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schrijverr · 1 year

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A Behind the Scenes of: Corroded Coffin

Jonathan gives an insight into the life of Corroded Coffin in the early days during their rise to fame.

On AO3.

Ships: Steddie

Warnings: period typical homophobic attitudes mentioned (minor)

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hi, I’m Jonathan Byers, the main photographer and editor of A Collection of Queer Photography. Today I’m giving you a behind the scene look of some of the Corroded Coffin photos that are in the book,” Jonathan starts out the video, sounding a little awkward, but trying not to show.

“Corroded Coffin has kind of blown up again, so a lot of people tagged me on twitter to talk more about some of the photos I took of them, which has been a little overwhelming,” Jonathan tells the camera, his voice indeed a little shrill. “So, this video is to meet that demand.”

He grabs the book, which has little tabs sticking out, so he can find the right pages easier and flips it open on the first one.

On screen appears a photo of Eddie, Jeff, Gareth and Chris. They all have their arms slung over each other, Gareth giving Eddie bunny ears. Their clothes are classic 80s punk, heavily inspired by the queer scene as both Eddie and Gareth had influenced the other two.

“This is Corroded Coffin back in School,” Jonathan says. “I took this in ‘86. It’s not a very fancy or hard to take photo, just a group photo. It’s an old one, so I was also at the start of my photography career. I had not training yet, so it isn’t very dynamic photo.”

“However,” he goes on. “We put it in here, because went with the theme and because shows their youth and playfulness. It’s very much them before they took off.”

“I don’t want to imply that fame changed them or anything. They’re a few of the most down to earth people I know, but I’ve been taking Corroded Coffin photos for a long time. Most of them have been in circulation since the 90s, save those in here and few that didn’t make the cut,” Jonathan says. “But the longer you spend in front of a camera, the more you get used to it. So of course the way they come across has changed.”

“Here for example,” he points to the bunny ears. “It’s very silly and it’s teen behavior. They would still do that in the 90s, but they would have thought about it. If it fit the vibe of the photo or if they intentionally didn’t want to take a moment seriously.”

“They’re pose is also very basic,” Jonathan says. “I’ve had a lot of fun directing shoots with them for album covers etcetera. But it’s clear here they haven’t gotten used to posing as a group and I’m not used to shooting groups yet either.”

He flips the page to another book mark as the photo changes to Corroded Coffin performing at the Hideout. All the band members dressed extravagantly. Eddie has eyeliner tears streaming down his face alongside the sweat. He is mid-head bang, sharing a microphone with Jeff. Gareth has his arms raised high in the background, about to slam down on the drums. Chris is pouring water from a bottle over his face.

“This is Corroded Coffin Live at the Hideout back in ‘88,” Jonathan says. “If you’re a fan, you probably have heard them mention the place, since that is where they first performed.”

“I really like the photo, because it truly shows that they’re too small for the stage, the presence they had and the potential,” Jonathan says. “It’s a little rough around the edges, but the show is already there.”

“There is no audience, but they’re still playing as if they’re in a stadium,” Jonathan goes on. “I still had to get used to shooting the band and over time I learned it’s sometimes better to focus on one member instead of trying to wait for that perfect moment wherein they all are going to look good, because that just doesn’t happen.”

“Like here,” he turns to the photograph. “You can barely see Eddie’s face with how his hair is in front of his face and the splash of water isn’t the best either. This photo made the cut, since it’s the best I took that evening, which says a lot.”

Jonathan flips the page again and nods: “Ah, yes, if you compare it to this one, you can see the evolution. It’s Corroded Coffin’s First Show in Boston, which I took a year later in ‘89.”

The band is playing in a dingy little club in Boston. However, they have an audience, silhouettes of heads and arms in the foreground as they play. Eddie is shirtless, wearing only leather pants, his boots and suspenders. He isn’t playing the guitar, instead clapping his hands above his head with a manic grin, his armpit hair on display. Gareth and Jeff are still playing, but Chris is helping hype up the audience.

“This is a better picture, since it’s a moment they interact with the audience, thus are aware that they’re being seen,” Jonathan explains. “So, it’s a much better moment to photograph, though it’s never going to be perfect.”

“You can also see how they’ve changed here,” Jonathan says. “They’ve always been too big for their stage, but the difference in their face between having a crowd here and the empty Hideout is huge.”

“One of the things I enjoy most is shooting the same subject over time, because you can really capture how much they change and what things are important to them at the time,” Jonathan says with a smile.

Jonathan flips to the next page with a little tab, then checks what the next one after that is, before flipping to the after that, which is Eddie Munson and his Sweetheart. In the photo Eddie is on his knees, leaning back and playing the guitar. He is in a cropped, hand-painted Corroded Coffin shirt, sweat soaking it. He is playing his heart out, seemingly lost in the music. His right eye is still bruised to all hell.

“This is Eddie Munson and his Sweetheart and when I learned to take solo photos of them instead of trying to get them all in there,” Jonathan smiles. “I took this in 1990, right before they were taking off.”

“What I really like about this photo is how private it is,” Jonathan says. “He is on that stage in front of a lot of people, but he’s just alone with the music for a second. You can see it in the expression on his face and how he holds the guitar.”

“I had to fight my way through to get the angle for this photo, nearly broke my camera, but it was so worth it. Because you’re kind of looking up to him. He might be kneeling, but he is still looming over you, his presence bigger than you. That really makes this photo special and so very Eddie-like,” Jonathan explains.

Then he flips to the next marked page and Personal Makeup Artist appears on screen. It’s of Steve and Eddie in the bathroom. Eddie is sitting on the counter with his eyes closed, he is gripping the side of the counter tightly. Between his legs is Steve, holding eyeliner in his one hand, Eddie’s chin with the other as he delicately applies it. He is going for dramatic this night.

“This is before their first big-big gig back in ‘91,” Jonathan says. “Eddie was so nervous, all of them were, but not trying to show it. He spend the whole time telling Steve how bad it would all go. What I really like is the soft quiet moment that you can see here.”

“Eddie will never admit it, but he’s scared of eyeliner. He can’t do it himself,” Jonathan reveals. “Later makeup artists did it for him, but before they made it big, Steve was always the one to do it for him. It was their little ritual before shows.”

He moves on to the other photo on the page. Taken behind the scenes of Corroded Coffin’s first big gig. They’re standing to the sides, peaking at the audience, but not yet on stage. Gareth is anxiously spinning his drumstick and biting his lip. Next to him, squatted on the ground, is Chris, breathing into a bag. In the foreground is Eddie, who is looking into the camera with wide, scared eyes. Behind him is Jeff grinning widely

“We wanted to contrast that quiet moment with what they were about to do,” Jonathan says. “This photo is named More than 10,000 People and it was their genuine reaction to having to go on stage in front of so many people. It’s quite funny when you realize how much bigger their crowds got over time, but that makes it such a nice photo.”

“They had to get used to all that fame, the amount of eyes on them. Jeff has always been the least anxious about it out of all of them, which you can see here,” Jonathan points to Jeff. “I remember this moment quite well. Corroded Coffin nearly didn’t make it, because Chris walked out and Eddie was ready to follow him. But they did just fine for themselves and killed it.”

Jonathan flips to the next page and Eddie Munson on Stage, 1991 appears on screen. It is of Eddie on stage at their first big gig. His hair is thrown back as he sings, thrusting his hips on which the guitar rests forward. He’s wearing big boots and tight pants. He is shirtless save for a leather harness, he looks alive and sweaty, handkerchief hanging out of his pocket. The lights reflect on his slick skin, the scars standing out between the tattoos.

“Again, me knowing to photograph only one member at the time,” Jonathan laughs. “No, but this one is different than Eddie Munson and his Sweetheart that I showed you earlier. This is called Eddie Munson on Stage, 1991. Which is a pretty utilitarian title, but that is what it is. This is Eddie on stage; funny, engaged and in performer mode. It’s not him alone with his guitar despite the crowd, this time he knows he’s being seen. So it’s a different photo.”

“It’s also very much a performance photo. He is on stage, looking very much like a rockstar and we wanted to contrast that with his normal, human side,” Jonathan goes on. “So, of course we had to put Post Gig Dinner right next to it.”

The photo appears. In it, the entirety of Corroded Coffin is stuffed into a booth along with Robin and Steve. Everyone is grinning. The members of the band are all sweaty and stuffing their face with fries, while trying to laugh for the camera. Robin is throwing up devil horns along with Jeff, Chris has two fries as fangs, while Gareth is mid-chew. Eddie has Steve in his lap, who stands out like a sore thumb between the alternatively dressed people around him in his jeans and polo. Though Eddie is wearing a jacket over his harness that can’t be anyone’s except Steve’s.

“It’s a very silly photo, which is really like,” Jonathan says. “They always used to eat at this diner after gigs, before they got too recognizable to do so.”

“What I especially like about this photo, is how Robin and Steve fit into it,” Jonathan tells the camera. “They’re in some aspects such an opposites attract friendship and this photo really shows that.”

“Robin has always been a little more alternative and a dyke to the heart, while Steve has always been a little more mainstream,” Jonathan explains. “Neither of these are better than the others, but seated next to a metal band, one is going to stand out more. Robin could easily be a part of the band.”

“But I think that makes Steve’s position all the more interesting,” Jonathan goes on. “Because Robin is part of the group, she blends in. Steve stands out. But out here in the world, he’s someone you’d walk by without a glance while all the others would usually turn heads. By virtue of the crowd, the script gets flipped.”

“And that makes the detail of his jacket all the more fun,” Jonathan says, “because Eddie is wearing it. He is connecting himself to Eddie, pulling him a little into his world as Eddie pulls him into his by holding him. They’re the point the lines blur in this photo and that tells a lovely story about how they connect.”

With that he flips to the next tab and states: “Page 96 and 97 are the pages with A Collection Of Early Corroded Coffin Photos. I’m going to pick a few out of here that I find interesting or that I have something to say about.”

“Of course the first one is kind of funny and says a lot about what back stage looks like,” Jonathan says as it appears on screen.

It is of Eddie and Steve making out on top of one of the equipment boxes backstage, in the foreground is Jeff looking into the camera with an exhausted look.

“Steve and Eddie are, for a lack of better words, very clingy and a little gross about it,” Jonathan admits. “And back here they still saw each other daily, it got worse when they were apart more often. I have one photo where they’re on the brink of fucking right back stage, but that didn’t make the cut.”

“I think what really sells this photo is Jeff,” Jonathan decides. “He looks tired, which tells people that this happens often. I pity them during the time they shared a tour bus whenever Steve came to visit them on tour.”

The next image comes on screen. It’s of Jeff and Chris tuning their guitars on stage, the huge venue they’re in is still empty and it’s just the two of them and the instruments on stage.

“Here, this one of Chris and Jeff is very evocative, because they look very small on their big stage. I think it really shows the small human artist behind every rock legend,” Jonathan says. “Sometimes you have to work with empty space to say what you want and this is an example of it.”

“Oehh, this one is great,” Jonathan exclaims as the image changes to Robin and Steve are holding hands, their bodies silhouetted from the back by the light coming from the stage. From in between them you can see Eddie hopping on one leg as he plays the guitar.

“I love this photo, because it shows their dynamic through these years,” Jonathan says. “Robin has been Steve’s support system whenever Eddie was away, while Steve kept Eddie going. Here the two of them are supporting Eddie, but Robin is holding Steve’s hand, supporting him too.”

“A lot of people don’t realize how hard it is to date a rockstar, especially before there was social media and face time,” Jonathan explains. “Steve will never fully admit how hard those years were. Eddie too. They’re strong about it, but they wouldn’t have made it through without people like Robin there. This photo really shows that.”

“Next one,” Jonathan takes a look then nods. “This one here is a better example of a full band photo, because sometimes you just have to accept that not all will be the focus, because that’s just not how it works.”

The photograph is of the entire band. Chris and Jeff are going wild, leaning over the first row with people going wild. Eddie is standing by Gareth, head banging as both of them play.

It gets replaced by a set of photographs as Jonathan moves on. The first is of Eddie holding a bra that has been thrown at him, from the look in his eyes, he has no idea what to do with it. The second one is taken right after of Eddie still holding the bra, but grinning wolf-ishly into the audience. After seeing so many photographs of him genuinely grinning it is clear he quickly plastered it on.

“This set, I love this set,” Jonathan comments, looking up in the camera again. He’s been mostly looking down to the book, seeming more comfortable like that.

“It’s that slight crack in the performer that is Eddie Munson that is captured so beautifully,” he smiles almost lovingly at the photos. “Eddie has always been such a presence, even before he was famous or I even knew him. He’d be out on cafeteria tables monologuing in front of the entire school.”

“He has always wanted to be a star and had dreams about it and this is the moment he realizes what the reality of it will look like. And he goes through it like a champ, because he is meant for this and he worked too hard to get there not to,” Jonathan says. “It’s a funny series, but it has something tragic that really speaks to me.”

The series gets replaces with an image that is taken behind the venue of the band smoking. You can’t make out their faces all the best, however, you can see the embers of their cigarettes glow and what those reveal.

“This is a calmer photo that kind of shows the showbiz life outside the gigs,” Jonathan moves on. “I like the calm moment that offsets the more crazy ones on here. I also quite like the metaphor of the light only showing part of them, the rest being left in the dark. That might seem like reaching, but that’s the beauty of photography, you’re allowed to be a little pretentious about it.”

He laughs a little self-depreciating, before flipping to the next tab.

The image that comes on screen is of Corroded Coffin in the Munson apartment, they’re all cheering, screaming, going nuts. Gareth is jumping on the couch, Robin next to him as Jeff fist pumps next to them. Chris is tugging Argyle into a bone crushing hug. Nancy is still seated, but smiling with her teeth. In the foreground is Eddie screaming as if he’s about to run or break something, behind him is Steve diving for the phone Eddie has just dropped.

Jonathan snorts, before he introduces: “This is Signed Their First Album and Tour that I took in ‘91. It’s- it is quite a dynamic moment. Chaotic if you want to be more accurate.”

“I remember this moment so well, we all came around to wait on the call and Eddie just heard the news and started to cheer without any regard for the person on the other line,” Jonathan shakes his head with a fond smile. “I think Steve was the one to accept it for them. He’s my favorite part of this photo.”

“Taking these almost baroque style photos of something happening is a mix between skill, luck and just snapping a thousand photos and hoping one will turn out okay,” Jonathan says. “I’ve had to tear up so many of these types of photos. It’s a hazard of the job. Don’t be afraid to take a shitty photo, because the next one might be great.”

With that he flips to the next page, before looking up to someone behind the camera with a questioning gaze.

There is a cut, then Jonathan is saying: “There are quite a lot of them still to go and this one is already longer than other ones, so I can’t talk about all of them. Now I’ve kind of gone through the early days, but I can do the others ones too if anyone’s interested.”

He signs off: “So, yeah, that is a behind the scene of early Corroded Coffin photos. Hopefully that was interesting. Bye.”

A/N:

In case you’re wondering that is a question to y’all if there is interest for more bts of Corrded Coffin xp

#rr writing #a collection of queer photography by jonathan byers #a behind the scenes by jonathan byers #corroded coffin #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #eddie lives au #st post season 4 #robin buckley #jonathan byers #platonic stobin #famous eddie munson #gareth stranger things #jeff stranger things

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xceanlynx · 6 months

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Hi! It's me, waking up from a nice nap to give my lovely mutuals, but especially @khaofirsts @hushedstars @drama-nonsense (the amazing people who accepted my letter-delivering proposal lol) my detailed experience in the FirstKhao fanmeet in Brazil!

So, I only got there by 3:45pm, and the gates would open to the general audience by 4pm (only the people who got VIP1 — the ones y'all probably saw taking solo pictures with First and Khaotung — got to enter earlier) and oh my God the lines were LONG. It was a bit more organized than how it was earlier (in the morning there was only one giant line that was divided by sectors in the afternoon) and the temperature was very nice, not as nearly as hot as it was the day before. Here, it was just a few minutes before it started:

One thing I want to emphasize so much is that there were so many different kinds of people there! Usually in events like this, with asian celebrities, the crowd tends to be more white, female presenting, more emo/punk vibes, and definitely more lgbtq+, but my guys, when I say there were people of all types, I MEAN IT. There were some nice ladies (that were probably 50+) cheering so much in the line, at first I thought they were mothers accompanying their kids but NO, they were fans! There were also a lot of men too, and gender non conforming people, trans people, you name it!

There were also many black and asian people, although white and white presenting people were still the majority (also, many photos may have you think there were only white and whiteish people but the lights that lit the crowd were so strong they basically made everyone look pale lol).

There were also many people from other countries. There were two guys (i believe they are a couple) that I have no idea where they were from, they only talked to staff in english but to each other they spoke some language I have no idea. There were also many latam groups, I saw some girls from paraguay, I know there was a group from Chile too, and there were probably more that I haven't seen. The crowd was DIVERSE!

But enough of all this pre fanmeet talk, let's get to the real stuff!

My moots. Dear moots. I almost lost my hearing /j. We were so loud, and we always are, it's basically cultural of Brazil to be louder than the artist, but last night was something else. Everyone was so excited, really, it is a different atmosphere.

The boys were so, so nervous! It was very easy to see how nervous they were in the beginning, but I think they got a lot more relaxed as the fanmeet went on. When they first entered singing, oh my god... They really got so surprised we were singing so loudly, I bet y'all have seen the footage already, it's all over twitter. They couldn't believe what they were seeing lol

Just a tiny video I took of part of their introduction (IN ALMOST PERFECT PORTUGUESE MIGHT I ADD) — bear with me I own a 6-year-old samsung and I was in the box seats, the quality won't be qualitying lmao (I made a friend while waiting in line and she'll send me some of her videos, thankfully)

I was kinda shocked, yet not really shocked, when I noticed that First wasn't singing live. Like I get it, we all know he isn't really a singer, and considering this was their largest event (by number of people: ~4k), they probably thought that it would be better that way. In any case, I don't think people really minded at all. We scream so loudly anyway that live or not, we would barely hear it lmao and he was such a charismatic performer, he interacted with everyone he could in the standing crowd. Mr. Kanaphan is a tease, you all!!!

Idk if that was just me but Khaotung sounded a little bit rough in his song, which he sang live. Maybe he had a sore throat? No idea, but by the last song (let's try) he sounded very good. Maybe it was recorded, but I really didn't noticed. Their stage presence got better and better at every song. AND RAPPER KHAOTUNG? OKAY! GIVE ME SOME MORE OF THAT!!!

The questions and games were very fun! I'm not the type that like much fanservice (all of this was fanservice, I know, but like, those obvious one, you get me?) but they were really nice and not much forced. The questions were also very nice and well-curated (no nonsense ship questions), although I think there were a couple of questions the translator didn't understand fully (also, we were screaming so much I can't blame her for not hearing) and she probably translated to them wrong/not complete, so their answers were a bit weird but we understood what they meant. Also, they tried to samba! The crowd singing Zeca Pagodinho! So random... poor boys were so, so awful lmao but we can forgive them because they're cute

The game interactions with the two fans were also really nice! The girls were very polite (one of them was very young and timid, poor thing) and yeah, it was cool *alexa, play "That Should Be Me" by Justin Bieber*

The surprise fan video was so wholesome. I was almost tearing up lol and when, in the video, a deaf fan appeared signing how much she loved them I lost it and just started crying. Really, they are such great people and their talent has entertained and inspired so many different groups, it really is heartwarming.

Okay, now for the picture: Look, I was in a trance like state. I have absolutely no idea how I got on that stage to take the photo. I was the last one of the group so I couldn't sit next to them, but I believe I got to be somewhat behind Khaotung? I remember seeing the top of his head. Oh my god I really blanked out

As for the hi touch, it was so fast I kinda also did not register much? My brain really was malfunctioning. What I can remember is: They aren't as tall as I thought? Like, I don't think they are lying about their height, I just realized I'm not as short as I thought lol I am 168cm and, with the shoes I was wearing I was probably ~171cm. Still shorter but not as short as I somehow thought I would be.

Their hands are soft. Very soft. Also, their skin literally is flawless, everyone was commenting how perfect it was, just like porcelain. I don't know what treatments they do, and what makeup they use, but I need the detailed list right now!

Also, fuck my life: I can try to say anything, literally anything, but when I get in front of celebs the only thing I can mutter is "hi" with a giant smile. What the fuck I couldn't even say something like "i love you" or "you're handsome".... NO. I JUST SAID HI AND LEFT 😭😭😭

Okay, that's pretty much how it went. Oh, and as I was waiting for my uber to arrive, and I was more distant from the venue so I could avoid the crowd. I was in the street right in front of the gates of the venue, but still more distant, there were probably like 10 people around me. I heard so many people screaming at the entrance of the venue — firstkhao were going back to the hotel (you can see the van in an earlier post of mine). They entered the van and then the van was signaling they were going to turn left to the same street I was waiting the uber. Oh. My. God. I started waving like crazy, they could not have missed me looking like those gas station inflatable men lmao I couldn't see them because the window was very dark but boy I just know they saw me again 😂😂😂😂

To finish up, as the official photo wasn't released yet, let me show where I am in the gmmtv pic. Look at top left where the arrows are pointing. See the two hands? That's me, baby

#firstkhao #firstkhaotung #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #I almost forgot to make this post guys #but here I am

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rifki16 · 2 months

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At 25:00, in Akasaka Pilot Episode

Photo credit: At 25:00, in Akasaka Twitter Promotional Account | https://twitter.com/25ji_akasakade/status/1781276637855883719?s=12

A very sweet vanilla cake with strawberries

Okay, so, the long anticipated live-action adaptation of the manga is finally here. And I’m absolutely here for it. I was very pissed off that when GagaOOLala said that the episode would air on April 18, they didn’t say that it would air on that date in Japan. Hence, now every Fridays, we will have a grand feast of TWO Japanese BL LA shows, instead of only one.

I have A LOT of thoughts about the Pilot Episode, so let’s get right to it !

Of course, SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!

Make it for Vanilla Audience

As I have said in the last section of the manga review, I do not expect anything at all from the live-action show, in terms of how the hot scenes can be adapted. My beloved Tokyo in April is… is so far from being hot and sexy from which they originated, yet I still love them dearly. This pilot episode really set the tone, as to what I will expect from the series.

They did not have the scene where Asamiya and Shirasaki went out with the whole cast and had a Japanese-style afterwork hang after which one of the coworkers became black out drunk and needed to be escorted by one of the attendees. After which, Asamiya had a non-penetrative sex with Shirasaki at Shirasaki-san house, with no consent from Shirasaki. I think by not having this scene it’s very funny to me. Based on A Man Who Defies the World of BL, it’s a very common trope in BL that this black out drunk afterwork hang is used, hence kudos to the LA screenwriter and showrunners to have avoided that trope. This is also what’s bugging me. I think the LA show really wants to avoid a lot of unnecessary discussions about their work. In Living with Him, Kazuhito’s life altering, and according to the manga, disability-affecting injury was a cause of a sore subject and Kazuhito was not seen playing baseball at all afterwards. It seems like the production team doesn’t want to talk at all about disability in their main character. In this show, it was all dandy. Nothing of taboo happened. It was just Asami offering to be Shirasaki’s sex partner, and that’s it. I’m not advocating for a sexual assault scene, but what happened in Shirasaki’s apartment was quintessentially a way for us to know how “wild” Asami is and knowing his boundaries. Asami’s portrayal in the show was almost like an aloof cool guy. He seemed not to be involved at all with the cast or the production crew. The afterwork hang established that, how sociable Asami is. Asami seemed to play it cool with Shirasaki, despite the supposed burning ember that he has with Shirasaki. I’m not trying to tell people how to act with their love. My understanding of the plot logic from the manga is, Shirasaki found out that Asami liked him  Shirasaki needed a pointer on how to be a gay lover  Asami offered to be his lover, but Shirasaki refused because, one of the reasons is, he knew how Asami felt about him. I guess making it more vanilla gave them more options as to how to approach the Shirasaki asking Asami to be his sex partner.

When I watched Milk, after many attempts, and finally could watch the film fully. There was a scene where Harvey Milk was confronting the No campaigners for the Briggs’ initiative about the pamphlet that the campaigners were sending out to the voters. The pamphlet overly emphasized how the Briggs’ initiative intruded the privacy and human rights of the voters. Milk was, rightly imo, angry that the pamphlet did not mention at all whom the initiative was impacting most severely, the homosexuals. That’s what I felt the second most in the pilot episode. The reason why Shirasaki went to a gay bar, specifically, was because he did not know how gay men fall in love, have sex. The pilot episode really did not mention at all about gay love or gay sex. When Shirasaki eventually went to the gay bar, it was about how he doesn’t know how falling in love is in general. Asami never really teased Shirasaki about Shirasaki-san’s sex history with women, a scene which in my opinion really affirmed Shirasaki-san’s very apparent queerness and his internalized homophobia which made him unable to admit his joy in having sex with a man, with Asami. The omittance of the scene in the show really made me felt like the show was just about an actor really trying to method-act, whereas the manga is about an actor method-act while figuring himself out sexual-orientation wise.

They made the bar a popular gay bar, compared it to the quiet and almost very intimate one in the manga. I’ve never been to a gay bar, not even the one in Singapore, but I really thought that an intimate and quite gay bar would be a better venue for you to find an NSA sex partner, no? Knowing that the popular gay bar is filled with mostly popular cliques and usual customers. Wouldn’t a quiet gay bar be a more suited place for two celebrities to be undercover and method-act? Again, I’ve never been to a gay bar, but I just don’t think making Shota’s bar a popular gay bar is the right choice. It seems like the show just wanted some stereotypical image of a gay bar and plastered it in the show. Side note: Shota is not that androgynous in the show, not that I’m saying that I’m entitled to Shota’s androgyny, I just had hoped to see a gender nonconforming character in a Japanese BL show, besides the one in The End of the World with You. Also, Shota is nice in the show, compared to the one in the manga.

Shirasaki’s dignity.

I really love that the show actually has a class-struggle perspective. Shirasaki needed to be a server, because he had never got a gig in acting. This made it easier for the TV show to make Shirasaki to go to the gay bar because Shirasaki really doesn’t want to mess up his first ever TV gig, a big budget one, nonetheless. However, the problem with this characterization is that Shirasaki made really vulnerable to Asami. It seemed like Asami is high up in the clouds and Shirasaki is just some dirt particles that the clouds never bother to notice. I understand that the show wanted to make it vanilla, hence, why Asami actually asked first before their first sexual encounter. Hence, why Asami and Shirasaki were seen in the teaser for the second episode to go ON DATES? GO ON DATES? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This show is about a TV show production, probably very crunched on time and budget. WHERE ON GODS GREEN EARTH DID THEY FIND THE TIME TO GO ON DATES? You know what, sure, they become lovey-dovey lovers, go on dates and fall in love first even before they share a bed together, but it really shifts the dignity of Shirasaki.

It was such fun seeing Shirasaki demanding sex from Asami to make sure that Shirasaki-san’s acting prowess is bettered, the reason why the scene made sense in the manga is because Shirasaki had played in plays, smaller roles in TV shows, he knew what appreciation from the director meant. He had a standing in asking for sex because he’s not some amateur actor, he had done the job before, and having sex with Asami was the only way he knew that he can better his acting. Now that Shirasaki’s motivation became only not to be poor, his actions in asking sex from Asami from this point on becomes nothing more but desperation, however it’s just my opinion.

I really like it when Shirasaki acts not out of desperation but to actually horn his craft. The way the show portrayed Shirasaki really made me angry. He’s a proud man, with high dignity, hence why having sex with Asami really felt and seen really out of place for him. Maybe, I’m just down bad for Shirasaki so much.

Despite it all, I really enjoyed the pilot episode. The show was really easy to follow with their vanilla shift. It didn’t really have plot holes, despite making it vanilla. I’m glad that the managers of both Shirasaki and Asami were really present, unlike in the manga where they only emerge after the joint show of the two has become popular. If the show really wants to slow walk the pace, despite making the third volume a part of the show, they better make it right. I swear to Ra, I will metaphorically burn something if they don’t make the show a proper 12-episode-run show.

#gay #japan bl #bl live action #25 ji akasaka de #at 25:00 in akasaka #shirasaki and Asami #Shirasaki selfworth #being an actor lol

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lhazaar · 3 months

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hey. i'm turning my chair around and sitting in it backwards now because i want to speak specifically to people with ocd. this is a targeted post and is not meant to apply to the userbase of this website at large or to serve as a policy decision.

hi. do you know what scrupulosity means? it is a strong, intense, often painful concern about morality or religion. it's very common for religious people with ocd, actually—the fear that you've sinned, that you will sin, that your thoughts themselves are sinful. you're afraid of being an evil person. every thought and feeling you have is scrutinized to exhaustion in case it's proof that you're evil. this also happens for non-religious people with ocd, it's just that ours will look different; it's often a preoccupation with social justice issues. you care a lot about being a good person, right! most people do. you want to be a good person, you want to be kind to others and to dismantle oppressive systems where you can. i'm making some assumptions here, but they're based on my specific audience base.

so, there's this thing that happens online, especially on tumblr and twitter—not because bluh bluh platforms bad, but because of the ways in which information is propagated on here. people used to tag for these posts sporadically but don't do so as much anymore. you know posts that exhort you, the reader, specifically, to take action? they tell you not to look away, not to bury your head in the sand. they tell you to give and to agitate and to donate time, money, resources.

those posts used to make me intensely, deeply anxious. i don't mean mild agitation, i mean life-ruining, day-occupying panic that seizes your entire body, and thoughts that don't leave your brain. guilt that paralzyes you because you, personally, cannot go kill the politicians responsible. you don't have enough money to do more than donate a few dollars, and sometimes you don't even have that. but because of where you live, because of the fact that you have internet access and you're literate enough to read these posts, you know that you have a level of privilege that most people never will. you're aware of that privilege because you're reasonably in-tune with social justice movements and you've probably spent some time dissecting your own privilege to examine your biases. (that's not a bad thing; i'm not here to condemn that. stay with me, if you can.)

there's a thing that can happen if you've lived with ocd like this for a long time where you become kind of incapable of telling what's addressed to you personally and what isn't. everything feels like a personal exhortation. you have trouble saying no, or knowing when you're overextended, because other people have it worse. how dare you enjoy relative comfort when people are being bombed or drowning in a climate change -induced flood or being crushed to death in a crowd panic. how dare you not be aware of it at all times, always, constantly. how dare you look away. don't look away.

i want to tell you about something i went through, if that's okay. a lot of people who follow me will already know this, but i haven't talked about this aspect of it very much publicly. in 2020, while visiting my partner in southern oregon, we had to evacuate from wildfires twice in under 24 hours. that was a really, really bad fire season, caused and perpetuated by a combination of global climate change and colonialization practices that destroyed traditional indigenous fire management strategies across the west coast of north america. fires stretched from bc to california. we wound up fleeing south, and then had to flee back north again, hemmed in on three sides. i flew back home to bc shortly afterwards, and i have this vivid, awful memory of seeing my home mountain range, the cascades, choked out with smoke from the window of an airplane. the woman in front of me sobbed the entire time until we touched down.

i remember thinking at that time that it was insane the entire world wasn't stopping. what i was experiencing was apocalyptic in scale—the fire we ran from the first time was part of a complex that chewed up entire towns. it wasn't the first fire season, nor the worst for the continent, nor the world. but all i could think in the moment was why aren't we doing anything, this is going to be all of us in a decade, why are people looking away.

if i had gone online and posted that, it would not have been morally wrong of me. there's no ascribing morality to a reaction like that. i mean, if i'd gone to someone who suffered in the years prior in australia or california and told them that ours was So Much Worse, that would have made me an asshole, but i didn't do that. i made some upset facebook posts targeted at the trump voters in my family, but i had no way to express at the time the sort of clawing panic of WHY AREN'T PEOPLE DOING ANYTHING??

the answer to that, which you probably know, is: what would they have done? we were sheltered by friends we evacuated with, but what power did a mutual in new york or wales or singapore have to affect a wildfire in oregon?

so, come back to the present day with me again, if you will. i said above that posts worded like this used to make me really, really anxious. in the span of time after the fire, i developed ptsd, and my ocd ruined my life. i took an extra year to graduate after i'd finished all my coursework because i could not send in the forms required. i was too busy spending 10-16 hours a day rearranging furniture in my room, or lying in bed, full-body tense, until it felt like my teeth would crack from the pressure. i'm medicated now. i'm grateful for it. i have more tolerance for these posts because i've been there. i know the op isn't doing anything wrong, because they're not wrong. why isn't the world stopping to look at a natural disaster, or a genocide? the world should not be like this.

you are not the world. you are someone with a brain that will torture you to death given the chance. you know how learning to reckon with your privileges, whatever they may be, requires you to not try and escape them? you need to be able to hold in your head that yes, you benefit from something that isn't fair; yes, other people should have that benefit, and that they don't is unjust. but you need to, for example, not try and weasel your way out of being white because you're uncomfortable with the guilt that it produces. you need to not go online and say well not ALL americans because you can't sit with the idea of being complicit in american imperialism. if you have ocd, you need to apply that to your own brain, too. you need to apply it to every post that you see. you need to know that people are not speaking directly to you, they are crying out in pain and fear. they are not doing anything wrong. they are scared and hurting.

they do not benefit from you taking on all the guilt of that fear and pain. i am not saying this to absolve you of the guilt. i am saying that you need to be able to exist with that level of guilt without allowing it to paralyze and destroy you. if you can't do that right now, i'm not here to cast judgement on you. blacklist phrases. i had "wildfire" blacklisted for a long time. i'm sure i missed aid posts because of it. the alternative was me being nonfunctional. for a long time, i had donation posts blacklisted across the board, because the way my ocd worked meant that i was neurologically incapable of knowing where my own limits were, and i would give money i did not have. if you need to do that, this is me giving you permission. doing this does not make you evil. it does not make you morally bankrupt. it makes you someone whose brain is trying to fucking kill them, and the world needs you to not let that happen.

this is not a post about how you're exempt from caring about the world if you're mentally ill, it's about how you cannot apply that care to anything useful if you're having massive panic spirals every other day about the guilt that you feel. your guilt should not rule your life. if it does, i say this kindly, but you very likely need medication. i'm sorry if you don't have access to that right now. you cannot think your way out of ocd. you cannot think your way into stopping neural activity. you cannot guilt your way into being a good person; you have to be able to exist with the guilt and not let it rule you in order to do that. nobody benefits from your brain trying to martyr you in the name of solving the world's suffering.

you need to be able to function, free of crushing and paralyzing guilt, before you can help anyone. you are not an effective ally like this just because your brain tells you that it's necessary.

#bark bark #ocd tag #actually ocd #also i want to say this now: if you do not experience ocd i do not want your 'well actually' takes on this.#again. this is not a site-wide thing i think everyone should do #do not mistake this for me saying that it's ~okay~ to be wilfully ignorant about genocide or climate disaster #i am speaking to a very specific clinical population whose brains do not work in a way that people outside of that population understand #the guilt you experience with ocd is not the same guilt that everyone has just turned up #it warps your entire personality. it warps your sense of right and wrong #you will deal with it for your entire life unfortunately #(even medicated i still absolutely have Intense White Guilt episodes lol #i just try not to make them my loved ones' problem #because part of handling pathological guilt has to be responsibility without overresponsibility)

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silverfoxlou · 1 year

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Behind The Campaign :: Louis Tomlinson

Former One Direction star Louis Tomlinson released his debut album in 2020 through Sony but moved to BMG for his second album, Faith In The Future, in November 2022. Lisa Wilkinson, director of UK marketing (new recordings) at BMG, explains how they looked to reposition him in the market, what learnings were coming from his live success as well as his own festival, why his merchandise strategy directly informed his multi-formatted record release strategy, how they were able to build him without mass radio support, where a wider male audience was targeted this time round, why Twitter remains his most powerful social media platform and how a highly vocal and engaged fanbase was nurtured further and directly involved in the campaign.

1 Coming to BMG for his second solo album 2 The centrality of merchandise 3 The radio conundrum 4 Targeting a male audience 5 Building his songwriting profile 6 Targeting the press 7 Boosting the digital strategy 8 QR code and interactive community map at his Away From Home festival 9 Twitter as his main platform and setting him up on TikTok 10 Chart battle with Bruce Springsteen and the power of in-stores 11 Stationhead and Tim’s Twitter Listening Party 12 Fan-made Spotify Canvases 13 Documentary and the next steps

1. Coming to BMG for his second solo album

This is his first album with BMG. His debut album, Walls in 2020, was with Syco Music [via Sony]. That was off the back of X Factor with Simon Cowell.

He had done a couple of more commercial singles – one with Steve Aoki [‘Just Hold On’] and one with Bebe Rexha and Digital Farm Animals [‘Back To You’]. They were really successful streaming singles, but that’s not who Louis is. For the boys in One Direction, the ones that have been successful and the songs that have been successful are the ones that have stayed super pop and commercial. Louis did that but it’s just not who he is.

I think he felt, in that structure, that he just wasn’t getting the support to be who he wanted to be. That’s exactly why people come to us. It’s an artist services deal and we’re there to support you and advise you.

You can see from his live business and his merchandise business – and every other thing that Louis does – that there is an incredible fanbase there for him.

When they [Syco] released Walls, they achieved 14,000 units in week one and got to number 4 in Q1 in January 2020. We thought that just didn’t feel reflective of what was happening [around him].

We went and saw him at various venues on his world tour. We went to New York and saw those two shows and we went to Italy and watched his Milan stadium show in front of 30,000 people.

You’re looking and you’re thinking, “Those numbers don’t make any sense. How on Earth did you fumble that?” We were confident that we could do better than that.

He had a signing dinner in October 2021 and then his world tour started in February 2000 [sic], which was the delayed tour [due to the pandemic]. It went all the way through to September, pretty much nonstop.

They sold half a million tickets that year. All the while he’s on tour, he’s still making the album.

‘Out Of My System’ was released as a DSP-focused track before the album. It’s the rockiest and heaviest track on the album. He came straight off stage, went into a vocal booth off the side of the stage [to record it]. Because of the energy, he was so fired up. It was a difficult process because it was creating an album on the road.

He wanted to make an album for live. It was a totally different experience for him. Covid hit just a few months after Walls dropped so the tour was out of the question.

Before we started working on the album campaign, he did a show at Crystal Palace Bowl, which was the first incarnation of his Away From Home festival that he’s created and curated, which is for up-and-coming indie bands.

He gave away 8,000 tickets in August 2021 when we could start doing outdoor things again. I was there and was thinking, “There’s something big going on here.” The fans were so committed and dedicated.

Considering this is someone who hasn’t had real radio support or is seen in celebrity magazines or on social posts, this is a huge phenomenon.

That continued into the tour.

2 The centrality of merchandise

We started on the creative really early and that was a key factor in how successful the album was. We knew early on from discussions with management that his merch business was berserk. We knew what kind of fans he has. With their merch drops during Covid, they played around with the strategy. They got in a really cool design team and they would just do regular drops – limited-edition releases and you’ll never see it again. Everything just sold out constantly.

That informed the whole product strategy.

We knew we had to make product that’s limited in its nature because it encourages demand.

The fans just want it. It’s got to look amazing; it’s got to have Louis looking phenomenal because they just adore him; it’s got to be priced right; and there’s got to be a selection. So it’s more stuff, but less of it.

Instead of treating it like a music product, treat it like merchandise. We absolutely nailed that strategy.

We sold 35,000 records and around 2,500 units were streaming. A good chunk of that was physical album sales. It’s going to inform our strategy for any other albums we do with him.

We did 19 products in the end. We did a standard CD, we did a CD ‘zine which had 82 pages of beautiful content and photos, we had a picture disc vinyl, we did around eight different exclusive retail vinyl albums, we had a splatter vinyl for HMV, we had a colour one for Amazon, we had a clear one for Spotify, we had several more for Urban Outfitters and Target, we had an indie retailers one.

It was a collector thing: how many of the vinyl albums have you managed to get? We did a double deluxe vinyl for D2C. We did cassettes where the artwork joined together when you got all three. They were embossed and glowed in the dark. Louis has Easter eggs that he drops everywhere. The number 28 is like a lucky number, so you see 28 dotted around places. The same with 369 – he uses it in many iterations. If you had a UV light, you’d be able to see ‘3’, ‘6’ and ‘9’ embossed on each cassette.

3 The radio conundrum

We have seen historically that it has been tricky to get radio for him – but not because of any artist proposition issue. It’s just sonically that he wants to do something different to what radio wants to play.

It’s tricky because it falls through the gaps a little bit with what he wants to do. We’ve always looked at it as: let’s just assume there are zero promo opportunities at radio, TV and press. Let’s just take out promo entirely.

What you have got is a global, engaged, fanatical fanbase. You can do more with that than you can with those other things if you don’t have fans.

I would much rather have an artist who’s got an absolutely berserk global fanbase and that gets absolutely no support from traditional media – because you can work with that – than have an artist that’s not really got a particularly big fanbase but radio loves them and TV loves them. What does that matter if you’ve not got the fans?

We did always want to get promo because we would love to be able to expand Louis’ fanbase. But you’ve got to compete against Harry [Styles] and Niall [Horan]. They’re the first people you’ve got to compete against because, to play three One Direction members on the radio, I don’t know if radio stations would. Then you’ve got the sonic battle as well where he wants to keep it pretty raw.

The first single was ‘Bigger Than Me’, which is a big song to sing. It was a good bridge between the last album and this album. It gave the fans what they wanted.

We had really good feedback from radio. They played it to Clara [Amfo, Radio 1] without telling her who it was. She loved it and she did actually play it as one of the hottest tracks of the week. Greg James’s producers said it was brilliant. They absolutely adored it. Matt Edmondson and Mollie King’s team loved it. They thought it was great. But it got blocked at playlist conversations. It was like, Come on!

That was really disappointing because, pre-release, we were getting incredible feedback from producers, but we just couldn’t get it through the playlisting. We’d always planned for it not to go on radio, but if it got on radio that’d be just a brilliant bonus. So it didn’t harm our campaign strategy at all.

He’s too pop for indie stations and he’s too indie for the BBC [Radio 1]. It’s frustrating, but he’s making the music he wants to make and the fans love it. So what do you do?

‘Silver Tongues’ came out just before the album dropped, which was the official second single. That bridged the gap between those two singles. It was much more guitar based. It was up-tempo but it wasn’t too indie.

On the day that the album was released, fans bombarded Greg’s show on the 10 Minute Takeover [on the Radio 1 breakfast show]. And he played it! It was lovely but you could tell it was done like, “OK, I’ve done it now. Go away.” Which is just so sad because his demographic is right in that lane. It’s 18-25.

4 Targeting a male audience

‘Out Of My System’ was released as a DSP track, and that was really to show a different side of what was going to be on the album. It was the hardest one, the rockiest one, the speediest one, it was all about the band. It is one of the best streaming tracks on the album; it has really taken hold.

That was really just to get the male audience because we knew from the analytics we had prior to release that, although his demographics on social media are largely female, wider research that we did with our media teams said that he has a male fanbase. They’re just consumers. If they were to hear him on the radio, they wouldn’t turn it off – that kind of thing – but they’re not necessarily following him on social media. We knew that there was an opportunity there to reach another audience.

5 Building his songwriting profile

We just gave him creative freedom. Louis is really smart. He was the most proficient songwriter within One Direction. He has more songwriting credits than any of the other four members. We know that he’s a talented songwriter so it was just putting him together with people who can give him the confidence, like this album did, to move him out of his comfort zone.

There are some tracks on there that he will say were inspired by people like DMA’s and their album The Glow. ‘All This Time’ and ‘She Is Beauty We Are World Class’ have that slightly more experimental sound to them, which I think took a few people by surprise. He has really incredible writers like David Sneddon, Robert Harvey, George Tizzard and Rick Parkhouse. He has said multiple times in interviews that they gave him the confidence to have fun with it.

I don’t think he expected to get the amount of tracks that he did. It was a big album with 16 tracks. Then we put another three tracks on a digital deluxe edition in week one which shifted another 15,000 units globally.

6 Targeting the press

One of the big wins we had on this campaign was the NME coming on board. They were not interested last time. There was no music press. So one of our key targets on this campaign was to get music press.

We really wanted to get a Rolling Stone cover but the one we wanted to go for Harry was on. So we shifted and we retargeted the NME. We took them to Louis’ Away From Home festival in Malaga [in summer 2022]. He sold it out – 15,000 tickets in 24 hours.

NME did various interviews with Louis for their website and for their socials. They spoke to the bands that were on. It was a real seal of approval. And from that point onwards, we had nothing but great press from NME.

They supported everything – all the singles and we got a four-star review of the album. It was not like we bought it, but it was because we put them in the right place to really see him.

7 Boosting the digital strategy

There were two real strategic decisions that we made at the beginning that affected the outcome: one was the physical product strategy; and the other was the digital marketing strategy. If you don’t have traditional promo, and you’ve got an ardent global fanbase, digital is the most important way of getting your marketing across.

When we first started working with management, they said to us that there were some things that were non-negotiable. Everything should be fair, so we shouldn’t feel like we’re only offering things to fans of a certain demographic or to fans in a certain territory. It’s global. It’s got to be accessible. It’s got to be affordable. And it’s got to be innovative.

They are so good at doing things that break records and break the internet.

They did their livestream in 2020 and Louis sold over 200,000 tickets. It was the most-streamed livestream of a male solo artist during lockdown.

They had quite high expectations of the digital campaign going forward.

We spent quite a long time, about three months, prior to launching trying to figure out how we were going to break the internet.

With #LT369, we trended within about five minutes worldwide of that hashtag going out. When you tweeted the hashtag, it took you to a mini site where a Twitter map was starting to flag where people’s locations were. Over the course of the teaser week, the flags started to fall away but would leave ‘BTM’ which stood for ‘Bigger Than Me’, so we were teasing the single name.

We did a playlist builder and it was generated on socials as a cassette mixtape. You could share it and design your own cover on it. These were just things that really got the fans talking and engaged.

8 QR code and interactive community map at his Away From Home festival

The interactive map was linked to a QR code. We put QR codes around the festival site with absolutely no explanation as to what they were. But the fans notice everything.

We put the track titles from the album in pictures. They were really, really hidden. It took the fans two days [to work it out], but they observe everything.

Everyone started using the QR code. It took them to a website. We hadn’t announced at that point that the album was going to drop or that it was coming. It was a real mystery but that started the chatter going and we started getting trending hashtags for the album.

9 Twitter as his main platform and setting him up on TikTok

Twitter is his biggest platform [with 35.7 million followers]. What’s really interesting about that is that it’s super conversational, and you can see what they’re doing – as opposed to other platforms like Instagram and Facebook. He’s probably one of the only artists that still uses it as their primary platform.

He is really active on Twitter. He will go through bouts where he doesn’t post but then he’ll go on a reply rampage. He just replies randomly to people and does 40 in an hour. The fans go absolutely wild. Twitter was our key platform for launching initiatives and activations

There is a HQ account on TikTok and it crashed part of TikTok when it launched. Management love knowing that they crash things. We “crashed” our D2C site within minutes. There was a queue of 200,000 people in the D2C store at one point within the first hour of launching.

We didn’t technically crash the D2C store but, because of the size of the queue, it shut the storefront down which is what it does, and then forms a queue so that it doesn’t crash. We went on there and could see there were 200,000 people queuing.

10 Chart battle with Bruce Springsteen and the power of in-stores

I don’t think he ever thought he wasn’t getting a number 1 album. We beat Bruce Springsteen, we did it in Q4 and we doubled the numbers that Sony did week one last time [on Walls].

When we were in week one, and we were battling out with Bruce Springsteen, we said that there were an easy 3,000 units there if we put on four Banquet Records shows [at Pryzm in West London] and bundle the album with the tickets.

Every time they put a show on sale, you could see the numbers on the webpage. There were 200,000 people on there, even people who were not in the UK. They were ridiculous numbers.

It was more than Banquet has ever done. We sold out three shows in under a minute.

That was on release week. We had a really solid release week strategy so we knew that we had three shows in the pocket with Banquet.

We had two tracks that had not been released at that point, that weren’t on the album, that weren’t on the deluxe and that hadn’t been released as singles. We created a £4.99 digital album that had another two brand new tracks on it. You could only buy it as an album product and it was a D2C download.

We sold 15,000 of those globally in week one. We sold 6,000 in the UK. We did 3,000 extra records with Banquet in week one via the shows. We did an additional 3,000 with signed product that we put on sale in week one, because there were no other signed products in the market.

The digital super deluxe did 6,000 units. We ran multiple competitions. We gave away a signed guitar with HMV. We did a golden ticket to the tour with Crash Records.

We did a two-day pop up in Camden [North London] and Amazon contributed with signage. We did a one-day one in New York as well. We sold pop-up exclusive merch and we re-sleeved splatter vinyl with a London pop-up sleeve. We did around 2,000 of those. We did the same with the CDs and re-sleeved some CDs with the London pop-up. They were unique and fans could not get it again so they flew out the door. We had 3,000 people show up for it. That was full capacity.

We premiered the video for ‘Silver Tongues’, the second single, at the pop-up. That was the weekend of release but the single, which came out earlier that week, the video dropped on the Saturday.

11 Stationhead and Tim’s Twitter Listening Party

Stationhead is an interesting concept and we’ve done it a few times now. It’s linked to streaming, so every time you play a track within the show, it’s technically streamed by the amount of people that are listening to the show. Louis did one of those and, in terms of Stationhead’s history, it was pretty successful.

We got an email from Tim Burgess’s team saying they wanted to do a Tim’s Twitter Listening Party with Louis. They had such a good rapport and the fans were asking for it.

Beyond the chart units from the streams, it is the noise that it creates online that is more important to us.

It was one of their biggest re-listening streams, which is amazing when you think about the demographic that they have.

12 Fan-made Spotify Canvases

Across socials, we asked people to rework the ‘Bigger Than Me’ artwork. As a way of getting people to go and stream the track, we would change the Canvas semi-regularly so there was a reason for people to go and play it to see if their Canvas was one of the ones that had been selected.

The only downside is Canvases are only seven-seconds long. So if you go and you watch for seven seconds, it’s not your artwork and you come off, it can affect your average listening rate.

We were mindful of that. Our strategy was to do that post-pitching for any real major lists so that they weren’t looking at the data.

He has got really good listening data. It’s around 15 plays per listener which is way over the average. The save rate to libraries is huge and shows that he has really got a good lean-in listenership.

13 Documentary and the next steps

He’s going back on tour. He is back on another world tour from April starting in Asia and then he goes to North America. Then he comes back to Europe, culminating in an O2 show in London this time around in November. He previously did Wembley Arena.

The documentary [All Of Those Voices] premiered on 16th March and then went to worldwide cinemas on 22nd March for a week.

Charlie Lightening made it and went on tour with Louis. He had previously made the Liam Gallagher documentary [As It Was]. Historically he’s done most of Louis’ music videos as well. It was only this time around that we wanted to branch out and see if we could do something a little bit different.

It goes from the band through to his personal life and where he is now. There is a massive focus on the tour. It will blow people away to see what the Louis franchise looks like. This kid has an amazing franchise and most people just don’t have any clue about it.

The recordings business is such a small part of what he does. Obviously it helps to have records out to sell merch and to go on tour. That’s where he really excels.

I’ve never worked on a project where the fans are like they are. You get to see your visions immediately. You get to see the reactions immediately. You get to see the activation work immediately. That is such a buzz.

On most other projects, you launch something and then you have to market it and push it. This was more about pre-strategy, because you know that when you launch something, if you get it right, it’s going to work and you’ll get to see that reaction immediately. That was so much fun. Campaigns like that are rare.

#BMG #FITF promo #or more accurately. the lack of it

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bungandmunchpi · 1 month

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Just wanted to write a little something about the shows I saw in New York before the Tony noms come out tomorrow! I never write long-form about the things I've seen any more so thought I'd indulge myself quickly.

Stereophonic, 13th April

Theatre twitter was abuzz about this when it was at Playwrights' Horizons and the transfer rumours were very exciting as we were planning our trip. We managed to nab some $40 seats in the rear mezz for previews and went with it as the first show of our week!

It's a great play, although I don't think totally deserving of the raves/five stars it's getting everywhere. It could do with some pruning in places and I think both Nancy and I thought the female characters were a little bit underwritten: I'd say the scenes where it's just the two of them discussing their careers and personal lives are the weakest of the play, although Sarah Pidgeon and Juliana Canfield are both fantastic. The rest of the cast is as well - it's stacked top to bottom, with six out of seven making their Broadway debuts which is thrilling! Will Butler's music is absolutely phenomenal, and the show really soars when the band kick into gear and are recording successfully: we were both nodding our heads and tapping along, and I can't wait for the album to come out on May 10th.

Shout-outs to basically everyone in the cast, as everyone gets their little (or large) moment, but I think Eli Gelb really anchors the thing and has a gorgeous arc, and Will Brill is incredibly funny and sad at the same time. Tom Pecinka is doing fantastic work too as the antagonist/engine of the show, and I've really enjoyed watching his Gold Derby interview where he speaks about the hostility he experiences from the audience a lot of the time, and how he processes that and stays true to the text without being tempted into making the character more likeable.

We stagedoored too and everyone was very lovely! We got to compliment Will on his British accent and meet Tom's dog Molly, who was totally over the two-show day and ready to be on her way (but very sweet with it). A great start!

Merrily We Roll Along, 14th April

This was the show I spent the most money on, and I went on my own as Nancy was off being immersed at Punchdrunk (/the McKittrick Hotel, apologies). I love Sondheim and I really love this show - I was introduced to it by Lonny Price's beautiful documentary The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, which I would really recommend even if you're not a big Sondheim/musical theatre person, as it deals with being creative and dreaming big at a young age, and how we adjust when those dreams aren't realised or turn sour. It felt very special to be seeing Merrily on Broadway, as I believe Sondheim used a lot of his own early experiences in the theatre to make it. So special in fact that just hearing the overture made me extremely emotional (although it's a different version/orchestration to the overture on the original cast recording, which is one of my favourites of all time).

It's brilliantly directed/somewhat reworked by Maria Friedman, and she's been credited with turning what was a notorious flop originally into an absolute smash off and on Broadway this season. I think she does a lot of good work but it's undeniable just how brilliant a lot of the songs in it are: when Daniel Radcliffe finished Franklin Shepherd Inc, the man sitting behind me exclaimed "what a number!" to his seatmates. The material in the second half in particular is extraordinary, and I thought all three leads were fantastic as the characters get younger and younger, with It's a Hit, Opening Doors, and Bobby and Jackie and Jack highlights. Our Time, the brutally optimistic climax of the show, had me tearing up as soon as it started, and I cried all the way through the curtain call, just because I felt so lucky to have been in that space experiencing that piece of work made by this team of cast and creatives.

Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe are all phenomenal in it: I was expecting less from Daniel Radcliffe as I know he has the least musical theatre experience of the three, but he did a great job and brought so much humour to Charley, which I really enjoyed. Jonathan Groff's Growing Up is stunning and he just leads the show so well - he's a real star and would be very deserving of the Tony, which I have a feeling he may just land. Lindsay Mendez has been out of the show now and then so I was preparing myself not to see her and then was thrilled I got to: her voice is so solid and her arc was beautifully drawn, from Mary's acerbic comedy at the beginning of the show to her brightness as she's entering the creative world early on in her career.

In terms of emotion, this was probably the highlight of my trip, and I'm excited to see the production sweep a lot of awards in June!

An Enemy of the People, 17th April

As soon as this was announced, it started making my New York trip plans more concrete. I think Jeremy Strong is one of the best actors we have working today, and it was brilliant to see him onstage - I don't think he's done any theatre for a decade, and Circle in the Square is pretty intimate for a Broadway venue, so that was extremely exciting.

I was left a little cold by the production: I think that may be Amy Herzog's version, which gets through the nuts and bolts of Ibsen's play, but does so at quite a lick (the show runs about two hours with a five minute pause in the middle). The character work the actors are doing is beautifully detailed, so you really want to spend some more time with them all. Jeremy Strong is totally transformed from Succession, endearing and frustrating in equal measure, and he and Michael Imperioli work so well together as very different brothers. I saw Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' The Comeuppance recently at the Almeida, so it was fun to see Caleb Eberhardt and try to read him back into that play: I thought he was really fantastic and nuanced in Enemy, and would love to see him snag a Tony nom, although I think Featured Actor in a Play is insanely crowded (and I would hate to see any of the Stereophonic guys lose out).

Sam Gold's staging is nice although the space seems to be a little difficult to work in. There are some interesting details in the second half as things become less naturalistic, with characters remaining onstage to watch the action, and Jeremy Strong being Jeremy Strong has to put himself in some kind of physical peril (getting buckets of ice poured on him as the townspeople turn on Stockmann, leaving him wet through (and I presume freezing) for the rest of the show).

Overall this was good if not as impressive as I'd hoped, but it was amazing to see Jeremy Strong onstage and he again was lovely at the stagedoor, so I'd recommend that if you're interested!

Appropriate, 17th April

This was the best show we saw all trip, from the writing to the direction to the performances, and so brilliant that we didn't try very hard to get into something on the Thursday evening, as we didn't want to spoil the high we'd experienced the night before.

I love Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' writing, and the way he plays with drama as a form to create his shows. Appropriate sits in the tradition of American domestic drama, and it's harrowing and screamingly funny all in one go. Again a real thrill to see a cast this stacked, and fun to pick up another Succession cast member, with Natalie Gold so good in what could be a tricky role. Sarah Paulson leaves it all out there in the lead role, and does a fantastic job: another actor who isn't afraid to be unlikeable, and who goes deep in the cruelty she exhibits towards other characters. Corey Stoll does some great, solid work too, and Michael Esper is so SO good as Franz. The role is so disruptive and interesting and gross and funny, and he does a beautiful job. Nancy and I really bonded over the production of The Glass Menagerie he was in in London in 2017, so it was wonderful to see him onstage again and to see him bring it so hard.

The design elements of Appropriate are phenomenal too, particularly the final sequence, which I won't spoil but is one of the most extraordinary things I've seen done onstage.

That was the trip!! I had a brilliant first ever week in New York and the best time seeing my first shows on Broadway: I was very sad to leave but it's made me really excited to see great work in London over the summer, and I'm ready to start saving up again to go back!

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ripplestitchskein · 3 months

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Heey I really like your Stolitz and Helluva Boss Takes! They are very insightful and interesting to read. Your circus theory is adorable :)

I’m wondering, why do you think this fandom in particular is… so rabidly against media literacy. I too am an old trooper from the Destiel days and I remember the days when internet fans would beg for more complex characters that have grey morality. Also when people would BEG for gay representation like this. I’m so confused man. The “vivziepop critical” hashtag just makes me depressed. So many people seem obsessed to criticize this show and I don’t get it. I haven’t seen this much hate since Twilight. Also did the mistake of checking twitter… Also, why do people act like one person did everything when animation is a highly collaborative medium and there are 100+ creator names at the end of each episode? I’m so confused because I’ve enjoyed the show so much and went online to find fanart and fanfics and found… insane levels of hate and projection?? Why does everyone and their dog want to cancel this woman for making an animated TV show with millenial style sensibilities? Why are they saying the writing is horrible and atrocious when I personally think it’s better than Family Guy, Big Mouth, American Dad and many other adult animation show’s writings? I’m so curious because I’m from Eastern Europe and it feels like something particular about american culture doesn’t click to me in all of this…

Thank you so much Nonnie! If nothing else I might illustrate Blitzo’s little circus with everyone in their roles. I’m working on a Stolitz piece I am VERY excited about but maybe after that.

As far as your question. Whooboy is that a question I have both given a lot of thought to and found no real satisfactory answers, but I have some ideas.

I think it’s a mix of things and I think a huge part of it is the medium and the accessibility of the creators combined with the show reaching a huge internet audience other fandoms don’t really normally touch.

The audience numbers for both of the Spindlehorse/Vivziepop properties are ENORMOUS. On the main channel alone an episode will reach 20+ million views. This doesn’t include other channels that take the same episodes and put them on their channels and reach several million as well. The Nielsen numbers average around the 18-20 per episode but Nielsen ratings are a flawed metric especially with internet based media. We’ve seen some of the Amazon numbers as well and they are insane.

We also live in a time where people are under an extreme amount of scrutiny all hours of the day, the likes of which we really don’t have a comparison for in human history and we have a independent creator who was largely available to that fandom for a long period of time. A lot of media properties are corporate, are sanitized and managed by large PR firms. I think VivziePop said some things before she had fully grown and developed as a person that people latched onto as a core belief system, something the internet is really good at. There also isn’t a lot of grace given to people who change their views after taking in other viewpoints and information. If you say something it will live on in infamy and I think some of the hate stems from that.

I went into it a little in this post here that I just don’t think people are aware of the creative process that goes into making such a thing. An indie creator has to be way more transparent than a corporate entity to get the funding they need and that transparency builds expectations with people who can’t grasp that plots and characters change as the story actually develops. They are very used to prepackaged, sanitized and complete productions and this messy and chaotic realtime creative process is very foreign to them.

Critical thinking skills are also a precious resource in humanity in general, and when you’re dealing with a fandom this large you have more people who lack those skills than normal. These two shows do not spoon feed their audience, a lot of things are in the details and hidden under character complexities and I genuinely believe that they aren’t used to not being told flat out “this is what is happening. This is how the characters feel about it.” By the media they consume. We’re also dealing with two different shows with similar visual elements and comparisons are made between the two while ignoring the actual shows themselves. A great example is the chains in Hazbin for Angel and Husk being compared to the chain in the drug hallucinations in D.H.O.R.K.S. They are not remotely the same, or for the same reason but because they are visually similar, being from the same team people really thought they were on to something while ignoring the actual content and dialogue of the scene itself. Meme culture used for wrong imo.

Having characters that do “problematic” things, say “problematic” things and behave in realistic and nuanced ways is hard for people to separate from the creators or the fans. Any whiff of perceived “toxicity” is jumped on like rabid dogs. They believe it’s a reflection of what the creator and fans actually WANT in real life. It’s purity culture run amuck and it’s a HUGE issue. Like actual fascism in action and it’s extremely concerning to me but what can I do but continue to engage critically with what I like and provide analysis while enjoying it?

There is also this sense of competition in fandoms. My ship is less problematic than yours. My blorbo is a better person. Etc. It’s the silliest shit.

There is also a huge wait time between episodes. In a binge watching culture, or a serialized tv culture where seasons are completed and then released all at once or on a regular schedule with maybe a week or two between it is hard for the audience to retain what they saw previously and connect it. They also build up expectations and have months to sit with them only to be disappointed when it doesn’t play out how they wanted. The Sherlock fandom was notorious for this. The years long gap between seasons let things fester and rot and now we have a show like HB that will go months between episodes and take years to tell a story.

Being completely honest almost all the criticism I’ve seen is not rooted in actual problems with the show but people saying “if they had done X and X and X it would have be a better show” but because the show didn’t deliver what they specifically wanted it’s “not good”. Or they don’t realize it is delivering that, just at a very slow pace.

I think it can best be summed up by a lot of the internet are what me and my partner call “baby brained”. I don’t mean to be dismissive of real criticisms but I haven’t seen any that hold water yet that aren’t rooted in the things I’ve mentioned above. If I’m presented some I’ll engage with them logically and will use the text to determine their validity.

I have more thoughts on this but this is already pretty long so I’ll save it for specific posts on this subject. But like I always say, just block them and do things that make you happy with the things you love. You don’t owe them your time or your attention and the creators don’t owe them anything either.

#helluva boss #Hazbin hotel #anonymous #fandom critical #like so critical #some of y’all need something #love #therapy #a new show to focus on #I dunno

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theloopus · 11 months

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I finally watched mirror image a few minutes ago and I do not know what to say. Your sam in drag video got me to start watching QL a few months ago and by accident I'd also seen it mentioned that Sam never got home while looking up the show, but I didn't care at the time since I didn't know what that even meant. I got through 3 seasons in a month and then a started to slow down because I realized I was running out of episodes, so I slowly got through the fourth season. One I got to the fifth, I had to take a long break. I knew that the episode quality would decline since id seen you mention on Twitter once that you don't even consider them canon, but I was not expecting how difficult it would be to get though. I could only watch ten minutes of each trilogy episode a day, it was unbearable. But I bet you don't really care about all of this so let me get to the point. I had to pause the screen where it said Sam never got home. I don’t know how to feel and I'm so confused. I've looked through the episode wiki and the imdb episode trivia and I still want to know more. Whenever you mentioned stuff about Mirror image on here or on Twitter I always scrolled past it quickly to avoid spoilers, but now I can barely find anything regarding it, so I was wondering if I could hear your thoughts on the episode. Was the bartender God? Did you like Sam's choice to sacrifice his returning home for Al's happiness? Just, what are your thoughts on it? Thank you for introducing me to this wonderful show and these wonderful characters ❤

omg this is so much. i'm gonna put these under a read more because "what are your thoughts on Mirror Image" is a LOADED question with a controversial answer. i am so incredibly normal about Quantum Leap.

first of all i love that "binging the first three seasons like a starving lunatic then slowing down with the fourth because you realize you're gonna run out of episodes and then season 5 is just so bad on top of that you take ages to finish it" is such a universal experience. it truly is just a rough season to get through. which is a shame! and trilogy.... oh trilogy............. what the fuck was that.............

anyway, mirror image is an episode that makes me kind of insane. the thing is that. i don't know how to put this exactly. mirror image is complicated. in my eyes it's

a really, really good and interesting episode

not a at all a satisfying wrap-up for the show

really not a good series finale for the type of show they were trying to make at the time they were making it as tv functioned back then

a perfect finale for the quantum leap that exists in my mind that i've built from the subtext and character beats and unintentional lore/themes/motifs

because quantum leap the tv show from the 80s is a politically liberal, episodic science fiction adventure tv show from the 80s/90s, and the way these sort of tv shows works, there is an unspoken pact with the audience that they should have satisfying, relatively happy endings. romcoms should end with the leads getting together. superhero movies should end with the good guy defeating the bad guy. detective shows should end with the detective catching the criminal. and a tv show in which every episode ends with the good guy succeeding to put right what once went wrong, solving the conflict, and giving everyone a happy ending, should end with the good guy getting a happy ending himself.

but the quantum leap that exists in my mind and i've built from the subtext and character beats and unintentional lore, themes, and motifs is a Tragedy. it's a story about martyrdom, and saints, and sacrifice, and blind faith, and God, and trauma, and being stuck in the past because of that trauma.

Tragedy, as a genre, is characterized by this: the main character is doomed by the narrative from the beginning because of who they are inherently. whereas in another narrative their traits might've been assets, might've helped them succeed, in this narrative, it's what dooms them (ex. Hamlet's indecisiveness vs Juliet's impulsiveness). and, god, i ADORE Sam Beckett as a tragic hero: his defining characteristic is that he's "terminally good—if it was up to you, you'd save everyone!", and i'm obsessed with the use of "terminal" here, because it is that relentless goodness that ends up dooming him. Sam is Jesus, he's Saint Sebastian, he's Joan of Arc. God chose him to be sent on this divine journey, to help people, to save people from their own fates, to save humanity—at the cost of his own humanity, his own life. at the beginning, he says: "i can't have a life, all i do is live someone else's life!" and in Mirror Image he's still clinging to the hope of going home, at first, because he really does want to go home, more than anything. but then his arc is completed when he realizes it: he's never going home. this kind of journey doesn't have an ending. there are always more people to save. you might be able to take the weekends off, but you can't just quit the job of being God's chosen one. and in the end, he was never going to, because the reason why he was chosen is that he's terminally good. that if it was up to him, he'd save everyone. quitting would mean God knows how many people that needed saving won't be saved, and if everything we've been told about Sam is true, he wouldn't be able to live with himself. so he accepts his Celestial role, leaves Al behind with a parting gift, and disappears into the sands of time the way the Little Mermaid throws herself into the ocean and dissolves into seafoam.

the fascinating thing about Sam, actually, is that this terminal goodness perfectly coexists with the fact that he's also very selfish. in this way, Al is his perfect mirror: in his own words, Al looks out only for himself; he would not go out of his way to help a stranger at the cost of his own life because he's fought fucking hard and sacrificed too much for that life—and yet that's exactly what he's doing by helping Sam, by being the Sancho and Dulcinea to his Don Quixote, putting his own life aside to be there for Sam 24/7. because he loves him. romantically or platonically, however you choose to read their relationship, it's undeniable that Al loves Sam to a devotional degree. meanwhile Sam is riddled with guilt over not being there for his dad when he died, over "abandoning" him to pursue his own studies and interests—and then he proceeds to do exactly that to Al by stepping into the Accelerator, and then fucking again by doing what he does in Mirror Image.

i have so many frankly insane thoughts about what Sam does to Al in Mirror Image (hilarious unintentional wording sorry. unfortunately he does not fuck that old man quite the opposite.) and i am very much channeling them into a long, rambling, experimental post-canon fic, thank you very much. but the gist of it is that like... ok, taking your own words, it's very interesting that you said Sam is "sacrificing his returning home for Al's happiness", because that's not quite the way i see it. Sam was never going to return home. what he's doing for Al is, at least in his mind, setting him free and leaving him a parting gift.

ok so: Sam learns that his journey does not have an end, and he will never go home. throughout this entire journey thus far, Al has been his loyal companion, helper, and guardian angel. "i don't know if i can make it without you Al" "i don't wanna hear that you can't make it! of course you can. if you had to." but Al is just that, a companion (one that is 20 years older than Sam, worth mentioning)—someone who Sam unintentionally burdened with the role of helper. but where Sam is going, Al can't follow. he just can't keep following Sam around forever—Sam wouldn't want that for him. he wants Al to be happy, and for Al to be happy, he needs his own life back, and he needs the main wrong in his life righted—Beth.

...that's how Sam sees it, at least. because, as mentioned before, Sam may be good, but he's also selfish. it's very ironic, and juicy, to me, that he keeps repeating the same mistake over and over, with everyone he loves the most (his family and Al): consistently underestimating how much people love him, and leaving without saying goodbye. he's so obsessed with Saving Al that he fails to consider that maybe Al, who has a very specific and strong trauma about being abandoned by the people he loves the most, as much as he might be thrilled at having Beth back, might not appreciate 1. Sam not consulting him in the decision to completely turn his whole life and timeline upside down 2. Sam disappearing without a trace without saying goodbye or offering him any sort of closure in their very intense, very codependent relationship 3. having to sort of like... pay the price for having Beth by losing Sam, as if these two people, the two people he's loved the most in his entire life, were interchangeable.

and, to be fair, this part of the analysis does seem like a bit of a stretch if you've only seen the canonical ending of the show as it aired and not the original 'lost' ending that they ended up cutting for Reasons, but which i absolutely consider to be canon and the "real" ending of the show.

god, okay, i probably could have many more things to say about this if prompted, but that should be the gist of it, i believe. hopefully i'm not forgetting anything? did you know there's actually multiple alternate endings they wrote for different real-life scenarios Just In Case, including one where Sam and Al would go to space and Al would be a leaper and Sam would be a time traveler in his own body if they got picked up for a sixth season? i'm obsessed with it.

as for Al the Bartender? my fun little theory is that he's not God, or Time, or Fate, or an alien, or any of those things—in a way, in-universe, he's all of them at once.

he's The Narrative personified.

#txt #quantum leap #queap #UHH AHA. THIS IS LIKE. OVER 1K WORDS?#if youve ever been curious about me being a mirror image apologist. um. this is it.#this is my mirror image manifesto.#you guys ever think about television?#EDIT ALSO IM GLAD YOU LIKED THE SHOW ITS SO SO SO SPECIAL TO ME

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louisupdates · 1 year

Text

BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN: LOUIS TOMLINSON

MUSICALLY | 19 APRIL 2023

Lisa Wilkinson, director of UK marketing (new recordings) at BMG, explains how they looked to reposition him in the market, what learnings were coming from his live success as well as his own festival, and more.

[The article will be broken into sections, linked below.]

1. Coming to BMG for his second solo album

2. The centrality of merchandise

3. The radio conundrum

4. Targeting a male audience

5. Building his songwriting profile

6. Targeting the press

7. Boosting the digital strategy

8. QR code and interactive community map at his Away From Home festival

9. Twitter as his main platform and setting him up on TikTok

10. Chart battle with Bruce Springsteen and the power of in-stores

11. Stationhead and Tim’s Twitter Listening Party

12. Fan-made Spotify Canvases

13. Documentary and the next steps

☆彡

1. COMING TO BMG FOR HIS SECOND SOLO ALBUM

This is his first album with BMG. His debut album, Walls in 2020, was with Syco Music [via Sony]. That was off the back of X Factor with Simon Cowell.

You can see from his live business and his merchandise business – and every other thing that Louis does – that there is an incredible fanbase there for him.

When they [Syco] released Walls, they achieved 14,000 units in week one and got to number 4 in Q1 in January 2020. We thought that just didn’t feel reflective of what was happening [around him].

We went and saw him at various venues on his world tour. We went to New York and saw those two shows and we went to Italy and watched his Milan stadium show in front of 30,000 people.

You’re looking and you’re thinking, “Those numbers don’t make any sense. How on Earth did you fumble that?” We were confident that we could do better than that.

He had a signing dinner in October 2021 and then his world tour started in February 2000, which was the delayed tour [due to the pandemic]. It went all the way through to September, pretty much nonstop.

They sold half a million tickets that year. All the while he’s on tour, he’s still making the album.

He wanted to make an album for live. It was a totally different experience for him. Covid hit just a few months after Walls dropped so the tour was out of the question.

Considering this is someone who hasn’t had real radio support or is seen in celebrity magazines or on social posts, this is a huge phenomenon.

That continued into the tour.

#louis tomlinson #lisa wilkinson #louis press #bmg marketing #19.4.23 #musically #louis masterpost

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