Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise

What I Learned This Week: The Greatest Show on Earth--The Overhauling of Showbiz

The seed of this apocalyptic rant was planted off-the-cuffly last week when I tweeted the following:

Old JFL: "Our next act appeared on Letterman and had his own HBO special." 

New JFL: "Our next act has 10 million YouTube hits."

In essence, the point is that at Just For Laughs, Gala show hosts are usually handed credits as a way to establish importance of the acts they are about to introduce. 

In my first stint here, said credits usually took the form of TV shows these acts were on.  

Last week, I heard Australia's Axis of Awesome lay down their YouTube stats as their cred establisher. 

And they weren't alone; acts like Chris Hardwick (a.k.a. The Nerdist) and Dane Cook had their live on-stage walk-on trumpet their web 3.0 stats. 

Thats's one small step for a host, once giant leap for showbiz. 

So here's this week's brain-splattering lesson:  

The music biz is just the canary in the coalmine; The Web is about to destroy and overhaul all of showbiz as we know it.

Them's tough words, but they're true.  

The evidence is everywhere.  

Last week, Tom Silverman, founder of Tommy Boy Records dropped this bomb at his New Music Seminar in New York:

• Of the some 100,000 albums released last year, 17,000 of them sold only one (!) copy

  
  

• More than 81,000 albums sold under 100 copies.

  
  

• Just 1,300 albums sold over 10,000 copies (an astonishing figure given that these numbers combine physical and digital album sales)

Yowtch!

But this type of paradigm shift (now there's a term I'm sure you haven't heard in a while!) is happening everywhere in the world of leisure:

• Amazon reported that digital ebooks are now outselling its hardcovers. 
  
• The geeks have inherited the earth and now rule Hollywood's roost thanks to Comic-Con. 
  
• Other than tentpole events, more TV is timeshifted than watched live...and watched on devices other than TVs.  
  
• Green Day is simultaneously appearing in huge outdoor concerts, on Broadway and in Rockband.

Walking the Just For Laughs site last week, the digital divide was eye-poppingly evident.  Live bands were replaced by iPod-packing DJs.  Promotional flyers littered the ground as kids tweeted or texted reviews of shows, and intentions of attending them. Our Zoofest shows were packed with crowds who probably never read a newspaper in their lives, let alone be influenced by ads within them. 

Consider the conversation I had with Guy Gal, a 26-year-old online video producer, a few weeks ago in Toronto.  He was about to attend a Just For Laughs Festival Gala hosted by Louis CK. He learned the comedian was touring from one of CK's Tweets.  He clicked on the URL, and bought tickets.  And here's what's scary:  Despite the fact that he was going to the show, he had no idea it was part of Just For Laughs. Worse yet, he had no clue Just For Laughs was even in town.

Exponential yowtch!

The Web is changing, and will continue to at a dizzying pace, the way people find out about shows, the way they buy tickets to them, the way they attend them, the way shows are marketed and--most notably--the content of the shows themselves. 

Given AttentionSpan 3.0, how can I continue to shoot TV shows on a single-focused, old-Broadway-styled stage, and present them to an at-home audience with only one moving image on screen at a time?  

Jeez, do I have my work cut out for me here. 

So, to channel the spirit of P.T. Barnum, I invite you to step right up.  Wanna really see something spectacular?  Sit back and watch the greatest show of all:

The way showbiz rapidly morphs into something that looks tomorrow like Nickleodeons or Vaudeville look like today. 

To start, enjoy Axis Of Awesome...and add yet another view to their YouTube deluge.

What I Learned This Week: The Two Ways To Make People Laugh

 

Been a crazy and somewhat exhausting week directing the Galas at Just For Laughs, and now that I'm--as they say--"back in the biz" full-time, it's somewhat heartening to discover that I'm not as jaded as I thought I'd be.

Unlike music, which touches the soul and fills the heart, comedy works immediately, playing with and tickling the head.  (This is why people will cry with laughter over a joke just told, but never tear up with the nostalgic memory of one, as they would with a song).  And in that moment, something magic happens--information goes in dry, gets processed and emerges as sweet, sweet laughter.

So after watching dozens of performers on parade on stages throughout the city, I think I've re-evaluated my appreciation of humor and discovered the secret sauce of what makes people laugh. 

And here it is.

Great comedians do one of two things:

1) Make the normal appear abnormal

2) Make people believe the abnormal

Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Cosby built their careers on the former, and people like Tom Papa, Mike Birbiglia and John Pinette are following in their footsteps, excelling in spinning and twisting their mundane everyday existences into hilarity.

On the other hand, in the fine tradition of Monty Python's Flying Circus and other absurdists, guys like Tim Minchin and Noel Fielding are maestros of the latter, painting Dali-esque pictures in your brain so vividly, you'd almost believe that Tim does indeed enjoy a profound relationship with an inflatable doll, or that under his pants, Noel's legs are those of rams. 

WHY people laugh, and why they NEED to laugh are two very different animals.

But WHAT makes 'em laugh is the relationship between normal and abnormal.

And now...time for me to embark on the challenge of exploiting that relationship across four lines of business, in multiple media, around the globe, in numerous languages.

To keep me going, I think I'll need a laugh.  Or a few million of 'em.  

Either way will do.

What I Learned This Week: Alone Again? Naturally! (or Love The One You're With)

As part of my new Just For Laughs gig, I spent last Friday in Toronto checking up on the Festival event there. While catching up on notes and thoughts during a solo lunch, I was spotted through the restaurant window by CBC-TV exec Anton Leo, who popped in to join me.

"You alone?" he asked.

"Nope," I replied before paraphrasing a famous Woody Allen line, "just having lunch with somebody I actually admire and respect."

He laughed (no easy feat coaxing one from a comedy exec)...but I wasn't kidding.

I was sincere.  And serious.

(Warning:  Here comes one of "Those Statements")

These days, given the proliferation of social networking and easy, incessant electronic access and communication, I find that people are afraid of being alone.

Now there's a big difference between being "alone" and being "lonely," but the desperate dreariness of suffering the latter has overshadowed the importance and benefit of enjoying the former.

I gotta admit that I love being alone, especially on the road.  Being alone gives me a chance to reflect, to think, and to be open to my surroundings and environment...which usually leads to solutions to problems and--even better!--brand honking new ideas.

On Saturday night, with my kids out and about and my wife out of town on a bike marathon, I had to take in three different Just For Laughs shows.  While centralized in the same part of town, they were still a distance away from each other, so instead of battling the construction-pocked gridlock of Montreal streets in my car on in a cab, I walked.  

What a pleasure!  I saw things I never would've otherwise noticed. I watched quietly as a kid handing out flyers for our Zoofest event tried to explain what it is to a middle-aged guy coming out of a Babe Ruth concert.  I saw people being upsold at an ice-cream bar and heard three unique appeals for spare change. Best of all, I figured out a way to package and sell a block of Steve Martin special event tickets that were released back into Festival hands.

I dig the quiet.  I dig being alone with my own thoughts. What's more, I think it's imperative that social networking be counter-balanced by individual solitude.

Which may be easier said than done, because to benefit from it, not only to you have to like being with yourself, you also have to actually like yourself.  

And therein is a whole other kettle of screwed-up psychological fish, best handled by other, more cerebral, bloggers.

So this week's lesson?  Cut the cord.  Take some time for yourself, with yourself.  Don't be afraid to take in a movie, or a show, or just a walk, with you.

You may discover something incredible.

At very worst, you may find yourself a new friend.

(P.S.  If you're too young to understand the musical reference of this post's title, click here or here.)

What I Learned This Week: Why Ask Why?

So, got through my first week back at Just For Laughs.  (First four days actually, including the weekend, as of this writing.)

During one of the numerous information sessions/meetings designed to re-integrate myself into the culture, the flow and the madness of the event, I asked an innocent question about a questionable show:

"Why are we doing this show?"

The answer:

"It's part of a recurring series."

I continued:

"But that doesn't explain why we're doing it."

The explanation:

"Well, we've done it like this for years."

Which, frankly, explains nothing.  That's an excuse, not an explanation.

Here's what I've seen happen way too often: 

You try something out.  It works.  You do it again, and suddenly it becomes a pattern.

While, on the surface, said idea still seems to be working, in reality it's taken the first step into its grave.

And that's not the tragedy.  

The tragedy is that the idea was dead long before you noticed, or acted upon it.  It's like housing a corpse on your living room easy chair for a few years, and then wondering "Hmmm, I wonder what that odor is?"

By that time, opening a window and a few squirts of Febreze may not be enough.

So this week's lesson was brutal and stark:

NEVER STOP ASKING "WHY?"

ABOUT EVERYTHING.

The answers you come up with may astound you.  They will probably enlighten you.  What made perfect sense at conception may be foolish today.  

And if you can't answer, well...guess it's time to stop.

This is not just good business, but a necessary personal-position-and-balance-check in our essential day-to-day existence.  

• Why do I work here? 
• Why do I eat here? 
• Why do I read this?
• Why do I take this route to work?
• Why do I go to the cottage every weekend?
• Why do I write this blog?

One of my favorite old Doobie Brothers albums was entitled "What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits" (Ahhhh!  Now you understand what it's doing at the top of this post!). 

Sadly, that's what happens to even the most outrageous of our actions.

Exciting ideas turn into old habits.

And, as the cliche goes, "Old Habits Die Hard."

What's worse, you probably still think they're alive and well.

Don't ya?

Ask yourself.

Ask yourself "Why?"  

What I Learned This Week: Taking The Path of MOST Resistance

Despite last week's venomous post, the Banff TV Conference was far from all bad.  Met a lot of great people, reconnected with a whole lot more, and, most importantly, was made to think on my feet by a very curious question-asker.

In the oft-awkward Q&A postscript to a speech or panel session, getting the first question asked is a task akin to pulling teeth from an un-anestheseized (is that even a word?) Hell's Angel with a needle-nosed pliers.  But after describing my pioneering history with Just For Laughs, Airborne Mobile and TXT-TV, someone mercifully raised his hand and challenged me with this astute query:

"HOW DOES ONE FIND THE NEXT BIG THING?"

Hmmm...an age-old mystery second only to "What's the meaning of life?" 

A foolproof route to the Next Big Thing would be worth billions, perhaps even trillions, so I had to answer wisely.  And in all modesty, I think I did when I blurted:

"TAKE THE PATH OF MOST RESISTANCE."

Here's what I've learned over the years--you never know.  You never know what the next hit product is, or how well your show will do, or how much your house will sell for, or what your kids will be when they grow up...never mind predicting the Next Big Thing.

And here's what I also learned over the years--what most people THINK will be the Next Big Thing usually isn't.  And if everyone seems to agree on a "can't miss," chances are that it will.

Hence my answer.

There's no guarantee, but history is filled with stories of defying the non-believers.  It's a tough road to travel, but if people don't understand, don't agree with, don't see the future in your idea...there's a good chance that you may be onto something.

Remember the objective of the questioner--find the Next BIG Thing.  There are hundreds of thousands of middling successes; things that incrementally improve or change the status quo.

But for the BIG win, you've got to risk it all, and go down a rocky, shrapnel-strewn road where there's a knock-down fight, not a well-lubricated fun-house slide with well-wishers patting you on the back as you make your merry way down.

Have fun...and pack armor.