to do what we could to encourage more donations, but primarily we shifted back into post-production mode.

It would’ve been nice to raise more money, but ‘mo money, mo problems.’ We had some brief discussions about where such ‘overflow’ money might go, and it quickly spiraled into all sorts of further questions and issues.  This is why it was good to spend a lot of time thinking about our needs before we launched this Kickstarter project.  Once we reached our $10K goal, we were able to pursue what the money was intended for.

2.       What goal would you have set in hindsight?

Hard to say.  We’re too close to it to have full hindsight.  The important thing is that we raised $10,000, which is exactly what we needed.  Note that I say $10,000, when the number on Kickstarter shows $11,528.  That’s because Amazon and Kickstarter both take a cut that comes out to about 10%.  So what we actually wind up with is just over $10,000.

Maybe a month from now, if/when we get into a bunch of festivals and have to think about travel, accommodation, and stuff like that, we’ll wish we had set the goal higher.  But when we discussed this before launching, it seemed too far off and ambiguous to put down as an expense.  In the really unlikely (and unpleasant) possibility that we don’t get into a single festival, we’d be sitting with extra money in our pockets, looking silly to our supporters.

We made this movie on an incredible shoestring budget, and so we know what we’re capable of and how little we need to accomplish it.  This Kickstarter campaign reflects that mentality, and we’re once again just super proud and grateful to everyone for that final result.

3.       What are the next steps for you?

We’re going to keep uploading clips for our backers on the Kickstarter page.  We’ve already started the sound mixing with a very talented sound mixer named Alex Inglizian out in Chicago.  We’ve also reached out to a post house and are coordinating the color-correction process.  And we’ve been submitting to a few festivals and hope to hear back within the next couple of months – our Kickstarter backers will be the first to know when we get in.

In addition to all that Mulligan work, we’re all busy prepping for our next feature, which we’ll be shooting in March out in LA.  Same team, same budget, and everyone’s just as excited and working just as hard.  So, quite busy!

4.       How are you organized for the ‘goodies’?

Pretty good.  In a few days hope to have some pictures of the ‘prototype’ golf balls, pencils, and tees to show to the backers who’ll be getting them as a reward.  I’m unfortunately a little behind on making the thank you e-cards, so that might be a full day’s work for me once I get back from vacation.  Funnily enough, some of the rewards all rest on writer/star Jonathan Eliot’s shoulders – he’s got to leave voice mails in his creepy voice for several donors, as well as ship some of his drawings that he made for the movie.  But he’s a graduate student and has loads of time.

The movie itself and soundtrack we’re still working on, but that should be ready by the date we gave on the Kickstarter page – May of this year.  If we’re lucky, we’ll get those rewards out sooner, but the current workload is pretty overwhelming as it is.

Of course, our biggest “goodie” is sharing clips and news from the movie with our backers, and we’re very committed to keeping everyone informed and engaged with our progress.  Hopefully we’ll have lots of happy news to share over this coming year, and if not, we’ll make sure to keep them entertained – we’re pretty good at that.

Then I spent a few years ‘running’ the midnight run in Central Park. One year my friends and I left a rather boring party and went for a long walk on the beach in Long Island.   The worst year was when we had a nice party until midnight came around and all couples started either making out or slow-dancing and my also-single friend and I sat there feeling a bit left out.

A few years ago my sister and I decided to organize a sledding party with fondue dinner – also near St. Moritz in the Swiss alps (which by the way is where I’m from – so don’t think I’m jet setting around the world to St. Moritz for New Year’s eve – my family is there).  We had all organized the evening to a “t” – when I double checked on a hunch with the sledding venue the day of December 31^st around noon only to be told that “we’re closed today because of prior issues with alcohol and who ever told you we were open didn’t know what they were talking about”. I nearly fell out of my socks. I had a party of 15 people and no place to go and about six hours to reorganize.

We scrambled and finally saved the night with a combo of an early pizza dinner, sledding without the help of motorized transportation and a vicious game of charades. The night was such a success that this year – five years later – we had to curtail our list of guests.   There’s no hangover, much physical activity, all ages (18 months to 80 years – no sledding there) and no slow dancing at the stroke of midnight… – a perfect way to start the New Year, I think.

I hope you have at least half as much fun as I have sliding into the New Year and I wish for you to have as much fun and don’t be shy sharing your favorite way to spend New Year’s eve.

Happy 2012!

1.       You past the all-important 30% threshold in less than two days of your campaign AND reached your goal in 12 days.  Did you wish you had set your funding goal higher?

I think there’s been a mix of emotions since hitting our goal.  Obviously there’s a ton of joy and relief at how successful it is, and how quickly we accomplished it.  But your question gets to the heart of those little nagging doubts we now have in the back of our heads – should we have set a higher goal? Will wrote me on Dec. 9th, at which point we had raised $8,030, or 80% of our goal: “If I may, I think we couldn’t have picked a better goal. We definitely don’t want to already have passed it, but we’re in no danger of not getting it.”

I think that hits it on the head.  We’re really happy that we hit our goal, and although it’s the minimum we needed in order to finish the project, we’re still able to raise more via Kickstarter.  As Kickstarter points out on their website: “94% of successful projects raise more than their funding goal.” (source: http://www.kickstarter.com/start).

We’re now trying to do everything we can to keep getting the word out and continue to raise as much as we can.  By reaching our minimum, we’re guaranteed to receive the money, and that is a huge win for us.

2.       Did you find that there were peaks and lows in the funding cycle?  I.e. a lot of backers in the first day or two and then a leveling off? 

You can see for yourself the ‘slope’ the donations took in the attached screenshot, which is of the project’s Dashboard – or central control for your Kickstarter project.  This user backend of Kickstarter was actually just recently given a major overhaul, and is filled with incredibly useful information – including the various sources of donors (e.g. Google, Twitter, Facebook), and what percentages they make up of the total pledged.

Getting back to your question, we hit a bit of a plateau on Day 5, where we hovered around the $7,500 mark for a few days. On Days 7-8 we had only a couple of small donations.  Then things picked back up again on Day 9, and by Day 12 we broke the $10,000 mark!

I suspect that a lot of Kickstarter campaigns have similar-looking graphs.  Maybe they’re not quite as steep at the beginning, but I have heard about the plateau and about the sudden rush towards that goal-line as people notice how close you are and want to help you break through.  To be honest, this all happened much faster than expected, and so we were still in the planning stages of some of our next steps when we realized they might not be necessary.

3.       What is your strategy to keep the momentum going?

We’ve always considered this Kickstarter campaign to have two goals: one is the money, obviously, which is pretty important; the other is to start getting the word out about Mulligan, and now that we’ve hit the financial goal, we can start to focus on this.  So we’ve begun to reach out to blogs and other media that cover independent film in the hopes of getting some press coverage for the movie.  That would be a big win for us.  We’ve also continued to proselytize on Facebook and have focused a bit more on catching up in the ‘Likes’ department.

Aside from that there’s our wonderfully original idea of releasing clips of the film on Kickstarter – I think/hope that this is part of the secret of our success.  Every backer who pledges any amount gets access to several scenes from the film that we’ll be releasing over the next two months – that’s right, long after the whole Kickstarter campaign is over we’re going to keep sending out these clips.  But the only way to access them is if you donate before the deadline.  We hope that this, both encourages more people to donate between now and Dec. 31 – and that it allows us to keep in touch with our supporters and build momentum for our festival release(s).

4.       How do you feel about over reaching your goal (other than the fact that “it feels good”)?  Any reservations about the justification, let’s say?

If anything, it’s a relief that we can focus our energies on the other tasks we need to do for Mulligan.  We’ve started submitting to festivals, which is a crazy process because once again we’re trying to meet deadlines and get out DVDs of a rough cut of the film – this was sort of the issue that caused the Kickstarter campaign to delay launching. We’re also starting to coordinate the post processes that the Kickstarter campaign is for: color-correction and sound. 

But it’s great to be worrying about this stuff and not be ultra-concerned about Kickstarter anymore. I’ve stopped hitting ‘refresh’ on the Kickstarter page 3,982 times a day – I sometimes go entire hours without checking it now!

We do feel as though we can still raise a decent amount more than what we have now – we’ve raised about $500 in the last week, so we’ve definitely hit another plateau.  I’m hoping that with a little bit of media coverage we can hit 150% of our goal – $15,000.  We’re only $4,000 away from that, that’s a drop in the ocean compared to what we’ve already accomplished!

I just finished watching the first four minutes of the feature – a privilege reserved for backers!  Smart move.

One reason I’m engaged – other than knowing co-producer David – is that the director, Will immediately friended me on Facebook after I ‘liked’ the Mulligan Facebook page.  Then, less than 24 hours later I got a nice thank you email with some fun facts and additional information, as well as an attachment of the Mulligan poster.  They immediately made me part of their ‘family’; this of course AFTER I donated.  So why donate in the first place? 

I know virtually nothing about the film.  I didn’t know Will’s work until I watched the pledge video.  So, first and foremost I’m a backer, because of David.  I abused him for a few years at Clock Wise Productions, first as intern and then as assistant editor and editor (the abuse was fully mutual, by the way, including my favorite David story – more on that some other time).  Secondly, David ASKED for my support in a private email.

The thinking goes, I guess, that if we all support the project with a relatively small amount, say $25 which is what we might spend on an evening going to the movies and having a drink (ok, half a drink in New York), we do some good and support independent art.  As my mother always says (this in German: auch Kleinvieh macht Mist): Also small farm animals produce shit.  This is to say – much small shit also piles up to a big pile of dung. 

In other words:  prepare your lists of people to ask for support – personally – and give them something to get excited about.  And we’re back to the all important preparation.  The selling points are: ask, great video, decent backer give a-way’s.   As for the give-a-way’s: I think they are quasi inconsequential to friends and family, but super important if the video should go viral and attract an outside your inner circle following – these are now people who don’t know you personally and will support on the basis of, ‘cool’ and ‘passion’ factor, or ‘activism’ factor (more for docs) AND who really want a piece of the pie.  I.e. get to see advance footage, get an advance peek at the final project, or get a DVD at a good price break, etc.

Bye, bye, I’m back to their website to watch them go over 100% – follow me!  Mulligan Kickstarter.

I’m as a tough an audience as it gets and I loved – absolutely loved – the video they put together.  Special mention to the music – what I heard was outstanding.  The animations are very cool and the video does a great job in telling what they need the funds for AND getting you excited about wanting to see the movie.  (The only thing in need of improvement: for a non-film person is, that it might be hard to understand the muffled voice of the director when he explains some technical terms).

Clearly the team put a LOT of effort into this and it seems to be paying off handsomely. I expect them to totally exceed their goal! They did their homework and I give it an A+.

Here a few questions I asked David:

1. What was your to-do list for the kick off day?  Lead-up was mostly about getting the video done. There were a few last-minute changes to the ‘Story’ section – basically the main part of the Kickstarter page where you describe the project, explain what you’re trying to raise money for, and other details. So we added some extra info to that section and once we had the video in its final format, we launched – at approx. 11am EST yesterday.

Will, the director, also launched the Facebook page late last night. There wasn’t much setup involved, and he’s fairly active on there (he frequently chides me for not being on Facebook). Our strategy is to treat the Kickstarter page as our biggest face/front for the movie right now, with Facebook a close second. The thinking is that we don’t want to bog people down with a website, Twitter, etc. Just get them to the Kickstarter page and let them learn about the movie through there.

2. How many emails/letters/solicitations did you ‘save’ for the kickoff?  It’s hard to count, because between the three main people involved, I’d guess close to 1,000 emails were sent yesterday. Some were based on lists of people who are fans of the web series ‘Reception’ that Will and and Graham, the producer have been working on for a year. That has a sizable following, and those fans had been getting emails in the lead-up to today because a new episode of ‘Reception’ gets sent out every week.

I’m sending out personal emails one-by-one, so I’ll probably be doing that whenever I have time for the next four weeks. I think it helps to do it that way if you have the time and resolve. Getting a Facebook poke or whatever wouldn’t necessarily get me to a website and to fork over dollars, so I’m hoping to seduce people the way I’d want to be seduced.

3. Where did Kickstarter make your life easy and what drove you nuts?  Kickstarter’s interface is very slick and easy to navigate. Uploading photos and videos and making text changes and descriptions is very easy, and done in a way that allows you to make changes without the fear that everything will blow up. They really nailed that, and I think it’s probably a big key to their success. Only have one minor gripe about Kickstarter – they don’t give you much direction in terms of what’s the proper format/specs for the video, so I think we were a little concerned we’d upload it and it wouldn’t look/sound right. Fortunately it’s not the case, and I think it’s hard to just blame Kickstarter for lack of guidance – there are just too many damn video formats floating around nowadays.

What really drove us nuts was making the video, which I’ve discussed in the previous post and which is in no way Kickstarter’s fault. They actually have really great suggestions and guidelines for making a video and – wisely – encourage every project to make one as a way of increasing the chances of a successful campaign.

4. What was the unexpected?  Nothing was unexpected, which I suspect is a result of lots of planning and agonizing over every last detail.

5. What was the ‘this sucks’?  Nothing really sucked. OK, so one small thing. Apparently, shortly after launching, a stranger came and made a comment on the Facebook page about the pricing of our rewards. Not a disaster or anything, and I guess someone else came along and deleted the comment. Whatever, it’s part of being on the internet. “Haters gonna hate,” as they say. We spent a lot of time thinking about our rewards and our pricing, and for someone to just come along and make some idiotic remark… alright, I’m over it.

6. And what was the “this is awesome” moment?  Well, that first donation felt pretty good. So did the 22 after it. It’s been less than 12 hours, and we’ve raised over 1/8th of our total goal! (Note: by now, 36 hours later they are nearly 1/3 there). That’s pretty exhilarating. I’ve had to resist staring at the page and clicking ‘refresh’ every 30 seconds. We’re really proud of the video (me especially, since I edited it). It took weeks and weeks and lots of starting from square one. But when I try to step back and be objective about it, I’m pretty convinced it’s a great pitch video. I wish there was a way to quantify the effect it has on people – friends, strangers – when they see it and decide whether or not to donate. I can’t, but I can semi-confidently tell myself that that video is a big reason they choose to give us money.

7. What was the first contribution? How does it feel?  Haha, the first donation was from my brother, Jon, who was one of the first people I emailed. The next two came from very close friends of mine and Will’s. The most wonderful feeling is to see a donation come in, and immediately Will or I email one another (and Graham) and ask “Who is this? Is this someone you know?” and then finding out it’s a stranger. It’s a lot more validating to see someone who has no ties to you and is therefore much more objective about making a gift. That’s a real confidence-booster, and definitely makes you feel as though someday that same effect is going to happen when a random person sees a trailer or a poster for the movie at a movie theater. We’re so grateful for all the friends and family who have come out so far to support it, but at the end of the day you can’t pack a movie theater with them. Unless you’re a polygamist.

There was nothing not to love about Thanksgiving – it’s non-denominational, no gift giving involved.   

One year, maybe 15 years ago, I hosted a thanksgiving dinner for ten people.  Trouble started early when I picked up the 20 pounds turkey from the farmer’s market not realizing that a 20 pound turkey was going to weigh 20 pounds (duh). It had never occurred to me either that the turkey might not fit my oven – it did with 2 mm of clearance all around.  Then I did not tie the legs together with nylon but left the cotton strings the bird came with, which of course singed and disintegrated in the oven which resulted in a literal spread eagle and a VERY dry affair.  The one thing that did turn out great was my mom’s recipe for gravy and we sure needed it for the dry turkey.  Needless to say I have been the very fortunate recipient of invitations to Thanksgiving ever since.  

Thanksgiving gives me an opportunity to reflect on what I am thankful for without being caught up in the frenzy of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Other than a roof over my head, food on my table and the newest gadget I am thankful for having the opportunities I’ve been afforded by my upbringing and my education, for a really cool job I love and for working with so many awesome people that run the gamut from CEO’s of fortune 500 companies, to community leaders, diplomats, college students, teamsters and some serious divas (of all sizes, shapes and forms).

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!