Guest Blogger: Christie Maturo
Your life is a rich source of content.
That’s true year-round but especially this time of year. So
if you haven’t mined your world for content in a while, there’s no better time
than now to look at what’s around you. For example...
This caught my eye in the grocery store.
Really? A pack of pre-cooked bacon as a Christmas gift?
That started a chain reaction of questions: Who would give that?
Who would want to GET that? What if you wrapped it and left it under tree but the family had a hungry pet?
As quickly as that, a piece of original content began to take shape.
“Deliberately observing your life” and thinking about what
you see is the genesis of great, original content.
Those of you who were at A&O&B’s 2015 Pre-CRS
conference met via Skype my daughter Christie
who is a Second City alum. At the time
she was living in Chicago doing TV commercials and she spoke to us about the art of working with a partner.
She’s since moved to Texas where she’s a Professor of
Theatre at Midwestern State University and is also currently co-writing and
co-starring in the new web comedy series “Hey You
It’s Me.”
"Whenever I see or hear something funny, I always imagine,
“What if this happened to me?”
I find things are funnier when you put yourself in an
awkward or embarrassing situation. It takes the pressure off of anyone else and
it is never hurtful or offensive if you are making yourself the butt of the
joke.
For example, what if my boyfriend gave me this pre-cooked
bacon for Christmas. I’m a vegetarian!
Does he not know me at all? Did he even
buy this? Did he hire someone to shop for me?
Is he secretly dating a
carnivore? Is this some sort of sign for our future that he expects me in the
kitchen cooking his lazy ass bacon every morning!?
Then I let the ideas run wild to further develop the story.
This would definitely lead to a fight. Would we break up?
Would I shove the bacon in his pockets and sic the dogs on him?
How would I retell this story of the end of our relationship?
To my mom? To my best girlfriends? To my therapist?
When I experience something that is unusual, I
imagine all the ways it could have gotten even weirder.
True story: I went on audition the other week where the
director was floored that someone who’s been on national television showed up
to audition for him. Everything I told him about myself was astonishing to him.
When I think about retelling the story, I imagine what could
have made this even weirder.
What if he cried at the top of my audition because he was so
happy that anyone took his audition seriously enough to show up? Then I imagined
him apologizing and pulling himself together and telling me to continue.
I’d ask
him if he would like a resume and headshot and he again bursts in to
uncontrollable sobs. He pulls himself together,
I begin to read for him but he
starts again weeping so loudly I have to stop auditioning. We sit on the floor
where he cries and pours his heart out. In the end, I leave with whatever part
I want :)
Listening is just as important as seeing or experiencing things.
In a similar way, I use conversations and other peoples' stories as jumping
off points.
For example, I had a friend tell me that she broke up with
her boyfriend two weeks ago and just this past weekend, he shows up at her door
and proposes with a stuffed Minion. He used the excuse of bringing her over his
Star Wars DVDs because they had recently discussed how she had never seen them.
She’s a biology professor and he thought as a self-respecting nerd, she needed
to watch the movies.
Again, what if this happened to me?
I could switch that to he brought me the movie “Waiting for
Guffman” because it is about community theatre.
Or maybe he made me a mix tape of show
tunes, or bought me a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets and attempted to read them
to me.
The minion is priceless. I might use that, or change it to
something even more inappropriate to me.
Like maybe he brings me a stuffed Darth Vader even though he
knows I hate outer space movies.
And, since they sell Star Wars stuff everywhere,
I’m convinced he picked it up at a gas station on the way to my house.
As you observe what’s around you, run through as many possibilities
as you can of how it would be if what you're seeing or hearing happened to you and then imagine how weird this thing
could get.
Review your ideas and pick the ones where you can paint the most interesting
stories."
With holiday get-togethers, end of year celebrations, and relatives, this time of the year provides plenty of low-hanging fruit just waiting to be turned into great content.
Love to hear what you come up with.
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