The Fear of Going Down

When we're "in season," we usually receive daily feedback on STBD. When we're not, there's an obvious lull in feedback. We also don't have a reason to check our stats on a regular basis, since we're not expecting any traffic bumps.

So, essentially, we could let the site coast on autopilot for weeks at a time.

Thus, my daily obsession with checking to ensure that the site is still up. Because God forbid we actually get distracted by production (or relaxation), only to find out that we've been offline for days at a time...

Something tells me we need a daily component to the site / blog, so I can be productive in my paranoia...

Length Matters, Part 2

Last month, there was some debate about the length of STBD episodes.

They tend to be 10 minutes long, every week. Our fans tend to ask for LONGER episodes.

I'm wondering if they shouldn't be SHORTER.

We tried 5 minute episodes throughout Season Two and Season Three. It didn't feel long enough to tell a rewarding story then. (That's why a lot of folks are asking us to go even LONGER.)

But if you look around the web, NO POPULAR SERIES is longer than 5 minutes per episode. That's actually the long end of the spectrum; most shows clock in around 3 minutes or so.

Granted, most shows are trying to tell a joke. We're trying to tell an ongoing, evolving story.

But they're getting 100,000 viewers an episode. We're not.

Does STBD need to go SHORTER to increase likelihood of adoption?

Length Matters

Liz and Lloyd know the value of length...
When STBD began, our first "season" consisted of 5 episodes averaging 10 minutes in length, released once per month.

In an effort to get episodes out more often, we switched things up in Season Two: 2 episodes per month, 5 minutes apiece. Then our audience weighed in, letting us know that 5 minutes wasn't enough to make the story feel "full." So we adapted again.

In Season Three, we kept to the 5 minute length, but sped up production again: episodes were released at least weekly. (For a brief stretch, they were even released daily, and then we [meaning I] burned out.) And, still, the frequency of release didn't offset the length issue for our audience -- even with twice as many episodes, 5 minutes just didn't feel like "enough" of an experience.

So, this season, we switched to 10 minute episodes, released weekly -- or 4 x the amount of production we were pumping out in 2003!

And yet, there are STILL fans who suggest we make the episodes EVEN LONGER.

The Problem with Length

Forget for a moment that we're creating 40 minutes of original content on a shoestring budget each month and giving it away for free. Further complicating the issue are the logistics of planning. 12+ hours a week spent editing an episode is nothing compared to conceiving of the scenes, writing the scripts, scheduling the actors and actually shooting the footage.

If we moved to a 22-minute approach, similar to traditional sitcoms, we'd be looking at twice as much work per week. (Plus, traditional sitcoms have the offsetting benefit of those 8 minutes of commercials to pay the bills...)

Add to that the bandwidth issues, the conversion / upload / download time and the doubled stress on data management and storage, and you see a hydra of reasons why we shouldn't EVER go longer than 10 minutes.

And yet...

In Praise of Length

There are times when even 10 minutes doesn't feel like "enough" time to tell a story.

When we pace episodes, or compare our arcs to those of like-minded shows, we're inevitably at a disadvantage. Sex and the City has an extra 10 minutes of context / subtext / tension to build toward a payoff. STBD has to pack as much as possible into only 10 minutes, which means something -- plot, character, nuance, dialogue, action -- will suffer.

That's not to say that length is a cure-all. How many 3 hour films have you sat through, lamenting their decision NOT to edit it down to 90 minutes? (Return of the King, anyone?) But having more space to play would certainly open up our options in terms of storytelling.

The question is -- and again, let's temporarily forget the cost and logistics -- would longer episodes help us to BUILD an audience, or would the additional investment of time drive them away?

What's the perfect length?

Heading Into the Home Stretch

Only 4 more episodes stand between us and the end of Season Four of Something to Be Desired on May 28th.

Originally projected at 40 episodes, we decided to shorten the season to 30 when production threatened to engulf us this past winter. Since taking a hiatus in February, we've received lots of positive buzz from new and old fans alike (which leads us to believe we're doing something right).

These last 4 episodes will tie up many (if not all) of the plotlines and loose ends that have been generated this season...

But what then?

We'll be filming for Season Five all summer, but in theory, those episodes won't start anew until September. In today's snack-based culture, falling off the map for that long is the kiss of death.

We have a few ideas for keeping the STBD flame alive over the summer. They include:

- a daily "minisode," 0:30-1:00 in length -- character-building scenes, stand-alone jokes, etc.

- a weekly "behind the scenes" video -- interviews, story meetings, rehearsals, making-of, etc.

- weekly Ustreamed live chats with the cast / creators

- character videoblogs

- or, quite simply, starting the next 10-episode story arc in July.

We could do one or two of those, but we can't do ALL of those -- we're not made of time.

So: how would YOU like to see STBD spend the summer?

What STBD and Einstein Have in Common

Tonight I saw Absolute Wilson, a documentary about theatrical genius Robert Wilson. Perhaps best-known in America for the play / opera Einstein on the Beach, which he created with composer Philip Glass, Wilson is renowned throughout Europe for his groundbreaking (and mind-blowing) concepts.

However, here in America, he's largely an unknown quantity, even after 40 years in theatre.

I won't compare our audience -- which is tiny -- with Wilson's audiences, which are, by comparison, quite large (especially internationally).

I also won't lay claim to any kind of artistic genius, since what we're doing isn't the kind of life-altering artistic rocket science that Wilson traffics in.

Where I will draw a comparison is between our respective determinations to succeed.

Wilson took a circuitous path to success, including long stretches of financial hardship, creative frustration and a complete lack of public appreciation.

At the height of his fame, in 1982, he was commissioned to create a theatrical work for the Olympics -- and the money men were so confused by his proposal that they withheld the final $1.2 million he needed to complete the project, even though it was later stated that the Olympic committee had a $150 million surplus of funding.

Temporarily crushed, Wilson bounced back. In 1990, he had a massive commercial success in a stage collaboration with Tom Waits called The Black Rider, which played to sold-out audiences around the world.

Meanwhile, STBD continues to travel a circuitous path to success, including long stretches of financial hardship, creative frustration and a complete lack of public appreciation.

At the height of our "fame," we still serve a smaller collective audience than some local stage productions manage in a week. Despite creating some of the best content on the web -- as referenced by numerous instances of viewer feedback -- we continue to toil in relative obscurity.

Temporarily crushed, STBD will bounce back. Our future plans involve massive amounts of commercial success and attendant drug addictions and prostitute scandals.

Mostly, we just want to be seen.

When it comes to art, business or love, the only extremes are failure or perseverance. Everything else is just middle ground.

Who Is Your Audience?

Attentive listeners at PodCamp Pittsburgh. Photo by Kimberly Reed.

Chris Brogan asked this question on his blog the other day. While commenting upon it just now, I realized I had a completely different take on the issue:

Everyone is concerned about motivating their audience. Without an active, engaged audience, you're missing the community that powers the engine of whatever it is you're currently doing in your life.

But I think you need to make a key distinction: your (target) audience and your fans are not always the same thing.

Your audience is the people you BELIEVE are hearing your message, the ones you CREATE the message for.

Your fans are the people who RESPOND to your message, who TAKE ACTION based upon what you say or do.

We may think we're creating something that appeals to a certain group of people when, in fact, it appeals to a completely different group for completely different reasons that we never considered.

For example: you might be writing a blog that deals with all the minutae of being a better teacher. But if a lot of your suggestions are rooted in organization aand time management, rather than direct communication and educational theory, don't be surprised if you find your actual "fans" are people from all walks of life who are searching for better productivity tips. Or, conversely, if you do focus on better communication skills, you may find your teaching blog being bookmarked and cited by public speakers, managers and politicians.

Once you really understand who's responding to your message, you can better evaluate whether you're on target with your original goals. Or, if your actual audience differs from your anticipated audience, you can decide whether you need to change your message or embrace your unintended fanbase. Either way, you can't truly be sure you're succeeding in your original plan without being able to accurately assess your audience AND your intentions -- which is one reason we surveyed our audience last week.

As the pipe company who owned the "utube" URL proved when they were slammed with misguided YouTube traffic, it's not who you THINK you're talking to that matters; it's who's actually HEARING you.