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20:00:00 12/19/11
Havel the Dissident: A Legacy Worth Claiming
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:00 12/19/11
Former President Havel addresses a European cultural congress on the economics of culture
On a warm evening in 1991, a colleague and I found an out-of-the-way café in the old part of Prague. Two men with blank expressions stood outside. The interior was dim and close, with room for only eight or nine tables. The place was almost empty. Just a sleepy waitress, a bartender polishing glasses, and a single patron who sat alone drinking wine and chain-smoking cigarettes.
The President of Czechoslovakia wasn't reviewing official papers. He was reading a book, a startlingly un-Presidential act to our American eyes. My companion, a neoconservative State Department official, already admired him for defying and defeating a Communist state. He'd impressed me by bringing a writer's sensibility and an affinity for true underground culture to his role as head of state.
Václav Havel even tried to appoint Frank Zappa as his Minister of Culture. "We're not rock musicians," Zappa told a reporter back in the sixties. "We're electronic social workers." The State Department wouldn't let Zappa assume the post, but Havel had made his point to the Czech public by offering this apparatchik's position to the composer of songs like "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" ("Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind .")
We never spoke to Havel that night. It didn't seem polite to offer anything more than the curt nod of acknowledgement any café patron gives another at that hour. But Havel spoke to us, to all of us. And on the occasion of his death, the real lessons of his life's work are in danger of being lost.
Today we're told that the Occupy movement is too idealistic, too naïve. Naïve? Try Havel's words if you want naïve: "May truth and love triumph over lies and hatred."
Think of that as the Velvet Revolution's "one demand."
Portrait of the President as a Young Freak
As millions of people know, the underground playwright Havel first made his political mark in Charter 77. That group was formed to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, a banned and imprisoned rock band working in the Zappa mold of musical dissonance and cultural dissidence.
The Occupy movement is not on the cultural fringe, despite what its detractors say. But Havel's movement began as a Yippie-like creature of the underworld. Charter 77 rarely had more than a thousand members. It was a strange blend of political idealism and the hippie subculture where people proudly labeled themselves "freaks" to the conventional world. Despite its later alignment with economically conservative forces, it was more Allen Ginsburg than Alan Greenspan.
And it was created to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, whose grating music makes Occupy's drum circles seem like a children's choir serenading the bored residents of a home for aging veterans.
Words
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - what wonderful words! And how terrifying their meaning can be! Freedom in the shirt unbuttoned before execution. Equality in the constant speed of the guillotine's fall on different necks. Fraternity in some dubious paradise ...
Havel addressed the liberal democratic West on words in the 1970s, noting that the suppression of speech can give language enormous power: >
I ... live in a country where a writers' congress speech is capable of shaking the system ... a manifesto served as one of the pretexts for the invasion of our country one night by five foreign armies ... a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
When a system has become inflexible and is in danger of collapsing, what it fears most is words. Think about that the next time you see a phalanx of cops tear down a tent city on television.
Havel had been burned by language, too: >
The same word can at one moment radiate great hope, at another it can emit lethal rays ... true at one moment and false the next, at one moment illuminating, at another, deceptive. On one occasion it can open up glorious horizons, on another, it can lay down the tracks to an entire archipelago of concentration camps.
And as we approach an election year that will be filled with the rhetoric of freedom, this observation still resonates: >
The same word can at one time be the cornerstone of peace, while at another time machine-gun fire resounds in its every syllable.
Control
In 1975 Havel had the presumption to write directly to Czechoslovakian head of state Gustáv Husák with a few suggestions. There's more than a passing resemblance between the fear-driven Communist society Havel condemned in that letter and the financial anxiety many Americans endure today: >
The technique of existential pressure is ... universal. There is no one in our country who is not, in a broad sense, existentially vulnerable. Everyone has something to lose and so everyone has reason to be afraid. The range of things one can lose is broad, extending from the manifold privileges of the ruling caste... down to the mere possibility of living in that limited degree of legal certainty available to other citizens.
Today, one out of two Americans lives in financial insecurity. Even many upper-middle-class citizens live from month to month, just one layoff notice away from medical bankruptcy or home foreclosure.
"Everyone has something to lose," observed Havel.
Havel's description of his 20th Century Communist society echoes our own: >
The more completely one abandons any hope of general reform, any interest in suprapersonal goals and values, or any chance of exercising influence in an 'outward' direction, the more one's energy is diverted in the direction of least resistance, that is, 'inwards.'"
People today are preoccupied far more with themselves ... They fill their homes with all kinds of appliances and pretty things, they try to improve their accommodations, they try to make life pleasant for themselves, building cottages, looking after their cars, taking more interest in food and clothing and domestic comfort ...They turn their main attention to the material aspects of their private lives.
Havel concluded that "Despair leads to apathy, apathy to conformity, and conformity to routine (political) performance - which is then quoted as evidence of 'mass political involvement.'"
Ambition
Havel understood the psychology of greed and power, too. From his letter to Husák: >
If it is fear which lies behind people's defensive attempts to preserve what they have, it becomes increasingly apparent that the chief impulses for their aggressive efforts to win what they do not yet possess are selfishness and careerism.
It is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied more than ever before by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record.
From Prague to Washington, from Moscow to lower Manhattan, the opportunities change. But human nature never does: >
Seldom in recent times has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support anything as long as it brings them some advantage; to unprincipled and spineless men, prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain; to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors' and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.
Technocracy
It's a historical irony that those who claim they'll govern with the most efficiency usually wind up governing with the least effectiveness. Today corporate-funded politicians from both parties argue that the country should be led by "technocrats' who'll govern without messy "ideologies."
That's a false premise Havel knew well. He called it the "process by which power becomes anonymous and depersonalized, reduced to a mere technology of rule and manipulation."
Washington's technocratic "bipartisans" dream of a world where, in Havel's words, the "professional ruler is (seen as) the 'innocent' tool of an 'innocent' anonymous power ... legitimized by science, cybernetics, ideology, law, abstraction, and objectivity - that is, by everything except personal responsibility to human beings as persons and neighbors." Havel's Prague is our Beltway: >
States grow ever more machinelike; people are transformed into statistical choruses of voters, producers, consumers, patients, tourists, or soldiers, (where) in politics good and evil, categories of the natural world and therefore obsolete remnants of the past, lose all absolute meaning (and where) the sole method of politics is quantifiable success.
Havel condemned a system of state-orchestrated political theater, and the self-perpetuating failures of imagination which mistook the indifferent and pro forma participation of its citizens for genuine democracy. And he saw its universal nature: >
(It) has a thousand masks, variants, and expressions. Essentially, though, it is the same universal trend ... the essential trait of all modern civilization, growing directly from its spiritual structure, rooted in it by a thousand tangled tendrils and inseparable even in thought from its technological nature, its mass characteristics, and its consumer orientation.
"The contemporary concept of 'normal' behavior is," Havel wrote, "deeply pessimistic."
Responsibility
"I favor 'antipolitical politics,'" said Havel, "politics not as the technology of power and manipulation, of cybernetic rule over humans or as the art of the utilitarian, but politics as one of the ways of seeking and achieving meaningful lives, of protecting them and serving them." >
I favor politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans.
None of us--as an individual--can save the world as a whole, but . . . each of us must behave as though it were in his power to do so.
Decades later he said this to the leaders of Western countries: >
Today, more than ever before in the history of mankind, everything is interrelated ... Because of this, the future of the United States or the European Union is being decided in suffering Sarajevo or Mostar, in the plundered Brazilian rain forests, in the wretched poverty of Bangladesh or Somalia.
Havel had glaring faults. American neocons offered him small favors during his final rise to power. He reciprocated, consciously or unconsciously, by aiding their destructive military ventures and adopting their foolish economic policies. He succumbed to the politics of personality, both his own and those of the leaders who courted him. But it would be a shame if that's all the world remembered.
Havel seemed unhappy in the role of leader. It's possible than he lost sight of his deepest insights, his truest gifts. It was the outsider Havel, the dreamer of the impossible, the surrealist and absurdist, we should remember. That's the Havel who can and should inspire dissidents everywhere.
"Is the human word truly powerful enough to change the world and influence history?" he once asked. With his life and his words, Václav Havel gave us his answer. He showed us the power in each individual and the responsibility that accompanies that power.
At his best, and above all else, Havel was a dissident outsider who realized his power and used it. Now it's our turn.
2 Views
13:00:20 12/01/11
Charity Spotlight: American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR)
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 13:00:20 12/01/11
In this latest podcast in Community Health Charities’ Charity Spotlight series, host Jerry Franz asks the questions “How serious a health problem is HIV” and “what role does amfAR play in research, advocacy, and education?” The answers are provided by Chris Collins, Vice President and Director of Public Policy at amfAR. amfAR is world’s largest private research organization dedicated to AIDS research for prevention, treatment, and someday – a cure. As many already know, HIV infection can eventually lead to AIDS and there is currently no cure. There are approximately 1.1 million people in the United States living with HIV with about 56,000 new infections each year. According to Mr. Collins, the rate of new infections has not dropped in ten years. ”We need to get better at diagnosing people so they can get the care they need and we need to improve our prevention efforts.” Since no method of prevention is 100 percent effective at all times, testing for HIV is imperative. If someone believes they may have been exposed to HIV, they should be tested right away. As mentioned in our podcast, testing is offered free in many health clinics throughout the United States and HIV testing methods are the most sensitive and effective diagnostic tests in all of medicine today. Testing for HIV is important for many reasons but most of all, early detection can save or prolong life for those who have contracted the virus and prevent them from passing it on to others. About amfAR Founded in 1985, amfAR is dedicated to ending the global AIDS epidemic through innovative research. With the freedom and flexibility to respond quickly to emerging areas of scientific promise, amfAR plays a catalytic role in accelerating the pace of HIV/AIDS research and achieving real breakthroughs. amfAR-funded research has increased our understanding of HIV and has helped lay the groundwork for major advances in the study and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Since 1985, amfAR has invested nearly $325 million in its mission and has awarded grants to more than 2,000 research teams worldwide. To learn more about amfAR visit www.amfAR.org.
77 Views
19:34:18 08/16/11
Allen Fox - Learning the Volley, Part 2
[LESS INFO] 77 VIEWS | ADDED 19:34:18 08/16/11
Download file (right-click and "save as...")
About Allen Fox - Author, Speaker, Consultant:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. earned a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA where he won the NCAA Singles and Doubles titles and where he was named UCLA Athlete of the Year and All University of California Athlete of the Year. With the same competitive zeal that propelled him to the number four ranking in the United States, to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and a 3-time member of the US Davis Cup Team, he coached and built the Pepperdine University tennis team into a national power, mentoring, among others, renowned coach, Brad Gilbert. Dr Fox's Pepperdine teams were ranked among the nation's Top 5 for 10 consecutive years and reached 2 NCAA Team Finals.
Dr. Fox wrote the tennis best sellers, "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I Win?" and "Think to Win," and most recently, "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match." He is an editor of and contributor to Tennis Magazine, writes for various web sites, and is well-known for his 1-Minute Clinics on the Tennis Channel. These have been showing for the last three years. He also lectures around the world on tennis psychology, including at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and the PTR. In addition, Dr. Fox consults on the mental issues of tennis with players of all levels, from recreational players to pros and is the Mental Fitness Director at the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, CA.
A regular on the Tennis Channel, Dr. Allen Fox is the author of three previous books, "IF I'M THE BETTER PLAYER, WHY CAN'T I WIN?", "THINK TO WIN," and "THE WINNER'S MIND, a Competitor's Guide to Sports and Business Success." Dr. Fox is an editor and writer for Tennis Magazine and for his web site, allenfoxtennis.net.
WHAT'S IN HIS NEW BOOK, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match?
CHAPTER 1: WHY DO WE WANT TO WIN? Winning a tennis match feels more important than it is because players are genetically wired to compete for position on the social hierarchy. The emotions of a tennis match resemble those of a fight. Players may realize that winning a match doesn't really matter, but they will always want to win anyway.
CHAPTER 2: THE EMOTIONAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION: Tennis is inherently an emotional game. Because match outcomes feel important but are ultimately uncontrollable, matches can become stressful. There is often an unconscious urge to escape this stress, which leads to counterproductive behaviors, among which are anger, tanking, and excuse-making. These can be overpowered by the conscious mind, but it requires understanding, high motivation, and constant effort.
CHAPTER 3: USING EMOTION TO HELP YOU WIN: Your emotions will dramatically affect your tennis performance. We discuss how to keep counterproductive emotions in check and how to create productive ones that will help you win. Topics include the use of adrenalin, profiting from the time between points, and maintaining an optimal excitation level.
CHAPTER 4: REDUCING THE STRESS: Matches can become overly stressful, and this hinders performance. Stress can be reduced by developing a more realistic perspective of the game. Included are accepting outcomes that can't be controlled; resisting a narrow focus on winning; avoiding excessive perfectionism; getting over losses quickly; and using goals for hope and motivation rather than allowing them to become expectations and cause stress.
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEMS OF FINISHING: Most players become nervous and stressed when they are ahead and face the hurdle of finishing the match against a dangerous opponent. The unique tennis scoring system intensifies this problem. The closer players get to winning, the greater the stress. Trying to reduce it gives rise to counterproductive behaviors such as procrastinating the finish or becoming "overconfident" and easing up with a lead.
CHAPTER 6: CHOKING - ITS CAUSES AND HOW TO MINIMIZE ITS EFFECTS: Choking is most frequent at the finish of games, sets, and matches due to the uncertainty of outcome. You can limit choking damage by immediate acceptance of this uncertainty. Avoid stressful thoughts of winning by using rituals, focusing, and relaxation techniques. Rid yourself of the idea that choking will make you lose, and recognize that there are usually multiple opportunities to win, not just one.
CHAPTER 7: CONFIDENCE AND HOW TO GET IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT: Confidence, aka self-belief, comes mostly from winning. Though it's more difficult, you can win without it by replacing it with sufficient emotional discipline. Slumps and hot streaks occur in cycles and both end naturally with time. Stressing over a slump prolongs it. You can speed its ending by several methods which we discuss.
CHAPTER 8: GAME PLANS: Game plans give your efforts direction and structure. They can rely primarily on offence or defense but should be consistent with your personality. With Plan A you are looking for a match-up where you have a relative advantage, most commonly pitting your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses. With Plan B, which you always employ simultaneously with Plan A, you attempt to tire your opponent mentally.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING DOWN YOUR OPPONENT MENTALLY: You can weaken your opponent mentally by using dominance techniques. Be aware of momentum development - maintain it when you're winning and break it when you aren't. Take advantage of the let-downs that occur in transitional situations: at the end of sets, after long points, after service breaks, and after long games. Learn to resist becoming psyched out by opponents.
CHAPTER 10: MAINTAINING MENTAL EFFECTIVENESS IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE: Remember the Golden Rule of tennis: Never do anything on court that doesn't help you win. Decide beforehand how you will handle the frustrations and errors that are likely to occur during match play. Understand the value of intensity and its role in playing percentage tennis. Players who have beaten you too frequently get into your head. Beating them requires exceptional emotional discipline and focus. Learn to deal with injuries, both yours and those of your opponents.
CHAPTER 11: THE VALUE OF OPTIMISM: Being optimistic is always helpful during competition. If it does not occur naturally you can become more optimistic by deliberately focusing on the real positives that exist in every situation. Monitor your thoughts and be alert to negative ones. When one occurs replace it immediately with a positive one. A bad attitude is difficult to change in mid-match, so make sure to start out with a good one. When you are behind, hope is your most crucial asset, and it is always realistic.
CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING YOUR GAME AND THE ROLE OF PARENTS: Tennis is a difficult game and not enjoyable until you can control the ball with some level of consistency. The "middle game" is the heart of any player's game, and is learned by intelligent, repetitious practice, Tennis should generally be made fun for beginning youngsters, but some little push may occasionally be necessary. Tournaments can be motivating for kids, but they are stressful for parents and can impel even a good parent to act improperly.
CHAPTER 13: COURAGE AND HIGHER VALUES: Competing successfully in tennis is helped by focusing on character development rather than on winning. Everybody wants to win anyway. Working to develop higher values such as courage, unselfishness, consideration for others, appreciation, and morality is good for your character and will, as a by-product, reduce your stress and help you win.
CHAPTER 14: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DOUBLES: An important doubles skill is the ability to make your partner play better. You affect your partner's emotional state and level of play with your gestures and words. Champions are not concerned with parceling out blame for a loss; rather they are focused on doing what it takes to win. You can also disrupt the opposing team by attacking the weaker player and by intimidation.
42 Views
20:59:27 08/15/11
Allen Fox - Learning the Volley
[LESS INFO] 42 VIEWS | ADDED 20:59:27 08/15/11
Download file (right-click and "save as...")
About Allen Fox - Author, Speaker, Consultant:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. earned a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA where he won the NCAA Singles and Doubles titles and where he was named UCLA Athlete of the Year and All University of California Athlete of the Year. With the same competitive zeal that propelled him to the number four ranking in the United States, to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and a 3-time member of the US Davis Cup Team, he coached and built the Pepperdine University tennis team into a national power, mentoring, among others, renowned coach, Brad Gilbert. Dr Fox's Pepperdine teams were ranked among the nation's Top 5 for 10 consecutive years and reached 2 NCAA Team Finals.
Dr. Fox wrote the tennis best sellers, "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I Win?" and "Think to Win," and most recently, "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match." He is an editor of and contributor to Tennis Magazine, writes for various web sites, and is well-known for his 1-Minute Clinics on the Tennis Channel. These have been showing for the last three years. He also lectures around the world on tennis psychology, including at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and the PTR. In addition, Dr. Fox consults on the mental issues of tennis with players of all levels, from recreational players to pros and is the Mental Fitness Director at the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, CA.
A regular on the Tennis Channel, Dr. Allen Fox is the author of three previous books, "IF I'M THE BETTER PLAYER, WHY CAN'T I WIN?", "THINK TO WIN," and "THE WINNER'S MIND, a Competitor's Guide to Sports and Business Success." Dr. Fox is an editor and writer for Tennis Magazine and for his web site, allenfoxtennis.net.
WHAT'S IN HIS NEW BOOK, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match?
CHAPTER 1: WHY DO WE WANT TO WIN? Winning a tennis match feels more important than it is because players are genetically wired to compete for position on the social hierarchy. The emotions of a tennis match resemble those of a fight. Players may realize that winning a match doesn't really matter, but they will always want to win anyway.
CHAPTER 2: THE EMOTIONAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION: Tennis is inherently an emotional game. Because match outcomes feel important but are ultimately uncontrollable, matches can become stressful. There is often an unconscious urge to escape this stress, which leads to counterproductive behaviors, among which are anger, tanking, and excuse-making. These can be overpowered by the conscious mind, but it requires understanding, high motivation, and constant effort.
CHAPTER 3: USING EMOTION TO HELP YOU WIN: Your emotions will dramatically affect your tennis performance. We discuss how to keep counterproductive emotions in check and how to create productive ones that will help you win. Topics include the use of adrenalin, profiting from the time between points, and maintaining an optimal excitation level.
CHAPTER 4: REDUCING THE STRESS: Matches can become overly stressful, and this hinders performance. Stress can be reduced by developing a more realistic perspective of the game. Included are accepting outcomes that can't be controlled; resisting a narrow focus on winning; avoiding excessive perfectionism; getting over losses quickly; and using goals for hope and motivation rather than allowing them to become expectations and cause stress.
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEMS OF FINISHING: Most players become nervous and stressed when they are ahead and face the hurdle of finishing the match against a dangerous opponent. The unique tennis scoring system intensifies this problem. The closer players get to winning, the greater the stress. Trying to reduce it gives rise to counterproductive behaviors such as procrastinating the finish or becoming "overconfident" and easing up with a lead.
CHAPTER 6: CHOKING - ITS CAUSES AND HOW TO MINIMIZE ITS EFFECTS: Choking is most frequent at the finish of games, sets, and matches due to the uncertainty of outcome. You can limit choking damage by immediate acceptance of this uncertainty. Avoid stressful thoughts of winning by using rituals, focusing, and relaxation techniques. Rid yourself of the idea that choking will make you lose, and recognize that there are usually multiple opportunities to win, not just one.
CHAPTER 7: CONFIDENCE AND HOW TO GET IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT: Confidence, aka self-belief, comes mostly from winning. Though it's more difficult, you can win without it by replacing it with sufficient emotional discipline. Slumps and hot streaks occur in cycles and both end naturally with time. Stressing over a slump prolongs it. You can speed its ending by several methods which we discuss.
CHAPTER 8: GAME PLANS: Game plans give your efforts direction and structure. They can rely primarily on offence or defense but should be consistent with your personality. With Plan A you are looking for a match-up where you have a relative advantage, most commonly pitting your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses. With Plan B, which you always employ simultaneously with Plan A, you attempt to tire your opponent mentally.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING DOWN YOUR OPPONENT MENTALLY: You can weaken your opponent mentally by using dominance techniques. Be aware of momentum development - maintain it when you're winning and break it when you aren't. Take advantage of the let-downs that occur in transitional situations: at the end of sets, after long points, after service breaks, and after long games. Learn to resist becoming psyched out by opponents.
CHAPTER 10: MAINTAINING MENTAL EFFECTIVENESS IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE: Remember the Golden Rule of tennis: Never do anything on court that doesn't help you win. Decide beforehand how you will handle the frustrations and errors that are likely to occur during match play. Understand the value of intensity and its role in playing percentage tennis. Players who have beaten you too frequently get into your head. Beating them requires exceptional emotional discipline and focus. Learn to deal with injuries, both yours and those of your opponents.
CHAPTER 11: THE VALUE OF OPTIMISM: Being optimistic is always helpful during competition. If it does not occur naturally you can become more optimistic by deliberately focusing on the real positives that exist in every situation. Monitor your thoughts and be alert to negative ones. When one occurs replace it immediately with a positive one. A bad attitude is difficult to change in mid-match, so make sure to start out with a good one. When you are behind, hope is your most crucial asset, and it is always realistic.
CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING YOUR GAME AND THE ROLE OF PARENTS: Tennis is a difficult game and not enjoyable until you can control the ball with some level of consistency. The "middle game" is the heart of any player's game, and is learned by intelligent, repetitious practice, Tennis should generally be made fun for beginning youngsters, but some little push may occasionally be necessary. Tournaments can be motivating for kids, but they are stressful for parents and can impel even a good parent to act improperly.
CHAPTER 13: COURAGE AND HIGHER VALUES: Competing successfully in tennis is helped by focusing on character development rather than on winning. Everybody wants to win anyway. Working to develop higher values such as courage, unselfishness, consideration for others, appreciation, and morality is good for your character and will, as a by-product, reduce your stress and help you win.
CHAPTER 14: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DOUBLES: An important doubles skill is the ability to make your partner play better. You affect your partner's emotional state and level of play with your gestures and words. Champions are not concerned with parceling out blame for a loss; rather they are focused on doing what it takes to win. You can also disrupt the opposing team by attacking the weaker player and by intimidation.
10 Views
07:39:29 07/24/11
Leopards Helping Tigers!
[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 07:39:29 07/24/11
"CONSERVATION CANINES...A comprehensive non-invasive sampling method using detection dogs to simultaneously acquire scat samples from multiple species and guilds. When Big Cat Rescue were asked to participate in a program to help save tigers we jumped at the chance! The Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington developed the scat detection dog program in 1997 and they needed scat samples from our asian leopards in order to train their Conservation Canines before heading out to Cambodia to collect data! We're never short of leopard poop at the sanctuary and two of our senior keepers set about bagging and tagging a week's worth of leopard scat to ship up to Washington to help train the dogs. The dogs Scooby and Sadie are doing a great job out in the field and the program is going well, this is another way that Big Cat Rescue can help not just captive big cats but conservation projects around the world! Conservation Canines Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Conservation-Canines/171836484559?ref=ts The Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington's WEBSITE: http://conservationbiology.net/conservation-canines/ Footage of the work In Cambodia provided by Voice of America / Daniel Schearf For more info about BIG CAT RESCUE visit: http://www.bigcatrescue.org Find us on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Cat-Rescue-Tampa-FL/122174836956?ref=sgm MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/1bigcatrescue TWITTER: http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue DONATE: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/donate.htm THANK YOU! If you text TIGER to 20222 *A one-time donation of $5 will be added to your mobile phone bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Standard messaging/data rates may apply. All charges are billed by and payable to your mobile service provider. Service is available on most carriers. Donations are collected for the benefit of the Big Cat Rescue by the Mobile Giving Foundation and subject to the terms found at http://www.mobilecommons.com/t/. You can unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP to short code 20222; HELP to 20222 for help."
32 Views
20:30:42 05/24/11
Allen Fox - "Catch-Up" Choke
[LESS INFO] 32 VIEWS | ADDED 20:30:42 05/24/11
Download file (right-click and "save as...")
About Allen Fox - Author, Speaker, Consultant:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. earned a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA where he won the NCAA Singles and Doubles titles and where he was named UCLA Athlete of the Year and All University of California Athlete of the Year. With the same competitive zeal that propelled him to the number four ranking in the United States, to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and a 3-time member of the US Davis Cup Team, he coached and built the Pepperdine University tennis team into a national power, mentoring, among others, renowned coach, Brad Gilbert. Dr Fox's Pepperdine teams were ranked among the nation's Top 5 for 10 consecutive years and reached 2 NCAA Team Finals.
Dr. Fox wrote the tennis best sellers, "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I Win?" and "Think to Win," and most recently, "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match." He is an editor of and contributor to Tennis Magazine, writes for various web sites, and is well-known for his 1-Minute Clinics on the Tennis Channel. These have been showing for the last three years. He also lectures around the world on tennis psychology, including at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and the PTR. In addition, Dr. Fox consults on the mental issues of tennis with players of all levels, from recreational players to pros and is the Mental Fitness Director at the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, CA.
A regular on the Tennis Channel, Dr. Allen Fox is the author of three previous books, "IF I'M THE BETTER PLAYER, WHY CAN'T I WIN?", "THINK TO WIN," and "THE WINNER'S MIND, a Competitor's Guide to Sports and Business Success." Dr. Fox is an editor and writer for Tennis Magazine and for his web site, allenfoxtennis.net.
WHAT'S IN HIS NEW BOOK, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match?
CHAPTER 1: WHY DO WE WANT TO WIN? Winning a tennis match feels more important than it is because players are genetically wired to compete for position on the social hierarchy. The emotions of a tennis match resemble those of a fight. Players may realize that winning a match doesn't really matter, but they will always want to win anyway.
CHAPTER 2: THE EMOTIONAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION: Tennis is inherently an emotional game. Because match outcomes feel important but are ultimately uncontrollable, matches can become stressful. There is often an unconscious urge to escape this stress, which leads to counterproductive behaviors, among which are anger, tanking, and excuse-making. These can be overpowered by the conscious mind, but it requires understanding, high motivation, and constant effort.
CHAPTER 3: USING EMOTION TO HELP YOU WIN: Your emotions will dramatically affect your tennis performance. We discuss how to keep counterproductive emotions in check and how to create productive ones that will help you win. Topics include the use of adrenalin, profiting from the time between points, and maintaining an optimal excitation level.
CHAPTER 4: REDUCING THE STRESS: Matches can become overly stressful, and this hinders performance. Stress can be reduced by developing a more realistic perspective of the game. Included are accepting outcomes that can't be controlled; resisting a narrow focus on winning; avoiding excessive perfectionism; getting over losses quickly; and using goals for hope and motivation rather than allowing them to become expectations and cause stress.
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEMS OF FINISHING: Most players become nervous and stressed when they are ahead and face the hurdle of finishing the match against a dangerous opponent. The unique tennis scoring system intensifies this problem. The closer players get to winning, the greater the stress. Trying to reduce it gives rise to counterproductive behaviors such as procrastinating the finish or becoming "overconfident" and easing up with a lead.
CHAPTER 6: CHOKING - ITS CAUSES AND HOW TO MINIMIZE ITS EFFECTS: Choking is most frequent at the finish of games, sets, and matches due to the uncertainty of outcome. You can limit choking damage by immediate acceptance of this uncertainty. Avoid stressful thoughts of winning by using rituals, focusing, and relaxation techniques. Rid yourself of the idea that choking will make you lose, and recognize that there are usually multiple opportunities to win, not just one.
CHAPTER 7: CONFIDENCE AND HOW TO GET IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT: Confidence, aka self-belief, comes mostly from winning. Though it's more difficult, you can win without it by replacing it with sufficient emotional discipline. Slumps and hot streaks occur in cycles and both end naturally with time. Stressing over a slump prolongs it. You can speed its ending by several methods which we discuss.
CHAPTER 8: GAME PLANS: Game plans give your efforts direction and structure. They can rely primarily on offence or defense but should be consistent with your personality. With Plan A you are looking for a match-up where you have a relative advantage, most commonly pitting your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses. With Plan B, which you always employ simultaneously with Plan A, you attempt to tire your opponent mentally.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING DOWN YOUR OPPONENT MENTALLY: You can weaken your opponent mentally by using dominance techniques. Be aware of momentum development - maintain it when you're winning and break it when you aren't. Take advantage of the let-downs that occur in transitional situations: at the end of sets, after long points, after service breaks, and after long games. Learn to resist becoming psyched out by opponents.
CHAPTER 10: MAINTAINING MENTAL EFFECTIVENESS IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE: Remember the Golden Rule of tennis: Never do anything on court that doesn't help you win. Decide beforehand how you will handle the frustrations and errors that are likely to occur during match play. Understand the value of intensity and its role in playing percentage tennis. Players who have beaten you too frequently get into your head. Beating them requires exceptional emotional discipline and focus. Learn to deal with injuries, both yours and those of your opponents.
CHAPTER 11: THE VALUE OF OPTIMISM: Being optimistic is always helpful during competition. If it does not occur naturally you can become more optimistic by deliberately focusing on the real positives that exist in every situation. Monitor your thoughts and be alert to negative ones. When one occurs replace it immediately with a positive one. A bad attitude is difficult to change in mid-match, so make sure to start out with a good one. When you are behind, hope is your most crucial asset, and it is always realistic.
CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING YOUR GAME AND THE ROLE OF PARENTS: Tennis is a difficult game and not enjoyable until you can control the ball with some level of consistency. The "middle game" is the heart of any player's game, and is learned by intelligent, repetitious practice, Tennis should generally be made fun for beginning youngsters, but some little push may occasionally be necessary. Tournaments can be motivating for kids, but they are stressful for parents and can impel even a good parent to act improperly.
CHAPTER 13: COURAGE AND HIGHER VALUES: Competing successfully in tennis is helped by focusing on character development rather than on winning. Everybody wants to win anyway. Working to develop higher values such as courage, unselfishness, consideration for others, appreciation, and morality is good for your character and will, as a by-product, reduce your stress and help you win.
CHAPTER 14: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DOUBLES: An important doubles skill is the ability to make your partner play better. You affect your partner's emotional state and level of play with your gestures and words. Champions are not concerned with parceling out blame for a loss; rather they are focused on doing what it takes to win. You can also disrupt the opposing team by attacking the weaker player and by intimidation.
24 Views
00:06:45 05/23/11
Allen Fox - Choking
[LESS INFO] 24 VIEWS | ADDED 00:06:45 05/23/11
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About Allen Fox - Author, Speaker, Consultant:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. earned a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA where he won the NCAA Singles and Doubles titles and where he was named UCLA Athlete of the Year and All University of California Athlete of the Year. With the same competitive zeal that propelled him to the number four ranking in the United States, to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and a 3-time member of the US Davis Cup Team, he coached and built the Pepperdine University tennis team into a national power, mentoring, among others, renowned coach, Brad Gilbert. Dr Fox's Pepperdine teams were ranked among the nation's Top 5 for 10 consecutive years and reached 2 NCAA Team Finals.
Dr. Fox wrote the tennis best sellers, "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I Win?" and "Think to Win," and most recently, "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match." He is an editor of and contributor to Tennis Magazine, writes for various web sites, and is well-known for his 1-Minute Clinics on the Tennis Channel. These have been showing for the last three years. He also lectures around the world on tennis psychology, including at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and the PTR. In addition, Dr. Fox consults on the mental issues of tennis with players of all levels, from recreational players to pros and is the Mental Fitness Director at the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, CA.
A regular on the Tennis Channel, Dr. Allen Fox is the author of three previous books, "IF I'M THE BETTER PLAYER, WHY CAN'T I WIN?", "THINK TO WIN," and "THE WINNER'S MIND, a Competitor's Guide to Sports and Business Success." Dr. Fox is an editor and writer for Tennis Magazine and for his web site, allenfoxtennis.net.
WHAT'S IN HIS NEW BOOK, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match?
CHAPTER 1: WHY DO WE WANT TO WIN? Winning a tennis match feels more important than it is because players are genetically wired to compete for position on the social hierarchy. The emotions of a tennis match resemble those of a fight. Players may realize that winning a match doesn't really matter, but they will always want to win anyway.
CHAPTER 2: THE EMOTIONAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION: Tennis is inherently an emotional game. Because match outcomes feel important but are ultimately uncontrollable, matches can become stressful. There is often an unconscious urge to escape this stress, which leads to counterproductive behaviors, among which are anger, tanking, and excuse-making. These can be overpowered by the conscious mind, but it requires understanding, high motivation, and constant effort.
CHAPTER 3: USING EMOTION TO HELP YOU WIN: Your emotions will dramatically affect your tennis performance. We discuss how to keep counterproductive emotions in check and how to create productive ones that will help you win. Topics include the use of adrenalin, profiting from the time between points, and maintaining an optimal excitation level.
CHAPTER 4: REDUCING THE STRESS: Matches can become overly stressful, and this hinders performance. Stress can be reduced by developing a more realistic perspective of the game. Included are accepting outcomes that can't be controlled; resisting a narrow focus on winning; avoiding excessive perfectionism; getting over losses quickly; and using goals for hope and motivation rather than allowing them to become expectations and cause stress.
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEMS OF FINISHING: Most players become nervous and stressed when they are ahead and face the hurdle of finishing the match against a dangerous opponent. The unique tennis scoring system intensifies this problem. The closer players get to winning, the greater the stress. Trying to reduce it gives rise to counterproductive behaviors such as procrastinating the finish or becoming "overconfident" and easing up with a lead.
CHAPTER 6: CHOKING - ITS CAUSES AND HOW TO MINIMIZE ITS EFFECTS: Choking is most frequent at the finish of games, sets, and matches due to the uncertainty of outcome. You can limit choking damage by immediate acceptance of this uncertainty. Avoid stressful thoughts of winning by using rituals, focusing, and relaxation techniques. Rid yourself of the idea that choking will make you lose, and recognize that there are usually multiple opportunities to win, not just one.
CHAPTER 7: CONFIDENCE AND HOW TO GET IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT: Confidence, aka self-belief, comes mostly from winning. Though it's more difficult, you can win without it by replacing it with sufficient emotional discipline. Slumps and hot streaks occur in cycles and both end naturally with time. Stressing over a slump prolongs it. You can speed its ending by several methods which we discuss.
CHAPTER 8: GAME PLANS: Game plans give your efforts direction and structure. They can rely primarily on offence or defense but should be consistent with your personality. With Plan A you are looking for a match-up where you have a relative advantage, most commonly pitting your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses. With Plan B, which you always employ simultaneously with Plan A, you attempt to tire your opponent mentally.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING DOWN YOUR OPPONENT MENTALLY: You can weaken your opponent mentally by using dominance techniques. Be aware of momentum development - maintain it when you're winning and break it when you aren't. Take advantage of the let-downs that occur in transitional situations: at the end of sets, after long points, after service breaks, and after long games. Learn to resist becoming psyched out by opponents.
CHAPTER 10: MAINTAINING MENTAL EFFECTIVENESS IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE: Remember the Golden Rule of tennis: Never do anything on court that doesn't help you win. Decide beforehand how you will handle the frustrations and errors that are likely to occur during match play. Understand the value of intensity and its role in playing percentage tennis. Players who have beaten you too frequently get into your head. Beating them requires exceptional emotional discipline and focus. Learn to deal with injuries, both yours and those of your opponents.
CHAPTER 11: THE VALUE OF OPTIMISM: Being optimistic is always helpful during competition. If it does not occur naturally you can become more optimistic by deliberately focusing on the real positives that exist in every situation. Monitor your thoughts and be alert to negative ones. When one occurs replace it immediately with a positive one. A bad attitude is difficult to change in mid-match, so make sure to start out with a good one. When you are behind, hope is your most crucial asset, and it is always realistic.
CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING YOUR GAME AND THE ROLE OF PARENTS: Tennis is a difficult game and not enjoyable until you can control the ball with some level of consistency. The "middle game" is the heart of any player's game, and is learned by intelligent, repetitious practice, Tennis should generally be made fun for beginning youngsters, but some little push may occasionally be necessary. Tournaments can be motivating for kids, but they are stressful for parents and can impel even a good parent to act improperly.
CHAPTER 13: COURAGE AND HIGHER VALUES: Competing successfully in tennis is helped by focusing on character development rather than on winning. Everybody wants to win anyway. Working to develop higher values such as courage, unselfishness, consideration for others, appreciation, and morality is good for your character and will, as a by-product, reduce your stress and help you win.
CHAPTER 14: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DOUBLES: An important doubles skill is the ability to make your partner play better. You affect your partner's emotional state and level of play with your gestures and words. Champions are not concerned with parceling out blame for a loss; rather they are focused on doing what it takes to win. You can also disrupt the opposing team by attacking the weaker player and by intimidation.
24 Views
20:05:57 05/17/11
Allen Fox - Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
[LESS INFO] 24 VIEWS | ADDED 20:05:57 05/17/11
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About Allen Fox - Author, Speaker, Consultant:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. earned a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA where he won the NCAA Singles and Doubles titles and where he was named UCLA Athlete of the Year and All University of California Athlete of the Year. With the same competitive zeal that propelled him to the number four ranking in the United States, to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and a 3-time member of the US Davis Cup Team, he coached and built the Pepperdine University tennis team into a national power, mentoring, among others, renowned coach, Brad Gilbert. Dr Fox's Pepperdine teams were ranked among the nation's Top 5 for 10 consecutive years and reached 2 NCAA Team Finals.
Dr. Fox wrote the tennis best sellers, "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I Win?" and "Think to Win," and most recently, "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match." He is an editor of and contributor to Tennis Magazine, writes for various web sites, and is well-known for his 1-Minute Clinics on the Tennis Channel. These have been showing for the last three years. He also lectures around the world on tennis psychology, including at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and the PTR. In addition, Dr. Fox consults on the mental issues of tennis with players of all levels, from recreational players to pros and is the Mental Fitness Director at the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, CA.
A regular on the Tennis Channel, Dr. Allen Fox is the author of three previous books, "IF I'M THE BETTER PLAYER, WHY CAN'T I WIN?", "THINK TO WIN," and "THE WINNER'S MIND, a Competitor's Guide to Sports and Business Success." Dr. Fox is an editor and writer for Tennis Magazine and for his web site, allenfoxtennis.net.
WHAT'S IN HIS NEW BOOK, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match?
CHAPTER 1: WHY DO WE WANT TO WIN? Winning a tennis match feels more important than it is because players are genetically wired to compete for position on the social hierarchy. The emotions of a tennis match resemble those of a fight. Players may realize that winning a match doesn't really matter, but they will always want to win anyway.
CHAPTER 2: THE EMOTIONAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION: Tennis is inherently an emotional game. Because match outcomes feel important but are ultimately uncontrollable, matches can become stressful. There is often an unconscious urge to escape this stress, which leads to counterproductive behaviors, among which are anger, tanking, and excuse-making. These can be overpowered by the conscious mind, but it requires understanding, high motivation, and constant effort.
CHAPTER 3: USING EMOTION TO HELP YOU WIN: Your emotions will dramatically affect your tennis performance. We discuss how to keep counterproductive emotions in check and how to create productive ones that will help you win. Topics include the use of adrenalin, profiting from the time between points, and maintaining an optimal excitation level.
CHAPTER 4: REDUCING THE STRESS: Matches can become overly stressful, and this hinders performance. Stress can be reduced by developing a more realistic perspective of the game. Included are accepting outcomes that can't be controlled; resisting a narrow focus on winning; avoiding excessive perfectionism; getting over losses quickly; and using goals for hope and motivation rather than allowing them to become expectations and cause stress.
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEMS OF FINISHING: Most players become nervous and stressed when they are ahead and face the hurdle of finishing the match against a dangerous opponent. The unique tennis scoring system intensifies this problem. The closer players get to winning, the greater the stress. Trying to reduce it gives rise to counterproductive behaviors such as procrastinating the finish or becoming "overconfident" and easing up with a lead.
CHAPTER 6: CHOKING - ITS CAUSES AND HOW TO MINIMIZE ITS EFFECTS: Choking is most frequent at the finish of games, sets, and matches due to the uncertainty of outcome. You can limit choking damage by immediate acceptance of this uncertainty. Avoid stressful thoughts of winning by using rituals, focusing, and relaxation techniques. Rid yourself of the idea that choking will make you lose, and recognize that there are usually multiple opportunities to win, not just one.
CHAPTER 7: CONFIDENCE AND HOW TO GET IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT: Confidence, aka self-belief, comes mostly from winning. Though it's more difficult, you can win without it by replacing it with sufficient emotional discipline. Slumps and hot streaks occur in cycles and both end naturally with time. Stressing over a slump prolongs it. You can speed its ending by several methods which we discuss.
CHAPTER 8: GAME PLANS: Game plans give your efforts direction and structure. They can rely primarily on offence or defense but should be consistent with your personality. With Plan A you are looking for a match-up where you have a relative advantage, most commonly pitting your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses. With Plan B, which you always employ simultaneously with Plan A, you attempt to tire your opponent mentally.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING DOWN YOUR OPPONENT MENTALLY: You can weaken your opponent mentally by using dominance techniques. Be aware of momentum development - maintain it when you're winning and break it when you aren't. Take advantage of the let-downs that occur in transitional situations: at the end of sets, after long points, after service breaks, and after long games. Learn to resist becoming psyched out by opponents.
CHAPTER 10: MAINTAINING MENTAL EFFECTIVENESS IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE: Remember the Golden Rule of tennis: Never do anything on court that doesn't help you win. Decide beforehand how you will handle the frustrations and errors that are likely to occur during match play. Understand the value of intensity and its role in playing percentage tennis. Players who have beaten you too frequently get into your head. Beating them requires exceptional emotional discipline and focus. Learn to deal with injuries, both yours and those of your opponents.
CHAPTER 11: THE VALUE OF OPTIMISM: Being optimistic is always helpful during competition. If it does not occur naturally you can become more optimistic by deliberately focusing on the real positives that exist in every situation. Monitor your thoughts and be alert to negative ones. When one occurs replace it immediately with a positive one. A bad attitude is difficult to change in mid-match, so make sure to start out with a good one. When you are behind, hope is your most crucial asset, and it is always realistic.
CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING YOUR GAME AND THE ROLE OF PARENTS: Tennis is a difficult game and not enjoyable until you can control the ball with some level of consistency. The "middle game" is the heart of any player's game, and is learned by intelligent, repetitious practice, Tennis should generally be made fun for beginning youngsters, but some little push may occasionally be necessary. Tournaments can be motivating for kids, but they are stressful for parents and can impel even a good parent to act improperly.
CHAPTER 13: COURAGE AND HIGHER VALUES: Competing successfully in tennis is helped by focusing on character development rather than on winning. Everybody wants to win anyway. Working to develop higher values such as courage, unselfishness, consideration for others, appreciation, and morality is good for your character and will, as a by-product, reduce your stress and help you win.
CHAPTER 14: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DOUBLES: An important doubles skill is the ability to make your partner play better. You affect your partner's emotional state and level of play with your gestures and words. Champions are not concerned with parceling out blame for a loss; rather they are focused on doing what it takes to win. You can also disrupt the opposing team by attacking the weaker player and by intimidation.
31 Views
20:12:53 05/10/11
Allen Fox - Fight & Emotion
[LESS INFO] 31 VIEWS | ADDED 20:12:53 05/10/11
Download file (right-click and "save as...")
About Allen Fox - Author, Speaker, Consultant:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. earned a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA where he won the NCAA Singles and Doubles titles and where he was named UCLA Athlete of the Year and All University of California Athlete of the Year. With the same competitive zeal that propelled him to the number four ranking in the United States, to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and a 3-time member of the US Davis Cup Team, he coached and built the Pepperdine University tennis team into a national power, mentoring, among others, renowned coach, Brad Gilbert. Dr Fox's Pepperdine teams were ranked among the nation's Top 5 for 10 consecutive years and reached 2 NCAA Team Finals.
Dr. Fox wrote the tennis best sellers, "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I Win?" and "Think to Win," and most recently, "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match." He is an editor of and contributor to Tennis Magazine, writes for various web sites, and is well-known for his 1-Minute Clinics on the Tennis Channel. These have been showing for the last three years. He also lectures around the world on tennis psychology, including at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and the PTR. In addition, Dr. Fox consults on the mental issues of tennis with players of all levels, from recreational players to pros and is the Mental Fitness Director at the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, CA.
A regular on the Tennis Channel, Dr. Allen Fox is the author of three previous books, "IF I'M THE BETTER PLAYER, WHY CAN'T I WIN?", "THINK TO WIN," and "THE WINNER'S MIND, a Competitor's Guide to Sports and Business Success." Dr. Fox is an editor and writer for Tennis Magazine and for his web site, allenfoxtennis.net.
WHAT'S IN HIS NEW BOOK, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match?
CHAPTER 1: WHY DO WE WANT TO WIN? Winning a tennis match feels more important than it is because players are genetically wired to compete for position on the social hierarchy. The emotions of a tennis match resemble those of a fight. Players may realize that winning a match doesn't really matter, but they will always want to win anyway.
CHAPTER 2: THE EMOTIONAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION: Tennis is inherently an emotional game. Because match outcomes feel important but are ultimately uncontrollable, matches can become stressful. There is often an unconscious urge to escape this stress, which leads to counterproductive behaviors, among which are anger, tanking, and excuse-making. These can be overpowered by the conscious mind, but it requires understanding, high motivation, and constant effort.
CHAPTER 3: USING EMOTION TO HELP YOU WIN: Your emotions will dramatically affect your tennis performance. We discuss how to keep counterproductive emotions in check and how to create productive ones that will help you win. Topics include the use of adrenalin, profiting from the time between points, and maintaining an optimal excitation level.
CHAPTER 4: REDUCING THE STRESS: Matches can become overly stressful, and this hinders performance. Stress can be reduced by developing a more realistic perspective of the game. Included are accepting outcomes that can't be controlled; resisting a narrow focus on winning; avoiding excessive perfectionism; getting over losses quickly; and using goals for hope and motivation rather than allowing them to become expectations and cause stress.
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEMS OF FINISHING: Most players become nervous and stressed when they are ahead and face the hurdle of finishing the match against a dangerous opponent. The unique tennis scoring system intensifies this problem. The closer players get to winning, the greater the stress. Trying to reduce it gives rise to counterproductive behaviors such as procrastinating the finish or becoming "overconfident" and easing up with a lead.
CHAPTER 6: CHOKING - ITS CAUSES AND HOW TO MINIMIZE ITS EFFECTS: Choking is most frequent at the finish of games, sets, and matches due to the uncertainty of outcome. You can limit choking damage by immediate acceptance of this uncertainty. Avoid stressful thoughts of winning by using rituals, focusing, and relaxation techniques. Rid yourself of the idea that choking will make you lose, and recognize that there are usually multiple opportunities to win, not just one.
CHAPTER 7: CONFIDENCE AND HOW TO GET IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT: Confidence, aka self-belief, comes mostly from winning. Though it's more difficult, you can win without it by replacing it with sufficient emotional discipline. Slumps and hot streaks occur in cycles and both end naturally with time. Stressing over a slump prolongs it. You can speed its ending by several methods which we discuss.
CHAPTER 8: GAME PLANS: Game plans give your efforts direction and structure. They can rely primarily on offence or defense but should be consistent with your personality. With Plan A you are looking for a match-up where you have a relative advantage, most commonly pitting your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses. With Plan B, which you always employ simultaneously with Plan A, you attempt to tire your opponent mentally.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING DOWN YOUR OPPONENT MENTALLY: You can weaken your opponent mentally by using dominance techniques. Be aware of momentum development - maintain it when you're winning and break it when you aren't. Take advantage of the let-downs that occur in transitional situations: at the end of sets, after long points, after service breaks, and after long games. Learn to resist becoming psyched out by opponents.
CHAPTER 10: MAINTAINING MENTAL EFFECTIVENESS IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE: Remember the Golden Rule of tennis: Never do anything on court that doesn't help you win. Decide beforehand how you will handle the frustrations and errors that are likely to occur during match play. Understand the value of intensity and its role in playing percentage tennis. Players who have beaten you too frequently get into your head. Beating them requires exceptional emotional discipline and focus. Learn to deal with injuries, both yours and those of your opponents.
CHAPTER 11: THE VALUE OF OPTIMISM: Being optimistic is always helpful during competition. If it does not occur naturally you can become more optimistic by deliberately focusing on the real positives that exist in every situation. Monitor your thoughts and be alert to negative ones. When one occurs replace it immediately with a positive one. A bad attitude is difficult to change in mid-match, so make sure to start out with a good one. When you are behind, hope is your most crucial asset, and it is always realistic.
CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING YOUR GAME AND THE ROLE OF PARENTS: Tennis is a difficult game and not enjoyable until you can control the ball with some level of consistency. The "middle game" is the heart of any player's game, and is learned by intelligent, repetitious practice, Tennis should generally be made fun for beginning youngsters, but some little push may occasionally be necessary. Tournaments can be motivating for kids, but they are stressful for parents and can impel even a good parent to act improperly.
CHAPTER 13: COURAGE AND HIGHER VALUES: Competing successfully in tennis is helped by focusing on character development rather than on winning. Everybody wants to win anyway. Working to develop higher values such as courage, unselfishness, consideration for others, appreciation, and morality is good for your character and will, as a by-product, reduce your stress and help you win.
CHAPTER 14: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DOUBLES: An important doubles skill is the ability to make your partner play better. You affect your partner's emotional state and level of play with your gestures and words. Champions are not concerned with parceling out blame for a loss; rather they are focused on doing what it takes to win. You can also disrupt the opposing team by attacking the weaker player and by intimidation.
41 Views
19:26:46 05/06/11
Allen Fox - Emotional Drive
[LESS INFO] 41 VIEWS | ADDED 19:26:46 05/06/11
Download file (right-click and "save as...")
About Allen Fox - Author, Speaker, Consultant:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. earned a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA where he won the NCAA Singles and Doubles titles and where he was named UCLA Athlete of the Year and All University of California Athlete of the Year. With the same competitive zeal that propelled him to the number four ranking in the United States, to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and a 3-time member of the US Davis Cup Team, he coached and built the Pepperdine University tennis team into a national power, mentoring, among others, renowned coach, Brad Gilbert. Dr Fox's Pepperdine teams were ranked among the nation's Top 5 for 10 consecutive years and reached 2 NCAA Team Finals.
Dr. Fox wrote the tennis best sellers, "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I Win?" and "Think to Win," and most recently, "Tennis: Winning the Mental Match." He is an editor of and contributor to Tennis Magazine, writes for various web sites, and is well-known for his 1-Minute Clinics on the Tennis Channel. These have been showing for the last three years. He also lectures around the world on tennis psychology, including at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and the PTR. In addition, Dr. Fox consults on the mental issues of tennis with players of all levels, from recreational players to pros and is the Mental Fitness Director at the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, CA.
A regular on the Tennis Channel, Dr. Allen Fox is the author of three previous books, "IF I'M THE BETTER PLAYER, WHY CAN'T I WIN?", "THINK TO WIN," and "THE WINNER'S MIND, a Competitor's Guide to Sports and Business Success." Dr. Fox is an editor and writer for Tennis Magazine and for his web site, allenfoxtennis.net.
WHAT'S IN HIS NEW BOOK, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match?
CHAPTER 1: WHY DO WE WANT TO WIN? Winning a tennis match feels more important than it is because players are genetically wired to compete for position on the social hierarchy. The emotions of a tennis match resemble those of a fight. Players may realize that winning a match doesn't really matter, but they will always want to win anyway.
CHAPTER 2: THE EMOTIONAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION: Tennis is inherently an emotional game. Because match outcomes feel important but are ultimately uncontrollable, matches can become stressful. There is often an unconscious urge to escape this stress, which leads to counterproductive behaviors, among which are anger, tanking, and excuse-making. These can be overpowered by the conscious mind, but it requires understanding, high motivation, and constant effort.
CHAPTER 3: USING EMOTION TO HELP YOU WIN: Your emotions will dramatically affect your tennis performance. We discuss how to keep counterproductive emotions in check and how to create productive ones that will help you win. Topics include the use of adrenalin, profiting from the time between points, and maintaining an optimal excitation level.
CHAPTER 4: REDUCING THE STRESS: Matches can become overly stressful, and this hinders performance. Stress can be reduced by developing a more realistic perspective of the game. Included are accepting outcomes that can't be controlled; resisting a narrow focus on winning; avoiding excessive perfectionism; getting over losses quickly; and using goals for hope and motivation rather than allowing them to become expectations and cause stress.
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEMS OF FINISHING: Most players become nervous and stressed when they are ahead and face the hurdle of finishing the match against a dangerous opponent. The unique tennis scoring system intensifies this problem. The closer players get to winning, the greater the stress. Trying to reduce it gives rise to counterproductive behaviors such as procrastinating the finish or becoming "overconfident" and easing up with a lead.
CHAPTER 6: CHOKING - ITS CAUSES AND HOW TO MINIMIZE ITS EFFECTS: Choking is most frequent at the finish of games, sets, and matches due to the uncertainty of outcome. You can limit choking damage by immediate acceptance of this uncertainty. Avoid stressful thoughts of winning by using rituals, focusing, and relaxation techniques. Rid yourself of the idea that choking will make you lose, and recognize that there are usually multiple opportunities to win, not just one.
CHAPTER 7: CONFIDENCE AND HOW TO GET IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT: Confidence, aka self-belief, comes mostly from winning. Though it's more difficult, you can win without it by replacing it with sufficient emotional discipline. Slumps and hot streaks occur in cycles and both end naturally with time. Stressing over a slump prolongs it. You can speed its ending by several methods which we discuss.
CHAPTER 8: GAME PLANS: Game plans give your efforts direction and structure. They can rely primarily on offence or defense but should be consistent with your personality. With Plan A you are looking for a match-up where you have a relative advantage, most commonly pitting your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses. With Plan B, which you always employ simultaneously with Plan A, you attempt to tire your opponent mentally.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING DOWN YOUR OPPONENT MENTALLY: You can weaken your opponent mentally by using dominance techniques. Be aware of momentum development - maintain it when you're winning and break it when you aren't. Take advantage of the let-downs that occur in transitional situations: at the end of sets, after long points, after service breaks, and after long games. Learn to resist becoming psyched out by opponents.
CHAPTER 10: MAINTAINING MENTAL EFFECTIVENESS IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE: Remember the Golden Rule of tennis: Never do anything on court that doesn't help you win. Decide beforehand how you will handle the frustrations and errors that are likely to occur during match play. Understand the value of intensity and its role in playing percentage tennis. Players who have beaten you too frequently get into your head. Beating them requires exceptional emotional discipline and focus. Learn to deal with injuries, both yours and those of your opponents.
CHAPTER 11: THE VALUE OF OPTIMISM: Being optimistic is always helpful during competition. If it does not occur naturally you can become more optimistic by deliberately focusing on the real positives that exist in every situation. Monitor your thoughts and be alert to negative ones. When one occurs replace it immediately with a positive one. A bad attitude is difficult to change in mid-match, so make sure to start out with a good one. When you are behind, hope is your most crucial asset, and it is always realistic.
CHAPTER 12: DEVELOPING YOUR GAME AND THE ROLE OF PARENTS: Tennis is a difficult game and not enjoyable until you can control the ball with some level of consistency. The "middle game" is the heart of any player's game, and is learned by intelligent, repetitious practice, Tennis should generally be made fun for beginning youngsters, but some little push may occasionally be necessary. Tournaments can be motivating for kids, but they are stressful for parents and can impel even a good parent to act improperly.
CHAPTER 13: COURAGE AND HIGHER VALUES: Competing successfully in tennis is helped by focusing on character development rather than on winning. Everybody wants to win anyway. Working to develop higher values such as courage, unselfishness, consideration for others, appreciation, and morality is good for your character and will, as a by-product, reduce your stress and help you win.
CHAPTER 14: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DOUBLES: An important doubles skill is the ability to make your partner play better. You affect your partner's emotional state and level of play with your gestures and words. Champions are not concerned with parceling out blame for a loss; rather they are focused on doing what it takes to win. You can also disrupt the opposing team by attacking the weaker player and by intimidation.
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20:32:32 09/10/10
Hitler Glenn Beck And The Church Part 3 Conservative Fascism
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 20:32:32 09/10/10
For more information go to : http://roarnomore.blogspot.com/2010/09/church-hitler-and-glenn-beck.html Now back to our discussion of the volk. As we have seen, Hitler was by no means a lover of Christianity. A plain reading of Mein Kampf will make this obviously clear. He intended to use the church as an organization for the furtherance of German nationalism, but it had to be in lock step with the Nazi party in order to justify its existence. When Hitler referred to Martin Luther in a favorable light notice he didn't go into any specifics. Martin Luther was a hero of the German people of which about 2/3 were proclaimed Lutherans. Hitler saw the history of Germany and its figures, even the ones he would have disagreed with, as being worthy of study and admiration simply because they were German. This is undeniably, in our country, more of a phenomenon of the right. I myself enjoy the study of history and admire such men as Patrick Henry, Robert. E Lee, and Ronald Reagan. However, the idea of "American Exceptionalism" I fear is all to similar to Hitler's German nationalism. Certain parts of our history are whitewashed in order to prove that "America isn't really all that bad." We are fooled into thinking that when we have made mistakes, that's all they were, and they were somehow caused because of a departure from our "real" values. Some conservative Christians will even say that we are "special," "unique," or "chosen." Rev. Peter Marshall's children's book The Light and the Glory comes to mind. Sometimes when I hear conservatives say such things I want to ask, "What are we, modern Israel?" Fortunately, American Exceptionalism has not been used by conservatives to rally us around the state, at least to the extent that Hitler used it. Of course Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Webster did go in that direction, but I wouldn't consider them anything remotely similar to true conservatives. One of the mainstays of conservatism is that it is antithetical to state control and is instead for federalism and individual freedom. Glenn Beck I think understands this, but he's on thin ice by reinforcing a tool that can easily be used against conservative ideals. Let me offer up a hypothetical. Barack Obama wants a Civilian Defense Force that's as well funded as the military in addition to a Universal Volunteer Civilian Service organization. Mike Huckabee- who I agree with 88% of the time- stated this frightening proposal in his, for the most part insightful book, Do The Right Thing. During the Depression, the WPA provided jobs to lift Americans out of poverty. Today we need national-service jobs so that more Americans can give back out of their abundance; others still need to be lifted out of poverty. A year of civilian service can be a path for those who have dropped out of school or who are trapped in dead-end jobs to gain some marketable skills and make a fresh start. . . If a voluntary system does not work, we should seriously debate making civilian service mandatory. There you have it. A "conservative" and a "liberal" agreeing on something that, if implemented, would erode individual freedom even more. We're talking about a civilian draft for crying out loud! Hitler was supposedly able to reach 100% employment through the similar method of requiring that everyone in the nation be employed in a certain skill. The state would even pay for the training and the vacation expenses. As Mussolini so rightly described fascism, "Everything within the state. Nothing outside the state!" The United States secretary of education Arne Duncan wants every facet of social life to revolve around the government sponsored and controlled public school. Don't believe me? Simply watch his interview on Charlie Rose last year. Here's the point: If somehow the American Exceptionalism of the right is linked to the mandatory state control of the left, we will be witnessing a force for the destruction of the church like this country has never seen. The current rallying cries for state intervention in our lives- the ones coming from the left- have little do with our heritage or religion, and more to do with political correctness. The evangelical church, although it has bought into many politically correct ideas, will not consider this a very compelling rallying cry, and neither will the majority of the American people, at least not at this point. Liberals are always looking for a "moral equivalent to war" as Jonah Goldberg calls it, because war is the one situation in which the nation pulls together under the guidance of a powerful state. The green movement is perhaps the best modern example. We are supposed to re-knit the very fabric of our society for the good of the planet and accept any state imposition to this end. Ironically, Hitler had his own green movement which we will not go into detail about now. The green movement does not see the military as a solution. On the contrary, the military is the problem with their pesky bombs and use of gasoline. German nationalism however was entirely devoted to military service. This is perhaps another distinction between the right and left of the U.S. The left does not have the military fervor of the right and the right lacks the enthusiasm for the state that the left possesses. So what happens when in an effort to save our heritage and honor our military we rally around the state? This is where Glenn Beck's 8.28 comes into play. No it did not cause us to rally around the state, but it had the potential. Let me ask, "If there were a 'conservative' in the white house, how might it have turned out?" Beck held the rally near the footsteps of a giant Bolshevik looking statue of a true statist, Abraham Lincoln, with thousands of supporters flying the American flag and pledging themselves to "restoring" honor. Beck then invoked an "American" ecumenical like God while devoting most of the event to the honor of our military. None of these things is "fascistic" in and of itself, however, something smells awfully suspicious, and it's about to stink even worse. If things don't make sense, keep reading.
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17:46:49 04/11/10
Date Night starring - Steve Carell and Tina Fey
[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 17:46:49 04/11/10
Action-comedy maestro Shawn Levy, the director of the blockbuster “Night at the Museum” franchise, teams up with two of the comedy world’s biggest talents, Steve Carell (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “The Office”) and Tina Fey (“Baby Mama,” “30 Rock,” “SNL”) for an adventure that turns a run-of-the-mill married couple’s date upside down – way upside down, in DATE NIGHT.
Phil (Carell) and Claire Foster (Fey) are a sensible, loving couple with two kids and a house in suburban New Jersey. The Fosters have their weekly “date night” – an attempt at re-experiencing the spice of the dates of yesteryear, involving the same weekly night out at the local Teaneck Tavern. Their conversations quickly drift from barely-date talk to the same chore-chat they have at the dinner table at home. Exhausted from their jobs and kids, their dates rarely end in fore- or any other kind of play, let alone romance.
After seeing two of their best friends – another married couple with kids in suburban New Jersey – split apart from living the same life they themselves lead, Phil and Claire begin to fear what may lie ahead: a state of bland indifference and eventual separation.
In an attempt to take date night off auto-pilot, and hopefully inject a little spice into their lives, Phil decides a change of plans is in order: take Claire into Manhattan to the city’s hottest new restaurant. The Fosters, however, don’t have reservations. Hoping to be seated sometime before the clock strikes twelve, they steal a no-show couple’s reservations. What could it hurt? Phil and Claire are now the Tripplehorns.
The real Tripplehorns, however, it turns out, are a thieving couple who are being hunted down by a pair of corrupt cops for having stolen property from some very dangerous people. Forced on the run before they’ve even finished their risotto, Phil and Claire soon realize that their play-date-for-parents has gone hilariously awry, as they embark on a wild and dangerous series of crazy adventures to save their lives. . . and their marriage.
The ritual “date night” dinner is something all too familiar to most married couples – even directors of blockbuster movies. “I was in the process of making the second Night at the Museum film,” recalls filmmaker Shawn Levy, “and, as is kind of our ritual, once a week, my wife and I go out to dinner.”
At one such dinner, the Levys found themselves sitting at the restaurant they frequented, ordering the same food, talking about the kids, what’s coming up that weekend, who’s going to buy the gift for which birthday party, etc., etc. “In the middle of all that, I said to my wife, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a movie about a date night, where you just did one thing differently? And, from there, you have an unraveling of everything, to the point of it threatening your life and your marriage, with all kinds of crazy stuff going on. But, in the midst of all that crazy stuff, you end up recapturing the vitality that date night was invented in the first place to preserve.’”
The next morning, Levy came in to his production company office and told his staff, “Okay, we’re going to do a movie called DATE NIGHT, and here’s what it’s about, and let’s get a writer. Let’s go.”
Levy’s search for a writer didn’t take very long. “I had written a small, quirky film, called ‘(Saint) Peter,’ which Shawn had read and fell in love with, recalls screenwriter Josh Klausner. “Shawn was determined to find something for us to work on together. He very graciously took a big chance and had me fly out, and we started brainstorming.”
Levy and Klausner met at Levy’s bungalow on the Fox lot, where they quickly broke the story. “We are both in the same stage of life,” Klausner says. “We both have children and go out on date nights, knowing what they’re supposed to be, but realizing they never end up being that anymore because there are so many other things that get in the way. So we started talking about those experiences.”
“We talked about our marriages,” Levy adds. “And we found that there are certain commonalities in trying to sustain a vibrant, romantic relationship,” and not simply becoming roommates. “It’s the question of in the midst of grownup life, how do you keep couple-hood fresh?”
DATE NIGHT was originally conceived as more of a suburban story centered around a parent-teacher conference night, but quickly evolved into, as Klausner calls it, “the perfect ‘North by Northwest’ setup” of mistaken identity.
“Shawn and I really wanted what spurs on the evening to be something that we all might do,” Klausner continues. “Phil and Claire simply can’t get a seat at a restaurant, and, since nobody’s answering the call for a reservation, they just decide, ‘What’s the harm in taking it?’ And it leads them down the rabbit hole. From there, they end up on the worst night of their lives, which ends up being the best night for their relationship.”
Levy describes the film as being “in the spirit of action comedies I remember fondly, like ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ or ‘48 Hrs.’ DATE NIGHT has a real hybrid tone, because it’s first and foremost a comedy. It also has a hefty dose of action, as well as a lot of heart, because it’s about the things that people deal with in relationships.”
For Levy, DATE NIGHT is a change from the family-friendly hits he’s helmed, like “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Pink Panther” and “Night at the Museum.” DATE NIGHT is more of an adult-skewing comedy,” Levy points out. “In a way, it’s the other side of the movies I’ve done, which have been focused on the child-parent relationships. DATE NIGHT is focused on the marriage side – what happens after the children go to sleep.”
Levy was keen to keep the emotional side of the story intact through the mayhem experienced by the characters. “If you’re making a movie about relationships and being a married couple, it must be more than just funny, because life doesn’t work that way,” the director explains. “This movie has some surprising moments of poignancy.”
“A lot of comedies these days feel like a compendium of gags tied together to follow a narrative story,” notes Klausner. “DATE NIGHT, at its heart, is about marriage and being in love with somebody, but at the same time, life gets in the way. It’s honest, which is something Steve and Tina wanted, too. I’m proud that this movie has preserved that soul.”
When Levy learned that Steve Carell and Tina Fey were hoping to find a project on which they could work together, he knew he had found his DATE NIGHT duo. “We got an early draft of the screenplay to Tina and Steve, who always struck me as the dream pairing for a movie about marriage,” Levy says. “They said, ‘Yeah, we relate to this, we want to do an action comedy that’s also honest about relationships.’ So they said they were in.”
While Levy usually takes a break between completing one feature and beginning the next, he found himself prepping DATE NIGHT while editing “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” in order to take advantage of his stars’ availability. “Steve’s and Tina’s series commitments [on, respectively, “The Office” and “30 Rock”] provides only a limited window for feature film work,” Levy explains. “They told us, ‘Look, we want to do this, but we’re free now, and we’re not going to be free in six months – what do we do?’ I said, ‘Well, we make the movie right now!’ I didn’t get a break between films, but I got a comedy with Steve Carell and Tina Fey, who are two of the most intelligent, interesting people working in comedy today. So a lot of my job was to come up with the idea, get the two perfect actors for the movie, and then get the hell out of the way.”
While slight alterations to the script were made to match the stars’ comedic voices, DATE NIGHT was essentially tailor-made for the pair. “It felt like the film was written for them,” says Klausner. Adds Levy: “Three minutes into this movie, you buy Steve and Tina as a married couple. They have a powerful chemistry together. They clicked completely on screen.”
Phil, says Carell, “feels underappreciated by his friends and family, but he sort of keeps that feeling close to his chest. He’s a very loving guy, but he and Claire have reached a plateau in their relationship. He needs to snap himself out of it, if possible. And the night that he and Claire experience together is a defibrillator for their marriage.”
Carell’s comedic skills, along with his ability to stir audiences’ hearts, made him the perfect choice for the role, Levy says. “Steve is super funny, and his chops as an actor are fantastic. He not only carries entire comedy sequences on his back, but three scenes later, he’s moving you to an emotional place with such sincerity and nuance. There’s no end to what he can do.”
Carell says his own date nights, like Phil Foster’s (and Levy’s and Klausner’s), leave much to be desired. “Sometimes the worst part of date night is actually leaving for the date – when you see your babysitter sitting down, getting all cozy, turning on the TV. That sometimes seems much better than the night that lies ahead.”
Fey, like Carell, has the ability to be riotously funny while still portraying the emotional side of her character realistically – to turn down the volume on jokes and simply allow them to happen. For example, in response to a nudge for sex from her husband, Fey’s Claire offers a very normal, ‘Yeah, hang on a minute” moment as she pulls out her dental mouth guard in preparation for sex with her husband, with enough drool to instantly turn off her mate.
“Besides being obviously really pretty and intelligent, Tina has a complete willingness to make an ass out of herself,” says Levy. She’s completely up for goofing on herself and being the butt of the joke, and that’s very charming.”
Fey describes Claire as “a working mom of two kids, who, like almost everyone I know, is just a little worn out by the day-to-day life of raising your kids, getting them out the door, getting them to school, having a job, keeping a house clean. She’s a good person who is just kind of worn into the ground a little bit. I certainly identify with how just physically tiring it is to be a parent and have a job – sometimes it feels like a real effort to just be present for your spouse.”
So which would be scarier – being in a boring marriage or being chased by the mob (both of which the Fosters experience in the film)? “I would say that being married to a person in the mob would be the scariest,” Fey jokes.
Along their night-from-hell journey, Phil and Claire encounter a cavalcade of characters on both sides of the law. Levy’s casting choices for these roles was sometimes unexpected – and always spot-on. His intent was to provide the story with a “Wizard of Oz”-like experience. “You’re with your heroes, but along the way, they’re being affected and changed by the people they meet, and I just thought wouldn’t it be fun if at every turn of the road, you’re surprised all over again by who has suddenly appeared in this movie. And the cast members fit the roles perfectly.”
The surprise apparently wasn’t limited to the audience. “I read the script,” says Fey,” and I thought, ‘Oh, these are really good parts for somebody.’ I never thought we would get this lucky to have that caliber of people in all these different parts.” Having what otherwise would have appeared to be small roles portrayed by big name actors only helps bring them alive, Carell notes. “When you see them acted out, they’re even better than they were on the page.”
And getting high-powered stars to join the DATE NIGHT team wasn’t just a matter of coincidence. “So many people were so keen to find a way to work with Steve and Tina – they just found a way to make it work,” says Levy.
Mark Wahlberg portrays a former real estate client of Claire’s the pair turns to in the middle of the night. “I play a guy named Holbrooke Grant, who is a security expert who Claire and Phil come to for help,” Wahlberg explains. “They just catch Holbrooke at a bad time – he’s with his beautiful Israeli girlfriend.” The pair ends up turning Holbrooke’s night upside down, as well.
Wahlberg had the simplest costume in the entire cast. “There is no wardrobe – just a pair of silk genie pants,” he recalls, noting that he regularly found himself freezing on the air-conditioned set. That the top half of his costume was missing (except for an ample supply of makeup covering Wahlberg’s countless tattoos), was a fact not lost on the female members of the cast and crew. “Mark was shirtless for three or four days,” Fey says, prompting a noticeable increase in the number of women who suddenly had additional tasks to address on set on the days he was on the job. “I had friends texting me, ‘Can I get on the Fox lot and visit you today?’” Fey laughs.
Also coming to the aid of the beleaguered couple is Taraji P. Henson, an Oscar® nominee for her work in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” who plays NYPD Detective Arroyo, who, though she doesn’t exactly believe the Fosters “chased by bad guys” story, begins to become suspicious of a couple of her colleagues. “She’s sort of a hero,” the actress says.
Playing thugs Collins and Armstrong, who are after the Fosters (whom they believe are the Tripplehorns) are Common and Jimmi Simpson. Common is a familiar face to audiences for his role as a murderous cop in “Street Kings” and for his work as a musical artists (his hits include “Love of My Life” and “Testify”). Simpson has made occasional appearances as Lyle the Intern on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
Common describes the duo as “one of the many catalysts to get this mundane couple out of their comfort zone – mainly by shooting guns at them.” The two are essentially hunters, he adds, noting, “I’m the muscle.”
Collins and Armstrong’s formidable boss is gangster Joe Miletto, from whom the Tripplehorns have apparently stolen something of importance that he wants back. The casting of acclaimed actor Ray Liotta as Miletto delighted Carell and Fey. “We were shooting a scene with Ray one night,” recalls Carell, “and Tina looked over and said, ‘I feel like I am in a 3D version of ‘Goodfellas. Ray Liotta is actually walking up and talking to me.’ It was like a ride at a theme park.”
Playing a heavy in a comedy, particularly for actors used to appearing in dramatic films, requires a special knack, one which DATE NIGHT’s group of toughs embraced with gusto.
“It’s really in the writing, so it’s dependent on your commitment to it,” explains Liotta. “If the situation’s just a little more heightened, you’re going to laugh.” Common agrees: “Shawn expressed to us from the beginning – you’ve got to keep it real. The more real it becomes – because you’re playing off Steve and Tina – the funnier it becomes.”
Portraying the “real” Tripplehorns – actually a drug dealer named Taste and his wacky stripper girlfriend, Whippit – are James Franco and Mila Kunis. Despite their different life circumstances, the pair has much in common with the Fosters, being in the same spot in their relationship as their clean-cut counterparts. Notes Josh Klausner: “Whether you’re a drug dealer or a suburban husband, you still feel the pangs of ‘You never look at me the way you used to’ and ‘You don’t have time for me.’ What the two couples are going through is exactly the same,” making the exchanges between the two couples both hilarious and poignant at the same time.
Kunis describes the pair as “very passionate – when they’re angry, they’re very angry, and when they’re happy, they’re madly in love.” Whippit, specifically, she describes as a “psycho, who is very up and down. She goes through three different emotions within two and a half script pages.”
The name “Taste,” Franco says, is left over from an earlier concept of the character – a 6 ft. 7 in. bald man with “TASTE” tattooed on his forehead. “So when they asked me to be in the movie, I said, ‘Well, I’m certainly not that.’” The character’s description was then rewritten, but the name stuck. “I was up for facial tattoos, too,” Franco says with a laugh. “We just went for the cheesy ‘Grim Reaper.’”
Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo play the Fosters soon-to-be-splitting couple friends, Haley and Brad Sullivan. “Their parting brings up the question about getting bored with your spouse and moving on, or just sticking it out,” says Wiig. “I think Haley plants the seeds in Claire’s mind.”
Also taking on key roles are “Gossip Girl’s” Leighton Meester as the Fosters’ babysitter Katy, and “The Dark Knight’s” William Fichtner as district attorney Frank Crenshaw.
All the cast members appreciated Levy’s ability to balance action and comedy, which in turn allowed his actors the freedom to come up with their own gags. “That’s the only way you can afford to have time to play around or to improvise and do extra takes,” notes Fey. “That only happens if everyone – especially your director – really knows what they’re doing.”
For Levy, there’s a method to the potential madness of improv. “Sometimes, after we’d get what I want, Steve and Tina would come to me and say, ‘You know what? Could I get one more take? I’ve got an idea that might lead somewhere.’ Sometimes we couldn’t use it, but more often than not, it was gold and it ended up in the movie,” such as the duo’s restaurant shenanigans game of guessing what’s up with the couple sitting across the way.
“Every person in any field wants to go to work and feel respected for what they do,” says the director. “So when you say to an actor, ‘We’re going to do the script that I’ve written for you, but I want to hear what’s in your head. I actually think that the ideas you come up with might be as legitimate or better than what we scripted,’ it makes your actors feel like partners and collaborators, and not mouthpieces. It makes them feel like part of the creative team, rather than a piece of machinery.”
MEET THE TWINS
While attempting to escape their pursuers, the Fosters “borrow” Holbrooke Grant’s car, the much-too-powerful-for-Phil Audi R8. When Phil inadvertently smashes into a taxi cab, the two vehicles’ bumpers become hopelessly locked together. Nonetheless, the chase continues, the conjoined twin automobiles smashing their way down Manhattan streets.
The complicated sequence came about when Levy and Klausner were brainstorming ideas for a chase scene. Concerned about repeating the oft-used, cliché urban car chase, Klausner recalls, “I remember sitting in a room with Shawn, telling him, ‘You know, do we really have to do a car chase, because how many times have we seen a car chase in these movies? How interesting can that be?’”
Levy then related to his writer a story from his teenage years. “He was just learning to drive, and was trying to park, but he ended up smashing into another car in front of him and getting stuck on that car. His father just drove by and shook his head.” Thus was born the idea of conjoined cars.
But just having two cars barreling down the street wasn’t enough. “Shawn wanted to do something that nobody had ever seen before,” says 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator Jack Gill, who planned and executed the sequence. “Once we got the basic idea of conjoining the cars, we began figuring out not only how to build the cars, but how to make it work comically. I then started adding eccentricities, like spinning them around in circles and having characters fire guns at them.”
Besides having six different cars that, each of which handled a specific aspect of the chase stunts, Gill built a 40 foot frame, upon which the Audi and cab bodies were placed. “So there’s just one rigid frame,” he explains. The stunt driver was situated at the leading end of the conjoined vehicles. “So when the cab is facing forwards, with the Audi ahead of it facing the wrong way, the stunt driver is actually driving from inside the Audi’s trunk, looking out the back so he can see where he’s going and drive around corners.” In addition, for most shots, the rig’s rear wheels – those under the rear end of the conjoined vehicles – could also steer, in the same manner as those of a hook-and-ladder fire truck.
Needless to say, don’t try this at home on your own Manhattan street.
New York City ordinances limited the production to the types of stunts that could be filmed on Manhattan streets. So following a week of night work in New York, the stunt team moved to downtown Los Angeles to complete the sequence.
“We had about six blocks to work with on Broadway, which was great,” Gill recalls. “We needed a long stretch locked down, because when you conjoin two cars together, you’ve got a thing that’s forty feet long – getting it up to speed and shutting it all down can be tough. You can’t just do it in two blocks.” The sequence was filmed with up to six cameras, including a special “balloon cam,” with wheeled buoys on each corner, which allowed the camera to be sent into the path of the speeding car pair and getting hit head-on, without damaging expensive camera equipment.
Carell did actually drive the R8 himself for a number of shots. “We wanted the car to have way too much power for a guy like Phil to handle,” says Gill. “So I asked Audi to disconnect the all-wheel drive, which meant putting all 560 horsepower into the rear wheels.” So what was Carell’s impression? “He said it felt like somebody hitting him in the back of the head with a shovel when he stepped on the gas.”
In one shot, Phil must make his way to the cab while Claire is driving the Audi at high speed. “We did all the transfers across the hood with doubles – that was all real,” notes Gill.
Close-ups of Carell and Fey were done against a green screen set at Twentieth Century Fox. Since the chase acrobatics had already been filmed, besides their scripted lines, Carell and Fey filled in the gaps with their gut-busting ad-libs. “I’d show them footage and explain to them, ‘Here’s what we did last week downtown with the real cars – what do you think?’” Gill says. “And we’d bounce off ideas until something really clicked. And then Shawn was always there to say, ‘You’re right on track here – that’s really funny!’ It really helps when you have a collaboration where everybody can talk ideas out.”
Even with all the excitement, Levy kept the scene’s theme on track. “Once we had the concept of having the two cars stuck together, then we could find a way to thematically tie it in to what the movie’s about, which is this couple that has to learn to communicate to survive,” he explains.
Indeed, even with all that happens to them on this fateful night, the Fosters achieve their goal: to reinvigorate their relationship and reconnect with the love and excitement that brought them together in the first place.
“DATE NIGHT is kind of like a fable,” says Levy. “It takes place over a very short period of time, but in some way, it’s timeless, because it’s a story about a journey two people make in their relationship. And we leave the night feeling like they will go back to their lives and no one except for the people involved that night might ever know what happened. We’ve watched them experience this crazy night, but the real adventure of their married life, now that they’ve found each other again, is just about to begin.”
“They’re comfortable enough again with each other to be able to say ‘Knock it off’ and ‘I love you’ within the same five minutes,” says Steve Carell.
Tina Fey has just one last piece of relationship advice: “Go on a date night and see DATE NIGHT.”
ABOUT THE CAST
STEVE CARELL (Phil Foster) has emerged as one of the most sought-after comedic actors in Hollywood. First gaining recognition for his contributions as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy® Award-winning “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Carell has successfully segued into primetime television and above-the-title status in the film world with equal aplomb.
Carell currently stars as Michael Scott, the pompous and deluded boss of a Pennsylvania paper company, in the Americanized adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ acclaimed British television series “The Office.” Now in its sixth season, the show continues to flourish in ratings and has earned Carell three Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe® nominations for his work on the show, and earned the Golden Globe in 2006. In the last two years, the show has won the Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Carell opened his first lead feature, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow, at #1, a spot it remained in for two straight weekends. The surprise hit of 2005 went on to gross more than $175 million worldwide and had #1 openings in 12 countries. The film generated over $100 million in DVD sales in North America alone. On an award level, the film was honored with an AFI Award® named one of 10 Most Outstanding Motion Pictures of the Year and took home Best Comedy Movie at the 11th annual Critics’ Choice Awards®. The film also earned Carell and Apatow a co-nomination for Best Original Screenplay by the Writers Guild Association.
In 2008, Carell starred as Maxwell Smart in the much-anticipated action-comedy “Get Smart,” opposite Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin. The film grossed over $230 million worldwide. A sequel is due in 2011. He also lent his voice as “The Mayor of Whoville” in Twentieth Century Fox’s animated film “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” based on the children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. Directed by Jimmy Hayward (“Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.”), Carell played opposite Jim Carrey, and helped launch the film as an international success earning over $295 million worldwide.
In 2006, as part of an ensemble, he starred in “Little Miss Sunshine,” which earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Picture and won the SAG Award™ for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The black comedy also starred Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette. Previous film credits for the actor include “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Bewitched, and “Dan in Real Life.” Carell’s feature film breakout role in “Bruce Almighty,” opposite Jim Carrey, led to a sequel starring Carell in 2007, “Evan Almighty.”
Carell recently announced the start of his new production company, Carousel Productions. Carell’s endeavors and successes in acting, writing and producing were an organic segue in the creation of Carousel Productions. Born in Massachusetts, Carell now resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Nancy Walls (NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”), whom he met while at the Second City Theater Group in Chicago, where both were members. He is the proud father of a daughter and a son.
TINA FEY (Claire Foster), one of the most visible and popular figures in television today, writes, executive produces and stars in NBC's three-time Emmy Award-winning comedy series “30 Rock,” a workplace comedy which takes place behind-the-scenes of a live variety show. Her performance as head writer Liz Lemon on the fictional “TGS with Tracy Jordan” has earned Fey an Emmy, two Golden Globes, three SAG Awards, and a People’s Choice Award®. This year alone, “30 Rock” won five Emmy Awards and was nominated for many others.
Prior to creating “30 Rock,” Fey completed nine seasons as head writer, cast member and co-anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Fey is an Emmy winner and two-time Writers Guild Award winner for her writing on SNL, also receiving an Emmy for her spoof of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Since her transition to being in front of the camera, Fey has won much acclaim, including being named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainers of the Year, People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People (three times), and one of Time magazine’s Prestigious Time 100.
Other awards include, in 2008, a Producers Guild Award and a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for “30 Rock.” She has also won two Gracie Awards and a Made in New York Award and has been nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Choice Comedy Actress and a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Fey expanded to feature films in spring 2004 as both a screenwriter and an actress opposite Lindsay Lohan in the hit comedy “Mean Girls,” which earned her a nomination for a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most recently she starred alongside “Saturday Night Live’s” Amy Poehler in the film “Baby Mama” for Universal Pictures, which exceed the $50 million dollar mark at the U.S. box office. Fey also starred in the Ricky Gervais comedy “The Invention of Lying,” released in 2009.
MARK WAHLBERG (“Holbrooke Grant”) earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his standout performance in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed drama “The Departed.”
Wahlberg’s remarkable film career began with Penny Marshall’s “Renaissance Man” and “The Basketball Diaries” with Leonardo DiCaprio, followed by a star turn opposite Reese Witherspoon in the thriller “Fear.” He has enjoyed playing diverse characters for visionary filmmakers such as David O. Russell, Tim Burton and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Wahlberg’s breakout role in “Boogie Nights” established him as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents. He later headlined “Three Kings” and “The Perfect Storm” with George Clooney, and “The Italian Job” with Charlize Theron. He followed those with “I ♥ Huckabees,” “Four Brothers” and the football biography, “Invincible.” He then appeared in “Shooter,” based on the best-selling novel Point of Impact. Wahlberg reunited with “The Yards” director James Gray and co-star Joaquin Phoenix in “We Own the Night,” which Wahlberg produced.
In 2008, Wahlberg starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening,” and in “Max Payne.” He recently appeared in director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lovely Bones.” Due out this year is “The Fighter” for director David O. Russell and “The Other Guys,” with Will Ferrell.
Wahlberg is an executive producer on “The Fighter” and “We Own the Night,” as well as on the HBO series “Entourage” and “In Treatment,” which have received six Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations.
Future projects include the new HBO series, “Boardwalk Empire,” with Martin Scorsese and “How to Make it in America,” along with other feature film projects. A committed philanthropist, he founded The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in 2001 to benefit inner city children and teens.
TARAJI P. HENSON (“Detective Arroyo”) earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress portraying Brad Pitt’s mother in David Fincher’s highly acclaimed “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Most recently, she starred in Tyler Perry’s “I Can Do Bad All By Myself,” which opened to number one at the box office.
For three years, Henson starred as Raina Washington, the youngest female detective on Lifetime’s “The Division.” She was also a regular on David E. Kelly’s “Boston Legal” and had a recurring role on ABC’s “Eli Stone.” Henson appeared in featured roles on “ER,” “Strong Medicine,” “CSI,” “House,” among others.
Henson received rave reviews for her role in Focus Features’ “Talk to Me” opposite Don Cheadle. Henson was named Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Feature Film at the 2005 Black Movie Awards and received the Best Actress nod at the 2006 BET Awards for her performance as Shug in the gutsy drama “Hustle & Flow,” produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton. She received two nominations at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards™ including Best Breakthrough Performance.
Upcoming films include “Karate Kid” opposite Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, which filmed on location in Beijing for Columbia. Henson plays Rainn Wilson’s love interest in the upcoming indie comedy “Peep World,» also starring Sarah Silverman. In the indie drama “Once Fallen,” Henson stars with Ed Harris and Brian Presley. She starred in Sony’s “Not Easily Broken” opposite Morris Chestnut, and opposite Forest Whitaker in “Hurricane Season.” She starred in Tyler Perry’s “The Family That Preys” with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., the Howard University grad has a strong passion for helping disabled and less fortunate children and reveals, “I always stress to kids to have faith in themselves—the greatest recipe for success is self confidence.”
COMMON (Collins), a Grammy Award® winning artist, made his big screen debut as a musical performer in “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” in 2006. In January 2007, he made his acting debut co-starring opposite Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys and Ryan Reynolds in “Smokin’ Aces.” Since then he’s co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in “American Gangster,” directed by Ridley Scott; David Ayer’s “Street Kings,” starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker; and “Terminator Salvation,” directed by McG, starring Christian Bale.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
SHAWN LEVY (Director/Producer) is one of the most commercially successful film directors of the past decade. To date, his films have grossed over 1.5 billion dollars worldwide. Levy has honed his craft, seamlessly weaving comedy and heart into captivating stories that resonate with audiences. His youthfully enthusiastic approach to filmmaking is evident in the storylines and characters he creates – reflecting his joyful intensity for each project at hand.
Levy is currently developing several films to produce through his production company, 21 Laps, which is housed at Twentieth Century Fox. These projects include “The Ten Best Days of My Life” (with Amy Adams), “Neighborhood Watch,” “The Devil You Know” and “How to Talk to Girls” for Fox; “Factracker” for MGM; “The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp” and “The Cutlass Islands” for New Regency, “Men of Magic” for Universal; “The Berenstain Bears” for Walden; and “The Spectacular Now” and “Table 19” for Fox Searchlight.
Currently, Levy is in pre-production on the futuristic father-son boxing drama, “Real Steel,” starring Hugh Jackman, for Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks.
Levy’s 21 Laps recently produced the 2008 comedy «What Happens in Vegas,» starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, which went on to earn over $200 million worldwide.
Levy both produced and directed the blockbuster “Night at the Museum,” starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney, which grossed over $580 million worldwide and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” starring a wide array of today’s most notable comedic talent including Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais and Steve Coogan, which grossed over $400 million worldwide.
He directed the successful 2006 comedy, “The Pink Panther,” starring Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Beyoncé Knowles, and Jean Reno and served as the executive producer of “Pink Panther 2.” Levy also directed “Cheaper By The Dozen” starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Ashton Kutcher and Hilary Duff, which went on to gross more than $200 million worldwide.
In 2002, Levy directed both the hit romantic comedy “Just Married,” starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy, which grossed over $100 million and the family comedy “Big Fat Liar,” for Universal Pictures, with Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti and Amanda Bynes.
Levy graduated at the age of 20 from the Drama Department of Yale University. He later studied film in the Masters Film Production Program at USC, where he produced and directed the short film Broken Record. This film won the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival, in addition to being selected to screen at the Director’s Guild of America.
JOSH KLAUSNER (Screenwriter) attended Princeton University, where he was involved in the theater community as an actor, playwright and director, and studied theater luminaries Bobby Lewis and Albert Innaurato. Klausner’s thesis play, “Scratch,” received the Francis LeMoyne Page Prize for Excellence in Theater. After graduation, Klausner co-created the short “Season of the Lifterbees,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and won the Time Warner Grand Prize at the Aspen Shortsfest and a regional AMPAS Student Academy Award for Best Dramatic Short.
In 1994, Klausner began working as an assistant to the Farrelly Brothers, on their first film, “Dumb & Dumber,” moving on to work as 2nd unit director on the Farrellys’ hit 1998 film, “There’s Something About Mary” and again in 2001’s “Shallow Hal.”
In 2000, Klausner wrote and directed HBO’s “The 4th Floor,” starring William Hurt, Juliette Lewis, Austin Pendleton and Shelley Duvall. He did additional screenplay work on “Shrek the Third,” and wrote the original screenplay and storyline for DreamWorks
Animation’s upcoming “Shrek Forever After,” to be released later this year.
Klausner is currently working on a number of feature film projects, including a live action adaptation of “Thomas the Tank Engine,” and an adaptation of Adena Hapern’s The Ten Best Days of My Life for Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps, which will star Amy Adams. He is also collaborating with Sir Paul McCartney on “High in the Clouds,” an upcoming animated feature film based on the former Beatle’s children’s book.
JOE CARACCIOLO, JR. (Executive Producer) began his career in film as a production manager on director Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty” and “The Verdict.”
Caracciolo executive produced the hit comedies “Marley & Me” starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, “What Happens in Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher (for 21 Laps), and “The Devil Wears Prada” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. His other executive producing credits include “Just My Luck,” starring Lindsay Lohan, “Hide & Seek,” a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, and “Uptown Girls,” a comedic New York fairy tale starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning. Additionally, he produced the teen thriller “Swimfan,” directed by John Polson.
Caracciolo’s other feature film credits include James Foley’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Jon Amiel’s “Copycat,” and “The Man Who Knew Too Little,” and writer-director John Waters’ “Serial Mom,” “Pecker,” and “Cecil B. Demented.”
JOSH McLAGLEN (Executive Producer) has worked as an assistant director on dozens of blockbuster films alongside some of Hollywood’s top directors. He has been 1st AD on “Tango and Cash,” “Alien 3,” James Cameron’s “Titanic,” “The X-Files,” “Cast Away,” “The Polar Express, and “Beowulf,” the latter three for director Robert Zemeckis, and again for Cameron on “Avatar.”
In 2002, McLaglen began wearing a producer’s hat, working his way from associate producer (“The Polar Express”) to co-producer (“Beowulf,” “Avatar”) to executive producer. In 2006, he began working with director Shawn Levy, as both 1st AD and co-producer on “Night at the Museum,” becoming executive producer for that film’s sequel, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” as well as for “Date Night” and the upcoming “Real Steel.”
TOM McNULTY (Executive Producer) is the president of production at 21 Laps, a production company based at Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles. McNulty joined 21 Laps at its inception with the company’s principal, director Shawn Levy and has set up over a dozen film projects at Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers and New Line. 21 Laps films include “Cheaper By The Dozen 2,” as well as the hit comedy “What Happens In Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, “St. Peter” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sam Rockwell, and “The Rocker,” the latter marking their first producing effort together.
Prior to joining Levy, McNulty was the executive vice president of production at Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions for over six years. There, he oversaw the development of the entire slate of films, notably “Mr. Deeds,” “Anger Management,” “50 First Dates,” “Are We There Yet,” “Click” and “Dickie Roberts Former Child Star.”
Prior to joining Happy Madison, McNulty was an executive at Out Of The Blue Entertainment, where he was an executive on “Big Daddy” and “Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo.”
McNulty arrived in Hollywood as an actor, appearing in “Boys on the Side” opposite Whoopi Goldberg and “Escape from L.A.” with Kurt Russell. McNulty grew up on Long Island and attended The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.
DEAN SEMLER, ACS/ASC (Director of Photography) began his career in his native Australia, lensing “Mad Max 2” (aka “The Road Warrior” in North America) in 1982 for George Miller, for which Semler received an Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination. Semler reteamed with Miller for “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” Semler won both the AFI and Australian Cinematographers Society awards for the Aussie thriller “Razorback.”
By the late ‘80s, Semler was serving as director of photography on several U.S. productions, including “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown, and the western “Young Guns.” The following year, he returned to Australia for “Dead Calm,” starring Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill, for which Semler won the AFI award.
After filming the “Young Guns” sequel in 1990, Semler shot Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” for which Semler received multiple honors, including an Academy Award and American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award. He reteamed with Costner in 1995 for “Waterworld.”
Throughout the ‘90s and into the following decade, Semler shot the comedies “City Slickers,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “Get Smart.” He also filmed Mel Gibson’s epic “Apocalypto.”
Most recently, Semler was director of photography on Roland Emmerich’s “2012,” and on “Secretariat,” starring Diane Lane and Scott Glenn.
DAVID GROPMAN (Production Designer), after working in television and independent films, designed the studio features “Of Mice and Men,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and “The Cider House Rules,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Gropman received an Art Directors Guild award and BAFTA nomination for his design for “Chocolat.” Gropman worked on John Waters’ “Hairspray,” for which Gropman was nominated for a Satellite Award. The Art Directors Guild once again recognized Gropman with a nomination for period film design for “Doubt,” which takes place in the 1960s.
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) reunites with Shawn Levy, after composing the scores for the Levy-helmed projects “Just Married,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Pink Panther. Recently, Beck reteamed with director Chris Columbus on “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” after composing the score for Columbus’ “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”
The Montreal native started piano lessons at age five and was writing music for his first-ever band, Chris and The Cupcakes, before his teen years. During high school, Beck studied flute, saxophone, trombone and drums, and performed in rock bands. While studying music at Yale University, Beck had an epiphany, discovering that his talent for composing exceeded that for performing. He wrote two musicals with his brother Jason (a.k.a. Chilly Gonzales, the Berlin-based hip-hop recording artist), as well as an opera based on The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
Upon graduation from Yale in 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's prestigious film scoring program, where he studied with Oscar winner Jerry Goldsmith, among others. Beck was immediately attracted to the creative challenges unique to the marriage of music and picture, and a personal recommendation from the head of the USC Music Department led to his first professional assignment, the Canadian TV series “White Fang.” Soon thereafter, he was asked to score a new TV series (then in its second season), “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” based on the 1992 cult classic film, for which he received the Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition during his three seasons with the show.
The prolific talent has scored 40+ feature films and nearly twenty television shows since 1993. His film compositions include a wide array of projects and genres including the action films “The Sentinel” and “Elektra,” the comedies “The Hangover,” “Drillbit Taylor,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “Pink Panther 2,” and “Bring It On,” and the dramas “Under the Tuscan Sun,” “Year of the Dog,” “Phoebe in Wonderland” and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury nominee “The Greatest.”
Beck has also composed scores for “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “School for Scoundrels,” “License to Wed,” “Fred Claus,” “We Are Marshall,” “Confidence,” “Yours, Mine and Ours,” “Taxi,” “A Cinderella Story,” “Saved!,” “Garfield” and its sequel, “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “American Wedding,” “Post Grad,” and “All About Steve.”
MARLENE STEWART (Costume Designer) earned her first credits working on music videos, including memorable designs for fashion-forward pop superstar Madonna. Stewart created image-shaping costumes for 11 Madonna videos, including “Vogue,” “Material Girl,” “Like a Prayer” and “Express Yourself.”
Stewart’s film work spans a wide variety of genres, periods and looks. She has collaborated with an intriguing array of directors, ranging from Alejandro González Iñárritu on “21 Grams” to Oliver Stone on “The Doors” and “JFK” to Michael Mann on “Ali” and Beeban Kidron on “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.”
Most recently, Stewart designed the costumes for Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder,” Nancy Meyers’s romantic comedy “The Holiday” and Kimberly Peirce’s drama “Stop-Loss.”
Her credits also include Andy Tennant’s “Hitch,” James Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “True Lies,” Mary Lambert’s “Siesta,” Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down,” James L. Brooks’s “I’ll Do Anything,” Curtis Hanson’s “The River Wild,” Joe Pytka’s “Space Jam,” Rob Bowman’s “The X Files,” Tony Scott’s “Enemy of the State,” Dominic Sena’s “Gone in 60 Seconds,” David McNally’s “Coyote Ugly,” and Antoine Fuqua’s “Tears of the Sun.”
After earning a degree in History at the University of California, Berkeley, Stewart studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. She received the Bob Mackie Award for Design for her student work and began her design career by launching her own women’s clothing line, Covers. A Boston native, Stewart designed the costumes for three Madonna tours as well as tours for Cher, Paula Abdul, and Gloria Estefan. She created music video looks for Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Debbie Harry, Smashing Pumpkins, the Bangles, and the Eurythmics, and was the first recipient of the American Music Awards’ Best Costume Design Award for the video “Material Girl.”
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12:46:39 11/09/09
GBTV #657 (HD) | Motorola Droid Review
[LESS INFO] 24 VIEWS | ADDED 12:46:39 11/09/09
As you know, the hugely anticipated launch of the Motorola Droid was on Friday. I went to a press event held at a Verizon store to get a hands on with the Droid and some footage to share with you guys. Boring, but I'll take what I can get. Surprise, surprise, Verizon was nice enough to let me hang on to a Droid for two weeks so I'm able to give you a more in-depth review. The Droid runs Android 2.0. Android is an open source mobile operating system, originally developed by, and heavily supported by Google. If you use Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, or Google Voice, having Android is a very good thing. It means those apps are going to run smoothly and you'll get more out of them. More on that in a minute. Verizon has put a lot of effort into their network, and the hope here is that you don't get the amount of dropped calls or inconsistent service a lot of people complain about with AT%T. In my experience with iPhones on AT%T, dropped calls are less of an issue than calls I have to drop because I can't understand the person on the other end of the call or they can't understand me. The Motorola Droid provides vastly better sounding calls than my iPhones. In a perfect world both phones would be available on both networks so I could tell if it's a hardware issue or a network issue. The Motorola Droid has the best screen on any handheld device I've ever seen. It's a 3.7 inch touchscreen with a resolution of 854x480. That's over 400,000 pixels, and you can definitely tell a difference. We're showing you The Droid playing a movie in HD. The Droid screen is brighter and richer and point 2 inches bigger. The downside? No multitouch in the US. It's capable of multitouch, and the GSM version in Europe has multitouch enabled, but we're not allowed here in the US. Instead, you double tap to zoom or use the plus and minus buttons on the screen to zoom in or out. If you've been using an iPhone, you're going to natually want to pinch the screen. The Droid's method of zooming isn't bad. It has nice animation, but precise pinch and zoom is better. The best part about the 5 megapixel camera isn't the additional pixels. What I liked was the software based zoom. I was taking a picture of some Thai soup when I discovered the feature by accident. Just double tap the screen to get up close and personal. You can snap the photo from the screen, or use the physical button on the side of the phone. Just like on a regular camera, hold the button half way down to focus, then click to take your photo. The Droid has both an onscreen keyboard and physical slider keyboard. iPhone users tend to agree with Apple that physical keyboards are overrated and I'm in that camp. However, there is a large market for whom the iPhone is off the table just because it lacks physical keys. No amount of Apple evangelism is going to convince someone who insists on a keyboard that they really don't need it. I say Motorola was smart to zig where Apple zagged. It's important to point out, though, since the keys are flush, there isn't really any tactile difference between the virtual keyboard and the one with real buttons. The biggest advantage of the slider keyboard, whether you think it's necessary or not, is that you can type and enjoy the full screen at the same time. One of my favorite things about the Droid is that it allows you to run up to six applications at once. This is one of the main complaints from power users about the iPhone. Being able to listen to Pandora while browsing the web or tweeting is HUGE for me. I do it on my laptop, and that desire doesn't change just because I'm using a smaller device. Apple doesn't allow that because having six applications all processing data at the same time puts the phone at risk of a crash. I totally get that! However, I'd rather have the choice to take that risk. I mentioned Google apps before, and I want to get back to that. I don't know how many of you are in the same situation as me. I can't use the Mail app on the iPhone or any mail app on any phone because I use Gmail. That wouldn't be a problem (the iPhone supports Gmail) except I use labels and filters like crazy! Most of my mail is sorted automatically and doesn't even see the inbox, so any time I can't easily see and use my labels on the go, I'm severely crippled. Since Google supports Android, they've made it possible for me to use the Gmail app successfully without having to go into the browser. There are 10,000 apps in the Android store, called Market. There are 100,000 apps in the iPhone store. No surprise there. Apple has a head start. That said, there are plenty of Twitter apps, if nothing else!! With the ability to run apps in the background, you're able to set up Twitter apps, for example, to notify you when something new arrives in your feed or Direct Message inbox. This is a great way to save on SMS costs if you don't have an unlimited plan. One thing I was super excited about was the turn by turn navigation with voice commands. No need to pay for an app - it's already installed when you buy the phone. The voice is very synthetic, but it works AND speaks in complete sentences! One of the coolest possibilities you get with the Motorola Droid requires an additional purchase. It's just $30, though and it's a dock for charging the phone. What's special about it is that it turns the phone's display into a digital photo frame, a widget display and an alarm clock. When you set the phone on the dock and use it as an alarm clock, you can dim the time and set the alarm. Motorola promises 6.5 hours of battery life when used continuously. I'm getting close to 10 or 11 hours of normal use. If you're ready to buy one, let's talk price. It'll be $199 with a 2 year agreement. This is after a mail in rebate, but David Pogue from the NY Times says that if you buy it from Best Buy, you'll get an instant rebate. Voice plans start at $40/month for 350 minutes and data plans start at $30/month. The mainstream media keeps looking for an iPhone killer. That's not me. I want the iPhone to continue to succeed, but I want other alternatives to succeed too. I haven't been looking for an iPhone killer. I've been looking for a smartphone that plays effectively on the same field. The Motorola Droid does that. Will I buy one? I have a couple weeks to decide so I'm going to take advantage of that. My sense so far, though is that moving from iPhone to Droid will not be a downgrade and in a few ways, like call quality and Google Voice integration it will be an upgrade. I'll write more about my experience with the Droid on my blog at www.calilewis.me. This episode was brought to you by SquareSpace.com. The actor and chat show host Kevin Pollak is using Square Space for his site, kevinpollak.tv. It's the easiest way to build a great looking Web site and my promo code GEEK will save you 12%.
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22:44:16 04/27/08
Episode 12 Win New Customers Using Local Online Newspaper Ads
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:44:16 04/27/08
The allure of local online newspapersIf you're wondering if an online news site is a good bet for your ad dollars I'm going to save you a lot of money by sharing some money-saving secrets with you. Done the right way an ad on your local newspaper web site can be effective but there are some major pitfalls that you need to know or else you'll get burned - your ad dollars that is.On April 9th, 2008 Borrell Research, a well known firm that collects and sells their research primarily to newspaper companies reported that NEWSPAPER-OWNED WEB SITES EARN MORE REVENUE THAN ALL LOCAL MEDIA COMPANIES COMBINED (capturing 26.9 percent of the market). The underlying message your local newspaper web site hopes you hear in this news is that their web site is the best vehicle to advertise on to attract new local business.I spent five and a half years on the online advertising side of the nation's second largest newspaper publisher where we had over forty online web sites. One of my jobs was to build their online ad operations where we used sophisticated ad targeting software to deliver over a billion ads per month across our network of sites. You really get to know what works and what doesn't work when you're running hundreds of ad campaigns at a time across a diverse set of web sites spanning small towns to major cities.Reach Does your product or service appeal to the majority of your local population? If so, it's hard to beat the broad reach of an online newspaper. You can really blanket a large segment of the population in your market, reach multiple ethnicities, age groups, and other demographics. If you answered no, then stop reading and start researching targeted online marketing methods like e-mail or blog marketing where you can dial up direct response and niche audiences with comparable ease.TargetingAs I mention above, a newspaper web site's real strength lies in its broad reach. The problem with that reach is that it's out of reach of your marketing budget. Even a week long ad campaign on a local news web site that's big enough to demand attention could run you $10,000 or more. The answer to this is to use targeting. Targeted ads do cost more but they're still way more efficient than an untargeted ad and almost always a lot less money in the long run. Using targeting does mean that you're no longer going to reach as BIG of an audience but that's OK - leave that to Circuit City who has the bucks for it. You can still reach a very diverse and large audience, and one that uses the online newspaper for local buying information.First, get rid of all those out-of-towners that can't buy from youLocal Na8ion is all about local online marketing which means that you're likely the type of business that gets all, or the vast majority of your business from people who live or work in your town or city.Newsflash: Local Newspapers aren't as Local as you think!Here's a big secret that is true of local online newspapers: up to 50% of the viewers are from outside the main area served by the paper's web site. Big city newspaper web sites typically have larger out-of-town web readership whereas small towns tend to have less out of town readership (expect 70-80% of your small town paper web site to be local viewers). This means there is a tremendous amount of built-in waste for any ad you run on a local newspaper web site. No sense washing your visiting Uncle's car with your garden hose if he just has to drive home on a dirt road.Think of it this way, if you sell exclusively to people in your town or city only $50 to $80 of every $100 you spend in your local online newspaper advertising will be seen by people who can actually buy your product.Let's talk about specific targeting methods to address thisThe best way to beat these poor odds is to ask your local online newspaper for your ad to be geo-targeted. Geo-targeting banner ads doesn't cost any more than other forms of ad targeting (e.g appearing on just the Real Estate section). Geo-targeting is highly efficient because your ads only get shown to locals that visit your local newspaper site. In this case, less is more! There are two kinds of geo-targeting: IP based geo-targeting and user-registration based geo-targeting. Typically only major web publishers like Yahoo! offer the latter and most newspaper web site will offer you IP based geo-targeting. Ask which version of targeting your local newspaper web site offers and chose user-registration based geo-targeting if it is available as it is more accurate. But don't fret that the more common IP based geo-targeting is less accurate, it's still miles ahead of delivering un-targeted ads to people who won't be interested in them.Here are some other tactics to target your ad or run effective banner ads on your local online newspaper web siteask if your newspaper has any fixed monthly sponsorships where you pay a monthly set dollar amount (e.g. $500 a month). These sponsorships can be a good value in high traffic areas of your local newspaper (even without geo-targeting) if you're looking to reach a big audience. Hint, local news sites get most of their traffic on sports and news. Ask to see a traffic report by section of the online newspaper (e.g. sports, business, travel, news, etc.) to get the specifics.buy a small ROS campaign (run-of-site) to test which areas of your local newspaper site actually perform for your business. Review the click-through rates of each section (the newspaper should give you an ad report free of charge) and then buy a geotargeted banner ad campaign on that section. Better yet, buy a geo-targeted fixed sponsorship where you pay a set monthly amount on that section.See if your local newspaper sells text link ads as they often perform better for direct response ads then banner ads do. Conversely, text ads DON'T work well for branding efforts (no logo or imagery to visually communicate your image, or an emotion that you're trying to tap into). If they sell text links, buy them geo-targeted.Don't worry about designing your banner ad, most newspapers will make your banner ad for your as part of their service.Ask your newspaper rep what e-mail sponsorships they offer. Because newspapers typically have strong trusted brands people don't mind giving them their email address. Better yet, many consumers opt in to receive 'special offers' from newspaper partners (that's you if you buy an email sponsorship). That means you can send out a tailored offer to your market and ride along on the coattails of your local newspaper's brand. Like Martha Stewart says "It's a good thing."If this sounds all together crazy, you'd be mostly right. Online newspaper advertising makes more sense for larger regional companies with bigger ad budgets or national advertisers with a local footprint. As a small business you can do much better with performance based methods of attracting new visitors to your web site like optimizing your site to increase your natural or organic search engine rankings. Buy ads on the major search engines with paid search engine marketing (SEM).If you want a free method to brand your business use blog marketing, it's the best branding tool around and it only costs your business the time you put into it. That can add up to a lot of time but if you're smart you'll read about "The best kept secret for quickly creating new content for your blog and web site." The specific content you put on your blog attracts people with very specific like interests - that's the kind of efficient targeting and branding you want! Just don't forget to put all your location information on your site or you'll get visitors from areas you may not be able to sell too!Lastly, if you have a small town, neighborhood, or community newspaper web site that competes with the 'big' newspaper in town they can occasionally present very good advertising options at substantially reduced rates. Give these a try to test effectiveness with a small ad buy.To comment or read more from Local Nation visit our post "Win new customers using local online Newspaper ads"Julian Seery Gude editor, Local Na8ionWhere you are is where it's at
