Where Are We?

So, I'm in the midst of making 5 movies in two years. How am I doing at that?

Well, it depends on whether you think that the two years began at the beginning of 2008, or in March of 2008, or in September of 2007. We have: Solar Vengeance, (and if we count) The Shriven, Alien Uprising, and Clonehunter. So if we cheat and count Solar Vengeance as one of the pictures, and we count Earthkiller (which we probably won't start to shoot 'till 2010) then, er, yeah, no. I got no way to fudge the numbers. We're still a bit behind. We'll have 4 pictures shot, one of which will still be in post, in two years from March to March, but we're a little bit behind the fantasy schedule.

More importantly, what is our plan?

Obviously, we need to make Pandora Machine a company known for making cool cinema fantastique. We have to have a way to grow our audience and bring their attention to our pictures. I think the way to do that is to keep making better and better pictures (with better and better visual effects) until we begin to be recognized in that manner and then use all the usual suspects (social networking) to keep and maintain that position in the brain-space of them what like those kinds of movies (like me).

In short the plan is: better product first, marketing later.

(Ha! I know I know, most marketing guys would say "Nah, just do the marketing first." Marketing guys just love marketing. But no, I'd rather be doing it well and then strike out into the world of getting more people to pay attention. The fact is that marketing is very expensive and low-performing. Even if it doesn't take a lot of money, it takes a lot of time, and most marketing simply doesn't work. So it's high risk with extra risk. Making stuff that doesn't suck is a lot of work, but the payoff is less risk. Would it be awesome to have a viral video? Sure. But the real trick is making something worthwhile that folks would enviralate. And yes, mark that today I coined the term "enviralate". )

How long do I think it'll take until we start seeing ourselves in the position where people even know what a Pandora Machine movie is? Um. 2 years? (And remember my accuracy of predicting how long things take.)

*************

If you have an iPhone 3G, this application will plot out the sun's course through the day -- which is very cool if you're shooting outdoors or with windows (warning -- link opens iTunes.) Sunseeker is the name of the app.

Zambri would like you to vote for them as "artist of the month" in Deli Magazine.

Brian Trenchard Smith thinks that although "Let the Right One In" is the best vampire movie ever, Strigoi is a worthy follow-up.