My Experiment with Advertisements

Recently I tried out Google AdWords to see if I could get more people to view my movies. I ran an advertisement for Line of Taxis http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/line_of_taxis.php for 30 days. Before I started, I signed up for Google Analytics to track how many people visited my site. It also gave me some interesting stats on who they were.

The ad ran from June 13 to July 12. During that time, the ad showed up 1,634,721 on web pages. Out of those, the ad was “clicked” 789 times. The cost to me was a little over $28 (Canadian). AdWords allows you to choose key words that help determine where you wanted your ad posted. The indication was that the key words I chose were ineffective.

Google Analytics reported that people visited the Line of Taxis page 762 times during the trial period. I thought that should be the same as the number of “clicks”. The average time spent on the page was a little over two minutes, which is shorter than the film. However, I think that is an underestimate of the length of time someone is on the site, since if the viewer closes the window rather than visiting another page, I can’t see how you can tell how long they were on the page.

Almost 1 in 10 people who visited the Line of Taxis page then went on to visit some of my other movie pages. The undonate page was also a popular choice. There were actually fewer visits to my blog during the advertizing period.

Overall, the average number of daily visits to my site were 566 per cent higher during the campaign that after the campaign.

My site was most popular in Vietnam and China with both accounting for over 10 per cent of visits each. Canada ranked third at 8 per cent, but I suspect that most of those were my visits to the site. Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Thailand each accounted for more than 5 per cent of visits. The United States ranked 21^st with one per cent of visits.

Calgary ranked first in cities, although I think that was mostly my visits. Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Hanoi, and Cairo also ranked high. The second ranked Canadian Cities were Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Toronto, with one visit each.

I think what I learned from this experiment is that advertising is an effective way to get people to my site. I do need to improve my ads, since the one I used wasn’t very effective. Only one of every 2,000 people who saw the ad clicked on it. No one donated money or bought any of my films. That could be for any of a number of reasons. The web page may need changes, or I need to drop the prices of my movies. It could also be that nobody wants to buy them. All of my films, except for Who Shot the President http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/who_shot_the_president.php are free to view on-line, so that could undercut any sales.

The Accessible Channel buys "My Next Film"

I just found out today that the Accessible Channel bought My Next Film for broadcast in February 2010. I don't when it will be shown, or if it has already been shown. If I learn any more I will pass it along.

Links

The Accessible Channel
http://www.theaccessiblechannel.com/

My Next Film
http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_next_film.php

One Per Cent Inspiration

The other day I was reading Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, when I came to a passage that reminded me of the movie Last Year at Marienbad. I saw it years ago, or at least I think I did. Maybe it was someone else that saw it.

Through some convoluted path that led me to think about what a friend told me once about her divorce. This, in turn, got me thinking about the movie Memento. Of course, that naturally suggested the short story Flowers for Algernon. The author later rewrote Flowers for Algernon as a novel. I’ve read the short story, but not the novel.

At this point, the beginnings of a story began to form in my mind. Some time ago, someone suggested that I make a movie like Before Sunrise, so I threw that into the mix. Finally, I started to see parallels between my idea and The Third Man.

My working title for the story is A Memento of Flowers for the Third English Patient Before Sunrise in Marienbad. It needs some work.

Tomas Alva Edison, the inventor, once said that genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. I have the one per cent inspiration, all I need is the ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

I wonder if I can get way with just forty-nine per cent perspiration, or would that leave the story half baked?

Don’t Let Your Heroes be Stupid

It is all too easy for writers to make their heroes do something stupid to move their story forward. If the writer cannot give the audience a good explanation why, they may not buy into the story. I thought of several ways to explain why the hero would do something stupid.

Read the whole article: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/319794_dont-let-your-heroes-be-stupid

My Most Difficult Case Progress Report - July 18, 2010

I started to edit My Most Difficult Case. http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_most_difficult_case.php Several years ago, I decided to reedit the film before I tried to distribute it. Vildo Sturam did a new cut for me that was a big improvement over what I had done.

However, other parts of my life intruded and the project went on the back burner. Last month I got the video transfers of my negatives converted to computer files and this week I started to reedit those to conform to the edit Vildo did.

Progress has been good. I am about half way through the film, although I have left the transitions, music and some of the sound until later.

When I matched up the video from the negative transfer with the video from the final film, I was struck by how much more detail I can see in the negative transfer. These two images illustrate this quite well. I haven’t decided how far I will go to match the old look because I like the additional detail.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Example of film image"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Example of negative image"][/caption]

Another problem I need to consider is that I wasn’t able to get a release for the picture on the wall behind the judge. I asked Vildo to obscure it when he did the reedit. What I would like to do is replace it with another image. I know it can be done, but I’ve never done it myself.

How Can Fiction Compete with Reality?

This is a thought that first came to me years ago while I watched the O.J. Simpson “low speed chase” on TV.

I was at my cousin’s wedding. We all sat and watched the “chase” for hours that evening while we waited at the hotel for the wedding the next day. Other people have told me similar experiences of that event. As I watched, I thought that nobody would go to a movie and watch someone drive down the road for hours on end. Yet many people did exactly that.

I thought about this question again when I saw part of the movie Human Trafficking http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461872/ . This was a fictional movie, but, as I watched, I was more frightened by it than any horror film I had ever seen. The movie is about criminals who transport women around the world for prostitution and the police who chase them.

I think the reason I was so frightened was, that, while the depiction was fictional, I knew that it showed what millions of real people experienced in their lives. I don’t think there are any real people who have been chased around by a mummy or bug-eyed monster.

I am not sure I have a real answer to my question. Reality will always be of more immediate interest to people than any entertainment can be. The question then is, what do people want from works of fiction? It must be something that they can’t get from reality.

"The Lure" and "Sad No More"

After talking about myself a lot, I think its about time to point out some interesting things that other people are doing.

The Lure

The Lure http://www.members.shaw.ca/moonpics/lure.html , a film by Neil Gordon and Kelly Eshpeter, has been selelcted for the "Los Angeles All-Sports film festival".  http://www.allsportslafilmfest.com/sched.htm

Both Neil and Kelly have been supportive of my film making. The Lure demonstrates that they are great film makers themselves.


Sad No More

Dr. Ted Jablonski will run, cycle and speak across Canada in 2010, raising awareness of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and inspiring action to overcome it. http://www.sadnomore.ca/

Dr. J., in addition to being my personal doctor, is a consummate musician. www.gogetm.ca