Off Air: Our Plans
Pat And Mike sit down to talk about the future of Forgotten Entertainment.
Pat
Well, it’s been quite the week. Quibi folded, the movie theater industry looks like it’s on death’s door, and we’re barreling towards the home stretch of this year’s Election cycle (one in which more more money will be spent on media buys than ever before).
Not to toot our own horns (though that’s exactly what this series is) we launched our Forgotten Entertainment YouTube page and revealed the shows in our development pipeline.
So using that as a jumping on point, I wanted to steer this week’s topic you and I are both familiar with while using this platform to bring our audience behind the curtain. And that topic is, of course, our long term plans.
Mike, talk to me about what you envision Forgotten Entertainment becoming and how do we get there?
Mike
World Domination. I kid, of course. When Mike Butler and I started the Forgotten Cinema Podcast, we just wanted to talk about movies. We quickly realized that posting an episode every week wasn’t enough. We started building content for social media. We wanted to do video. Not just us sitting in front of our web camera doing a vlog, but actual commercials. (And hey, there’s nothing wrong with vlogs - It’s all content) My background in digital marketing and video production was hard to ignore once the content was flowing.
We’re not reinventing the wheel here. We’re not the first people with these ideas. We’re not talking about anything that nobody has thought of before. More than anything, I want us to be productive, consistent and always moving forward. Always being open to new and challenging ways to tell stories or create content. But more importantly, actually doing it. Getting it done.
That’s how we get to where we want Forgotten Entertainment to be. But what exactly is that? Well, right now, it’s content creation in all forms, with different goals. Whether it’s entertainment, storytelling, informational or educational. It’s anything and everything.
Pat
Ha! I wouldn’t dissuade you from world domination. Go big or go home, right?
To your point we’re being incredibly productive. As a group, Forgotten Entertainment has produced well over 200 podcast episodes and nearly 75 short form videos in just the past year. It’s a constant stream of weekly production. Speaking of the short form videos, let’s talk about the goal of those.
For Forgotten Cinema the videos are short skits between you and Mike Butler and for Yet Another MCU Podcast it’s me sharing some recommended comics. Neither of which are more than 90 seconds an “episode” and most viewers could binge through them in 30 minutes if they chose. How do they add to the portfolio and enhance the podcast content?
Mike
We say it all the time, to each other and anyone who will listen, our faces need to be synonymous with the podcast brand. When you think of Forgotten Cinema, you should know about Butler and me from our commercials and our social media posts. Yet Another MCU Podcast is meant to inform, so what better way than with the Recommended Reading Section of the podcast also becoming a video. Not everyone is going to consume the podcast. The videos expand the brand to an audience who may not know about us.
It’s not enough to be just a voice behind the microphone. We’re not celebrities or well-known people who can rely on that public persona in order to attract views and downloads. But the bigger reason is that we’re not only a podcast company. We’re a digital media company.
Pat
Right. And it’s about adding to the experience. Our audience can listen to the podcasts and then see us in the complementary videos. The reason audiences rewatch certain shows (The Office, Friends, The West Wing) is they feel comfortable with the characters and feel like they’re really friends with us. We need to get to that point. Podcasts, in a lot of ways, are the creators coming in the audiences’ living rooms or cars or gym and having these conversations with the listeners. It’s personable. And the videos help add to that and build the connection.
Plus, from a business perspective - short form offers another avenue for our advertisers to connect to our listeners/watchers.
We just released our in-development slate, a handful of shows that mix business and film, take a look at some unknown stories, and explore the world of emerging sports. I like that we’re moving away from simply talking movies - there’s a lot of guys doing movie reviews. I envision a team of creators with unique perspectives helping to bring these shows (and more) to life with the added video piece. To bring it full circle - constant content creation.
Which of the shows are you most excited for? How do we continue to make this a reality?
Mike
Well, it’s a no brainer that On-Air, which is an extension of this blog series, can turn into something really interesting. Discussion about the ever-changing media industry fascinates me as well as inspires me in our own work. I also like The Main Street Journal for a few reasons. It handles local news, which can pull the in-depth Sunday morning news articles and transform them into the podcast format. It’s franchise-like where we can have different people from different parts of the state covering their local news. It’s not limited to one location.
We make this happen by doing it. Simple, I know. But we can’t do it without the help of other people. Creators, business majors, investors, sponsors...all of them. Right now, we’re light in people-power, but also we’re not the only people who have great ideas. We need people with great ideas and a great work ethic. More importantly, we need people who we can help achieve their vision and goals as well as help our own vision along the way.
Michael Field is the co-host of Forgotten Cinema Podcast and Yet Another MCU Podcast. He's an author, filmmaker and storyteller with over 20-plus years of experience. Patrick Whalen is the other co-host of Yet Another MCU Podcast, as well one of the co-founders of Forgotten Entertainment.