Author Archives: Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

About Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

I’ve been involved with community journalism since 1968 when I wrote for my junior school paper, the "Tumbleweed," through high school and college and then wrote for the "Wyoming State Journal." I put aside my newspaper pen and began Boulder Community Media in 2005. There wasn’t much community journalism opportunity, so I resurrected my writing career as a screenwriter. My first short screenplay, “Stardust”, won an award in the 2005 Denver Screenwriting Center contest. I've made a number of movies over the years. Filmmaking is time-consuming, labor and equipment intensive. I recently changed my workflow to first write a book and make a movie based on that content. - Electric Vehicle Anxiety and Advice - This is a memoir travelogue of three trips covering 2,600 EV miles around Wyoming (2022) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Winter Goose Publishers released my memoir in February (2022) - The Zen of Writing with Confidence and Imperfection - This is a book recounting how luck planed into my signing a book deal after a 15-minute pitch meeting. (2020) - True Stories of an Aging Baby Boomer - War stories about living in a cohousing and lessons others can learn when starting their communities (2021) - Beyond Sand Creek - About Arapaho tribal efforts to repatriate land in Colorado (PBS - TBA) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Based on my memoir about my childhood in Cheyenne facing overt and subtle racism toward the Japanese following World War II (PBS - 2021) - New Deal Artist Public Art Legacy - About artists who created work in Wyoming during the Great Depression (PBS - 2018) - Mahjong and the West - SAG indie feature which premiered at the semi-important Woodstock Film Festival (2014) Over the years, I’ve produced directed, filmed and/or edited several short movies, “Running Horses” (Runner Up – Wyoming Short Film Contest), “On the Trail: Jack Kerouac in Cheyenne” (Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival, Top 10 Wyoming Short Film Contest), “Gold Digger” (Boulder Asian Film Festival), “Adobo” (Boulder International Film Festival), “A Little Bit of Discipline” (Rosebud Film Series), and two feature length documentaries “Your Neighbor’s Child” (Wyoming PBS and Rocky Mountain PBS), and “Serotonin Rising” (American Film Market, Vail Film Festival). He also directed and produced the award winning stage play “Webster Street Blues” by my childhood friend Warren Kubota. Boulder Community Media is a non-profit production company dedicated to democratzing media in all their forms - large and small screens, printed page and stage by providing sustainable and community-based content. I mostly work with community-based media producers, organizations, and socially-responsible businesses to develop their content via – the written word, electronic and new media, the visual and performing arts in a culturally competent manner – I’m what’s commonly called a niche TV and movie producer. Along with all this is plying my forte’ – fund development through grant writing, sponsorship nurturing and event planning.

Unique NFT versions of ‘Nishigawa Neighborhood on opensea.io

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Two one-of-a-kind versions of the “Nishigawa Neighborhood” coffee table book is now available as NFTs on the opensea.io blockchain. If you want a true collectible, one or both of these have premium value because they are unique with colorized covers.

Both include unlockable assets that can be downloaded by the successful buyer. Both NFTs are watermarked with March 17, 2022, the publication date. The first is a one-of-a-kind digital version. The second is an MP4 movie of the 84 pages tracked by original music compiled by author Alan O’Hashi. If you want an autographed copy of the hardcover book, they are available from the author.

Click the image: Nishigawa Neighborhood LTD one of one unlockable MP4 NFT
Click the image: Nishigawa Neighborhood LTD one of one unlockable digital book NFT

‘Beyond Heart Mountain’ book released

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Buy Beyond Heart Mountain memoir published by Winter Goose Publishing. It is available as a printed book and ebook. Signed copies can be purchased from the author. The book was released February 27th. That week coincided with the 80th anniversary of President Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 that sent 120,000 Japanese to 10 war relocation camps, that included Heart Mountain in northwest Wyoming.

Beyond Heart Mountain book and related are no for sale.

Remember to download the Beyond Heart Mountain promotional information booklet.

Boulder Community Media (BCM) produced a documentary that aired on PBS that aired in December 2021. The Nishigawa Neighborhood is a coffee table book that will soon be released.

During World War II, Cheyenne native Alan O’Hashi’s family avoided life in internment camps such as Heart Mountain.

As a Baby Boomer, Alan documents the overt and quiet racism pervasive in Wyoming and throughout the United States during and following World War II. He relates his experiences to current violence towards Asians and the issue of civility within society.

The backdrop to Alan’s account is the history of the once vibrant Japanese community in the 400 and 500 blocks of West 17th Street in the downtown area of my hometown, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

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“My grandmother and grandfather Ohashi and their large family lived in worked in that neighborhood where I spent quite a bit of time between elementary and high school. Having been away from Cheyenne for many years, I stashed those two blocks in the back of my mind until I learned that two classmates of mine were planning to build a housing development at 509 W. 17th St. The biggest obstacle was obtaining permission to tear down an old building. It was the last structure in the Japanese neighborhood. It was the site of a rooming house operated by Mrs. Yoshio Shuto.”

Buy the Beyond Heart Mountain movie

Buy the Beyond Heart Mountain DVD is mainly about the West 17th Street Japanese community history and a general overview of Executive Order 9066 that President Franklin Roosevelt signed that relocated 120,000 Japanese into 10 internment camps, including Heart Mountain in northwest Wyoming.

I interviewed four childhood friends for the documentary. Robert Walters formerly worked at the City Cafe. He still lives in Cheyenne, where he practices law.

Terie Miyamoto and her family-owned Baker’s Bar. It was the only racially-integrated bar in Cheyenne at the time. She now lives in the Denver Metro area.

Brian Matsuyama now lives in Seattle, Washington. He resided in Cheyenne during his childhood. His family owned the California Fish Market. Carol Lou Kishiyama-Hough is in Cheyenne. She and her family purchased the Fish Market from the Matsuyamas.

Buy the Nishigawa Neighborhood coffee table book. It’s an 11 x 8.5-inch hard-cover coffee table book with over 100 color, black and white images of the neighborhood. Signed copies are available from the author.

Nishigawa Neighborhood coming soon

Mrs. Shuto’s tenants were mainly Japanese residents who made their way to Cheyenne. She later opened the City Cafe across the street which became a gathering place for the Japanese in town.

My grandmother was a cook at the City Cafe. Next door, my grandfather was the third owner of a pool hall.

Whenever we went out to eat, the restaurant of choice was the City Cafe. It was a gathering place for the Japanese in Cheyenne. My friends enlisted me to do a cultural and historical survey of the Japanese residents who lived and worked there from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Buy a Beyond Heart Mountain cap are also available. They are low-profile baseball-style hats. Select Beyond Heart Mountain from the dropdown menu.

The logo is an adapted version of the Wyoming state flag. One size fits most.

KDP layouts got you stressed out?

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I read on many of the facebook groups about the frustrations self-publishing authors experience when they try to upload their manuscripts to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

Brain damage and frustration are the prices you pay to self-publish all by yourself without signing up for a “pay to play” publishing house or hiring consultants to help you.

I’m an analog writer and dealing with the technology of authorship can be frustrating.

Self-publishing means we do it ourselves. I also have a publisher that takes all the brain damage out of all this.

Making my own books gave me an appreciation for what established publishers do on behalf of writers. I can attest that they earn every penny they squeeze out of each book sale.

The issue I’ll address here is how to layout your manuscript for a hard copy book. I’ve published three books on KDP.

The first one had me pulling my hair out, but once I settled on a format, the others were simple, since I followed a template I made for myself with the first book.

Pick out the size of book you want to publish. The instructions I’m providing are for 6″x9″

Here are some simple steps I followed using Microsoft Word (Word). The first step is to decide what size book you want to publish. I chose 6″x9″ from the list that KDP supports. After you’ve opened up Word, pull down “File” and open up “Page Setup.”


Pull down “Page Setup” and open it.

This will bring you to the “Page Attributes” tab where you can set up the page size. After you’ve opened “Paper Size” choose “Other” and type the size. In this case, for 6″x9″ I chose 6.11X9.25.

Pick Other, then type in the desired dimensions from the KDP page size list. For a 6×9 book, I use 6.11×9.25. Also orient your page to be vertical at 100 percent scale then hit OK.

After you’ve chosen your page size, open up the drop down the “Page Attribute” box and choose “Microsoft Word.” That reveals a tab and select “Margins” and then OK.

Select “Margins” then OK

A new window will open that allows you to select your margins. This is where you can get frustrated, because the margin sizes can be adjusted to meet what you think is visually pleasing. This may take you three or four uploads to KDP to see what they will look like. KDP allows you to change your formatting and layouts. If you walk away, remember to save your project as a draft so you can come back to it without having to do an edit of your “sent” project. I did that after I had second thoughts about the layout. For projects that you “submit” and you want to edit, it takes a few days for KDP to process the data and make it “live.” My advise is to be patient and not be in a rush. KDP allows you to sell your “coming soon” book. I settled on these setting, and you can try them. What you pick can vary depending on font and type size. After you hit OK, your manuscript will change. Take a look at it, if you like the balance, upload it to KDP as a draft. Why this is frustrating is because once your manuscript is uploaded, KDP will make its own version, which will be slightly different than what your Word document looks like. Be patient and take your time.

Deciding on your margins is hit and miss. If there’s any part of this that can be frustrating it will be your margins. I suggest you jot down the margin combinations you’ve tried, rather than trying to remember them. As for multiple pages, mirror the margins. This allows for the gutters to match up with the facing pages.

After you’ve set your margins, open up the “Layout” tab at the top of the box. I use half inch headers and footers. Again, you can mess around with the settings, but if you have page numbers, you’ll want adequate space so that they fit relatively centered in the header or footer – not to high, and particularly not too low to the page edge.

Select your header and footer. I wouldn’t mess around with the line numbers – that’s for legal documents and legislative drafts. Borders are just aesthetics, but likely unnecessary for book publishing.

That’s it for a KDP self-published books. I can’t over emphasize the need for you to be patient with the trial and error you’ll likely experience.

When it comes to the KDP e-book version. You’ll keep your manuscript “one-up” with a single sheet. The frustrating part is with table of contents. I would leave that out of the e-book because the pages float around and change. Also the Word table of contents tool doesn’t change as the pages change and it gets all messed up.

The e-book title pages and other stuff at the beginning like Dedications may get scrunched together, so be prepared not to have separate pages for the introductory information.

I use a website called Online-Convert to make e-books other than for KDP. It does a pretty good job of converting my Word files, including adding a front cover. Again, nothing is 100 percent. You’ll have to mess around with pages and formatting.

‘Beyond Heart Mountain’ memoir – documentary now available

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“Beyond Heart Mountain” is a documentary memoir by Alan O’Hashi based on the book of the same title. The Heart Mountain Relocation Center was one of 10 camps established after President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The memoir-documentary is available for rent or streaming for a small donation.

A chimney still remains at the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Northwest Wyoming between Cody and Powell. Click on the photo to rent or purchase the movie.

The U.S. government rounded up 120,000 Japanese, mostly on the west coast. After they were sorted out at 15 assembly centers, trainloads of evacuees were transported by train as far east as Arkansas.

Japanese American Baby Boomer, filmmaker and author Alan O’Hashi relates his personal experiences. He reclaims his heritage after once being part of a culturally thriving community.

The businesses and residents vanished following World War II because of racial injustice out in the middle of nowhere in his hometown of Cheyenne, Wyoming

The story is told through the eyes of filmmaker and author Alan O’Hashi. He interviewed four of his contemporaries who had ties to the once-vibrant Japanese community in West Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Young Carol Lou Kishiyama and her family owned the California Fish Market in downtown Cheyenne.

Robert Walters worked at the City Cafe, the neighborhood anchor.

Brian Matsuyama’s family owned the California Fish Market before selling it to Carol Lou Kishiyama and her family.

Terie Miyamoto’s family owned the only racially-integrated bar in the Japanese community, Baker’s Place.

My grandmother worked as a cook at the City Cafe and my grandfather owned the pool hall next to the City Cafe.

Watch for the book version that will be published by Winter Goose Publishing.

Buy ‘True Stories of an Aging Do-Gooder: How cohousing can bridge cultural divides’

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I’ve lived a life of divergent experiences that converged when I joined the Silver Sage Village (SSV) senior cohousing community in Boulder, Colorado. My story about how to play well with others is a somewhat organized stream of consciousness.

Paperback available direct from the publisher Boulder Community Media

True Stories provides “nuts-and-bolts” methods about how your community can use cultural competence techniques that better encourage members to understand one another.

Buy a signed copy direct from the publisher Boulder Community Media.

The Kindle ebook and paperback are available for purchase on Amazon.

After arguing about whether pets are allowed in the Common House, what if cohousers organized themselves and decided to collectively undertake a mission to save the world?

True Stories explores why I believe cohousing can evolve from a “social movement” into being a “social norm.”

I’ll offer a paradigm shift about how cohousing can bridge socio-economic divides.

The stories are about relations between and among individual people and the personal changes necessary to find commonality with strangers, all with different experiences and lifestyles.

In case you’ve just returned after a year in outer space, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that began in late 2019 circled the globe.

Like everyone else, I’ve had quite a bit of extra time on my hands. I have no idea how my day was occupied before self-isolation.

COVID-19 brought to light glaring cultural inequities. The pandemic closed down the economy, and people lost their jobs.

That exposed the lack of lower-priced housing options when people lost their homes or kicked out of their rental apartments.

If homeowners default on their loans at the same time, as happened in 2009, the market will be flooded with pricey houses that nobody can afford to purchase, except the bottom-feeders.

Racial justice issues quickly floated to the top of the social change pond.

African American and Latino people are at the highest risk of contracting COVID-19, hospitalization, and death than the general population.

One nexus of lower-priced housing and racial justice is rental and owner-occupied cohousing that pool resources.

Residents share the financial risks and collaboratively operate and maintain their communities.

The story is written from my viewpoint as a cohousing community member, as opposed to a cohousing professional or a cohousing professional who lives in a community.

SSV is one of 170 existing cohousing communities in the United States.

If cohousing is such a great idea, why aren’t there thousands of communities popping up in all corners of the country?

After all, if there are 30,000 people residing in existing an existing cohousing community or in the community formation phase.

The book is part memoir and part “how-to” manual about my experiences that seemed unrelated at the time but added to my life gestalt, which eventually led me to believe cohousing can make social change happen by bridging cultural divides.

The only person I have any control over is myself. For me, personal change happens when keeping the amount of time between the past and the present as small as possible.

My experiences aren’t that remarkable, but the intent is to encourage you to remember what happened in your personal history as you figure out the opportunities and challenges you’ll face when choosing to care and share in a cohousing community.

‘True Stories of a Mediocre Writer … and Accidental Author’ now on sale!

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All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” is what Ernest Hemingway says about the essence of good storytelling.

Buy a paperback directly from the publisher

This book is for anyone who is a writer of organized words whether they are fiction, nonfiction, poetry, work memos, grant applications, academic papers, or love letters.

Kindle ebook and soft cover editions of True Stories of a Mediocre Writer are now available on Amazon.

If you want an autographed copy of the book, cut out Amazon and buy directly from me.

Read this book if you’re a professional writer, a novelist just starting out, or a screenwriter with a half-done script lost deep in the bowels of a computer hard drive.

Are you a writer or do you know a writer who wonders how to get over self-doubt, kick your obsession with perfection, and for whatever reasons, can’t quite finish your writing project?

Being a writer isn’t just about getting your words down on the page. Writing is a life metaphor. How do you get more focused? Why be organized? Is finishing that important?

This book will provide insight, and a few tips through the experiences of the author about becoming more confident in your ability balancing perfection and accuracy that results in a higher likelihood of finishing your work.

Alan O’Hashi’s memoir about how lessons from life were big influences that resulted in his first book pitch based on a typed up piece of paper in June, resulted in an 80,000 word manuscript and publishing contract five months later.

Author Alan O’Hashi has been writing since he was 12 years old as a reporter for the Carey Junior High School newspaper, “The Tumbleweed” published in his hometown of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

BCM and Reality Garage develop VR curriculum for BHS

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dave paul students

Boulder High School digital arts instructor Dave Blessing and student mentor Paul Mealey assist students with the virtual reality project editing

Boulder Community Media (BCM) partnered with the Reality Garage and Boulder High School (BHS) to integrate virtual reality digital programming into the traditional arts.

The acronym, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), is commonly associated non-artistic endeavors.

There is a new iteration that moves STEM into creative industries called STEAM with the “A” representing “arts”.

The digital age added a new dimension to traditional analog art media – paintings, written pages, sculpted forms, animated digital books, 3D movies, and stories told in video game environments.

What if the the otherwise non-artistic skill of virtual reality is integrated into the arts?

best buy foundation

A grant was received from the Best Buy Foundation to develop a VR curriculum and camera operation manual.

The Boulder Virtual Reality (BVR) project was recently completed and does just that, thanks to a small grant from the Best Buy Foundation.

The grant enabled implementation of Phase II of a three Phase project.

During the fall 2018 – 2019 semester at BHS, 19 students were taught about virtual reality by teacher Dave Blessing and Reality Garage owners Bob Ottinger and Brenda Lee.

Reality Garage is a Boulder-based virtual reality technology development company.

bob and student

Bob Ottinger from the Reality Garage answers a student’s question.

Students learned hands-on job skills in the classroom work and also in the field where they operated a couple types of cameras.

They then learned how to manipulate the photos and videos into completed “stories.”

The BVR developed two manuals, VR Filming Techniques Curriculum, and VR Camera Operations. The students completed 13 VR photo projects and 15 VR video projects during the semester.

One student emerged as a mentor who assisted other students and another is working as an intern at Reality Garage.

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Northern Arapaho singer Alison Sage demonstrates traditional drumming and singing.

Phase I was funded by a grant from the Wyoming Arts Council.

The Wind River VR Pilot Project introduced virtual reality as a new medium to tell traditional Northern Arapaho stories in a more relevant way to tribal youth.

BCM collaborated with Makerspace 307 in Fort Washakie, Wyoming who recruited four tribal youth to participate.

VR trainer, Glenn Reese, worked with the students in basic camera operation.

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Northern Arapaho artist Robert Martines talks about tribal tradition.

Northern Arapaho artist Robert Martinez discussed with the students the importance of passing tribal traditions to future generations.

Robert worked with the youth as they drew pictures illustrating an Arapaho folk tale, “The Fox and the Wood Tick,” as told by tribal elder Merle Haas.

Alison Sage is a singer member of the Northern Arapaho Eagle Society. He explained how tribal stories and experiences are preserved through song and drumming and worked with the students with expressing themselves through music.

wac logo

The Wyoming Arts Council funded Phase I

The crew then traveled to the nearby Arapaho Ranch to integrate flat art and original music with virtual reality.

A virtual reality camera was set up and students displayed their art work. An original music soundtrack was improvised on the grand piano in the ranch house.

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Arapaho elder Gary Collins, BCM VR trainer Glenn Reese and Alan O’Hashi pose with Arapaho storyteller Merle Haas.

Merle Haas read The Fox and the Wood Tick in the Arapaho language. The virtual reality footage of the students with their art work was set to the Arapaho language narration and the student-composed music.

Over time, classrooms will be moving away from “learning” a subject to “feeling” the content through immersion.

To this end, the BVR Phase III project is underway. A third small grant was received from the city of Boulder Arts Commission.

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A marker designates the Fort Chambers site.

That project adds virtual reality to telling the story of a Fort Chambers, which was constructed on the outskirts of Boulder.

The sod fort no longer stands, but was the training facility for the 3rd Volunteer Cavalry who killed Arapaho and Cheyenne tribal members at the infamous Sand Creek Massacre.

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The BAC funded the Phase III Fort Chambers VR project.

Students will be creating a virtual Fort Chambers that the viewer and walk through, to the narration of Arapaho tribal members who recount the stories told of the massacre by their ancestors.

The BVR is an engagement tool that in Phase III will teach students the use of a software called Tilt Brush and a program called Unity which will allow a student to explore, experience or be involved as if they are actually present in that environment or place.

Beyond Wind River: The Arapaho and Fort Chambers in preproduction

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sand creek ledger

Sand Creek Massacre ledger art scene by Howling Wolf

“Beyond Wind River: The Arapaho and Fort Chambers” is the latest documentary by Alan O’Hashi and Boulder Community Media.

A Boulder, CO shaker and mover named David Nichols in 1864 recruited 100 local volunteer militiamen to train at Fort Chambers located just east of town to kill Indians at Sand Creek.

Flash forward to 2018 when the city of Boulder government purchased the fort location as open space and a group of citizens called Right Relationship Boulder (RRB) is working to repatriate that land, in some form, back to the Arapaho people.

This is a story about a chapter in Boulder’s cultural history told from the perspectives of the Arapaho people. Arapaho cultural traditions are oral ones.

Documenting Arapaho voices preserves tribal members’ Sand Creek Massacre experiences that have been orally passed down from generation-to-generation.

RRB is a group of Native and non-Native Boulder-area residents who work with local governments and organizations to help all residents learn about the Native peoples who lived here historically, and who live here today.

RRB is also the lead organizer of Boulder Indigenous People’s Day that happens in October.

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The city of Boulder purchased the Chambers property east of Boulder.

The Chambers property includes a home and pasture land along Boulder Creek at Valmont and 61st east of town.

Stay tuned, for project updates. BCM is also seeking contributions of any amount towards the project to match the Boulder Arts Commission grant.

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Contributors will be included in the movie credits.

 

 

 

 

 

Buy ‘Beyond Heart Mountain’ about Japanese in Downtown Cheyenne

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bhm 1-1What happened to the Japanese residents and businesses on West 17th Street in downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming?

Beyond Heart Mountain is available for pre-sale.

It’s not just about the demise of the once vibrant Japanese community in a small town in Wyoming that thrived from the 1920s through the 1960s, but about how downtown areas can be revived by adding new life to them with people.

The story is a historical memoir told through the eyes of the author, a Sansei generation Baby Boomer Cheyenne native, Alan O’Hashi.

The 1st edition 50 page picture book is a short run 8×11″ hard cover book with a dust jacket. The price is $58.99, preview the book by opening the YouTube link. Download a pdf copy of the Beyond Heart Mountain preface.

Pre-orders are being accepted. The release date is the “Day of Remembrance” on February 19th, which commemorates 77 years since President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that required internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

Facebook Community Boost workshop ‘AHA’ moments and a few tips

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Facebook brought an event called the Community Boost to Denver

Facebook is putting on the full court press to get the gig economy to become an integral part of the macro-economy. How do we turn our hobbies and cottage businesses into real money?

The grassroots road show came to Denver recently. It was a classy event at the Cable Center near the University of Denver.

The Cable Center is a non-profit organization that educates the public about, I suppose, the great things that cable TV has done for the good of society.

My background is public access TV, which was a provision of the original Cable Communications Act of 1984 that set up community access channels as a ploy to avoid regulation as a public utility and dodge FCC oversight.

I had to check out the CATV museum with the history of cable and honors all the pioneers who made billions of dollars.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I digress.

The event’s goal was to provide basic information and some hands-on experience with how to use facebook to increase website traffic, get more buyers / customers and ultimately how to buy more facebook ads through micro-targeting and subsequently make more money for your fledgling business and for facebook.

facebook booster creative

The facebook Community Boost exhibit area include the Mobile Studio that provides in-phone apps to edit pix and video

I’m a filmmaker and facebook is trying to turn everyone into rough-around-the-edges filmmakers, which devalues the work that I and all of my colleagues do.

Nonetheless, if you’re going to make video, you might as well post stuff that at least looks halfway decent.

Here are a few tips to improve your videos:

  • Have a story in mind. Even on the spot, you can mentally compose a beginning, middle and end to your movie, even if it’s only 15 seconds long. If you use an in-phone app like Splice or iMovie, you can shoot clips, trim and reassemble them. If you don’t edit, lots of creativity can come about from the continuous shot – going from scene to scene while keeping the phone camera steady. The climax to your story is some sort of call to action – “Click here”, “Call us”, “Donate now.”
  • Hold your camera steady. Move smoothly hand-held. My preference is to shoot with the phone camera horizontally. TV screens and monitors are not vertical and horizontal video displays and looks better. If you’re webcasting facebook live, turn the camera horizontally until the image flips then start the recording.
  • Movies are 80% sound. Viewers can take video that’s a little shaky or out of focus but if the sound is bad, your potential customers will skip to the next video. The microphone is at the bottom of the phone. Get as close as you can to your action or subjects. Normal voices from across the room won’t be picked up. If you decide you want your voice in the recording, try to let your subject complete their statement and avoid “walking over” their audio with your excited utterances or laughing.
  • Fill out the meta-data fields. Facebook has figured out the meta-data thing and prompts you through the video upload with titles and key word fields. Fill them all in and in the post narrative pick out a few key hashtags that are common sensical. I see posts with six or more hashtags – many of which are nonsense. That tactic detracts from the content.
  • Take my workshop. If you’re interested in turning your volunteers or staff into decent social media movie makers, I offer workshops about how to tell your organization or business story in 140 character elevator speech. I also teach practical ways to light a scene, get good sound using inexpensive, everyday items.

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The Community Boost mobile studio pushed 10 apps to edit images and movies.

What I learned from the Community Boost is that real filmmakers need to differentiate themselves from the short-form shooters who know how to point the camera and record, but make bad video look better with the bells and whistles graphic overlay apps.

At the same time, filmmakers can better promote their work using the short and rough cut format.

Since attending the Community Boost, I’ve done this a couple times and have generated some pretty good organic engagement – a couple thousand views of one and nearing 1,000 views on another.

How that translates into more business is anyone’s guess but the phone keeps ringing and my friends keep making referrals.

The event was set up for lots of time for face-to-face networking, but during the breaks most everyone was sitting in the corners staring at their phones, computers and other screens. The lunch was good, but nearly missed out since I ran into a filmmaker in the hallway after the facebook ads workshop.

Community Boost “Aha” Moment – Campaign 2016

facebook parscale stahl

The Trump presidential campaign successfully employed the same techniques as taught at the Community Boost. The Hillary campaign didn’t and the rest is history.

I had a big “Aha” moment during the facebook ads workshop. If you missed, it was about how to target the ads to particular markets and how different messages and their words, images, colors and other variables can be tweaked to maximize viewership and interaction.

Earlier, I watched a 60 Minute TV newsmagazine segment by Leslie Stahl. She interviewed Donald Trump campaign social media guy Brad Parscale. Apparently, facebook offered to embed staff members into the campaign organizations who advised about how to maximize use of facebook ads.

Parscale explained how they decided to focus on 3,000 voters in Wisconsin which ended up turning the course of the election. The Trump campaign decided to try out the facebook offer. The Hillary campaign didn’t and the rest is history.

Those of us in the Community Boost workshop learned in 30 minutes what was taught during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook ads, with practice, can be a very effective way to micro-target market and maximize advertising budgets.

I get chided by friends about why I spend so much time on my facebook account and pages that I manage. I’d say three quarters of my business business leads come as a result of my presence on facebook. “If I didn’t make money from facebook, I wouldn’t waste my time there,” I tell them.

I still don’t understand the psychology behind facebook and why people respond, but then again, it really doesn’t matter.