Sorgatron.com

Some 12 years ago, I had to make the dreaded trek anyone does when they meet someone special:  meet the in laws. But with the uncertainty of the new family I would eventually grow on (I think) there was this sweet old lady.  That was Stone Cold’s biggest fan.

I was greeted by fables of one great Christmas gathering where she was gifted an Austin 3:16 shirt.  And proceeded to do the Stone Cold Salute.  In front of all of the kids.  And grand kids.  Her house was adorned with Stone Cold posters and toys.

The best was having the fortune to watch when wrestling was on, or bringing a DVD from my own collection.  I’ve long been a fan of watching others that just love the stuff. Get a good match on with Austin or Undertaker,  or someone else that she despises (she never seemed to forget about guys like Kurt Angle or Edge being bad guys at one point).  She would get so into it.  Reacting, shuffling her feet.  Often hitting the person watching next to her at the table.

Every Monday for a LONG period I’d have to call to make sure RAW was on for her and talk to her about what was going on.  Every Xmas, we renewed the WWE calendar on her wall.

The pinnacle was when we discovered WWE was having untelevised event just modest drive away on Elmira.  Missy and I had a sign about their 82 year old fan in the audience.  We had great seats 9 rows back (the last row on the floor in this small arena) along the aisle.  The main event was Batista in a handicapped match against his former Evolution mates Triple H and Ric Flair.  Guess who hated Ric Flair.  So many times we recounted how we thought she was ready to jump that barrier (she was a spry 82) when they were taking it to Batista.

So here is to the coffee drinkin’, ass kicking, kendo stock swinging, grandma with a ‘tude.  It was amazing to see the loved ones you were surrounded by these last few days.  And I know you are sitting front row up there for Macho Man vs Chief Jay Strongbow at JesusMania MMXII.

This year, we returned to Pittsburgh Comicon representing Sorgatron Media with a new game plan.  No longer did we have Mangtoons to team up with since it’s proprietor headed out to New Jersey for the next step in his career.  But this year, we had something more.  Something to actually sell.  So we upgraded from the lowly Artist Alley to Small Press booths selling IWC and RWA DVDs that we’ve been producing and distributing lately.

As usual, it’s an educational experience…

Stan Lee doesn’t pack a Con.  I was shocked on how many people A. didn’t know the yearly Comic Con was that weekend and B. didn’t pack the Monroeville Convention Center with word of Stan Lee.  Attending the Baltimore Comic Con, you could barely move.  You needed to buy a ticket to get a glimpse at Stan Lee.

Less to see.  I don’t know if I’m jaded from my first year on the Con circuit, but there wasn’t much to get excited about.  I brought a camera, but had no interest in filming much of anything.  Those I was interested in talking with we already talked with last year, or already feature on other shows on our network.  The best thing I saw all weekend was the World’s Strongest Redneck who came to our booth and bent a nail.  Amazing.  The people were there, and the community

World Gets Smaller.  Again.  As I run around and hit these wrestling shows and Cons, I’m starting to feel the world shrinkage.  It was great to see the Dork Trek and Torres vs Zombies guys I met up at Baltimore just a few booths down from our setup.  Seeing all of the comic book crew like Jon Towers, Scott Hedlund, and Dan Greenwald just bouncing around and hanging out was cool as always.  I love I was able to introduce them to the World’s Strongest Redneck.  Even some local wrestlers stopped by the booth.

We Upgraded.  Or Did We?  We made a quick decision last year that we were not going to be doing the Artist Alley this year.  It made sense.  We had stuff to sell.  We weren’t doing art.  Sure.  But when I did swing back and realized how much more room they got next to last year, and prime draw location by Stan Lee’s area, it made me wonder if we made the right move.  Either way, I’m sure an earlier placement that wasn’t in a corner would have helped, but you never know.  It’s that economics of the tables and making it back we stil have to learn.

One of the guys that made the weekend awesome!

It’s nice to sell something.  We did the promotional thing for Pittsburgh and Baltimore last year, and don’t really know how much we ended up getting form it.  No way to gauge it.  It’s just great to get out and talk to the people about wrestling, or web comic.  But it’s nice to have something that is a physical something to sell.  We did a lot of great work reaching out for our shows and services, as well as preach the pro wrestling groups in their back yard.  And we were able to see some immediate results as RWA had a show that Saturday night we filmed and one of the guys that came by talked to me.  One fan at a time!

Altogether, I can’t see not going back next year.  Even if the whole experience makes me shake my head from the lack of social media efforts to perhaps a lack of caring.  (I know people who couldn’t find anyone at the front door to pay for a ticket to come in. )  But it’s THE Comic Con of the area, and it’s our home base.

What’s next?  We are targeting the Steel City Con, which will be great with the wrestling guests it already has to attract our kind of audience right off the bat.  We are also looking at the logistics of doing Sci-Fi in the Valley in Edensburgh (by Johnstown).  They are having some local wrestling out that way, and lets face it, there’s wrestling on SyFy these days, right?

The following is a post I wrote up for WrestlineMayhemShow.com based on our online PPV experience.  Big thanks to AJ Kuftic for the thought to do it this way so we can put our money where our mouth is on this matter.  Thought it fit with the cord cutting discussions I often have here.

I am a cord cutter.  And as such my television hobby, professional wrestling, has been hard to keep legit.

For this case, we are giving a fair shake to obtaining a legitimate pay per view from those juggernauts at WWE.com.  Going into this, I know I was always skeptical on what quality they would deliver based on what quality video the site has had over the years otherwise.  Would they respect a quality boost knowing I paid exactly what I would have if I did have a cable subscription hooked up?  Thankfully, our good friend AJ was willing to give it a shot in his wallet, and we all got to see the results.

What did we use?  I hooked up a late 2009 MacBook Pro on my 25/25 Verizon FIOS connection, and a 720p HDMI hookup to 42″ Vizio LCD.

So we had the login and the pre-purchase.  Easy enough.  But did it hold up?  Do we feel slighted for paying 54.95 for a sub par experience?

From what I can tell, we paid the same amount as you would on a standard definition viewing of the show.   If you look at it like what, and have VPN Er watched one of those on an HD TV, you know how blocky and ugly it can get.  I know watching RAW or a PPV on an HD channel n Comcast or FIOS I have seen shameful macroblocking on fireworks or strobe light entrances.  I never expect a picture perfect edition.

The show was watchable.  Sometimes, during entrances, lots of shot changes, or the cage match, the video just fell apart.  It was watchable, but not quite better than the three clicks it would have take a to watch the same show for free somewhere else.  Some things like CM Punk’s tattoos just meshed together.   Some really unfortunate stuff,  but only took away the experience slightly.

As for reliability, I was really impressed.  I don’t think we had a video drop all night.  There were a few blackouts and glitches, but it seemed to be camera or broadcast issues there at the show that likely went out to every paying viewer out there.  the important part is that we could mostly forget a out the stream.  If I had the feeling of needing to babysit the stream, hope it didn’t go down, biting my nails all night, it’s different than I would expect in reliability in a cable connection.

The biggest issue is the cost for what you do get.  At least as a comparison point, our talk amongst ourselves afterwards led to the idea that WWE should give some sort of discount to the online purchase like this.  To the average joe, not on the “cutting edge” cord cutters like me, what is the incentive to go with this option?  Why not do the cable PPV I always do?  Or worse yet, what’s to keep me forgoing to use the easy to find free streams?

In the quality side, it has some way to go.  This is the first time I looked for the online PPV option that I didn’t have to dig for.  But we also had the YouTube streamed WrestleMania pre-show running in full 720p through the same setup.  That hurt to switch off to the paid stream.  I’ve been enjoying HD streams on Hulu Plus and YouTube via my Xbox 360 for years that has rivaled my neighbor’s DirecTV.  The tech is out there.  YouTube is shoring up content, and WWE is picking up productions with these streaming pre shows, press conferences and streaming content.  You have to think that they are already considering YouTube’s infrastructure for serving Pay Per Views.  When this happens and looks Asa good as the live streaming Rock/Cena special did, or NXT does every week for me, then my money will be even easier greased to leave my wallet.

So while the online experience leaves a bit to be desired, as long as I consider the quality compared to that Standard Definition price, I can swallow this to be a legitimate watcher of WWE PPVs for now, so long as I can continue to get people interested in splitting it with me.  Otherwise, the cost is now the sole prohibitive element, like anyone else out there.  But that’s another issue altogether.

So what do you think?  What would you like to see that would make you shell out for Pay Per Views more consistently online?

Recently, we ended the Chachi Says Vidcast at Sorgatron Media.

The “video blog” was started on my insistance that Chachi needed to get on camera.  He’s a character I’d known personally for a long time, and thought it would open up some doors if he did something.

The original concept: Have Chachi rip off a recent show I had started watching called Penn Point.  So he would sit there with a blackberry and Android phone camera, send me the clips, and I would sync and edit to make it as interesting as possible.

It took a while for him to buy into the concept.  Finally, he took his Android phone, work Blackberry, and in some cases a small MiniDV camera, and sent me along several angles to edit together.  It made things interesting, maybe more so than him just staring at the cam talking.  The best use of this concept was at Podcamp Pittsburgh 5 when we invited the audience during our live AwesomeCast recording to all film Chachi doing his show talking about the event, and send us the footage to splice together.

We continued with the concept, eventually losing the extra cams since the quality was just off base with the lackluster cellphone cams.  Chachi eventually had the chance to update to a Kodak Zi6, learn to front light, and have some more fun.  We took him to New York Comic Con for some on the floor impressions along with our other coverage of the event, broke some news on what was happening at Occupy Pittsburgh before the local news did, hand turkeys, Santa Claus, SOPA, Batman, and the epic struggle of robots and zombies…

It was a great run, with more than 69 episodes (we had some fun with the numbering).  It gave Chachi a place to develop in front of the camera.  Since, he’s returned to being a staple in my projects, including helping me in studio for Wrestling Mayhem Show and AwesomeCast, bringing even more to those shows.  It can also be determined that Chachi Says led to his spot as on screen host of the PittsburghonVideo.org project, Unsung, which has recently been honored with an award.

Altogether, I found the project to be a great exercise in doing a different kind of show than we normally did up to that point for Sorgatron Media.  It wasn’t a breakaway hit, but it hit where it needed to.  Chachi’s become a great on screen presenter and I can’t wait to see what he brings with his new InsertCointoBegin.com project…

For the longest time, wrestling has been out of the closet, so to speak and many have had to learn to live in a world where everyone was in on what pro wrestling was.  More recently, the wrestlers themselves have had to learn to deal with social media and being one on one with the fans so directly.  While I could rant for ages on wrestlers being idiots on Twitter.

The bigger issue is Facebook.

Facebook presents us with interesting problems, but definitely tools that can greatly benefit a wrestler.  As a wrestler, your name, your gimmick, your character, however you want to refer to it, is your brand.  If you are on Facebook pushing yourself, posting on indy promotion pages with an obvious picture as you, the wrestler, it hurts your brand.

When you use your real name, your main Facebook account, it can send mixed messages.  When you are using Facebook to promote your matches and events, it throws people to see your real last name.  When you use it in this fashion, and talk in storylines, it kills the suspension of disbelief that wrestling thrives on.

Some things to Consider:

If you are on Facebook as yourself

1. You should be a guy who wrestles.  Not the wrestler.  Here, you can be the guy who plays video games, or bitches about your girlfriend.  Don’t kill the mystique of the badass you’re supposed to be.
2. Comment in story, or on promotional sites as your stage name.   When I see a name that doesn’t jive with the name I know from the flyers and ring entrances, it takes me out of it as a fan.  If I see a mystery name connected with a picture of someone I consider a star (and most friends that ask can’t believe indy wrestlers have day jobs) I akin that to my aunt that has a picture of a cat as her profile picture.
3. When you “friend” others and fans on Facebook, they take it as that.  Friends.  How much you privatize your personal page is up to you, but you can easily lock it down to family and friends, lessening the bleed over from your “professional” life.

If you are fortunate enough to be pushing yourself as your own name, you have some more options. 

1. Are you basically an extension of who you are in the ring?
2. Are you dedicated to not get to personal on your page?

This year’s Chachi Plays for Kids moved to the welcome walls of the Toonseum, where Chachi did a marathon to raise money for the Toonseum and Father Ryan Arts Center to help arts programs for kids.

While Chachi setup his gaming along with Brother Matt, I setup the command center where I’d live for the next 24 hours.

The setup should look familiar.  It’s the same thing I used last month in our inaugural pro wrestling filmings.  The same switcher, audio mixer, and miniDV cam interfacing this all into the laptop.

The difference is that we’re using WireCast to stream out to Justin.tv instead of recording for a DVD.  The live switcher in hardware gives one less thing to go wrong, relieving the laptop of some duties.  We simply setup a graphic for the website and imploring for donations and streamed.  The Datavideo was great for doing the minimal picture in picture duties I did last year and we didn’t experience a single crash.

The setup was great for the shots on the Gameplay and Chachi too.  As you can see in the shot to the right, there was a nice couch to the setup.  Perfect for determining the mics.  Once on each end of the couch to get all of the cursing when Chachi was beating Ginny at Mario Kart.  Mics and cameras were pretty much out of the crowd’s way as
end caps to the players.  Which is nice, since there was a good crowd for Friday night of about 25 people.

Last year, we tried to stream the event.  I initially had this idea to have some content rolling as we went, but the setup was so exhausting, we were lucky to have a live camera on Chachi the entire time.  This year, the setup was a breeze.  And we had a plan.  Chachi and I came up with some questions, and we developed a bit of an exit interview, and were presented with their shirts for participating.  It was like an assembly line of awesome.  The questions were pretty basic.  Stuff about art, going 24 hours, and the game they played with Chachi.  We had some great moments from it.  Everybody had some great things to say, and it gave a great reason to still be on the feed as Chachi took his in between breaks.

It was also great to get a few volunteers in during the Tetris tournament for a little bit of play by play, including my Mayhem compatriot, DJLunchbox and Dudders.

The Surprise

It’s always something, isn’t it.  While the setup was flying, I found something…interesting.  I had the Wirecast going, and brought a spare laptop to check on the feed going out and the chat room.  Well, the video worked fine.  Then I attempted to sign into Justin.tv.  And my account was suspended?  Not exactly.  It seems, according to the wiki I was sent to, WAY at the bottom of the page, Justin.tv doesn’t like open proxies.  I didn’t inquire, but I presume it had something to do with Toonseum’s internet setup.  No problem.  Just pulled out the iPhone and loaded the app off wifi to make sure things were good!

So another year.  Things go so much better, it was an amazing experience.  We’re already looking at making it even better next year.

Keep an eye on ChachiPlays.com for videos as I cobble them together out of 24 hours, and Unsung 21 for a small feature.

Manning the switcher at RWA in West Newton

I know I’ve been a little quiet lately, and that’s because for a bit of a ramp up that’s been happening the last month.  At the beginning of the year, I had the opprutunitiy to take over video production and DVD distribution from Digital Horizons for local wrestling groups International Wrestling Cartel and Renegade Wrestling Alliance.  I’ve had the fortune to shoot ringside through the prior rigime, and owe a lot of what I’ve grown from working with Tony F and his company.  It’s also great to be working with two organizations that I have some great friends also working for in some capacity. So we recorded shows for both in the last two weeks, and a the growing pains are definitly there.  We’re doing everything we can to get up to the level of quality that Digital Horizons was delivering, and hope to take it a bit further.  But first, we have to get my tech, and Chachi behind camera, up to speed… A few things we’ve learned:

Manage your cables: One of the items of knowledge my new ringside camera protoge had to learn the wrong way was caring for the video cord.  Our first shoot we lost two of them, and no more backups, thanks to this after two matches.  Thankfully, our redundancies worked out.  I let the ringside cam record his stuff untethered the rest of the night, only to take the monotonous task of post editing later.  Ouch.  It was salvageable, but I think we could have the new guy a bit more up to speed if I could watch his shots live the rest of the night.

Prior knowledge helps.  I’ve been developing a system for producing these DVDs as swiftly as I can.  Thankfully, I’ve had some experience at my old employer filling in on vacation days for the front office and duplicating my own music CD back in 2007.  Great start, but higher volume thanks to the groups’ already existing catalogues and audience.

Communication is key:  This has been a pretty steady problem.  We had to get a new set of headsets to try to communicate from my live switching station to the camera men.  The first night, no one could adequately talk to me, mostly  the second, we lost one of the headsets to battery issues.  Thankfully, we realized we just needed some AAA’s to pick it up.  We couldn’t get the cams lined up color wise, but the shots were so much better (that, plus ringside’s time taken to critique his previous week’s work).

Attention to merchandise pays off:  Wife of the Sorg took over the merchandise booth side of our operations.  In the past, it was always sort of a neglected side of the night’s activities.  Someone not associated with the company would man the DVD table, or be unattended as we setup and do our business shooting the show.  Missy offered to take over, and I’ve let her run with it and my thoughts for it.  We started taking credit cards at the show with Square, which meant over 50% of our sales at IWC were via plastic.  How many of those sales would have been non-existant or less due to the lack of access?  We also started taking pre-orders going into the show and for the next show to make sure people got what they were looking for.  We also took orders of that same night’s show, to be sent out later that week as the DVD was completed.  There were few requests, but people were enthusiastic and it should grow as people see we continue doing these plans.  The booth looked tremendous with the last show playing back to get peoples’ attention.  Plus the advantage of putting a vendor of the fairer sex behind a booth at a wrestling show is invaluable.

I’ll miss ringside shooting, but it’s still great to be a part of it, and I truly enjoy switching.  The video guys are getting up to speed, and we can only improve.  Our first month out and our redundancy systems held (3 cameras recording to MiniDV and one record to a MacBook Pro).  If that’s as bad as it gets, it’s only up from here.  And the IWC setup at Court Time is the toughest shooting we will have all year for six total shows. So how did they turn out?  Here are teasers for our first DVD releases of 2012 from Sorgatron Media.

Every once in a while, I tend to spout my longer thoughts on my Google+.  And they make it to blog form here: 

I’m starting to see the problem with search.  I live in the Google ecosystem with Google+, Youtube, Gmail, and the rest.

In the past week, Google unveiled some new social search features that have me worried.  Maybe it’s who I follow, but I have this issue on Google+ where my feed is full of posts by social media luminaries like Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, or Leo Laporte.  They often drown out the more localized “real people” I interact with, but thanks to the new slider tools, I’m able to handle this a little more effectively.

Now with these new search features, I notice a similar effect happening.  Instead of the usual results, I see a lot with familiar faces attached, often the same names I see in my overrun Google+ feed.

While I appreciate the the social integration, I’m worried about the fishbowl effect.  If I’m constantly being fed results from within the same circles I cultivated on purpose in my social stream, this lessens my chance of stepping outside of that box.

One of the most interesting is a random search we did on Wrestling Mayhem Show for Diamond Dallas Page’s Yoga for Regular Guys.  Even before I could find the official web site, I was greeted with no less than two posts by Chris Brogan.

It’s early in the new settings, and as with everything Google, it will change as they get feedback, but still, some early flags on how I search.

As I’ve detailed on here before, we’ve been continuing to do our Google Hangouts amongst the Mayhem Crew, and inviting others to join us.  We get some people drop in, but they haven’t been the greatest.  Here’s what transpired this past week.  NOTE: if there’s a term that we talk about you don’t know, DO NOT GOOGLE IT!  Trust me:

 Of course this is mainly when we do the Public ones for wrestling shows. Google Hangout was used to great effect when I wanted to corral the Wrestling Mayhem Show regulars to touch base on how the show was going and how we can reach out. The Hangout with Extras that’s been seeping our was great to share some outlines and other documents, and including people on the phone that had issues with their connection. Fast becoming a big utility for me. I’ve considered doing more business on Hangout as we go…

This was a HUGE year.  Last  year, I was into building the groundwork for what I hoped to be a move away from unhappy and employed.  This year, things were put even further into motion, growing, and I couldn’t be happier.

Courtesy Veronica (@v_Rock)

5 Year Anniversary

5 Years of Tuesday nights.  Crazy.  We celebrated the milestone in January at the fine Sharp Edge on Penn Ave downtown Pittsburgh.  We opened with a live AwesomeCast and into the show.  We had a great group of friends and past show guests such as Joe Dombrowski, Chest Flexor, Jimmie Demarco, and Michael Facade who all braved a blizzard that kept half of our RSVPs away, sadly.  What a great way to start the year!

Hitting the Cons

The idea came up alongside Mulango of Mangtoons to get our faces out there to the people for our respective projects.  We both shared a booth for the Pittsburgh Comicon and Baltimore Comic Con.  I discovered how many wrestling fans attend these events and learned a great deal about what to do to hopefully make ourselves more visible in the future attempts at these events.

We also worked on bringing a little bit of the events’ flavor to the network.  Dan Greenwald of the fantastic Comic Book Pitt helped us out in Pittsburgh to see who to talk to about the Con and Pittsburgh independent comic book scene.  I went solo in Baltimore and talked to an illustrator for Doctor Who comics, some other podcasters, and other stuff that caught my interest.  For New York Comic Con, Chachi and I got press passes and rolled around the floor for four days talking with producers at South Park Studios, some of the minds behind the Voltron relaunch, Ubi Soft for the upcoming Shoot Many Robots, a private preview of Max Payne 3, and so much more.

So this year, we hope to do a similar circuit, bring more of a crew, better equipment, and better planning.

Some new beginnings

Theere was a lot of new stuff being pumped out this year.  We started the year with Chachi Plays for Kids, which raised about $3000 for Make Room for Kids and went on to receive a proclamation from the City of Pittsburgh.  We launched Unsung with the Pittsburgh Foundation to showcase the non-profits and charities in the area, my client in S’eclairer finally launched the Chatterbox, a roundtable podcast to talk about everything going on there, and Build a Baked Good as a vehicle to promote Cafe Solstice.

Another start, then stop, was Freelance 4 Real.  I felt that the stuff Justin Kownacki does on his blog was tremendous, and personally needed an ear to talk freelancing since I dove in head first myself.  We had a tremendous run of shows with lots of friends and acquaintances to hit different sides of the freelancing landscape.  Maybe in 2011, we’ll see a resurrection of this concept.

And of course it was the end of April that I completely cut the reigns of my day job, working solely for myself with clients.  It was a scary time, and I’m still building out my work from it.  I’m not making as much, and spend way more time, but I havent’ felt more happy with everything than I do now.

Great Guests

We had another year of talking to some great people.  We had a talk with Dave Lagana, who started a social media revolution with IWantWrestling.com, Johnny Gargano, fresh off of his trip wrestling in Japan during the devastating earthquake, started a series on wrestling comic books, the maker of the US Championship and current TNA championship, and so many many of our usual friends on Wrestling Mayhem Show.  AwesomeCast saw talks with more local start ups like NoWait and GenevaMars, more local OG media folk like Mikey, Jim Lokay, and Uncle Crappy representing radio, TV, and newspaper respectively, Cynthia Closkey shared her experience at NeXT Computers in the wake of the passing of Steve Jobs, the guys from Seattle’s Technothusiasts joined us.  Freelance 4 Real was made on the guests from social media, acting, and programming giving their take.  Chatterbox has already had a great run of experts in Pet Loss, Universal Healthcare, Yoga, Reiki, and a host of other life topics.

Some Upgrades

Chachi joined on board as my “CTO” and has been tremendous in helping make this dream a reality and sort of feel like a real business.  We upgraded some tech throughout the year, including a HD camera, a couple of video switchers, and other random gadgets to make our job easier and expand what we’re going to be able to do for clients in the next year.

Aside from the shows for clients mentioned above, we did some work for the local Democratic group, Science Journal, Digital Horizons, and of course even more work for Pennfuture.  It was a great year, and we have so many plans for growing in the new year.

I couldn’t have done a lot of this stuff without the support from people like Chachi, Rob, Mulango, my understanding wife, the Mayhem Crew, the great clients that let me deliver their message, and everyone else around that’s inspired me and helped solved problems in the last year.