News – Page 7 – Kyle Gilman

Who Says You Can’t Make Money On The Internet?

August 22, 2008/0 Comments/in News, Web Video /by Kyle

I complained a while ago about the lack of reporting for advertising impressions on Vuze, but they have come through big time. It seems they switched their advertising network right around the time I uploaded Two Night Stand on June 30, but the reporting system was still looking for data from the old network. I’m kind of surprised it took so long to figure that out, but I guess the producers of VIP Topless Hotties Clip 3 are getting most of their revenue elsewhere and aren’t paying as close attention as I am. After a month or so of pushing, I got a report last night letting me know that in 6 weeks I’ve earned over $1000 from my various videos on Vuze, the vast majority of it coming from Two Night Stand. This is by far the most I’ve earned from my own films, and I’m very happy about it. I haven’t made back my out of pocket expenses on Two Night Stand, but it makes a significant dent. Approximately half of the Two Night Stand downloads recorded by Vuze generated qualified advertising impressions.

Sadly, the glory days of Two Night Stand on Vuze are over. It will probably overtake “Dcmdp: The Package,” a badly recorded, slightly dirty joke, to make it the #4 most downloaded video ever on Vuze, but it doesn’t seem likely to make it any higher.

Sale on Merchandise

August 4, 2008/0 Comments/in News /by Kyle

Spreadshirt is having a sale in August, so it’s a great time to get some of my awesome merchandise. Just enter coupon code SCHOOL308.

Two Night Stand Dethroned

August 4, 2008/1 Comment/in News /by Kyle

For the past month Two Night Stand has been burning up the charts at Vuze. It was the “hottest” video throughout that time. But over the weekend, a slickly made clip of sexy girls playing soccer dethroned the scrappy former champion. Perennial contender “VIP Topless Hotties Clip 3” is close behind in third place. A month on top has been enough to get to 324,724 views, almost as many as in two years of underperforming on YouTube. I’m still waiting for a report from Vuze on the advertising revenue the video has generated. I’m trying to keep my expectations low. If every view equaled a qualified advertising impression, that would be over $1600, which would come dangerously close to paying the total production costs of Two Night Stand. I’m expecting it will be less than half that number though.

IMAX is Great

August 4, 2008/0 Comments/in News, Tech /by Kyle

I’ve seen a couple 35mm movies blown up to IMAX. I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at the Boston Aquarium on opening day. Harry and The Potters rocked the lobby while we waited. Yeah, I saw them before they were cool. Now they’ve sold out and gone all corporate Wizard Rock. Last weekend I went to see The Dark Knight at the only IMAX theater in NYC. I had to stake out Fandango at 2:45pm last Tuesday in order to snag tickets before they sold out.

Simply put, it’s a very impressive experience. I did a little research on the technical specs. I had thought IMAX was just a fancy name for 70mm, but although it uses 70mm film, it actually runs sideways through the camera to get a little extra resolution, like the old VistaVision process that used two sideways 35mm film frames to approximate one wide 70mm frame. Unfortunately, they couldn’t feasibly shoot the whole movie in IMAX, so there are large portions in boring old 35mm, which frankly just doesn’t cut it when projected back to back with IMAX shots. A lot of times scenes will have IMAX establishing shots, then immediately cut to 35mm. The first time it happened it got my hopes up, because I was expecting to see a whole sequence in IMAX, but it just ended up being disappointing. Eventually I got used to the idea.

And the real winner is the sound. There’s no Dolby matrix or anything. It’s totally uncompressed sound. And there are obviously some fantastic speakers involved. When I saw the boring old 35mm version at the Union Square theater on opening night, the subwoofer case was rattling, which was really annoying. It’s kind of par for the course though. In the past few weeks I’ve also seen Wall-E slightly out of focus, and Wanted projected through a spherical lens instead of anamorphic. When the Universal logo came on, the Earth looked like this:

Imagine if someone were actually paying attention to the projection. I suspect that would have been fixed during the trailers. We walked out after the first minute and got our money back.

The downside of the IMAX Experience ™ for me was some weird projection issues. Dark scenes often had what looked like a slightly milky overlay in the center of the image, like someone was shining a large flashlight on the screen. It was subtle, but annoying. There was also a clear vignetting in some scenes, where the image loses brightness as it gets towards the edge. I have a feeling those are related issues, and have something to do with the physics of projecting such a large image. I didn’t see it so much in the IMAX sequences though, just in the 35mm blowup portions.

IMDb Theaters Expands

July 24, 2008/0 Comments/in News /by Kyle

With no fanfare whatsoever, the “IMDb Theaters” program has expanded. When I logged into Withoutabox yesterday, I had links to upload Camera Noise and Two Night Stand to their respective IMDb pages. The Epic Tale of Kalesius and Clotho doesn’t have a link, although I suspect that’s because in IMDb it’s listed with the full subtitle “A Meditation on the Impossibility of Romantic Love in a Rapidly Expanding Universe” so without an exact title match it can’t automatically make the connection.

I like the idea of IMDb Theaters, but so far it’s really a quarter step into the new web world. IMDb is still the resource for answering questions like “how many movies has Christopher Walken been in?” (about 100) but its complicated system for submitting updates and changes has really held it back in the age of Wikipedia. For example, when I recently wanted to remind myself what happened in “The Cheever Letters” episode of Seinfeld, I went straight to Wikipedia where there are several pages of description. IMDb’s rigid structure doesn’t really allow for that sort of completeness although there is a very brief outline of the episode.

To be fair, IMDb includes comprehensive credits for people like me who don’t even rate a Wikipedia entry. So there’s that.

I like the idea behind IMDb Theaters, but so far it’s just a little video icon at the top of the page. Also, it doesn’t seem to track views or allow comments, so it’s a little like throwing it out into the void, which was one of my many problems with submitting to film festivals. There’s no feedback unless you get accepted and actually attend the festival. And even then it’s extremely limited.

Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye on this thing.

New Stuff to Buy

July 21, 2008/0 Comments/in News /by Kyle

This Vuze business has gotten me interested in making money from my own movies so I’ve put up a “Buy Stuff” link in the header. Anything available to buy will go up there. First up we have my collected shorts DVD. Sure you can get all these films for free online, but the commentary tracks for Camera Noise and Kalesius and Clotho are exclusive to the DVD. The quality’s probably better on DVD too, although these days Vimeo and Vuze and the like offer pretty high quality. DVDs are certainly very convenient.

Short Film Comedies by Kyle Gilman (DVD)
Includes five short films I wrote & directed.
88 min total. DVD-R with full color cover and printing on disc.

Two Night Stand (2005) 18 min — Anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound Audio Track.
Getting Laid Tonight (2004) 2 min — Letterboxed widescreen.
The Epic Tale of Kalesius and Clotho (2003) 27 min — 4:3 full screen, transferred from 16mm. Includes Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and audio commentary tracks with me and Jennie Tarr recorded in 2003. Hear in excruciating detail just how pathetic I was in college.
The Life Story of Kyle Gilman as Told to Him by His Mother Mary (2002) 12 min — 4:3 DV
Camera Noise (2002) 29 min. — 4:3 full screen, transferred from 16mm. Includes an audio commentary track with me and Jennie Tarr also recorded in 2003.

Camera Noise Logo Merchandise
Great for filmmakers, film students, actors, or anyone else who loves making movies. These are just a few examples of the available products.

Buy Stuff

July 21, 2008/by Kyle

Short Film Comedies by Kyle Gilman (DVD)
Includes five short films Written & Directed by Kyle Gilman.
Most of the films also star Jennie Tarr.
88 min total. DVD-R
Fancy full color cover and printing on disc.

Purchase from Createspace for $9.95
or for $9.95

Two Night Stand (2005) 18 min — Anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound Audio Track.
Getting Laid Tonight (2004) 2 min — Letterboxed widescreen.
The Epic Tale of Kalesius and Clotho (2003) 27 min — 4:3 full screen, transferred from 16mm. Includes Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and audio commentary tracks with me and Jennie Tarr recorded in 2003. Hear in excruciating detail just how pathetic I was in college.
The Life Story of Kyle Gilman as Told to Him by His Mother Mary (2002) 12 min — 4:3 DV
Camera Noise (2002) 29 min. — 4:3 full screen, transferred from 16mm. Includes an audio commentary track with me and Jennie Tarr also recorded in 2003.

Camera Noise Logo Merchandise
Great for filmmakers, film students, actors, directors, cinematographers, grips, gaffers, best boys, or anyone else who loves making movies. These are just a few examples of the available products.

Where’s My Money Vuze?

July 15, 2008/1 Comment/in News /by Kyle

Trying to make money with short films is a fool’s game, even in the supposed Internet-based renaissance of the short. I’ve made somewhere around $150 from my short films, mostly from Revver, and I’ve spent a lot more than that making them. I never expect to make money on the Internet, but now that Two Night Stand is taking off on Vuze, I want to get paid!

Vuze shows an advertisement every time Two Night Stand plays, and as of June 30 they had a guarantee of $5 per 1000 views in many countries. If all of the downloads of Two Night Stand include a qualified ad impression, right now I’m owed about $500. That’s a significant portion of the production costs of Two Night Stand. But the guarantee has expired with no explanation of the current offer. And the Sales History for Ad Supported Content in my account shows “No Entry.” Does this mean I’m not getting any money? I’ve emailed Vuze but I haven’t heard back yet.

If they had never offered any money I would be totally happy with the explosion of views from Vuze, but now that the thought of money has entered my head I’m disappointed in the situation. Now it seems like if these downloads aren’t earning me money that I’m somehow missing out on an opportunity.

Update: Vuze has written back, and they assure me I’ll get paid for qualified advertising impressions. I don’t have a report yet on the number, but I expect it to be fairly substantial.

Credits

July 12, 2008/0 Comments/by Kyle

cast
Kyle Gilman Dan/Kalesius Janine/Clotho Jennie Tarr Jennie’s Brother Auditioner #1 Auditioner #2 Auditioner #3 Curious Moviegoer Cameraman Script Supervisor Sound Recorder Sound Recorder Crew Crew	Kyle Gilman Dan Rosenthal Ashley Linton Jennie Tarr Jamie Carmichael Cailin O’Connor Lisa Faiman Kiran Deol Rev. Tim McIntire Randy Bell Maggie Lehrman Pete Grana Agnes Chu Greg Hudson Adam Ross
crew
Director/Screenwriter Additional Writing Director of Photography Composer Sound Mixer Production Manager Assistant Camera Clapper Loader Script Supervisor Dolly Grip Grip Grip Grip Unit Drivers	Kyle Gilman Jennie Tarr Randy Bell Alex Healy John Koczera Zadoc Angell Nicholas Weiss Clint Kenley Jack Riccobono David Rosenthal Michael Palmer Shun Kakazu Andy Rice Randy Bell Agnes Chu
sound recorders Julie Espinosa Lola Papazoglou Pete Grana Nicholas Weiss Agnes Chu Andy Fink James Lawler Tania James
thanks
Heidi Bliss John Koczera Travis Kunce Brad Chandler Willy Robinson Robb Moss Jeanne Jordan Ross McElwee Michael Lawrence Laurie Snow Evelyne Solorzano Ashley Linton Dan Rosenthal	Sean & Judy Palfrey Vicki Macy Otto Coontz Matt Rubery Dan Cozzens J. Michael Griggs Suzy Kadiff Chris Viklund Adams A-47 Adam Ross Greg Hudson Maggie Lehrman Marissa Shorenstein
special thanks Hal Hartley Randy Bell Agnes Chu Pete Grana
very special thanks to Jennie Tarr for believing in me

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