Outfest 2011, LA’s gay and lesbian film festival, opened on Thursday, July 7th with sold out shows and lots of excitement.
During the opening ceremonies on Thursday night, two producers, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato received the Outfest Achievement Award. On Saturday, they participated in a discussion about their careers. Actress Tori Spelling moderated the event and was proud that the two award winners had been the producers of her reality series.
On Sunday, a group of directors and producers gave tips on how to raise money to make independent films and shared some of the mistakes they made along the way. Their No. 1 tip was to have a strong business plan to present to potential investors.
Many celebrities are attending the 10-day event that is a celebration of film and television shows. Besides Spelling, celebrities attending the fest include, Neil Patrick Harris, David Burtka, Margaret Cho, Clay Aiken, Lance Bass, and Kathleen Turner.
The film festival will run through Sunday, July 17, 2011. For more information, contact the Outfest website.
On Monday, July 11th, Digital Music News ran a short article on musicians and their use of twitter.
The article stated that artists are continually being told to tweet… just to stay connected with their fans and stay relevant. But is twitter really important to musicians? Digital Music News decided to look at some number comparisons. According to the article:
The answer is not for every artist, especially for those courting a less-mainstream, music-focused crowd. Even worse, it could be stealing valuable time away from songwriting, touring, collaborating, and other pursuits that form deeper audience connections.
The author looked at the list of the best-selling albums of the year from Nielsen Soundscan. Then they compared these rankings with the twitter rankings of the recording artists to see if there was a connection between twitter rankings and sales of albums.
The results were rather interesting. For artists like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, this is part of a broader mainstream marketing blitz. For others outside of mainstream pop that are breaking through, constant Twittering frankly seems like a waste of time. The following chart is from Digital Music News.
Many fans of Clay Aiken have been concerned that Clay does not use twitter. Perhaps Clay knows more than we give him credit for.
What do you think? Do you think using twitter is a good idea for musicians or is it a needless waste of time?
I think Twitter is a great tool to keep fans informed of the good stuff going on such as appearances, concert dates etc but there is such a thing as too much information. I've had to stop following certain people because they would continuously tweet random stuff. Team Clay does a great job but I must admit it would be nice if Clay tweeted himself once in a while too though. 🙂
Interesting!!! For me, I think twitter would be a waste of time. It's something that teenagers do constantly…I watch them, even when they are with their friends…They sit around, in groups, and no one is talking to each other…they are all texting/twittering. I dont' get it… I don't think you need to know everything about someone…I just don't. There are nasty people out there as well, and this just brings them out… I think Clay is smart, and find twitter the devil. Especially when people give his whereabouts at "current" times…This is potentially dangerous to any artist.
Clay has his reasons…and he should be allowed to feel the way he feels about it.
I think Clay played it smart, I mean it is exciting to know that a person may get a tweet from a musician or any celebrity they adore but by having the person's team have a twitter account is a good idea. It still gives the fans that idea of 'oh my goodness I can tweet my favorite celebrity/musician' without having to take time away from the musican and their work. And it is also a great idea, which I hope team Clay might do on twitter every once and awhile, when Clay is not to busy, is to do like a little twitter chat. By the way I do enjoy that Clay will be doing webcam chats on OFC!! I love twitter and use it a lot, I also follow Team Clay and love their tweets!
Very informative article. But, for me, I would think it is not that important…especially after looking at the Chart. Looks like Adele does just fine for herself. Also, all the nasty haters are out there..and the minute Clay would tweet…they would be all over it. I think he knows this too. I am glad there will be a Video Chat at the OFC.
Twitter – good idea or a waste of time? I am staying out of the fracas of generalizing the value of twitter for musicians. But I do tend to agree with Clay re: his personal use. Past history of mean comments made whenever his name was mentioned in many articles etc. …. tend to negate any effect from positive twits with the probability of more than an abundance of despicable nasty ones. He didn't need it then and certainly does not need it now nor ever again.
So glad that the Outfest seems to be doing well. I hope there are lots of people that will see Clay and get to hear him talk about DDD.
Twitter?? Well, I would love to get a tweet from Clay, but I think too many celebrities use it too much!!
Thanks for the info!!
I don't think Twitter has a major effect on a singers carreer, however, I think it can have a minor positive effect especially during an artists down time. .