Thursday, September 24, 2020

Part 3 - The Virtual Storyteller - Getting Equipped

Okay! Now you have made some decisions about what you think you might want to do on this virtual performance ride! 

You think you know what you are going to try to produce
You think you know what you want to offer

I use the word "think" because you should not set anything in stone at this moment. 

Stone is bad
Stone breaks
Stone weathers and becomes illegible

Try something more flexible. Flexible is very good at this point.

I went into my first recording sessions on my laptop with gusto. I could do this! I am woman, hear me record!


Failure
Abject Failure
Horrible
Unacceptable



I went to The David and informed him I had failed to do a thing that I was pretty sure I should be able to do.

What was the problem?

Lighting
Video Quality
Background Too Busy
Not focusing well enough on the camera
Content Not Engaging
Structure not tight enough
Not connecting on a personal level

In other words, I did not have a handle on this at all. 

I had to back up and try to acquire a set of skills I had neither wanted nor needed at any other point in my life. Honestly, I didn't even know what those skills were.

I did a few "shots across the bow" stories and uploaded them to youtube just to see if they worked.






Well, this looks...homemade. 

Clearly, I needed to up my game, but how could I do that?

That's when I realized that despite all the time I'd spent in front of the camera producing subpar work those first few weeks, I was only at the tip of a very big, very intimidating iceberg.

I researched video editing
I researched lighting
I reached out to professional lighting designers
I researched video recording speeds
I researched how to deal with echo
I spoke with my friend,  the talented and sexy Simon Brooks who helped me immensely - with recording
My son - Degrees in digital music and 3-D art and animation was a key player in the research!

All of this research resulted in several different outcomes:

1. I went from room to room and space to space in my home and listened for echoes and ambient sound. 

The first best place was in my living room in a corner between the fireplace and a bookshelf that faced the downstairs hall. No wall to bounce the sound back, and lots of ambient light as long as I shot footage during the day at it wasn't raining.

2. I decided to get an external camera. I have an old Iphone and an even older laptop.

Webcams were out...not because I didn't try to source one, but because every single human being on the earth was smarter than I was and bought one the second the pandemic hit. There were none available.

After buying and returning a camcorder, I finally settled on this one.







3. I listened to what was coming out of the camera and decided I needed an external mic.

Insignia Universal External Mic




After acquiring my purchases, I discovered I needed a tripod. These were also in short supply, so I bought a selfie stick that doubles as a small tripod and I repurposed - wait for it - my ironing board.

I borrowed a really bright light from my daughter and bought two track lights at Lowes.



My totally professional and not jury-rigged setup looked like this.






I got a horrid glare off of the picture behind me, so I took out the glass. It is a very nice, contained, non-echoey space with a simple background and nothing distracting.


All sorted, right?

No.
Not even close.
I had not yet begun to purchase!

My Macbook Pro, which had been a wonderful word processing machine and portable movie theatre for the last nine years discovered that I suddenly needed it to process video, upload, and download a ton of content, and talk to a video camera.

I can almost hear the thought process.

The Mac - "What the hell is wrong with you? You knew my memory and processing speed when you bought me! At no time in our relationship did I ever give you the idea that I was up to this sort of abuse. You better back up, woman!"

So, I bought a new Mac.




Wait! Wait! Wait!

I am not suggesting you go on a shopping spree! You don't need to do what I did at all!!!!!

1. I am explaining what happened to me.
2. I am explaining why I made the choices I did
3. I am not saying that if you don't drop 4 grand your quest is hopeless or anything of the kind
4. Lots of people are using their Iphones - I just have one that doesn't have a stellar camera
5. Lots of people have great lighting situations already - mine sucked
6. Lots of people have computers that could handle the processes - mine didn't

I am not a technophile, and mostly what I used my laptop for was writing. I have an amazingly huge amount of writing on my laptop and little else.

I was completely unprepared to be a virtual anything.

Now, if you do need some new equipment do not despair.

If you are having a cash crunch, there are tons of sources for cash out there right now for artists who need to upgrade their gear for this new age of virtual work. My buddy, Tim Lowry, (Head to his website and support his brilliant work) just went Mac crazy at his house with a PPP loan. (This program is closed, but keep a lookout for future programs of this kind)  

 The resources are there.

Start searching for artist grants here!

Okay, back to the saga of transforming my reality to a virtual experience.

Now, after purchasing a new Mac, transferring over relevant files, and commencing to store my videos on the drive, I discovered that if you try to put ten one-hour-long videos on a computer that is already storing lots of other things, it gets mad.

(I promise I will do a post about editing software and what little I know about how to work it.)

So, I bought a Seagate External Back-up Drive. I'm currently on my second one.

Then, there was the backdrop saga. (Blog post where I decide to upgrade the feel and look of my videos)

Now, all of this buying and rethinking happened in the first month of the lockdown as I realized I didn't have the capacity to go virtual in any way that looked professional.

The amount of failure that I experienced over the course of this summer was epic. Each and every single fail taught me something valuable that I was able to take into my next attempt. 

As the Mythbusters were always fond of saying - Failure Is Always An Option.

 


So, wherever you are in this process...here is my advice for dealing with the absolutely annoying, frustrating, exciting, draining, nonsense up to and including listening to hours of your own voice and performing for a camera of some kind:



Some New Rules for Old Dogs

1. Be gentle
2. Be patient
3. You can always start over
4. Not everything works
5. Play - Play like there is no tomorrow
6. Victories whether large or small should be celebrated like the world is ending.
7. Breathe
8. Relax
9. Lather, rinse, repeat



Happy Recording -

In the next installment - I will talk about lighting



Par 3 - The Virtual Storyteller - Getting Equipped


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Friday, September 18, 2020

Part 2: The Virtual Storyteller - You Need A Cunning Plan


This post is about marketing. I just thought I'd get that out of the way.

I am sure some of you think I am jumping the gun here:

"How on earth can marketing be number two on this list???" You demand. 

"I thought this series was about doing virtual storytelling! Where is all the info about cameras and stuff! Why are you starting here?"

There is a good reason why we are starting here.

We are not actually talking about the marketing piece itself, we are talking about the plan for the marketing: These are two different things.

For the last however many years you have been a storyteller/performer, your job has been pretty straightforward...

1. I will show up at your event.
2. I will do a live show of a certain length
3. You will pay me for this experience
4. I will put the money in the bank
5. Lather rinse repeat

You probably have some idea how to market that.

Contact schools
Contact libraries
Contact venues
Contact senior centers 
Contact hospitals
Contact park services
etc, etc, etc

If you never got to the marketing, or you had issues with it, click here to read the long, in-depth series I did on marketing!

Traditionally, our marketing is like this, "Hey, I am a storyteller/puppeteer/singer/poet (you get the drift),  and I would like to come and tell/sing/perform for your clientele.

What they expect is some form of this:



  







Yes, lots of touching, gathering, shouting, laughing, moving about, and generally having a fabulous, loud, communal time.


There is no way on the Flat Earth that you could sell something like this to any venue in the world right now. 

So, what can you sell? What is going to be the new marketing strategy?


Well, in our current circumstances there are some options:


1. - You can do "live" virtual.

2. - You can go pre-recorded

3. - You can do a mix of both of the above

4. - You could offer in-person shows with some very strict guidelines to protect the health and well being of the audience, the venue, and yourself

Each of those things has its own challenges. So, you need to decide what you want to do.

Do I want to do all pre-recorded?

Am I more comfortable with Live virtual?

Do I want to mix the two?

Am I determined to do in-person gigs?

Will I do it all?

I'll wait while you answer those questions.





Okay, now you have the beginnings of a plan.

What are you going to offer?

Performances?
Residencies?
Workshops?
Q&A events?
Hour length performances?
New material?
Old material?

What are you going to do?

At each stage of this questioning phase, stop and imagine how that affects the market that you want to tap. Each and every decision you make will impact the changes you are about to make. It will also decide how you are going to make them.

For example:

I knew I wanted to do performances
I want most of them to be pre-recorded
I will do live zoom, but it is not my preference
I will not be doing any in person shows anywhere until at least May of 2021. I will reassess at that point

Having made those decisions, I had to decide what I was going to offer, and could I either tap a market or create one.

I committed to marketing to my traditional markets and offering them a version of the normalcy that we all crave.

That was my hook. See, we can still share stories just as we always have. It will look a little different, but we will get that warm, happy, fun experience that we have come to know and love.

If that is what we were going to offer, then I had to figure out how to make that happen.

Up Next:

The Learning Curve

The other posts in this series



Part 2: The Virtual Storyteller - You Need A Cunning Plan



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Thursday, September 17, 2020

Part 1: The Virtual Storyteller - The Philosophy of Plenty - Don't Let People Talk You Out Of It!





I didn't plan to write this series so soon or while I was in the middle of it, but I am fielding so many storytelling questions through my email, I thought I'd better give it my best shot.

Today is Non-Fiction Thursday.  (If you don't know why I call it Non-Fiction Thursday - follow this link)

Unfortunately, I have a number of different things to do that are not strictly in my Thursday model, but that is because the virtual storytelling processes we put in place last March are now beginning to generate work all over the country.


This is a good thing. It means that despite the lockdown and the lack of traveling and the advent of virtual school - the virtual storytelling shows are selling.

Now that we are starting to get work, and the business model we put together seems to be sound, I feel like I can share what we've done and how we mean to work this element of our business now and into the future.

I am going to do this in parts to prevent it from getting too long. My goal with this series is to cover the following elements - 

1 - Revamping the thought process on delivering storytelling

2 - Deciding on the direction of your virtual storytelling focus

3 - Performing for a camera

4 - Performing for a virtual audience

5 - Pre-recording material for audiences

6 - Delivering material via a virtual platform

7 - Creating Products vs Services in the Virtual Model

8 - A potential model for virtual residencies

9 - Marketing your virtual performances


Now, to be clear, there are lots of elements I can touch on in this series, but going in-depth would require me to write a manual. 

I am encouraging The David to do a series of videos about marketing and business processes. He is reluctant as he hates working with the camera, and he isn't sure he wants to teach a live/virtual workshop. I'll keep trying to convince him because he is way better at explaining the business side of this than me.

I've gotten emails from a number of performers who are just now beginning to grapple with what is going on in terms of the virtual storytelling world.

My goal in this series is to give people a jumping-off place to begin to focus on reshaping their work if they haven't already done so.

I admit upfront that I have so much to learn, so what I'm doing here is offering what I have already learned, and I hope you will have ideas to help me to keep learning.

I only know what we did as a company. If you have thoughts, suggestions, or comments, please leave them below so we can learn from your process if you are willing to share your insights.

You might ask - Why aren't you charging people to take a workshop on this? You are always talking about monetizing your work, and here you are giving things away for free!

I may very well start teaching virtual workshops on this subject too - but the truth is I would be nowhere if so many great storytellers hadn't been kind, caring, and helpful to me as I started my career. 

Paying it forward is a necessity if our art form is to survive.

Another caveat here - I mean to go through this slowly and explain it in steps so that it doesn't seem random, or unachievable. Another reason to, at some point, teach a four hour intensive on reshaping your storytelling for the virtual world.

Okay, enough pre-amble - Let's begin -


We live in a world built on the concept of scarcity -



That means, we only pay top dollar for things that are hard to come by. This creates a situation where people who provide services or products need to make it feel as if we don't buy it NOW and for whatever price they set, we will go begging in the future.

In other words - capitalism in all things including our work

Now, this is not a bad thing. Timpanogos and The National Festival only happen once a year, and they are an experience. The same thing is true of all of our wonderful national storytelling events. They have their own character and their own atmosphere. We swear by our favorites because they are all unique. We pay what we pay to be part of that experience.

Well, what about storytelling itself? If people don't have to travel across the world or even across state lines, will they value it? 

What if everybody can just click on a link and hear storytelling? Will it be overexposed?

If you can see it virtually, who will want to watch it in person?

We are not the first entertainment industry to be struck by this problem of a changing business model. 

Cable television freaked out over Youtube and Hulu.

How can satellite or cable compete if they force people to pay whatever cable television costs (I don't know what that is as we haven't had cable television for almost two decades) when you can watch it on Youtube for free?

Then, Netflix arrived on the scene, rendered Blockbuster obsolete, and allowed people to binge entire seasons instead of waiting from week to week.

Advertisers freaked out - The whole structure broke into pieces and started trying to reform itself into something new.

Well, cable, satellite, and streaming services have embraced a new philosophy - The concept of Plenty

There are plenty of ways to stream material and everyone can get what they want while paying a much smaller fee. People liked the myriad options, and the world of television and movies is still evolving.

New releases of movies are now rentable online instead of us going to the theatre.

My family watched the new Bill and Ted movie with some friends in our living room on one of our kid's giant computer monitors linked to my husband's laptop.

When I first began trying t figure out how I was going to deal with all of this virtual content and whether I wanted to do it at all, there was a hue and cry from some of the people with whom I shared my ideas.


"If you go virtual, your work will be rendered obsolete!"

"Why would anyone hire you if they could just download your work off the internet?"

"You will record yourself right out of a career!"

"Any show you record will make it impossible for you to do it live."

"How will you keep people from "stealing" your shows?"

"This is a terrible idea!"


Those are words from the philosophy of Scarcity - If they can get you anywhere, why would anybody hire you? Your presence will become useless. Don't do it!


Well, over the course of the pandemic, we have seen something very different happen. We have seen that many storytellers have embraced the Philosophy of Plenty


The philosophy of Plenty sounds like this:

There are seven billion people in the world - 

Who knows how many of them would love storytelling if they had any idea what it was -

Let us make sure that lots of people are sharing stories -

People will find us if there are lots of places they could encounter stories -

Let's grow our audience by using storytelling as a powerful tool during this global pandemic -

Storytellers need to tell, and people need stories. We got lots. Let's share -


How sweet. How naive. How silly. What about that whole overexposed thing!


Well, I don't know about you, but I have a ton of stuff on Youtube. In fact, if you head over to youtube right now, and type in Donna Washington Storyteller - you will get hours and hours of me telling stories online. 

In fact, you can watch hours of bootleg shows, ghost stories, badly shot footage, professional footage and heaven knows what else of me doin' my thing. I will bet the same is true of you.

You know what else you can find? Music. 



Trust me when I tell you that if Tina was coming to town and I could get tickets...I would go, despite watching the above clip.


And despite having hours of storytelling online - I still get asked to show up in person for multiple hundreds of gigs per year.

When this pandemic is over, I hope to have been in even more homes, classrooms, and living rooms than I have up to now. I hope more people are trying to figure out how to get me to show up in person and perform. I think they will.

Why?

Because there is nothing like live performance. There is nothing like sitting in an audience with five, or twenty-five, or five hundred or more and experiencing a shared event.

Nothing.

In fact, I use my youtube virtual storytelling stuff in my marketing. I send schools and supporters to that stuff all of the time. They love it, and it has encouraged more than one group to hire me.

Lots of people find me by running across those videos. 

Watching a storyteller online whets the appetite for a "real" experience. People want to see it live. They. Just. Do.

So, Don't let anyone dissuade you from doing this.

Virtual content is a way to use storytelling and the many opportunities we have right now to expand our business and reach new audiences who will come look for us live when the opportunity comes around once more.

So, strap in, and let's begin this journey into virtual telling.

There is more than plenty.

We have nothing to lose!



Part 1 - The Virtual Storyteller - The Philosophy of Plenty - Don't Let People Talk You Out Of It!





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Thursday, September 10, 2020

Covid Can't Even Delay Storytelling!





As we were being locked down across the country, many storytellers were asking:

What Now?





In that simple question, there were lots of other questions.

How will we make a living?
How will we do this art form at all?
How long will the world be unsafe?

There was a certain amount of despair and a large amount of panic.

Our next question was:

What's Next?

We embraced that question all over the place.

Online performances went live!








Storytellers are learning how to make art, share our work, and find audiences that are just as hungry for us as we are for them.

Artists Standing Strong Together and other online groups found their feet and started connecting people from various parts of the storytelling world with each other.

What did all of this wild change mean?


We suddenly had access to international performers we could never see live!



Some of us have been lamenting the lack of being able to have our big festivals. 

Well, there is no need to lament! The Big Festivals Are Still Happening! 








Guess how much all of that will cost you? Guess!

Not even close.


$25

Amazing doesn't even begin to describe it.








Who is going to be telling this year? EVERYBODY!

This can easily become a $1,500 dollar weekend. How much will it cost this year? 

$50


Not only that, but you can also do the whole thing from your living room, your kitchen, heck, you could watch it from bed!



=Hit this link to see more online treasure throughout the storytelling virtual world on The NEST Calendar if you didn't do it already!


On to other matters.....

I know I have not done much blogging during these crazy times, but I have been trying to reform my own business model. Now that I have a little more knowledge in me about how to make this work, I have some information to offer.

I will be blogging more about the business of storytelling in the time of COVID. In fact, that is what my next series is going to be dedicated to doing.

I am going to answer the questions I have been fielding, explain how I transformed residencies into online products, and go into detail about how we marketed this product, how we figured out what we wanted to do, and offer as much information as I can about this new world of work.

I am of the opinion it will be at least 2 years before we are back up to capacity in a safe way. Even after that, I don't think virtual telling will ever go away.

Let us march forward with both of these great skills under our belt.

You can't stop storytellers when stories are on the line.

Heck, you can't even delay us! 

Happy Virtual Telling!



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