Every story has a finish line. That finish line is either a desire to retrieve, stop, win or escape. However, the driver of that race to the end isn't the plot but the emotions that drive characters in the story. Those emotions are grounded in the premise or theme that the story is built around
Click here to view the embedded video.
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]]>Since my last video I've gotten some email and messages asking what's the benefit of be doing this exercise of reading and reflecting on these screenplays. I hope my answer gives some insight.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Story writing is a human science and skill. Just like a doctor needs to go through school and rotations to perform well at their job, so do producers. As a producer focused on marketing, having the ability to develop projects stems from knowing my way around stories.
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Check out Scott Myer’s observations on the Toy Story Script
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As a marketer having the ability to tell stories effectively is very important. Understanding character, plot, setting and themes are only the foundation of the process. Stories are well sell ideas and they are what communicate messages effectively. For this reason I’m committing myself to reading 40 screenplays for the next 40 days.
Below are my reflections from having read my first script, Memento by Jonathan Nolan.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Here’s the tweet that introduced me to this challenge:
#ff @GoIntoTheStory and @nate_winslow for deets on #40Dos: Read a script a day for 40 days challenge: http://bit.ly/9pUDsy #scriptchat
Mina Zaher
DreamsGrafter
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The other day a friend recommended I check out Empire Magazine’s coverage of Christopher Nolan’s Inception and his past filmography. It took me about an hour to get through the whole thing.
One thing to point out is that this man is an excellent at managing PR. He’s also super disciplined and focused. Working on only one movie at a time and that it’s the only way he functions. Too many people do too many things at the same time and don’t do them well.
In business consulting McKinsey emphasize the 80/20 Rule, the Foundation of which is on clarity of objective, focus on prime actions and solid execution.
The difficult part isn’t finding out what to do, rather understanding what NOT to do. Below are just some of the obvious gems on leadership and creativity we can all pull out from the article.
Regardless of planned conditions, always shoot. 99/100 times you’ll end up using it. Never wait for weather. – Christopher Nolan #fb
Belal Khan
khanb1
Gary Goldman on Chris Nolan – “He knows what hes looking for. Hes trusting. He trusts youre going to do your homework. Thats a nice feeling”Belal Khan
khanb1
Disciplined creativity -Robin Williams on Chris Nolan- “Hes very focused but prepared to try anything. Hes is in control but lets u go wild”Belal Khan
khanb1
Working in an environment that you cant control, always have a backup plan. Winds wont always blow in ur favor -Chris Nolan on Batman BeginsBelal Khan
khanb1
If you challenge people in and unusual way, you can get incredible results. – Chris Nolan on The PrestigeBelal Khan
khanb1
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Earlier I had announced that Leechon had finally become a YouTube partner. This means that as a partner, Google will share some of the ad revenue that they get with Leechon, Inc.
What I’ve Learned So Far:
- Appropriate Keywords Are Important –
The Google Adsense ads that appear in the lower third of the video are based on the tags and keywords placed in the video description. For example, most of the videos I’ve filmed have been shot with Canon cameras, thus I always put “canon” and the model of the camera into the tag space. You’ll notice those specific videos get ads that link to brands of digital video cameras.
- Pay Attention To Conversion Ratios -
Paying attention to my conversion ratios for the past few days as well as reading up on forums discussing money making potential of the YouTube Partnership program, I’ve learned that YouTube video Adsense ads have a click-through rate of 0.3% – 0.5%. This ratio means that for every 2000 ad impressions the content get , Leechon will earn about $1.
Obviously, the number’s aren’t glorious. For a moment they’re downright depressing.
However, they are an extra income stream. Over time (probably a looong time) as the subscriber base grows, the video count increases and quality of entertainment content put forth improves, this number can grow into something substantial.
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]]>As with all projects I involve myself in, I enjoy taking a step back periodically and sharing the progress that’s been made. The following progress coverage is on Abdullah Puppet from a marketing stand point.
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Initial Challenge
In November 2009 my wife wanted to produce a children’s program targeted toward Muslim families in North America. The last known success of such a program was “Adam’s World” by Sound Vision which was nearly a decade ago. I told her to go ahead and that I’ll support her.
As a marketer, my first recommendation was to start off by doing some preliminary research. We spend several weeks planning and researching to decide whether or not we were going to commit to this.
We started with a competitive analysis looking at each brand that was either active in the past or is currently active and seeing what their strengths and weaknesses were in the Muslim market as well as what strengths and weaknesses we had based on available resources and in what ways we could position ourselves in an effective manner.
After completing the research, we weren’t able conclude whether a venture such as this would be profitable for us or not. We decided to test the market with a pilot-program on as light of a budget as possible and dedicate any and all resources toward garnering social-capital through the use of social media and marketable publicity.
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Tasked Responsibility
We put fort a set of objectives which were fundamentally measured by sales. The success of a business venture is determined by whether or not it meets sales objectives. All else is commentary.
We also put forth a set of values that we were going to operate under:
- In keeping with sharia principles, content produced would not have any score produced with sounds that were sourced from musical instruments.
- Content that was sold was to be produced at the highest production quality that the budget would allow
- Videos had to be educationally entertaining to the point where kids and adults would sit down for the an entire episode at least three times.
- The values and ideas that would be expressed would be aligned with Islamic principles
- We want people to relate to and like the characters on screen.
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Approach
We realized that since were operating on a shoestring budget, our approach had to be much different from what all the others were doing.
Upon completing our initial research we realized that the success of this pilot program will depend on the level of publicity and publicity for children’s programs are usually driven by event marketing in key locations.
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Results Report
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First Marketing Step – YouTube
We decided that the initial marketing approach will be via the production of social media content.
My wife decided that she was going to make her own puppet using supplies from a local arts and crafts store. That night my wife went to work making the puppet while I went to bed. In the middle of the night I was woken up to the scariest, most poorly made looking puppet I’d ever seen.
Out of her excitement, she wanted me to help her make a short video for YouTube introducing the puppet. I was a bit cranky being woken up to this puppet and decided I’d express it in the character of the puppet impromptu.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Later we decided to make a second video the same way while working on a theme song for the program.
Click here to view the embedded video.
We left those two videos up online to marinate into the search engine indexes for the next month and watched the comments and views come in. Based on the overall vibe of the comments and emails we got, we decided it was time to call Milo Productions, the producer of “Hurray for Baba Ali”.
I had met AbdurRahman Milo – the main man behind Milo Productions – at a DiscoverU seminar I attended in Toronto in March 2009. I figured he’d have some good lessons to share from his experience of producing and marketing the “Hurray for Baba Ali” DVDs.
The main advice he shared with us was to minimize production cost and concentrate on event marketing.
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Second Marketing Step – Free Full Episode & Email Marketing
We set our sights on completing first the pilot DVD, getting the content aired on Muslim targeted satellite TV channels and then using event marketing to promote the show.
The DVD was targeted to have two or three 15-minute episodes of following Abdullah in an adventure and extra educational content for kids to follow along with.
One of the things we had found in our initial research was the content other Islamic kids’ shows had was either mostly educational with very little entertainment value or mostly entertainment with very little educational value.
We wanted to strike the balance of “edu-tainment” while approaching the delivery in a theme based story. Each story would be an adventure that the viewers would follow Abdullah – the main character – as he learns different lessons that propel him forward in the story.
In addition to the delivery form, we figured it would add to the marketability of the show if we included guest appearances by known personalities from the North American Muslim community.
Upon release of the first episode in the first month we gathered about 1000 email addresses and close to 600 fans.
If you haven’t seen the full episode yet, click the image below:
Website: http://www.abdullahpuppet.com/
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/abdullahkidshow
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Third Marketing Step – Website & Social Media Integration
With the ICNA convention approaching an opportunity presented itself to us where we could share a bazaar booth with an individual. Prior to the start of the ICNA convention, we launched the Abdullah Puppet Website.
We used the convention as a means of getting more people aware of Abdullah Puppet by interviewing people as well as passing out business cards with a web address link to the website. But more as an opportunity to record content to syndicate over social media to drive traffic to the website which in turn would continue to grow the list of email database subscribers.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
We figured this step would also allow us to also give more life to the Abdullah Puppet character where he can have his own voice outside of his TV show adventures.
At this point in time we also had a review about the first episode’s release published by MuslimMatters.org:
http://muslimmatters.org/2010/06/08/review-abdullah-kids-show/
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Fourth Marketing Step – Complementary Book
One of the challenges we had yet to address was how to do events with a puppet. I’m am not the best puppet master when it comes to being in front of people nor do we have the budget for a Barney like mascot.
As part of my wife’s vision for a kid’s show, she wants to have complementary merchandise such as toys and books that would help drive the sales and marketing of the project.
Her first attempt was entertaining – read about it here:
http://egyptiangumbo.com/writing-for-kids-isnt-easy-picture-book-fail-555.htm
Her second attempt turned out a little bit more appealing.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Ideally we’d like to get the book published via a publisher, but we haven’t found one that has found the book to be in line with the publisher’s M.O. (For those who don’t know, it means “Modus Operandi” which is Latin for “method of operating”). We used Lulu, an on-demand book printing service – to publish the book online and on Amazon.com
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Fifth Marketing Step – Search Engine Marketing
This step hasn’t begun yet. The next month will be spent settinging up tweaking SEM (Search Engine Marketing) tactics to drive targeted traffic to AbdullahPuppet.com to continue to grow the email database, social media engagement and sell books.
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Sixth Marketing Step – Community Events
We’re thinking the main driver of marketing “Aliyah’s First Ramadan” will be young-family geared community events at masajid across North America.
Not many Muslim communities across North America have implemented the concept of “story time” for children as a means of bringing people to the masjid. Currently most young-families bring their children to the local library for such outings.
We believe that in theory this “story time” event approach will allow for many more people to become aware of the book as well as Abdullah Puppet. At the moment we’re still developing the event marketing process that would go into systematizing this from community to community.
More news to come as we make more progress. Do share your thoughts and suggestions here.
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]]>A few days ago, I got the following email:
All I can say is, (deep breath) “Alhumdulillah…”
The great thing about this is that this provides Leechon with new source of passive revenue for producing videos and now videos longer than 10 minutes can be hosted on the Leechon Films YouTube account!
Look forward to more videos being posted 
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]]>Earlier this week I made the move to upgrade to WordPress 3.0 on a couple of the websites that I'm maintaining. The move resulted in the following message appearing on for all people using Internet Explorer to access the site.
Thus normal reaction was to restore the old version of WordPress, but that for some reason didn’t solve the problem. BlueHost was kind enough to restore a backup that was a week old resulting in the websites coming back to normal, except for Leechon.com – thus the last day and a half was spent in getting all the website files back in order.
We’re back in business! Alhumdulillah
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]]>After four months of work, the book is finally complete.
Read along with Abdullah Puppet as he tells the story of Aliyah, a little Muslim girl fasting her first Ramadan. Complications ensue when her teacher says, “Snack time!”
I believe my wife would make an excellent corporate manager.
After having written the book back in March, she managed and oversaw the artistic development, compilation of the manuscript, setting up of the on-demand printing and the development of the marketing material.
Important Business Lessons For Me:
Focus on your strengths. Delegate everything else. It’s best you spend your energy on that which you do best and get others to do that which they do best. Projects are a team effort and every team needs to be lead.
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Action Item: support this project. Click the image below to get your copy of the book so you can read along with a young loved one.
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]]>Watch the video and see what it's all about.
Go to http://ummahfilms.blogspot.com for more info.