Crossposted at VirtualOvationTV

The Facebook marketing team behind the spinning wheel of death- People or corporate autmatons?

I love live streaming. I have devoted my career to building live streaming into the performing arts. Live streaming offers you an unparalleled method of both communicating with your audience on an authentic, granular level and of building community around your brand.

Note the words Community and Communicate.

For the past two days I have been logging into the Facebook Marketing Bootcamp streamed live via Livestream ( a company I love).

Now, as much as anyone, I understand how hard it is to stream live – there are a multitude of factors which need to be in perfect order in order to send a stream that is both visually and audibly clear. But this is Facebook!!!! A multi-billon dollar technology company that is attempting to launch a huge advertising initiative with this bootcamp, and they can’t stream a live event that will load and that is audible? Come on!

So, yes… technically I would give this stream a fail… but after two days there are two far more important reasons I think that Facebook Marketing Bootcamp Live is failing- and they go back to the greatest assets of livestreaming- COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNITY.

On the first day of the bootcamp thousands of us set our reminders so that we arrived on the bootcamp page with five or ten minutes to spare. A perfect opportunity for Facebook to send out a message in the player that says something like

“Hi! Thanks so much for coming to our first Facebook Marketing Bootcamp. We are so glad you are here! We will begin at 12:30 EST and so look forward to answering your questions”.

Ahh…as a viewer i feel like my time is valued, I matter to the company and I am  reassured that I have come to the right place at the right time. I am relaxed, taken care of and ready to hear Facebook’s message with an open (even excited) mind.

Instead… Facebook had a keynote speech given by Sheryl Sandburg auto-playing on the page. Great speech…but the news feed below the video was filled with viewers who were confused. They thought they had come to a live event- why was a pre-taped video playing? (want a simple fix… just add a scroll with the welcome message above and all your potential customers feel taken care of and acknowledged.)

Then, 12:35 and the stream hadn’t begun… still no message from Facebook. This is appointment viewing. Respect your audience by letting them know that you know they are there, they are waiting, they have taken time out of their day, and you will be with them shortly. Again… a simple scrolling message will solve the issue. Perhaps

“Hi! We are running 5 minutes late. We apologize for the delay but really look forward to answering your questions”

would make their audience feel like their time and their business mattered.

And then the content…. the most important aspect of a live stream is it’s ability to authentically communicate your brand. To connect one on one with your audience and therefor to build trust and loyalty. For the first 20 minutes of the stream I was convinced the whole show was pre-taped and edited because the young (hip?) lovely marketing team all sounded scripted and forced. I didn’t see any people on that stream. Just very rehearsed corporate automatons.

The upshot of all of this..my feeling that I am doing business with a behemoth company that can’t offer any sort of human customer service was reinforced. My understanding of how Facebook can help me with my business…not so much.

I assume that reaching smaller businesses with this bootcamp is an important new initiative for the Facebook marketing team. My question, after the first two days is why did they choose a live platform? If they want to educate, entertain and build an audience in a controlled, scripted environment why not create great on-demand videos? If they want to build community, authenticity and trust then by all means, add on the additional technical challenges of producing a live event. But if in doing so you fail to treat your audience with respect, fail to build a strong community and fail to convey the authentic parts of your company that make you unique and relatable, you are wasting your resources.

This past August I had the great joy to be a speaker at the 140 Characters Conference in Kingston, NY.

My focus was on how social media and live-streaming has the capacity to reinvent all of the performing arts, from theater to music to dance- enabling even small companies to reach audiences and ignite passionate conversations about their work on a global scale. In the clip below  I talk about how proud we are of the conversations that sprang up all over twitter about the issues raised in our live-stream of Better Left Unsaid, I hypothesize about how a successful  theater company could expand their business model by live-streaming performances, and I talk about the Laplaca Cohen Culture Track, which gives great information about  how people who frequent cultural events utilize social media.

Thank you to Dragon Search Internet Marketing Company for hosting the conference and posting the video!

This article was first published in the April Issue of Scene4 Magazine

The American theatrical blogosphere has been awash these past few months with responses to Rocco Landesman’s recent speech in which he asserted that the supply of arts in America has outpaced demand. If, as Mr. Landesman believes, attendance at American theater is decreasing while simultaneously the number of theaters is increasing, than clearly we have created an unsustainable business model. There has been both outrage at Mr. Landesman’s comments, and some agreement. Are there too many theaters? Are there too few theatergoers? Is this the wrong time to start a theater company? Whose work is worthy of support in such a competitive atmosphere? Has the American theater community nurtured a business model that is destined to fail?

But perhaps the heart of the issue isn’t that American theater audiences are declining, but rather that American theater isn’t finding its audience. Perhaps the most important question is where are today’s audiences – and how do we reach them?

In a recent article for American Theater Magazine, Susan Miller wrote of the joy she has found as a theater artist discovering that she can write, produce, distribute and have full creative ownership of her projects when she works in online video. Susan writes that working online harnesses all the energy of our younger years when “Lets put on a show!” was a thrilling call to action, be it in a high school auditorium, an out of the way black box, or even a barn – Mickey Rooney style. The key difference? This show has the capacity to be seen by thousands and thousands of people and continues to be seen long past the final curtain.

I love Susan’s notion that online video is the next great frontier for theater artists. And I think there is a specific facet of web video that holds the most promise to those of us who have spent our careers on stage. The natural pairing of theater and online video …live-streaming.

As theater artists who thrive on the spontaneity, danger and electricity of live performance there is no better technological fit than multi-camera live-streaming theater. Live broadcasts of the UK’s National Theater and the US’s Metropolitan Opera have already proven that there is a hunger for the live theater experience that transcends the proscenium. But as opposed to expensive broadcasts to movie theaters and complicated distribution negotiations, live-streaming requires nothing more than a robust internet connection and voila! Your production is now available, live, to anyone anywhere in the world with Internet access. In addition, by streaming theater to the internet we have created the capacity to incorporate the kind of social interactivity that speaks directly to today’s wired audience, thereby generating online conversations around our work that lends our audience a sense of ownership of the production, all while building long term audience loyalty – a great advantage over the more expensive movie theater broadcast.

But even more exciting? Here, Mr. Landesman, is where we find our audience! I have been working in live streaming platforms for almost as long as they have existed, launching the first live, scripted video series in September of 2007. This past January however was when I began to experiment with live streaming theater. On January 21st of this year my company began previews of Better Left Unsaid, the first of its kind, interactive live-streamed play. Better Left Unsaid was performed in front of a live audience in a small theater in New York City. And, Better Left Unsaid was simultaneously shot with four cameras, mixed in real time and streamed live to the Internet so that anyone, anywhere in the world could watch the show. And watch it they did. During our closing weekend Better Left Unsaid had more than 50,000 unique viewers from all over the US and the world. Not only did we “put on a show” – we put on a show that was viewed by more than 50,000 people!. The reason Better Left Unsaid had so many viewers? We took our production to the place where the audience already is…online.

Did the theatrical experience suffer for either our theater audience or our online audience? No. The theater audience experienced a play just as they would in any theater, the only difference being a few cameramen in the wings. The online audience experienced something entirely new – a play that was theatrical in design and structure, but shot and edited with the intimacy and authenticity that an online video experience requires. Over and over again viewers commented that we succeeded in translating the theater experience into a compelling online video experience, and sent us virtual standing ovations from around the U.S., and the world.

So let’s get to the other half of Mr. Landesman’s economic equation…supply. I would argue that with 24 minutes of video being uploaded every hour to YouTube, the online video supply is super saturated. Live-streaming however is a different story. Live platforms have grown by leaps and bounds since the fall of 2007. Last year alone experienced a 648% increase in live streaming viewers with more than 7 million unique viewers tuning into live programming in July 2010 alone. Clearly the audience loves the excitement, community and interactivity of live. But, while live-streamed platforms are jam packed with sporting events, religious events, music events, red carpet events and talk shows, there is no narrative work what so ever. In terms of supply, live streaming is a virtual vacuum of sophisticated, compelling, professional narrative content.

Yes, video adds an entirely new skill set to the theatrical production process, live-streaming still another – however there is an unlimited audience out there in the cloud where the tenets of supply and demand are skewed strongly in the theater artists favor. The skill sets are surmountable and the increased costs far out weighed by the possibility of increasing our audiences indefinitely and without borders. Even more exciting, multi–camera interactive live-streamed theater is an art form in its very infancy. It will no doubt grow and evolve in ways I can’t even conceive of today and in ways that are sure to surprise and inspire us. Imagine if we begin to create a strong, varied and expansive online theatrical community. We have the potential to generate an entirely new revenue stream for the arts, one with strong supply and demand ratios that would satisfy Mr. Landesman’s desire for an economically sustainable arts culture in America, and we will have created more jobs for actors, writers, directors and designers alike.

What a brave new world! I can’t wait to put on my next show!

This post was originally published on the 2AMt blog. It summarizes the history, the reasons behind,  metrics, the technical and aesthetic requirements of and the successes of our production of Better Left Unsaid TV, the first of it’s kind interactive live streamed play. To skip to the section that most interests you click the appropriate word in the previous sentence.

Miguel Govea and Jessica Arinella in Better Left Unsaid by Joey Brenneman

On January 21st of this year, my producing partners and I began previews of the first of its kind, interactive live streamed play. This was a full length production of Joey Brenneman’s Better Left Unsaid, cast with professional New York actors, staged in a small off-off broadway house in front of a live audience for a three week run. AND…simultaneously Better Left Unsaid was shot with four cameras, mixed in real time and streamed live to the internet so that anyone, anywhere in the world could  see the show. The bonus for online viewers was that they could interact with the live streamed theater experience via Facebook, Twitter and chat rooms.

Producing a play is complicated. Producing a live streamed play incorporates everything it takes to produce a play and adds to that everything you need to do to produce a live television shown- with the always wavering unknowns of live streaming technology thrown in to the mix. We climbed a lot of hurdles to reach opening night, almost as many to arrive at our final performance and ended our nine month journey on the highest of notes. We had over 50,000 unique viewers join us for the final three performances of Better Left Unsaid. We received virtual standing ovations from people all over the world. We proved that people will in fact pay for online video, at least if it is positioned as theater. Finally, we had the great honor, joy and sometimes nervous breakdown of launching a brand new theatrical paradigm, born of today’s technology.

Why live stream a play? Honestly there are a million reasons- the most obvious are…

- Live streaming gives theater artists the opportunity to present our work to an unlimited global audience. Today, as off-broadway and regional theaters are struggling to stay alive, the opportunity to expand our audiences beyond our local communities and across the globe could be invaluable and indispensable

-Live streaming is inherently community building. When you live stream a play you combine the excitement of live theater with the community of live streamed video events, nurturing the strong community that is the cornerstone of building a long term audience.

- Live streaming more deeply engages a wired audience in theater, without alienating theater goers who prefer the more traditional play going experience.

- Conversation goes hand in hand with online communities. People come to live streamed events to both participate in the event and to see their friends in the chat rooms, and often come back more than once. These conversations are simultaneously broadcast to Twitter and Facebook, increasing word of mouth and interest in your work.

- Live streaming platforms have a dirth of compelling quality content. Live streaming theater is a natural to fill that vacuum.

Dathan B. Williams and Jennifer Dorr White in Better Left Unsaid by Joey Brenneman

For an inaugural live streamed play, Better Left Unsaid was a perfect fit… (short, two person scenes, complex but linear storytelling which would limit the technical challenges of an already very difficult project, the play’s exploration of how our lives are all connected – the perfect internet metaphor). How the project evolved from two women in a coffee shop to opening night nine months later is a story unto itself which involves a video, a Kickstarter campaign, a theater eviction, hundreds of hours or preparation, incredibly supportive families  and a cast and crew of more than 25 people. I am so incredibly grateful to each and every one of them.

More pertinent perhaps to anyone who may be thinking of live streaming their own production are some of the technical challenges we faced, the stylistic choices we made and how we measured our success.

Technically, live streaming is hard. There are hundreds of individual elements that can go wrong on any given night, from mics, to cameras, to cables, to projectors to audio cues to bit rates to streaming platforms to ticketing to servers . Even when all those elements are in place and with a perfect connection sometimes the stream is jumpy, or even fails altogether. Our first weekend of previews was tricky. Slowly but surely though our stream became smoother, our sound became almost flawless, and, as our run continued, we were able to layer in additional interactive elements to our stream.

Kathryn Velvel Jones in Better Left Unsaid by Joey Brenneman

An equally challenging technical issue was how to bring our various theater, film and TV personnel together and get us all to speak the same language. An identical job title or technical term often means entirely different things in different mediums and it would sometimes take us days to realize that we were having two completely different conversations.

Shooting style is also incredibly important when translating theater to video. I have worked in online video for years and have very strong opinions as to what creates a compelling experience to an online audience. Shooting for online video is very different than shooting a film, and very different from shooting a play- which most people will agree is almost always unwatchable. We were determined that the online experience of watching Better Left Unsaid would always feel theatrical but be shot in a way that felt intimate and powerful on a small screen.

We also felt that it was integral to the audience experience that both the live theater audience and the online audience be aware of one another and of the global event that they were each a part of.  So, we had a Director of Digital whose sole purpose was to facilitate communication both online and in the theater, we began every show with a shot of our live audience, streamed live interviews with our theater audience during intermission, and projected comments from our online audience into the theater during scene changes and intermissions. It was thrilling to hear our theater audience exclaim about a comment from a viewer in Barcelona or Australia, and equally thrilling when someone online twittered that they had just seen a friend or family member on their computer screen.

A few weeks ago Josh Cohen in an interview for Tubefilter asked me how I would evaluate whether we were successful. There are so many ways in which I can say unequivocally yes!

-We succeeded in engaging viewers from all over the world in New York theater.

- 50,000 is a pretty exciting number and paves the way for a viable business model.

- Our chat rooms were booming and many viewers came back to see the show and participate in the chat room for a second, even a third time

- Online viewers repeatedly remarked on how riveted they were and how surprised they were by how well we had translated theater to video

- We proved that people will pay for online video if it is positioned as theater, and will pay higher ticket prices than we had expected.

- We were able to produce Better Left Unsaid on half the budget of a New York Showcase, and paid our actors- a small amount- but we paid them! In addition our actors and crew each own a piece of the show, indie film style, so if we make additional money, so do they.

Craig Waletzko and Marcus Ho in Better Left Unsaid by Joey Brenneman

Most importantly, we created a whole new idea of what theater can be, and it is just the start. The possibilities of live theater and streaming are endless, from allowing your audience to dictate plot turns, to shooting different scenes in different locations, to expanding the theatrical experience across multiple interactive platforms, the list is endless (Leigh Hile started her own fantastic list in her post  Connectivity and Possibilities)

I know we are on to something here and I can’t wait to see where it leads. Is live streaming a replacement for live theater? Absolutely not. But it is a wonderful AND. The opportunities for small theaters to expand their audiences and generate new revenue is almost boundless. The chance to create more work and more money for actors is equally thrilling- and we get to invent a whole new art form along the way. Perhaps one day live streaming theater will even have a name all of it’s own, but no matter what we one day call it, it’s roots are unequivocally deeply embedded in the soil of live theater.

The final saturday night performance of Better Left Unsaid is currently available at at BetterLeftUnsaid.tv for a micropayment of $2.99.
Kathryn and her partners are currently developing their next live streamed project.

“Theater People: We need you!”

So said Virginia Heffernan, digital media critic of the New York Times when reviewing my live streamed online video series “35″. It was a rough night- we had sound problems, we had camera problems- in fact we shot all 10 episodes on a budget of less than $6000- and yet Virginia Heffernan responded to what I thought was the most important element of my production of “35″. The internet is screaming out for compelling, daring, artistic content. Content that is not simply underdone TV, but that is created by people who are passionate about story telling and communicating. People who have spent their lives in black boxes turning nothing – into magic.

And you know what? Theater people! We need digital and social media! Today’s digital centric audience wants to feel a sense of ownership with the art they consume, they want us to speak to them in their native language, they want to interact with us, and converse with us, and each other! They want their art to be personal. By inviting your audience into your work via social media tools, and in my case, live streaming, you are building an engaged community and feeding them with all the sense of proprietorship and interactivity and creativity they crave!

My medium of choice, informed by my 20 year background in the theater, is live streaming. Why live? Because it combines the excitement and immediacy of live theater with the community and the interactivity of the internet. And theater people, take note. Not only were live streaming video views up an astonishing 600% last year according to Comscore, but just this week YouTube finally debuted its live streaming platform. The audience loves live, and there is no better digital fit for people who have spent their careers performing in front of live audiences.

This is an unprecedented time to be a creative. For the first time ever we have the chance not only to invent entirely new theatrical paradigms born of today’s technology, but it is possible for our work to be seen not by hundreds, or even thousands, but by the hundreds of thousands of people, and for comparatively minimal financial investments.

I am rising to Virginia Heffernen’s call to arms and am currently producing, independently, the first live streamed video play, Better Left Unsaid, by Joey Brenneman. Better Left Unsaid will be staged in front of a live audience, shot with multiple cameras, mixed in real time and streamed live to the internet. And, we will be incorporating all sorts of social media platforms to more deeply engage and involve our audience in the creative process. I am asking  the theater community to support me. It is because I am an entirely independent producer that I have the flexibility to take huge risks and attempt to create new digital directions of the theatrical form. But my independence also means that I don’t have the financial backing I need to pay my actors, crew and designers at my fingertips.

And I am calling on you to heed all the exciting new ways that technology allows us to enhance our definition of what theater can be.   What technologies are lighting your artistic fire?  What social media platforms are you most intrigued by? We are entering a brave new creative world and I can’t wait to see  what new paths we tread!

crossposted at BetterLeftUnsaid.tv

…actually 648% according to Andres Palmiter in his recent article for Comscore.  To further gild the lily, live streamed videos are holding on to their audiences 7% longer than traditional on demand video.

Why are live online broadcasts attracting and keeping an audience?

In a world with hundreds of thousands of videos on demand, live makes the viewer feel special. Today’s audience wants to feel a sense of ownership with the content they consume, and nothing creates a stronger sense of ownership than actually being there during a live webcast while your show is created.

Community! Live internet tv creates community.  In fact, to my mind the best reason to do a live video show is the community it builds. People tune into live webcasts not only to see and talk to the host, but to see their friends in the chat room — to share their opinions, to make new friends, and to add their voice to the real time conversation. (When Charlie Oliver and I live streamed Women Respond to Palin we never had less than 400 people in our chat room — the conversations were one of the highlights of the 8 hour live streamed webathon)

Epic Fu Live streaming with LA New Media on Ustream.tv at NME, photo by Steve Garfield, of SteveGarfield.com. note the busy chat room!

Live  streaming video is exciting —  anything can happen when there is no editor to clean things up… you never know what you might see.

Live online  broadcasts take advantage of all the most popular facets of today’s social media connected world, it happens in real time, it is inherently interactive, it belongs to everyone and gives everyone a voice.

Are you participating in any live streamed video shows?  Thinking of creating your own?  Live streaming video is my passion- I would love to hear about it!

crossposted at BetterLeftUnsaid.tv

Today is a momentous day.

Today I launched our Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds for my next online video project Better Left Unsaid.

A first of its kind, live streamed theatrical event, Better Left Unsaid combines all my passions, theater, technology, community and online video.

My love of the theater is almost as old as I am. Every decision I have ever made in my life has in some way been related to my pursuit of my love of the theater.

Technology – who knew I would turn into such a nerd! But technology is empowerment, pure and simple.

Community – you don’t go into theater if you don’t love people and collaboration.

Online Video – here is where the ambitious actor thrives. No more waiting in lines at Actor’s Equity praying other people will make your dreams come true. In today’s brave New Media world anyone can green light their own passion projects. It’s not easy, it takes incredible work – but it is also now possible to have your voice heard by hundreds of thousands of people, to be covered by the NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on blogs all over the world.

Will you support a female driven online video/theater project that utilizes all sorts of new media to involve our audience in our production? Head on over to our Kickstarter campaign to learn more.

And thank you!

*crossposted at betterleftunsaid.tv

Arthur Aulisi as "Cal" in "35"

I’m Back!

Three years ago all my myriad passions, theater, film, online video social media, merged into the my proudest personal achievement “35″, the first scripted drama to stream live. Producing a multi-camera, 10 episode series, live, in New York on almost no money was impossible. It should never have happened. But I believed in that project. I believed in the potential of online media for actors and other artists, I believe in the excitement of live theater and live streaming, I believed it was time for me, after over a decade of waiting in lines to audition at actor’s equity, to forge my own dreams.

“35″ was covered in major national papers, major blogs, featured in iTunes….it made not a penny..but even so, it was crystal clear to me that I am meant to create my own work.

So, I took a job in business development with an online video company to learn how to turn video into dollars. I had the opportunity to learn about advertising and agencies and sponsorships- an amazing experience-but my takeaways from my experience of being “Vice-President of Branded and Sponsored Entertainment” was that most online video is a poor man’s sitcom. If it’s not good enough for tv, and if it isn’t interactive – then what value do we bring to the online video paradigm?

So now, I’m back, doing what I love. My dear friend Joey Brenneman and I are producing the first independent live streamed video play. A funny, touching, beautiful play called Better Left Unsaid, which will be performed in it’s entirety, using multiple cameras, mixed in real time and streamed live to the internet, for 8 separate performances.

It feels wonderful to be working on a project I love again. It feels wonderful to be acting again (in this as well as a scattering of small plays) and that familiar feeling of terror is creeping up…. can we raise the money we need to do this? Will it work? Will anyone care? But those are just excuses not to move forward. I hope you’ll join me at Betterleftunsaid.tv and join in as my newest foray into the unknown unfolds!

This week on The Crabbo and Jabbo show meet Emily Rubin from Wash and Dry Productions… Producers of “Dirty Laundry: Loads of Prose”- poetry readings at the laundromat…yes…the laundromat! We will see some footage of their most recent laundromat reading and talk to Emily about why she thinks poetry and laundry soap are such a natural fit.

Our musician of the week (courtesy of Ariel Publicity…of course) is Alternative, Rock, Pop, Hip Hop / Rap, Funk band… Winzenried…. fun, funky and totally original, tune in to hear two of our favorite Winzenried, aka Hollywood Drunks, singles.

And of course and fantabulous tech tip of the week, a question of the week, and so much more!

Tune in to The Jabbo and Crabbo Show Monday May 5th at 9:15 est and let us know if you have an event you want us to promote or an artist (including you) you want us to feature.

Fraid your gonna forget? text idare to 414111 for a free subscription to Jabbo and Crabbo text alerts, or shoot us an email us and we will email you right before the start of the show.

Join the Community!

It has been so long since I’ve posted to this blog…the sidebar widgets are sadly out of date, and my life has moved on in ways I would never have imagined since “Queston of the Week” first gave me wings.

I’ve thought about leaving this blog behind…and I might just do that… or perhaps I will bend it to more powerfully reflect where I am now in my life…

I have a project in development that is the light of my creative heart, but I also have a new project with my husband, that focus on many of the things this blog focuses on…. namely… how to create the life of our dreams and to tell the world that who we are is perfect.

Its been 8 months since “35″ premiered. The first web drama to stream live on the web, “35″ was a labor of will, of love, of pain, of tenacity and in retrospect… of celebration. In the past two years the web 2.0 community has unleashed a torrent of tools and sites that now make it possible for artists of all sorts to Green Light their own creative projects. To produce work on a scale which only months ago would have been deemed impossible, and to reach a global audience with our music, our sculpture, our crafts, our videos. We no longer have to wait for casting directors, for investors, for galleries or film festivals to deem us worthy… we can stand behind our own work, tell the world that we are passionate about what we do, we believe in ourselves and that is more than enough!

“35″ was designed to be a presented in two seasons, and we hope to bring you season 2 ASAP. We also have another webisode in development… but in the mean time…

The Jabbo and Crabbo Show- Live and Interactive The artists (and otherwise cool person’s) guide to creativity and technology on the web.

It is Guiesseppe and my hope to build a community of artists who support one another in living the lives we dreamed of and bringing our work to the Internet. We will offer everything we have learned this past year and will offer up tips each week that will make it easier for every artist to publish their work, to collaborate with other creatives, to market their art and (hopefully) live a more fulfilling life.

We hope you will join us on Mondays at 9:15 at . If you would like to receive an email reminder right before we go live each monday, contact us and we would be more more more than happy to oblige!

We also want this show to by YOUR show… so let us know what you want to learn about, and what topics you want to discuss. Join the Community!