CMI artistic director Joseph Kalinowski contributed to this piece.
In simply 10 episodes, CMI’s The Inventive Present has fully rewritten the principles for stay streaming, visible storytelling, and conversations about creativity.
Possibly we’re exaggerating a tiny bit. However we’re creatives, so we reserve the fitting for a little bit of good-natured hyperbole in regards to the influence of our present.
We’re excited for season two, which debuts at 2 p.m. (U.S. ET) Friday, Jan. 28, on Fb, LinkedIn, and YouTube. If you happen to haven’t caught each episode (or any episode), look again with us as we share some behind-the-scenes observations and highlights from our artistic conversations within the first season.
Origin story
First, a little bit background: I met JK Kalinowski in 2012 on the Content material Advertising and marketing World Well being Summit. JK is CMI’s artistic director. I’m a health-care content material strategist by day and a comic book e book author by night time. We had been destined to turn out to be quick pals.
FUN FACT: Our first dialog was about The Six Million Greenback Man TV present and toy line.
Over time, we’ve written collectively for CMI, together with:
In 2021, JK flew to New Jersey to take part in my Comedian E-book Faculty panels at New York Comedian-Con.
Throughout the pandemic, JK approached me with the thought for a month-to-month 30-minute stay present the place we’d discuss creativity. The Inventive Present was born. We began broadcasting – stay from the deepest corners of the advertising web, the place no tactic goes uncovered, and each episode begins or ends (generally each) with Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe trivia.
Each month, #TheCreativeShow streams half-hour to speak #creativity. Go behind the scenes of its debut yr by way of @BuddyScalera @jkkalinowski @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
The Inventive Present Season 1 Episode Information
Use these present summaries and behind-the-scenes glimpses to determine which episodes to make amends for earlier than becoming a member of us stay for season two once we can learn your feedback within the stay present.
Episode 1 – The Debut
Streamed stay: Jan. 29, 2021
Engineer: Monina Wagner
Description: Monina interviews us to dig into the key origins of our artistic energy and set the stage for the present.
Behind the scenes: We hadn’t fairly mastered the artwork of the quick reply, and the audio has quite a lot of bounce and echo. Regardless of a number of switching glitches, we managed our manner via stay studying.
Content material takeaway: Each JK and I discuss how nearly everybody makes use of artistic considering in the way in which they method their jobs. JK shares how his spouse applies creativity in her job educating youngsters with particular wants:
FUN FACT: JK as soon as designed and produced a treasure map and despatched it as a message in a bottle to Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville places of work in hopes of touchdown the singer’s new alcohol line as a shopper for a Pennsylvania-based promoting company. After sending messages in a bottle 5 weeks in a row, the company lastly scored a gathering with Jimmy’s supervisor.
Episode 2 – What Is the Biggest Film Poster of All Time?
Streamed stay: Feb. 26, 2021
Engineer: Monina Wagner
Description: We dive into the indeniable biggest film poster of all time, breaking down why the visible promotion of JAWS is so iconic. We additionally have a look at much less efficient and thrilling film posters and focus on why they fail at differentiating in a loud market.
Behind the scenes: Our super-slick montage intro and our recurring What’s within the Field phase debut. (Spoiler: It’s Rolling Stones memorabilia on this episode). Spot a number of clumsy moments as we attempt to determine tips on how to talk with our engineer.
Content material takeaways: Right here’s a meta takeaway: We took repurposing content material to the following stage to offer our livestream viewers a brand new tackle the Jaws film poster that we wrote about in 2015.
The episode takeaway is how creators simply assume persons are extra acquainted with your model than they’re. JK talks in regards to the poster for the film Pleasure and tells nothing in regards to the film besides it stars Jennifer Lawrence. I liken this method to a model skipping an about web page as a result of they (incorrectly) assume everybody is aware of all in regards to the model. That method fails folks within the early a part of their journey, the place they’re in search of info. Comply with our dialogue right here:
FUN FACT: JAWS is taken into account the primary summer time film blockbuster.
Episode 3 – Entrepreneurs and Their Toys
Streamed stay: March 26, 2021
Engineer: Monina Wagner
Description: Nurturing creativity means celebrating the spirit of play. We open up our toy containers and discuss toy traces that benefitted from story-based content material advertising.
Behind the scenes: We enhance among the manufacturing, together with sound and engineering. And we repurpose extra articles into this livestream expertise, together with:
It additionally gave us an excuse to speak about Star Wars, Marvel Comics, GI Joe, and He-Man. And JK reveals off a difficulty of Vox Teen Beat from 1967 for instance of early content material advertising.
Content material takeaway: Hasbro created a content material feast within the type of comedian books to assist GI Joe and taught youngsters tips on how to play with the toys. That’s an essential idea – entrepreneurs can use content material to show your base tips on how to use your product. Right here’s the clip, which incorporates numerous examples from my assortment:
FUN FACT: Peter Jackson’s Get Again documentary reveals The Beatles studying a number of variations of Beatles Fan Membership magazines like Vox Teen Beat. (Bonus content material: JK not too long ago wrote in regards to the artistic classes you possibly can be taught from the Get Again documentary.)
Episode 4 – That Sounds Inventive
Streamed stay: April 30, 2021
Engineer: Monina Wagner
Description: Impression of sound and music in movies and movies – and the way music helps you get right into a artistic groove. We share a few clips that present how music can change the tone of even acquainted photos:
Music can change the tone of even acquainted photos, says @BuddyScalera @jkkalinowski by way of @CMIContent. #Creativity #Storytelling Click on To Tweet
Behind the scenes: Paradoxically, we uncover we don’t know tips on how to run sound simply but. Spot a number of technical and linguistic challenges earlier than we pull via ultimately.
Content material takeaway: Sound is its personal language in cinema – and that interprets over to advertising. Understanding that language is essential to conveying your message. Right here’s the place we discover how that concept applies to explainer and different content material advertising movies:
FUN FACT: Stanley Kubrick relied as closely on music and sound as visible imagery for his horror traditional The Shining.
Episode 5 – Designed to Work
Streamed stay: Could 28, 2021
Engineer: Monina Wagner
Description: Web site design, basic usability, and useful design of gadgets are mentioned. We examine and distinction the Verizon and Roku distant controls. A bit nearer to dwelling, JK explains how he creates the posters for Content material Advertising and marketing World with thematic designs.
Behind the scenes: After I invited JK into the present … he doesn’t seem. (He had simply misplaced energy.) Fast-thinking Monina jumps into the dialog as a result of, hey, we had been stay. Experiences like this assist us put together for future technical difficulties. We haven’t had one other main glitch, however we’ve got had a number of minor ones that the viewers most likely didn’t even discover.
Content material takeaway: Too typically, design is taken into account decorative, nevertheless it’s actually a foundational ingredient of any content material mission. That’s why the design group needs to be concerned from the start.
FUN FACT: In response to MRO Electrical, Maine has essentially the most energy outages per yr, with a median of three.9 per buyer every year.
#Design is a foundational ingredient of any #content material mission. The design group needs to be concerned from the start, says @BuddyScalera @jkkalinowski by way of @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
Episode 6 – Inside Creativity
Streamed stay: June 25, 2021
Engineer: Monina Wagner
Description: Discovering shiny spots from this in any other case horrible world expertise. Bo Burnham’s Inside particular on Netflix is an entry level. I focus on my Comedian E-book Faculty mission. (Since that point, Comedian E-book Faculty has received three awards, together with a Content material Advertising and marketing Award.)
Behind the scenes: We lastly discovered tips on how to play a clip (with audio) precisely as we imply to – solely to comprehend there’s an F-bomb in it that we didn’t warn the viewers about. (Contemplate your self warned.)
Content material takeaway: The pandemic uprooted our normal methods of working. However Bo Burnham took the instruments he had at hand (an iPhone, a camcorder, lights, microphones) and documented the second. He confirmed tips on how to use limitations to encourage new forms of storytelling. You see him try to fail – and doc the entire thing. The pandemic didn’t pause his creativity, and it doesn’t need to put a cease to ours. Right here’s the phase I’m speaking about:
FUN FACT: In response to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, leisure time elevated by a median of 37 minutes per day for males and 27 minutes for girls between Could 2019 and December of 2020. This enhance partly displays a decline in common work time (because the share of employed folks fell throughout the pandemic) and a lower within the common time folks spent touring.
Episode 7 – The Inventive Toolbox
Streamed stay: August 27, 2021
Engineer: Amanda Subler
Description: We speak in regards to the instruments we use to create, together with software program, snazzy notebooks, an industrial T-square, a scaling wheel, and an X-Acto set from the outdated days of bodily journal layouts.
Behind the scenes: We welcome Amanda Subler as our new engineer. Although Amanda selected to not be on digital camera, she finds intelligent methods to work together with us throughout the present.
Inventive takeaway: I share an unusually organized have a look at the instruments I exploit in creating, delivering, analyzing, reporting, and collaborating. Right here’s the clip the place I present that and speak with JK about following a artistic mission throughout these levels:
FUN FACT: Adobe Inc. obtained its identify from the Adobe Creek that ran behind co-founder John Warnock’s dwelling in Los Altos, Calif. His spouse Marva designed Adobe’s stylized “A” emblem.
Episode 8 – The Thought Etherverse
Streamed stay: Oct. 1, 2021
Engineer: Amanda Subler
Description: We discuss The Thought Etherverse, a shared consciousness of concepts that we are able to all entry. Existential? Certain, why not? Extra virtually, we focus on capturing concepts on notebooks, scraps of paper, and even in voicemails, and different methods for capturing, saving, and enhancing concepts that simply come to you from the ether.
Behind the scenes: JK’s custom-made shirt that includes The Inventive Present emblem makes its debut.
Inventive takeaway: Speaking via an concept can assist flesh it out. Simply don’t be discouraged by the preliminary response. Take the enter and provides the thought extra time to develop. JK and I discuss our experiences with that method:
FUN FACT: Area Notes model was co-founded by graphic designer Aaron Draplin, who was impressed by promotional memo books given to farmers by seed and agricultural corporations over the previous century. JK grew up on a farm and obtained a number of memo books from his native farm co-op.
Episode 9 – The Iron Maiden of Advertising and marketing
Recorded Oct. 2, 2021
Engineer: Amanda Subler
Description: We discover the band Iron Maiden’s unbelievable profession for instance of audience- and community-building. JK and I share the albums that we liked as teenagers however would have been embarrassed to share with out pals. At this time, we share them with delight.
Behind the scenes: This and the tenth episodes had been recorded. We deliberate to go stay from Content material Advertising and marketing World, however on the final minute, I couldn’t attend. We scrambled and recorded each episodes the identical day, which occurred to be JK’s birthday.
Content material takeaway: By constructing (and proudly owning) their relationship with their neighborhood via a fan membership, Iron Maiden by no means has to depend on earned media, which is topic to the whims of present pop-culture preferences. Iron Maiden owns its mailing listing, so they convey instantly with followers. Speak about not residing on rented land: They even personal and fly their very own airplane. Right here’s the phase the place we speak in regards to the artistic freedom this brings:
FUN FACT: Iron Maiden’s lead singer Bruce Dickinson is doing a spoken phrase tour of North America.
Episode 10 – UX within the Actual World
Revealed: Nov. 5, 2021
Engineer: Amanda Subler
Description: We discuss design, UX, and real-world experiences, together with some nice and a few poorly conceived interfaces.
Behind the scenes: We discover our rhythm. Issues are a little bit looser, a bit much less scripted, and (we predict) a bit funnier.
Content material takeaway: Consumer expertise is essential to content material’s success. Right here’s JK explaining the Interactive Design Basis’s definition of UX adopted by our dialogue of what all of it means:
FUN FACT: Toast was invented by the traditional Egyptians. Scorching bread on scorching stones beside an open fireplace preserved bread and prevented mildew from rising.
Tune in
In order that’s the debut yr of The Inventive Present. We’re grateful to have a platform to work together with our fellow artistic thinkers and content material entrepreneurs. We’re tinkering with the present on a regular basis, and we hope you’ll take this experience with us.
Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising and marketing Institute
