Good Ratings
Posted by Craig Mazin on 01 Nov 2005 at 03:36 pm | Tagged as: Miscellany
Whoo hooo!I wasn’t planning on giving another “state of the blog” address until our first year anniversary (which is still a few months off), but lately, we’ve been experiencing a really nice growth curve.
In the month of October, we had 12,000 unique visitors. That’s pretty remarkable, I think, for a blog that is as studiously dry as this one. It’s not just gratifying to my ego (although, okay, it is); it’s exciting to me that my philosophy is getting out there. I can’t tell you how many times I hear studio executives moaning about the dropoff in writing quality. Is it partially their fault? Yes. Is it partially the fault of the writing and film academia? Yes.
Can sites like this help reverse that trend (if it really is a trend)?
It’s worth a shot.
We promote “production-smart” writing here, so I hope it’s all catching on. Twelve thousand folks a month is a lot, and even though the biggest draw by far is our excellent forum (where I hear we may have actually contributed to a writer making a script sale!–but more to come about that later…), I’m hoping people spend a little time to read my screeds as well.
As part of my ongoing education in all things CSS, PHP and HTML, I’ve been tinkering with a few things on the site. I want to thank John August, the professional CSS advisor who moonlights as a screenwriter of some repute, for his generous assistance.
Lastly, I’ve been doing some link pruning and rearranging. I used to use an egalitarian alphabetical order system, but it’s been bugging me. If you have suggestions for blog links (or other links), head to the forum and point them out in the “Screenblogging” section. I don’t necessarily put everything up, but you never know what will tickle my fancy.
Thanks for reading and spreading the word. Up next, a look at the recent settlement between the WGAw and the WGAE…the gives, the takes, and why it’s not a perfect but “good enough” deal for the two unions.
Congrats, CM! It’s a great site and it always brings an interesting and lively discussion. The readers and posters here bring it to a second level.
Craig, this site along with a number of others we all know are what I consider mandatory homework(finally homework I enjoy!) One can learn, but also the information you get is up to date, and does not date like books do.(books are still worth reading, don’t get me wrong).
Thanks for taking the time to give us hopefuls some of your knowledge.
Much appreciated. cheers Dave.
Craig,
Your site is FAR from dry . . .
Wow. Those kind of numbers make me worry that these Big Deal Film Executive types may soon feel so ganged up on they start a blog of their own where they can bitch about, lie on and stereotype us. I only hope they take the Josh Friedman/Julie Goes To Hollywood route and decline to name names. I also hope I don’t become “The Writer Chick With The Big Butt Who Comes Really Close Time And Again But Never Quite Manages To Close The Deal.” THINGS THEY WON’T TELL YOU IN FILM SCHOOL
hey craig
i think you have a dynamic thing going. not dry at all. what’s a screed? don’t answer that.
have you done a piece on ‘the decline of writing’ execs are moaning about? i have to say i am sometimes shocked by the lack of logic and focus in some of the posts found on sites (although, not your site). it’s astounding (sometimes). this is the next generation of screenwriters?
i’d be interested in your views. forgive me if you already posted something on this subject
z ps – not dry at all. screed, screed
I would second that request from Alan, I would love to hear more about “the decline of writing”.
Is it the originality of the stories, the structure, the dialogue, or the grammar?? It would be interesting to read your views on it. cheers Dave.
Dry? Yes, like a fine Claret, described below…
“The characteristics of good Claret are color, sufficient natural alcohol, exhaustion of all sugar of the grape, and the presence of natural tartaric and tannic acids and mellowness from age.”
from: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles22/wine-5.shtml
so, let’s see…
color? Check absence of sugar? check just enough natural acidics? check mellow with age (experience? check
Yup, dry.
Thanks so much for taking the time and making the effort to publish this blog. I’ve learned a great deal.
Ok, what happened to my line breaks?
Hmmm…you know…I might actually interview a few execs about the “decline of writing”. Could be interesting.
And thanks to all of you for the nice comments. I don’t know anything about Claret, so could I be a nice single malt?
Glenfiddich or Glenlivet? Either works for me, although I usually drink Maker’s Mark.
p.s. Claret, is just a fancy name for ordinary French wine… not that this blog is ordinary, mind you, which is why I compared it to Claret.
Regardles, cheers!
There are an ever-growing number of screenwriting sites and blogs it seems. While many of these sites are interesting and amusing, this one remains one of the small handful of “must reads” for me based purely upon the quality of the information and insight offered.
Yeah yeah, the forum absolutely rocks as a happy time-frittering amusement (and I lift my glass to whomever finally pulled the plug on the damnable Naughty Filter), but when it comes to useful nuts-n-bolts info I can use, this site is among the top 3 or 4 out there.
Thank you thank you thank you.
craig
please do consider that interview. it’s no secret that i think we’re in a slide. with all the electronic media 24/7, plus portable devices, etc, writing is becoming very superficial
i think an aspiring writer in the 50′s had read a stack of literature by the time they were, oh, say, 20. not the case today. not even.
this is what i’m interested in – what’s the cause – not so much what’s wrong with scripts that come across exec’s desks these days. do execs agree that youth are different today? that a young writer is just a guy with a computer and final draft, who hasn’t read hemmingway (or anybody else)?
i’ve often heard that scripts are very poor – but there isn’t much discussion regarding the cause or possible fixes
z
His name’s spelled “Hemingway”:-)
I think scripts are just this generation’s answer to beat poetry and the Great American Novel. Smart people will continue to do smart work. I really don’t think there’s been a huge drop in quality, either. We tend to focus only on the great stuff from the past and forget there was a lot of junk.
Movies that suck do seem to be sucking harder these days, though. I’ll give you that. Movies. Not scripts. If studios didn’t hire a dozen writers fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place maybe movies wouldn’t be so muddled. I seriously doubt one-writer-per-movie will ever become the norm, but if you look at the movies you really enjoy, most of them were written by one writer / writing team. It’s a nice dream.
michael
i was referrring to billly bobb hemmingway (really top notch writer). i don’t know who your ‘hemingway’ guy is
Wow! 12,000 is an impressive number! Congratulations!
I have found your blog to be an incredibly useful learning tool. Thank you for all of the time and effort you put into the blog and forums! It is appreciated!