i’ve got questions

posted Dec 17th, 2008 View Comments

Pedal * Blog

so mike and i are sitting together, he’s working on something quite important, i’m sure, and i’m staring at this blank page. my brain just hasn’t been functioning to it’s fullest potential lately. for the last month or so i was going through some personal changes that had me sorta in a funk and now, for the last week, i have been incredibly ill, sleeping about 15-20 hrs a day and sort of walking around in a half daze when i am awake. anyway.. with all the commotion going on here, in mike’s apartment (with the animals, his roommate, etc.), i’m having a hard time concentrating. mike never seems to have that problem. that’s to say, he is not easily distracted.

so, there are few things i’ve been wondering about lately and thought the best thing to do would be to ask you guys. the first thing i’ve been wondering about is viewers. or how do we get them? and how do we get more of them? it seems to me that most people who take the time (yes, i know, they are LONG) to watch our videos generally seem to like them. so a big question mark for mike and i has always been… why don’t we have more viewers? why are our numbers so low? how come we still only have 122 subscribers???

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we know that word-of-mouth is one of the top ways people find us, every time someone links to us or writes a little something about us, always helps to draw in some traffic, but generally it’s not hugely substantial. and we really don’t know what is. a goal of ours, over the next month or two, is to contact as many folks as we can to write about us or feature us in some way, in hopes to draw more traffic. if anyone out there has any thoughts or advise, we would really appreciate it.

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the other thing that’s been on my mind is… which is more important, finishing the film or putting out episodes? according to the plan that mike and i worked out, when we released our first post episode (64 days), back in jan (almost a year ago now) we’d made an outline for all of the 64 days episodes (10 in all, 15 including the first 5 from pre-production), and planned to release about one a month, which would hopefully have us releasing the last episode just as we were finished importing and logging all of our 120 hours of footage, at which point we planned to put all of our efforts into editing and working on the feature film.

so, obviously the problem that we now have run into is that we are WAY behind on releasing episodes. i’d say we greatly underestimated the amount of time and emotional strength each of these episodes would take us to produce. at this point we still have 6 episodes left and we’ve been done importing and ready to begin the huge task of editing the feature for several months now, and really haven’t gotten too far. there are just so many aspects of this project and little things to work on that it seems hard to focus on only one thing.

lately we’ve tried to nail some things down and get a formula together for editing the film and i’m hoping that will really help with getting us moving along faster and in the right direction. but the real question here is, do we put aside episodes for now and focus solely on editing the feature or do we continue to work on episodes as well, and try to get a good handle on doing both, while still maintaining the website, social networks, day jobs and regular lives of our own. please please please… i haz questions, it you haz answers, we’d love to hear ‘em!!!

also, thank you to everyone who generously donated to us since our last episode came out. we’ve been submitting to a bunch of short film fests and those donations have really been helpful with the submission fees. thanks again! you rock :)

View Comments
  • Zach
    Hey guys,
    Always a pleasure to come back here and read your newest posts. I actually read up to the christmas day post, and am a little bummed traffic will cease for the holiday time, but I understand why.

    Well, I for one, have not officially subscribed to project pedal via RSS yet, so I bet that probably most people haven't. I do enjoy the blogs and vblogs, however besides keeping us up to date on the goings on of post-production I think someone new would have to give you guys a good chunk of time to fully absorb and turn into a fan. Perhaps advertising can boost numbers in some ways, but as far as getting the word out, that's a hard thing to do, unless you have a good marketing department. What I can tell you is I think the followers you have accrued represent hard-core, bike enthusiasts who will loyally track your progress until the end, and beyond possibly.

    What if you compromised and cut the number of mini episodes down or combined a few to lighten the load and free up more time to devote towards the finished product. Personally, as much as I wholeheartedly enjoy each labor of love that goes into creating each episodic march to the inevitable final product, I am dying to eventually see this film!!! So in my opinion, I think you should go full steam ahead with the project itself, but keep those episodes on the back burner and get more economical about what you have left to talk about the process, without sacrificing your souls along the way.
  • Hey Zach :) Thanks for checking in on the holidays, I assumed the blog would be silent till after New Years. So it's nice to be getting some comments still.

    Yea, we've haven't seemed to be able to package something for Pedal that would draw someone in with very little commitment to digging around the blog, watching tons of videos, etc.

    And actually, I'd love to draw in more bicycle-enthusiasts to the film, but we really don't seem to have that many.

    In the coming months, we'll have to sit down and see what parts of the story can be condensed so we can still tell the story we want... but shorter :)

    We *are* hard at work on the film... and we don't to be losers who never finished our film... so don't worry. There's no turning back for us now.
  • Aside from drawing in viewers, is the process of producing the episodes helpful to you when you are thinking about editting the feature film? They seem so emotionally charged that I imagine just making them must give some insight into the whole project. I want to see more episodes, but that's just because I love them....
    Thanks for all you do.
  • Hey Ethan :) Yes! Very much so - it's a huge reason we decided on committing to them, even though they are overwhelmingly time-consuming... because we learn a lot of hard lessons from doing them. And they do help draw attention to the film itself.

    Don't worry :) not doing the episodes is not an option.
  • oh yeah, mike make's a good point, even if we decide to take a break from the episodes to finish the feature, we'll absolutely get back to them at some point. :)
  • bvp663
    As far as the feedburner stats... not everybody is really hip with the rss thing yet. Although anyone interested in keeping up with Project Pedal who is using a mac w/ Leopard has no excuses since Mail.app has an RSS reader built in. That's how I get my updates anyway. I think you have large subscription base on vimeo as well which may account for some fans not represented on google analytics or feedburner.
    As far as google analytics stats...I've got nothing. It will just take more word-of-mouth and building interest around the internets.

    I LOVE the episodes and I think they help built a large amount of excitement and interest for the project. The longer that the 64 days series continues, hopefully the more excitement and interest it will build for the longterm. I understand how much a tax this is on your time with everything going on and obviously the complete film holds the highest importance. It's a tough call that'll you have to make but if I'm allowed to be selfish I'd love to see more episodes from 64 Days.

  • thanks so much :) i really wanted to hear a response to that second question i raised. we will absolutely take this into consideration when we make the choice. i completely agree that the episodes draw in fans, which is exactly why we are doing them, i just wish it was easier for us to do both the eps and the film simultaneously :) for now, we'll keep trying. :) thanks again!
  • Hey Bvp663 :) You're definitely right about the larger subscription base *outside* of the blog. We try to maintain Vimeo, Virb, Facebook, a lot of people keep up on the project through our twitter account, etc.

    Don't worry about us dropping the ball on the episodes - we'll finish what we started for sure... we just wish the timing was different.
  • Hi amanda, I think media online is kind of a weird thing, as someone who is running their own online web series I can tell you that 99% of people online just want to watch music videos and 30 second clips of people crashing cars, falling off ladders etc...

    I don't think most people have the attention span to watch the trailers or the episodes, i think maybe the release schedule may be part of it but right now in this phase I think your audience may be a bit limited just because of the nature of the content. The two biggest groups that would be interested are probably film nerds (myself), bicycle enthusiasts, and then a small percentage of people who just find the process compelling to follow.

    I've tried to get my girlfriend to watch the episodes 2 or 3 times, she just isn't into it, but I think she would like the finished documentary. That said I think you should focus on the first two groups and let them draw in the 3rd more generalized group.
  • yeah, i agree. we definitely understand that we are at a disadvantage simply because of the nature and length of our episodes. and we also realize who the people are that are most likely to give us a chance. but i like that think that we not only appeal to bikers and filmmakers, but to all people. people with heart and soul who like to travel and learn and have been through relationships and loved. i mean, we are just people, sharing our lives.. i guess... anyway, i'm off subject.

    but i agree, we have lots of challenges, we are not the typical funny 30 sec clip on youtube, but ya know, i kinda like it that way :)

    thanks for your comment dustrotter :)
  • Hi guys!

    You've won one more fan today! I discovered your project while randomly typing original website url's in order to find one free for my next website...

    Unhappily the website was registered, but what a surprise I've got! You really made my day with your first 5 episodes and I definitely want to see more! When do you reasonably think you'll finish and release the DVD?

    I've also tons of questions to ask you, about filming and organizing, as I plan to leave next year for a solo trip by bike around USA and would like to do an amateur movie by myself... I'll maybe write you later on for this.

    Anyway, congratulations again and please keep up that good work,

    Jérôme, from Belgium.

  • Ha - that's awesome, what a random way to gain a "fan" :) Thanks for leaving a comment and letting us know you're out there and enjoying the project!
  • hey jerome :) nice to hear from Belgium (our crew was from belgium)!

    thanks for watching. i'm so glad you like the first 5 episodes! if you like them, i guarantee you'll like the 64 days set. please, keep watching.

    i can honestly say it will be at least one year before the film is finished but hopefully not more than two. that's the best estimation i can make at this time :/

    your trip sounds so amazing! congratulations, it will be quite an adventure, good luck! can't wait to see some of it. and please, if you have any question, ask away! it's why we're here :)

    talk to you later, oh.. and sorry we beat you to the website url ;)
  • Hey! I think one reason why you have a few amount of subscribers is because people are still not sure how to use RSS feeds. I'm obsessed with RSS feeds now and I promote certain feeds. I'll help you guys out by posting a link on my site and my social networking sites. Keep the good work coming.
  • Thanks so much Jon! Link-love, like Amanda said, is a huge, huge help :)
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