Please check it out:
http://pinktheseries.blogspot.com
Not much content on it yet, but will be a good resource for info regarding the series as time goes on.
Also, we'll be doing polls you can vote on at least once a month, so definitely take a moment to excercise your right.
Thank you!
-Blake
It's been just over one week since we announced the One Million View mark for "Pink" on YouTube. Well, today we just topped Two Million Views. Really incredible.
I can't thank the viewers enough along with the editors of YouTube for featuring the show. I don't know the definition of a "viral" video, but I'd say the series is starting to take on a life of it's own and the views are really starting to pile up. It's sure starting to feel viral to me. :)
You can watch and subscribe on YouTube here.
PLEASE keep spreading the word........ thanks!
-Blake
"Pink" reached a cool milestone today going past the One Million View mark on YouTube. This is a total for all the episodes. Not too bad considering we've only been online since September, and we've only been featured on YouTube for two weeks!
Thank you to the fans of the show (and even to the folks who don't like the show) and also thank you to the editors of YouTube and Revver, and iTunes.
You can subscribe to "Pink" on YouTube here. Or subscribe on iTunes here.
Thanks for watching!
UPDATE: As of 11/21 we're now up to 1.6 Million Views on YouTube. Starting to sound kinda viral to me...
-Blake
As of today 11/13/07 "Pink" is the 21st most subscribed to show on YouTube, and the 7th most subscribed to show under the "Directors" banner on YouTube (this is mainly for narrative projects like web series, which is great).
Also, we've had 757,339 views since being featured two weeks ago. We're getting close to that 1 million mark. We've actually surpassed that mark if you count all the other places to watch including our Official website, Myspace, Revver, iTunes, and Metacafe.
Not too bad. :) Thanks for watching!!!
-Blake
Interesting article...
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SSU3AO0&show_article=1
Excellent news for web shows like "Pink".
-Blake
Nice article in USA Today about "slick webisodes" being the missing link to making web video (web series) make it...
USA Today Article
Hopefully we're onto something (have you seen "PINK"?). They should have mentioned us too. :)
-Blake
As mentioned in the previous post, I was on two panels at the Lone Star International Film Festival and they both went well.
The first one was quite small, but very interesting. Turns out it was the first panel of the event and they had the address wrong. Plus, it was at 11am on Friday at a first year festival. So, only a few people in room besides us panelist, but again, it was very informitive. This was the New Media panel.
The second one was called Directing Your First Feature and it was much better attended. The room was pretty much full. This was the panel Fred Durst was supposed to be on, but he no showed. Very rock n' roll of him I suppose. However, much to my surprise the other panelist were actually a couple of the guys from Broken Lizard (Jay Chandrasekhar and Paul Soter). The comedy troupe behind such films as "Super Troopers", "Club Dread", "Beerfest", etc. and Jay also individually directed the "Dukes of Hazzard" movie. And Paul has just directed his first feature film "Watching The Detectives". Very nice guys and cool to hear their perspective on making films in the studio system versus indie world.
Here are two pictures of me and the Broken Lizard guys:
The top picture of Paul and I is slightly out of focus (thanks Cliff). :)
-Blake
The Lone Star International Film Festival starts today in Fort Worth, Texas. It runs November 7-11. Never heard of the festival you say? Well, it's the first one. Actually, it's not really the "first" one... it's the first one under the new entity putting on the event.
Back in 1998 a group put on the Fort Worth Film Festival, which was really a great festival. I happen to be fortunate enough to screen my first feature film "Thugs" there. Wes Anderson screened "Rushmore". A lot of good stuff was going on.
The festival being in downtown Fort Worth had such a great feel to it. If you've ever been to Sundance Square you know what I'm talking about. Clean streets. Easy parking. Safe. Very quaint feeling for a descent sized city. And all the theaters are located very close together - a big plus compared to most other festivals I've been to.
But the festival didn't make it. Not sure why. Probably funding. So there have been rumors for some time that the festival would be brought back, and low and behold now it has been in the form of the Lone Star International Film Festival.
Several big name folks will be in town, among them Bill Paxton (he's directly involved with the fest) and Martin Sheen, along with several big name films.
I've actually been invited to speak on two panels. So if you're interested come out to the festival on Friday at 11am for the New Technologies and Media Convergance panel, then Saturday at 3pm for the Directing My First Feature panel - another speaker on this one is Fred Durst (yeah, the lead singer from Limp Biskit). He recently directed his first feature "The Education of Charlie Banks", which will be screening Friday evening at 8pm.
Also, they'll be showing the first five episodes of my web series "PINK" in their "viral video lounge" (or something like that). Not sure where this is, but sounds cool. :)
Hope to see you there!
-Blake
YouTube has apparently taken a liking to "PINK". A couple days ago they featured the show under the "Entertainment" category, but today I just saw where they put it on their MAIN PAGE. Not the main page of the channels, or categories, etc.... THE main page. You type in YouTube.com and PINK Webisode 01 is right there. Very cool stuff indeed.
One interesting thing I'm finding is that while we are getting lots of views on the first episode, the subsequent ones aren't near as numerous. Now don't get me wrong, they are climbing for sure, but not near as fast as the single episode YouTube is featuring. My belief is that most YouTube users are accustom to the "one hit wonder" videos (mostly the "kick in the crotch" stuff). So, they usually only watch that single video, then go off to another place.
"PINK" is a serialized show. A mini-TV series if you will. Each episode builds on each other to tell the story. It takes a little to get used to (on the web), but folks are beginning to get the idea. And with YouTube's help, more folks are seeing the show everyday. And as a filmmaker that's really all I can ask for.
THANK YOU YOUTUBE! :)
-Blake
Just saw today that PINK has been featured on YouTube. Not sure when this happened or how, but it happened in the last day or so I think.
THANK YOU very much to the editors at YouTube for noticing and featuring the show.
And since we've been featured we've had over 20,000 views on Webisode 01. Pretty cool!
I'm actually in LA this week for several meetings regarding the future of "Pink". Hopefuly more cool news coming soon. :)
-Blake
Nice behind-the-scenes story on the show...
Online Videos by Veoh.com
Thank you Sunny Gualt and all the folks at Viral and Veoh!
-Blake
If you travel at all these days you know the feeling of arriving into an unknown town and not having a clue how to get anywhere. I travel quite a bit and routinely get lost. But not anymore. Last year I bought a portable GPS from Magellan and it's the most liberating device I own (besides maybe my cell phone).
So this week I'm in Atalanta for a video shoot, which I haven't been to in almost 20 years, and I don't know where I'm going. I get my rental car and turn the GPS on and enter the hotel's address.... and boom, the satellite tracks my location and starts telling me where to go (I have one that talks to you). Only problem? I entered the wrong address. I compared where I was going to a map I printed off Yahoo, and something wasn't right. So I pulled over and re-entered my location and figured out I had put in "Avenue" instead of "Street". In Atlanta there are about 20 different "Peachtree" streets. So, the system is not completely fail safe, but once I entered the CORRECT address it took me right there. Nice.
Next day I had to go to the convention center and the hotel concierge gave me directions on a handy little pre-printed 3x5 index card. It also included directions for the return. The directions were good and I got there with ease. BUT, for the return... I had to park in a parking garage that when I exited put me onto a side street that was not mentioned on the 3x5 card. Nothing worse than driving around a downtown area with one-way streets, etc. and not knowing where you are. I just so happened to throw the GPS in my camera bag (glad I did), so I fired it up and got directions on getting back. Worked perfectly.
There are a lot of GPS brands out there and they pretty much all work the same. And the costs are coming down too. I think I paid around $400 for the Magellan over a year ago, and you can now get a good one for probably $250 or so. Tom Tom makes a good one and so does Garmin.
If you're a filmmaker going to different cities and/or varied locations around the globe I think a GPS is a must have these days. In the not too distant future I think the idea of being "lost" will be gone.
Now if it could just drive the car for you then we'd really be talking... :)
-Blake
Okay, so I've been focusing a lot of my time recently on the new web series "Pink". And BTW, episode #6 is out now so definitely check it out.
BUT, my last feature film "Killing Down" has got several things going on with it too...
First, just got an update from my foriegn distributor that so far we've sold these territories for DVD (and some TV):
1. S.Africa
2. Brazil
3. Romania
4. Italy
5. Taiwan
6. Albania
7. Poland
8. Latin America (via an MGM output deal for DVD)
This is all really cool news. The DVD should start popping up in retailers soon.
Secondly, we're EXTREMELY close to inking a domestic deal (finally). I can't release details just yet, but if all goes well the movie will be availble here in the states by early spring.
So, please keep your eye out for the DVD releases wherever you may be reading this. I'll update specific dates when I have them.
In the meantime, I have to go edit another episode of "Pink". :)
-Blake
This week we posted a compilation of the first five episodes of "Pink" - and our friends at the video sharing site Revver put us on their main front page (thank you guys!).
We've had really great response from the show and are continuing to work on building an audience and our brand, which is NOT easy on the Internet. But sites like Revver do make it easier, especially when they help foster a project like ours.
The nice thing too about Revver is we use their RSS Feed for our iTunes account. And iTunes with it's very large market share is really helping us build an audience. But again, without Revver it would be much harder to do.
If you are a filmmaker and want to upload projects to the web I would highly suggest using Revver. Great site and great folks behind it.
-Blake
More press coverage of "Pink"... this time in a video form.
The new show "Viral Propaganda" did a short piece on "Pink" a few days ago, and they're (possibly) doing a full story later this month (after they interview Natalie Raitano in LA).
Check it out right here!
Online Videos by Veoh.com
Also, a little promo we did for the show (on Veoh):
Online Videos by Veoh.com
-Blake
"Pink" is now on iTunes, which is excellent news - BUT even better - Apple contacted me directly (they really dig the show) and have put it on their main store page under Podcast New Releases. It's right there on the front page for the whole world to see. Pretty cool. I hope we get some viewers from this excellent promotion.
I really need to thank my new friend Tim Street for this iTunes introduction. He's the creator of the web show "French Maid TV" and has been consulting with me, and opened the door to Apple. Great guy and his show is definitely funny and worth checking out (hint, hint - go check it out!).
I also need to thank my contact at Apple (his name withheld to protect the innocent) for helping me get my RSS feed straightened out and get all the proper metadata onto iTunes. He was a big help!
If you have a video iPod or an iPhone you can simply subscribe to the show (for FREE) and when a new episode is released iTunes will automatically download it to your computer - then you simply sync your device and watch it whenever you like. If you don't have an iPod or iPhone, you still can/should subscribe via iTunes because you can just simply watch it on your computer (within iTunes).
And if you prefer to watch the show now, well, here you go!
-Blake
Young nate dreams of a new doll for her birthday, but her daddy has a different idea for a perfect gift...
-Blake
Nice front page mention of "PINK" on the cool site "The Daily Reel"...
CHECK IT OUT
(And here's a direct link to the story if above main link is gone)
Episode #4 is out today too. :)
-Blake
