The Making of Season's Greetings on Super-8 Film starring Santa Claus and the Original Miracle on 34th street Sleigh.

The four pictures above represent actual Super-8 Frames from different award winning super-8 shoots that I have done over the years. The lower right hand image from above is from my Super-8 Shoot with Santa and the Original Miracle on 34th Street Sleigh.

Both of my Season's Greetings spots won awards, here is a link to the first Season's Greetings I made. If you cannot access the video, you will need to join LinkedIn first, which is free to join. I would market "Season's Greetings" for Cable Companies around the country to "bonus" to their favorite advertisers during the Holiday Season. This is a link to the Second Season's Greetings Commercial I made.

You can see my complete LinkedIn Business Showcase Page here.

I did a sell the two commercials I made to a couple of cable systems, but frankly, I was far too young and inexperienced to understand that market penetration mattered more than maximum profitability in each market. I made these two Season's Greetings Promos back in 1988 and 1989. Back then, Video Editing cost $250.00 an hour! I spent a total of 5,000 dollars making these spots just out of film school and I had overpriced what the Cable markets would pay. I wasn't being greedy, I just had no idea that many markets would pay a few hundred dollars, but not more than that.

What is probably just as fascinating is that Louis Febre created the music for one of the two spots. I met Louis through a mutual friend when he was just starting out. I KNEW Louis was going to be famous when I walked into his home studio and he showed me a sample from a low budget movie that he was putting the finishing touches on. I seriously wanted to go out right then and there and make my own feature just so Louis would do the music.

The Santa Sleigh I rented was from the prop department of Disney Studios. I was told the Sleigh I was renting was the actual Sleigh used in the original "Miracle on 34th Street Movie!" Unfortunately, the flatbed truck I was renting might have been just as old and had THE WORST SHOCKS IMAGINEABLE.

We drove 75 miles down to Laguna Beach to be near our Santa...(Santa had driven up to my location for other Season's Greetings shoots, so I obliged him by driving down to where he was going to be for this one). My friends Tony and Julie came along and were my valued helpers.

The 75 mile drive to meet Santa was HORRIBLE...the darn truck was bobbing up and down like an out of control jackhammer the whole way down. Either the shocks were just plain terrible, or because it was a flatbed truck, the shocks were designed to work better when the flatbed was weighted down.

Santa had a starring cameo role in my Season's Greetings Promo that I was making and was gracious enough to glide in onto the flat bed. Of course, even though Santa landed perfectly on the back of my flat-bed truck rental, nothing else really went as planned for the rest of the night.

I set-up my Super-8 Camera on the front part of the flat-bed truck, facing towards the back. We began to shoot some night time-exposure footage designed to look like Santa was flying through the sky with lights streaking above and behind him.

The shot was framed in such a way so that "TV Safe" would cut off the part of the sleigh that was actually touching the back of the flat bed truck. TV Safe means that when you are watching TV, you don't see the entire area of the picture frame, a portion of the picture on all four sides is "hidden" from normal viewing. By carefully framing my shot, I could "hide" the part of the sleigh that was touching the flat-bed truck in the part of the frame that does not get seen by a normal television set.

When I started filming, I remember thinking, "Wow, I'm actually doing this shoot! I got a Santa, an actual Santa Sleigh from Disney, my friends helping me...this is amazing!" And it was, for about five minutes.

Our Santa was a hearty soul, so fake pillows were not required. Our jackhammer truck moved down the road, Santa waving to the masses in Laguna Beach in the middle of a Warm July California Night from the cheery confines of our "Miracle Sleigh".......and because all good things must come to an end, the Sleigh started to list to one side.

It was quite loud on the truck, just horrible filming conditions, the wind was blowing even though the truck was not moving that quickly. Suddenly I realized the Sleigh was listing to one side more and more. The Sleigh was crumbling from the jackhammer action created by our rental truck. I was destroying the Original Miracle On 34th Street Sleigh, and I hadn't even gotten my shot yet!

We pulled over and assessed the situation. I couldn't believe that I had destroyed the sleigh so quickly. The idea that I might have to cancel the shoot with all that had gone into preparing for that night seemed beyond my comprehension.

Tony helped me rig a couple of apple boxes and a solid pelican case underneath the nearly broken underside of the Sleigh. I forget why I had the apple boxes, but I had been "raised" to always have apple boxes on film productions. The pelican case was for my still camera.

The silver stuff pictured underneath the sleigh actually covers the apple boxes from view.

Well, after tying off the crumbling sleigh with rope and shoring it up as best we could, resting the sleigh on the apple boxes and pelican case, AND telling Santa to ride the Sleigh like a jockey coming down a homestretch run who gets up off the saddle, we were able to continue, barely, and everything held together, barely...

It's hard knowing when to quit when you KNOW you won't be doing this type of shoot again anytime soon. "Just one more shot, no really, just one more shot".

We filmed for a couple of hours. We kept filming even after the battery in my sungun light had gone dead. I had ruined the lead battery because it continued to draw a current even after the light had completely disappeared. When a lead battery goes below 10.2 volts, it starts to internally destroy itself.

Even though the Sleigh continued to, uhm, disintegrate, it seemed to settle into a slow-motion type of disintegration. We were able to finish the shoot, and I was satisfied that I had gotten something I could use, on Super-8 film. However, that 75 mile jackhammer drive back home was pretty depressing. A 150 mile roundtrip just so that I could be fair to my Santa and save him a trip up to my part of town...what a moron I was!

I had better streets to film what I needed just miles from where I lived, and that should have been the overriding factor in my decision as to where to shoot. Live and Learn. The next day, when I finally looked at the Sleigh in the light of day, I was pretty sure I was going to never work in this town again.

I consulted with Dad over the sleigh situation and he seemed to think it was not hopeless. Since the Sleigh was primarily made out of wood, he suggested we try elmer's glue to save the day. Amazingly enough, most of the damage was to the underside of the sleigh rather than the cosmetic exterior. We used Elmers Glue and crushed, pulpy sawdust as filler and began mending all the weaken areas.

Perhaps it was ironic that Santa's Sleigh, constructed to take him around the world in blizzard like conditions, would need the sun's warm rays to harden the Elmers glue sawdust concoction. Waiting to see if the Glue concoction would make a difference was like watching lotto numbers being picked even though I had no ticket. The best I could hope for was returning the sleigh just as I had received it.

Cut to a music crescendo of a new day dawning, the birds tweeting, the reindeer perking up their heads in disbelief, dad and I had made the sled much much sturdier than it was when we first rented it! The elmers glue really did reinforce the various undercarriage joints that had weakened. I was so proud of the "fix" my dad had helped me accomplish on the sleigh, (probably prouder than the final product I created.) that I WANTED TO TELL THE PEOPLE AT DISNEY HOW WELL WE HAD FIXED THE SLEIGH...

Now, that would have been pretty stupid, wouldn't it?

Instead, I waited until I was convinced that the gluing had truly fixed the sleigh before returning it. I held my tongue, changed my name (kidding), and never heard anything bad from Disney.

However, the truck rental place wanted to charge me an EXTRA day because I showed up something like 30 minutes after the one day deadline. I reminded them that they had immediately stamped my invoice when I had come to pick up the truck, even though they made me wait 45 minutes to get the truck, and that they had waited to stamp my invoice for returning the truck UNTIL it was my turn in line, easily another half an hour.

I was not about to pay an extra day for the down-time they caused. I finished the Season's Greetings Promo, and managed to sell it in a couple of very small cable markets, but I never did recoup the 5,000 dollars in expenses that not only that night, but other nights added up to...(that is another story).

Here is a link to the Final Version.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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Price is Right could use some fun new options.

If the Price is Right is interested, Alex Logic has two ideas in mind that I believe would give the show an extra layer of fun. Neither of the ideas would require much of a change in the show's staging but I believe would add extra viewer interest and could make the ratings rise a slight amount as well.

Many times I will generously make suggestions and share them when I see a finished product that could have been, or still could be improved. However, there are times where all I will do is mention I have the ideas because you can't give away all of your consulting ideas for free.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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Dex Knows dot com poses interesting challenge to Google and other too big to fail search engine services, and their commercial is funny.

I just saw the Dex Knows commercial during a Major League baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox. I found the Dex Knows commercial to be very, very effective, wouldn't change a thing. Ok, maybe the shot of the computer screens were just a tad too fast, but that is a very minor point.

CLICK HERE TO SEE DEX KNOWS COMMERCIAL.

Although local cable advertising can provide the ability to target a very small territory with commercials, this is the first time I have seen an internet search engine commercial that uses the local cable advertising strategy as it illustrates the usefulness of a localized search engine search, and does it in a comical but illuminate manner.

If I were Google I would be somewhat concerned. Why doesn't Google have a companion search engine site, such as Gaggle, or, Giggle? "Sometimes a Giggle is all you need".

Dex Knows dot com has really hit google hard with their commercial, and all of the points raised in the commercial are completely valid.

If I were google, I would either buy out Dex Knows (and continue the product of course), or come up with a Gaggle or Giggle localized search engine for more localized internet searches.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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Folgers Father, Daughter and boyfriend proposing coffee commercial misses the mark.

The 2010 Folgers father daughter boyfriend coffee commercial is a taffy twist of old values and doing the right thing; that kind of ends up being a bit offensive.

Edit Update: Dec. 1, 2010 (If you are looking for my review of the Folgers commercial about the son coming back from war with a gift for sis, click here)

When I researched this commercial I discovered I could not find it on YouTube. This didn't surprise me as the Folgers Father Daughter commercial fumbles away what could have been a special father daughter moment within a commercial.

As I searched the internet looking for the commercial so I could post it within this article, I found feminists up in arms and conservative women teary eyed here and here. On a forum called "I hate commercials", everybody seems to be bringing up most of the controversial issues, but not tying them together the way I have below.

I found the feminist viewpoint typically angry and outraged, but for the wrong reasons. Being offended because a daughter still lives at home in her late twenties is missing the point. A woman can have more freedom living at home IF SHE IS SAVING MONEY because of it.

Some people with a conscience may feel guilty dating others if they have debt, so if living at home enables either a male or female TO SAVE MONEY or avoid going into debt, then there is no need to ridicule their living situation as the feminist viewpoint did.

Additionally, feminists being outraged because the dad was watching her every move also misses the point that the dad KNEW SOMETHING was going to happen and he just couldn't wait to find out.

The more conservative viewpoint instantly connects with a similar father daughter moment in their own lives and are won over early on.

But these contrasting interpretations appear to only use the first 20 seconds of the commercial to form their opinion and in that regard seem to be ignoring the most controversial part of the commercial. It is the very last line of dialogue in the Folgers engagement commercial that appears to have been tossed out with the coffee grounds by both sides, yet that last line of dialogue is what makes the commercial somewhat offensive in my opinion.

As you can see, the folgers father, daughter, boyfriend engagement commercial doesn't seem to last on the net, and maybe that is for good reason.

What I see in the final moments of this commercial is a dad modestly bragging (yikes!) to his daughter that without his help, his daughter's laggard boyfriend would have never proposed! Having watched the tv sit come Everybody Loves Raymond, all I can see is Raymond and Robert cringing every time their parents meddle in their lives the way dad appears to have done in this Folgers commercial.

The entire Folgers commercial seems impinged on the final line of dialogue, and yet, what does it say about the daughter if dad has to step in and FORCE the marriage issue with her boyfriend? The commercial script, obviously influenced by a male fatherly figure, is trying to say "Hey, ain't I great the way I rescued my little girl one more time, and got her married!"

This particular Folgers commercial could have taken the high road, and the funny road,if it had just used a slightly different ending. If dad had instead said, "I offered Biff two new cars and his own condo to get lost, but he said he would just sell the cars to buy you a bigger engagement ring", the commercial's message becomes that both men in her life want her to stay solidly in their lives. Now that would have been a sweet message.

This would have been a far more powerful father daughter moment than dad saying "I had a secret meeting with Biff last weekend to make sure he proposed to you".

Gasp.

Edit Update Dec.8, 2010: Folgers held a contest to come up with a new musical intro for their commercials. The irony is, that's not the problem with their commercials.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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Turn the Tub Around "I can't believe it's not butter", commercial Starring Megan Mullally, analyzed.

When I first saw the Megan Mullally commercial, "I can't believe it's not Butter - Turn the tub Around", I didn't know what to think.

In my opinion a commercial's shock value usually is a good thing (but not always), but something about this commercial's shock value bugged me.

This is the kind of commercial where if somebody connected to the commercial had hired me for feedback, I would have struggled to come up with my best response. Suffice it to say that it was probably a week or two after seeing the commercial a few times that a bell went off in my head and I realized what was "wrong" with the "Turn the Tub Around" commercial.

My delayed reaction was in part because I only saw the commercial every couple of days during a television show commercial break. I suppose if I had viewed the commercial over and over several times in a short time span I might have come up with something faster.

By the way, I LOVE Megan Mullally in Will and Grace and I believe she is one of those actor / directors who gets it. Fortunately, I don't have to criticize her performance in this commercial to get my point across. Because I respect Megan Mullally so much I decided to research the making of this commercial to see what went wrong. I soon discovered that there is a companion music video to "Turn the Tub Around" that I had never viewed. Sure enough, within a mere few seconds of watching the music video, I realized that the music video executed in a way that the commercial did not.

All one has to do is watch the companion music video to see that everything the music video is, the commercial is not.

The music video takes the time to show Mullally as an innocent shopper getting caught up in the moment, whereas the 30 second commercial version portrays Mullally as an over the top DIVA caught in her own 1979 Turn the Tub Around Time Machine. I believe what the commercial fails to do is compress the best elements of the music video into a 30 second commercial. No easy task for sure, but it looks to me like no attempt was even made.

The power of editing shows how easy it is to change an actors performance. In my opinion the music video and commercial have very little in common, and that probably is not a good thing.

Everything the music video is, the commercial is not, and that is the problem that I see with thia commercial. That doesn't mean the commercial is a failure. In my opinion it just means the commercial is not delivering full impact. For everybody who likes the "I can't believe it's not butter, turn the tub around" commercial, there are probably 2 or 3 other people who roll their eyes.

Could the "I can't believe its not butter" commercial starring Megan Mullally be fixed? Probably quite easily. There probably is enough footage already shot that if constructed in a proper order would create a more effective 30 second commercial.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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Jack LaLanne, Elaine LaLanne, Bob Feller, Abe Vigoda, Betty White & Buzz Aldrin should have a reality tv show.

(Edit update - Jack LaLanne has passed away, January 23, 2011 at the age of 96, from pneumonia, what a loss, moreso for the rest of us, I sincerely wanted to see Mr. LaLanne on his own reality TV show, wearing out people 50 younger than himself).

Bob Feller passed away on December 15, 2010 as well.

The brief article below was written on April 05, 2010. I even pitched the idea of a reality tv show starring the LaLanne's to a Hollywood producer, who told me Hollywood only wants young people for their reality tv shows.

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What a loss that such elder statesmen and stateswomen such as Jack LaLanne, his wife Elaine LaLanne, Bob Feller, Abe Vigoda, Betty White and Buzz Aldrin don't have their own reality tv show.

Just how artificial and fake is Hollywood to continually throw to the curb real maturity and wisdom and just good old fashioned attitude, and the history of this country, to promote one more show about youthful exuberance. Enough already, when will Hollywood do the right thing?

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Did Major League Baseball provide enough 2010 Spring Training job opportunities for Arizona residents?

Arizona has had high unemployment for a couple of years so they probably love Major League Baseball coming to their state for spring training each year. How about Major League Baseball hire 6 bat boys per game. Three bat boys for each team, each bat boy covers 3 innings of the game. Isn't hiring many bat boys better than endangering the ballplayers when they have to stop a slide at the last possible moment to avoid a bat that is sitting in the base path?

During a 2010 spring training game between the Cleveland Indians and the Los Angeles Angels, Luis Rodriguez, who was fighting for a roster position on the Indians and appeared to have suffered some type of injury, instead shook off the injury and kept on playing in the game.

The possible injury appears to have been caused by a bat left in the basepaths that prevented Rodriguez from sliding into home properly. Because Rogriguez could not slide, it gave the catcher a full on view of the batter turned baserunner who was now trying to advance to third on the throw home. If the catcher's throw to third base had been off just a bit he could easily have struck the baserunner in the jaw.

There literally could have been two injuries on the same play, both caused by one errant bat that was not immediately picked up after the hitter had tossed it to the ground to run out his double. If there had been no bat on the base path, the baserunner coming home could hae executed a proper slide into home. The dust kicked up by the slide plus the partially blocked field of vision the catcher would have experienced and the catcher might not have even bothered trying to throw to third at all.

On another note...

Besides baseball players risking injuries because of lack of bat boys, even the cameras appear to be left out in the sun without lens shades to deflect the sun rays from the lens. It sure looks like not enough of the local people have been hired to help out. Cameras without lens shades produce poor images like the image above. Cameras with the proper lens shade can produce an image like the one below.

As you can see from the two images above, the second image more closely approximates the proper contrast of the image, but it was the top image that what was repeatedly broadcast during a 2010 exhibition game between the Indians and the Dodgers. While all the other camera angles looked fine, this one particular angle looked all washed out. I have re-corrected this one particular camera angle to show how it could have looked if a lens shade had been provided.

Why doesn't Major League baseball hire young adults as bat boys and rovers for the camera crews and other baseball personnel? Multiply 10 hired positions per game by the six to eight games a day that are played and that would be 60 to 80 jobs per day in Arizona for the local community.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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Maybe everything has been done before, but that doesn't mean new interpretations don't exist.

"Is the glass half empty or half full", is a philosophical question that has long been misunderstood. The most common perception of "Is the glass half empty or half full" has been that if you think the glass is half full, you are an optimist, and if you think the glass is half empty, you are a pessimist. This is wrong!

If you think the glass is half full, you might just be an overconfident, procrastinating, lazy individual who does not plan for the future properly.

If you think the glass is half empty, you might just be a hands on, competently aware individual who believes in having the necessary resources to weather future situations.

Another common mistake made about whether the glass is half empty or half full is the belief that each viewpoint is in opposition to the other one.

I thought the real reason people notice if the glass is half empty or half full is because they want more -Alessandro Machi

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I See Things most people don't seem to notice, take this video of a Portsmouth GoalKeeper who missed a simple kick and allowed a goal.

Portsmouth 0 - 1 Chelsea
Uploaded by nongcream7. - Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.

Please, watch this video of the Portsmouth goalkeeper missing the ball kicked by a Liver Pool player. Apparently this goalie is getting a huge flogging from soccer fans. While I do agree that of all the times to miss a simple bouncing ball, this is not one of them, there is something much more unacceptable going on here and it was not mentioned in the original yahoo article.

So, what did the article miss?

Why is the Liver Pool player who DID NOT kick the ball that skipped past the goalkeeper, tapping the goal bound ball just before it reaches the net? The ball was going to go into the net whether he touched it or not, but by touching it he gets credit for the goal.

Yes, the teammate in white pictured above is just about to steal a goal from the player who actually kicked the ball past the goalkeeper and I find that unacceptable.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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The 2010 Lexus Hybrid "Milestones" Commercial gets my "Over Edited" Award.

Why does the first shot of the 2010 Lexus Hybrid "Milestone" commercial cut away well before the cars actually intertwine?

Why couldn't the shot of the last drop of gas (represented by one car) coming out of the nozzle have started much sooner, like when the drop (the car) was still in the nozzle?

The close up shot of the the last "drop" of gasoline leaving the nozzle is both unneeded, and if it was to have been used should have come after the wide shot, and been an overlap shot rather than edit on action.

The end shot of the 2010 Lexus Hybrid "Milestones" commercial is a fantastic shot but falls short because of the way it was used.

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When I was in my last year of college many years ago I won the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences "commercials" Internship scholarship contest and interned at Film Fair. It was at Film Fair where I was first exposed to the creative forces that come together whenever a broadcast commercial is created.

Before a commercial actually arrives at a production company, there is an ad agency that has to win the trust of a company, usually a corporation, that wants to promote a product or service on television or some other large media like radio or the internet. The agency is awarded the account by presenting the best ideas the among many competing ad agencies.

The ad agency that wins the trust, and the account of the company or corporation then puts out a call for bids from commercial production companies. The production companies may submit individual director's reels, or they may submit an overall company reel.

The ad agency tends to focus on the director they want to work with, and since the director is many times attached to an existing production company, that company is used for the production of the commercial.

Commercials' Production companies without a name director usually survive by offering speciality "services" to larger competitors with name directors. Smaller production companies can lose their bread and butter work should they try and bid on the whole job directly from the ad agency rather than accepting a much smaller piece of the pie from the production company that actually won the account.

A small production company that does not directly bid on large scale commercials is not considered direct competition by the larger production companies and can therefore be trusted to work on a specific portion of the commercial.

When the commercial is being shot, the ad agency hovers nearby observing the set up and execution of each scene. Many times the director is directing with one eye tied behind his or her back as they crook their head towards the assembled agency people to see whether they liked the last take or not.

In essence, commercial directors are on an ad agency leash of varying length. As the director's reputation grows, the ad agency's leash can get pretty long and imperceptible.

Designing and producing a major commercial for national broadcast involves intense planning as to how many different scenes should be shot and in what order they should be shot. If the agency does not shoot enough different angles and scenes, or runs behind schedule and scenes are never shot, the commercial may drag on when it is edited together.

However, if too many angles and scenes have been shot, a commercial may have so much excellent footage that when the commercial is edited together, it becomes a high energy, but unfortunately, over edited production.

Which brings me to this lexus hybrid commercial. If ever a commercial needed LESS editing, the 2010 Lexus Hybrid "Milestones" commercial from lexus would get my "over editing" award.

There is so much visual trickery that can go on in the world of high end commercial editing that I just can't tell if the shots were cut as short as they were because that was the final frame before the trick shot "falls apart", or if they just have forgotten the meaning of holding on a great shot.

To me, the opening shot is so magical that I felt cheated when the shot cuts away, and I felt cheated not in a good way. The opening shot should have gone on for at least another 3 to 5 seconds. It is just a major disrespect to put all of that time and energy into the actual creation of the opening shot and then cut it down so short that one begins to wonder if there was an accident, or if the opening shot is a fake.

This is the kind of commercial that if I had been the director or cinematographer, or ran the production company that helped create the footage, or was the stunt coordinator, I might have been disappointed at how choppy the final edited version came out.

Instead of cramming three commercials worth of shots into one 30 second commercial, how about just making three beautiful commercials with nice, long takes of the beautiful imagery that I am assuming exists in longer lengths than we are seeing.

The ending is disappointing to me as well. I would have reworked the ending and given much more of a final impact to the Lexus Hybrid Milestones commercials. I'm here if Lexus wants some additional advice. What I am basically saying is the commercial is visually awesome, but has not reached its true potential due to overediting.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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CSI Miami has a Chance to do the Right Thing, but will they?

I believe it is fairly obvious that CSI Miami will do a knock off script about the man who was killed by a single engine plane that was gliding in for a crash landing on a Florida Beach and struck a man who was jogging.

This was truly a horrible way for this man to die. Robert Gary Jones was listening to his I-Pod with his ear buds while jogging on the beach and probably never heard the engine less plane gliding in for a crash landing. The Pilot alleges that oil spilling from the engine had landed on his windshield so he couldn't see what was directly in front of him. He crash landed his plane onto the beach and into the unsuspecting jogger, who leaves two very young children and his wife behind.

The deceased jogger apparently had an important job with Klaxo Smith Kline and it wouldn't take that much script savvy to create a CSI Miami script in which the plane crash may, or may not have been an accident.

For once I would like to call dibbs on behalf of the grief stricken family that has been left fatherless. If in fact CSI Miami does do a script "loosely based" on a "death by single engine plane killing a jogger", I would like the television show's producers to do something nice for the deceased's family like donate an equal amount of money to the family that the script will generate for the television show's writers and producers in perpetuity, including residual income every time the show airs as well.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

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Donald Trump Celebrity Apprentice messes up first episode big time.

Donald Trump Celebrity Apprentice missed an excellent opportunity in the first episode of the 2010 year to NOT FIRE anybody. In past seasons I recall that Donald Trump has actually fired more than one apprentice in the same episode. It seems to me that if Mr. Trump can fire more than one apprentice in the same episode, he could also do the reverse and not fire anybody if nobody really deserved it.

Mr. Trump basically admitted no one had really done badly on either team.

In the first episode of the 2010 season, the first task was performed relatively flawlessly by both groups. About the only mistake the losing side made was probably not charging enough for the charity burgers they were selling, and leaving some donors outside looking in.

However, the bottom line is there really were no screw ups in the first week. I'd rather Mr. Trump not have fired anybody since there was no obvious person to fire, and then just move on to week two. Trump spent several excruciating minutes trying to get the losing team to crack and blame someone for the loss. The problem was there really was nobody to blame and I actually grew uncomfortable watching Mr. Trump trying to force the group to come up with a human sacrifice.

I understand that Celebrity Apprentice gets alotted a certain amount of episodes and if Mr. Trump doesn't fire somebody every week the show would go over its scheduled run. However there was plenty of time and plenty of shows later on to possibly do a double firing if necessary.

I felt cheated that the show forced itself to follow the typical path when no one really "earned" a firing. But besides feeling cheated, the tone of what Mr. Trump did in the first episode reminiscent of the World War II Neremberg trials when the plea of "I was only following orders" was not deemed an acceptable defense for German officers. I understand the gravity of the show is not the same, but the "tone" of what Mr. Trump did was the same.

Mr. Trump came off sounding like he was just "following orders" and I think that is a dangerous, subliminal message to send to millions of viewers.

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