Film

How to always keep your audience engaged

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Here’s a valuable persuasive writing tip (or any kind of writing for that matter) I learned from a screenwriter somewhere (can’t remember who or where I learned it from):

“Plot and character are the two main ingredients to keep the audience engaged.”

Or in other words, at any point in time, if you want to keep the attention of your viewer (or reader more likely), you either need to be advancing the plot one way or another, or you need to be developing the characters.

Fail to do either of those and you’ll end up losing the attention you fought so very hard to get.

One of the best examples I know of to see this in action is the 1987 film Lethal Weapon starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

It’s a one hour and 49 minutes long masterpiece perfectly giving the audience 15 minutes of plot (lots of action, attention-grabbing scenes, discoveries, and plot twists) followed by 10 minutes of character development (more mundane, day-to-day stuff, conversations, relationship forming, getting to know the various people) only to jump straight into non-stop action and plot-developing cinema and rinse and repeat.

At no point does either one become too much, or too little, and at no point does the film lose the attention of the audience by failing to do either.

A powerful lesson to bring into your own writing—especially when it comes to persuasive writing.

There’s many ways to go about doing so.

If you’d like to get a taste of a few of them, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


I love the Transformer movies

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And I’m not afraid to say it.

See.

Ever since I was young, I remember loving the Transformer franchise, getting multiple Transformers action figures as Christmas and birthday gifts and whatnot, and when I outgrew those action figures, I ended up spending hours playing Transformer video games.

I eventually outgrew those.

But then I started getting fascinated by film music, at which point I was deeply obsessed with—among others—the original Transformer soundtracks by Steve Jablonsky, and later got fascinated by filmmaking as a whole.

And look, the Transformer movies have many flaws—more than anyone could count.

It also didn’t get better as time went on (Don’t even get me started on the most recent releases).

But you know what? That doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

The franchise doesn’t take itself that seriously. And why should it?

It’s making a world of its own. I have no doubt that when Michael Bay was directing Transformers he said to himself “you know what would look totally sick and make for an entertaining picture?” and then did whatever he had in mind.

Without any fear of being ridiculed, of being parodied, of not making “the perfect picture”, there’s no sliver of doubt about the intention behind the films and their entertaining nature.

And it shows in the earlier films (and some scenes of the later ones as well, although arguably less so).

That’s the difference between the artist and the entrepreneur

A true love for the craft—not just the numbers.

And that, to me, is what it’s all about.

See, I don’t care about building the perfect business, the best-optimized funnel, the most automated systems, none of that. It’s not about that.

It’s about the creative freedom. About doing what you love. Thinking something might be fun and enjoyable to do and simply doing it no matter how ridiculous it might seem, how unoptimized it might be, or even how “the public might not like it”.

Authors end up writing the books they wish would’ve been written, simply because they want to experience the joy of reading that story.

That’s the way one should aim to build their creative business.

And if you’re interested to learn one of the ways—if not the best way—to go about building such business, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Two things happened yesterday

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The first:

I didn’t send an email.

Not because I didn’t write one—I did. But for some reason, the scheduling got messed up and no email was sent.

The second:

I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time.

As of late I’ve been going through a list of good classic movies which I’ve never seen and watching them one by one. Both for the experience and the enjoyment, but also to study and learn from the storytelling, screenwriting, and other creative aspects that have to do with cinema.

Now, both of these might seem like they have nothing in common with each other.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

See, over the past year, I’ve come to learn that everyone is and always will be connected in some way or another. In fact, it might be better to say all things are one, and it’s an illusion differentiate between, for a lack of a better word, ‘things’ (which are never and can never be anything else but social constructs we use to better understand the world around us and everything in it).

But let’s not go there just yet.

The practical side is this:

There’s always a connection to find between everything. If it doesn’t look like there is, then you simply don’t know enough about the subject or you aren’t looking hard enough.

Let’s take yesterday’s 2 things that happened as an example.

I don’t know what happened with my email. So I could very well complain about Beehiiv and say they messed something up—after all, they might have, who knows?

At the same time, I could also take up responsibility and say it’s highly likely I am at fault and I messed something up myself.

Here’s (one of infinite) connections with 2001: A Space Odyssey:

If you’d ask our good friend HAL-9000 what’s more likely, Beehiiv (the software I use to send emails) messing up or me messing up, then he’d say I messed up, because whenever something goes wrong, it’s always a human error, no doubt about it.

So there you have it.

I messed up somehow (which, generally, is the better view to take as well than simply blaming errors on things outside of your control).

The practical takeaway of this email?

There’s many to be found.

But let me give you a marketing one.

Whenever you’re trying to market, promote, or sell something in an email. Don’t just think “what can I tell about this offer that might be interesting”. Instead come up with an interesting fact, story, or anecdote you’ve come across, a really interesting one (which is easy to do in today’s age of media overload) and then find the connection between that topic and your offer (again, there’s always some connection).

That’s how you write emails in a framework-like style.

Even better. You can reuse those exact emails for everything, everywhere, at any time, simply by switching out the CTA and drawing another connection.

Anyway.

I’m sharing too much here. This is too valuable and I shouldn’t be giving this away for free.

So if you’d like more tips, tricks, principles, and strategies to selling more via email using one of the simplest frameworks just about anyone could use, then check out Email Valhalla today: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Christopher Nolan never went to film school

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I was watching an interview with Christopher Nolan on the ReelBlend podcast the other day.

One of the most interesting things Nolan said was how he didn’t go to film school.

Just imagine that. One of the biggest, best, and definitely one of the most popular, directors currently around. Yet he didn’t go to film school or any other form of formal training in the art.

Instead, he simply got in there and started practicing making films at an early age.

Nolan was seven years old when he first borrowed his dad’s Super 8 camera to play around with.

He loved watching other films, thinking about the narratives, and just indulging himself in the world of cinema.

But that’s not where our story ends.

Christopher Nolan isn’t the only person where this is the case. Coincidentally, another big industry name who works closely together with Nolan, and someone who, as you may (or may not) know, I can’t seem to shut up about, also didn’t have any formal training.

More specifically, Hans Zimmer.

Zimmer never went to music school. Instead, he used to play in rock/punk band when he was younger and loved to improve music on the piano or create his own compositions.

Now, this isn’t to say the only solution for you is to start young.

Maybe it is if you want to compete at the highest level of Hollywood. But I’m guessing that’s not your gig. And it’s not mine either.

Instead, I want you to realize the importance of going out there in putting in the work. Getting the practical experience. Getting your hands dirty so to say. You don’t have to get some formal schooling to be good at your craft (this isn’t medical advice).

I don’t care how if you’ve gone to business school, med school, music school, or no school at all.

The only thing that matters is how often you’re practicing your craft.

And that’s one of the many, many, seriously many, reasons why I recommend you and everybody else to start mailing daily and start doing so today. The amount of growth you’ll experience is almost unfathomable—both in personal ability as well as in business and revenue growth.

You don’t need to go to email or business school to get started.

But getting a quick 1–2 hour introduction to point you in the right direction never hurts.

With that said.

Check out Email Valhalla to learn the foundations and avoid the early pitfalls so you can focus on getting in there and getting that practice in starting today.

Here’s the link for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


I might get cancelled for saying this, but …

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I don’t enjoy the classic James Bond movies.

You see, my family has this almost bi-weekly ritual of re-watching (or watching for the very first time in my case) all the James Bond movies from Dr. No in 1962, starring Sean Connery, all the way to Daniel Craig’s No Time to Die released in 2021.

I just now finished watching For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore.

And man.

Maybe it’s on me. But these movies just aren’t it for me. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is.

Whether it’s the slow-moving pace of the plot. The predictability of the story. The pure lunacy of how Bond never actually does much, except mindlessly walk in somewhere, gets spotted, attacked from behind, shot at, ganged up on, and eventually abducted, only to have the enemy play pranks on him instead of getting rid of him right then and there, and then magically getting out as if nothing ever happened (and this cycle repeats multiple times throughout every movie).

Now don’t get me wrong.

There’s a lot the movie does right (the box office numbers and popularity speak for themselves). But there’s so much more it does wrong—or it does for me at least.

And that’s what I’m getting at right now.

It’s ok if I don’t like the movies (at least the older ones, I do enjoy the more modern adaptations). Maybe I’m simply not the right target audience for it. It’s made for other people to enjoy who like these types of patterns, these types of plot lines, and these, almost whimsical, adventures (as the later movies got more serious and less comical).

And that’s the same for you and your business.

You don’t have to please everyone to routinely get $100+ million box office numbers (most made $500 million with less than a $50 million budget or more in today’s money).

All you have to do is to get popular in the right market, to the right people, and keep giving them what they want again and again.

And if that’s the case.

Then you might want to consider employing the wonderful art of email to keep your customers close, stay in constant connection, get to know them better than they know themselves, entertain them, and promote your new offers time and time again, with knowing for absolute certain that they’ll buy whatever you're putting out (because it’s also aiding their lives, never forget this part).

The best part?

Email Valhalla shows you exactly how to do all of the above.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/valhalla


A hidden secret to make your customers do the stuff you want

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I’m a big movie guy.

Well, I’m a big a lot of stuff guy. But for the sake of today’s email, it’s movies.

(Stick with me for a moment, it’ll all make sense in a second why I’m talking about movies)

One of my (and almost everyone else’s) favorite movie franchises is Pirates of the Caribbean. There’s a lot of good (and bad) to be said about it. Many of which has already been said by other people I won’t bother you with today.

But I want to talk about something else.

Something not many people often talk about.

And that’s the quotability of the dialogue.

See, we all know famous lines of movies that get quoted a lot. Think of lines such as “I am your father”, “I’ll be back”, or You shall not pass”.

All great lines and great scenes.

But Pirates has it’s own unique trick to create this quotable dialogue.

You might remember quotes such as “Why is the rum gone?”, “This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow”, and many more.

And there’s a huge difference here.

While some scenes were definitely great, most of them weren’t. They’re just average scenes with average dialogue.

So why are they so quotable?

Because the characters themselves often quote others or repeat their own dialogue. And they use the same lines in multiple settings, under multiple different conditions, often with different outcomes and with different emotions to them.

Simply said.

Pirates uses a lot of repetition to make you remember certain lines of dialogue, almost making a game out of it.

This makes the dialogue immediately quotable because, well, the movie shows you how quotable it is.

So getting back to what this has to do with you.

If you want people to pick up a certain habit, if you want them to do something, if you want them to remember something, then show them how to do it, when/where they can do it, and most importantly, repeat yourself often.

I dive deeper into this topic in Product Creation Made Easy where I show you how you can create your products in such a way that ensures people will take action and actually do the stuff you tell them to do, remember the stuff you teach them, and even repeat what you said to others—at which point they’re basically doing your marketing for you.

If you want to learn more about that, then check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme