The Happy Film

Feature-length documentary about Stefan Sagmeister's quest for happiness through self-experimentation with meditation, therapy and drugs.

“We worked with Vinod on all our social media needs for The Happy Film and it was an all-around pleasure: he gets things done.”

— Stefan Sagmeister (Sagmeister & Walsh)

Every seven years, New York-based graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister takes a sabbatical from client work to pursue a personal project. One of these projects was the deeply candid documentary The Happy Film. I managed the (Kickstarter) community, content and social media upon the film’s theatrical release in 2017.

Strategy

Before we started, I laid out a strategy (containing personas, tone of voice and content ideas) that served as a launch pad from which all other plans and actions were spawned. The film poses a lot of (unanswered) questions that are perfect conversation starters... so why not ask our followers the same questions? This resulted in the main idea for The Happy Film's media outlets: the companionate channel.

Content

Once the strategy was okayed we started using elements of the film to prolong the conversation on social media. So questions posed in the film were asked and discussed on our digital platforms, and videos of Stefan's maxims were tweaked to serve as prompts.

Community

Alongside the more traditional social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, I also managed the communities on Kickstarter. I kept close contact with the film's backers and organized a Reddit live IAmA with Stefan Sagmeister and Ben Nabors.

“Vinod took the lead on our film’s social media initiatives by developing a unique marketing strategy and content plan to target a new audience for The Happy Film.”

— Ben Nabors (director, The Happy Film)

MuSiz Mozes — MūSiz Music Video

A typographical tour de force for a lyrical tour de force.

MūSiz is my (and your) favorite MC. So when he asked me to concept a video for his latest release, I said yes before he finished his sentence — and ended up directing and co-editing the video as well. Eventually this typographical eye candy premiered on the radio for everybody to... hear. Yep, I'm fully aware of the irony.

Concept

MūSiz's writing process basically is choreography with words. The main idea was to support his lyrics and flow with dancing typography, sort of like subtitles on acid.

(Art) direction

After concepting it was time to develop the tone of image. We decided to let the type do the talking and defined a clean, minimalistic but discernible esthetic with as few visual elements as possible, since all imagery is conjured up by MūSiz's lyrics. I made sure this esthetic was sustained during every step of the process.

Seeding

The day before the launch, we hosted a viewing party at our office (🍿included). Our seeding efforts resulted in several blog mentions, rotation on TV channels, Stingray DJAZZ and a digital premier of the video on radio station Open Rotterdam. I know, it's the most useless medium for a video, but it was fun nonetheless!

“On top of his inventive instincts and efficacious communication, Vinod is a great guy to work with!”

— MūSiz (MC, Musician)

Credits: Vocals: MūSiz / Beat: Present / Concept: 10X10 & Me We / (Art) Direction: 10X10, Me We & MūSiz / Production: 10X10 & Me We / Graphic Design: 10X10 & Me We / Typography: Tomáš Brousil / Camera: Oligar Da Paz, 10X10 & Me We / Lighting: Brand New Guys / Edit: Oligar Da Paz & 10X10 / Animation & motion: Dit is Nonsens

Usher BIRD Rotterdam.jpg — Jazz Venue BIRD

Award-winning jazz(ish) music venue in the center of Rotterdam.

BIRD was founded in 2010 and I worked with Silvana Sodde to set up every element of audience outreach from scratch. Which, in hindsight, was kind of a blessing, since we could do things exactly how we wanted. This proved to be a standard-setting (and award-winning) approach for other festivals, venues, influencers – and even Google.

Audience Outreach

We all have that one street- and music-savvy friend who enthusiastically provides you with freshest tunes out there (dissertations included). Well that's the persona and tone of voice we went with for all audience and press outreach. This shift from traditional copywriting resulted in BIRD being the only jazz venue in the Netherlands reaching an audience with an average age under 35.

Magazine

Since the artists playing at BIRD tend to fly under the radar, we decided to focus on insightful and explanatory content that puts the artist in their proper context and gives the audience a much broader sense of the many great musicians playing at BIRD. We did this by creating a online magazine. Have a look.

Video

I can explain how we wanted to cement and extend our thought leader status toward broadcast media with high-quality and in-depth video content, and how we set up a partnership with Stingray DJAZZ, the world's biggest music station but... full disclosure: I was simply looking for a reason to sit down and chat with Lalah Hathaway, Mark Guiliana, Snarky Puppy, Chris Dave and a bunch of other artists I admire. I chose video as a medium. A major hat tip as well to Oligar da Paz for shooting and editing the videos.