Wish I Was Here (2014 film)

Website for Wish I Was Here (film)
Website for Wish I Was Here (film)

Wish I Was Here, the movie Zach Braff co-wrote/directed, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two weeks ago. I was a little excited about the movie premiering due to the fact that I pitched in via Kickstarter to fund it back in April 2013 (I can call myself a movie producer!). While my excitement was somewhat high, it quickly went down. Zach Braff and the rest of the staff working on Wish I Was Here haven’t done a really good job of making their Kickstarter backers (which funded $3.1 million of the $6 million budget) feel very appreciated.

Being a public relations major I felt the need to point out some of the missteps that Braff and the rest of the Wish I Was Here team have done. Discontent among the backers for the project has become more evident since its premiere at Sundance. Flavorwire pointed out about how the film and its production is becoming a public relations nightmare. Read the article here.

The first thing wrong with the Wish I Was Here Kickstarter production is the delay of the rewards. Kickstarter backers were promised to receive rewards based on the varying levels of money they pledged to the project. Yet since the finish of the project campaign in May 2013, backers have gotten nothing except a few behind the scenes videos. They have basically gotten nothing more than the average user would get when purchasing the home media DVD.

To make matters worse, in November 2013 Braff decided to open the wishiwasheremovie.com site to everyone. Everyone had access to the videos. Backers who pledged their money were receiving nothing more than what the typical internet surfer could find.

Zach Braff should have thought twice before reaching out to crowdfund his film. He said the reasoning for the kickstarter campaign was so he could remain creative control over the film and not have to cut things. His rational doesn’t hold much clout given the fact than nearly all filmmakers have to be willing to sacrifice some things to get their movie made.

Veronica Mars, the other big film financed through kickstarter, differs from the public relations nightmare of Wish I Was Here. Veronica Mars was backed by fans before the campaign even started. Rob Thomas (creator of series) kept constantly communication with the backers. Rewards were put out not too long after the film finished shooting. Veronica Mars was not co-financed with the help of a major hollywood studio like Wish I Was Here.

Main Point: Communicate more with your backers Braff. Give them the rewards they were promised, sooner rather than later. Make them feel part of the production rather than just providing the stock behind the scenes videos.

My first USA Today Article

This article is a little strayed from the usual film and television coverage on the blog. Nevertheless, I wanted to share it.

A little background: I’m part of the contributing writer program for USA Today College. The job is to write short articles (300-400 words) covering local interest college-related stories. After a few weeks of stalling and not knowing what to write about, I finally wrote up my first story. It was a piece talking about the a new course called Fundamentals of Digital Media that had been implemented at my college, Texas State University, for mass communication majors.

So I was browsing through my RSS newsfeed when I decided to check the USA Today College tab. I visited the main website and scrolled through the recently added stories. I was a little on nerves since I had submitted a story to USA Today college at the start of the week and had gotten no response back.

My eyes caught something as I scrolled through. There was my article on the recently published stories tab. Clicking on the article in excitement, I saw that it had been published on Thursday, February 27th. It had been published for three days and I hadn’t even noticed!

Although I was filled with excitement (I have an article in USA Today!) I didn’t know whether to tweet it out or not. It was Saturday night so surely not many people would see it. With hesitant fingers I clicked ‘tweet’ on my Twitter application and the article made it’s way to the big ol’ internet.

I didn’t expect much. I was hoping that at least one of my friends would favorite the tweet.

Low and behold, the tweet quickly gained traction and started being shared.

My brother shared it through his social media accounts and a few favorited the tweet.
My brother shared it through his social media accounts and a few retweeted the tweet.

My mental thoughts: “Okay this is good. My friends have a lot of followers so it may get a few views.

Then it stared to go even further…

My professors stared subtweeting and sharing the article.
My professors started subtweeting and sharing the article.

They have thousands of followers. My article was being shared (and had the potential to be read) by thousands of people. Once my college professors started tweeting out the link to the article things picked up speed. Their tweets got a lot of favorites and retweets. The article started being shared more and more from each of their tweets. By 11pm, five hours after my first tweet at 6pm, the article had been retweeted  and favorited over a dozen times.

Several of the lecturers and professors in the School of Mass Communication at Texas State loved the article (and some even pulled quotes from it!). I was beyond trilled and did a little victory dance. A piece I had written had gotten published on a national news website!

Despite this upcoming week being ridden with midterms, I can walk through those doors to the School of Mass Comm with a sense of accomplishment. It’s only one article, nevertheless I’m happy with the overwhelmingly positive response to it. The first of hopefully many USA Today articles! Go check the article out here

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#FDOM: Final Evaluation

This semester I spent blogging has been an overall positive experience. I was able to learn about different ways, both with different methods and media platforms, to tell a story. One of the major things I am proud of is that for the most part I was able to upkeep with one post a week. I made sure all of the posts had a good visual aid and a link to an article for further reading.

The thing that stuck with me the most during this blogging assignment was during Mass Communication Week at Texas State. The main speaker to start off the week was Evan Smith, CEO of the Texas Tribune. He said something that really stuck with me. He mentioned during his speaking event that despite common perceptions, now was actually the best time to go into journalism. New innovations are being done to effectively tell a story. His words hold true to what this fundamentals of online media class is all about: figuring out ways to effectively tell a story thorough the use of digital and online platforms.

Editing my Austin Film Society Internship Application Video

If you happened to read my about.me page (it’s a widget on the sidebar of this blog) you would read that I like to study the idiosyncrasies of things, the deep down meetings. So in order to fully realize how I have benefited from this blog, I would take down short notes and tidbits in class whenever my professor mentioned something important. Below is a list of the things I have learned in this digital media class from the notes I gathered and from this blogging assignment.

  • Visuals are important in a blog. Photos that could tell a story if they stood alone.
  • Blogging is a lot more enriching if you are 100% part of the process. Learn to code.
  • Don’t just put your own thoughts in a post, email people, get quotes.
  • Coding and graphic design are just as important as writing and communication skills. LEARN TO CODE.
  • Be genuine and leave comments on other blogs to get traffic to yours

All in all, my blogging experience has been positive. I learned a lot about building a solid base of content.  I know in the near future (January 2014) I will set up an entertainment blog (Movies, TV, Analyzing) to help become the career that I want which is to work at Entertainment Weekly magazine. Look out for me when I come to mass communication week 2015 as a speaker. Save the date! October 19, 2015.

[Update: 1/9/14: Found this cool article on The Daily Muse on how to upkeep and write good content for a blog]

MAIP Summer 2014

In this blog I frequently talk about how to utilize a college degree to the max.  Speak with professors, attend events related your major, get experience in your major, and so forth. One of the great ways to expand upon what you learn in the classroom is through internships. Internships let you test the waters for a certain career sector and let you gain real-world experience.  When I heard about the MAIP summer 2014 program and how they give students the opportunity to work at real advertising agencies, I knew I had to apply.

MAIP stands for Multicultural Advertising Intern Program. I had send a video component along with my application. After 6 hours of restless planning and filming I was finally able to come to a finished product. The video footage originally ran 12 minutes long but I was able to successfully cut it down to the stated three minutes.

Here is the video of me addressing MAIP, telling them how I am unique and what makes me a good fit for the program.

Your Career Starts Now

The time spent in college is the training wheels towards building a career. I say this because mass communication week ended last week at Texas State. The five day-long event brought media professionals to Texas State to talk about the changing world of digital media and how to prepare for a career in it. One encompassing theme was clear from all of the speakers: start doing our career now, don’t wait till you graduate.

During my fundamentals of digital and online media class (the class that required me to make this blog) my professor mentioned a reason behind why he requires the class to keep a blog:

There are different ways to provide content, to get you out there doing what you want to do. Start doing now what you want to do for your career, don’t wait” –J.Z. (The FDOM professor that gave this blog assignment)

Want a career in advertising? Start making advertising campaigns. Want to work for a creative media agency? Start creating your own content. Create. That is the point. Do the things that your dream career requires, right now, don’t wait until after college.

Editing my Austin Film Society Internship Application Video
Editing my Austin Film Society Internship Application Video

“I don’t need to tell you what I know. At this stage, it’s important for you to tell me what you know.” –Newling (My Statistics Professor)

The way the theme of this blog (Why a College Degree is Worth It) ties into this is that college provides an experimental group for a person to build a career. There is a plethora of resources around a student in college that can help them build the career they want. Resources that will probably never be within arm’s reach ever again once they are in the real world. So go out now and start doing the career you want to do. Start experimenting to see how digital tools like Pinterest, Storify, WordPress, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and so forth can help develop your personal brand.

Become your own creator, make your own content, and become who you want to be.

“The great thing about education is that everything you have experienced in life will feel different once you have an education. Whether you get a job or you are on the street, you perceive things differently” -Roger Priebe (My Computer Science Professor)

This blog post was inspired by the speakers I learned about at mass comm week at Texas State.