How Do You Become a Storytelling Superhero?

Do you realize, that the strength of your story, IS the strength of your brand?

This Wednesday, Nov. 6th, is the premiere of Folktellers Studios' newly animated transmedia production, titled Hero's Journey The Series. As the Executive Producer, I'm excited to release this storytelling platform to the world. However, looking back, I still find it difficult to believe it's happening.

I often ask myself, how the heck did I get here?

Many years ago, I started my career as an automotive designer. I became accustomed to blueprints and production plans, but the work lacked creativity. In 2001, I needed something more challenging, so I departed from a well-paying Director of Engineering position and started my own tech company. The company spawned several technologies and patents in eLearning, social media, image compression, 3D design, and VR/MR/XR.

In 2006 our first eLearning technology evolved into a social media platform called ScreenTweet.com. It shared videos and images with Twitter but we couldn't figure out how to monetize it. In 2010 the platform was rebuilt and it became Buztweet.com, a scheduler for posting to social media with landing pages. This web application made significant traction around the Metro-Detroit area in the digital marketing space.

During this period, I wrote a book on the topic of frequency marketing, called Exposure to Closure which became my inroad to the entertainment industry. In 2011, with new investment partners, we launched a new co, development team, and digital platform, called Buz.fm, (FM = frequency marketing). This CFI (Content, Frequency Influence) platform was based on the content posting and knowledge capture process I patented in the early-2000s. (US 8,738,556 B2)

Through one of our business advisors, Rick Kraniak , I traveled to Los Angeles, where I met Kevin Stein a media expert in his own right and a close friend of the Zappa family. Through Kevin I met, Ahmet Zappa , the son of the late musician Frank Zappa. Over the next six years, Ahmet and I dominated the digital marketing space in LA, working on over sixty (60) blockbuster movies, from Frozen to Iron Man 3. Unfortunately at the end of 2016, our two main contacts at Walt Disney Studios left and retired, and you could see the regime was changing.

However, working with Disney and DreamWorks content during, what I call "their good years," propelled me down another path, and within a year I started writing my own stories and creating animated productions.

In 2017, with a little serendipity, I was invited by Terry Bean , TedX Detroit dude and overall good guy, to attend a business presentation by a local author. Terry thought that my Hollywood tales, connections, and experiences might be able to help an up-and-coming writer.

While in the meeting, I was exposed to more than just an accomplished writer. I saw a vision of a magical storytelling universe which further expanded my thinking. His name was Josef Bastian, and it didn't take long to realize that our combined skillsets and efforts could provide the key ingredients to create storytelling platforms.

...And that's exactly what we did.

As Josef continued to write within the Folktellers Universe, I started to lay out and build the foundation of the storytelling platform. Concurrently, I still enjoyed working with a few close friends and helping their companies tell their stories better, while helping them grow their businesses.

Fluxtrol was one of those companies, and the President of the Company Robert Ruffini was very open to using comics and animation to tell their corporate story. Four years ago, I wrote this article on LinkedIn titled "It’s Comical: The Challenge of Telling a Complex Story." which explains what we did for Fluxtrol in more detail.

In short, the article was about how we used Hollywood-level creativity, here in Metro Detroit, to help a local industrial manufacturing company tell its story and own its digital space.

In 2019, Folktellers Studios was born, concentrating on storytelling, high-level art, and animation applied to the same digital marketing methodologies I used and developed for Hollywood movies. The goal at Folktellers Studios was to build a transmedia storytelling platform to share powerful, immersive stories through animation and music.

In 2021, we were producing Josef's Excerpts from an Unknown Guide Book series, when I was asked to take a look at a historic tale. I was told it was a conspiracy story about Jimi Hendrix. Of course, everyone loves Jimi, so I listened. Then I ran the idea past a man who opened the doors for me in LA, Kevin Stein. Kevin had met Jimi in New York and helped start the Jimi Hendrix Foundation. I trusted Kevin, for he had been around music his whole life. So for a couple of weeks, we brainstormed the best approach to tell similar legendary type music stories and we realized there was a common thread. Many great music legends lived like superheroes and many died young.

After several investor meetings with Daniel Russell, Mark Kassa and John Carlos , we solidified funding and began to produce the series through our storytelling platform.

Hero’s Journey The Series is the first production to come out of Folktellers Studios.

Everything we do is on a digital production platform, with no AI-generated content, so it was interesting to see what ChatGPT's new Web Search had to say about Heros' Journey The Series:

“Hero’s Journey the Series,” an animated adaptation by Folktellers Studios, set to explore the journeys of legendary Black artists who rose to fame during the segregation era along the “Chitlin’ Circuit.” This historic circuit of venues was pivotal in showcasing Black talent from the 1930s to the 1960s. The series is seen through the eyes of the emcee “Gorgeous” George, offering viewers insights into the early careers of iconic figures like Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, The Jackson 5, Richard Pryor, and more.

This adaptation reflects Folktellers’ dedication to storytelling that highlights cultural history, a theme also present in their other project, “Excerpts from an Unknown Guidebook,” based on Josef Bastian’s fantasy series.

Hmmm, that's pretty good!

The Hero's Journey The Series production was created by the Folktellers Studios team, including, art director and Marvel comic artist Patrick McEvoy.

Because this is a transmedia storytelling platform, we recently launched a live concert with the award-winning band SlightReturn. It's been described as "ComicCon meets Woodstock," or "From Comic Page to Live Concert Stage."

But in reality, it is a comic book playing on the huge EMX screen behind an awesome live rock and roll band. It's quite cool, to say the least.

The vision behind combining animation with live rock performance is described as a "Live Immersive Concert." The main difference for fans compared to a traditional live show is to imagine diving into a cool comic book with a live band playing the soundtrack.

Life is a hero's journey folks, and we're living one right now!

For more about “Hero’s Journey the Series” go to the website.

To get tickets to the Nov 6th, 2024 live event in Royal Oak, MI go to Emagine Theates.

Do you want to tell better stories that get seen and heard?

Then give me a call!