We at TAFT (True Art for Truth) Club sometimes get asked how do you become a TAFT Club Collaborator? Meaning that you work in front of the camera or behind the scenes or both on productions like “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko” full length film and no budget flick.
The answer is that you automatically become a TAFT Club Collaborator if you collaborate on a TAFT Club production including films, music videos and theatre.
If you are a creative performing artist it starts with making TAFT Club Collaborators aware of you and your artistry by filling out the form on the front page of the TAFT Club website.
Ultimately to become a TAFT Club Collaborator you need to collaborate on a Taft Club production. For example, TAFT Club has recently started the informal Headless Horseman Theatre group. If you are an actor or another kind of performing artist creator and were to participate in performing in a monologue or a scene with creatives, depending on elements of TAFT Club Collaborator involvement this just might be your pathway to becoming a Taft Club Collaborator!
Over the years TAFT (True Art For Truth) members have done lots of theatre, including in the 1990s the infamous “Six Plays in Six Months”. These productions were staged in various popular off-off Broadway theatres and had their behind-the-scenes processes documented on the pioneering ten year running (1991 – 2000) reality show series called Video Diary NYC.
Tap into the empowerment of Taft Club, T A F T standing for True Art For Truth, the club with the mission of supporting creative performing artists and/or locally owned stores with things such as streaming series stories. And to be very specific, streaming series stories are a possible tool to assist in the process of making a no budget flick and full length film such as “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko”.
Micro Cinema Streaming Series
A micro cinema streaming series story is yet another method of getting the word out regarding your movie. It enables you to share in short segments your motion picture ultimately possibly leading the viewer to your web video on demand.
History of Streaming Series Stories
Members of TAFT club initially created informally on the lot of a movie studio known as Zoetrope Studios headed by movie director Francis Coppola where Taft Club’s founder Yianni Stamas, who is a writer filmmaker, was working from 1980 to 1983 helping educator and writer August Coppola to develop an arts education program. Although at that time streaming series stories in terms of technology were not yet visible, Taft Club did create episodic series such as “Nightmare in Acapulco.”
Films and Music
It was on the Zoetrope lot as well as locations throughout Los Angeles and in a small town called Taft that TAFT club members first started making films and music. These films and music and theatre productions which Yianni wrote and directed, included productions where TAFT Club creatives collaborated with artists of entertainment who during the course of their careers have won an Oscar or Emmy or Golden Globe. And Yianni as a marketer for celebrities has had as clients recipients of awards including a winner of a Tony.
Inwood Manhattan
TAFT club is still flourishing today, based since 2006 in a Manhattan NYC neighborhood known as Inwood Manhattan with creatives from all over the country engaged in the process to remotely create as well as engage in discussions about creativity. And of course, at the center of it all is the making of micro cinema streaming series and most importantly the TAFT club coinciding full length feature film no budget flick currently being produced such as “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko”.
TAFT Club since when it was established in 1982 by writer filmmaker Yianni Stamas, has created and continues to create many industry of entertainment projects with member collaborators.
These projects follow the TAFT Club pathway in which creatives help each other and include TAFT Club in-house films and theatre including that from Headless Horseman Theatre.
Ultimately a micro cinema series leverages entertainment based marketing that focuses on the art of creativity thinking in terms first and foremost of the making of the full length film no budget flick such as “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko” and then use the micro cinema series as a way of previewing segments of the film prior to its release and even in conjunction of its distribution.
Innovation and creativity are two different things. Innovation is a business concept that has to do with finding innovative ways to connect with clients and customers and ultimately make the sale. While creativity is what artists like those from TAFT club do to create their art regardless of art form.
Industry of entertainment insights can be helpful both to those seeking to create innovation as well as those who are interested in pursuing creativity.
This is because regardless of whether you are a business person or an artist, an important part of the process if you wish it to be sustainable in terms of making your art a part of helping you to earn a living, at times even the very creative individuals need to seek strategies and to share your own passion with your own series is one such strategy.
As a creative or a business person you can utilize an episodic online series as a way to preview your motion picture or other project in bite sized pieces.
Or even breaking your entire full length film or no budget flick into a series and have the series and access to you movie simultaneously through other methods such as web video on demand. The TAFT club production “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko” is exploring this option.
What are you creating? Who are you trying to reach? How will you reach them.
Understanding the answers to all of these questions can be an important part of building visibility for your creative projects as an artist or your innovative procedures as a business person,
For artists of entertainment it is obvious the benefits of being on your personal branding journey, because when you connect with your audience about the latest projects and and more that you are working on, it is a way of staying connected with them and maintaining their interest in you.
For example the TAFT club project “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko” is a full length film and no budget flick that uses a multiple of different ways to reach their fan base both through in person events and online websites.
For an owner of a creative small business it is sometimes a bit more nuanced. For example, if the owner is the face of the business, then their use of of a personal branding journey can be very much like an artist of entertainment’s approach.
Hence the personal branding journey for a person in business who owns their business could include the What/Who/How approach including answering strategic questions such as WHAT are you offering? WHO is your best client or customer? And HOW are you reaching them.
Businesses can use a personal branding journey as a way to stand out and inform viewers of those who are involved in creative processes. People enjoy learning more about people and your own personal branding journey is one way to do this.
TAFT club is currently working on their new full length film no budget flick “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko”. But TAFT club has a long history of many different kinds of creative collaborating projects including the weekly half hour program set in New York, New York from 1991 to 2000 “Video Diary NYC” .
Below is just one example of a three part approach of getting inspiration from, in this instance, “Video Diary NYC”, and using the studying of it to create a sort of reality marketing.
Artists are usually primarily focused on creativity whereas business owners tend to seek innovation. But artists can take a page from business owners and integrate innovation into their workflow especially if they want to make their art a part of them earning a living.
One can be inspired by art as a way to help lead them to innovation in none creativity areas that are more about business and results such as marketing. During its run “Video Diary NYC” was a creativity driven ongoing production. Some call it the first reality show because it predated “The Real World” by more than a year.
Video Diary NYC and other creativity productions offer examples to study that can potentially lead to creative innovation that can in turn possibly lead to innovative strategies.
Here are some very off the cuff examples that might give you some ideas as a business person or even an artist on how you might use marketing that starts with studying art. In this instance, “Video Diary NYC”. But the possibilities are endless in terms of creativity out there that can be studied.
123 Quick Thoughts for Marketing Inspired by “Video Diary NYC”
Plan your “show” from start to finish, what you are seeking, the real life problems you face, and how you overcome them like in a reality show through the magic of you being an artist of entertainment with your innate talents such as those of being an actor thespian, or writer of songs, or a creator of dances. Draw from your own real life goals to walls faced to jumping over them. Or to put it another way, share your unique take on solving a problem for the viewer.
2. Set what your goals are in terms of specifically what you are are as an artist of entertainment or as an owner of a creative small business trying to achieve. In other words, what do you want to achieve? For artists of entertainment this could be getting bookings, or gaining representation, or getting more press coverage and so on. Creative small business goals could include getting more customers/clients or more sales via your website store or to build visibility online.
Then write a script that is in an entertainment style that is a right match for you and your uniqueness that through Video Diary NYC reality show-esc entertainment based marketing storytelling plot points leads your prospect fulfilling your call to action.
The creation of the current TAFT club project known as “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko” has its origin back in the 1970’s including a production that Yianni Stamas developed in 1978 called CRiSTALyME when he was 16 years old.
CRiSTALyME is a multimedia stage show, the name of which is referred to in “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko”. Multimedia and media are both very important concepts to Yianni.
In “Understanding Media”, Marshall McLuhan writes:
“To prevent undue wreckage in society, the artist tends now to move from the ivory tower to the control tower of society.” Yianni Stamas has had two major arts mentors in his life who shaped him as an artist.
The first is graphic artist Suzanne Charlton who was a family friend and an important creative collaborator of Yianni’s when he lived in Halcyon, California in the 1970s until 1980 which at the time had a population of approximately 100 people. Shortly after that Suzanne moved to Los Angeles and became a key part of the early days and origin of Taft Club.
And Yianni’s other mentor is writer/educator August Coppola, who Yianni helped develop a cinema arts education program at Zoetrope Studios in Hollywood California from 1980 to 1983.
Sadly both of these extraordinary human beings have passed.
It is because of mentoring by these two people that Yianni came to realize that his multifaceted approach to creativity that involves all areas of performing arts and media arts could be described as multimedia that has its roots as far back as ancient times.
It was Suzann who taught Yianni at 14 about figures in the history of arts and philosophy such as Marshall McLuhan the media theorist who contrasted the “ivory tower” with the “control tower,” urging artists and intellectuals to leave academic isolation and engage actively in shaping the media environment.
From August Yianni learned about how it is vital to continually make art, and never stop doing so. A memorable insight from August, and one Yianni thinks about as well as does every single day, has to do with the power of writing, and how it is easy and low cost to do because all you need is a pen, paper and creativity!
A key thing that Yianni learned from Suzanne was to have a sense of humor in your work and not to be afraid of exploring the abstract and absurdist. One thing that both Suzanne and Yianni found to be hilarious was over the top marketing, especially along the lines of building up the images of pop culture stars.
Yianni had come up with a rock star character named Johnny Rave in one of his films that later with some added video material became known as the feature length project “Son of Johnny Rave” and now the TAFT club production called “Johnny Rave Dr. Wacko”.
The creation of the character Johnny Rave was for Yianni and Suzanne a tongue in cheek inspiration to create marketing materials and merchandising to move out of the ivory tower into the control tower both in theory and maybe even reality. Yianni had been in a Thespian club for the two years while in high school until he was 16 and then graduated. So the idea of it being in a club was a starting point.
By late 1981 the generally quite random concepts for a club included Truth or Consequences New Mexico Club (a bit long, but Truth or Consequences is the town Johnny Rave lived in, in the movie) or Halcyon Club (which is where Yianni and Suzanne lived before Yanni moved to Hollywood) or Taft Club (which initially was because they thought Taft (later TAFT which stands for “True Art For Truth”) was an interesting name for a town”.
The concept that was pursued in early 1982 was to make T-shirts and other rock star type merchandising for what was called Taft Club.
Yianni went on to form an actual Taft Club – TAFT later standing for “True Art for Truth” – in 1982. This informal arts group for creative collaborators is still thriving today.
And all these years later there still remains the big dream for the TAFT club group that one day they will finally get personalized 3D membership cards for all members of this collective, plus a sustainable way of doing so. Early attempts at achieving this back in the ’80s were not successful which is because at that time the only option taking 3D photos was a new camera that did not really work very well, at least not for Suzanne and Yianni.
TAFT club initially started as a way for Yianni as a writer/director/actor of independent arts projects in film/music/theatre to collaborate with his friends who are actors, musicians and dancers initially on the backlot of Zoetrope Studios as well as a small California town called Taft in a community college science classroom that doubled as a video studio.
Actors, musicians and dancers who Yianni wrote scripts for and directed and acted in as well as collaborated on writing songs with in TAFT club projects in the 1980s include actor Nicolas Cage, songwriter and music producer Corey Dee Williams and director/choreographer/dancer Doriana Sanchez.
And now all these years later Yianni lives and works in Inwood Manhattan, an area in Manhattan NYC that is in the Northern part of the city, which is where TAFT club has been based since 2006 and where Yianni both in person and remotely continues to creatively collaborate with TAFT club members.
Some of these TAFT club members were a part of the original 1982 group as well as others who became TAFT collaborators in the 1990s plus those who were initiated into TAFT club more recently.
