Food is Good, More is Better: Food I Follow

I’m not a foodie, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do follow two new food-centric destinations.

My nephew Greg’s hilarious blog, Greg’s Gourmet, features food, food and more food (but not seafood) that Greg encounters during his day-to-day life. Pictures, videos, and a detailed narrative of his experiences make this a great place to drool…well, enjoy, anyway! You an also follow Greg’s Gourmet on Twitter.

Greg launched Greg’s Gourmet just a few months ago, and has been slowly ramping up the site and developing the brand – it’s the sort of a high-concept / wide appeal idea that I think will do well as more people hear about it.  As Greg is a recent San Diego State Marketing grad, I expect this to develop in some fun new directions.

Greg and I will be taking a road trip throughout California in a few weeks – you can bet Greg’s Gourmet will be part of the adventure!

My friend Lynette loves food just as much as Greg, but she’s developed a whole line-up of food allergies and restrictions. Her Twitter account, SpecialOrderPlz (and soon a blog and webseries) shares her personal experiences in creating and finding great meals despite all the annoying limitations. It’s a great guide for anyone in the same situation.

Lynette just launched her effort, but offers a perspective that’s valuable to a targeted audience that is largely underserved in the larger foodie community. She fulfills a need, and I expect to see quite a following develop as she continues the effort.

Both ideas are simple, straight-forward and appealing to their respective audiences. I look forward to seeing how they develop, and learning along with them!

My Review of "Super 8" at Blogcritics.org

Article first published as Movie Review: Super 8 on Blogcritics.

Super 8, the J.J. Abrams-written and directed, Steven Spielberg-produced summer blockbuster, has it all:  the emotional landscape of E.T., the friendships and adventure of Goonies the grandeur of Close Encounters, the creepiness of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the awesomeness of any good action film of the last ten or fifteen years. Even so – it all adds up to an film oddly lacking in heart.

Super 8 is the story of a group of 12-year-old filmmakers in 1979 who are the only witnesses to a spectacular military train wreck while shooting their movie – capturing the entire thing on camera. The train, as it turns out, was carrying a mysterious cargo, and the wreck unleashes a trail of terror in this small Ohio town.

Joe (Joel Courtney), the young pivotal character in the film, is suffering after the accidental death of his mother in a factory accident. His father (Kyle Chandler), a town deputy, is suffering too – and they’re both alienated from each other in lonely despair. As his father is rapidly engulfed in his responsibilities as deputy, Joe finds solace with his friends. His buddy Charles (Riley Griffiths) is making a zombie movie, and all of his friends are on board – even Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), the girl of Joe’s dreams. The train wreck changes everything, however, as the military sweeps the town in search of...something. Fear of the unknown turns to horror as things, and then people begin to disappear. Soon, Joe and his friends are in a struggle for the lives of the people they love as they race to solve the deadly mystery.

Super 8 is one heck of a movie. It seems to do everything right. I recognized kids in the film – they look and feel and act like real middle-schoolers. Mystery, adventure, wonder, emotion and love - it’s all there. That’s the problem. With so many moving parts, even the most intimate moments seem oddly cold. Where those moments in E.T. might have made you cry, in Super 8, you only feel a tinge of compassion.

Producers, Content Creators, and the Great Divide

This past weekend, I attended the annual "Produced By" conference hosted by my trade organization, the Producers Guild of America.  The weekend featured vendor booths for production services and locations worldwide, and seminars on many aspects of production and opportunities in production.  The audience, as you might guess from the conference title, was producers of all types - motion picture, television and independents from around the world looking to network, learn, and develop critical relationships for upcoming projects.

Naturally, a number of programs addressed the quickly-developing online world - and what it means from content creation to funding - to cloud-based production management.  There was considerable excitement about these developing opportunities - a session entitled, "The Sky's the Limit: Entrepreneurial Media and Indie Innovators" sold out before the weekend began.  As most attendees work in so-called traditional media, interest was largely centered on using online tools to provide new options for the development and distribution of traditional content.  Web series are seen as a particularly promising avenue for traditional media producers.

In a few weeks, I'll be experiencing another perspective on the producing world.  I'll be attending Vidcon, the annual conference of You Tube content creators.  These producers are considerably - even radically different from traditional producers.   While they certainly aren't veterans - many are in their teens or twenties, they're very much real producers pioneering a brand new field.  Theirs is a more personal model, dependent upon a level of audience interaction unthinkable to their traditional media cousins.   Of course, they're also not operating at the stratospheric financial heights of successful traditional media producers.  Even the most successful YouTube partners in year aren't earning even close to a network television producer's weekly income.  On the other hand, they generally work alone or with a very small team.  They can do what they want.  Most are writers, producers, directors, performers and marketers - all rolled into one.  You might say they're the most independent of what used to be called independent filmmakers.

I've long been fascinated with the middle ground between these two worlds - or even if such a common meeting point can exist.  I wonder what would happen if a group of successful television or film producers spent a few hours in a room with the most successful YouTubers to search out that common ground.  What would each contingent gain from the experience? What, if anything, can they possibly learn from each other?  Does the intimacy of the successful vlogger by its very nature preclude any real lesson for corporate-driven traditional media?  Likewise, can traditional media as a money-making machine offer any hints of where new media content creators can go?

Future Tense: Notes On My Next Documentary

Imagine creating a video letter from 2011 to the 1960's in which young and old alike show their passion for "social media," in terms a time traveller would understand....and you'll gain an early sense of the concept for my next documentary.

The other day, I asked visitors to my vlog to consider the challenge of describing what we like to call "Social Media" to an individual from decades ago - a time before home computers, before the Internet (at least as a universally accessible resource), and certainly before social technology. Responses were fascinating - here are just a few:

21stCenturyCat suggested that Twitter was like having pen pals all over the world - but with immediate response.

EdElisea took the alternative approach, hosting a visitor from forty years ago in our modern time. He points out that before addressing social media, he would have to explain all of the strange noises a visitor would experience - car alarms, cell phone ring tones, talking GPS Units. THEN he would begin to explain today's powerful PC's.

Bearchay889 uses a grapevine analogy for most social media platforms, but suggests that YouTube would be more of a challenge to describe because of its unique technical characteristics.

Yllekr123 said: "If you tried to tell me 40 years ago about the internet I would have laughed at you."

journeyoflifevlogs perhaps summed it all up. He would ask inhabitants of 1971 to imagine technology that would enable people of all races to communicate and share inexpensively and from the comforts of home. He also pointed out that he would likely be "locked in a crazy home for the rest of my life."

Technologically, we live in an age so wildly distinct and unanticipated from just a few decades ago that it's becoming hard to comprehend how far we've come. Even the most visionary science fiction writers couldn't imagine the social tools we use today on a daily basis.

Today, many people still respond to the concept of tools like YouTube and Twitter with "I just don't get it." My film, in sending a "message to the past," could also be a fun way to better understand our revolutionary age.

This is at early stage - responses and input welcome! Subscribe to my Vlog on YouTube, if you haven't already!

The First Five Minutes: Judging Documentaries

Over the years, I've had the opportunity to judge a number of documentary film competitions - a process in which a committee reviews  both short and long-form films with the goal of choosing one or just a few of the best for special recognition.

Subjects and trends change from year to year, of course.  Historical anniversaries and world events generate clusters of docs on subjects ranging from 9/11 to World War II, and soon, I'm sure, the Arab Spring of revolution and regime-change and the Japanese earthquake/Tsunami.

In any competition, quality ranges from the unwatchable to the emotionally stunning.  Wonderful ideas that are poorly executed contrast with poor concepts and superior production value.  You can usually tell  in the first five minutes that a particular film won't be a contender.

Here, in no particular order are just a few of my favorite basic flaws seen in documentary film competitions:

1 - A poor script / Poor structure:  It sometimes seems as if filmmakers forget that, above all, they are storytellers - and the rules of good storytelling are consistant across the ages. Above all,  engage your audience - and engage them right away.  Once they lose interest, they're gone.
2 - Poor Camerawork - While modern, low-cost digital equipment has democratized the filmmaking process, there are surprisingly few who understand that there is an art to creating a quality image.  Basic rules of composition and even focus are ignored. Backlit interview subjects - shots in which the background behind is so overexposed that it's washed out to a solid white - are particularly disturbing.  Poor lighting is another frequent visual crime.
3 - Poor location sound - It's extraordinary how many films are shot with little thought to quality audio.  While modern cameras have on-board microphones, they're not meant to be a replacement for the quality of a boom microphone or lavalier mic on a subjects clothing.
4 - Poor subjects - Finding the right subject (person or topic) for a documentary is just as important as casting a narrative film.  It's also quite possible to take a great subject and alienate an audience through poor presentation.
6 - Poor narration - You've seen this, I'm sure:  A documentary in which the narrator informs the audience that "Bob was very surprised," followed by a shot of Bob informing us, in nearly the same words, "I was very surprised."  Too often, filmmakers use narration to hit the viewer over the head with a mallet to get their point across.
7 - Inappropriate Length - I wouldn't be exaggerating to state that perhaps 90% of feature documentaries should be short films.  

The Family That Blogs Together...

My niece and nephew are also engaged in blogging these days:

My niece authors The World According to Suz , which detais her everyday experiences as a freelance writer, copy editor, coffee addict...and "zombie aficionado."  Anyone who understands the daily struggles and neuroses of being a writer (I can say that because I'm one of them!), will relate to her adventures.  She's also poised on the edge of experimenting with e-book publishing.  I'll be watching this closely.  I'm not sure what "zombie aficionado" might mean, but I would hope that taste tests aren't involved.

My nephew, on the other hand, being the recent marketing grad, has created a blog focused on one highly marketable concept:  Food!   Greg's Gourmet explores Greg's food adventures, reviewing whatever interesting food he happens to come across - with humor and without the pretentiousness that so many foodie blogs typically present.  Most of Greg's adventures involve...well, let's just call it "comfort food."  Recently Greg and I descended upon the Valencia Gourmet Food Truck Festival.  Here's a look straight from my vlog, The World According to Rich (subscriptions always welcome!)



Enjoy our DNA!

High Quality Customer Service

This supplements my current vlog.

April 30, 2011:

A couple of months ago, my insurance company (Aetna) raised my rate $50.  The initial notification letter offered a few alternative policies with lower premiums.  As encouraged in this initial correspondance,  I called Aetna for a new rate.  An enthusiastic agent informed me that since the initial letter, the laws had improved the situation for California residents.  He offered a brand-new policy with a $1000 higher deductible that would lower my premium over $100.   When the statement came, however, it actually lowered it by only $3.  

I complained to Aetna. I had, in effect, given Aetna a gift in the form of raising my deductible and switching my policy for an end result which was a net loss for the customer, and a net gain for Aetna.   The monotone voice on the phone was perplexed at the rate I'd been offered initially.  She offered no response or apology other than to offer another rate that will lower my rate $50.

The new policy offered, by the way, was the same policy in the initial letter that the first agent had dismissed as being no longer active or availabile.

Something is better than nothing, right?  Well, today I got a letter from Aetna indicating that my brand-new rate, not yet applied, will be increased in July by almost $50, bringing my total savings after all this to $6.

Thank you to the health insurance industry and for the lack of effective political leadership (on both sides of the aisle, folks).  

Oh, well.  At least I still have insurance.  For now.

May 6, 2011 Update:  

My new rate was to be applied early yesterday morning to my checking account - I have an auto-pay arrangement with Aetna.  Unfortunately there was a "glitch" (Aetna's words), and Aetna instead debited $7,051 from my checking account (no, I do not keep that kind of cash in that account - this debit caused my account to be vastly overdrawn).    I discovered this debit at 5am - before customer service at either my bank or Aetna was available.  

I had to spend nearly an hour and a half that morning, all told, on the phone with Aetna and my bank to correct and arrange for immediate credit back into my account - not to mention the following couple of hours monitoring my account to make certain that the credit was applied.  All this while already at work.  

I wonder how Aetna treats customers who are actually sick....