Something weird happens. On Yahoo Video every now and then, my views just skyrocket. Thanks to TUBEMOGUL.COM, I can look over a compilation of stats from 12 different sites at any one time. Me likes that. I’m just confounded by the numbers. With CRACKLE.COM, I can understand because I can trace a spike in views to being featured on their main page or getting an “Editor’s Choice Award”. With Yahoo Video, I have no discernable reason why one day I go from hundreds of views a day to suddenly thousands of views. Sure I added a video of my cousin Ian playing guitar , but that wasn’t it. This past Thursday, my views spiked and it wasn’t a single video, it was 20 of them just went BAMM! And I had a lot of people watching a lot of my movies.
Could this be in response to the writer’s strike and how people are turning to the Internet even MORE than they were for entertainment? 
My opinion on the writer’s strike going on in the U.S. is this: The WGA is over compensating for their bad negotiation for DVD rights a few years ago. They know they screwed up that deal big time because NO ONE anticipated that TV on DVD would be such an enormous profit making machine. Now that everyone is aware that the Internet is the future, they are over compensating for the potential lucrative opportunities on the web that aren’t there….. yet but they will be. Of course, the greedy producers and companies don’t want to share more than they have to.
So I’m of course siding with the writer’s on this, but the real problem this will cause, at least in my hypothesis is this: They will both lose. The mob is fickle, brother. The majority of people won’t know or care about the strike or who’s right and who’s wrong. They want their empty minds filled. They will get satisfaction one way or another. The Internet and the YouTubes out there already carve a giant hole into the 18-35 year old demographic. Where will they go now when the regular shows and movies aren’t available? People like me are itching to fill in that gap and we will. The old business model of TV shows and movies will only degrade at an accelerated rate thanks to the strike.
Anywho…
I got my crane in, so I can do some cool jib-like shots whenever I feel like it. I loaned my HD camera to my boss as he goes to New York City for the weekend. He’ll get some HD shots of the city with my Canon HV20 and we can use it or not use it as needed. I love having a tiny camera that catches such amazing images.
I’m trying to formulate my production schedule for the year. We’re still posting ETERNAL here, plus I’ve decided to push for a final sound mix on GOODNIGHT CLEVELAND by the end of February so it can be considered “done” and we can move on. My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder demands that project be finished, my work kept and friends satiated. Aside from that, I’m trying to budget and time out production on at least 3 slightly more ambitious shorts and also a feature. I want to return to my workaholic ways as well as start working out on my new gym membership. I need stamina to keep up with the plans I have.
Using the new Adobe CS3 suite has some minor challenges. I miss the way I could make a DVD straight off the timeline. That was handy, now it has to be exported to Encore to make a folder. Other than that, it’s handy and cool. I toyed with After Effects a bit using the 3D environment that’s been around for years, but I stopped creating title sequences several years ago, so now this was of interest to me to have it so easily done.
The great and powerful Johnny Wu is stopping in this Tuesday afternoon. I love hanging with my friend Johnny. He doesn’t come to Columbus as often as I go to Cleveland, so this will be fun. His movie RAPTURE is skedded for a premiere in the not too distant future.
To celebrate the breakfast nook now with new cushions, as well as My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™’s now completed remodeled bathroom, we’re having a party for my birthday this week. I’ve been anti-social for some time. I don’t think this will change much overall, but at least for this, I’ll entertain some of my pals as we play poker upstairs and perhaps some HD-DVD will play downstairs.
I have My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ addicted to TWIN PEAKS. This show, from 1990-1991, aged very well. It’s not as out of date as I thought it would be. Mark Frost and David Lynch did something historic with this show. They each complimented each other’s style. Their respective voices can be clearly differentiated via the two lead characters, Kyle MacLachlan’s Agent Cooper and Michael Ontkean’s Sheriff Harry S. Truman. Lynch used Cooper to translate his esoteric, often abstract ideas into English as he explained it to Frost’s Sheriff Truman who needed to understand, as did the audience, how a midget, a giant, and a guy named Bob somehow relate to a normal thought process. Two bits of trivia often not associated with TWIN PEAKS, #1. two of the lead actors were the two lead actors in the film version of WEST SIDE STORY, and #2 there are at least 4 actors who later had recurring roles on SEINFELD.
Off to work I am. As much as it chagrins poor “V” who wants to play fetch like a dog….
– Ross
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