(click the picture above for
the high definition
video - but also click
YouTube
for me!)
unlocked on
01.29.09
-
YouTube
link added
01.29.09
8:30 AM,
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006:
"Loved
the Adam part two…pass it on to the folks in
la…we will be working for him some
day"
Whew.
Those are the
words of Vice President, Steve Friedman. Followed up
by this from the segment producer (the "Adam it's your
agent, call me" woman):
"I was
in his office while he was watching it and he was
howling!"
This was actually
the DAY after the "Neverending Fight" entry but life
has been so hectic lately I haven't had a chance to
put it in perspective on paper.....err monitor.
Obviously,
it's good. And they played the Week 2 clip
and this week played my
clip
with sound so my a capella music ran under
a good 30 seconds of the segment in
addition to what's being seen of the show.
It's a start, a building block, and next
week (no show this week because of
Christmas) I'm going to give them a 90
second piece, I think could be
"thrown to" from the announcer in NY
to introduce each act. That
cross-promotion for the website is the
only way they're gonna get traffic to that
web page (that isn't involved in the
competition).
So why is this
locked?
They still
have yet to even mention who the hell I am! THEY
DISCOVERED ME. SAY IT! No one knows who Adam
Kontras is, PLAY up the fact that I'm an
EX-CONTESTANT! You're not offering any damn prize at
the end of this other than performing on the show...
so tease FAME to the audience! Give them
incentive! Allow the audience to have a vested
interest. People WANT success stories. They want to
see some kid in their living room - make it to the
top. So far, that I know of - I'm the first
success story of the segment. So at least pimp that
up! So people at home go... hmmm they're making stars!
They're not just America's Got Talent trying to sucker
people for ratings, they're more akin to American Idol
whose sole intent is to find a superstar. USE IT.
Help every person you can with the power of a NETWORK
to help them. Get Eric Michael Hopper some contacts to
further his music career! He gets signed?
YOU CAN OWN IT! Hire that 4tvs guy to
host something...
OH WAIT YOU DID!
SO SAY IT.
I say that last
line half laughing. But it is frustrating as HELL.
There is great potential here to really grab an
audience. They don't see it though. At all. They run
through the bit as I've said before - like there's a
pot of gold waiting when it's over. Like Harry really
has to piss, and this is the one obstacle keeping him
from the stall. I finally wrote to one of the
segment supervisors asking if the friction between
Steve and the EP was really causing this and she
hadn't a clue what I was talking about. I've
decided I'm just gonna make the 90 second bit, and
write an open letter to everyone trying to express
what I think this segment can be.
The thing that
kills me is that I have to pretend I'm some
GENIUS in order to do it, you know? Like my instinct
tells me that they work for CBS? Sheeeeeit they know
all this. I'm not tellin' 'em anything they don't
know. But the truth is... they really have to be shown
everything in an almost final form before the light
goes off. Remember that analyzation entry from before
I went to NY thinking that something must be up
for them to fly me all the way out there when
I LOST? Well, there wasn't anything else. That
was really it for them. !!! They had absolutely
nothing planned for me after that. It's astonishing to
me how corporate mentality destroys creativity. It
really does. I guarantee you every single person there
is creative, amazing, talented, determined
people...but the wear and tear of the corporate
structure just kills you after awhile. The deadlines
become so taxing that introducing a new thought is so
exhausting you just stop thinking of them. Maybe they
did understand what Living Room Live could be when
they started it, but the droning of picking the
contestants, dealing with the GODDAMN INTERNET
DEPARTMENT not being able to transfer shit to tape,
coordinating everything... it killed the soul of the
bit. It sucks. It's why every part of a team is so
important.
So I guess
I come in and just blow some shit up. I push and
push and push. Play this. Play more. Do this.
Understand THIS. Watch THIS. And luckily, that quote
at the top of this entry? Makes it allllllllllll
possible. Guess who laid off on how much time we take
in the newsroom after reading that? ;-) Exactly.
Little by little, respect gets gained, the product
gets recognized, and it moves up the ladder. And once
they're using my bit? The next fight is the sit-com.
Something the news department has nothing to do with,
but if those characters are doing their thing, weekly
on CBS, the jump from that to a pilot or even a 15
minute presentation (a mini-pilot that they also pay
for) isn't so big anymore.
