Looking backward, looking forward
As usual, I'm in a bit of a rut. More stress upon more stress just piling up lately. Not really sure what to do about it anymore, and I can barely concentrate on one problem long enough to try to solve it before another one rears its ugly head.
I've been getting into some heated debates with Nick Allain (Broken Wall Films / Something Remote producer) lately. When the latest episode was posted, there were a few smallish issues that proceeded to, when brought to light, explode. First was the title. Originally, the episode was titled "Something Timeless" (in my mind -- and in John Selig and Alex Laferriere's -- a very solid, meaningful title). However, Nick had argued to change it to "Something Lost in Time" on the grounds that it would be substantially easier to find via search engines.
...which made no sense to any of us. How is "lost in time" easier to find (randomly) than "timeless"? The conclusion myself and John (and Alex and Steve to an extent) came to was that by changing the title to affect Google-search potential is a hit to our artistic integrity.
Then there was the description. Most of our descriptions have been short ("Neil, Mat, and Erik do a little science experiment." --Something Popping). Nick decided to go with something a bit more... revealing: "Mat has changed all the clocks in the apartment. The three guys get confused and discuss why Doc Brown from Back To The Future may be a child molester and how the Terminators could have won the war in the first movie." Not only is this description massive for a five-minute webisode (compare to The Guild's latest episode "Fight": "Characters collide (literally)"), but it outright give away the joke regarding Doc Brown as a potential child molester (a joke I quite enjoyed).
From the mention of the word "DeLorean" (at which point, folks would know this leads to the claim about Doc Brown, it takes a minute and fifteen seconds (out of a 4.5-minute episode -- nearly a full THIRD of the episode) until the joke finally lands.
And why was this done? Why did we blow 75 seconds of joke buildup? So we could collect people who type "Doc Brown molester" into Google. And when I brought it up, I was told "the delivery is funny, not the concept". It's insulting.
And in bringing it up, I began to realize what's going on. We're scrambling for pageviews from random passersby, and trying to emulate Clerks and The Guild, and everything else. And it's aggravating to work this hard on a project just to get moaned at because we're not #1 on YouTube yet.
I have a few big ideas running through my head for webseries and shorts I want to create, but I don't know that I can do it under Broken Wall Films unless I have a say in how to advertise it. I'm finding myself disagreeing with this magic "business plan" more and more each day. I'm not a company man, I'm an actor, a comedian, and an artist. I act because I enjoy it, and after two movies, a mountain of student comedy routines, sixteen theatrical productions, and a fledgling webseries already four episodes deep (with three more finished and at least another five on the way), I still enjoy it. But (shock and awe) I don't get paid for this stuff. And it's getting harder every day to justify the immense amount of work I put into it. I'm desperately trying to keep myself out of crippling debt, and the stress from watching us do things like post our videos to 11 different websites (only three of which are getting any worthwhile notice for us), and ruining jokes for the possibility of getting someone who types a completely ludicrous phrase like "Doc Brown molester" into a search engine (why in god's name would we want to target that demographic ANYWAY?) is really taking its toll on me.
I didn't intend for this post to be entirely BWF-centric, but there you have it. Maybe later I'll get into the other tower of crap looming over me these days. Oy. I need a vacation from this vacation.
I've been getting into some heated debates with Nick Allain (Broken Wall Films / Something Remote producer) lately. When the latest episode was posted, there were a few smallish issues that proceeded to, when brought to light, explode. First was the title. Originally, the episode was titled "Something Timeless" (in my mind -- and in John Selig and Alex Laferriere's -- a very solid, meaningful title). However, Nick had argued to change it to "Something Lost in Time" on the grounds that it would be substantially easier to find via search engines.
...which made no sense to any of us. How is "lost in time" easier to find (randomly) than "timeless"? The conclusion myself and John (and Alex and Steve to an extent) came to was that by changing the title to affect Google-search potential is a hit to our artistic integrity.
Then there was the description. Most of our descriptions have been short ("Neil, Mat, and Erik do a little science experiment." --Something Popping). Nick decided to go with something a bit more... revealing: "Mat has changed all the clocks in the apartment. The three guys get confused and discuss why Doc Brown from Back To The Future may be a child molester and how the Terminators could have won the war in the first movie." Not only is this description massive for a five-minute webisode (compare to The Guild's latest episode "Fight": "Characters collide (literally)"), but it outright give away the joke regarding Doc Brown as a potential child molester (a joke I quite enjoyed).
From the mention of the word "DeLorean" (at which point, folks would know this leads to the claim about Doc Brown, it takes a minute and fifteen seconds (out of a 4.5-minute episode -- nearly a full THIRD of the episode) until the joke finally lands.
And why was this done? Why did we blow 75 seconds of joke buildup? So we could collect people who type "Doc Brown molester" into Google. And when I brought it up, I was told "the delivery is funny, not the concept". It's insulting.
And in bringing it up, I began to realize what's going on. We're scrambling for pageviews from random passersby, and trying to emulate Clerks and The Guild, and everything else. And it's aggravating to work this hard on a project just to get moaned at because we're not #1 on YouTube yet.
I have a few big ideas running through my head for webseries and shorts I want to create, but I don't know that I can do it under Broken Wall Films unless I have a say in how to advertise it. I'm finding myself disagreeing with this magic "business plan" more and more each day. I'm not a company man, I'm an actor, a comedian, and an artist. I act because I enjoy it, and after two movies, a mountain of student comedy routines, sixteen theatrical productions, and a fledgling webseries already four episodes deep (with three more finished and at least another five on the way), I still enjoy it. But (shock and awe) I don't get paid for this stuff. And it's getting harder every day to justify the immense amount of work I put into it. I'm desperately trying to keep myself out of crippling debt, and the stress from watching us do things like post our videos to 11 different websites (only three of which are getting any worthwhile notice for us), and ruining jokes for the possibility of getting someone who types a completely ludicrous phrase like "Doc Brown molester" into a search engine (why in god's name would we want to target that demographic ANYWAY?) is really taking its toll on me.
I didn't intend for this post to be entirely BWF-centric, but there you have it. Maybe later I'll get into the other tower of crap looming over me these days. Oy. I need a vacation from this vacation.