A-D-D and production

 A bit of constant distraction comes with being creative.  If you only see what everyone else sees, you'll never come up with new and exciting ideas.  But, this desire to explore new and old ideas alike can lead to some bad distractions too.  I've got a shoot planned for tomorrow.  It's already uncertain which movie I'll be shooting, because we're basing it on the weather.  Same cast, but different degrees of complexity.  The in studio is easy.  The outside stuff, not so much.  But it's a script I really want to get shot as it's a bit of a gift to my new, super reliable, up and coming actress, Felicia Mathis.  She started as a "scare actor" in haunted houses, helped me on a short and has been doing films with me every since.  She's just about ready for a feature.  But,  you can read more about that when I interview her for the Cult Goddess Blog.
For now, the thing is, she's been acting in sci-fi and monster movies for me and she's really more of a slasher, blood and guts horror fan.  So, I wrote a slasher type for her to star in and scheduling it, between life, her new job, real estate and photography and my studying for drone pilot certification has been really difficult.  But, we've got a schedule set for tomorrow afternoon.  If the weather is good.

Here is where my ADD comes in.  I'm super excited to shoot this.  But, I'm also supposed to be in it. (I'm  an understudy for a main character).  My garage is doubling as a set.  There is a scene featuring Dom and costumes to get ready.  Have I done any of these things?  Nope.  All the components are here, and mostly ready, but they need that last bit of dress and prep.  What did I do this week?

Sure.  That's fun, but I really need to get my firm old ass into gear.
Oh, and I am typing this while I should be helping Nancy paint the porch walls.

Want to know a secret?  This is me FOCUSED.
Less than five things to do at a given time and my brain goes into overdrive and I can't concentrate on anything.

So, don't let distractions scare you.  They're a good thing, sometimes and a thing to be overcome other times.  They're definitely bad when driving, flying a drone or working with sharp power tools.
When it's safe to be distracted, however, enjoy the creative directions it can bring you in and make new, or old, things happen.

Did I mention I've been making a miniature space station and painting an astronaut back pack all week too?

Here's a Felicia Mathis short to make your day.
Also featuring our friend, Merri Cash.

2 Films, 8 Bucks, Great Cause.

This is more of an announcement than a blog, but I'll roll some thoughts into it too.

"Slime City Massacre" writer/director, Greg Lamberson, is hosting his two films for a benefit film night.  Below is a posting of the information for the evening and info on how  you can contribute to the very worthy cause if you cannot make it.

>>Meet Benjamin Heppel, age 8. Benjamin has leukemia. His mother, Jen, manages the daycare my daughter Kaelin attends. Kaelin has gotten so much out of Little Angels, and my wife Tamar and I want to do what we can to repay Miss Jen for her help and attention.

For ONE NIGHT ONLY, I'm screening SLIME CITY & SLIME CITY MASSACRE as a double feature in Buffalo, where SCM was filmed. The films will play at the Market Arcade Film & Art...s Center, 639 Main Street, 7 PM - 10:30 PM; 100% of the proceeds from ticket admissions and raffles will go to Benjamin's medical fund. We'll also have swag and door prizes for Buffalo's horror fans. Admission is ONLY $8.00!

2 films, 8 bucks, 1 great cause!

You can read about Benjamin's story, or make direct contributions to his fund, and sign his guestbook, at CaringBridge: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/benjaminheppel

Facebook has made it much harder to promote events, so please help me spread the word, and I hope to see you there!

Best,
Greg Lamberson<<

In an outpouring of generosity, other writers, directors, filmmakers and artists have been contributing things for a raffle and door prizes, so it should be a fun night.  For our small part, Hocus Focus Productions is sending up 100 CD-Rom copies of "Cult Goddess Magazine" and BCinemaTV is supplying 100 pairs of 3D glasses to go with issue 8.  It seems appropriate since 3 of the 4 issues have write-ups and photos provided by the "Slime City Massacre" folks, which really helped me round out the issues last year.  If you follow me on Facebook you'll see the invitation shared in my stream every so often.

Please do consider contributing to the medical fund.  The costs involved with the treatment of child who has leukemia are staggering.  Also, spread the word.  Let's fill every seat in that theatre.

Watching people rally to help Greg do something for this family is inspiring.  It goes back to my teamwork blog.  All too often we fall into the trap of competition, but the world should not be "us" against "them".  Except for the very small segment of the population that actually wishes to do harm to other people, there is no "them" to fight against.  The majority of the people on this planet should look at each other as "us" and we'd all be a lot happier.

I'm trying to get everything to Greg sent by April 25th, so if you've got some horror swag to donate, get in touch with me or Greg and let everyone know how to get some free stuff, see some cool movies and make the world an easier place for a family that can use a little help right now.

Thanks.

How Long Should an Episode Be?

Like a blog, the length of an episode of a show should usually fall within certain guidelines.  I generally have trouble adhering to both.

400 words or so seems to be about what someone is willing to read online before moving on to another subject.  Sure you can truly engross them and them keep them longer, unless they're reading at work and HAVE to move on to something else, like...well, work.  Online TV is a bit more tricky.  A lot of people, including myself, won't even start to watch something if they see it's more than 3 or 4 minutes long.  Who has the time?  Our "Jason's Jungle" episodes on "The Weird World of HFP" are generally under 4 minutes, but that's because they were made way back when dial up was king and nobody could really watch a video that was much longer unless they let it load it over night.  (Makes you wonder what that era of internet "adult films" did to the performance times of men).

Some shows I have near total control over, like, "The Simplest Things".  I'm working on an opening for that that will take less than 30 seconds, so that a 2 or 3 minute episode will run less than 4 minutes with opening and closing credits.  But "Cult Goddess Magazine - TV" is another story.  This is a show based on a down loadable magazine.  Interviews that can run for 30 minutes.  It's organic.  There's questions, well thought out answers and banter.  Do I post one long 30 minute episode?  The shows earning potential immediately goes up per episode because we can post more ads, but that's a lot of time to watch stills float around and a lot of stills to come up with to fill that time.  Do I break the show up into parts? 

The advantages of breaking the interviews up are many.  It means that each interview gives me more episodes, which this early in the game is important as we build a viewership and work on fitting producing the shows in with work for outside clients and producing movies.  Shorter shows also mean people are more likely to pass the video around.  Post it to their Facebook and so on.  And then there's the "cliffhanger" effect.  Someone who was interested in the interview will come back next week for the rest, however, there are drawbacks too.  Some of them from the same elements.

If someone isn't enjoying a particular interview, we've lost that viewer for weeks, maybe for good.  Maybe they're the type who likes to see things all once.  For them I've created a playlist that will hold all of the eps right on the Cult Goddess Magazine homepage.  I'm finding that even with breaking a show up getting it under 4 minutes with an opening is near impossible.  With introductions, and answers beyond "My favorite color is blue" an interview is bound to run at least 5-7 minutes per topic.  So, for CGM-TV the goal is to keep each episode under 10 minutes and see how it plays out.  Hopefully people will like it and spread it around a bit.  This week's episode with Debbie Rochon focuses on "Alien Vengeance", contains video of her as Col. Onyx and some never before published photos of her as the character.  All in just about 8 minutes.

We still have 2 or 3 more shows to bring you this year.  "Direct from the Director" will showcase independent, underground, micro budgeted movies with intros from their directors.  That means free movies for you...possibly also in parts.  That will start out as part of the "Weird World of HFP" lineup.  "Alien Vengeance: The Series" is still in production, but will be it's own show coming out simultaneously with WWofHFP each week and I've been tossing around the idea of a guy's cooking show with making simple stuff.  Something even an idiot could make.  Or maybe some grilling.  I actually dreamt about grilling Saturday night.  What else would  you guys like to see?  (Assuming someone is reading this, as we're way past 400 words).  Movie reviews?  A show about cars?  More animal stuff?  Let me know in the comments below.  I'm at your disposal.