Archive for March, 2012

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?