Welcome, Santa Claus Parade visitors!

Welcome and bienvenue, visitors from the Toronto Santa Claus Parade! Thanks for joining us here at Operation: Disque Drop, a one-man (so far) grassroots fan effort to spread awareness of Alizée and grow her fanbase here in North America. If you or someone you know found a DVD in an inconspicuous place somewhere on or around the parade route, and that disc led you here, thank you for proving that this crazy idea might actually work!

I hope you enjoy your first exposure to the wonder that is Alizée. If you haven’t already, I invite you to explore your disque and open your mind to some new music. I think you might have just found your new favorite artist! Then, in either the Shoutbox to the left or in the comment section of the blog below, let us know how and where in the convention you found it, what you thought of it, and what you're going to do with it next!

If you’d like to learn more about Alizée, and interact with other North American fans on the web, the absolute best places to start are Alizée America, Alizée Forum and Lillytown USA. All three communities are filled with fun and friendly fans who absolutely love welcoming new converts, and would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Links to other Alizée sites on the intertubes, including her official MySpace, Facebook and YouTube pages, can be found in the upper left-hand margin of this page.

If you’re curious about Operation: Disque Drop (or ‘Op Drop’ for short) and what it’s all about, you can either check out the archives down at the bottom-left of the page, or start here at the first post and work your way forwards. If you have any questions that I haven’t answered exhaustively in the blog—I know, I know, I tend to run off at the mouth, a lil’—please feel free to again either leave a comment, or shoot me an e-mail at disquedrop@gmail.com.

Thanks again for visiting. I hope you enjoy your stay!

NoobTube

So the promotional video I posted on YouTube to encourage fans and casual viewers alike to vote for Alizée in Los Premios MTV 2008 (and explain in plain English how they might go about doing it) has surpassed 500 views so far, while the mirror that Ruroshen hosted for me on his account has garnered a little over 200. While that’s not bad considering how little exposure it’s had, I’ve decided against producing alternate versions for La Isla Bonita and other Alizée videos as I’d originally planned. Given that it took me the better part of three days to cut the first one together, and there’s apparently only a little more than a week left to vote, the return on investment just isn’t high enough.

The whole point of the exercise, you see, was to post them as Video Responses to the most highly-trafficked Alizée clips on YouTube—not a bad strategy, given the incredible number views some of those videos rack up in a single day. Unfortunately, what I didn’t realize is that a) the newness of my account, which I created just under a week ago specifically to do this, would apparently prevent me from posting video responses, and b) that the owner of the video you’re responding to has to approve it before it’ll even show up as a response on their page.

Ruroshen was kind enough to solve the first problem for me by offering to mirror the video on his account, which he’s had for awhile…but unfortunately we’ve both been stymied by the fact that the dude who posted the video we’re trying to respond to hasn’t logged on in about a week. By the time he does log on, the window for voting could very likely have already closed…if he even chooses to approve the response in the first place.

Argh. While I get the rationale behind it—clearly everyone should have the right to veto the type of content that appears on their page in relation to their own work—it’s frustrating, nonetheless.

Oh well, so much for viral marketing. At least it’s been well-received by the few who have seen it. Big thanks to Ruroshen for hosting the mirror and posting it over at Alizée America, and to AC Mix for doing the same over at Lilly Town USA (and saying some very kind words about it, besides). You’re both gentlemen and scholars, good sirs. It’s greatly appreciated.

Rocking the Vote for Alizée, YouTube-style!

My name is Disque, and I approve this message

If you'd told me a year ago that I'd spend every spare moment of three days working on a guerilla marketing video for a French recording artist nominated for an MTV Latin America video award, I would have looked at you like you had lobsters crawling out of your ears.

And yet, here we are. It's funny how life works, huh?

I literally just uploaded it to YouTube, so I don't think it's propagated through to the 'Most Recent Videos' listing, or shown up yet as a video response to that tactical nuke video I keep linking...so please consider this a sneak preview of the promotional video I made for Alizée with my own widdle hands:



A couple notes on the making-of...the director's commentary, if you will:

• This is my first ever YouTube video, and only the third I've edited with Windows Movie Maker. It turned out alright, all things considered. It's not perfect, and it took me about three times longer than it should have, but I learned a lot while putting it together. The next one will be better.

• Though it's a far cry better than the dual VCRs and jog-shuttle editing board I used in AV Club back in high school, Windows Movie Maker is a little skimpy on options, and is a bit of a bitch to work with besides. If anyone knows of a cheap-as-free alternative that's more robust, or at least a little more user-friendly (i.e. less prone to crashing repeatedly), I'd appreciate it if you dropped me a line.

• My original plan was to use J'en Ai Marre! as the backing music, but lip-syncing it with the clips plucked randomly from throughout the original video proved to be too cumbersome, and not lip-syncing it just looked weird.

• Plan B for the music was to use David Bowie's Heroes, a song I've always loved which I thought was oddly appropriate, especially given the ongoing superhero metaphor running through Op Drop. Unfortunately, there's about thirty gazillion versions of it out there, all of them different, and most of them over six minutes in length. I tried a few, but they also proved to be difficult to work with as far as syncing things up went. I finally just gave in and went with the Wallflowers' cover from the Godzilla soundtrack, instead. It's an inferior version, I know, but at least it's studio-quality and easy to sync to.
  

• I have plans to do a version of this for La Isla Bonita too (the next most-watched Alizée video on YouTube), and possibly versions for Ella, Elle L'a, Mademoiselle Juliette and Fifty Sixty as well. We'll see--there's not a whole lot of time left before the voting ends. If anyone has suggestions on how I could improve upon this first effort, I'd be more than happy to entertain them.
  

Anyway, if you're reading this, if you could please take a moment to visit the video's page on YouTube to comment on it and vote it up, I'd really appreciate it. And if you'd like to spread it far and wide on any fan sites, Facebook pages, MySpace profiles or blogs you happen to frequent and/or operate...well, that would be totally cool, too.

And, of course, don't forget to vote!

Rocking the vote for Alizée, Latino-style

Lilly Town catches election fever! (Well, sorta...)

While it’s unlikely that anybody who actually visits Op Drop on a semi-regular basis isn’t already aware of this—it’s been posted on her official MySpace, and all the fansites I lurk on are all a-tizzy about it—it still bears mentioning: our girl Alizée has been nominated for an MTVLA award, and she needs our help to win it!

While it may seem odd for someone with eight years and five million albums sold under her belt to be nominated as a ‘new’ artist, that’s nevertheless the category Alizée has been nominated in—‘Mejor Artista Nuevo Internacional’—alongside the Jonas Brothers (ugh!), Katy Perry (yum!), Paramore and Tokio Hotel. That’s some pretty stiff competition right there, so Lili needs all the help she can get!

On the bright side, there appears to be no limit to the number of times you can vote…but on the down side, in order for your vote to count, you need to vote in every single MTVLA category, not just the one in which Alizée’s been nominated. Not only is this a major pain in the tuchas, but it appears to be a point that many of Alizée’s supporters who followed the link from her MySpace (myself included) have initially overlooked, resulting in a whole whack of votes not being counted in the first few days of the contest.

Just so you’re clear on how it works, then, here’s an excerpt of a post from AC Mix at Lilly Town USA, which gives the 411 on exactly how to rock the vote:

so here is what we need to do.................

1- the link: http://www.mtvla.com/premios/ click on where it says Mexico or any other place... its just to know where the votes are coming from... but there is no USA.. so i guess mexico is best that will take you directly to the MTVLA awards home page...

2- click on where it says "Nominados" http://www.mtvla.com/premios/nominad...questid=390870 that will take you straight to all the categories...

3- in the list on the left. click on where it says "Mejor Artista Nuevo Internacional"... http://www.mtvla.com/premios/nominad..._Internacional it will take you to Alizée's category and she will be on on top left.

4- click on "Votar" http://www.mtvla.com/premios/votacio..._Internacional you should first see a cone like shape in the middle of all the categories. then automatically, it should take you to her category... alizee again top left hand corner...

5- click on "Votar" again... and it will take you out to another category so you can continue your voting.....

This step is extremely crucial, you MUST CONTINUE YOUR VOTING SO YOUR VOTE COUNTS... IF YOU DONT VOTE IN ALL THE CATEGORIES YOU VOTE WILL NOT COUNT..

i know its a pain in the but to vote for people you dont know and categories you dont care for... but it is a requirement... ill repeat!!!

IN ORDER FOR YOUR VOTE TO BE COUNTED, YOU NEED TO VOTE IN ALL THE CATEGORIES FIRST.

Lets all do it for Alizée so we can see her happy so then.. we can vote as many times as we want... as long as we go trough all the categories..

so then 6- click again on "Nominados" http://www.mtvla.com/premios/nominad...questid=398484 and it will take you back to the list of actegories and repeat steps 3-5 as many times possible please...

Meanwhile, over at Alizée America, friend of Op Drop NarutoSoul drops a little more science and lends some inspiration:

I did the math, and if you devote all of your attention to the voting, you should be able to get 20 votes for every hour spent voting. If that sounds crazy and difficult, try this: Listen to a Lili CD. As long as that CD is playing, spend the time voting. ONLY vote, do nothing else. Promote Lili while you listen, and help repay her for some of the joy she's brought into all of our lives!

While I hardly needed an excuse to kick back and while away a couple hours this weekend listening to Psychédélices and En Concert again (my personal two favorites of Alizée’s albums), this sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.

Vote early and vote often, kids. Let’s help Alizée take this one by a landslide.

"Hey, you! Yeah you, with the mouse! Why haven't you voted yet?!"

Alizée and Yelle: Two great tastes that taste great together!

Image courtesy of Operation LTNY

More info after the jump. (Get it?)

Just a quick reminder that Operation: Disque Drop is still looking for remote operatives to "infiltrate" the upcoming North American tour of French MySpace singing sensation Yelle. If you're a fan interested in promoting Alizée in the United States (or Vancouver, BC), this is a great way to get involved for zero dollars--I'll ship you the disques you need to do the job, free of charge, if you'll provide the manpower and the legwork to get it done!

I've only been recently exposed to Yelle, myself--having just learned of her when NarutoSoul first posed the infiltration idea this week--but from what I've heard of the music on her MySpace, going to see Yelle would be worth it just for the experience of seeing Yelle. It's very fun, poppy and catchy. I'd definitely be hitting up one of the shows myself if they were playing in my town, but unfortunately it sounds like they were already here earlier this year before I knew of them. Even if you're not interested in pimping Alizée and Op Drop--which makes me a sad panda, indeed--I'd still recommend checking them out if you're a fan of Alizée, or French pop in general.

Also, if you're a New York-area Alizée fan, and you're going to be free on October 14th, Operation LTNY would really like to hear from you.

Op Drop and Alizée shine the Batsignal!

An exciting franchise opportunity from Op Drop...

Over at the Lilly Town USA and Alizée America forums, NarutoSoul (mastermind behind LTUSA's birthday serenade to Alizée) has come up with yet another brilliant idea, this time to promote Lili here in North America:

"The French artist Yelle has a US tour coming up this fall. These shows are a great opportunity for the US fans to get more people interested in Alizée. Wear something Lili-related, drop Alizée materials, have fun! The tour's success would also be something to show Sony/BMG that promoting a French artist in the US is a viable business venture.

Yelle's Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/iloveyelle

See if she'll be performing near you!"

This is indeed a golden opportunity for us to spread the Lili-love to folks who might not be aware of her, but who'd definitely be open to the idea of getting to know her better. Here's the rub though: given the locations and the timing of the shows nearest me, it doesn't look likely that Operation: Disque Drop is going to be able to capitalize on it...which really, really sucks.

So this is where you come in, folks--if you're an Alizée fan who'd be interested in being a remote operative for Op Drop at one of these shows, please leave me a comment here on the blog, or email me at disquedrop@gmail.com. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to distribute as many disques as possible in and around your venue, in the method of your choosing. I'll supply the disques you need to do the job, and ship them to you absolutely free of charge, if you can supply the manpower and legwork to get it done.

So, what do you say? Do you have what it takes to be an Alizée Batman? Think about it and let me know.

(P.S.: If you're in the New York area, and considering hitting up the show on October 14th, I'd suggest you contact Ben at Operation LTNY instead, as it sounds like he's already hatching a plan, even as I write this.)

Found an Alizée disque at FanExpo? Welcome!

Welcome and bienvenue, visitors from FanExpo! Thanks for joining us here at Operation: Disque Drop, a one-man (so far) grassroots fan effort to spread awareness of Alizée and grow her fanbase here in North America. If you or someone you know found a CD in an inconspicuous place somewhere in the convention, and that disc led you here, thank you for proving that this crazy idea might actually work!

I hope you enjoy your first exposure to the wonder that is Alizée. If you haven’t already, I invite you to explore your disque and open your mind to some new music. I think you might have just found your new favorite artist!

Then, in either the Shoutbox to the left or in the comment section of the blog below, let us know how and where in the convention you found it, what you thought of it, and what you're going to do with it next! (Also, if you could mention which version of the disque you received—music-only, or music-plus-videos, that would be cool, too.)

If you’d like to learn more about Alizée, and interact with other North American fans on the web, the absolute best places to start are Alizée America and Lillytown USA. Both communities are filled with fun and friendly fans who absolutely love welcoming new converts, and would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Links to other Alizée sites on the intertubes, including her official MySpace, Facebook and YouTube pages, can be found in the upper left-hand margin of this page.

If you’re curious about Operation: Disque Drop (or ‘Op Drop’ for short) and what it’s all about, you can either check out the archives down at the bottom-left of the page, or start here at the first post and work your way forwards. (Don’t worry, it won’t take long—I’ve only been at it for a couple of weeks.) If you have any questions that I haven’t answered exhaustively in the blog—I know, I know, I tend to run off at the mouth, a lil’—please feel free to again either leave a comment, or shoot me an e-mail at disquedrop@gmail.com. I’ll be checking both the blog and my e-mail periodically throughout the weekend, so keep an eye out for a reply sooner rather than later!

Thanks again for visiting. I hope you enjoy your stay!

Birthday-girl Alizée and Op Drop: Partying it up, nerd-style!

Go Lili...it's your birthday...go Lili...it's your birthday!

Before we get started today, let’s take a minute and join the rest of Lili-fandom--particularly NarutoSoul and all his conspirators at Lillytown USA-- in wishing our girl Alizée a very emphatic (if slightly off-key) ‘Joyeux Anniversarie!'

It was twenty-four years ago today that Corsica’s gift to the world first saw daylight, and she’s been spreading magic (and pixie dust) in her wake every day since. Happy birthday, Lili! I hope you get everything you wish for this year, and more!

(If you'd like to take a moment to send Alizée your own heartfelt wishes, here's some handy links to her official MySpace and Facebook pages!)

So how is Op Drop going to be celebrating Alizée’s birthday weekend, you ask? That’s easy—we’re goin’ to a party. A very big party…for nerds…

That’s right, kids—Operation: Disque Drop is gonna be geeking it up in full effect for three days at FanExpo, Canada’s largest annual comic/sci-fi/anime/gaming/horror convention, and the third-largest show of its kind in North America (a.k.a. Nerd Prom), and I could not be more excited if I tried! We’re gonna be rubbin’ elbows, pressin’ flesh and gettin’ down with everyone from TNG’s Data, Smallville’s Lex Luthor and B-Star G’s Admiral Odama, to the pimp of the LoTR trilogy himself, Sean Motherlovin’ Astin. (And lest you think it’s all just a big sausage party, Kristy Swanson, Gabrielle from Xena, and Kara from the last season of Smallville are also gonna be there…)

You know who I’m the most jazzed about, though? The Fonz, baby. Ayyyyyy!

Tonight we're gonna party like it's Nineteen-Nerdy-Nine!

As much as this sounds like nothing more than a non-stop, fun-filled geek orgy, though, it’s going to be a working weekend for Op Drop. With over 50,000 fans in attendance, most of them (let’s be honest) single eighteen-to-forty-year-old males, FanExpo presents possibly the single greatest opportunity all summer to spread awareness of Alizée to as many members of our target demographic as possible!

And that’s why I’ve set a rather daunting task for myself, as a birthday present to Alizée, to take on the single biggest Operation: Disque Drop to date: to drop no less than one hundred of the newly upgraded Mark II ‘Alizée Fan Starter Kit’ disques over the course of the convention. Sure, it sounds like a lot, but with 270,000 square feet to cover over three days, I ought to be able to manage. Heck, I think I’ll barely scratch the surface!

Which isn’t to say that I couldn’t use some help! If you’re an Alizée fan who’s planning to be in the Toronto area for FanExpo this weekend, and you’d like to get in on the Op Drop action, I’d love to hear from you! Drop me a line either here in the comments (or in the ShoutBox to the left), or e-mail me at disquedrop@gmail.com, and we’ll set something up! C’mon out and help me show our fellow geeks, nerds and dorks some Lili-love!

Oy, look at the time…I’ve got about forty more disques to press before Friday. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about a possible shift in strategy for Op Drop, brought on by a comment from none other than the man and the legend himself, Ben from Operation: LTNY. Tune in then, Op Drop fans…same Lili time, same Lili channel!

Evolution of a Disque, Part II

Previously, on Operation: Disque Drop...

Welcome back, Op Drop fans. No imaginary celebrity reader of bold headlines today, I’m afraid. I did have a rather impressive speaker lined up, but unfortunately he had to cancel due to time constraints—apparently a good three dozen other bloggers are scheduled to put words in his mouth today, and he just didn’t have the time to fit us in. (See what I did there? That was my rather lame attempt at timely political humor…and it’ll never happen again, promise.) It’s a shame too, since he and Alizée apparently have a goal in common: making the French language known in the United States. (Could he secretly be a closet fan, perhaps? Hmm…)

So anyway, here’s what we’ve covered so far on Operation: Disque Drop:

• Who Alizée is, who I am, why I’m a fan, and why you should be one, too
• Op Drop’s goals, and why I believe they’re achievable
• What Op Drop actually does to achieve them, and where I got (read: stole) the idea from
• A brief overview of what’s on these disques I’m dropping (and my plea for various parties not to sue me for it)
• A more detailed look at the songs and videos on the disques, and why I felt they should make the cut

My videos! Let me show you them!

One more thing before we move onto new business—in referring to my last post while I was writing up this one, I realized that I neglected to actually link to the videos I included on the disc the way I’d intended. I’ve since gone back and edited the post to fix it, but in case you can’t be bothered to click on either of the links to it that I’ve already provided for you (slacker!), here they are again:

• FIFTY SIXTY (Music Video)
• MADEMOISELLE JULIETTE (Music Video)
• J’AI PAS VINGT ANS! (Music Video)
• LA ISLA BONITA (TV Performance)
• J’EN AI MARRE! (TV Performance, and tactical nuke of Lili fandom)

Again, let me know in the comments what you think of the selection, whether you agree or think I’m totally off my nut. As the title of the post suggests, this is a project that’s constantly evolving, so if somebody makes a pretty compelling case for an alternate video or performance, there’s a decent chance it’ll show up in a future iteration of the disque.

So that’s the contents of the disque out of the way. Now that we know what’s on it, let’s take a look at the disque itself.

Mark I: So cheap, they’re practically free! (And boy, does it show.)

Once I got (stole) the intial idea for Op Drop, I immediately rushed into action. Like Tony Stark designing his Iron Man armor, for my first crude attempt I made do with whatever crude materials I had available on hand. In his case, it was a cache of state-of-the-art weapons stolen from his company by the terrorists who were holding him hostage. In mine, it was a package of 10 CD-Rs and a box of paper sleeves I had lying around the house, left over from a time before iPods and DVD burners, when dinosaurs walked the earth.

Both of our first attempts were functional, but lacking a certain aesthetic. They got the job done, but they sure weren’t pretty…

Actually, I’m not altogether sure mine even got the job done. Because I didn’t have this blog set up yet, the first ten disques I dropped pointed whoever found them to Alizée America, and asked them to post on the forums to tell the story about how their disque found them. At the time, I thought it’d be really cool and mysterious, both for the disques’ recipients and the forum regulars at AAm

Uh-huh. It’s been about a month since I dropped the first of those disques (more about which in a future post, later this week), and about two weeks since I dropped the last one. Nobody yet has ever posted on Aam to say they found one. Given how crude and homemade they looked, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if –as Euphoria suggested in the comments last Thursday—if they just wound up being thrown out or smashed…just like Tony’s Mark I armor after he escaped from those terrorists.

Clearly, for both of us, an upgrade was in order…

But more on that tomorrow. See you then, folks...same Lili time, same Lili channel!

If a tree falls in the forest...

Well, huh. With little-to-no effort at all on my part--I haven't even pimped Op Drop at Alizée America or Lilly Town USA yet--it appears that word is already starting to spread about Operation: Disque Drop.

First, Op Drop showed up in this morning's Google Alert that I have set up for news and blog posts pertaining to Alizée, which was pretty cool to see. Google Alerts are actually a pretty handy way of keeping track of news stories, sports teams, celebrities, etc. You can set one up for pretty much anything you're interested in here.

Meanwhile, aw kindly gives a shout-out to Op Drop today on his awesome (and often very funny) Alizée blog, after following a link I dropped in a comment there yesterday, and being momentarily confused by the similarity of our page layouts. (Blogger only gives you so many templates to work with, folks, and this is honestly the best one.)

Finally, over on the forum for the previously-mentioned Alizée America, Ruroshen pimped Op Drop in this thread, in which the community is discussing various ways to promote Alizée in the United States. (It's also where I first learned about Operation: LTNY a few weeks ago...yes Snatcher, as Ruroshen says, I am indeed a fan.) Ruroshen also has a hilariously geek-tastic sig going on that I have to share:


Thanks for the mentions, guys! I appreciate it!

Speaking of Operation: LTNY, their first official meet and greet is tomorrow afternoon in front of the Times Square Virgin Megastore, where they're going to be handing out sampler CDs, business cards, fliers, and generally bringing some Lili love to the mean streets of New York. If you're a fan in the New York area and want to get involved, you can find more information here. Best of luck to Ben and everybody else from LTNY in converting the Lili heathens!

More tomorrow...same Lili time, same Lili channel!