Monthly Archives: April 2019

The ABCs of Creativity: Open

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If you want to be more creative, you have to be open. You have to open yourself up to new experiences, new ideas and remain open minded. People are naturally closed. They want to confirm their beliefs and be comfortable, which is counter to creativity. Creativity challenges. Creativity is uncomfortable. Creativity is scary because it leads to change, and no one can really predict where the innovation will take people.

Open to New Experiences

New experiences are the basis of new ideas. Having the same experiences day and day out only leads you to becoming an expert in whatever your experiencing or becoming extremely dull depending on the experience. At some point, you need to step out of your everyday activities and work on something different. It can be as simple as putting together a puzzle or as complicated as taking a zip line in a foreign country where safety rules might be more like suggestions. Even something small like changing the route you take to work is good for your brain.

Open to New Ideas

If you continue to cart around the same ideas day after day, your mind will become stale like a cart full of bread. Your thought processes will mold, and you’ll be faced with the prospect of not being able to feed your mind. New ideas are worth entertaining, they’re worth looking at, and they’re worth evaluating. You may have to discard ideas that don’t work. You may have to discard ideas that you can’t accomplish. You may have to discard ideas because you’re not ready for them, but where you need to discard them to is a journal. Capture all of your ideas by writing them down, and then have new ones.

Open Minded

New experiences and new ideas won’t matter, however, if you go in having already made your judgement about them. You have to have an open mind to the experience and to the idea in order for it to be able to grow. If you shut it down to soon, it’ll shrivel up, dry out and leave no lasting mark on you. That’s not good for creativity. Open yourself up to the experience, to the new idea and let your creative self flourish.

For more on creativity, order “Disneyland Is Creativity.” Get “Penguinate! Essays and Short Stories.” Preorder “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”

‘The Polka King’ Steals Hearts and Money in True Life Adventure

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What if I told you there was a Polish immigrant in Pennsylvania, who fronted a Polka band, met Trump, George Burns and the Pope, and ran a Ponzi scheme that bilked people out of their life savings? “The Polka King” is based on the true story of Jan Lewan.

Jack Black’s portrayal of Jan Lewan is positive, upbeat, and American. Lewan does everything to make a dollar and to climb up the ladder of success, but it’s never enough. Then he hits on the idea to get investors for his career. Offering a 12% return on their investment, Lewan unknowingly embarks on a huge Ponzi scheme, and everyone is happy as long as they’re making money. He gets caught by the government and gets a warning, but the allure of easy money that can help him, his bandmates and his wife get ahead, is too much to resist. He continues with the scheme.

From the beginning of the film to the “Rappin’ Polka” ending, which might be the funniest moment of the film, “The Polka King” is baffling. It’s clear that what Jan is doing is wrong, but his heart seems to be in the right place. He’s just looking toward future success. How does something like this happen in real life? It can only happen in the movies, and sometimes in Pennsylvania – they have the pictures, newspaper articles and videos to prove it.

“The Polka King” provides plenty of fun and a little comedy. And if you don’t watch out for it, you might be hit with a dose or two of criticism of American Culture.

Roger Ebert and What I Learned from the Nostalgia Critic about Living a Better Life

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In the Nostalgia Critic’s tribute video to Roger Ebert, the Nostalgia Critic unpacks a lot of wisdom and lays it out for the viewer. What he sees in Roger Ebert is amazing, and what the Nostalgia Critic sees should be what we all strive to be.

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Speakers’ Club Apr. 13, 2019 Musicals

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Rules:

Word Crimes Rehearsal:

The Musical on Broadway and at the Movies

The Jazz Singer: First synchronous sound movie was also a musical. Al Jolson.

The Wizard of Oz: I’m Melting; O-e-o-e-ooooo; Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain:

My Fair Lady: Broadway with Julie Andrews; movie with Audrey Hepburn. Andrews took the Mary Poppins Role and beat Hepburn out for the Oscar that year. From the play “Pygmalion.” Hepburn’s singing voice was dubbed over.

Fiddler on the Roof: Tradition!

The Phantom of the Opera:

Guys and Dolls, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando:

Oklahoma:

Damn Yankees:

Singin’ in the Rain:

The King and I: Yul Brynner

Porgy and Bess:

Cabaret:

Chicago: The original “Orange is the New Black” with music.

A Chorus Line:

Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat: Donny Osmond;

Rent:

Hairspray:

Hair:

Hamilton: Lin Manuel Miranda

Excalibur, the Man of La Mancha, Cabaret, Les Miserables, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, A Star Is Born, Porgy and Bess, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Evita, Fame, 42nd Street, Grease, Wicked

The Real Problem with Tomorrowland: Creating Is Difficult

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Adventureland drew from real life: plants, animals and explorers. It was meant to complement Disney’s pioneering and award-winning wildlife documentaries.

Frontierland drew from America’s history. With the unexpected Davy Crockett craze, Frontierland also had a surprise star, even in absentia.

Main Street, U.S.A. took its cue from small town America, specifically, Fort Collins, Colorado and Marceline, Missouri. It had Harper Goff’s and Walt Disney’s memory to draw on.

Fantasyland drew from the movies and storyboards that Disney had already made or was planning on releasing in the relatively near future: Snow White, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland and others. The research and creation had already been done. It just needed to be adapted into 3D.

Tomorrowland was a problem. Its subject matter didn’t really exist, yet.

“[Tomorrowland] was the most difficult because everything in it had to be created, while the other lands were the result of research” said Imagineer Marvin Davis (as cited in Walt Disney’s Imagineering Legends and the Genesis of the Disney Theme Park, Jeff Kurti, 2008, p. 35).

Tomorrowland has always been a problem for the Disney Company. In Paris, it solved the problem by recreating the tomorrows of yesteryear based on H. G. Wells and Jules Verne writings. In the U.S., they haven’t been able to solve the riddle. Americans are less familiar with classic science fiction writers, so the Disney Company went a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and to infinity and beyond while shouting “Excelsior!” and “Just Keep Swimming!” without really considering the subject of tomorrow.

Space Mountain, and the Monorail are the only attractions left that represent the future, with an honorable mention to the Astro Orbiter. Tomorrowland has stopped moving forward because Disney found that as soon as they created something it was already on the market and no longer from the future.

The future can’t be researched. It must be imagined and created. Unfortunately, creativity is messy, time-consuming, and a matter of trial and error. A business can’t rely on creativity to make a profit, so it settles for what’s easy, what’s already made, and what will bring in the most amount of money.

That makes it our job to imagine a future we want to live in and then to create it. Sure, Tomorrowland is a lot of fun, but in order for the real tomorrow to be fun, we have to be its originators. Live to improve the planet, your life, and the lives of your progeny. Keep moving forward.

Try our Tomorrowland quiz at penguin8.com.

For more on the Disney Company, preorder “Penguinate! The Disney Company” and think deeply about the house that Walt built. For more on creativity, order “Disneyland Is Creativity” and “Penguinate! Essays and Short Stories.” Preorder “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”

The ABCs of Creativity: New

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The textbook definition of creativity involves making something new that has value. “Something” can be defined to include new ways of doing things or thinking, but it is the new that’s important. Depending on the situation, creativity can include things that are new to the person doing them (personal creativity) or to the world at large.

A New Way of Seeing

Human beings have to sort through a lot of information every second of the day. This leads to focusing on some things and ignoring other things altogether. You probably have already seen this video. If not, count the number of passes the team in white makes.

Did you see the gorilla? Selective attention is what helps us sort through the stimuli. It allows us to ignore both the very common place and the very out of place.

According to Kevin Ashton’s “How to Fly a Horse” (p. 97), one study showed that 75 percent of people walking and talking on their cell phones did not see a unicycling clown that had been put in their path. Their brains decided that the clown was someone else’s problem and not pertinent to the phone conversation. This is called inattentional blindness, and one reason you should never drive and use your cell phone. Your brain prioritizes the phone conversation over the information you are seeing, or not seeing as the case may be, on the road in front of you.

The problem for creativity is that it takes the combination of two or more pieces of information in a new way to be creative. If we’re ignoring information that doesn’t fit in with what we think should be there or our world view, or we’re adding information that isn’t there because we think it should be there, we can’t be creative.

For more on creativity, order “Disneyland Is Creativity.” Get “Penguinate! Essays and Short Stories.” Preorder “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”

Does ‘Avengers: Endgame’ trailer tell the whole story?

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Marvel has misled us before with its trailers. They have shown clips that didn’t make it in the movie: Remember the Hulk in the Battle of Wakanda? It was in the trailer but not in the movie. Marvel has also created trailers that showed scenes from the first 30 minutes and nothing else. (I think it was “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.”) They’ve kept entire stories under wraps, except when Tom Holland has spilled the beans, and apparently Holland didn’t get the entire script for “Avengers: Endgame.”

What if this is what they’re doing now? These trailers could be from the first hour of the movie leaving the last two hours under wraps while we all pontificate over the details.

What are we going to see? Two and a half hours of Avengers assembling? This isn’t a Lego movie, and we already did that in “The Avengers.” Two and half hours of Tony Stark lost in space? This isn’t a sequel to “Gravity,” and Robert Downey, Jr. is no George Clooney. Two and a half hours of a “Fantastic Voyage through Inner Space”? We’ve been to the Quantum Realm; Marvel wouldn’t take us there again for the same meta-reason Doctor Strange didn’t use his Dormammu-bargaining time loop with Thanos.

They have to show the Avengers avenging to pay off Tony Stark’s assertion that “If we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn sure we’ll avenge it.” So far, the Avengers haven’t done any avenging. They protected the Earth on two occasions. They have to recruit Hawkeye/Ronin. They have to get Nebula and Tony Stark back. They may face trip through the Quantum Realm. They may get transported through space by Captain Marvel.

But we’ve already seen them battle Thanos. We’ve seen them in their glory, even if they didn’t win, even if it was without Captain Marvel. We’ve seen them going after the Mad Titan. Marvel isn’t going to make a three-hour long film about something they’ve already done. A battle they win against Thanos can’t be any more exciting than the one they already loss. We might as well plug in the Battle of Helm’s Deep. If Marvel wants to score more than just the largest opening weekend ever, it’s going to need to do something new. The addition of Captain Marvel and some time travel mumbo-jumbo isn’t it.

Which brings us to the Endgame… The Gamemaster, Red Skull, ADAM from Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Collector are presumably still around. Any of these characters could figure into the plot, especially considering that Jeff Goldblum and Benicio del Toro are big enough names not to waste on a couple of cameos and a theme park attraction. Maybe there’s a villain we haven’t seen manipulating Thanos and events.

Where does the story go after Thanos? I doubt if a second meeting and subsequent defeating of Thanos will be satisfying enough to justify three hours of film, and if that’s the case and “Avengers: Endgame” is only about beating Thanos, it could have a short and financially disappointing theater run. Then again, what if that Hulk scene in Wakanda was filmed for “Avengers: Endgame”?

The Problem with ‘the Single’ in Disney’s Movie Business

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In his examination of Disney’s “Dumbo,” “Forbes” writer Scott Mendelson laments the Disney Company’s penchant for releasing big budget films that have already been made, including the live-action remakes of animated classics and the multiple sequels that Disney has released over the course of roughly the last decade, and while he acknowledges that the studios are in part to blame, he also lays the blame on movie goers. “The studios can’t responsibly green-light what they know audiences will not go to see in theaters.”

The Dollars and Sense of It All

In 1984, when Michael Eisner became CEO of the Disney Company, the top grossing movie was “Beverly Hills Cop” with almost $235 million and $316 million worldwide. Disney’s movie releases were in the tank and not making what they should be with a few exceptions. In 1984, Touchstone’s “Splash” opened at No. 1 on the chart and grossed over $69 million (Box Office Mojo) by the time it finished its run; it cost $8 million to make. The film was a huge success at the time, and it brought in about $62 million profit.

Eisner looked at the situation and decided that Disney and its movie making companies would make smaller budget films that would make money rather than hope for a summer blockbuster that could fail. They were going to hit singles rather than try for homeruns. In 1986, “Ruthless People,” “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” and “The Color of Money” were released with grosses of $71, $62 and $52 million making them the 9th, 11th and 12th highest grossing movies of the year. Eisner’s strategy was successful, and Disney carved out a niche with these low budget, over-performing types of films.

Flash forward to 2018 and the surprise hit (not Disney) “A Quiet Place.” With a budget of $17 million dollars, this is the type of film Disney would’ve happily made in the 1980s. The movie made $340 million dollars worldwide ($323 million profit). Marvel’s “Black Panther” cost about $200 million to make and brought in over $1.3 billion; domestically, it was the top grossing film of the year. It would take about three “A Quiet Place” size releases to make the same amount of profit as “Black Panther.” However, “Black Panther” was a surprise in its own way.

Marvel’s sure thing for the year was “The Avengers: Infinity War” – a sequel, which according to the just over $2 billion box office gross, you’re probably familiar with. The estimates for the cost of the film run between $300 million and $400 million. Even on the high side of the estimate, the film brought in $1.6 billion, or the rough equivalent of five “A Quiet Places.”

I understand these numbers aren’t exact. There are marketing costs to consider as well as what the actual theaters make, which is different depending on the country. However, the point is it doesn’t make any sense for a company that brings in $12.6 billion (2018 net income) to worry about $10 or $20 million, the budget of “A Quiet Place” for a return of only $323 million. As Mendelson pointed out, Disney had taken risks with “Tomorrowland” (profit at a scant $20 million), “The Finest Hours” (losses estimated at $20 million), and “The Queen of Katwe” (estimated loss of $5 million). These movies didn’t return enough profit to justify their existence.

Other Sources of Income

When “Star Trek” dolls were released and the series ended, the sales of the toys dried up as well. There wasn’t anyway to remind people about the purpose of the toys without the show. When “Star Trek: The Next Generation” returned the Star Trek universe to television, toy sales skyrocketed.

In 1983, Funimation released “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” after Reagan deregulated children’s programming. The show was designed to sell He-Man action figures. Once it made it on the air and He-Man sales sky-rocketed every toy company got involved in Saturday Morning Cartoons: “Transformers,” “Go-Bots,” “M.A.S.K.,” “Jem and the Holograms,” and “G.I. Joe” to name a few. Whether the show or the action figures came first is of little consequence, what mattered was that some of the cartoons were pulled from the air not because of the cartoons’ popularity, but because the toys lacked sales.

Disney’s synergistic approach to marketing means the media giant isn’t looking just at the movies. It’s also looking at what it can make from tie-ins. Dumbo’s new movie release, regardless of how it’s received, sells more stuffed Dumbos. Marvel’s movies sell more superhero action figures, Lego sets, and whatever else they put their characters on. These things all bring in more money. Disney princesses outsell Barbie now are a multi-billion-dollar market segment. Their inclusion in “Ralph Breaks the Internet” keeps them fresh, updates them for this generation and keeps the product moving. The Disney company not only needs to create movie sequels and remakes because they are smaller financial risks, but also because they sell more toys, products and Disney park experiences.

What’s It All Mean?

There’s no incentive for Disney to green-light smaller film projects, even if they become the next “A Quiet Place.” The movie industry can only stand so many new films before there aren’t enough movie-goers to see them all. Worse, people say they want new stories, but they only think they want new stories. Audiences still flock to their favorite characters and movie franchises because its an acceptable risk. To spend $10 to $15 on a movie that you may not like or know nothing about doesn’t make much sense when you know that Marvel (or DC or Pixar) has a release right around the corner.

Moreover, Disney can make more money from product friendly franchises that it can tie into its theme parks than it ever could from a movie that has to stand on its own two legs. This all becomes more problematic with Disney’s recent acquisition of 20th Century Fox, and it’s looming control of 40 to 50 percent of the box office. The studios will have to schedule movies so they don’t cut into each other’s profits, which will mean fewer movies and fewer opportunities for a smaller film to get made.

For more on the Disney Company, preorder “Penguinate! The Disney Company.”

Michigan Lottery’s Fast Cash Commercial and What it Reveals about Creativity

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There’s a Michigan Lottery radio commercial that plays during Detroit Piston games and sums up the problem with creativity in a business setting perfectly. The commercial talks about Fast Cash, how good it is and how much people like it. The set up isn’t really important to the point. What is important runs like this:

  • Presumably the boss: “Is there anyway to make Fast Cash better?”
  • Suggestion Lackey 1: “Glow in the dark tickets!”
  • Suggestion Lackey 2: “Lemon-scented tickets!”
  • Presumably the boss: “How about new games?”
  • Lackeys are all-in for those.

The first point is one of time. Of course, a 30-second (or fewer) spot doesn’t allow for the development of new ideas. There just isn’t enough time to be more creative. Time is the most precious resource for all of us, and we need a lot of it to get truly creative.

The second point is the boss doesn’t want creative ideas. He asks the question and immediately jumps to an old idea not even paying any sort of attention to the suggestions from his team. New games in the context of the lottery are not new ideas. They are, at best, recycled ideas.

Businesses do not want new ideas. They do not want creative ideas. They want profitable ideas. That means, proven and/or cheap to produce ideas, in this case, new games.

However, let’s take a moment to imagine that the Michigan Lottery really was looking for new ideas, and it had glow in the dark and lemon scented to work with. Fast Cash tickets range in price from $1 to $20.

Let’s start with “lemon scented.” If the tickets were lemon scented and could be used as car air fresheners, would that be an incentive for people to buy them? The advantage for the buyer would be that he or she actually gets something useful out of the transaction while taking a risk at winning some money. The advantage for the environment is that the ticket would be used for something other than throwing away. The cost of tree air fresheners on Amazon is about 24 for $19 plus whatever shipping would run though they can run over $1 each. Big foot is around $5 as is squirrel in underpants. So, depending on the design of the ticket, people may want to buy them for the air freshening qualities. The disadvantage is maybe the winning tickets would smell up the shop where they were purchased.

“Glow in the dark” is a little more difficult to work with because it tends to be nothing more than a novelty. It’s not like the lottery ticket could be used as night light or emergency flashlight, at least not as the idea stands with just the “glow in the dark” moniker. However, glow in the dark tickets would work great for a Halloween lottery game and possibly for a Santa Claus based lottery game.

The disadvantage of both these ideas is that they are a step beyond what most lotteries are interested in doing. A cheap scratch-it or computer printed ticket will keep more money going toward the state, and people are going to pay for them anyway. Adding scent or glow in the dark is also adding an expense.

Another disadvantage is that people may not go for them. They may not be interested in getting something extra for their lottery dollars. It’s a risk, and it’s riskier than just opting for new games that may be unpopular because of the greater expense. Still, for my money, if I have to choose between a $5 air freshener and a $5 lottery ticket that can be used as an air freshener when I don’t win money, I’m choosing the lottery ticket. I’d be willing to bet so would a lot of other people.

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For more on creativity, order “Disneyland Is Creativity.” Get “Penguinate! Essays and Short Stories.” Preorder “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”

‘Unicorn Store’: Embrace Your Creativity

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When Kit (Brie Larson) is kicked out of art school and moves in with her parents, she decides, is coerced into, taking a job with a temp agency that palaces her in a PR firm. Kit puts away her childish things and becomes a business women with a suit she borrows from her mom. She meets the VP of the company, and naive about his intentions, she accepts his invitation to work on a Mystic Vacuum account.

She rejects her initial drawings, a Pokémon meets vacuum amalgamation, and tries to go with more traditional representations of women vacuuming, which she draws on graph paper for added grown-upness. These mundane vacuums and their housewives earn her creepy boss’ approval, but they don’t work for Kit.

She finally gets an idea and recruits her work friend and the delivery guy to help her with the presentation. They come in at the end of the sexy woman, baby, selfie vacuum presentation, and pitch Kit’s idea with glitter, magic, creativity, love and enthusiasm. She has an original idea that would sell vacuums through the sheer differentiation factor.

The woman executive who is in charge of the Mystic Vacuum company thinks it’s too much. She likes the sexy woman with the selfie, baby and vacuum – an idea that says women can have it all, and one that is outdated and done to death. All of the other male ad execs express the same sentiment. So, it comes down to the boss, and Kit has hope.

The boss said earlier that the lack of creativity in the work place was killing him. He still chooses the woman, vacuum, baby, selfie by asking to be told more about the lingerie. Kit loses her job.

While the movie itself is whimsical and freeing, this particular commentary on creativity in the workplace is all too real. On average, creative people get fewer promotions and fewer raises than their less creative co-workers. They face ridicule for their ideas and blame when the idea fails while not receiving commensurate rewards when an idea succeeds. No matter what people say about creativity, most times bosses, teachers and coworkers want the comfort of the known and the safe.

For Kit, it’s all for the best. She seeks her own personal unicorn and finds her creative self and the support she needs to continue being creative. For creative people, it’s important to learn that many ideas will be rejected not because they’re bad or they won’t work but because people fear the unknown and failure, and every new idea carries a risk with it. Life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns, but it can be better if you find people who love and support your work, even if they are relative strangers.

For more on creativity, get “Penguinate! Essays and Short Stories.” Order “Disneyland Is Creativity.” Preorder “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”