WAITING FOR THE ELEVATOR » Podcast

March Madness season is upon us and many Americans are focused on the NCAA tournament. But I am focused on my church basketball team. Hear my building good story below. Listen to our podcast below or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.

Toys donated by Stone Ward last year for The Cayce Charities, an organization that distributes items throughout the year to struggling families in Thornton, AR. Our philosophy at Stone Ward is Building Good. This is especially important to me as I try to live my life building good everyday. In this podcast, Emily and I talk about the ways that we are Building Good at Stone Ward this season. Listen to our podcast below or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes. Here is the Make-A-Wish video that we discuss during the podcast:

What does the recent trend of tongue-in-cheek bravado in advertising say about masculinity today? Does Ron Burgundy have anything in common with the Marlboro Man? Listen to this interview with Dr. Simon Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for the answers. Some of the answers, at least! These are some of the advertisements mentioned in the podcast:   Ron Burgundy, pitchman for the new Dodge Durango  The Most Interesting Man in the World Old Spice Guy      

Image source: Shutterstock There are many factors that can drive up your broadcast production costs. In this podcast, I talk about talent, location, crew, and music as the main drivers of budget. Listen to our podcast below or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.

Tommy D. Walker (dolly grip), Daryn Okada (Director of Photography), Sean Bean (Actor) There are many people working on the set of a production and you may have wondered what they all do. Every person there plays a key role. Today I talked to Emily about just some of the people that are working to make the video look great: Gaffer Best Boy Electric Electrician Key Grip Best Boy Grip Dolly Grip Company Grip Listen to our podcast below or or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.

Many of us here at the agency watched the Oscars last night, but we were each watching from our own perspectives, looking for different things. Today, Emily and I talk about the highlights and lowlights of the night, me as a film-maker and Emily as a digital communicator. Listen to the discussion below, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.  

This year marks the 29th year in business for Stone Ward. I sat down with Emily to talk a bit about what has changed over the last 29 years and some of our highlights in business. Listen to the discussion below, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.

In just a couple of weeks, Emily Reeves and I will be heading to the big South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, TX for a five day extravaganza of learning with 30,000+ other people from around the world. It will be my first trip, and Emily’s fourth, so I cornered her to see what I could expect and how to prepare for my first SXSW Interactive event. Listen to the discussion below, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.  

Image source: Shutterstock I am obsessed with all things film and TV. That roughly translates to I have the three-DVD option on Netflix. So catching all the Oscar nominations before the ceremony in February each year becomes a fun little quest for me. Five or six years ago this was a pretty tough task with only one halfway decent independent art-house theater in my town. Now it feels like I can see almost all the big nominees on the big screen at one of the big theaters and even more importantly safely and quietly in the privacy of my own home thanks to On-Demand content via my Comcast account. So out of the major nominees this year I’ve seen roughly 90% of the films nominated this year. I have yet to see all of Spielberg’s biopic (high-pitched) Lincoln due to falling asleep in the theater,  the disaster-drama The Impossible and the Michael Haneke film Amour. Using my critical thinking skills and context clues I should be able to deduce those films chances via buzz and similar award ceremonies’ results. I will attempt to predict some of the outcomes of the Awards night on Feb 24. Starting with Best Cinematography I’m going with the newest installment of the Bond franchise Skyfall. Roger Deakins deserves this cinematography award almost as a validation of lifetime achievement for losing year after year but luckily the slick and gritty Bond film is beautiful. Bottom Line:  one scene- a stunning action sequence backlit by neon signage from buildings. Best Directing should go to either Ang Lee for Life of Pi or Benh Zeitlin of Beasts of Southern Wild. I could see the Academy going populist and handing the award to Spielberg but they’d be wrong because Life of Pi and Beasts both share a lot of challenges and obstacles for any director. Bottom Line: Do you even have to direct Daniel Day-Lewis? Best Supporting Actress will go to Anne Hathaway. She’s been winning awards left and right for her riveting, albeit brief portrayal as a poverty-stricken, single mother in Les Miserables. Bottom Line: She cuts her hair for real in the movie and she sings amazingly. Best Supporting Actor is a toss up for me between Christoph Waltz and Robert De Niro. Waltz won it previously with his role in Tarantino’s epic Inglorious Basterds so he’s poised to take it again but De Niro was a standout in Playbook. Bottom Line:  Waltz is an insane genius and De Niro needs the Oscar to remind him of what he’s been missing. In the Best Actress category I’m less confident in other categories because I feel I’m at odds with the frontrunner Jennifer Lawrence. I didn’t find her performance as the grieving young widow with a penchant for dancing to be all that remarkable. I’d love to see the young firecracker Quvenzhane’ Wallis take it from her. Bottom Line: Poltics say Lawrence will get it but my heart says give it to Hushpuppy! Another frontrunner will most definitely walk away with the trophy in the Best Actor Category. Daniel Day-Lewis is the closest thing to a sure bet. People are almost afraid not to vote for him. He’s kinda the Radiohead of acting. Bottom Line: DDL is the Radiohead of acting. And finally Best Picture will be fought between the critically-lauded Zero Dark 30 and Argo. Both films’ directors were unceremoniously left off the Best Director nominee list so I can see this making up for it. So which is the better film? My gut says ZD30 but I need to rewatch Affleck’s political thriller again to be certain as both films have similar themes and tension. Bottom Line: ZD30 gave me the most anxious, heart-in-throat experience of any film I’ve seen in recent memory. The last 25 minutes of the film is flawless. Seriously the Oscar game and the politics aside making predictions is fun and I’m pretty sure there will be obvious, predictable winners and probably a few upsets because that’s what we’ve come to expect every year. The best part of awards season is the conversations we get to have arguing over cinema when a majority of our friends and family have seen these great films. Keep your fingers crossed and your popcorn poppin’.  Go here to see all of the nominees. And if you would rather listen to my predictions, I recorded a couple of podcasts for your listening pleasure. Listen to the discussion below, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes. The first one is a humorous interview with an award statue lasting about five minutes and the second one is me just talking about my predictions and lasts about 45 minutes. Enjoy.

Evan Daugherty In today’s podcast, Evan Daugherty and I discuss the book Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing. Listen to our discussion below, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.