Let’s be clear: I have appeared in drag on an internet video. (For charity–c’mon!) New Media doesn’t scare me. I get many opportunities to talk with my audience, and I am aware of how important online video is to them. In fact, these days I tend to think in terms of “Video,” rather than just TV. You don’t need a television transmitter anymore to reach an audience with video entertainment or information. I’ve discovered small business can reach an audience without spending the money to support the upkeep on that transmitter. They can work with other small businesses. Like me! And 12 Stars Media.
Now, back to me in a dress. I first discovered the power of New Media through an internet-based comedy show called “Off The Cuff.” I did it for about two and a half years while working for a local television station. I was a TV Weatherman. (This is also the working title of my B-movie screenplay.) The station hired a new talent to do Traffic reports. His name was Tom Davis, and we quickly discovered he was as funny as I was. (He might tell this story differently.)
Tom had studied improv comedy in Chicago, and while there he had edited and produced funny videos with a couple of other guys. He had an idea that we would do a weekly video comedy segment that would be shot out on remote locations and edited for the morning news. I thought it was a great idea, but I knew that any attempt to do something like that would die the death of a thousand meetings. I actually sat in a 45 minute long meeting once that revolved around which corner of the screen the severe weather “bug” would occupy. Kids, make a mental note: middle management bureaucrats are generally not going to champion creativity.
So my counter-idea was that we do the same thing for the tv station’s website. The site had its own little staff which took material from the news operation but didn’t really have much interaction with them at that time. They were hungry for any new content, so they went for it. I never asked anyone in management to do it…we just started posting it. And people started watching it. And people started e-mailing about it. (Pro and con–it was sitting in the middle of a straight “news” site.) I got more mail about this goofy little comedy series than about anything other I’d done in over 10 years at the station. Listeners brought it up as a topic on the radio stations I’m on. People who never watched me on tv watched it. My two sons finally “saw” me on a regular basis. It was successful enough that Tom was actually paid for producing it after a few months of doing it for free.
We don’t do it anymore. Different bureaucrats, and now, more “synergy” between the World Of News and the website. But when it began it was a key moment for me. I realized that a buddy and I could produce something on our own–upload it–and find a loyal, responsive audience for it. I have always tried to meet and grow my audience in every available venue. That’s why I kept doing radio like a banshee the entire time I was on TV. Once “Off The Cuff” broke through, I knew I had to be online also.
Of course, since anyone can do internet video…anyone can do internet video, right? Wrong. My friend Tom Davis had talent. You need talented video people to work with, and play with. I’m very lucky to work with several great producers now, and very pleased that 12 Stars is one of them, in their work on Paul Poteet’s Indiana Weather Almanac. But I’m not putting on a dress for that series.
Unless it’s important to the script.
That link is to a "partial drag" segment. That's the only "drag" Google brought back from the station's website. Maybe they actually took down the full-on drag episode where we strutted down a "catwalk" for charity. It wasn't pretty. But it was funny.
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