UrbanTopaz

FootieFox

Schnele — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:40:42 +0000

Are you following the FIFA World Cup? We are definitely watching it, but unfortunately, can’t watch every game, but want to keep up with the latest scores.

We have been following the matches via Facebook and Twitter, but it’s a bit distracting from projects.

So, we have found a solution – FootieFox add-on at Rock Your Firefox. (Note: no spoilers in the screen grab – that would be poor form)

FootieFox is an add-on for Firefox (free, open source web browser), and it is working great. You can check all the scores for each group by clicking on the arrow in the bottom right corner of your browser window, and when a team scores, you will hear applause, and a pop up window lets you know what team scored. The team flags and score will be displayed until the game ends. Game schedules are also listed in the pull down menu so you can see what games you want to DVR. Speaking of DVR, be sure to turn off FootieFox if there’s a game you want to watch later.

In addition to the World Cup you can track over 200 leagues in 60 countries.

It’s free, easy (took about 60 seconds to get up and running), and is always available no matter what webpage you’re on.

Bonus add-on: “With Firefox Cup Personas you can customize your browser and flaunt your team spirit.”

As of the moment this is being written, Brazil has over 3,000 customized Personas, and the USA only has 114. If you want to show your team spirit, install your World Cup Persona – the team whose fans used Personas the most wins the Firefox Cup.

The Power of the Audition Video

Schnele — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 02:58:46 +0000

It has become more common for an actor to submit an audition video whenever he/she is unable to attend the audition in person. A couple of weeks ago an actress friend of mine, Amanda Thickpenny asked me for some feedback on how to best produce an audition DVD for a specific audition. (She and I had recently acted together in George Bernard Shaw’s Man & Superman). Just a few days later, another Man & Superman cast member, Ian Richard Barnes approached me to make an audition video for him for a role in a feature film. Having worked for many years on the other side of the camera I have seen my fair share of audition videos over the years. However, I had never actually made one for anybody until now.

The audition video can be a very powerful tool for an actor because he or she can do as many takes as necessary and submit the best one. Obviously performance is the most important aspect of any audition. However, that is not to belie the importance of some very simple key technical aspects an actor should keep in mind when making an audition video.

Focus & Lighting: Make sure your audition video is in sharp focus. A soft focus or blurred image will hurt your audition no matter how strong your performance is. Likewise, make sure you have yourself well lit with plenty of fill light. You don’t want there to be any shadows on your face.
Framing: I personally like to see an actor framed in a ½ or ¾ body shot so I can get a good look at the actor’s physicality as they perform. This always tells me a lot about their self confidence and charisma. On the other hand, a ¼ shot (head & shoulders) may be preferable depending on whether your sides are of a sensitive or intimate nature.
Sound: I cannot stress this enough – make sure you have a strong audio level, and good clean sound. You don’t want there to be too much extraneous ambient/background noise detracting from your performance.
Know Where To Look: The type of sides or material you’re working with will determine where to look. If your sides contain dialogue between two characters, then play directly to the camera as if it were the other character. On the other hand, if you’re giving a monologue or soliloquy, it’s my opinion that it’s preferable to look just off camera right or just off camera left.

For many years audition videos were submitted on tape, then on DVD. Now however, actors are often being asked to provide their audition videos via the internet. This is a good thing because it eliminates the cost of burning and mailing DVDs on the actor’s end. It is likewise much faster and easier for a casting director to just click on a link to see an audition video. Some actors I know post their auditions on their YouTube channels, and others create a temporary link on their website where an auditor can see their audition. Either way it’s good business these days to be able to post your audition online when necessary.

YouTube: Filmmakers Wanted

Christopher Romero Wilson — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:28:32 +0000

YouTube offers independent filmmakers a new distribution outlet!

By: Christopher Romero Wilson

During the 2010 Sundance Film Festival YouTube launched its Filmmakers Wanted campaign by making five films in the festival available for rent on YouTube.

When we first started in the industry, making an independent film of any kind was no small thing. To start with, indie films back then were actually shot on film. Film was (and is) expensive. Even if you could somehow raise enough money to buy the film, rent the camera gear, shoot it, edit it, and strike a print for projection, your best chance to get it in front of an audience was to screen your film at a major festival and hope a distributor picked it up and put it out. While it all may sound improbable, this very process did come together for a handful of filmmakers, most notably Kevin Smith with Clerks, Steven Soderbergh with Sex Lies & Videotape, Robert Rodriguez with El Mariachi, and Quentin Tarantino with Reservoir Dogs. Independent distributors like Miramax, New Line Cinema/Fine Line Features, and October Films took these movies and made them financially viable, launching the independent film movement of the 1990’s. But that was then and this is now.

First the good news, nearly 20 years later technology has made indie features cheaper to produce and easier to distribute. Now the bad news - nearly 20 years later technology has made indie features cheaper to produce and easier to distribute. “This means there are more and more movies being made diluting the audience for these movies. Not to mention that many distributors of indie features like Warner Independent, Paramount Vantage, and Picturehouse have had to close their doors in this current economic downturn”. It all seems pretty hopeless doesn’t it? What’s an indie filmmaker to do?

“While some believe that technology is to blame for diluting the audience pool, it is also providing new avenues for reaching new audiences”. Netflix has for some time now been accepting submissions from indie filmmakers and making their movies available on DVD and more recently as streaming video. However, similar to other conventional distributors, there is still a gate keeper and your movie may or may not be accepted. CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing LLC which is part of the Amazon group of companies, provides DVD on Demand services making it affordable to distribute indie films through Internet retail outlets, filmmaker websites, and other bookstores, retailers, libraries, and academic institutions. They also now offer a service to make indie films available as a high-quality download on Amazon Video On Demand. Customers can choose from Download to Own or Download to Rent purchasing options while the filmmaker earns royalties from each sale.

Recently, (and possibly most importantly) YouTube is offering indie filmmakers the opportunity to make their films available for rent on YouTube.

This is a significant development in that YouTube serves over 1 billion video views everyday. “They have developed a new platform which has done away with buffering and poor video quality. YouTube is currently offering the service to filmmakers at no cost. The filmmakers set the price and keep all the rights”. YouTube launched their Filmmakers Wanted initiative at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival making five of the films in the festival available to the public for a limited time.

One Too Many Mornings
Bass Ackwards
Homewrecker
Children of Invention (Trailer)
The Cove – 2009 Oscar winner for Best Documentary (Trailer)

“On March 16, 2010 YouTube was at the SXSW Film Festival where they continued to roll out their Filmmakers Wanted campaign, to educate filmmakers about opportunities to distribute and make money from their work on YouTube. The program, which is still in its Beta stage, offers Users the option to watch a trailer and then rent the full movie via Google Check Out. Filmmakers or Partners can upload their movie to YouTube, and then set the rental price and the duration of its availability. In order to become a partner, the filmmaker must fill out an online questionnaire about content ownership. Once approved, the film will have access to a potential audience of millions of users”.

Some movies may go viral, but the truth is most won’t. So what remains to be seen is how indie filmmakers will effectively promote their films to the YouTube audience without spending big money on an expensive marketing campaign. Social Media Marketing will no doubt play a key role in the development of this new distribution model. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Let’s watch!

If any filmmaker has had an opportunity to give this new service a try, we’d love to hear your feedback?

What can Skittles teach us about social media?

Schnele — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:29:17 +0000

For all the readers that are small business owners or self-promoting artists, we can learn a lot from what the “big boys” are doing… or can we?

Social media is still in its infancy, and the so-called rules of online marketing are changing faster than I can type, so we are all in a good position to judge for ourselves what we think is working.

Skittles (“taste the rainbow”) has jumped in with both feet. Honestly, I was shocked and awed at their new online marketing tools. They’ve eliminated a website in lieu of a small floating box with tabs that links to various social media sites. Here’s some of what they’ve done.

When you visit the site, you must first type your birth date to be eligible to enter the site. Hmmmmm – a candy site that has an age requirement?

I am initially taken to a Wikipedia page. Okay. No website. I’m already starting to feel like making a website may have been too much work for the design team??? But, to be fair, there is the little window with the tabs…

If you click on the “Chatter” tab you get their Twitter feed in realtime. There’s no moderation for younger viewers, but perhaps that’s why they wanted my birth date before I entered the site. After reading a few posts, it’s all coming into focus.

I changed my birth date to 1999 to see if I could still log in, and a window told me, “No way, Jose. Unfortunately you aren’t eligible to visit the site.”

It’s candy!!! Are they missing out on the children’s market?

It doesn’t appear so based on the fact that you can just lie about your birth date to enter the site, and many of the recent posts I read appeared to be written by adolescents – really young kiddos. I’m sure lots of kids lie when they want to visit an alcohol site, but should a kid even have to be faced with the choice of lying when going to a candy site?

If you enter a birth date that is too young, you have to clear your cache to get another chance at entering the site. This seems like a lot of work to get to a company’s information. If I wasn’t writing this article, I’d already be gone.

If you click on “Friends”, you are taken to the Skittles Facebook page. As of this writing, they have 3,526,430 fans. Not at all shabby.

On the Facebook page you can “Holla at the Rainbow”. Click on it, and an animation reveals a phonebook where you can click & drag to form a message. Some of my word choices are Siamese Kitties, Symptoms, Britches, Smells, Pony, and Mustached – not exactly sure what message I would compose on a candy site using those words, but I did waste a couple of minutes trying to be clever in my head.

It appears Facebook and Twitter are being used like a graffiti wall. People come by and leave a message – some cute and delicious, and some quite naughty – and then they’re gone. Is this building a community? Is this a company engaging with their customers? Will customers return or is this just a novelty?

After a while, another box will open that says, “Sorry to interrupt, but we wanted to let you know you can drop that box in the corner just by typing in a new URL. It’s that simple.”

May I strongly suggest that you click the box that says, “Thanks, I don’t need to see this message again.”? If you don’t, after a while the box will come up every time you click a tab to go somewhere new.

The Media tab has Videos and Pics options. The video link takes to YouTube. I got a 19 second commercial (“Don’t Vaporize the Rainbow”) that had 9,431 views. I could also have chosen “Don’t Shaolin the Rainbow” or “Don’t Poach the Rainbow”. So many colors. So many choices.

Moving on.

Guess where Pics takes me? I would never offer a prize for guessing correctly, because I’m sure you guessed flickr, didn’t you? You’re right.

I have to say, this is my favorite part so far. It seems like the social media is working well to engage customers and allowing them to participate. Without this cooperation, I don’t think the little green sock puppet with the Skittles face would have made it in the final cut, or Skittles the cat. Excellent.

Do you think this site is innovative or just a gimmick, and how long until they change their approach?

I’m interested to know what you think about the age limitation for a candy site. I’m really baffled by that one.

For a comparison, check out the Skittles site, and then visit the M&Ms site.

If you have a question you’d like considered for future posts, please email it to questions@urbantopaz.com.

5 Questions for a Better Blog

Schnele — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:30:32 +0000

There is an overload of information flying at us from all directions all the time. When you write a blog, it is important to consider how you are contributing to this information stream, and how do you improve your chances of being the place where readers want to be.

1) Does your post add something new or useful to your reader’s lives?

Whatever the end goal of your blog, whether educating, entertaining, or inspiring your readers, offer them something that improves the quality of their lives, adds to their success, or gives them news that directly impacts them today. People are busy, so consider how to capture the little extra time they have by becoming a valued resource.

2) Do you offer a unique perspective on your topic?

How is reading your post different from reading the same information everywhere else on the web? Your readers have a choice. Consider why they should choose your blog, and what do you offer that’s new on your given subject.

3) Does your post have your voice?

Be yourself. Infuse your writing with your personality. Some blogs lend themselves to very personal information, like a diary. Other blogs are professional and strategic, but you can still find a way to be yourself, and let your personality show through your writing. Are you passionate about a subject? Be sure your reader feels that. Having a sense of who you are will help create reader loyalty.

4) Have you dug deep enough into your subject?

Avoid generalizing about a topic, and dig deeper. The internet is littered with summaries and obvious commentary. You will make your blog stand out when you take your readers to new depths of understanding and offer more than patent responses to ideas. Ask specific questions and be a resource, not just a source of more questions. Does the reader get their answers from your blog, or do they have to Google another site for answers? If you ask your reader to do something, explain how to do it, and link to other sites if necessary.

5) Are you blogging consistently?

Blog regularly. If you do not engage with your readers on a consistent basis, they will not continue to be regular readers. In addition, visit other blogs. A successful blog takes time, and interaction. This is a social medium. To get readers, you need to be a reader. Visit other blogs in your industry and make comments.

If you have a question you’d like considered for future posts, please email it to questions@urbantopaz.com.

WordPress: Revising a draft post title

Schnele — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:21:48 +0000

Question: I saved a draft of my blog post with a title that I later wanted to change. I’ve revised the title, but when I click Preview, my old title is still there. How can I change it? (Atahualpa theme)

View the bottom left corner where “Body Title Single Pages” and “Body Title Multi Post Pages” are listed.
Be sure to change the title there if you have not checked the box above it.
Once you add your revised title, click Preview again, and everything should now match.
Publish your post.

If you have a question you’d like considered for future posts, please email them to questions@urbantopaz.com.

RSS icon in web browsers

Schnele — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:55:07 +0000

This post will answer two recent questions at once:

Why is there an RSS feed icon in the address bar of some webpages?
How do I add an RSS feed icon to the address bar of my webpages?

The RSS feed icon allows browsers to subscribe to your blog from any page within your website, even those not associated with your blog.

Here are RSS feed icons in various web browsers:

In Firefox:

In Internet Explorer:

In Safari:

In Opera:

How to add an RSS feed icon to your browser’s address bar
Add code to the section at the top of each webpage that you want to have the icon.

Example:

Of course, you need to add your own information. See below for more details.

The Breakdown:
1) title=”UrbanTopaz RSS”

Add the name of your blog. Whatever you enter between the quotation marks is what will show when a browser clicks on your RSS feed icon.

2) href=” http://www.urbantopaz.com/blog/?feed=rss2″

Enter the URL to your feed.

Note: One size does not fit all here. There are different URL formats, and varied ways of finding it. An easy solution is to go to your blog, click to subscribe, and see what URL it takes you to.

3) Now you can add the code below to the section at the top of each webpage that you want to have the icon.

Note: Be sure you add the closed tag at the end.

Tip: Copy code into notepad. Do not copy and paste from Word.

If you have a question you’d like considered for future posts, please email them to questions@urbantopaz.com.

Adding Links in Wordpress Posts

Schnele — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:53:15 +0000

Since one of the main purposes of this blog is to help answer questions, and since I’ve been asked twice about adding links to a post in WordPress this week, this seems like a good place to start.

There are several buttons running along the top of the window where you write your post. Some are recognizable from word processing programs such as Bold, Italics, Strikethrough, etc. If you place your cursor over the buttons you will see a definition for each one. The tenth and eleventh buttons are grayed out, but these are the LINK BUTTONS you will be using. The first link button says, “Insert/edit link”, and the next one says, “Unlink”.

TO CREATE A LINK:

Select the word or phrase in your post that you want to make into a link. When you highlight text, the link buttons above become active.
Click the “Insert/edit link” button.
A pop up window opens, and you have 4 items to address.

POP UP WINDOW:

Link URL: Type the full URL for the link, including “http://”.

Target: Pull down to select either “Open link in the same window” or “Open link in a new window”.

Title: Including a title helps those with vision impairments, those with text only browsers, and whenever the cursor is placed over the link, the title will be shown.

Class: You can leave this pull down menu on “Not set” if you do not need to add special placement. If you do, then select your desired position.

Click INSERT

TO UNLINK:

Highlight the linked text in your post with your cursor, and then click the “Unlink” button.

If you have a question you’d like considered for future posts, please email them to questions@urbantopaz.com.

Welcome

Schnele — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:17:02 +0000

Welcome to UrbanTopaz’s new multimedia blog. We have launched this blog primarily for our clients, friends, and self-promoting artists in order to answer their questions and to provide tips, practical suggestions, checklists, industry trends, real world case studies, social media ROI, and the latest news they need to know.

Our clients are small business owners who are intelligent, innovative and creative people who are busy running their companies. They know that online marketing tools and the social media world are changing fast and they need to be a part of it, but do not have the time. Several client complaints I hear daily are that the volume of information on the internet is overwhelming, the selection of online tools to choose from is staggering, and that what they do read is confusing or a waste of time. This blog isn’t written with tech geeks or designers in mind (although everyone is welcome), but for our community who values down to earth suggestions and relevant information that is written for all levels so they can maximize their time. We want this to be a place on the internet where anyone can ask a question without feeling intimidated or judged.

We intend for this community to grow, and we will be analyzing the needs and concerns of our new friends who will be joining. There will be a lot of content provided based on client feedback we’ve already received, but in order to stay relevant to an expanding readership, we need to hear from you. Thank you for reading, and please subscribe.