300!!!

is the number of fans we now have on our "Smalltimore, the Movie" Facebook page! I love milestones.

Spin Me Right Round

(Cheryl Scungio as a rather drunken Gracie)

I'm a pretty happy camper today. Since Wednesday, our fans on the Facebook page, "Smalltimore, the Movie," (don't forget the comma) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Smalltimore-the-movie/54159809709?ref=ts has TRIPLED! Mostly through Kyle Holtgren's, Phil Calvert's, and my own friends, but we are also pulling in random people along the way, and I love that.

Eric got on board the other day, after I made a rather pointed plea to my friends who had not yet become fans. He is new to Facebook, and he asked me if it got me anything, having people sign up. Not per se, but it definitely helps. It is all about keeping the buzz going, keeping people talking about it, and if you think about it, it is kind of hard to keep people talking about a movie they've never seen, and don't know when they'll see it. But that is exactly what I have been doing for almost a year and a half now, via this blog, layering that with the occasional mass email, and now adding the Facebook page.

Anyone who has ever been to one of my parties or events can tell you that I know how to plan a good time, and a good turnout. Because what I am doing for Smalltimore is exactly what I do for all my events. Like I said in the very beginning, that is what making, and now marketing, a movie is - event planning. Scheduling, being organized, making sure everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing them and finding a way to reward them for doing it so that they stay excited about it. More than anything, it is about communication.

People forget things, and get bored quickly. We're all busy, and in this world where we watch the news with remote control in hand, flipping between several channels which each have one or more talking heads in the middle, various stock, weather, and time info in the corners and a streaming ticker across the bottom, our attention span has been reduced to the point that we require our information in sound bites. Collective social A.D.D.. Just the facts, Ma'am. And quickly!

Now that I have the FB page for the movie, that fills that niche, and I am glad to have it, despite the "new" FB being so annoying. But there are quite a few people that read this blog regularly, it gets an average of about 30 hits a day now. Until recently it was averaging 20, but it has gone up since I have been writing a lot lately. Which is nice, because I was afraid it would go down, that people would get bored with hearing so much from me!

I think the blog serves a certain purpose that I can't accomplish on FB. It is pretty stream-of-consciousness for me, and I think we all enjoy getting inside someone else's head, but my posts usually end up being some sort of story, and most people still like a good story. That's why we still love the movies! Especially if it is some sort of inside scoop, and even more so if it is some sort of inside scoop on a person. The days that receive the biggest number of hits are always the days that I post a profile of one of the actors (and my stat tracker differentiates between how many individuals view the page and how many page loads there are, so that number is not skewed by a few people returning to the page multiple times). BTW, Kyle, the biggest hits I have received in one day came on the day I profiled Phil Calvert - so don't think you're sailing away with that steak dinner quite yet. I think he is due for a comeback (see the posting earlier this week, "Feed a Starving Actor")!

I discovered that this (profiling individuals) was a very good tool a few years ago when I organized a couple group art shows with some of my artist friends here in Baltimore. I didn't have FB then, so I sent them out via mass emailing. We had great turnouts at both events. I received loads of compliments on them and no one minded at all that I was sending them a rather lengthy email once a week. As a matter of fact, once in awhile, I'll run into someone I haven't seen for a bit and they will tell me that they miss my mass emails!

I think the key is keeping it personal, that's what I try to do here. And funny, of course. It's not that hard. This IS Baltimore, after all. And Baltimore + actors = Plenty of material to work with.

Blog My Mango!

To answer your first question, the title of this post means nothing. Just unrelated thoughts mashing together in my head. And it sounds like some random thing that Kyle Holtgren (pictured above, as David in "Smalltimore") would shout, unprovoked and loudly, after several cocktails at Dionysus just to make anyone with him laugh.

I just got back from having lunch with my good friend Christie Thorndill, who is in town for a visit. She used to live here but moved to Florida last summer, and so of course part of our lunch was spent covering the pros and cons of Baltimore and why people miss it when they leave. I was driving, and when we left, I asked Christie where she wanted me to drop her off. "Baltimore is your oyster!" I said. She replied, "I thought oysters were toxic." "No," I said, "they're an aphrodisiac!" And that sort of sums Baltimore up, in a weird way. One woman's toxin is another woman's aphrodisiac. Christie thought about this for a moment. "Actually, I'd prefer a mango."

I am boycotting Facebook today, because as you probably already know, the new version of Facebook sucks and everyone hates it. So I vowed not to log on at all today, and I am sticking by that, although I accidentally logged on at 12:49am because my computer was tied up burning DVDs to send to festivals for about two hours and I wanted to check it one last time before signing off. So, I won't get back on Facebook until at least 12:49am tonight.

Right before I went out to lunch, I received a text message on my phone from Kyle, tempting me to log on to FB. Yesterday I posted on the Smalltimore the Movie FB page that it would make me very happy if we could reach 100 fans of the page that day. Since announcing the "Feed a Starving Actor" competition (scroll down a few postings for details), our number of fans jumped from 50 to (as of signing off last night) 87, newcomers being mostly fans of Kyle or Phil Calvert, whose horns are now locked in a battle to the death over a juicy slab of meat. I was a bit disappointed in that we should have easily seen it hit 100. I have about 120 friends of my own on Facebook, and hardly any have become a fan of the movie page, which I don't really get, since every one of them know how much blood, sweat, tears, time, energy, love, and money I have sunk into this project! But never fear, Kyle, upon seeing my plea, posted, "I'm on it!" So he texted me today when we hit 98... then 99... then finally, Oh Joy!, 100!!!

You have to enjoy these little victories along the way, they help to keep you going, as the road to the big brass ring is long, rough, and uphill all the way. I am including links to this blog and the FB page on the DVDs I am sending to festivals now. It is the way people find out about things, it is the way people market interactively, and the great thing is, it works, AND it's free! When I send the DVD off to the Atlanta Underground Festival, you better believe that I will be mentioning how many Atlanta folk have become fans (via Phil Calvert) on our FB page. I think they need to come up with a cool name for themselves, as do Kyle's peeps, so think on that.

Definite props to the Phil Calvert contingent for being such loyal friends to their guy, but I gotta tell ya, though you are beating up on everyone else, Kyle is mopping the floor with all y'all. I have about 5 actor profiles left to do, and I know Kyle is anxiously awaiting what I have to say about him on the set of Smalltimore, but he is going to have to wait a little longer for that. Today is just my specific shout out to him for getting the word out like crazy, and always being so supportive and enthusiastic. It makes me smile, it sometimes just cracks me up, it makes the whole thing more fun for me and it really does keep me going. There are days when I really need that.

So, kudos to the Man of the Hour, Kyle Holtgren! Next cosmo's on me!

CONTEST: Feed a Starving Actor!!!

I was just about to rename the "Smalltimore the Movie" Facebook page, "Phil Calvert & Friends" as we have recently had a deluge of his friends become fans of the page, but I decided to take a count to be sure which actor had the most friends on here, and it turns out that Kyle Holtgren wins (for the moment) by a nose! The current tally is:

Kyle - 12
Phil C. - 11
Kelly Coston - 7
Cheryl Scungio - 4
Orlando Gonzalez - 4
Johnny Benson - 2
Al Letson - 2
Will Lurie - 1

So, as a little incentive, I decided to create a little contest.

Feed a Starving Actor!!!

Whichever actor of the main ensemble has the most number of friends on the "Smalltimore the Movie" page by midnight, May 6th, the eve of the Maryland Film Festival, (and NO, I do not know if we are in yet, but for good or evil, I'll be drinking that weekend) will be treated by me to a ridiculously decadent dinner at the PRIME RIB Restaurant. What's your pleasure? Oysters Rockefeller? Lobster Bisque? Or a steak from one of the top 20 steak houses in the entire COUNTRY? This is not a dinner for the faint of heart, folks.

If a person is friends with more than one of the actors, they will each receive credit. If you don't know one of the actors personally, just post to the page who you are "voting" for and I will add it to their tally. If you are already a fan but not a friend of an actor, you, too, can post your vote. ONE VOTE PER FAN if you are not friends with any of the actors. Watch the trailer to see who's who, and make your voice heard!

Cheryl Scungio as Gracie
Orlando Gonzalez as Tony
Joyce J. Scott as Mrs. Talford
Kelly Coston as Mel
Johnny Benson as Bentley
Darik Bernard as Darik
Will Lurie as Andrew
Phil Calvert as Thom
Tom Diventi as Tucker
Kyle Holtgren as David
Tiffany Ariany as Angela
Phil Amico as Jack
and
Al Letson as The Voice of Reason

So, do your good deed for the day and become a fan of the "Smalltimore, the Movie" Facebook page. I'll be posting an update every 7-10 days to let you know the stats.

Let them eat steak!