We are just finishing the adaptation of classic works by Edward Lear its brilliantly set to the music of Edmund McWilliams (Ed Cake of Bressa Creting Cake), Geoff Maddox (of Goldenhorse) and Geva Downey, Children of all ages will be rocking out to the nonsense lyrics of The Owl and the Pussycat, the Jumblies, the Alphabet, and Calico Pie.

Edward Lear is a wise old man negotiating his way into old age by letting his inner child run

free. Director Elena Stejko and the cast led by veteran Mark Mitchinson explore themes of aging, death, and the relationship between humanity and the infinite – but in a light-hearted, whimsical, colorful  way.

Lear as the grandfather passes on his love of stories to his granddaughter, as his words and characters come to life singing and dancing. We hope to inspire enjoyment in words, and nonsense, and stories in kids and grownups alike. Grandparents will enjoy the relationship between the generations, and the infectious songs will have kids humming the alphabet for days to come.

No jumblies were harmed in the production of this show.

Starring

Mark Mitchinson as Edward Lear and Anjula Prakash as Grandaughter
With music by Edmund McWilliams, Giva Downey & Geoffrey Maddox
Featuring beloved characters Owl, Pussycat, Pig, Turkey & The Jumblies
Played by a super cast of emerging talent including: Gina Timberlake, Jillian McDonald, Brendan Lovell, Becky Kuek, Tamara Markovic, Jessica Astorga-Ralph, Erin Wallace, Emma Thorburn, Cherie Moore & guests.

Creative Team

Costume Design by Sara Taylor, Elizabeth Whiting & Wilma Kotze
Set & Lighting Design by Steven Morrison
Direction by Elena Stejko

Playing at

The Victoria Picture Palace & Theatre
48 Victoria Rd
Devonport
Auckland

Show Times

Dates: 19 July 2011 – 29 July  2011 (school holidays)
Times: Monday – Friday 10.30am and 12pm

Cost / Tickets

General Admission - Buy tickets online here

• 18$ Adult
• 15$ Concession
• 12$ Kids (12 and younger)

Contact details

▪ email info@outboxtheatre.co.nz
▪ phone  021311103
• Buy Tickets

Here were the facts we needed to include:

The Owl and The Pussycat
Edward Lear a collection of Nonsense

Written By
Steven Morrison
Music By
Edmund McWilliams, Giva Downey, Geoff Maddox
Directed By Elena Stejko
Starring Anjula Prakash and Mark Mitchinson
July 19th -July 29th
The Victoria Picture Palace Devonport

Outbox Theatre
More information on Edward Lear here

I sketched up a quirky cat and oogling owl. The poster needed to celebrate the timeless characters.

I added a still of my lead actor, how could it start working on another level?

First the Owl & Cat need a peagreen boat.

Erueka I had it. I love it, but its not right.

I fix a slash with details and info but the eyes arent right.

I look at it and try to improve. Its still not right.

Maybe if the characters are looking at the moon?

Yes But the colours are too confusing. Maybe to simplify…

Ahhh thats better.

Do we need the logos?

Maybe we should get the info right.

Ah right colours right logos now can we print.

Hooray we can. Look out for the new show from  Outbox Theatre Company at The Victoria Picture Palace & Theatre in Devonport. It opens on July 19th and runs till July 29th. Come along enjoy a great show for kids of all ages.

More information here

http://outboxtheatre.co.nz/2011/06/holiday-theatre-kids-edward-lear/

Website traffic way down after the first month of going live

Fast forward a few months, and things are not so rosy. Traffic has declined. Bounce rates (the number of visitors who come to your website and immediately leave without looking further) are up. The graph has a sad downward trend. Why?

Number one reason: because you aren’t keeping your web content fresh and your visitors have nothing new to look at. Think of your website as a car. You can spend a lot of money buying a car, and it will go well for a while – until it runs out of petrol. If you want it to keep getting you places, you need to keep it maintained and gassed up. New content is the petrol in your website’s car. Just as you get demoralised when you see the same old magazine every time in the dentist’s office, web visitors will get demoralised seeing the same old crusty content on your website every time they visit and they’ll probably stop visiting.

Then there’s the search engines. Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search aggregators rank sites with frequently updated content higher than sites with stale or static content.

So how do I keep content fresh?

The easy answer is: add new pages or posts to your website on a weekly or (at the very least) monthly basis. And make it easy for new or returning visitors to find that new content. The content doesn’t even have to be entirely “new”. For instance I have a customer who posts photos of the wedding dresses she makes into galleries – some of the galleries are focused on the bride (which draws in traffic from the bride and her circle of friends), and others are focused on the style of dress (which draws in traffic from people looking for, say, lace wedding dresses). The image itself is the same, but is presented in a different context for different audiences.

New content doesn’t have to be an article or essay. It can be a post with an interesting link or image, or a brief observation on something you think might be of interest to your customers. Chances are if it is interesting to you in your line of work, it will be interesting to people visiting your website to look for your products or services.

Charity begins at home

This post was prompted by a peek at the latest website stats for esoap.co.nz. Ouch. Tells me we aren’t putting up enough compelling content. Mid year resolution: practice what you preach.

That bounce rate should be telling you something

Designwise I have been thinking about Popovs state, a woman alone, grieving for her dead husband. A shutin if you will, retreating from the world in her memories and her art. I wanted to capture the vivid energy that sparks her reentry into the world.

I remembered an old Russian saying about the yellow house, a little like a kiwi saying he’s a few sandwhiches short of a picnic!

So the set will be simple and bold a large 6m square of citron yellow, luminous in a black space, below on the stage a woman works amongst papers, surrounded by furniture covered in white sheets. Her unlikely saviour is the Boorish Smirnov, The Bear himself. Breaking furniture, yelling, making crass gestures and remarks well out of his station.

The Victoria Picture Palace & Theatre in Devonport will be the 2011 home for the Outbox Season which will include plays from Russia, Sweden, The United States and featuring a new New Zealand play by Stephen Sinclair. The first show of the season will be The Bear and will star Elena Stejko as Popov and Stephen Papps as Smirnov. Hope lives, and love still conquers money.

Elena’s passion for teaching and developing talent is rapidly growing. The Actor’s Studio Elena Stejko in Auckland has built a strong following. ‘The insights and disciplines of Michael Chekhov and Constantin Stanislavsky are as relevant now as they ever were’, says Elena. ‘Acting is much more than technique, of course, but as tools for an actor they are fundamental.’ Her students are drawn from across theatre community, including the carefully selected young actors. Stephen Papps is a gifted actors who slips seamlessly between stage and screen, he brings his considerable wit and experience to create a heady volitile chemistry in The Bear. Tickets available for all shows from The Victoria Picture Palace and Theatre

One of Chekovs’ earlier plays (1888) The Bear holds up in farce images of sexual equality and the soon to arrive sufferage movement.Chekovs’ sharp eye for sociological detail gives the modern audience a glimpse into the past, all the while holding a firm connection across time, the warm beating heart of the human condition.  Love,guns and rubles – this farce the first battle of the sexes. Its going to be good, but dont take my word for it come and see it yourself

Go to the Outbox Theatre Company site for more information on this

The Bear LITEPresskit

Tickets available for all shows from The Victoria Picture Palace and Theatre

Some of the most important words you will use on your web site are the URL and title. Whats it called? Where are the webbots going to find it? In what context?

It is the most important part of publishing a post in some ways. Lets take a simple example. I am about ot publish a post lets say.
10 Awesome Graphics Designs and Digital Artworks  the URL would be :
www.yoursite.com/category/10-cool-theatre-shows-and-modern-plays

Seems pretty much alright, right? Well..here u miss about 30% of your  search window. 
A simple reason using STOP WORDS in title and URL are very counterproductive AND is a stop word. About the url why make it so long using extra stuff in it like the word 10 , and etc. No one will search for your content in search engines with these words 10 theatre shows.  If they look for that they will search graphics designs etc.
So get rid of 10 , and from your URL. Here is how they should be:
•    Title: 10 Cool Theatre Shows and Modern Plays
•    URL: www.website.com/category/cool-theatre-shows-modern-plays/
Keep it simple and even use the category name in the URL structure. Above all make it small and powerful While you are thinking about the words you are using lets talk about Keywords and Meta Descriptions. Most of the bloggers use very tiny keywords. Use long tail keywords,because with them you get traffic for life time. Lets take the example of that above title post. keywords/tags which bloggers normally select are: cool-theatre-shows-modern-plays. Why don’t you spice them up a bit to get even more traffic?  If i would do it , I would use these keywords:
Theatre, Plays, Theatre Shows, Modern Plays, Cool Theatre

Just because you have a great idea and you have great new digital tools doesnt mean you will get what you want with your social media campaign, and indeed the key as always with content is be original and for god sake tip your hat to your influences. Because if you stray into the world of plagiarism, rumour and threat, the trolls will eat you.

The Streisand effect is a complex social phenomena which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information results in boosting the influence of the information and enhancing its notoriety. It is named after an American entertainer whose 2003 attempt to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. See the wiki article here

Recently a similar episode unfolded in the sleepy backwaters of the New Zealand social media hood.  In a bold and brave social media campaign, Company A agreed to sponsor Company B and in return Company B would do a live performance featuring the products of Company A, generating buzz. Well, sounds cool. Indeed Company B with the help of Company A set up a twitter account and made some viral video content. Off we go.

But first some music

The viral video goes out, and some in the twitterati (yes they do exist) say what on this looks awfully like The Y show made by Mister X. Some start to mention this quietly at first. Questioning like Bambi sniffing the air, then in a more insistent way, casting doubt on the authenticity of the work! Well Mister X discovers this on the other side of the world, shrugs wtf. Then looks again and comments that it does indeed look a bit like the Y show. The virals are pulled. Gone. Deleted. Company B shrugs and says wtf are you guys on were just making a show with Company A. Company B is besieged and fiery creative minds powering twitter accounts spit threats of lawyers and such across the ether of the DM.

So Company B went DM. That’s saying I’m hiding something or I spam a lot. In fact one local twitterati is incensed, vein poppingly troll bound for hours to his keyboard tossing out asides, posting frame grabs of conversations. Words and swipes raged about and out to 3rd and 4th circle ripples. In fact that’s when I started to watch it and got a few screen grabs myself becuase i just couldnt believe how quickly it had gone to lawyers at dawn…. Well!

Company A meanwhile is quiet: the experiment is toxic, abandon the ship, stay quiet. Company B goes with the opening but doesnt follow with any more virals, instead goes on a front foot with a press campaign in the local old media plastering over the ruckus surrounding what is a very lazy copy by talented folk who are clever, but not that clever. The experiment in advanced product placement with a twist of social media and a lemon is still uproven. They survive, having discovered a new audience for their shows and they have the sponsors money. The downside is they do look a wee bit silly.

In their place I would have fought back by pumping out the viral videos, this time making them original and good, or obvious homages. Hanging up the clips is a bit like giving up on that part of the campaign. Whatever happens try not to pull down clips or content that generates extensive negative publicity. Its bringing you traffic. Try to handle the situation hour by hour – don’t go quiet.

“There’s no such thing as bad publicity” if you are nimble, willing to laugh at yourself, and see it as an opportunity to make good. “Sorry guys, I effed up” you could say. “I really should have gone with this [a good viral video] – what do you guys think?”

Try to get buy in from the twitterati before you go for it the major publicity blast. Especially with “edgy” material, you need test it out slowly.

Remember you don’t always get what you want, and sometimes just because the rules aren’t written down doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

She’s not an easy road getting an idea made into a childrens television series, especially in New Zealand. For a start if you want local funding there is really only one date a year in August that NZOA call for funding of the genre. If you are lucky enough to get network interest in your idea you still have to find ‘ a safe pair of hands’ to handle the money…. read a producer who has a proven track record. So when budgets for kids TV get close to 500$ a minute you really have zero fat for the production house, as a result kids tv is not worth their time, unless like Pickled Possum or Whitebait you can clusterfuck it all together in a package and take care of programming vast swathes of broadcast time for the networks.

Truly a headwind if ever i saw it, but the fact remains that kids are probably the only audience i feel are worth busting my hump for. I guess if you dont respect your audience dont make the show. So after preparing a half hour claymation series for 5-15 yrs (with a secondary payoff for grownups), i couldnt get any production companies interested in the script. Undaunted i decided to prepare a trailer of what the claymation could look like, a development reel to explore the possibilities and show the stories were sticky.

The stories are sticky allright but the budget draft claymation didnt convince the producer who had been involved representing the project. The day before the annual deadline the I still had no production company and thus could not proceed to the network to collect my letter of support. Well that pissed me off, yeah it did. Just really no respect for the project or what it could be. Clearly when you show funding bodies or potential investors your project make sure it is not a work in progress. Dont leave room for imagination because they just dont have any. Dont show too much of anything unless its perfect. For me it means continuing to develop the project another way.

Im looking to overcome the imagination step by preparing the first story as an e-book and app. I’ll carry on working on developing the look of the characters with the help of collaborators and aim to be back before next August with a proposal that leaves nothing to chance and provides NZOA, the networks and the ball carrier a clear vision of a final product.

Trend following works until it doesn’t, investors and gurus from Soros to the universe of tweet-perts advocate following a trend and jumping into cash before a trend ends and prices are brought lower as supply hits the market. Everyone has different indicators and time frames for their trades; and in a terrible downdraft there will be massive snap-back rallys as the alog traders organize pre-emptive buying raids, and the mutual fund managers second guess themselves.Personally when the 13ema goes under the 26sma and the price action falls below both you should have been in cash.

So will the markets rally in the next weeks as Japan rebuilds from its sequence of earthquakes and oil supplies in the Middle East continue to be at risk?

Sure they just might, this isn’t because the outlook is bullish but technically in a process of price discovery we can have peeling arc-like movements that appear to be the previous trend revising. However these moves often play out of weeks allowing distribution by people in the know who are still long.

So what could it look like? Well a small green candle holding above the daily bollinger band would be a start, and this could be sprung if the following day we get a good sized gap up. The bounce rally begins to prise out agressive bears who have overplayed the short hand in the short frame. Bears take profits and cover to wait for failure. In the vacuum the index pops up again but draws diminishing volume and key leaders fail to break above 66% retracements. Be warned in this environment, the buying impulse bubbles out and comes up against the underside of the preceeding mid-term investors (who are holding losing positions from earlier in the week). As these swing players unwind the selling pressure may come on as nervous recent arrivals and long term investors lock in profits to await the next leg down.

Where are we going to get to? Well it could be a rough ride maybe even up soon to the underside of 129.30 or even 130.90. If the selling comes on here we surely must touch 123.50-122.96  support band. In any event individual sectors and companies may behave in a very contradictory fashion and these individual situations should be where the best swing trades are.

As price discovery unfolds we need to step through the three layers of confidence, daily, weekly, and monthly. I follow these bands of support with fibonacci fans,

when the first fails we often quickly test the second, if price tests the second and fails we will see the third tested and market participants majority become bearish. This usually coincides with a test or fail and retest of the 200 sma.

So by all means take positions but run tight stops and let the three phases of pullback play out before taking large positions. If you are caught long, look for that failure to break above the second fan as confirmation of more downward pressure over time and price.

What a beauty the kiwi design florin is, one issue that sets the point of reference for all coinage issued after. First issued in 1933 with the pattern of the Emperor George V, the 1936 reverse has Emperor VI but has the same browsing kiwi design.

Numerous flaws and variations exist in NZ florins, especially the famed flat back kiwi from 1946. But the best in breed for me must be the 1936 coin. Only 150 thousand were circulated and the values for this coin are high. If you are in an auction for this coin, beware buyers seek this key date. An average condition coin with circulation marks (unpolished thanks) will fetch at least $20 NZD, while if you can find the higher conditions, an uncirculated gem could fetch as high as $10000 NZD. Best examples of EF condition coins are best investment here and can be found for $850 NZD.

Legend has it that Sir Ron Brierly once owned as many as 10% of the 1936 florins in existance. So what was happening in 1936 that kept the ciriculation down?

Well Labour had just won the election and fiscally they were rather austre. The 25th NZ parliament was lead by Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage and the minister of finance was Walter Nash.

e was fully established by the change in 1936. Its importance in this respect may be gauged from the fact that M. J. Savage, Prime Minister, assumed the portfolio of Broadcasting. The Act also provided for the appointment of a Director of the National Broadcasting Service, Professor James Shelley being appointed to the position on 1 December 1936.

Among other provisions of the Act was one providing for programmes of all privately operated stations to be subject to ministerial scrutiny. Advertising was absolutely prohibited, except from commercial stations controlled by the Minister.

In 1936 parliamentary broadcasts began as a regular feature. Direct broadcasts from the House of Representatives were a new and radical departure from established practice both within and beyond New Zealand. In December 1936, the power of Station 2YA was increased to 60 kW, and debates from the House of Representatives were brought within the range of most of the country. In the meantime, the National Broadcasting Service continued to pay monetary subsidies to stations in areas where reception was difficult. Stations subsidised at this time were 4ZC Cromwell, 2ZJ Gisborne, 2YB New Plymouth, 2ZF Palmerston North, 2ZH Napier, 2ZD Masterton, 3ZR Greymouth, and 4ZP Invercargill. In addition, 14 other private stations continued their transmissions. These were 1ZB and 1ZJ Auckland, 4ZR Balclutha, 3ZM Christchurch, 4ZB, 4ZM, 4ZL, and 4ZO Dunedin, 2ZM Gisborne, 2ZL Hastings, 1ZM Manurewa, 2ZR Nelson, 2ZO Palmerston North, and 2ZP Wairoa

That year at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Jack Lovelock won the gold in 1500 metre “glamour event”. Lovelock set a new world record time of 3 minutes 47.8 seconds and described his win as “the most perfectly executed race of my career”. All of the race made its way into the regions on crackling wireless, to cribs, cowsheds and baches. The identity of New Zealanders would be fired and glazed by the force of radio and the 1936 florin is a wonderful marker to this moment in the emergence of a nation and a people.

“Exploit new content delivery channels” – did you like how I busted out the douchespeak there? In case any of the clueless d-bags or their grinning d-bag lawyers are reading. They like phrases like “content delivery channels” instead of “the internet and mobile devices”. I don’t really talk that way in real life, unless I’m at work or something.

Still, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you release the DVD hit film Boy in NZ months before you release it in Australia (home to 1 million Kiwis), some piracy will occur. It’s kind of like reading a poem called “Bash Me” outside a redneck bar at midnight, getting bashed, and then running to the press to cry about it. A little forethought may help you avoid or minimise the issue.

Anyway, while the high-powered douchebags and their lawyers are busy suing solo mums and college students, clever people are launching new startups every day to deliver video content over the internet, aiming for the long tail (more douchespeak for specialised or niche audiences).

Fandor is the latest one to catch the eye of the NYT tech editors – if it can offer a decent income model to independent movie makers, and offer a decent product to independent movie audiences, why shouldn’t it do well? Netflix is obviously still the 800 pound gorilla, but there are a lot more monkeys getting into the cage.