The Journey to My Masters
It’s been a fun, exciting, tiring, and crazy year. This post reviews my last year and each class.
Class 1: Mastery: Personal Development & Leadership This class focused on different “masters” of different trades and how they became masters. It was inspiring to see the journey these men and women took, and that they continued to strive to learn more. Each person used different techniques to overcome obstacles and they fought till they achieved what they wanted. The best part of this is that they didn’t settle once they got there. They continued to improve and that’s the difference between a master and everyone else. Actually writing this blog post is having me look back into my work from these classes. It’s cool because I had done my research paper on Walt Disney. Now that’s a man that fought for his dream. Even when things weren’t going well, he wouldn’t say no. He failed countless times, but no one focuses on those times because he fought and created on of the biggest entertainment companies in the world. Disney is probably one of the earliest influences on my life when it comes to entertainment. That’s because he became a true master of his craft, and I want to do the same.
Class 2: Executive Leadership Executive Leadership was an interesting class. We studied the leadership styles of John C. Maxwell and Robert Greene. Talk about different sides of the spectrum when it comes to leading a team and business. Maxwell focuses very much on the team and growing/building your team. Greene focuses more on leading and focusing on oneself. Though Greene had some good points, I lean towards Maxwell’s leadership style. I think some of that is because of church, but it’s also because that’s the type of person I am. For this project I continues my focus on Walt Disney. We had to take our leader and show three examples of Maxwell and three examples of Greene in their styles.The one that really stood out to me was the Influence, a Maxwell trait, that Walt had. He influenced, not just Hollywood, but the millions that saw his films or visited his park. He influenced their thoughts and imaginations. To this day, little girls want to be Snow White or Cinderella. That’s what I want to do. I want to influence people to do more and be more than they are. It doesn’t have to be millions world wide, but I want to do something that empowers the next leaders of this world.
Class 3: Project and Team Management I think the class name explains what the class is about. We focused on project and team management, which I thought I understood well because of church, but it helped me refine my skills and knowledge. We had some interesting assignments for this class. I had to take a team of celebrities, and place them within a project I was planning. I had to use their strengths and weaknesses to make my project run. It was very interesting. There were two projects that I enjoyed working on in this class. The first was we had to pick a project and plan it out in details and on a timeline. I picked making a short film called “Light and Dark.” It was something I had written awhile and would like to make one day. This class had me plan out the timeline and budget for it. The other project was about conflict resolution and what steps I would put in place in my company. It hit at the time I was having an issue at my workplace. I have it saved and plan on using it when I run my own team/company.
Class 4: Business Storytelling and Brand Development This class focused on using storytelling principles to deliver a superior customer experience, to developing your own personal brand identity, this course guides you in creating an authentic, meaningful brand. During this class, we learned how to audit other company brands and how to create our own. This allowed us to learn different things about a brand and how they told their story. For this class I research HBO and it’s brand. I actually had no idea that it also owned Encore, another movie cable station. I was able to take what I learned in this class and utilize it at Radwell, where I had been working, and for my own company. HBO is a well known brand right now because of their shows and branding. I want my company to be known just the same.
Class 5: Entertainment Business Finance This class was actually one of the hardest for me. Math and I usually don’t get along well so when it came to this class I was worried. Overall I did well. The hardest parts for me was when we had to do formulas to project didn’t areas of growth and other factors. This is why I would have an accountant. We had to do a Pro Forma Budget for this class. You couldn’t just put numbers in. It made you research different options, costs, and needs of the business. It actually opened my eyes to how much just general internet and phones would cost, not including equipment. This was the hardest class I had to take for me personally. At least what we used for it went towards our final business plans.
Class 6: Negotiation and Deal-Making The entertainment industry is founded on negotiation and deal-making. I wish I had taken this class in the actual classroom versus online. I learned a good amount online, however, I feel that interaction with my classmates would have been better for this class. I had a chance to interview two different people about how they handle negotiations and the people they are negotiating with. If you want to read my summary about those, follow this link http://ryanboring1.tumblr.com/post/124031211500/negotiation-deal-making-interview. There has been a lot I’ve learned from this course, and it’s given me a good foundation to launch my career. Looking back, I need to continue to study this art form more. It’s important to be a good negotiator, and that doesn’t just come from sitting around.
Class 7: Product and Artist Management This class delves into more than just the “how to” aspect of management. It prepared me to succeed in presenting a product or artist to other companies and people. One of the assignments that stood out to me was the “One Million Cups” review. We had to review one of these presentations and analyze it. This was very helpful being able to see someone else share their business plan. It allowed me to see good ideas and some ways not to present them. The other project that I found helpful was the endorsement project. Basically we were presented with five endorsement deals for an imaginary client. I had to analyze them, say what was good, what was bad, and give some recommended changes. Then I had to pick which deal(s) would be best for our client. This assignment was good, because I had to research other deals and have facts to support our changes.
Class 8: Advanced Entertainment Law Advanced Entertainment Law was a great class for my business. It has given me the basic knowledge that I need for insight into legal documents, as well as, legal actions I need to take to protect my company and my products. The book for this class was great and explained the laws and the situations. It was when I had to read the actual case documents/decisions, that I had a really hard time. I have read some hard material, but nothing measures up to case decision documents. I believe it’s because they are so dry and impersonal. The research paper I wrote for this class centered on the Desny v. Wilder case of 1943. Basically Desny shared his idea for a script with Wilder’s secretary. A year later Wilder’s company put out a movie based off that idea, but not Desny’s original script. The court’s decision states that there are property rights in the expression of ideas (think scripts), but not in the ideas themselves. This is so important for any creative person to know in the entertainment industry. Besides reading the court documents I loved the live discussions. The teacher was great and I enjoyed them every week.
Class 9: Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution This class focused on Publishing and Distributing projects. From TV to movies to music, this class covered ways in which to get your project out there. This class taught us that using digital distribution for films is something that is becoming more mainstream. More and more independent and low-budget films are utilizing On-Demand purchasing, renting, and viewing, instead of DVD release or trying for theatrical release. I learned that digital is helpful, but you need to make sure to market your project well to get the views. You also need to know which avenue you want to go and where you want to stream you content. Do you want it available for download purchase, such as iTunes, or just streaming, such as Netflix? These are questions I need to have the answers to in order to find the right distribution path for my projects.
Class 10: Digital Marketing This was probably my favorite class out of all of them, but I’ve worked in marketing the last five years. I had thought it would only be about trends and what’s going on in the marketing world. I was wrong. It did all of that, but the class also went into detail on return of investment and how to track the effectiveness of a campaign. We had to do a case study that gave us costs of ads, cost of product, and what then we had to figure out the overall profit. Yet again it was math, but I liked it more than normal finances. I think because I was already doing this for where I had been working. Overall loved this class and I learned a lot. In fact, I’m trying to stay more on the marketing side of things in the entertainment world.
Class 11: Business Plan Development I never realized the amount of research I would need to do for my business plan. The amount of information investors and banks need to see that your business is viable is a lot. The best part about the whole process is that I’ve learned more about my company and what services it provides. The project challenged me on why I was offering these services, who these services were for, and what benefit I was offering my clients. This class has also helped take some of the unknown and “scariness” of starting a company. It’s really helped me look at my LLC and revamp and basically restart my company. I’ve taken my strengths and put them into my company. This class allowed me to put that into my business plan. It took all month to get it done and get it done right. The professor gave me great feedback on mine and I was able to make adjustments.
Class 12: Final Project: Business Plan Oh what a year it has been. Everything I learned and did all came down to this class. I finished my business plan and we finalized our finances. The last thing we had to do was record our presentation of the business plan as if we were talking to investors. I’m glad we did that, because it takes some of the fear away from actually having to do it in front of people. I think the one project we did for this class that I enjoyed was the elevator pitch. Having to explain your company in 45-55 seconds to someone is hard. It makes you figure out the strengths of your company and how to present it in a way that captures the person’s attention. I think this helped me a lot to delve deeper into my own company.
I’ve moved to Los Angeles, and I plan on staying here for awhile. I am going to fight and chase my dreams. I will work for a cool company and build my own until it can support me. It’s scary but truly exciting. The best is yet to come for me.