The Polls Are Still Open!

IMAGE_233, originally uploaded by Locobone.

Locobone would like to remind everyone that you can vote for Rich Mathis in ANY race across the country -- just write him in, like Locobone did in the Erie, PA, poll above!

STBD Fan Video: Coalition of Ethical Voters!

In case you were wondering, the Coalition of Ethical Voters (who sponsor this week's Mathis / Peduto debate) is a fictional organization created by STBD fans in this "smear campaign" video intended to warn the public about the ills of Rich Mathis...

(Note: The above link leads to a large AVI file - may not be compatible with all browsers.)

Dearly Beloved: How STBD Got Invited to a Wedding

For our final episode of the season, we at STBD were invited to attend the wedding reception of one of our biggest fans. He suggested that we'd be able to film anything we wanted to within the confines of the PPG Aquarium, where the reception was being held. All he asked in return was a small amount of footage of the reception itself.

This posed an unusual challenge: How could we explain, story-wise, a reason for multiple characters to be attending at a wedding? (And, more practically, how would we explain ourselves to the wedding guests?)

Backfiring Backstory

Originally, we'd intended to orchestrate the event as a full Vanity Press situation -- perhaps one of the authors or an ex-employee was getting married, which would explain the existence of Tabitha, Liz, Caroline, Rich, etc., being there. But when we were asked to keep our head count to 3 or less, we realized we'd have to scale back our idea.

At the same time, we had a continuity issue to deal with from Episode 29: The sequence with Alexxxis and Tim at Torque Denim was moved later in the episode than originally intended, which created a problem -- what was the favor Alexxxis asks Tim in the last scene?

Thus, thanks to a suggestion from Rick Hertzig (Glenn), we concocted an impossibly (and unnecessarily) complex conceit to enable Caroline, Dierdre and Glenn to essentially crash the wedding. We'd intended for Trent Wolfred (aka "the guy who got shot in the bathroom") to make his return at the wedding as well, so we squeaked him in as -- what else? -- the wedding videographer.

All we had to do was maintain a low profile, keep out of people's ways and shoot what we needed to shoot and no one would ever need to know what we were actually doing there.

Open Bar

So we arrive at the Pittsburgh Zoo, which is where the Aquarium is housed, and join the tram-load of guests being shuttled from the entrance to the reception. Since there are five of us, Rick ends up sitting alone. A fellow wedding guest plops down beside him and, feeling gregarious, introduces himself as the father of so-and-so.

Rick nods obligingly.

"And how do you know the bride and groom?" the guy asks Rick.

"Um..."

One bumpy tram ride (and awkward explanation) later, we're no longer anonymous. Thankfully, the guest appears to chalk our presence up to the eccentricity of the happy couple and totters about his business.

We slip into the Aquarium, explore the space and realize two very important things:

1. There are dozens of opportunities for beautiful shots here.

2. Almost none of them will work because the audio is trash.

Being an aquarium, there's a whole lot of running and falling water EVERYWHERE. This is not a quiet process, especially as it cascades off the walls of the interior, creating a white noise echo. EVERYWHERE.

Fortunately, Trent and Ann find the penguin area, which is shared by another large fish tank. Due to the acoustic arrangement, this is essentially the only "quiet" area in the building, despite the echo. This became the host locale for both their scene and an unused sequence with Glenn, Dierdre and Rob Sharp (egad!), whose cameo appearance remains (mercifully) on the virtual cutting room floor.

After the After-Party

Once we were sure we'd filmed everything we needed (or as sure as we could be, since the shot list was accidentally left in the car, which was a full tram ride away), we attempted to wrap things up in the elevator back to the top floor. As you might guess, trying to film dialogue in an elevator at a wedding reception is bound to not go smoothly. Thus, we retreated to the escalators at the zoo entrance, where -- in three takes, involving several escalator round-trips -- we nailed the final scene.

Coincidentally, this also happened to be the final evening of shooting for the season. After doubling back to Caroline & Dierdre's apartment to wrap things up with Leo, we headed out to a self-congratulatory celebration of our own -- a midnight breakfast at Ritter's Diner.

From champagne and wedding cake to black coffee and greasy home fries: STBD does it all in style.

(Should we mention that nearly every line of dialogue in this episode was improvised by the cast on the spot? Just thought you'd like to know...)

Who Is Your Audience?

Attentive listeners at PodCamp Pittsburgh. Photo by Kimberly Reed.

Chris Brogan asked this question on his blog the other day. While commenting upon it just now, I realized I had a completely different take on the issue:

Everyone is concerned about motivating their audience. Without an active, engaged audience, you're missing the community that powers the engine of whatever it is you're currently doing in your life.

But I think you need to make a key distinction: your (target) audience and your fans are not always the same thing.

Your audience is the people you BELIEVE are hearing your message, the ones you CREATE the message for.

Your fans are the people who RESPOND to your message, who TAKE ACTION based upon what you say or do.

We may think we're creating something that appeals to a certain group of people when, in fact, it appeals to a completely different group for completely different reasons that we never considered.

For example: you might be writing a blog that deals with all the minutae of being a better teacher. But if a lot of your suggestions are rooted in organization aand time management, rather than direct communication and educational theory, don't be surprised if you find your actual "fans" are people from all walks of life who are searching for better productivity tips. Or, conversely, if you do focus on better communication skills, you may find your teaching blog being bookmarked and cited by public speakers, managers and politicians.

Once you really understand who's responding to your message, you can better evaluate whether you're on target with your original goals. Or, if your actual audience differs from your anticipated audience, you can decide whether you need to change your message or embrace your unintended fanbase. Either way, you can't truly be sure you're succeeding in your original plan without being able to accurately assess your audience AND your intentions -- which is one reason we surveyed our audience last week.

As the pipe company who owned the "utube" URL proved when they were slammed with misguided YouTube traffic, it's not who you THINK you're talking to that matters; it's who's actually HEARING you.