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Ryan Koo is now Koo

07.21.10 @ 4:40PM Tags : career, filmmakermag, googletv, koo, meta, name

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I needed something to push myself over the edge. And so in writing my first article for the print edition of Filmmaker Magazine — now available digitally and hitting newsstands soon — I used “Koo” for the byline. No Ryan, no Bilsborrow. In the process I went from having three names (five if you count my hyphenated middle name, Tze-Ren) — to one. Yes, as far as bylines and credits go, from this point on I’m going simply as “Koo.” But why would I change my name (again)? Aren’t people going to think I’m a douchebag for doing this? More »

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Why I Lived out of a Suitcase for Ten Months (And Why You Should Too!)

07.8.10 @ 1:06PM Tags : career, diy, finances, lifestyle, meta, travel

It hasn’t been easy writing a blog about filmmaking without having a project of my own to show since my 2007 fly-by-night production of The West Side. The main reason for this? I tried to get something made in the studio system. 200 pages of screenplay and twenty-something meetings later, I arrived at the conclusion that I should’ve stuck to the DIY route. However, there’s another reason you haven’t seen a new project from me in a while: I haven’t had access to a camera, to actors, or to much of anything, because I’ve been living out of a suitcase for ten months. Why did I decide to do this — and why do I recommend others do the same? More »

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Can a blog be self-sustaining? NoFilmSchool’s traffic and revenue

05.4.10 @ 12:00PM Tags : blog, career, meta, monetization, money

Can a blog like NoFilmSchool be self-sustaining? As a blogger you can make money by being a contributor to a huge tech or political blog, wherein you’re one of many staff writers churning out content every day — which I’ve done — but can you turn a profit by writing about what’s important to you, on your own site, in your own way? In my recent manifesto I talked about blog revenue being one (small) slice of the self-sustaining pie, and on this site’s about page I wrote, “a big part of figuring out how to be independently creative — and by this I mean, being able to work on your own creations, for yourself, without having a day job — is figuring out how to derive value from the content you create.” Here, then, are the traffic and revenue stats from NoFilmSchool for the just-concluded month of April: More »