Monthly Archives: May 2015

How To Make a No-Stress Commercial

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Here’s the new commercial I produced, shot, and edited for Middle C Music, D.C.’s only full-service music store. (Also played the swingin’ hi-hat cymbals.) The spot is running on Me-TV, the channel that airs all of the TV shows that were broadcast in the years before cable.

Which means not widescreen hi-def. So, I got out my trusty Panasonic AG-DVC30 miniDV camera, which was expensive state-of-the-art before inexpensive widescreen hi-def became the state-of-the-art. The Panasonic shoots in the same nearly-square aspect ratio (4:3) as the programs that air on Me-TV. So it was a good fit.

The downside production-wise is that the camera records to tape, which has to be transferred in real time for editing. I shot an hour-and-a-half of footage, so had to sit staring at the computer for an hour-and-a-half while the tapes played back.

But I finally used my last two DV tapes. So the camera is now for sale.

The song, or jingle, was created almost instantly by Middle C staffer Michael Sweeney, who is the fellow singing in the video. Darn catchy. I cut 60- and 30-second audio versions of the jingle and I’m trying to convince the store to run radio spots as well. I think this jingle will give Mattress Discounters a run for its money.

Special to the Washington Post, “Mad Men” Edition

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Don Draper

Have a piece on the Post’s Style Blog about the people who tweet as characters on Mad Men. As the show is now finished, I wondered what they would do.

It’s a fun piece, but I didn’t get to delve too far into the background of why some of these people are spending so much effort pretending to be imaginary people. Here, two of Don Draper‘s most significant love interests, Rachel Menken and Sylvia Rosen, discuss their reasons for creating online lives.

Rachel Menken (@RachelMenkenNY):

I started tweeting Rachel in February, 2013, at the request of @DonDraperSCP. It was a good fit for me as I’m Jewish and live in New York City. I even spent a few years in the fashion industry at the beginning of my career.

In any event, when I started tweeting—even though Rachel hadn’t been on the show since season 2, I found that fans remembered her and wanted to interact. So I tweeted about fashion, NYC, being Jewish and of course, “Mad Men.” I started with 30 followers (most were other “Mad Men” characters) and two years later I have over 2,000 followers. I enjoy tweeting her, but over the two years—at certain times I’ve tweeted more, but usually I don’t spend hours doing it.

I think fans are very invested in these characters and as long as there is streaming and AMC, people will always be discovering “Mad Men” and show an interest. I think there will be a high volume of tweeting tonight, tomorrow and for the rest of the week. But, it will probably calm down after that. But if you connect with followers on a regular basis, they will continue to tweet with the characters.

I personally have had the challenge of tweeting Rachel while fans know she’s dead! But that hasn’t stopped me—so I will continue to tweet and see where it goes.

I always see Twitter as a highway—you can get on and off as you like, but the traffic continues to flow.

Sylvia Rosen (@SylviaRosenNYC):

Syl is my only fake social media account. All my social media time is zapped between my “real” social media accounts and Syl. I tweeted with some of the characters during season 5 from my personal twitter account. When Syl debuted in the first episode of season 6, I was compelled by her character and what she had to offer Don and set up the account the night of the season 6 premiere. The show has touched me deeply because I can relate to Don’s crises of conscience and I’ve also related to Sylvia. The lens of Don and Sylvia truly crystallized my vision of the path I am traveling.

The Sterling Cooper Mouse was particularly helpful in unearthing crumbs of fan-tweeting lore. Here’s a piece about one of the original Mad Men tweeters, who snagged the @BettyDraper account.

And here’s a Wall Street Journal piece about the people behind Betty, @PeggyOlson, and @Roger_Sterling (A different Roger than the one I spoke with, who is still going strong—as many of the characters.

And a piece about how AMC wised up after falling asleep at the wheel and allowed the fans to play with their characters.

I will miss this show terribly. Somebody buy me a Coke .