NEWSMOVIE PROGRAMMING MANIFESTO

To create a video and sound driven presentation that is extraordinary, original and paradigm changing, through new thinking, execution and a vision that lives in the cinematic reality of 2023.

IT'S NOT ABOUT WATCHING: It's about 'experiencing NewsMovie ’…not watching it….a new way of delivering big screen content on small screens that engages the EYES, THE EARS and THE BRAIN in both quick reference and detailed presentations

AGGREGATOR: That’s our main function. To aggregate the universe of content and package it in a brilliant new way that creates a NEW and ORIGINAL viewing experience

MASS APPEAL: Make no mistake, we are out to WIN. While to some degree this is “an experiment in Modern Media” the goal is to kick the hell out of the old school arrogant competition. And The World LOVES experimentation...new ideas...But experimentation can be mis interpreted as arty rather than competitive. In this case, it's experimental because it's new. It's an attitude...a smart approach. The Ipad and The Cellphone started out as 'experimental'

TRADEMARKS: The purpose of segments (as illustrated on the sample reel) is to make them trademarks, that are hooks that ONLY we have and own and over time create a content foundation.

CINEMATIC: In this case, that means big screen…big sound. Uncluttered by “TV and web stuff." The way people want to engage media. "BIG" is not device related...it's a production style.

WORDING: Whether it’s in narration or marketing---we gotta talk real. No different from the way you’d talk with friends. No need to PUSH to sound edgy, or TRY to sound like ‘news/TV writers’…just let it happen. TRYING to be edgy is just as bad as trying to be authoritative—fake….and people can see right through that. This relates to marketing materials and advertising too...

PURE & SIMPLE: A LOT of creative brainpower here, but we have to remember that clear and pure is often the best course. Big pictures…big sound. Take “A Day in Pictures”…when local TV stations tried to replicate it, they got too clever and it ended up overproduced and TV-ized.

WALK THE WALK: Media is fueled by BS. we gotta deliver. Anyone can talk big...its all about delivering big HIGH IQ/LOW BS

STANDARDS OF QUALITY: Ridiculously high. While an unpopular term in today's "big media" world, 'works of art' certainly applies to what we are creating. WE ARE MEDIA ARTISTS…balanced with technology and HIGH IQ/LOW BS

….AND---no traditional content provider on earth would have the courage to balance science....with art. Movies, Chefs, Car design, Game design, Apple design, Aircraft design and other products have evolved from utility to art forms. It's media's turn.

AVERAGE IS NON ACCEPTABLE: Extreme is our guiding light

THE WORLD IS HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN: NewsMovie is part of the cure

NEWSMOVIE IS AN OASIS OF EXTREME CREATIVITY...A LABORATORY OF EXTREME CONTENT ONNOVATION WE ARE TO CONTENT WHAT THE SKUNK WORKS ARE TO ROCKETS. NOT A PLACE FOR THE CREATIVELY TIMID OR THOSE ADDICTED TO THE PAST.

NEWSMOVIE IS NOT:

-YUPPIES, MILLENNIALS OR SOME OTHER IDIOTIC MADISON AVENUE DEFINITION. Whether it’s Barbie and Ken plasticizing the days’ news with fake humor and

energy, or mindlessly babbling in TV speak happy-talk,NewsMovie is free of over positioned TV nonsense.

Our zone lives in the real world, not the walled in decades old TV world. Attractiveness is not bad, it's just cliched

to where there's an arms race in cuteness at the expense of compelling 21st century programming.

-BIG NETWORK OVERPRODUCTION AND POMP. Not slick, thundering and pompous. No… Enough already.

Slogans and tricks. It’s in the content and style…not the focus group. TV is slicking itself into irrelevance

-TV SOUND. No Bruce Lee swooshes…no Action 7 Super Doppler Ultra Weather “sounds”… Let us mobilize the universe of sound: Natural; The Blues; Classical; Electronic. Whatever it takes to USE sound to tell the story and engage the EARS

-LOCAL...BECAUSE......because it's local. Our definition of news is based on 2021, not 1988. It can be anything from a viral video to stunning film of a huge story. It’s that middle ground of the egocentric Joe Reporter standing in front of a parched corn field talking about how hot it was 9 hours earlier that focuses on the reporter and the mic flag and not what really counts.

Local news because it’s local rather than appealing to locals. Maybe a typhoon in Cambodia is more interesting than pictures of local workers sweating because it's hot and because it’s local.

WE LIVE IN A GLOBAL CULTURE

-BS - Best, biggest, first, most accurate, breaking. Pure hype.

-NOT A CELEBRATION OF FAKE. Fake sets, fake skylines, Fake people. Fake energy.

-TV WORDING AND MARKETING SPEAK: Authorities, allegedly, vehicles, apprehended, etc….(see list below), and marketing speak where it reads like a 1956 Geritol commercial. Lot's of Questions "Hey Mom, kids getting you down?"...lot's of "!" to stress the hype...and lots of 'telling' instead of informing. ! is a symbol used when the writing is weak to create a false sense of importance….

-DATED VOICES: No one is impressed anymore with "big voices." The most popular voices in America are people like Howard Stern, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, hardly "big voices"...that big voice age is as over as the anchor age.

-FRANTIC: Where TV makes you jittery with the percussion behind EVERYthing…the over

immediacy…the……nervousness…everything ending with a “!” Fast paced, yes...frantic NO. The web is starting to feel this way too in places.

THINGS NEWSMOVIE IS:

-THE EYE: People use their computers, tablets and TVs to watch the world in action. But—it sure looks better when produced as a movie vs. in a dragging TV News style presentation. We are about hard core cinematic stimulation of the eye rarely seen on TV....or online. We live in the era of big pictures...big sound...big stimulation. TV lives in, about 1981.

-THE EARS: We need to unleash the world of sound for a one-two eye/ear sensory punch. The sound ranges from Patsy Cline to U2 to a 40’s Newsreel to Natural Sound to Sound Effects, and beyond. The show has a seamless soundtrack where the sound never stops…and it’s all garnered from the literally millions of sounds at our fingertips. Limitless potential from AC/DC to Zamfir.

-THE VOICE: Strong “narration” Written in street-speak not Journalism-speak. You dont need faces, you need pictures with narration to TELL THE STORY in a modern and stunning way.

-THE BALANCE: Newsmovie is an eclectic mix that takes viewers on a journey from amazing footage of a global weather event to retro footage to eccentric street footage to “trademark” segments. It’ll be a combination of surprise with benchmarks to create a mix that IS the pulse of the 2021 world. Predictably unpredictable. Balancing QUICK REFERENCE with DEEP.

-LIVING IN OUR WORLD NOT THE TV/WEB WORLD: It will be offensive for staff members to watch other TV/Online Weather for inspiration. It’s poisonous. The inspiration needs to come from YouTube, UGC, cool Internet sites, movies and other places where audio and visual innovation reside…NOT TV or traditional news.

For reference...of course. For inspiration, no.

-THE ATTITUDE: We ARE out to change the world. WE recognize that news programming is dated and addicted to the old school playbook. While the technology is soaring, the presentation is mired in the old.

-THE POV: What the regular guy thinks. We don’t take sides: Pelosi is a complete bozo? Sure….But Sarah Palin probably is too. We are NOT vanilla! Our POV needs to be in sync with the pulse of real America not media America

-WE DO NOT CELEBRATE CELEBRITY INSANITY: We call ‘em out. We can do our part to fight the American junk culture disease.

-THE FOCUS: EVERYthing needs to stay within the NewsMovie vision - otherwise we risk being TOO creative in terms of unfocused or too vague and typical. Within the THINK look, sound, voice, style and vision…there are NO rules. Think of it like The Beatles or Miles Davis —They experiment and innovate, but they always stay within their basic blueprint. The NewsMovie vision needs to permeate everything internally and externally...to cut through the clutter of 21st Century media options.

-ECCENTRIC…ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK: Focused and in sync with the vision, eccentricity will tap into the modern global culture in a way that the suit driven Network thinkers cannot even fathom.

-IT IS NOT A WEBSITE ITS A CHANNEL THAT HAPPENS TO BE ONLINE: But it capitalizes on what TV does best: Pictures, sound and a story…and eliminates what TV has become, an Oniony (must viewing for all staff is Onion TV) parody of itself fueled by focus groups and “TV vets” who forgot how to think about 15 years ago.

-HONESTY: We NEVER:

  •  Tell people as in “Be sure to watch…”

  •  Suggest they are idiots “Hey, don’t forget…”

  •  Pretend we’re something we’re not. If we don’t know…we say that.

  •  Talk in TV BS: “Stick around, we’re going to tell you about…” Duh"

  •  Talk in slogan speak and media hype.

-IT IS NOT A COMEDY: It is the ultimate reality show as we, with cinematics and sound, present the state of the world. I mention comedy because there's a tendency for "funny"... If there's something funny we show it (Bloopers, retro, etc...) but are neutral in our presentation

-WE ARE NOT “YOUTH SKEWING” We’re beyond that. We do what we do and if a 19 year old likes it…cool. A 70 year old? Cool also. "New" programming/creative tends to skew young, but if we are simply brilliant, age is irrelevant…though in reality, we WILL skew young, but naturally, rather than forcing it with 'fake hip.'

-THE ART OF NEWSMOVIE. We need to be staffed by Media artists. To the corporate world, art often means “let's do weird stuff that makes no money” To us, art is a secret weapon that can elevate us to a higher level of execution…that breeds massive success.

-THE FORBIDDEN WORD LIST: Especially prevalent in news, Tongue in cheek perhaps, but does touch on the disconnect between J-speak and real speak.

  •  “Flee” meaning “run away”

  •  “Good” or “bad” news

  •  “Laud” meaning “praise”

  •  “Seek” meaning “look for”

  •  “Some” meaning “about”

  •  “Two to one margin” …“Two to one” is a ratio, not a margin. A margin is measured in points. It’s not a ratio.

  •  “Yesterday” in a lead sentence

  •  “Youth” meaning “child”

  •  5 a.m. in the morning

  •  After the break

  •  After these commercial messages

  •  Aftermath

  •  All of you

  •  Allegations

  •  Alleged

  •  Area residents

  •  As expected

  •  At risk

  •  At this point in time

  •  Authorities

  •  Auto accident

  •  Bare naked

  •  Behind bars

  •  Behind closed doors

  •  Behind the podium (you mean lecturn) [sic]

  •  Best kept secret

  •  Campaign trail

  •  Clash with police

  •  Close proximity

  •  Complete surprise

  •  Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use

  •  Death toll

  •  Definitely possible

  •  Diva

  •  Down in (location)

  •  Down there

  •  Dubbaya when you mean double you

  •  Everybody (when referring to the audience)

  •  Eye Rack or Eye Ran

  •  False pretenses

  •  Famed

  •  Fatal death

  •  A (person) is “fighting for their life tonight...”

  •  Fled on foot

  •  Giving 110%

  •  Going forward

  •  Gunman, especially lone gunman

  •  Guys

  •  Hunnert when you mean hundred

  •  Icon

  •  In a surprise move

  •  In harm’s way

  •  In other news

  •  In the wake of (unless it’s a boating story)

  •  Incarcerated

  •  Informed sources say.

  •  Killing spree

  •  Legendary

  •  Lend a helping hand

  •  Literally

  •  Lucky to be alive

  •  Manhunt

  •  Marred

  •  Medical hospital

  •  Mother of all (anything)

  •  Motorist

  •  Mute point. (It’s moot point, but don’t say that either)

  •  Near miss

  •  No brainer

  •  Officials

  •  Only time will tell

  •  Our top story tonight

  •  Out in (location)

  •  Out there

  •  Over in

  •  Pedestrian

  •  Perfect storm

  •  Perished

  •  Perpetrator

  •  Plagued

  •  Really

  •  Reeling

  •  Reportedly

  •  Seek

  •  Senseless murder

  •  Shots rang out

  •  Shower activity

  •  Sketchy details

  •  Some (meaning about)

  •  Some of you

  •  Sources say . . .

  •  Speaking out

  •  Stay tuned

  •  Stay with us

  •  Stick around

  •  The fact of the matter

  •  Those of you

  •  Thus

  •  Time for a break

  •  To be fair

  •  Torrential rain

  •  Touch base

  •  Under fire

  •  Under siege

  •  Underwent surgery

  •  Undisclosed

  •  Undocumented alien

  •  Unrest

  •  Untimely death

  •  Up in (location)

  •  Up there

  •  Utilize (you mean use)

  •  Vehicle

  •  We are back

  •  We’ll be right back

  •  Welcome back

  •  Welcome back everybody

  •  We’ll be back

  •  Went terribly wrong

  •  We’re back

  •  White stuff

  •  World class

  •  You folks


THE CREATIVE/PROGRAMMING CULTURE:

CONTENT INNOVATION NOT OPTIONAL: While it's critical in technology, it's often viewed as optional in creative. It’s a style of thinking that is often missing from our game plans. In fact the "innovation in content is not a priority" flows throughout most media companies and it only contributes to "average" presentation being acceptable. It's not. We must balance economic, technological and advertising superiority with unbridled creative and programming innovation. WE need to be perceived as the oasis of invention instead of another content company. It's up to us and the way we embrace CONTENT innovation.

THE FEAR FACTOR: It exists everywhere in American business culture. Looking for reasons something will fail instead of looking for ways to make it happen. Negative perception of change assuming the ratings will go down or we’ll somehow lose it if we evolve. That is talk of losers.

INNOVATION IN TECHNOLOGY vs. TOTAL INNOVATION: Constantly seek ways to do CONTENT better...just as we seek better forecasting technology. Dream about it...Live for it. If the CORE product THAT THE PUBLIC SEES is amazing--EVERYTHING will flow from that. THINKING AND DREAMING costs nothing.

BRUTALLY EXAMINE OUR PRODUCT. IDENTIFY WEAK AREAS AND AFDI . It's a painful content exercise that is the starting point. Recently visited a solid TV station and after we evaluated the content WITH the staff, there were 46 pages of notes on how it could be better. The station wasn’t bad by any means, but the opportunities to be better were endless. From minutia to big picture, the station was loaded with opportunities to be better. An added bonus: their competition was certainly not thinking this way. We can/will sneak up on them with some powerful new thinking.

A VISION & GAME PLAN IN EVERY CORNER: To the rank and file, there needs to be a rich and exciting content plan. Few things motivate as strongly as working at a place that is creating magic.

COMMUNICATION! 99% of the game plan never finds its way past the executive conference room. It’s not a 4x a year staff meeting. It’s EVERY hour...EVERY day.

GUTS: Find out who's got 'em...and who doesn't. Bad time for the weak to be operating. Reinvention ain't easy emotionally. Takes....guts.

STOP LOOKING AT YOUR COMPETITION: It's the circle of mediocrity. In print, you don't look at the other dying paper...in video Information/weather, the innovation is more on YouTube than the other TV station. Again, as a competitive reference...sure, as inspiration, nope.

PATRIOTISM: I’m not talking flag waving…I’m talking content/creative innovation leadership. The USA is getting killed in everything from Autos to Hotels. AND---we're losing in media innovation too...especially on the content side. In 1965, the Europeans would flock to the USA to soak in our brilliance in media...now, I'll bet they laugh. Let’s do something about that. Why? I see NO downside in innovative content/programming excellence. It feeds everything. But it has to be part of every business units’ DNA instead of a select talent of a few that is not important in the big picture . NO-ONE else is fixing media's ills---WE must.

MASS APPEAL INTELLECT: Newspapers can often be intellectual on a 1950 basis...TV on a 1980 basis. We gotta get in sync with 2021 . Most of it is presentation and writing. People WANT change...they WANT to be smarter. TV in particular is feeding the junk culture machine....

URGENCY: "Yeah, we gotta change that! Well---CHANGE IT THEN! Not free form urgency, but a sense of alertness and action.

FUN: The uptight, scary, panic driven environment is history...that's old school. Thew new generation of leading companies are respectful, reasonable, focused, driven...and FUN. Go ahead and read recruiting postings for companies. It’s all about liberating your brilliance without suits, ties, insane managers who make life miserable and bad vibes. Then look at old school media....based on the job postings, a tour in Afghanistan sounds more fun.

NOTICABILITY: In today's environment, you have to be DRAMATIC and BIG to cut through. 99% of media "reinventions are so subtle...so 'tweaky' that no-one outside of the conference room notices.

WINNING: Two kinds of winning--revenue. Duh. But I rarely sense the killer instinct to win beyond that. To be the BEST in everything. ... Period. If it steps on toes...those toes need to be stepped on. It's a war for the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of America...and we are IN that war. Average...or what the other guy does or same old/same old is hardly THE BEST.

EXCUSE KILLING: In reality, American media needs change MORE than ever in terms of being battered by declining relevancy. In posing this question, the answers were usually:

  •  Can't innovate with all the work I have to do

  •  We already are innovating!

  •  No time!

Well, I don't think those are really good answers. I just don't think media mindsets are focused there as much as they should be. It takes NO more time to do something different and interesting and it's really more about an approach than headcounts or schedules. It's something that needs to be in our genes. PUSHED from top down. Don't you know that there are way too many cases of "I'd love to do ____, but____won't let me", or "Can I grab you for a second...don't tell______, but we really should be doing_____instead of_____."

Somehow, we need to overcome that anti-innovative environment that plagues the entire media business.Where innovation is in technology (good!) but somehow, EVERYone is also innovating in technology, but NO-ONE is innovating in what people are seeing and hearing ON/FROM that technology. TV stations may have NORAD style sets with transporter beams...but EVERY station has those and it cancels out. When I was a broadcast consultant, there were some stations that had huge ratings...others that did not. The big differentiator was attitude toward innovation.

The common innovation barriers were;

  •  Well, we had a committee meeting and just couldn’t decide.

  •  We need to research that first.

  •  (Put boss here) would never let us do that!

  •  We're still discussing it.

  •  We're afraid to try that....too risky. Too off the wall.

  •  According to (put marketing or tech expert here) that approach won’t work. It needs to________.

  •  We tried it and it didn't work (usually buried to insure no-one would notice it in the first place)

  •  A “change is dangerous" attitude vs. a “Change is critical” attitude.

  •  We're fine.

JOB DUTIES OUT OF WHACK: A big one. Examples I have noticed in media that V avoids:

  •  TV GM with zero Programming/Creative aptitude is making the programming/creative calls

  •  A News Director with zero visual aptitude is making the calls on the presentation of News

    promos.

  •  An Editor with zero marketing aptitude is making the calls on newspaper marketing

People need to be liberated. I understand that a GM for example has the final say, or that an Editor needs
to fiercely protect and nourish the integrity, but too often they are INTIMATELY involved in areas where
they should listen more instead of becoming roadblocks. Like a radio GM that sits in on the music
meeting helping pick the songs. Imagine an anchor person telling a good engineer how to tweak the
signal.

Instead, open up the talent pool so ALL talents can contribute.

CREATIVE AUTOPILOT: In visual media we continue to rely on 1988 creative standards. In Print, we tended to look at creative thinking as anti-Journalism. Creative thinking SUPPORTS journalism....and WEATHER. Reinvention never sleeps. We need more people with legal pads by their beds and people who view their work as world changing. "I know that's pretty average, but I don’t have the time to make it great" is a serious offense. Or the "Can't word"...Oh---that looks good on paper but it can't be done (Common from the Online folks and the News Departments).

FAITH IN BRAND: If your brand is great, then KEEP it great by evolving it and feeding the machine! Beware of looking backwards and protecting history instead of reinventing ourselves. We have ONE huge advantage: We ain't a start up--- we have existing muscle. MAXIMIZE THAT ADVANTAGE!

THE MANANA FACTOR: Universal agreement that something is a good idea...then...nothing.

Examples:

  •  Voice-over person stinks. Everyone agrees....then...nothing.

  •  A Green Icon next to environment stories to help "own" the category. Everyone agrees...then nothing.

  •  (There are hundreds of examples of AFDI of course...but THE MANANA FACTOR still exists)

  •  No one really cares about stuff like this

  •  It's no big deal. Lousy stuff like this is just the way it is.

  •  Hey compared to (competition) we're doin' good! (of course to the public you AND the competition are painfully average in a world where there's a lot of better stuff emerging)

In American media:

NO ONE ELSE (AT MAJOR MEDIA) IS INNOVATING IN PROGRAMMING/CREATIVE/CONTENT! IT’S OFF THE RADAR. SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY WHILE COMPETITORS ARE ASLEEP!

COMPLETENESS: APPLE--EVERYTHING IS COOL---Stores, Packaging, Ads etc...We are "sorta" cool

with a ton of uncool remnants ..and we often let it slip through!

INCREMENTAL MAKES NO SENSE. If you are going to make moves…AFDI

WE ARE ON A MISSION - IT'S A MISSION NOT A GIG