Network2 Video Contest for Real Money!

Our friends at Network2 are holding a contest to help spread the word about web video -- and there's cash money to be had!

In a nutshell: you make a web video that explains how web video / web tv works, and / or why you watch it. You post the video to the official site. And then you cross your fingers that one of the top three cash prizes comes your way.

Sound interesting? Read more about it -- and Digg it -- here.

Straddling the Sitcom Line

Our forums are working again, and longtime STBD fan MrV has returned with an evaluation of most of the new characters introduced since September. We're always interested in knowing how we're being viewed by the general public, especially since we all suffer from delusions of grandeur. Either that or self-loathing; it's an artist thing.

MrV made an observation I hadn't considered previously, but which makes complete sense now that he's pointed it out:

"Rich: An incredibly unbelievable character... one of the funniest people on the show, but he comes off as a sit-com character and not an STBD character."

This got me thinking... at what point does STBD cross the line between "sitcom" and "soap opera" -- or whatever it is that we are?

A character like Leo, for example, is forever stretching the definition of credibility, and yet he gets a free pass from most of the audience. Meanwhile, someone like Rich, who's really just one more degree away from Leo on the "superego food chain," seems to cross that boundary into unbelievable fiction.

We've begun calling ourselves a "web sitcom" recently, in an effort to explain our structure more easily to new viewers. But a "sitcom" conjures ideas of archetypal, caricature-esque characters that seem to fly in the face of the well-rounded STBD personalities that viewers like MrV have come to identify with over the years.

So: what are we? And what defines that boundary between sitcom and something else?

STBD Season Four: Episode 19 "Dierdre's (Other) Gift"

Click to Play

Dierdre discovers her real gift from Dex. (11:00)Theme by ZOX

Most Depressing Day of the Year?

A quick preponderance as we head into the weekend: did you know that this past Monday (Jan 22) was the most depressing day of the year?

Experts peg it as such because it takes place 3 weeks after most people have failed in their New Year's resolutions and occurs as winter is (traditionally) at its bleakest. [I'm sure being the Monday that begins the Week Without Football depresses most sports fans even further.]

That said, I had a pretty productive Monday -- and a productive week. I realized what a lot of people probably have by now -- I'm not exactly nailing my New Year's resolutions every day -- but instead of throwing in the towel, I decided to step it up.

I still have some work to do, and I'll talk more about that -- and about a few long-awaited STBD secrets -- next week. But, for now, those of you who feel like you're backsliding so early in the year might want to grab on to something (to halt the descent) and take a look around you. Is it really that bad? No, probably not.

All you need is a change of direction, which leads to a change in momentum.

STBD Is Featured on BitTorrent

A few weeks ago, the director of content programming at BitTorrent contacted me to see how they might be able to feature Something to Be Desired on their homepage. He explained the benefits of being able to appeal directly to their thousands of daily users, which made sense to me. So, after some hoop-jumping on both of our ends to figure out the best way to make the series available, I received an email yesterday indicating that STBD is now on their homepage.

Along with Harry Potter and The Shins.



Unusually good company, I'd say...

Spreadshirt Webinar #2 - Low Cost Marketing

Since the merchandising webinar hosted by the Spreadshirt lasses two weeks ago was a huge success, they've decided to host a second one -- this time on the topic of low-cost marketing. (I know this because I'm on one of their mailing lists. There's a good low-cost marketing tip that works, eh?)

Here's the email, fresh off the presses:

20 Top Tips for Low-to-No Cost Marketing

Join us for a Webinar on January 25, 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now!

You asked for it, you got it!

More marketing tips were the top Webinar request from you -- our community -- after our Webinar on January 11th. So, we put our heads together and developed our 20 TOP TIPS for marketing your SpreadShop (or really most things online). In this Webinar, we'll cover tips for:

* Creating, positioning, and showcasing apparel that's easier to promote,
* Using blogs and other Websites for product ideas and promotion,
* Making yourself and your shop attractive to the press, and
* Low-cost, effective search engine marketing

Same as last time, our Webinar will last about 40 minutes -- with 25 minutes of presentation and 15 minutes for your questions. We will also record this presentation as well, so it will be online later. (We haven't gotten the first one online yet, but we are getting closer!)

And by request, we have added International dial-in numbers for the audio portion. You will have to dial-in to hear the audio. The numbers are:

United States: (319) 256-0300
Belgium: 070 35 9975
Germany: 01805 00 76 10
Netherlands: 9006 353 535
Spain: 902 886026
UK: 0870 35 204 75

After connecting, enter the code: 351854#
(Yes, enter the "#" symbol at the end.)

We hope you can attend!

******

I believe I'll be "attending." See you there?

STBD: The State of the Union 2007

Since President Bush will be delivering his State of the Union address this evening, it seemed appropriate for me to deliver my own as well, as the STBD Guru. This will be a long post, so the time-pressed among you may want to skim the Overview and Summary sections first.

THE OVERVIEW

It's been a good four years here in STBD-ville. We've grown from a small, self-contained story into a sprawling, organic experience involving dozens of actors, multiple locations and a storytelling style that increases in value the deeper you dig.

New viewers seeking to catch up with the history of STBD can now expect to spend over 10 hours in front of their computers (or on their iPods). That's a huge investment in time -- comparable to following a network TV show, but without all the ads and cross-promotions (yet).

And what are we, as creators of a web sitcom, providing in return? What value can you expect to receive during your ten minute investment of attention per week?

To be honest, I think what we're providing is good, but it's not as good as it will be.

As a story -- and as storytellers -- Something to Be Desired continues to expand and improve. We're honing our craft, learning what works and what doesn't, and creating what we feel is a window into a set of characters and situations who are endearing, compelling and believable.

As an experience, we're still limited in our scope and our execution. We know that certain elements of our website, our community development and our story itself, can all improve. New aspects must be added, old services must be overhauled or replaced, and the whole concept of Something to Be Desired must continue to grow beyond the show itself and into the fully-realized experience we continue to envision for ourselves and our fans, our collaborators and contributors.

It's been an adventure simply to have survived this long, as a ship at sea in the ever-widening world of web video. What began as an experiment has evolved into a central part of many people's lives, and we couldn't be happier with the impact the series has had on each of us (and each of you). But the opportunities and challenges that await us are far larger than any we've encountered in our first four years, and we need the help of everyone aboard -- cast, crew, viewers and friends -- to help this ship stay the course to both financial and artistic success.

STBD: THE ARTISTIC SIDE

Season Four has been our most ambitious season yet. We've added more cast members, filmed in more locations and will end up telling a longer story than we have in any previous season. And yet, even as we grow and improve, we encounter new problems that force us to re-evaluate our direction.

As some of the commenters on my previous post about STBD's potential improvements have pointed out, the storylines in the STBD-verse tend to move a little too slowly. As much as I'd love to defend that as an artistic choice in the name of character development, I must agree. Although we claim to be half sitcom and half soap opera, it's clear that the glacial pacing of most soap opera plotlines is seeping into our process.

Breaking All the Rules

In the web world, if not everywhere these days, speed is of the essence. Our competition is not just our fellow webcasters but the entertainment industry as a whole, which means we need to play to our strengths. As a guerrilla video unit, that includes being able to move quickly and accomplish things that larger, more bloated productions can't (because of the cost and time involved).

The key to accomplishing that would be to revolve around a small, regularly available cast, ensuring that their storylines were the central focus of every episode, OR revolving around a single location, which would allow for a wide variety of characters and storylines to pass through its doors.

Oddly enough, we've managed to avoid both of those bits of wisdom.

When the show began, we had a core cast of 8. Over the years, actors have come and gone, but by and large we've continued to grow. We now have around 25-30 recurring characters. Why?

Heavier Ships Sail More Slowly

A lack of budget (which means I can't guarantee the availability of my actors, who need day jobs to eat) and a lack of planning (because I end up handling all aspects of production, promotions, business, etc., myself, and there's only so much time in a week), the element of the series that suffers the most is the long-range continuity that comes with taut storytelling. Inflating the cast in order to make up for availability concerns has, paradoxically, made the scheduling process even more complex because there are now twice as many characters involved in each storyline as there were in the first place.

So now, instead of being able to adhere to 2 or 3 core storylines, I have a dozen mini-threads weaving around each other based primarily upon the availability of the actors in question. Wondering where certain subplots (like the dismantling of WANT) go for long stretches of time? Look no further than your calendar, where some actors find themselves unavailable to film with other actors in their plotline for weeks on end.

The positive aspect of a large cast is that the world of STBD keeps getting larger, which gives us many more story opportunities. The downside, obviously, is that we lose focus. So instead of seeing the world through Jack Boyd's eyes (as was the original concept for the series four years ago), or Caroline's, we end up cycling through various viewpoints, with central characters rotating from the foreground to the periphery over time. If done well, and if built around one central theme, that can work. I don't believe it's worked for us yet because the unifying spine of their multiple experiences hasn't been established.

A Roof Over Our Heads

So, if what we haave is a gigantic cast, the solution is to pin them all in one location, no?

Well, that was the reason for setting the show in a radio station. And, as we'll reveal in the coming days, that solution backfired on us in a big way earlier this year.

Now we have Affogato as our central location, more or less, which works out great for planning and plotline purposes -- every character could justifiably be in the cafe at the same time, if need be -- but doesn't do much to further the concept of showing a large world. Had we started in the cafe and built out, we could slowly show the worlds these characters work in. But having already seen where they work (WANT, Vanity Press, etc.), it now seems confining to limit their experiences to what happens while they're drinking coffee.

Thus, we end up living a nomadic existence around the city, showing glimpses of stores, restaurants, bars and apartments -- which, actually, was the goal all along in utilizing all of Pittsburgh as an element of the series. Although this definitely helps the show "feel" larger, it also adds a LOT of variables into the scheduling and logistics because we not only have to worry about actor availability but location availability as well. (No wonder Caroline, Dierdre and Leo live in the same apartment, eh?)

Proposed Solution

Being in thick of the writing / planning process on a daily basis, I can tell you with authority that the show won't be getting smaller anytime soon. The directions we're pointed in don't allow for a collapsing in of the STBD world to narrow focus onto a core group of characters -- at least not this season -- without sacrificing the breadth and scope of the show that I feel is one of its greatest potential assets.

What I see instead are two interconnected solutions that, when enacted by next season, will help us right the ship and allow us to sail along much faster.

1. Shrink the cast.

Hard as it is, certain choices must be made to ensure that the STBD storyline is as tight and compelling as possible. While telling an ensemble story is, and always will be, integral to the vibe of STBD, it's clear that an ensemble won't work without a directed focus and a rapid progression through increasingly heightened conflicts, which have proven to be too difficult to execute in our current incarnation. Thus, the core cast of STBD must be compressed in order to work more efficiently next season. However, the actors we work with are so talented and dedicated, and their stories so disparate, that filing the focus of the series down to tunnel vision would cause us to lose a lot of the variety that flavors the show as we know it.

Which means...

2. Spin off new series.

I believe we've established a sufficiently large world in which the STBD characters live, one that stretches beyond Pittsburgh and includes a number of stories that only tangentially intersect. Instead of chopping burgeoning storylines off at the head in order to narrrow our focus, I feel it's more valuable to diverge those storylines into their own, more closely united mini-verses that allow for their own natural unfolding. While the possibilities for this type of expansion are numerous, the most likely options would be to separate the WANT, Affogato and Vanity Press threads into their own individual entities. Characters would still overlap and move through each series as needed, but would generally stay true to their own trajectories within one specific series to aid with momentum and logistics.

So: how does a series that isn't actually profitable and is currently overwhelmed with time constraints going to spin itself off?

STBD: THE BUSINESS SIDE

It's no secret that the business aspect of STBD is almost non-existent. While that attitude was completely acceptable during the years before the iPod could play video, the new shift towards a video-based web economy has forced everyone to decide whether they're a hobby or a business, and adjust their production process accordingly.

Given the amount of time I spend creating STBD on a weekly basis, there's almost no way I could justify it as anything other than a business, despite my inability to make the choices and take the actions necessary to accomplish that part of the plan -- until now.

Broadening the STBD world means broadening the STBD brand -- which means establishing the brand in the first place. It also means generating revenue in order to fund the continued growth that accompanies the goals of a production company, which is what STBD intends to be part of.

This means creating merchandise.

This means involving advertisers on the show and the site.

This means acquiring sponsors.

This means applying for grants.

This means finally making those long-desired DVDs available.

This means pursuing all relevant avenues of revenue generation that strengthen STBD's ability to grow with the market while not polluting the viewing and community experiences that we seek to build.

How can we do this? I have my ideas, but I'm honestly not a businessman, I'm a creator and a creative problem-solver. That means I need a team of people who can help me, and STBD, chart an acceptable and accomplishable course. If you have ideas, I'm certainly open to them. This is an open discussion.

Proposed Solution

The three target areas we need to focus on in order to establish and expand both our brand and our business are:

1. Increased viewership.

Despite being online since 2003, our dedicated viewership ebbs and flows far under the radar of most of our contemporaries. This is due as much to the uneven progression of the narrative as it is to the lack of time and resources spent in appealing to and retaining new viewers.

We don't advertise, and we may never do so if we can avoid it. We prefer to build our audience through word of mouth because we believe that generates more passionate fans than blanket advertising campaigns would. However, we realize it's difficult to build word of mouth without providing our fans with the proper tools to do so. (More on that in the following section.)

Our goal, humble as it may be, is to achieve 10,000 recurring weekly viewers. Considering many of our contemporaries are enjoying audiences more than 10 times that number, it may seem that we're aiming low. But we believe the 10,000 viewer platform is the level at which the show can generate sufficient residual buzz to begin to generate a life of its own outside of our first-person, conversation-driven method of spreading the word.

In order to achieve that number, we intend to rely more heavily on the established methods (email, MySpace, YouTube, internal promotions, street teams) that have been proven to work for us in the past -- when we (meaning I, Ann or Erik) have had the time to devote to them -- as well as emerging technologies, web applications and local and regional partnerships designed to expose STBD to new viewers who may not otherwise have had the opportunity to discover us.

2. Revenue generation.

Loathe as we are to spend our own money on advertising, we're more open to enabling other businesses to advertise within our space, especially if that trade-off enables us to continue growing and producing quality web art.

STBD will be actively soliciting contributions from advertisers on both a local and a national / web-based level. As our viewership numbers continue to grow, we intend to find organic ways to include advertising and product placement in a way that will provide minimal distraction for our viewers and maximum benefit for the advertisers themselves. Ideally, that would involve a small number of sponsors whose contributions become an organic (and therefore unobtrusive) element within the STBD viewing experience.

However, to be honest, our target goal is to provide an ad-free viewing experience. This means finding alternate ways to generate revenue, which traditionally includes merchandising or memberships. In a perfect world, we would prefer to rely upon the passion of our viewers for our livelihood than to rely upon the whims of advertisers, and all steps will be taken to ensure that this direction remains our primary choice for self-determining revenue generation. However, at the present time, it is not the only avenue we can afford to explore.

3. Sustainable income.

In the long run, STBD as a production company requires a sustainable source of funding to remain operative. That cash flow can come from merchandise, advertising, sponsorships, affiliate deals or other licensing options, as well as long-term agreements with larger production companies and distributors. The end result must generate a sufficient amount of revenue to provide for the ongoing growth of the company, and ensure that we can spend the bulk of my time creating an experience people value, rather than finding new ways to fund the old operations each month.

By attending to these three needs, I believe STBD can turn the corner from a time-consuming hobby to the fully operational business I'd expected to be running. I believe this is accomplishable within 1 year.

STBD: THE EXPERIENCE

The artistic side and the commerce side combine to create what I see as the complete STBD experience that I'd originally envisioned for the series / site when we first began: a place where viewers can interact with the creators and directly influence the direction of the show through instant feedback.

To do this, we need a wide number of changes made to the existing website, including design, interactivity and navigation updates. Episodes need to be comment-able and more easily searched. The forums need to work and be active. The entirety of our archives need to be more easily graspable -- a brand new viewer should be up to speed in three minutes, not 10 hours.

But more important than any cosmetic or production change we could make is the culture of STBD itself: we need community.

Something to Be Desired is named as it is because, in addition to be a show, a brand, it's also a mindset, a state of being. Everyone who conducts independent thought finds that life after college (if not beforehand) is far from the satisfying holistic whole they envisioned it being as a child. The stories we tell on STBD are based upon the universal experiences of love, friendship, work and play because those are the bonds that unite us as we try to navigate this new and uncertain world that's ever-changing and frequently leaves us feeling as though we're never quite up to speed.

The only thing that helps us through the dark times is the knowledge that we're not alone.

Thus, STBD is meant to become more than a show, more than a series of entertaining and occasionally insightful videos that, when viewed over time, comprise one person's (or, more accurately, one creative team's) point of view on the world we know. Heady as that already is, we also strive to provide a place where our viewers can become our collaborators and our friends.

It's not just that social networking is the trendy buzzword of the late 2000s; it's that the world is waking up to the concept that the people are the engine that powers every experience, no matter if you're providing a service or a product. STBD is both and neither, but in the end, STBD is all about me, and therefore you, and thus everyone in-between.

STBD is a community that needs to be built.

Proposed Solution

Time and money must be allotted to the repair, expansion and improvement of the online experience. This means I need to scale out blocks of time for website maintenance and community development. More accurately, it means I need to apply the incoming funds from the aforementioned business growth to find passionate people who can maintain these aspects of the site -- and the experience -- for me.

However, in lieu of an official STBD Community Developer, I intend to develop the following:

1. STBD Street Team.

This existed once. It did pretty well, too, generating us new viewers in several cities. As with most peripheral aspects of STBD, it fell by the wayside as my plate filled up with production needs. It needs to be recreated.

My goal is to develop a small but dedicated cluster of individuals who enjoy the STBD experience enough to voluntarily spread the word online and around their cities / campuses, using provided materials (blogs, blurbs, links, graphics, trailers, postcards, posters, etc.), in exchange for greater involvement in the STBD creative process. Having a coordinator for this team would ensure that this arm of the promotions world doesn't fall by the wayside again.

2. Individual Blog Reach-Outs.

Bloggers are the new journalists. We've received a lot of positive attention (and traffic) from them over the years, and we appreciate their opinions about the series (even when we disagree with them). The tricky part is in getting their attention.

Press releases are dead, but personal emails and comments of value are what matter in this new age of one-on-one journalism. Justifiably, most bloggers are wary of cold-contact emails or blind comments that appear to be nothing more than pleas for PR or traffic-generating devices. That said, the bloggers who consider themselves the tastemakers of specific sub-cultures -- the tech blogs, the video blogs, the pop culture blogs -- are always on the lookout for news they can break.

STBD has the dubious distinction of being around long enough to be reputable but still small enough that it can be considered "breaking news" or "an undiscovered gem" by most bloggers -- which means we need to take the time to reach out and contact those bloggers whose opinions we value and whose audiences we feel would enjoy our particular point of view.

3. Make Feedback Easier.

This one is the key.

When I started STBD, I envisioned the situation as follows:

We write, film and edit an episode. We post it online. And then, based upon the flood of immediate comments we receive from our legions of viewers, we craft the following episode to a balance between their desires as an audience and our desires as artists.

That hasn't happened yet, mostly because we haven't provided the proper communication devices our audience needs to voice their opinions.

Comment-able and rate-able episodes, working forums, email blasts, AIM conversations, blog interviews and customizable STBD widgets that allow viewers to share their favorite episodes with friends and visitors to their own websites will go a long way toward fostering a two-way dialogue that will help make the show a completely original production.

But those aren't the only options.

Do we need a wiki?

Do we need open rehearsals?

Do we need live monthly meet-ups?

Do we need faster filming-to-airing time? (Hard to do, trust me, but we can always go live... or daily... provided we can afford to.)

Do we need special MySpace scripts that encourage instant feedback, more character blogs, publicly-written scripts and an open-source approach to all aspects of the series-making process?

I think the answer to all of the above is yes, but I'm only one man.

Do you have ideas? Do you have time? Help make this the first step toward that two-way conversation.

THE SUMMARY

To conclude, there are three major shifts that need to take place within the STBD world:

- a return to tightly-focused storytelling
- proper attention paid to the business side of the process, and
- a devotion to the growth of the interactive STBD community.

I obviously have my ideas about the future of the web, the future of video, the future of our series and how it all fits into my own personal goals and lifeplan. You have yours. This is a conversation, and I welcome all feedback on how I can help create the STBD that you want to participate in.

I'll be speaking at Video on the Net in San Jose in March, and I expect to have more answers (and more questions) by then. In the interim, look for small changes in the way STBD operates, as I continue to improve the experience -- and the story -- one step, one week, one day at a time.

Thanks for your support and, as always, if you like what you see, please spread the word.

STBD Season Four: Episode 18 "House Hunting"

Click to Play

Leo and Chloe figure out what the key is for... Now what? (10:00)

Theme by ZOX

A $150 Cup of Coffee

I spent a few hours this afternoon chatting with Andrew Smith, a new STBD fan who had discovered the show somewhat accidentally a few weeks ago (by way of the "Leo's Guide to Pittsburgh" video, of all things) and became hooked on our entire series. Shortly before New Year's, Andrew donated $150 to the cause, which garnered him a few cool bells and whistles. While he was at it, he asked to meet for a cup of coffee, and today I was able to oblige.

The interesting thing in talking about the show with a fan, as opposed to a journalist, is that the fans ask the questions that I as a creator love to answer, whereas what's interesting to a journalist are all the things I've said about the show in every interview I've ever given. It was a very cool experience to have someone asking all about our process, and how certain scenes were really filmed, and what the cast was really like, etc. It's not that I dislike giving traditional interviews, but it's rare that someone a) knows as much about the show as Andrew does, and b) asks questions I can answer from an artistic point of view, rather than the "what is STBD, how did you get started and how are you making money?" POV.

Then Andrew asked me one question I couldn't answer: "What can I do to help?"

Oddly enough, I was stumped. I spend so much time doing STBD myself that I really don't know how to utilize an offer of someone else's time and creative resources properly. So it got me thinking: What's my...

STBD Wish List

1. Increased Viewership. STBD has been around for 4 years now, but our numbers are nowhere near where we'd like them to be. Part of that is because we don't advertise. Part of that is because our barriers to entry ("3+ year's worth of episodes? How the hell am I supposed to catch up on all this? I'll go watch The Office instead...") are so high. And part of it is because I spend most of my time on production and not nearly enough on promotions or business development. Ann and Erik (aka Caroline and Rich on STBD) have helped out a lot with those issues in the past year, but both of them are busy with more pressing engagements these days, so our numbers have dipped back to their pre-push standard, which is frustrating.

2. Reliable Schedules. Since we film every week, I should have specific days set aside in which certain cast members and locations are always free to film. Oddly enough, in the 4 years we've been doing this, I haven't found a way to make that happen. Yet.

3. Improved Website. Shawn Smith of Geek Riot built us a great site back in 2005, but it's become increasingly clear over the past year that a lot of elements need to be tweaked / updated / replaced. He doesn't have much time and I don't have much money to pay him, so those elements remain unchanged, including the things I know I could do myself but never seem to get around to. From an ease-of-use perspective to a better-use-of-space perspective, there are a number of cosmetic changes that could really push the site to the next level and help us create a...

4. Social Network. As Andrew pointed out to me recently, our forums are broken (again). Shawn has been working to fix or replace them, but even after that happens, we've still only ever had a mild buzz going on our forums, even in their heyday. Considering the seismic power most social-based sites can generate, it seems ludicrous that STBD has existed as long as it has without having a self-generating buzz built around it. That kind of thing only happens when the users / viewers of a site can take an active role in the experience's development, and we aren't providing that to our fans. Yet.

5. Operating Cash. I've saved this for last because it's almost a given: everyone wants more money. We here at STBD would love to be able to throw money at problems, but even with "breathing room" cash, the issues above would still take ingenuity, manpower (or person-power, if you prefer) and time to fix. What operating cash of a recurring nature would provide us with is the opportunity to improve our production quality, pay our actors (so they can reduce their reliability on their day jobs), hire marketing and salespeople to build the back-end business side of the STBD brand, and otherwise expand what's currently a clever low-budget sitcom into an experience with a defensible plan for growth.

I'm sure there are more (a mini-DV deck and a lighting kit would come in handy, for example), but those are our 5 key needs, as I see them.

So here are three open questions to our fans / readers:

What elements do YOU see STBD needing to focus on to improve?

How do you think we can tackle the ones listed above?

And, what are the five Wish List items you have for your own site / show?

(If you do post a Wish List, please track back to this post so we can continue the concept of the conversation.)

Too Fast for Our Own Good

The Hollywood standard for screenwriting dictates that a page of script should equal a page of movie time. 120 pages? That's a feature-length film.

So when we convened upon the Affogato coffee shop to film most of episode 17, I had a 7 1/2 page script to work from. I figured that, plus the recap from last episode and the intro sequence, plus the two flashbacks we cut away to, plus any extra footage for the closing credits, would come in around our usual 10 minute mark.

Wrong.

Those 7 1/2 minutes of script turned into a whopping 4 minutes of screen time. Apparently, STBD moves at the speed of light.

Even with all the extras, we still came in over 2 minutes under our standard time. This means I need to start judging our scripted scenes differently, and estimating that they'll always come in faster than expected. Which means we need more scenes. Which means I need to write more.

Which means: why am I blogging when I should be writing scripts for the next few episodes?

I wonder if there's a patron saint of procrastination, or if they just haven't canonized him yet. (And yes, you just know it would be a him...)

******

In a few hours, Kellee Maize, better known to most STBD fans as Celeste (or "C"), will celebrate her birthday AND her CD release party. Ms. Maize has been working hard to get her first disc out the door, and will be celebrating her success with a few hundred of her closest friends tonight at Altar, where she and many of Pittsburgh's notable hip-hop provocateurs will be performing live. See you there?

STBD Season Four: Episode 17 "Rabbit"

Click to Play

The STBD cast start the New Year off with a bang... (8:00)

Ask Tim: Now in Blog Form!

We'll be making tweaks to our STBD homepage in the coming weeks, and one of those involves giving Tim a home all his own. Since he's quite adept at dispensing wisdom to his coworkers (and customers), we figured he might benefit from a two-way conversation with you -- his peers.

He's just posted a great point about sticking to your New Year's resolutions, which we here at STBD know a little something about. Wander over and bookmark him because he has more to come.

Do you need advice? Email Tim at asktim at somethingtobedesired dot com!

Webinar: The New Way to Webconference?

Lindsay Patros from Spreadshirt (and creator of the rocking pro-Pittsburgh blog I HEART PGH) invited the attendees of last November's PodCamp Pittsburgh to take part in a very cool online meet-up powered by a new service I'd never heard of until today: Webinar.

In a nutshell, Webinar appears to be a cross between Power Point and TalkShoe. Participants in a web-based seminar can call a specific phone number, enter an access code and join the conversation in process. The web-based software allows them to see the graphics and websites the moderators are referencing in real time, complete with mouse movement and click-throughs. Participants can also ask questions via phone or through an instant message system, and the moderators can respond as they see fit within the seminar's flow.

I haven't used the system yet from the moderator's POV, but as a participant in Spreadshirt's merchandising webinar, I can say I appreciate the potential of the service and I can already see ways it could be used for upcoming PodCamps. Future PodCamp organizers: take note!

Mental Projection and John Ritter

I've not been paying much attention to reports about the iPhone, nor the Apple TV. I decided long ago that the means of distribution for media will evolve long past my time on this planet. I also realized, when I was in college -- studying computer animation, no less -- that my interest in computers themselves was limited. As a means to an end, sure, but as an individual box to drool over, not so much.

(Insert horrendously inappropriate yet unavoidable "box-drooling" jokes here...)

How can I so easily disregard the New Hotness of 2007? Because I don't particularly care what rectangular surface STBD is viewed on, as long as it's being watched.

I've realized that my true passion in the new media is the same as it was in the old media: telling stories. Instigating responses. Creating conversations.

To me, it doesn't matter if that conversation, that response, is generated by images and sound emanating from an iPod, an iPhone, an Apple TV or a feature film screen. Despite some logistical differences in the way content will be produced to match the size of the screen and the length of the audience's attention span, we content producers are still involved in the process of communicating information. That was the case when the printing press roared to life and it'll be the case long after we're all in touch via ESP.

As I've been saying since watching the earth tremble at Video on the Net in September: When we all start mentally projecting images from our foreheads in 50 years, we'll still need episodes of Three's Company to share with each other.

So: what stories are you telling?

Network2 Promos Are Go!

Network2 has started to air on-site promos for their own network, which might seem odd considering you're already at the site if you're seeing the promo. But the cool thing is, the promos directly link to the shows / personalities promoting them, including a nifty greenscreened promo of Hans (aka STBD's Lloyd) knocking himself out for Network2. This is the channel's way of helping spread the word about all the cool web series you might not have otherwise heard of -- STBD among them.

I know firsthand that a lot of those promos were filmed at the Yahoo Halloween Vlog Party thrown in October by Zadi and Steve of JetSetShow -- because I was there -- so I look forward to seeing who else from that raucous event shows up on Network2's roll call. Probably just the sober ones, I'm guessing...

Meanwhile, how much cooler would network TV have been in the '80s and '90s if, every time you saw one of those "Must See TV" promos for Frasier or Seinfeld, you could have then clicked your screen and seen their most recent episode on-demand? Oh, this changing web world...

How NOT to Film an Episode

Once upon a time, we were only supposed to have one New Year's Eve episode. We intended to cross-cut three or four separate stories and weave a tight, interrelated narrative to usher in the new year.

Then Dex went missing.

Not in the back-of-the-milk-carton sense, but the "oh, didn't I tell you I was going to Philadelphia for the holidays?" sense.

So, realizing there was physically no way to film the conclusion of the Dex / Liz storyline in time for Episode 15, we (and by "we" I mean "I") decided to turn the episode into a 2-parter. Looking back, there would have been no way to tell the complete story as well as possible in a mere ten minutes, so 2 episodes worked out much beter for us. But it's easy to consider yourself blessed when all you've done is survive an easily-avoidable accident.

So, for those of you considering filming things in advance, here are a few tips to help you keep your lid on tight:

5 Tips for Saving Time (and Your Sanity) While Making Web Video

1. Know Everyone's Schedule - Especially During the Holidays

Do you think you know who's going home and who's staying put? Call or email to make sure. Banking on the fact that you can pull off that pivotal shot "anytime next week" is an invitation for on-the-fly rewrites.

2. Schedule an Extra Hour Per Shoot

When Dex (really Kevin Koch) returned from his holiday vacation, he also returned to work at a local hotel restaurant with flexible scheduling policies. Considering he'd been getting cut early all week long, he reasoned that scheduling our shoot for Friday night -- when he was scheduled to be out by 10 at the latest -- would give us ample time to film.

As irony would have it, Friday was the night Kevin wound up staying until 10:36 PM, just in time to catch a bus to the shoot that dropped him off at 11:06. Considering I needed to pick someone else up at 11:30, that gave us a window of -20 minutes to get the shot. Long story short: someone wound up sitting on a bench for an hour waiting for me to pick her up while we finished the shot on the only night both actors were free.

Long story shorter: If you think it'll take an hour, give yourself two.

3. Fewer Edits Means Faster Editing

If you watch Episode 16, you'll notice the Leo and Dierdre sequences are planted firmly around one setup: a loveseat. This isn't because I didn't think multiple setups would help tell the story better -- in fact, we used multiple setups in their first scene. It's because I realized continuous shots would cut my editing time down severely, so we kept the action in the latter scenes to a minimum in order to allow as much of the story to be told in one long shot as possible.

When editing, those long shots saved me at least half an hour apiece in total cutting time. Conversely, the Todd / Rich conversation, which might seem like the easiest thing to film and edit, was actually the most time-consuming because we only have one camera on STBD so every setup -- including each side of a conversation -- must be filmed separately. Since Matt Pavlosky and Erik Schark were improvising most of their dialogue -- again, a fault of the original scene we'd planned falling through due to a scheduling hiccup -- that forced me to find the threads of dialogue that actually connected from take to take, which wound up being a plethora of possibilities.

Limited angles = limited possibilities, and while the storytelling is always my first priority, not going crazy while editing at 4 AM certainly helps.

4. Edit the Scripted Scenes First

If you're sticking to a target time -- for STBD, 10 minutes per episode -- you need to know which portions of each episode are static in time and which are flexible.

For example, I know in advance that every episode will have a "Previously on STBD" recap (30 seconds), an intro scene (30-60 seconds), a title sequence (30 seconds) and closing credits / extra footage (30-60 seconds). That leaves 7-8 minutes of new "story" per episode, on average (some have less, some have more).

If a scene has been scripted and the actors don't ad-lib or improvise too much, the finished edit will usually come in just under the estimated page time (which is expected to be 1 minute per printed page, as per Hollywood standards). Edit those scenes first, because that's screen time you can't easily add to or subtract from. Once those scenes are in place on your timeline, along with the standard elements like titles and credits, you'll know how much time you can actually allot to the improvised scenes (if you have any -- we almost always do), and that will help you make the hard decisions of what to keep and what to cut.

Or, put another way, you don't want to spend 2 hours editing a scene only to discover that it needs to be chopped in half to meet your time limit.

5. Let the Episode Tell Its Own Story

When I first drew up the plot and order of sequences for Episode 16, I devoted most of the page time to the Dex and Liz story. On paper, it seemed the most interesting, and their getting-to-know-you banter was meant to include numerous crafty insights and references to plot points past and future. I figured the Todd and Dierdre scenes would each take up another quarter of the story.

When it actually came time to film the scenes, we had to junk the 5 page script I'd written for Liz and Dex because we literally had no time to rehearse. Instead, they improvised the entire sequence from beginning to end, and I was left to use what I felt helped tell their story AND intercut well with the other sequences. This meant reducing their screentime significantly AND changing the pacing and order of the episode.

Meanwhile, the Todd and Rich scenes wound up including a lot more information than I orginally intended because of the way the actors improvised around the necessary plot points. Thus, that sequence comes in with more screen time than the scenes I felt were the "heart" of the story -- and yet, the Dex / Liz and Leo / Dierdre sections still feel like the center of the episode, despite the fact that they appear in a completely different order than they were supposed to.

Now, let's see if I can learn from my own advice for next week...

STBD Season Four: Episode 16 "New Year's Eve, Part 2"

Click to Play

Dierdre and Dex ring in the new year... but not together. (10:00)

Brainstorming Follow-Up: The Realization

Too many things.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that this is the conclusion I came to during last night's brainstorming session: I'm doing too much.

It's not that I'm overworked. Lord knows I waste enough time in a day to make the dead rise in anger. It's that I'm unfocused. I have too many "must-do"s on my plate, and more "want to do"s waiting to be added. I have a billion things I SHOULD be doing, but I have no real understanding of which ones are vital.

So I'm scaling back.

The amount of time I work per week won't change, but the number of things I'm doing alone needs to decrease, so I can get them done well. Then, as I master the art of focus and dedication, I can get faster at what I do and add more tasks to the list. I can also find reliable collaborators who can help shoulder some of the responsibilities (and influence the direction) of our joint ventures. But if I try to tackle the 800 items on the various texts and stickies littering my desktop all by myself without an order of operations, I'll spin in circles until I collapse.

Which ones are the important ones? I'll let you know as I figure them out.

In the meantime, I have entire episode to film for Monday...

Brainstorming Night

Tonight, a few of the behind-the-scenes folks from STBD will be meeting for our first weekly brainstorming meeting of 2007. (A couple of them are in-front-of-the-camera folks, too, because we STBDers like to pull double duty).

Waaay back in 2004 (I think -- it's been awhile), I started meeting with a few friends to brainstorm our various creative ideas. I had STBD. They had classwork, or creative writing, or web comics, or Flash projects, or whatever was on tap that week. The value, we found, was that everyone was able to see everyone else's projects from a different point of view, and sometimes those POVs could find creative solutions we ourselves couldn't see alone because we were too close to the situation.

These meetings aren't always weekly, though we try to do it that way. More often, it's when we can all squeeze free for a few hours. Even a quick cup of coffee, in person, can help steer a few of us in the right direction.

Tonight's main topic, from my vantage point: building out STBD.

I have dozens of ideas, many of which have been incubating for years without the necessary resources (time, money, people, know-how) to pull them off. So I'm looking for feedback on how I can put as many of these ideas in motion as possible. Hopefully my collaborators can provide constructive suggestions and we can push this boulder forward, pebble by pebble, until it picks up its own momentum.

But brainstorming night shouldn't be limited solely to us.

Do you have an idea that you can't quite wrap your head around? Why not gather up a few friends -- or even acquaintances -- and grab a cup of coffee? Pitch your ideas and see what kinds of feedback they offer. Not only will someone undoubtedly have a perspective that you wouldn't have thought of, but they'll almost definitely have a conundrum of their own that you may have some insight on.

Brainstorming: it's not just for white paper anymore.

Scheduling: The Web Video Version of Calculus

ICal. A Web video producer's best friend.
Let's say you have a web series. And let's say you have a cast of about 20 active actors who take part in the ongoing storylines.

Some of these actors have day jobs. Some of them are in college. Some of them are in college AND have part-time jobs. And almost all of them are involved in live theatre and independent film projects.

You want to update with a new episode every week. This means you need to know when everyone is available at all times, so you can look at the group schedule and instantly know when Actors B-G are free to film a certain sequence.

You also need to know the availability of your locations. Even if you're filming in your own apartment, there are likely to be times when you'd rather not have a dozen "friends" tromping through your bedroom. Working with actual businesses or production facilities is even more stringent -- they have narrow stretches of free time that they can squeeze you in, and they usually need to know your intentions well in advance.

So: how do you juggle 20 people's schedules PLUS location schedules WHILE writing, shooting and editing 10 minutes of a weekly web series, each week, every week? Here are a few tips, culled from my years of getting it wrong (and occasionally right).

5 Tips for Scheduling Your Web Series
1. Use iCal (or somesuch similar program) to keep each individual schedule straight. Then you can toggle each person or place's schedule on or off in your viewer, enabling you to ONLY see the availability of the actors and locations in question.

(In a perfect world, the actors would be able to login and update the schedule themselves, but as we all know, very few people are accountable on a regular basis. If you're going to rely on someone to keep your schedules straight, it's either going to be you or one person you entrust the task to, not each individual.)

2. Arrange to shoot with recurring cast members in the same location every week. This way, even people with regular jobs and other commitments can set aside a certain amount of time each week, in advance, during which time they can reliably inform their employers and significant others that they are busy. This will keep your hair from greying for at least another week.

(Side note: Be sure to actually SHOOT on these days, at these times. Otherwise, your cast is setting aside valuable time for no reason, and your locations start to believe you'r enot really serious about including them. Everyone will be far less likely to take your future scheduling requests seriously if you abuse their good graces and keep them waiting.)

3. Film as much in one location as possible. If you have seven scenes scheduled for Location A, and you have access to it for 5 hours at a stretch, it stands to reason that you can squeeze in more than one scene per shoot. Doubling or tripling up on your shoots (when possible) frees up a lot of time in the future, and gives you added flexibility in case you need to do reshoots later.

(Warning: Continuity is extremely important here. You'll need to know what everyone is wearing adn what props are needed for each scene, and provide that to the cast in advance, so they can keep it straight themselves. Otherwise, you'll end up needing to reshoot certain scenes down the line when you realize hair and jewelry don't match up.)

4. Film as much in advance as possible. Just because you're updating the series weekly doesn't mean you need to film each scene in chronlogical order. Much like the location bulking mentioned above, if one of your actors has a free day, figure out how many upcoming scenes you can squeeze into that day and maximize his / her free time. Not only will you get ahead on your shot list, but the actor will thank you later for NOT calling them at the last minute to shoehorn a shoot into the week when they're really busy.

(Warning: Again, continuity is key here. So is writing ahead. You can't film what doesn't exist, and you don't want to film scenes whose bridge scenes haven't been written yet. Otherwise, you'll end up with dialogue or actions that don't match the facts and motivation of the scenes you film later, and what seems like inspired improvisation today will become an albatross around your neck a week from now.)

5. Break your shot list down by Actors, Locations, and Time of Day. This way, when you look ahead at the 20 or so scenes you need to film in the next 2 weeks, you can see at a glance how many of them require the same actor or group of actors, the same location(s) and which need to be filmed during daylight or nighttime lighting. Then, if you need to film 3 evening scenes, or 4 scenes at Location W, you can find creative ways to fit multiple shots into the same shooting day AND you'll know, by process of elimination, when OTHER scenes must be filmed.

(For example: this week, we have 5 different locations to film in, all of which are supposed to take place in the evening. Since there aren't enough evenings in the week to film AND edit everything in time for Monday, it stands to reason that some creative manipulation of time and space will need to be done on my end.)

Hopefully these suggestions can help you better manage your time, whether you have a cast of 2 or 20. We all need to be spending as much time as possible making the best shows we can, and that means more hours spent on writing, filming and editing and less time spent on the logic problems of logistics and paperwork.

New Year's Resolutions?

I always want to make out New Year's resolutions because I love the idea of starting over with a fresh slate -- even if that slate is chosen by an arbitrary time on the calendar. I also realize that trying to change 180 things about myself all at once is a bit of lunacy because I'd be trying to learn how to do a number of things differently, all at once, and that's a recipe for backsliding.

So, this year, I'm making one new resolution a month.

I figure this way I can have a 30 day trial run to get a new positive habit off the ground. If I stumble, I can pick myself up because I have that entire month to get it right. And then, once I get a handle on one new change in my life, I can move on to another area.

My first resolution will be to improve my time management skills.

For a person who works freelance and, therefore, can work at any hour of the day, you'd think I'd get a lot more work done. Instead, I'm consistently behind schedule in almost every facet of my life because I have SO MUCH time to work with that I let everything go until the last minute. This results in a lot of undue stress and sleepless nights -- literally, because I'm working 'round the clock to make up for all the time I wasted during the day -- and so I realize I need to treat my daily life as though i really do have a 9-5 job in some fictitious office, rather than the office in the front of my apartment that I can wander to and fro all day long.

Here's my theory:

1. Work 5 days a week, from 9-5, preferably from a remote location like a cafe, so I can replicate the process of "going to work".
2. Spend evenings (7-10 PM) filming, writing or editing STBD (or similar projects).
3. Wake up at the same time, even on weekends, so I'm not groggy on Monday.
4. Go out in the evening at least twice a week, so I don't feel as though I'm working nonstop (and so my relationship and my level of inspiration is salvaged by getting out of the house).
5. Spend Friday afternoons catching up on lingering emails and minor tasks that otherwise get delayed indefinitely, and then make a quick list of actions to accomplish next week.

Working in this fashion will also allow me to tackle another desire that's been cruising in the back of my head for awhile now: updating my own person blog, Cafe Witness, which I haven't touched in months (and will starting this week).

Seems sensible to me. If you have any thoughts on the approach, or would like to share your own New Year's resolution, let me know!

STBD Season Four: Episode 15 "New Year's Eve, Part 1"

Click to Play

Loose ends get entangled. (9:00)