Follow-ups

      It's  never easy to follow up a previous work. A good amount of expectations are going to be on your shoulders to deliver something great, if not better than the original. However, there's also going to be doubts if the product can even live up to the original, let alone be seen in a favorable light. In a sense, I feel some of those expectations myself, considering this blog is a follow up to another.

       Last time, I went over how there's always room for improvement to a product. This time however, I want to go over different ways someone could follow up a product. Be it a sequel to a movie from years ago, a spinoff of a large franchise, or maybe even a remake.

        For starters, what is the route you want to go for your follow up? Is there a specific character you want to build on for a story, or maybe a new motivation for your characters? If it's a remake, do you plan on being faithful, or switching genres completely? This is of course, factoring things in like time constraints, funding, and audience desires. As a result, the follow up you craft should, in a coincidental  sense, be like choosing a path down a trail; what's going to work best for you, but also keep you where you need to go?

      Of course, there is still the expectations you need to worry about. To reiterate, audiences can either hold your potential on too high of a pedestal, or not be willing to give it a chance. Unfortunately, I can't really say wether or not there's a right answer here; I understand the desire to impress with a grander scale, but I also feel its ok to temper you're expectations. The most I can say is 'compromise with the audience and creators.' Read the room for what the follow up will be, and set your expectations, or your skill level, to that area.

      Doing a follow up is always going to be tricky, and can make or break what you built to achieve. Whether or not you can successfully build off on previous works though, the important part is that you try. With that in mind, thank you for reading, and stay tuned.

Real Bizarre

        Sometimes marketing can get kind of bizarre. 

Image courtesy of This man.

        Now, most companies tended to play it safe nowadays,  but back then things could get really weird in how they presented the product. Granted, that is depending if the ad actually represented the product, and didn't leave you asking what you just witnessed. From ridiculous and naughty scenes like the one above, to the more accidentally terrifying, and then to the plain misleading.

       However, a part of me wishes that we still had this type of insanity in marketing. I'm not saying we should be going absolutely crazy and film babies committing war crimes, but at least come up with something memorable. As it was once described to me, 'think inside the box before coming up with the out of the box ideas'. To me, there is nothing more entertaining than controlled chaos; just tying all of the outrageous events together in a neat little package. Yes, I understand that it isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I think even then you could pull something from it.

     Another thing you could get out of these oddities was always a nice style to strive for. Uneven fonts, a mix of bright and subtle colors, unique music backing, etc. Again, it's a shame that while most advertising has taken to being safe, going out there with the ideas has left the table. There has to be a good middle ground somewhere. With that being said, thank you for reading, and stay tuned!