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[Another one of my new Stormhoek wine label designs.]

you look fabulous

[Another one of my new Stormhoek wine label designs.]

your screenplay

[Another one of my new Stormhoek wine label designs.]

private screening for bloggers? film geek dinner?

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[UPDATE: The date for this HAS STILL NOT BEEN CONFIRMED. Buggered by re-shoots and editing schedules etc. As soon as I have news, I’ll post it, thanks.]
David Mackenzie, the film’s director, starts writing in the Hallam Foe blog:

I am beginning to get very excited about all this because it does seem that we are throwing ideas around. It may seem strange but as a director I have very rarely been asked to be involved too much in the marketing of my films. I rather disagreed with the marketing angle on my last film but my thoughts were basically ignored. So I am especially happy to be involved at this comparatively early and proactive stage in the process.
We have a big meeting on Wednesday with the film’s UK distributors (Hugh and Colin will both be attending) so I am very keen to find out how this all fits in with their ideas of how to promote the film. They have all seen the rough cut and have some expertise in the field, so they are bound to bring some interesting stuff to the table.

David, Colin and I were all in this big meeting yesteray with some Buena Vista folk, talking about how to possibly engage the blogosphere.
I am delighted to report, they were very warm to the idea of perhaps hosting a private screening in London for UK bloggers, followed by some sort of geek dinner afterwards. Stormhoek would sponsor the wine, of course.
This would not be your typical “Here’s some free tickets, now go write about our damn movie” idea. For one thing, the film would only be shown in rough cut, as the final cut is not due for a couple of months yet. The way I see it, it would be more of a “This is what we’re doing, what do you think” sort of evening. Dave, Colin and some of the production team would turn up, meet some of the bloggers, and hopefully come away understanding the blogosphere a bit better. Yeah, it wouldn’t be a huge event. But I always prefer starting small, anyway.
One thing I took away from the meeting that utterly delighted me was the common concensus that if we are going to engage with the blogosphere, it has to be on the blogosphere’s terms, the studio does not get to set the agenda. i.e. As bloggers, this is our gig, not Buena Vista’s gig.
As a professional marketing blogger, I’m very excited by the possibilities here. I believe the blogopsphere is a great place to start a conversation with potential movie goers, especially if your film, like this one, is not a high-concept, high-budget blockbuster, but something much smaller and more personal. I also believe there’s a lot of life after the whole “Snakes On A Plane” episode [whose title came up a lot in the meeting]. I think we’ve only just begun scratching the surface.
The other thing that came out of the meeting was we’re going to start upping the ante on the Hallam Foe blog. Much more writing, videos, “content” etc.
One more thing: These days, the buzzword I seem to be overusing the most is “complicty”. i.e. If you want people talking favorably about your product to their friends, at some basic level they’ve got to want to see you succeed. As I said a few days ago:

Remember, Word Of Mouth is not created, Word of Mouth is co-created. People will only spread your virus if there’s something in it for them. They have to be complicit in your success.
Which means, of course, you have to be complicit in their success as well.

This is something Apple understands very well, better than anyone else I can think of. In the meeting yesterday, I found it very edifying to be talking about this stuff in a real-word, offline context, and people understanding it and agreeing with it, not just me and other bloggers ranting on about it, with nobody listening etc.
We live in interesting times.

August 29, 2006

gravestone 555

[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] William Meloney took Thingamy for a test drive. He writes about it here:

Business is not a game but it should be. We should all be able to play at our work as we did games when we were young. Thingamy has a characteristic that is shared with the greatest of the games we humans play. I am not sure to whom it should be attibuted but it is said that the best games have the fewest rules. Thingamy has some structure to be sure but it has only a few “rules” — making it one of the best systems for giving you the edge in the “playing” of your business.

August 28, 2006

kissing corporate butt

[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]

google microsoft

[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Cartoon inspired by Techmeme.]

untitled 902

colin’s poster

7 Comments

Colin Kennedy, the main contributor to the Hallam Foe blog, had a go over the weekend at designing a poster. I like.

“contagiousness”

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William Meloney points me to this most interesting article:

But although similar to viral marketing, there are some key differences. Viral campaigns come largely in the form of one-way marketing messages that companies release as e-mails, videos, URLs, and – more recently – blogs that they hope people will forward to others.
Calling something contagious, on the other hand, stresses the more holistic, interactive, and enduring aspects of the process.

How much does the average, non-gapingvoid-reading person want to talk about the current Stormhoek bottle design? Not much. How much will they want to talk about the bottle once the new labels are on them? A lot more, I reckon. That’s what “contagiousness” actually means. Real people actually wanting to talk about stuff.
Most products out there do not warrant a decent conversation between two smart, clued-up people. Does yours? Does it matter? I think it does.
[Addendum:] This is without question my favorite Hallam Foe poster idea, so far. I think I’m getting closer.
[Addendum:] William also talks about Thingamy:

In truth I do know what Thingamy is. Thingamy is a knowledge container system. Not just any old static writtten-down knowledge but living dynamic open-for-business real-world workingn knowledge. What is very important about Thingamy is that the container is designed by the knowledge. In most, if not all, existing systems the container defines the contents (knowledge). If what you know doesn’t fit into one of their containers/boxes/compartments then it is not valid. If it is not valid then it is not important to your process. If it is not valid then you do not know it.

thingamy.com

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Thingamy.com has a new banner.
Looks somewhat familiar, perhaps?
[Sigurd explains the backstory here.]

successful marketing is no different than successful film making. both require empathy.

Dear David,
Earlier, you asked:

So, we don’t have big budget hi-con studio material and we don’t have hip lo-fi hi-con from the myspace crowd, we have a rather special classy little teen movie that can’t be easily classified. So what do we have to offer in terms of marketing that is going to get us our must-see tag?

Sadly, I won’t know the answer, until I know what REAL, cash-spending, ticket-buying, cinema goers are saying and doing re. Hallam Foe… Then again, neither will anybody else.
Successful marketing is no different than successful film making. Both require empathy.
[UPDATE:] From John Dodds:

The Audience Isn’t Even Speaking Now.
With a box office take down below $300 per screen per day, Snakes On A Plane is dead in the water after just eight days!
They gambled all on a single “conversation” and rammed it home across 3335 theatres like any other major release. In other words, “thank you for your input and passion, we marketing experts will take it from here.”

[Lesson:] No Cluetrain-Bloggy-Woggy-Marketing 2.0-Avast-ye-scurvies marketing campaign can save a dud product [in this case, a film], no matter how good the execution. You have been warned.
At least… Hallam Foe is a good film…
PS. I agree with Tara.… the SOAP buzz was never about the movie, anyway. If it were, then God help us all.

August 27, 2006

simple viruses are best

10 Comments

Dear David,
This image above got me thinking… or at least, my thinking got me this image.
I was telling this young college girl who I know, all about Hallam Foe.
“Coming of age” yada yada yada…
“Interesting, exhilerating, fucked up, with darkly humorous Freudian themes” yada yada yada.…
It was only when I mentioned that the famous young actor, Jamie Bell is in it, that he appears in some really juicy sex scenes with his kit off, did her eyes light up.
Naked Jamie Bell in horny situations? Now THAT got her interest.
I’m not saying this is the “virus” [the thing which people tell their friends, that allows our idea to spread] that we have to use. I am saying, the virus probably doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. In the same way, the “secret” plot twist in The Crying Game wasn’t very complicated either. But it was EXTREMELY viral.
I am confident the virus will make itself known to us eventually, before we hit General Release. The question is, will we be smart enough at the time to recognise it? And more importantly, once we recognise it, will we be smart enough TO GET OUT OF THE WAY?
Just a thought.
Best,
Hugh

[UPDATE:] gapingvoid is already the Number 2 Hallam Foe search result on Google. Heh.

word of mouth is not created, word of mouth is co-created.

15 Comments

Dave Mackenzie, the director of Hallam Foe, just sent me the following e-mail. I replied below. I dont pretend to have all the answers, but what I do know is what has worked for me. You decide:

Dear Hugh,
Judging by the comments we have already seen, it seems to me that the challenge of marketing a film is a completely different kettle of fish to marketing the things you have done so successfully with a high quality specialist microbrand like English Cut, or an expanding mid-market drink producer like Stormhoek.
Not being an expert in the field of marketing, it seems to me that the principle definition of a film is that it is a one-off mass market entertainment product. Every new film enters what must be among the most mammoth marketing snakepits in existence. You have a product with a very short life span and you have to throw whatever you can into marketing it. Most successful films have marketing budgets way in excess of their production budgets. Basically every form of marketing that can be used has been used for films to try to give them their one-off shot at glory in a brutally competitive market.
Incidentally I am sure it is no coincidence that the films that dominate the marketplace and make the most money try to break out of this one-off definition by a) running into several sequels, prequels etc. to expand the brand, b) having multiple merchandising spinoffs which expand the brand further, and c) having an easily digestible high concept star heavy marketing brand in the first place. Of course most of these ‘blockbuster’ films, particularly the sequels, are not always as tasty, nourishing and satisfying as their marketing departments might have us believe — but by the time we notice we have already bought the ticket.
So can the blogosphere really help us take on the big boys at their own game — without their massive budgets?
And how can we compete when we have a film that has avoided an obvious high concept (like films about their title, for example, Snakes on a Plane or My Big Fat Greek Wedding) in favour of a richer tapestry?
I get your ‘Markets as conversations’ ideas, and I feel that Hallam Foe probably deserves conversations more than statements, but how can a conversation ever get heard above the screaming clamour in the hugely overcrowded film marketplace?
Apart from SOAP, the kind of films that are doing well on the internet buzz machine tend to be no budget flicks by driven amateurs like the exciting Four Eyed Monsters team (although their documented experiences are so acutely observed and funny that I can’t help thinking they are satire in the vein of The Office!). I mean no disrespect to amateurism because it is truly the future of creative film-making (in the way it has been in music for years), but (perhaps unfortunately) our beautiful 35mm scope picture with its great story, wonderful performances and amazing soundtrack could never be perceived as amateur.
So, we don’t have big budget hi-con studio material and we don’t have hip lo-fi hi-con from the myspace crowd, we have a rather special classy little teen movie that can’t be easily classified. So what do we have to offer in terms of marketing that is going to get us our must-see tag?
For a start we have the traditional route which relies on advance press from the cast, good reviews and good word of mouth (quite likely judging by responses to the film so far) as well as a poster and advertising campaign. And we have a nice little blog that will continue to grow as we build up to finish and release the film. And maybe Jamie’s amazing performance will win some awards — and the others too. But all this is very normal, just like every other low/mid budget film. What can we do to take it that bit further — preferably without misrepresenting the film?
I know in you Hugh I am in the hands of a great experimenter who will try his hardest to find a way, but Hallam Foe is much less easy to package than great suits, fresh wine and flying snakes.
I look forward to going on the adventure with you.
David Mackenzie

Dear David,
I hear you on the suits. They’re a very niche market, and they command a very high price. Success for them requires a customer base of hundreds, not millions.
Wine, however, is different. The average bottle of wine sells for less than the price of a movie ticket, and there are hundreds and thousands of vineyards out there, all fighting like cats in a sack for space on the supermarket shelf.
It seems to me wine has the same problem as a film release: How do you get yourself to rise above the clutter?
The answer to this, of course, is “conversation”. Word Of Mouth. Lots of people telling their friends about their movie. Lots of people recommending it. What we call in the marketing trade, a “virus”.
Now there is an idea that if you start a virus in the blogosphere, eventually it’ll spread out into the mainstream, and your product will have a hit on it hands. Maybe, but I’m not convinced this happens very often.
Stormhoek is a small hit in the blogosphere, but this doesn’t really affect sales. What affects sales is the random guy walking down the random aisle in the random supermarket, and seeing a random bottle of Stormhoek, and randomly deciding to buy it.
For us at Stormhoek, the blogosphere is useful as an idea incubator. Why? Because if you say something interesting, people talk about it. If you say something dull, people ignore it. And we take what we learn from interacting with other bloggers, and apply it to the more mundane world of supermarket aisles and wine importers. The new label designs initiative came directly out of this.
The blogosphere doesn’t get us sales, but it makes us much smarter salesmen.
So where the blogosphere could be useful to Hallam Foe is, to help you better understand which parts of your story are inherently viral, and which are not. Allowing you have what I call a “Smarter Conversation”. And align your marketing accordingly.
What I wish to use the blogosphere for, is to understand two basic questions:

1. Who is talking about the movie.
2. What are they saying about the movie.

And I want to know the answer to this question before the film is in general release.
As any Cluetrain maven will tell you, when it comes to Word Of Mouth, you don;t control the conversation. The only way you can have any control of the conversation is if you improve the conversation.
i.e. Control the conversation by improving the conversation.
i.e. Find ways to make it easier for people to talk about your movie.
Movies are loved they articulate feelings that the audience has, but cannot express themselves. As marketers, we have a duty to help them [actively] do this in terms of their conversations with [relating to] other people, not just in terms of them sitting [passively] in a movie theatre.
I believe that interacting with the blogosphere will help us come up with the answers were looking for. This to me is far more important and interesting than using to blogosphere for the rather shallow act of “creating buzz”.
Next Steps:

1. Start getting bloggers to see the movie, on a limited scale, via private screenings.
2. Listen and learn from what they’re saying.
3. Offer feedback. Be transparent about what you’re seeing.
4. See which parts of the conversation are going “viral”. Positive? Negative? Align your marketing accordingly, by making the “Porous Membrane” even more porous.
5. Start getting bloggers to see the movie on a slightly larger scale. Launch a massive “Free Movie Tickets” campaign via the blog advertising networks– Weblogs Inc, Federated, Gawker, Blogads etc.
6.Repeat process.

Remember, Word Of Mouth is not created, Word of Mouth is co-created. People will only spread your virus if there’s something in it for them. They have to be complicit in your success.
Which means, of course, you have to be complicit in their success as well.
Rock on,
Hugh

August 26, 2006

i wonder about creativity

9 Comments

[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Bonus Link:] “How To Be Creative”.

the future of blogging

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[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
[Scoble.] [Arrington.]

the global microbrand: 10 questions for seth godin

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Seth Godin and I had a recent e-mail exchange. I asked him ten questions:
1. QUESTION: Your latest book, “Small Is The New Big”, is not a narrative or a thesis in any sense, but a collection of your favorite writings from your blog and your old Fast Company column. A collection of synapse-firings, the way I see it. Is it important to you to have your work “immortalized” on paper? Do you find the internet and magazines just too ephemeral, and wanted to created something more “lasting”? Or was it just simply because, as you say, you wanted your ideas to reach beyond the blogosphere?

ANSWER: It’s important not to underestimate the totem value of a book. The same way a white lab coat makes a placebo more likely to be effective (or a witch doctor’s hat for that matter), a book delivers an impact that a blog can’t.
While there’s certainly some ego in wanting your thousands of posts not to disappear, there’s also a real desire on my part to give my existing readers the ability to taunt their co-workers by handing them a book instead of emailing them a link. If my job is to make change, I need to use the best tools that are available.
It’s also hard to read a blog at the beach.
I want to be clear about something I just discovered though – that there IS a theme. The title really captures what the book is about. I’ve been amazed that reviewers (professional and pro-am) have seemed to find something that I didn’t when I was busy writing it… that acting small, treating people like people, changing like an individual, not an organization… these are attributes that are essential now, and they’re on every page of the book. I think I picked the right riff for the title.
2. QUESTION: As a cartoonist, I find myself quite surprised that very few of the more prominent bloggers out there are in the “Arts”. It seems we have lots of business thinkers, technologists, entrepreneurs, consultants etc, but why do we have so surprisingly few filmmakers, playwrights, novelists, musicians, painters etc at the top of the pyramid? I have a few theories myself as to why this is, but may I ask what may be your take on it?
ANSWER: They’re coming, for sure. Postsecret is one of the three most popular blogs in the world. I think mainstream artists are rarely the first to embrace a new medium (silkscreening, for example, took a long time to get its Andy Warhol), but they’re coming. It’s going to be a new generation of artists that embrace the nature of the medium, and they’re just getting started.
3. QUESTION: Let’s imagine, for whatever reason, you had decided not to start blogging, and keep on exclusively writing books instead. How different do you think your career would be today?
ANSWER: My books would be longer, more appreciated by critics and less popular. I’d have notebooks filled with unfinished sentences and people wouldn’t mail me bermuda shorts. Thanks for the shorts, by the way, I love them.
What your readers already realize is that blogs aren’t just a way to waste time at work. It’s a big shift, a change for a generation.
4. QUESTION: From what I can tell, you make a pretty good living from your books and public speaking gigs. One could intelligently argue that you don’t really need to set up other enterprises– Squiddoo etc– in order to maintain your current standard of living. But you do so anyway. So assuming I am correct [I may not be, but hey, it’s not like it’s any of my business either way], that you’re not doing these enterprises primarily for the money, what do you think motivates you to increase your workload in this manner?
ANSWER: It’s not a workload! Look, there are 8 million millionaires in the USA. Why do these people go to work every day? Why not downsize appropriately and just sit on the beach? Because they’re too smart. They realize that the purpose of living isn’t to bake in the sun until you die. I write and speak and experiment because that’s what I do. I’m thrilled to have the chance to do it every day. Any day I’m not thrilled, I’ll stop.
As a result of the transparency of blogging, a lot of people have realized, almost as an aside, that people do what they love to do. It’s just now you get to see it on your screen. Sometimes those things appear to have no financial incentives (raising goldfish) and sometimes they do. But let’s be clear… unless you work for Goldman Sachs or are selling drugs on a street corner in Topeka, you’re almost certainly not in this, whatever this is, for the money.
Most of the time, for most people, in most industries, it’s not REALLY about the money.
5. QUESTION: A lot of people read your books and speak highly of them. But is there any particular part of your body of work that you think is misunderstood by a surprisingly high percentage of your readers?
ANSWER:I’m not surprised that a percentage (not so big, though) of people who read my books use them and misconstrue them to justify their own strategies. Permission Marketing is not about spamming people just by claiming you have “permission.” And a Purple Cow isn’t purple because you think it is… it’s up to the market. But in general, I’d say that the ideas are traveling pretty well.
On the other hand, my briefer riffs, cryptic blog posts and such, get me in trouble all the time. I make assumptions about people understanding my train of thought and my tone of voice, and I got caught. I’m trying to walk a fine line between clarity and pithiness.
6. QUESTION: Of all your books, which one would you rewrite, if the publishers would let you?
ANSWER: I wish I had another shot at “Survival is Not Enough”. I’m not sure how I would change it, but I think it’s a very strong book, and it wasn’t a total failure.
7. QUESTION: I know for a fact that you inspire a lot of bloggers. Could you name a few of the bloggers who inspire you?
ANSWER: Joi Ito got me started. You challenge me regularly to rethink the limits. Tom Peters reminds me that I don’t work hard enough.
I also read dozens of blogs a day, including: acleareye.com, Joel on Software, Brand Autopsy, Boingboing, Springwise, Buzzmachine, Presentation Zen, Guy Kawasaki, Kathy Sierra, Fred Wilson, Rick Segal, etc.
Most of my inspiration, though, comes from walking down the street, or working with the gang at Squidoo or reading my email every day. It’s so easy for a blogger to try to be like other bloggers, merely because there’s so much input available. Resist!
8. QUESTION: If you’re a marketer, I believe that thriving in the old, top-down “TV-Industrial Complex” era, as you call it, and thriving in your new world of “Permission Marketing” and “Idea Viruses” require completely different skill sets. So although you may sell a lot of books, do you ever get frustrated that your ideas are slow to reach the people who probably could use them the most? [AFTERTHOUGHT: Possible title for a future blog post: “The best ideas are always last to reach the people who need them the most.” Yes? No? Maybe?]
ANSWER: I’m astonished at how long it takes an idea to filter from the early adopters to the masses. What sort of person just read the Da Vinci Code or just discovered the iPod? I was standing in a nice store in a nice suburb and heard one 25 year old explain to a 30 year old what gmail was… it’s so easy to assume that everyone already gets it.
9. QUESTION: Was your eventual transition from business entrepreneur to writer a long-held ambition of yours, or did it evolve slowly, perhaps almost happening by accident?
ANSWER: I wrote my first book in 1986… at first, I enjoyed the entrepreneurial nature of packaging books – the barrier to entry was tiny, the publishers gave you the small stake you needed, and if it worked, you could run with it. In fact, it was just like blogging, except it cost more. I have no doubt at all that if there had been blogs in 1986, I would have skipped a whole bunch of intermediate steps along the way.
Five years from now, there are going to be at least 2,000 (maybe 20,000) freelancers who have turned blogging into a technique to leverage a successful media business. First in have a head start.
10. QUESTION: Last year I asked you what effect having a blog has had on your book writing career. Would you mind repeating your answer here, for the benefit of my readers?
ANSWER: A year ago, I told you that blogs had killed my interest in writing books, because they relieved the pressure of ideas building up. My blog got me quick, good feedback and made it easy to spread ideas without resorting to a dying industry.
Since then I’ve learned that books reach a different population in a different way. I really need to do both. Live and learn!
11. BONUS QUESTION: What is your definition of a “global microbrand”? And do you consider yourself to be one?
ANSWER: A “global microbrand” is a little like a jumbo shrimp, I guess.
Brand is an old-fashioned word that was invented for marketers who couldn’t measure connections between people. Brand is a collection of notions and hints and desires and wisps that allow a consumer a shortcut when thinking about an organization, product or even a person. So, I don’t really know Sumner Redstone, but he has a brand, at least in my mind (scary thought).
The thing about these shortcut and placeholder ideas is that they are always slightly inaccurate, different for different people and not as subject to manipulation as most marketers would like. As a result, talking about them as a monolith is silly.
So, if you’re a brand, Hugh, then I’m a brand. But we’re people, too, and our only option is to paraphrase the great groupies of the 60s and reply, “I’m with the brand.”

the world is changing

[Another one of my new Stormhoek wine label designs.]

thingamy business card

The new Thingamy business card I designed for Sigurd, the “CEO”. Based on the banner ad etc.
For people in the Enterprise Software business, if this doesn’t get their attention, I don’t know WHAT will.
Anybody?
[UPDATE:] As Sigurd rightly points out in the comments, “CEO” is a bit of a misnomer, as Thingamy requires no titles or hierarchies. Only 30 Megs. Rock on.

August 25, 2006

signing prints etc

[A photo of me signing the Stormhoek lithographs, back in June.]
There’s the famous line from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.“
Quite frankly, I have a similar thought in my head for these last few months, “If you sign the lithographs, things will happen.“
By things happening, of course I mean as in, selling bottles of Stormhoek.
Sure, there’s a lot of “marketing” alternatives out there, but the more I get into it, the less I want to futz around in a million different directions, and just concentrate on getting the new labels designed, producing and signing prints, and organising the Stormhoek geek dinners. Any time it gets much more complicated than that [it does occasionally], I get nervous.
Focus, MacLeod, focus.
[Note to Self:] Methinks this one should definitely be a lithograph one day…

public radio

box

4 Comments

[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]

stormhoek now available in sf and silicon valley

The groovy cats at K&L Wine Merchants are now selling Stormhoek. [UPDATE:] A gapingvoid reader says he went into K&L today, and they told him it should be in stock on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Stores located in San Francisco and Redwood City [click on link for exact addresses].
If you could spread the word to all your West Coast pals, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

smile

8 Comments

[Another one of my new Stormhoek wine label designs.]

god is best found

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[Another one of my new Stormhoek wine label designs.]

And of course, we have the secular version, if the US liquor laws object to having the G-word on the label. But as a conversation starter, I think the first one is more powerful.

how about

No Comments

[Another one of my new Stormhoek wine label designs.]

english cut is expanding…

4 Comments

[The future English Cut World H.Q.]
English Cut is expanding. We’ve come up with a very fiendish plan. Thomas explains all:

So you will have gathered by now that I’m hatching a cunning plan. My aim is to have the very best available skills in tailoring, working together in an environment conducive to creating beautiful clothes, without anyone having to worry about the rent and the cost of living. These people are all trained on the Row, are at a prime age, and amongst the very best in their profession. We have the potential to build a really vibrant tailoring community here, as good as anything on the Row, that will not only turn out some of the best tailoring in the world, but also ensure the craft’s long-term survival.
I hope to have all these people, including most importantly, apprentices. All under one roof. The roof will be a converted 18th century stable block here on the Warwick Estate. A beautiful lofty building, with views across the countryside. I’m am in the process of arranging the rebuilding of the stable block as we speak.
God willing, here we will be able to really secure the future of this craft, without being crucified by West End London rents. We’ve also got the space here for perhaps a bespoke shoemaker, shirtmaker and any other struggling craft we can help.

What I’m learning from all this? If you don’t like the business model, then change the business model. People who don’t like the new business model, you don’t need as customers.

August 24, 2006

hand-painted stormhoek bottle

A hand-painted Stormhoek bottle.
Hmmmm… Collectables market, Anyone?

hallam poster 3

Now this is more like it
[Hallam Foe blog.]

hallam tagline

12 Comments

Possible tagline for Hallam Foe.

“Sex and Death make a very Weird Combo.”

Hey, I’m just throwing it out there, People. Basically, I was trying to tie in the three words I associate the most with the movie, as seamlessly as possible i.e. Sex. Death. Weird.
[UPDATE:] Dave Mackenzie [Hallam Foe’s direcotr] leaves a comment re. the tagline above:

Hugh,
I am not sure that this tagline works because a) it is kind of alienating because it it quite heavy and b) it doesn’t really represent the film.
For me the most important thing about whatever identity we find for the film is that it is actually representative of the film and all its wierd and wonderful glory.
I really worry that even at this stage you are sending out the wrong signals about the film with this tagline. So I hope you can replace it as soon as possible.
To some extent all my films have concerned myself with sex and death (in fact a huge number of films do). But to me the point about this one is that it’s much more accessible to a wide audience because it captures the joy, pain and exuberance of growing up in a way which is as entertaining as it is emotional. For me this is why I made the film in the first place, because I wanted to make something filled with the spirit of youth — a film which doesn’t offer cheesy answers or patronise its audiences but where the character overcomes his pain and confusion and comes out the other side filled with hope and strength.
Even this might sound too weighty because basically the film is a great bittersweet ride.
I know these are early days in our game of definition. But I hope you get my point and that we (with the help of the blogosphere) find our lovely film’s special identity.

[UPDATE:] Actually, I think I may like this one better:

Anyone got an opinion?

dave chimes in

20 Comments

Hallam Foe director, Dave MacKenzie left the following comment in my last post:

I am very happy that my friends can get into the film (even at this rough stage). And yes relieved too! But the big question for me right now is how to get the rest of the world into it. Yes it is a fucked up coming of age movie of sorts. But I hope it is a lot more than that.
We really need to find a way of expressing what makes the film special and why people should go and see it. I am way too close to it right now to be able to do that. I know the responses to it in the 4 rough cut screenings we have shown so far have been overwhelmingly brilliant, so that is really encouraging. But I really want to find a beautiful, clarified way of communicating what it is that doesn’t rely on cliches and reflects the film accurately.
The proplem is that it is a complex movie about a difficult stage in a young guy’s life and any attempt to reduce it to an easily digestible soundbite/pitch seems to take away the magic of the film. We know we need to find this pitch in order to capture the imagination of our potential viewers, but we don’t yet know what it is.

This search for the film’s identity is the challenge of the next few weeks for us and I hope Hugh is going to engage his readers in our quest . Any help much appreciated.

What important to me at this stage is that there will be some solid form of “alignment” between the production team and the audience i.e. that the conversation the production team is having about the film is the same a the audience is having. This all goes back to The Pourous Membrane etc.
I’m hoping we can get the film out into impromptu test markets, just to see what people who aren’t involved with the project have to say. I was thinking in the next couple of weeks of perhaps holding a private screening in London, followed by a geek dinner. It’s just an idea at this stage, but it’s hard to have a conversation with people, if they haven’t seen the movie yet.
I believe with conversation, the required language will evolve orgnically.
[“Extreme Business Planning”:] Some very good advice from Sigurd. It applies to Hallam Foe as much as any other enterprise:

Build what you think is some valuable stuff, get it out there as early as possible with no limits to who the user might be — listen attentively, find out how it’s used, who uses it — tweak and repeat until it sticks in reality, then crank up, only then. That’s where the funding should go, fund the time you need.
That’s extreme business planning, extremely agile business planning.

[UPDATE:] I made the following remark in the comment section below:

The movie itself is fine. It’s a good movie. We’re not worried about that.
What I’m worried about is the economics involved with people telling their friends about the movie.

Nobody is going to recommend a movie to their friends, Hallam Foe or otherwise, unless there’s something in it for them.
We, as a production team, have to figure out what that “something” is.

August 22, 2006

official: hallam foe rocks!

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I just got back from seeing Hallam Foe for the first time, at a private screening.
Sure, I am biased [Dave, the director is a good friend of mine, and has recruited me to help him with the marketing], but what the hell, it frickin’ rocked anyway.
How to describe it? How about, “Young Adam” meets “My Life As A Dog”.
Basically, it’s a smart, sweet coming-of-age movie, but with something kinda dark, twisted and funky about it.
Basically, Dave has made himself quite well known in film circles as a maker of really dark, twisted, screwed-up movies. Both Young Adam and Asylum were very disturbing films, and definitely not for kiddies.
With Hallam Foe, he lightened up, without losing any of his particularly unique genius. Somehow he managed to pull it off. Rock on.
OK, so now you know I liked the movie, and yeah, my critical opinion might be slightly biased by my relationship with its Director. Whatever. I don’t mind risking my reputation, letting you know my opinion.
Anyway, my bias has particularly interesting backstory to it, beyond the “he’s my friend” and “possibly good for my career” angles.
In the movie, 18-year-old Hallam Foe is played by Billy Eliiot’s Jamie Bell, who by the way, [1] acted superbly in this one and [2] bares a striking resemblance to Peter Jinks, the guy who wrote the Hallam Foe novel. Without giving too much away, Hallam has a screwed-up family situation, so he flees home and gets a job as busboy in a large, Victorian, Edinburgh railway hotel. To shoot these scenes they hired out one of the great Victorian railway hotels, The Caledonian.
Now here’s the rub. When David and I were both 18, I was living near the Caledonian in large delapidated, 4-bedroom apartment in the New Town district of Edinburgh [similar to the house featured in the movie, Shallow Grave]. My parents were going through a divorce at the time, and their business in Texas was tanking, so they were in America most of the time. Even when they were around, the family situation was so bad I kept a very wide berth. So I was mostly on my own, or at least, it certainly felt that way.
David, meanwhile, had recenty left both school and his parents’ house [a large, granite pile in the Scottish boondocks, not unlike Hallam’s house in the movie], and had just arrived in Edinburgh, looking for a place to stay and a job. His family situation wasn’t quite as screwy as mine, but he seemed every bit the misfit as I was.
To make a long story short, although I didn’t know him that well up to then [we knew each other from mutual friends’ parties, but it was still very early days back then], I allowed him to stay at my house. Basically, we had free reign. My parents were in America, my older sister had pretty much moved out and was living with a friend, so she wasn’t around much, either. We had taken an instant liking to each other, and anyway, it was a big, empty house, and I was glad of the company.
Add to this, my parents’ house in Edinburgh was being refurbished. Halfway through the refurbishment, like I said, their business tanked, and suddenly the rebuilding ceased. So by the time Dave arrived on the scene, backpack in tow, the house was a total wreck, despite its prestegious New Town address. Dave and I made ourselves as comfortable as we could in these large, half-painted, half-plastered, underfurnished, dusty, gothic, Georgian rooms, but there was something definitely “camping out” about it.
No matter, as we were both 18 at the time, we had a high tolerance for mess. So we made the best of it. We soon both found summer jobs, and coincidentaly, we both started our jobs on the exact same date: June 11th, 1984.
We were to have a glorious summer, until autumn came and we both would leave Edinburgh: Dave would go to Australia on his gap year, and I would move to Austin to enroll at the University of Texas.
This summer was the first time for both of us being on our own without family or adult supervision, making money and let’s say [cough], meeting women. Proper women, not schoolgirls. Up until this time, we’d both had girlfriends and all, but this was when we both started… how do you say… climbing up the sexual learning curve by having experiences with older women. Which, believe me, was a totally different scene from dating the respectable young “gells” from Edinburgh’s finest private schools, which had up till then been our only experience with the fairer sex.
And this vibe is what Hallam Foe is about. Forget the plot details, Hallam Foe leaves home and starts having experiencing older women, in the Biblical sense. That’s what the movie is really about. Coming-of-Age for boys is a very paradoxical phase of life. We’re still kids, and yet, we’re not. And for Dave and myself, it was these rather random, strangely existential experiences with older women who ushered us through that phase.
Maybe one day when we’ve both had one whisky too many, Dave and I will share the gory details with you. Suffice to say, the situations were as screwed-up as they were enjoyable. It was a time of life neither one of us will forget in a hurry.
My job was a junior bartender at Whigham’s Wine Bar on Hope Street. David’s job was just across the street, as a busboy at… The Caledonian Hotel!
This, believe it or not, was a total coincidence. I believe The Caledonian wasn’t confirmed as a shooting location until two weeks before the shoot began.
When he was shooting the film, this was the first time David had stepped inside the Caledonian in over 20 years. Those memories from 1984 came flooding back to him, and as somebody who was there at the time, all I can say, he seriously captured it. When I read the film script last year, this vibe from our past wasn’t apparent, but watching it up on the screen earlier today, it was all there, in glorious Technicolor.
For years, as a struggling, aspiring filmmaker, David kept telling me that one day he would love to make a movie that captured that deliciously screwed-up, sexy, brief jourey of “Becoming a Man”, the same journey that every boy goes through, that we both had lived through at the same time, in the same place.
Looking at the film today, it was such a thrill to see that David had finally succeeded. Rock on.

south beach

4 Comments

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August 21, 2006

advertising movies via blogs

8 Comments

Salient point from Robert Scoble:

I’ll tell you what executives from big companies (like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, GM, and others) who were at MSN’s OWN ADVERTISING CONFERENCE told me. An influencer is worth THOUSANDS of times more than a non-influencer (influencer is someone who tells other people stuff, which is why blogging is getting so much advertising attention lately). That’s why Google is charging more per click than MSN is (Google has more influential users). That’s why Federated Media is closing advertising deals left and right.

I’m still up in Glasgow, about to go have a lunch meeting with the producer of “Hallam Foe”, the new movie coming out that was directed by my old friend, David Mackenzie [I’m actually staying at Colin Kennedy’s flat, the guy who writes most of the blog].
I’m trying to turn the production company on to advertising via Federated Media, Weblogs Inc and Blogads.com, once the movie is released, for the same reasons Robert mentions above.
Normally in this postition I think, “They’ll either get it or they won’t. If they don’t, no worries, it’s not my problem.” And then move on.
But this time its different. David’s a dear friend of mine, and I want the movie to be a hit. My ambitions here are more personal than professional.
However, one good thing we’ve got going for us is, the rough edit has just come out, and the concensus seems to be: it’s a good movie. I plan to see the film for the first time in the next couple of days, so I’ll let you know what I think, as well. All very exciting.
Will it fly at the box office? I have no idea, but at least we now know that the final product shouldn’t be too shabby. Watch this space.
[Bonus Link] From Colin:

We have a very important question to answer, how do we describe this film?
It doesn’t sound like a particularly important question but it is, how else do we tell people about the film? The other aspect of this is that some strategies to get bums on seats can be misleading, they might work for an opening weekend but good word-of-mouth is widely recognised as being the best marketing you can have, so if you’re audience is cued up for an inevitable disappointment then word-of-mouth will be your downfall.

I’d say the other important question is; how do we want other people to describe the film? Yeah, I know, the two are closely related.

August 20, 2006

flashback

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the techcrunch party

Looks like I missed a real shindig at Techcrunch party. The Flickr picture above was taken by Techmeme’s Gabe Rivera, and it shows two chaps showing off their signed Techcrunch lithographs, that I drew on behalf of Stormhoek, to commemorate the event.
Robert Scoble did a good job blogging it, plus a good cluster of reviews can also be found here on Techmeme.
Photos: Flickr tag “techcrunch7”, plus Guy Kawasaki has posted a Filmloop.
Congrats to Michael Arrington for putting on a heck of a show. Rock on.

mommy mommy

No Comments

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August 19, 2006

you’re trying to show me

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you look to me

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complete turmoil

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new thingamy banner

Here’s a new sidebar banner I just designed for Thingamy. It’s already up on Sig’s blog, as well [He’s Thingamy’s principal]. Rock on.
Blurb from the Thigamy website:

FRONT PAGE DISCLAIMER: This is no system for the timid or the ones looking for off-the-rack solutions. It requires hard work, creativity, rethinking of business models and a strong stomach, just like business should be. It can be frustrating. A system for the few.
But then you may beat the heck out of your competition. That’s what the system is all about.

[UPDATE:] Tiny Marbles pipes in:

I still place Thingamy and jMatter into one category, Marbles and Rails into another. I predict that both groups of applications will grow very much in the next months, and the first group will be more popular – because less geeky. The second group has more potential for world domination. Interesting times ahead.

[Disclosure: I have a small commercial interest in Thingamy.]

please buy mcdonald’s

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yay meaning

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August 18, 2006

a makebelieve world

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nothing wrong with people

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in glasgow

I’m in Glasgow for the weekend, visiting my old friend, Dave Mackenzie.
Last night, out on the town in Glasgow, I met David Shrigely, who is one of my favorite cartoonists.
Funnily enough, it turns out he is doing the title credits for Dave Mackenzie’s new film. Very cool.
Anyway, Mr Shrigley is a nice guy, a total genius at cartooning, and I hope you’ll check out his work. Rock on.

August 17, 2006

i hate the way

34 Comments

[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]
Every time I draw a cartoon like this one, I tell myself, “Man, I’m getting too old for this kinda stuff.“
But the another side of myself tells me, “Hey, I like drawing this kinda stuff. Age doesn’t mater. To hell with Age. Draw what you want, Dammit.”.
Which side should I listen to? I have no idea. Anybody?

August 16, 2006

the assimilated negro bizcard