"Making Peanuts the New Normal"

Welcome back and we hope you and yours celebrated a wonderful and safe holiday season.
If you're a gadget or electronics guru, then you know this was the "week of wonder" at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. All type of new and innovative gadgets were on display, from smart watches to a drone large enough to actually fly one person (up to 275 lbs, I think) on pre-programmed flight! Delivering my Amazon order is one thing, but I'm not sure I want the person who processed my order to arrive with it!

However, the CES also marks another important time. This week is when business in Hollywood will start returning to normal. Though, we'll still have to wait until Monday as everyone is too concerned with Sunday night's "Golden Globes Awards" show to think of mundane business.

The beginning of the new year should be a bright signal to all of us to look to ourselves and what we can and will do to make this new year better than the past one. As I titled this post, "Nothing is the new normal!" Too many people are satisfied with what was, whether it was good, bad or somewhere in between. They postulate, "If it was good enough for me last year, it should be good enough for me now!" Now, where would be at this moment, if everyone held that same thought?

I for one, do not believe it's true. While it's true that there are many factors within our various environments that we cannot control, there are still plenty that we can. And the very first one starts with ourselves. 

We must ask our self, "What can I do, see, learn, experience, etc. that will help me improve my life? Do I need to do it at home? At work? Socially?" My view it is all of the above.

Just because we graduated high school, college, graduate school, accreditation for this or that, it does not mean that we have stopped learning or that we can afford to stop learning. We must strive to learn every day. We must strive to be a better person every day. We must strive to reach out and help someone every day. We must strive to be a better father, mother, spouse, son, daughter, etc. 

If we do not do this we become stagnant and stale like moldy old bread and what good is moldy old bread? 

So, take a look in the mirror and ask the person you see what he/she suggests as a starting point to improving you and your life and the lives of those around you. And remember one very important fact - the person in the mirror never lies!

Now, back to show business - What I've written above applies to show business as well. If you read any sort of decent TV magazine, i.e. "TVGuide," you'll see a roster of many of the new shows that are coming on, during what's called, "mid-season." That's right about now, where they plug in new shows to replace the ones from this past Fall that failed in ratings. You will be amazed at the crap that networks are planning to out on the air. And that is why we at Dalmatian Productions, Inc. and Cause and Origin Productions, LLC, are working so hard to bring our show to television. But it is a very hard row to hoe! It's not about what you know, rather it's about who you know. You can have the greatest idea for a new TV show, but if you don't have a connection to get it in front of the right person, it will remain just that, an idea.

With Hollywood getting back to business this week, so are we. We are pulling out all the stops, favors, etc. to get "Cause & Origin" in front of the right people. We are very fortunate to see our Twitter accounts soaring, with almost 1,200 followers @DalmatProd and over 300 @CAUSE_ORIGIN. But that doesn't mean we have enough. We don't! As a matter of fact, we're not even close!

We need to generate thousands, even tens of thousands of followers on Twitter. Hollywood is all about numbers. For example, advertisers' prime interest in TV viewers are men and women, ages 18-49, in general. Networks want to have an idea that a new show will attract millions of viewers before they have ever created a pilot! Here's an example:

Several years ago there was an excellent TV show called, "Jericho." It did very well in the ratings for about three years and then the network decided to cancel it. The millions of fans didn't like that idea. So they (and yes, I was one too!) started an online campaign to convince the network to keep the show on, at least long enough to tie up the loose ends of story lines. In one script, the concept of peanuts came up to signify displeasure. With that, fans of the show purchased and shipped to the networks head office in New York City, thousands upon thousands of pounds of peanuts! Each day, multiple shipments of peanuts arrived via the Post Office, UPS, FedEx, couriers, etc. Finally, the network caved and produced an additional seven episodes to close the show.

That's what we need!! NO...NO...Not peanuts! We need that type of support to help us get this show in front of a network, any network from NBC to Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. And that will be generated by increasing our Twitter numbers. We are so blessed that so many fire and rescue departments have followed us. We are also blessed that so many of our career brothers and sisters who belong to a local IAFF lodge, support us. So what's the problem? Each lodge or each department only counts as ONE follower. What we need is every member of the lodge, every member of the department who uses social media, needs to add their voice to support our show. So please, pass the word around. Tell your co-workers about the show. Tell your friends about the show. Ask them to follow us on Twitter, or find us on Facebook (Dalmatian Productions, Inc) and leave a comment. They can also send us an email to info@causeandorigin.tv.

We want to be inundated with Followers the way that network was flooded with peanuts! 

Finally, we close with a solemn salute to our 85 brothers and sisters who answered their final alarm in 2015. They paid the ultimate price to serve their friends, neighbors and communities. We pray that the souls will be bound up in the Bond of Life and that the memories of the love for their families and their dedication to their department will serve as a blessing to all who knew and loved them. May they rest in Peace.

Welcome and Thank You!

Just a quick note to all the new followers from Twitter who are visiting our blog for the first time. First, thank you very much for taking the step and supporting our work to produce our new television program, "CAUSE & ORIGIN." Each one of you means a great to us.
It is your support that will allow us to take the next steps to launch the show.

Good news happened to arrive last night, as well. I heard from a good friend in Los Angeles, who has agreed to work on composing the music for the show, that he is bringing the info on the show to two very successful television people in L.A. that are good friends. Does that make it a sure thing? Naw...that's not going to happen. If and when it does, it will be with an exchange of ideas, plans and co-development. 

We want to ask one more small favor. When you visit here, please sign up as a "follower" of this blog. And always feel free to leave a comment any time you read a post. You don't have to agree with everything we discuss and we'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas, too!

Again, you have our sincere appreciation. We wish you all a very happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday.

Steve Greene, President

If You Missed the Periscope Broadcast...

"So," you're asking yourself, "What was do important about the Periscope broadcast?"

Funny, you should ask. Here's the quick lowdown:

As you know, we've been working diligently on social media to get the word out about who we are (Dalmatian Productions, Inc - made up of four gentlemen all of whom with experience in emergency services), what we're trying to do (launch a fire service-themed dramatic series for television or streaming service) and most likely, we will need to launch a major crowdfunding campaign (to raise the money necessary to be able to shoot the pilot episode).

Our strongest push has been on Twitter with our two handles, @DalmatProd, which has been on for a couple of years, and more recently added, @Cause_Origin. We created the split so that the new one, for the most part, would be the one for us to use to keep everyone posted about the development and progress of the show. While @DalmatProd is involved in many discussions on the many issues that face the fire-service industry today. And we didn't want to have to give that up. 

Thus today, we asked a simple question: "Will You Help Us Bring "Cause & Origin" to TV?
NO....AT THIS MOMENT WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR MONEY!!!
What we are asking is, "If and when we launch a crowdfunding campaign, would you be willing to participate and make a donation?"

That's it. It's that simple. So, if you would like to let us know that you would be interested, please send us an email to info@dalmatianproductions.tv and let us know. Just a quick, painless, email. 

As an example, when the people behind the TV show, "Veronica Mars," wanted to make a feature film to tie up all the loose ends left when the series was axed, they ran a crowdfunding campaign and in just 10 1/2 hours, they raised over 2 million dollars!!!! Not bad, eh?

Again, if you would be interested, if and when, we launch a campaign, please send an email to our link above and say, "Yes!"

Thanks! Stay Safe and remember, Every One Goes Home!

Bringing a Balance to Life

Each day, our lives pull us in almost countless directions. Work - Family - Home - Hobbies - Community. This one is urgent!! This one isn't. I have to do this! We have to do that. Did you get this done? Did you get that done? Even if we had the same eight arms as an octopus, we'd still probably need to take the old, proverbial broom stick and shove it where "the sun don't shine," to finish sweeping the floor!

We are finding this out almost each day in trying to produce our show, "Cause & Origin." This has to be researched...that has to be sent out. "You have to call this person before noon,"...and don't forget to email that person. 

Yet, there is one, very time-consuming part of the job for our team that, although it takes a good deal more time than we expected, we really enjoy. And that's chatting with many of you on Twitter. With over 900 followers now between both accounts, there are some great discussions and ideas that we share. Plus, meeting many of you, even if only via Twitter, has been a terrific experience and we have learned a great deal.

Yet, even on Twitter, balance is needed, we found. When we decided to really develop a presence, we figured that the fastest way to "grow" our account would be to follow as many people who shared the concept of the fire-service. It didn't take too long before we had grown our Following list to several hundred and our Followers list to a couple of dozen. Out of balance? Definitely. 

We kept growing that way, off-balance, until we hit out first 2,000 BLOCK!!! That's right, we had a couple of hundred following us, but we had already racked up nearly 2,000 that we were following. When that happened, we learned how to strip down the numbers a bit here and there and try to balance ourselves. We've been doing a decent job of it with only a few bumps along the way.

However, with over 900, we had to make a difficult decision and that was to create a better balance to our account. We made attempts to invite as many of those that we were following to follow us. We met with some success, but not a great deal. As you know, we're now seeking your assistance to help us grow our followers, we had to decide to "trim the fat," so to speak. 

Thus, as we encounter tweets from Twitter folks who have not returned the favor, we have had to unfollow them. And it's a shame that we have to do this. We'd love to be able to keep every single one, but as we wrote in an earlier post, "Communication is a two-way street."

Remember though, we'd be very, very happy to welcome as many more followers as want to join us and help us get this show on the air. We are getting closer to our next level of production work and will keep you all advised of the progress. 

As always, thank you for your interest, loyalty and friendship. Don't forget - We're doing this for you!

Stay Safe & Every One Goes Home!