» Posts Tagged ‘meta’
Traffic is a funny thing (internet traffic, that is, not the kind at left). I don’t pay very close attention to which posts are getting the most hits, at least not on a day-to-day basis, but at the end of the year it’s easy to sort the hundreds of posts here by “most viewed.” Discounting the DSLR Cinematography and Hackintosh guides, here are the most-trafficked (not necessarily the best or most original) posts of 2011: More »
UPDATE: the application form is now closed. Thanks for your interest and stay tuned for future opportunities!
As a writer/director I’ve done my best to learn a bit about every aspect of filmmaking, but I want to bring on more writers — with different areas of expertise — in order to take NoFilmSchool to the next level. I believe this site can become an even more valuable resource with a proper team. So after two years of building this site myself, it’s time to expand into a site with multiple bylines. Interested in a part-time job writing about something you love? Read on. More »
I launched the current version of NoFilmSchool in January of last year, which makes this design 20 months old. It was the best I could do while living out of a suitcase and devoting a maximum of one week to the photoshopping of this design (I didn’t want to spend any longer launching the site, given I had no guarantees anyone was actually going to read it). But NFS could be so much more! However, it’s less about what I want to see here and more about what you would like to see. So please take this quick poll so I can build a better, more helpful site for you all going forward! You can select multiple answers — all of these things are possibilities, but I’m trying to figure out which ones should be highest priority. Here’s the poll: More »
The interesting thing about covering an event like NAB in person — especially one that stretches across several halls — is, when you’re on one floor, you don’t really know what’s going on elsewhere. It’s a maze. After missing Band-Pro’s announcement that they will sell Leica lenses bundled with RED EPICs because I couldn’t find the Band-Pro booth in time (it was right after James Cameron’s keynote across the street), I asked one of the RED reps, “hey, what did you guys just announce with Band-Pro?” Since he was stationed at the RED booth and the announcement had just happened at Band-Pro’s, he didn’t know himself. To be fair, it’s not like I was asking Jim Jannard — just the first rep I ran into — but the point is, sometimes the best way to monitor breaking news is to be in the press room connected to the internet, or at least on Twitter — not traipsing the show floor with video gear in tow. It’s no coincidence that I had no updates to share yesterday, as I was too busy lining up video interviews. Thus I’m scratching the video stand-ups and will try to do a better job with show updates throughout the day. Also, if I’m not glad-handing on camera, I think I can be more objective about the products on display. More »
If you don’t get the NoFilmSchool newsletter, which cleanly summarizes each week’s stories in one concise email — or if you’re just wondering which posts were the most trafficked this month — here are the top ten posts from the just-concluded month of March. Note: this favors posts earlier in the month, since something posted a day or two ago has not had as much time to rack up the pageviews. More »
“Oh my God dude, you win this award and all the sudden you think your site’s too good to give away all the content for free?” Well, no, everything is staying free. I’ve even said no to some offers for sponsored posts. The only thing that’s changing is the RSS feed is going from full to partial, meaning those of you who get NoFilmSchool updates via a feed reader — and statistics show that there are not too many of you — will have to click through to this here site in order to read the full article. Most sites only offer a partial RSS feed as it is, and this is not an indicator that things are going to change around here in any other way. That’s it; move along, there’s nothing to see here.
The 2011 Total Film Blog Awards results are in, and NoFilmSchool has won the Best Creative Blog award. Thanks to everyone who made this possible by voting! In fact, so many of you voted for NoFilmSchool that I was accused of cheating by some commenters and temporarily removed from the contest by the organizers. The controversy stemmed from the fact that many of you voted within a narrow window of time, and some believed this could only be the result of fraud. It was no such thing. If you’re curious as to how this happened, read on; otherwise, thank you again for your support. The award should help this site grow and improve in the future. More »
I’m very pleasantly surprised to be nominated for Total Film’s Best Creative Blog Award. After just one year of running NoFilmSchool as a daily blog, I’m honored to be listed alongside the likes of Ted Hope’s Hope for Film and John August’s… um, John August. If you like what you’ve been reading here on NoFilmSchool, please head on over to the Total Film Movie Blog Awards and give this site a vote! The awards are also, of course, a good way to discover other film sites, so check ‘em out.
Have a filmmaking experience you’d like to share? Got your hands on some good (or bad) equipment? Record a helpful tutorial? Interview another filmmaker? All of this content is of interest to us, but I simply don’t have the time or resources to cover every story out there. I have managed to build a site that’s read by thousands of filmmakers and other creatives every day, however, and as a result writing a guest post here can be a great source of exposure for you and/or your project. More »
Are you a DSLR accessory manufacturera, camera company, software developer, or anyone whose customers are filmmakers and independent creatives? You can now advertise on NoFilmSchool for as little as $1/day. As far as readers are concerned, very little is going to change with this development, as there have long been ads on NoFilmSchool. More »
For the first time since re-launching in January, I haven’t posted something to the site in a couple of days. Or maybe it was just one day — I can’t really remember, as I’ve been burning the midnight oil to finish a demo for my transmedia project 3rd Rail in preparation for Independent Film Week. And when I say “midnight oil,” I mean that I’ve seen the sun come up for the last five days. So — apologies and back to your regularly scheduled content in a day or two!
Filmmaker Magazine called The DSLR Cinematography Guide “astonishingly detailed and useful” at launch. Now the guide is updated, expanded, and professionally designed into a proper eBook. Including the eBook-only bonus chapters, it’s now over a hundred pages long! This new PDF is printable, portable, and more comprehensive — but it’s still absolutely free. This marks the official launch of the NoFilmSchool newsletter, which will simply email you once a week with site updates and will also occasionally ping you with tips and tricks on digital filmmaking (and how to start an independent career). Get your own full color, high-resolution copy of the guide here: More »
Since re-launching in January of this year, NoFilmSchool has received over 500,000 pageviews from 200,000 visits. With an average time on the site of 5 minutes, that accounts for one million minutes collectively spent on this site in 2010! Compared to the largest web sites out there, this is nothing in terms of traffic. But for a one-man operation — there is no marketing department, no ad sales team, no dedicated designers or developers — it’s been eye-opening and very pleasantly surprising. However, sometimes it feels like I’ve spent one million minutes working on the site myself. My eventual goal is to bring in other writers in order to A) take the content here to the next level, and B) keep the site going when I’m off shooting and can’t post something every day. But that’s still a ways off, so in the meantime, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know about a page I’ve added. The Support NoFilmSchool! page includes B&H and Amazon search boxes — if you use them to buy anything, NoFilmSchool gets a small percentage of each sale (the percentage comes out of the store’s margin; it won’t cost you a penny more). There are a couple of kinks to work out — why is the B&H search box messed up? — but by all means, please think of this page anytime you’re planning on buying anything from B&H Photo or Amazon.com — it’s a great way of supporting NoFilmSchool at no additional cost to you. Thanks as always for reading!
Because of their low prices and dual-functionality, DSLRs are going to be around for a while — regardless of whatever new cameras come out in the next 12 months. To that end, I’d like The DSLR Cinematography Guide to be the #1 resource for anyone interested in making movies with DSLRs. If you’re reading this site you’ve already discovered the guide, but there are millions out there who haven’t. So in an effort to improve the guide, I’ve been working for quite some time now on a new eBook version (PDF or ePUB), that will be updated, expanded, full-color, high-resolution, 100+ pages, and will be perfectly portable and perfectly printable. How much will I charge for this longer, offline version? You might be surprised: More »
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 »
NoFilmSchool is “a site for independent creatives,” and to that end I’d like to make it about independent creatives other than myself. If you’re a writer, director, producer, artist, designer, programmer, blogger — anything, really, as long as you are supporting yourself without a day job — I’d love to hear your story, and I think the NFS readership would too. More »
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 »
You may notice things look a little different around here today (if everything looks the same, you might have to hold Shift and click your “refresh” button). Note there are no major aesthetic changes — I switched the titling and typography (I was always more of a sans-serif kind of guy, whatever that means), and there are now Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon badges on single posts. I’ve also created a NoFilmSchool Facebook Page, which now has a home in the sidebar. Many of these changes have been driven by a look inside the analytics of this site, so let’s look at NoFilmSchool’s recent stats: More »
Last year the Federal Trade Commission passed legislation [PDF link] requiring bloggers to disclose their connections to products, advertisers, and other sources of income. I’m not exactly raking it in with NoFilmSchool, so I didn’t write the disclosures page for the government’s sake, but rather for anyone who’s interested in methods of web site monetization. For example, on the page I mention that I’m using Pretty Link Pro, which is a great tool for shortening, managing, and tracking links. As I find more and better ways to monetize the site, I’ll update the page accordingly. Disclosures »
Thanks to my guide on DSLR cinematography I have the opportunity to get my hands on some filmmaking equipment for review purposes. This is also possible because I’m moving into an apartment July 1, which will be the first time in nine months that I’ll have steady access to my 5D (not to mention a physical address to receive things in the mail). In light of this, I started wondering, “what gear would people like to see reviewed?” And then I realized I should just ask you! So please leave a comment with any gear you’re wondering about. This could be a category of tools (e.g., tripods, viewfinders, steadicams) or a specific item (e.g., Zacuto Z-Finder, Genus Matte Box, Shoot35 Follow Focus). Let me know and I’ll do my best to get ahold of it and let you know if it’s worth your hard-earned dollars!
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