It’s Obvious – Isn’t It?

I have often heard the expression “It’s Obvious”, and over the years, I have thought about what it meant. I finally tried to organize those thoughts and wrote a short article about it.

http://scienceray.com/philosophy-of-science/its-obvious-isnt-it/

Can a Conservative Also be a Liberal?

Most people think of conservatives and liberals as the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Until recently, so did I. While conservatism and liberalism have a history of conflict, they are not opposites.

http://socyberty.com/politics/can-a-conservative-also-be-a-liberal/

The Tragedy of Ankhesenamun

Most people have heard of King Tutankhamun, buy fewer people know of his wife Ankhesenamun. When I first learned about her, I thought her life would make a good story for a movie. From Tutankhamun’s birth to his death, Ankhesenamun was by his side. With his death, her life became a tragedy.

http://socyberty.com/history/the-tragedy-of-ankhesenamun/

Some Curious Stories from the Discovery of the Solar System

It took thousands of years for people to discover the true nature of the Solar System. The road to understanding was not straight and along the way, some curious things happened. The search, after all, was by people, who can be quite curious.

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/337525_some-curious-stories-from-the-discovery-of-the-solar-system

Rationality Versus Irrationality in The Movie “Agora”

I published a short comentary on the movie Agora

http://cinemaroll.com/cinemarolling/rationality-versus-irrationality-in-the-movie-agora/

After I saw the movie “Agora” I felt that, while I enjoyed the movie, it would a movie that I would quickly forget. Since then however, I have started to see more to it. I think this movie needs a second look.

“My Next Film” on Moviola in August 2010

Moviola will show my film “My Next Film” during August 2010.

These are the remaining show time and dates:

August 15 12:23 pm Eastern Standard Time (11:23 am Mountain Daylight Time)

August 18 6:08 pm Eastern Standard Time (5:08 pm Mountain Daylight Time)

August 31 8:54 pm Eastern Standard Time (7:54 pm Mountain Daylight Time)

You can find out more at:

http://www.movieola.ca/search.php?searchBy=0&keyword=My+Next+Film

If you do not get Moviola, they stream some programs on their website. http://www.movieola.ca/

I would like to make this short story into a movie, what do you think?

I just published a new short story:

Hello, My Name is Bob http://authspot.com/short-stories/hello-my-name-is-bob/

A young man, alone in a new city, tries an unusual tactic to meet someone new, but it doesn’t work out quite the way he thought it would.

As I wrote it, I thought that it might be a good story to turn into a short movie. It would help me if you could read it and let me know if you think it would make a good move.

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

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