I’ve had people tell me, “I’m better at editing something than making the initial thing. If you can get it started, I’ll jump in later.”
I believe them.
I don’t know who isn’t a better editor than prototyper. Prototyping is hard. It’s really hard to get started. It’s hard to commit to something. It’s hard to take an infinitely expansive imaginary whatever and turn it into something concrete, simple, and clear. It’s really hard to make the first thing.
Editing is fun, the vision becomes more clear and we’re problem solving. Prototyping is creating the problems.
The key is to get through the prototyping as fast as possible. Strip things down to the basics so that we have something to look at. First, get to the point where we say “If I told someone this was done, I would be embarrassed!”
Then, we refine. We get the relief and we can shift our role over to the fun stuff.
We got an interview with either a typed out thing like a blog or magazine, or a recorded thing like a podcast or morning news! There’s a lot more that can be done than may at first appear!
This is not passive
It might seem like journalists / influencers own their space and need us to respond to them, but they are desperate for great content. They let us in because they think we have great content to share. We could be passive and they could get the minimum out of us or we could show up with guns blazing and give them something really awesome.
When someone asks “So, you’ve been eating ropes on stage for how long?” We can answer in a million ways. EG
12 years
never done that
Way longer than I thought I would… when I started, they were just strings, and nobody paid attention to me, but…
Well, it starts before the stage. When my loving grandmother adopted me at age 11 I had no friends and she encouraged me to make friends of inanimate objects…
It’s been over a decade, and I know it seems weird, but the thing I’ve learned from this career…
check out Mark Proksch pranking one of his news groups. Complete control.
We can also make the questions
Often, we can propose a leading question to the interviewer, or volunteer an extra story to give more and get our point across. Interviewers need to make up questions for deadbeat guests, so if they know that an interesting question will make them look good and get us into a juicy story or joke, bonsai!
Late night show interviews are sometimes interviews, but usually they’re guest lead setups for responses.
Conan doesn’t care about a show in Reno… and that’s not an interesting question, unless it’s going somewhere
We can create the reality
Beyond questions, we can frame our introductions or the context the media sets for us.
My favorite is Rubberboy Daniel Browning Smith — who was arguably the most flexible man in the world — started telling everyone he was the most flexible man in the world (no way to measure that) and Ripley’s called him “the most flexible man in the world.” Then, he had that quote to use.
Similarly, my press releases for my cooking show Crash Course said “Julia Child meets Jackass” And Oakland Tribune called my show “Emeril meets Johnny Knoxville!”
They say it, they’re the source. We’re the winners!
Get some objectives
Three common goals for an appearance or an article:
clarify what’s happening = tell the world the who, what, why, when, where of what it is that’s news.
call to action = Get the people consuming the media to do something – go to a special offer on a website, call a number, etc
get clippings = either get a quotable quote from the writing, or some footage to use in our future promos.
Getting attention is not enough. Let’s go for the gold and use that attention to entertain more folks.
Two more tips…
Use emotion to draw people in. Tell stories, expose vulnerabilities and feelings so that people connect. We are entertainers, let’s make a custom entertainment thing for these appearances.
If it’s a written article, I always see if I can do the interview in written form. Spoken answers can come across wrong or shallow.
I’m fascinated by how people think. We try to find patterns and apply logic to things even though life is random. We try to define “types of people,” reasons for events, the way things go, or eras so we can ignore them and put our minds to rest. Prejudices, conspiracy theories, imaginary protocols, and “bad years” all help us chill.
When we feel that life is dangerous, any stress that comes up must be relieved. The only way to escape crappy stress is a reminder of safety. Logic and categorization promise safety, but they’re only a patch.
Entertainment is a bridge to safety
Entertainment gives us the opportunity to experience stress in a safe sandbox. That’s why we can be stressed out and want to watch a horror movie. The horror movie isn’t stressless – it’s fun stress.
Entertainment also gives us the opportunity to see life from a new perspective. Maybe the world is less dangerous because we understand people better. Maybe we’re safer because we understand our own power better. Maybe we leave an entertainment environment better equipped to deal with surprises and randomness.
This is the gift we give to audiences. Safety + Stress.
If we give only one without the other, they’re either unaffected or we just piled on to the nonsense they didn’t want. Those who accept that life is a game that doesn’t make sense are the most at peace.
Humanity keeps seeking the same superpowers. This thought came to me when pondering the age-old question “why ventriloquists?” A variety show is like one of those superhero ensemble movies. It’s a playful way to explore what life would be like beyond reality. Here are some powers…
Some people who only know me thru this blog think that I’m mean or overly critical. Cool. This blog is meant to create a tension.
When I have a conversation with someone, I’m not usually giving feedback unless requested.
I’m not mean!
Tension is unfulfilling in itself. It either motivates action or causes depression. My goal with these writings is to motivate contrary thinking and possibly fixing showbiz problems. I want to create a better world for entertainment. I think our field has endless potential and I would love people to be liberated from old thinking that holds us back. This is the difference between education and entertainment.
Great entertainment builds or emphasizes a tension, then relieves it. It gives us a safe sandbox to try out some stress in a ‘fun’ way. Education (marketing is included in this) gets our attention, and promises relief if we act.
When we get them confused it sucks.
I help entertainers advertise themselves. Often, they want the tension relieved at the end of the ad. One way to do this is to say, “You can share, or like, or sign our email list, or buy now, or shout at a tree.” Split up our “calls to action” so people don’t feel pressured to do the next thing.
I work with entertainers to be more entertaining. Some want to make things weird, but never want to get to the point of an obvious laugh. Some want to make stuff sad, but never give the audience the release of a good cry.
It’s simple to understand our mission, but it takes real responsibility to carry it out and face the possibility of failing.
From May 2015 to March 2020, Scot Nery’s Boobietrap ran every Wednesday uninterrupted for 254 weeks in a row. It was a meeting place and showcase for some of the best entertainers in the world.
Each night, an audience of 200 Angelenos would cheer and cringe at 15 four minute acts ranging from circus, standup, music, magic, variety, to bizarre.
Produced by Meranda Carter and me.
Hosted by me and genius comedy house band Fire Leopard.
It had a loose, underground feel with a strict structure of 4 minutes per act. If any act went over time, chaos (bubble machines, flashing lights, air dancers) would happen. Audiences were sat in folding chairs.
Chronological
May 6, 2015, Boobietrap started as “Scot Nery’s Platinum Open Mic” at Way 2 Much Entertainment’s headquarters in an Echo Park former factory.
Philip Solomon provided the venue and the equipment to make it happen, then he constantly souped it up and made it more fun. He provided aerial rigging, his network of entertainers and his millions of years of knowhow in lighting, sound, and punk-rock-comedy-genius.
I called people on the phone each week to participate and watch. Each act had four minutes on stage. If they went over time, the drummer ( Philip Solomon or Brian C. Janes [who was the entire house band]) would strike a giant bass drum.
May 13, 2015, My wife and Stefan Haves encouraged me to change the name to “Scot Nery’s Boobietrap”
May 20, twenty seven acts showed up to perform and I decided it was time to change the format to a booked show.
Dec 23, 2015 (show #34) Fire Leopard became the new house band.
May 2016, Charlie Haid shot and edited this TV show pitch for the show at the original venue…
June 2016, Boobietrap moved to Fais Do Do in West Adams. It was a big club where lots of jazz greats had performed. Gritty as heck, just like our original venue and we could sell booze!
June & July 2016, We took it to the San Diego Fringe Festival
July 2016, We went to The Oregon County fair with the show
September 2016, We took it to The Kaaboo festival
January, 2017, We did a Boobietrap show at the Electric Lodge in Venice
February 1, 2017, Meranda volunteered for the first time.
March, 2017, Meranda revolutionized how we handled volunteer work and got more fun people involved in making the show bigger.
June, 2017, We moved from Fais Do Do to The Whitley on Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood. I tried learning new skills to show off how hard it is to do what people do in Boobietrap…
January 2018, Meranda and I became Boobietrap, Inc.
January 2018, we gave a living room version of Scot Nery’s Boobietrap to a deserving family.
September 2018, Magic Monday hosted a special Boobietrap night
December 2018, we apologized
April 2019, we snatched our rank as TripAdvisor’s #1
May 6, 2020, we celebrated with performers, fans, and friends what would have been our five year anniversary.
When we’re doing stuff outside of our comfort zone (which is the location of everything that we don’t yet have) we run into silent voices that stop us. Before we even say “I don’t want to do that because…” we’re done. We go scroll social media. Or, we get hung up on some little idea or part of a project that’s exciting to us but not the most productive.
If we look at ourselves from the outside, the next step is easy. From the inside, it’s a paralyzing (or at least burdensome) fog.
That fog has voices we can’t hear that are shutting us down at every turn.
This is gonna get psychological
Juan Moscoso calls these voices “protectors.” We have our comfort zone because we learned at some point in our lives that we will survive if we stay within certain boundaries. If we venture out, we may be unloved, unfriended, or dead. These protectors keep us alive.
Jack Plotnick calls them “vultures.” Loud birds on our shoulders who make it hard to hear our own voice.
Get rid of the block by giving it a microphone
It’s tough to get the voice to speak up. When we layout our objections they can be refuted. They’re much safer when silent. This is a thing I love doing when I’m coaching / consulting someone. If I can help them say the block, it becomes a lot simpler.
When we talk to someone candidly, and commit our thoughts to words, it makes life better and way simpler than we might imagine. Finding people we can share in the straight dope is a powerful thing.
Get to “who cares?”
Your protector/ vulture voice is logical. It makes total sense. Another part of having someone to talk to is when they say “that doesn’t matter” or “who cares.”
Plotnick’s phrase is “I release and destroy my need to…” Then we can say “Maybe it’s true, people will see that I am ugly, but I don’t need to be pretty to do the thing I want.” Basically, it doesn’t matter.
Moscoso recommends thanking the protector and telling it we’re safe. Gentler, but kinda the same thing.
Follow up
The voice isn’t there to insert one logical idea, it’s there to protect us from something seemingly life-threatening. It’s not going to give up. As we keep working on a new skill, talking to to a new person, creating a new business… there’s going to be a lot more of these mental roadblocks. It’s great to get someone on our side who we can keep talking to, keep checking in with and following up. They can tell us when we’re veering off path and remind us that all the other stuff doesn’t matter as much as the great growth in our pursuit.
Nobody’s saying it, so I will. Alex Trebek was sassy. He was condescending, and he did silly voices. Trivia is not enough to make Jeopardy work so long.
Sometimes I think that a game show host’s job is to present a completely sterilized, smooth talking, polished non-person. No matter what form of entertainment, it still comes back to humans. Each night, we got to see a little more of what kind of human Alex was – not that there are kinds.
He made the audience feel smart and sassy too. Let’s all give our whole selves to the world, and see what happens. People might embrace the parts that seem unsavory. Those parts might punctuate a person’s weeknights with fun. Love to Alex and his fam!
Some people think entertainment is about being “good.” Build it and they will come. It’s kinda true, but kinda not. There is no universal good. Even people who are taste-makers and thought-leaders don’t know what will be good. Even Quibi, with its $1.75 billion couldn’t guess what would be good. Even I didn’t predict good…ME!
What’s good is what sucks — the stuff that pulls in the audience. The wind doesn’t blow, it works like a drinking straw. A low pressure area attracts movement. When entertainment sucks, it creates an opening that is just right for people.
This is our job
Our job is to suck people in – to make a thing that serves certain people in such a big way that it doesn’t take a fancy sales pitch.
The concept that we need to blow and blow to get everyone to know and like what we’re doing is not sustainable. We make something that really works for people and it will really work for us.
When the pandemic hit, some entertainers and artists thought their value was gone because the primary service they’ve been offering wasn’t needed anymore. Many of them took a live show and put it on camera as a Zoom show.
The problem with this is all the spare parts.
Take a genius magician who knows how to work a crowd, understands stage presence, knows how to work well with clients in a venue, knows exactly what to do with a stage, is an expert traveler, etc. She then starts doing tricks on a video chat. Her value wasn’t just that she knew some secrets. Her value was all of the stuff put together.
As we look at offering new services for maximum pay, it’s important to look at all the pieces of value that we bring and put as many of them together all in one package. That might mean looking at the things that weren’t part of our pre-pandemic offering and seeing how they can fit in to something new.
Give what we’ve never given before!
Here are some quick ideas of other resources that might pay off in weird ways for our clients / customers…
The game is not to pick one aspect of who we are to serve people, but to use as many parts of us as possible so they get real value and we get real fulfillment.
I love the blue-collar approach to showing up and making. It’s honorable and wonderful because it’s so hard to do. One way to take a step back and look at our stuff plainly is to be a hack.
A hack steals what works and leaves the rest
Part of the vitriol people feel for hack comedians, I think, is an envy of someone getting all the good stuff without the work. Hacks steal from other hard working creators.
We shouldn’t do that!
Instead we can hack our own stuff, so we get the good stuff from ourselves. We take the best parts of what we create and leave the rest.
It sucks
This technique crushed me when I was a street performer. Marcus Raymond told me to record my show and transcribe every single word I say and every single action.
I had to record when I rocked on my feet, grabbed the wrong prop, and said “uh” 30,000 times. It was excruciating. I think I made it ten minutes in, then stopped. I couldn’t handle typing. I couldn’t handle watching. I couldn’t handle the idea that I had been giving this to audiences for months when I thought I was a hero.
The next weekend, Marcus said, “so, did you do it?”
“no”
“If you want to make more money out here, that’s the next step.”
I did the weekend of shows with all my “uh”s and all my gusto. Then, Monday, I went back to the video and the typing.
Then, I went on to serving audiences better.
The whole process is as follows…
do the show
record video of the show
transcribe the show exactly (don’t improve it, don’t get someone else to transcribe it for you)
feel the pain the pain in this part is important. pain breeds change.
edit the script
have a new show with the good stuff. a show that’s less painful to watch
This can apply to any entertainment creation – not just live shows
make the thing
transcribe the thing into a boring, dispassionate, version for clear viewing
feel the pain
edit the boring version the way we want it to be
remake the thing
The Editing Process is Decluttering
When I’m decluttering the house, I do the same thing I needed to do with my show. If I’m going to be a hack and steal all my own best stuff, I gotta know what that stuff is.
Sort
In the decluttering process, I make three piles immediately. A. Definite keep, B. Maybe keep, C. Definite trash (recycle/sell/donate)
With the script, definite trash is any non-functional “uh” or any movement, or accident that doesn’t serve a purpose.
“Maybe keep” stuff might be a bit that kind of works, or a long story that seems like it helps the flow.
Trash run
Get rid of the trash. That’s easy and rewarding. That is the part I wanted to do when I was typing the whole thing out.
Un-Maybe
All the “maybe”s are on the chopping block until we commit to them. We either commit to keep or trash each one. Nothing stays a “maybe”
Fix
We’re not going to live with a broken thingy in our house. Now is the time to fix anything that’s been sitting around broken.
Hack it
Take all the good parts. Celebrate them. Maybe build on them? Frame everything around them to amplify them more. Nobody to envy but ourselves!
Make More
In the decluttering analogy, I might need to buy a new rug to replace the one I threw out. It’s creation time! We probably hafta make some new stuff to replace all the nonsense we threw out.
Oh, man! It’s so nice to buy a new thing that goes in a freshly decluttered home. Same here. What a clean, positive place to make a new bit of entertainment among all the pieces that spark joy.