syncomm
Anchor Cove Resident
Posts: 28
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Cost?
Sept 18, 2006 14:27:21 GMT -5
Post by syncomm on Sept 18, 2006 14:27:21 GMT -5
I've read elsewhere, and seen in interviews, that they did this on a shoestring budget (using a broken desk lamp and webcam!) Does anyone know the cost (range) of setting everything up? I haven't seen that fully discussed, but I assume that there were some fees also involved for lawyers, registering the trademark lonelygirl15, etc. This is a great sign that aspiring actors/actresses no longer have to cowtow to the Hollywood insiders to get themselves out there. If anything, Jessica has rocked her way to stardom based simply on skill and innovative marketing. I believe this is the same trend people hoped would blossom (more) from the independent artists using music file sharing services. I really hope it takes off, I can only imagine how many more Jessicas are waiting in the wings!
Cheers,
syncomm
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Cost?
Sept 18, 2006 15:18:27 GMT -5
Post by VanillaFlava on Sept 18, 2006 15:18:27 GMT -5
Hmm, well, it certainly was more than they claim, but I doubt it would have been much. First of all, do you really believe, Jessica and Youssef work for free? I doubt that in the beginning of the project they could have forseen where this was going, so I am sure they're being paid. We heard 30k USD for a 10 month project being mentioned. That might be unrelated, however. It does not sound like an outrageous compensation for the job they're doing though. I mean deduct taxes and you're not exactly living in splendor. The rest of the production could feasible be done with as little as maybe 10k, even less if they didn't have to lease any facilities, transportation or didn't have to pay people on union wages. I know too little about the film industry to make a judgement here, but consider Sundance winner 'Primer', alledegdly produced for 7k USD. There everybody worked for free, however, and it was not shot on digital, so most of that cost is for material. Now, I am not so sure about the other statements you make, that this is necessarily so liberating for people. The real problem for small-scale filmakers and talent is of course the screwed-up distribution system, especially in the US. Even if you pull off making your piece you can't get it in front of an audience easily. At face value then, the Internet is very liberating, because you can potentially reach millions without anybody stopping you. But ... watch the Renetto piece, you can only do that, because somebody else is picking up your tap. If they had to pay hosting, bandwidth and maintenance for having their content out there, they would now be in some serious debt. How long will YT provide all of this for free? I doubt Revver is the answer either. Also, it will be very hard monetising this, even if you don't have to bear the cost of operation, just that of production. You will find, that you soon need a partner for this. And if you chose to go it alone, enough capital and enough knowledgable and experienced people to actually make this happen. Setting up a successful Internet business that matures into making a profit is not as easy as it may seem to some, and heck, I should know with the last 7 years in the industry So then, I feel, that the Internet will be a great vehicle to promote yourself, and possible get yourself known. But that will spawn a lot of opportunists and a lot of crap content as well. It has promise, and as we can see in LG15 it can be done. But whether this is actually the answer, and whether this will change everything very much remains to be seen. It ain't necessarily better if you just call it 2.0, is my point. And I am not so sure that the distribution giants have lost the game, the are just lumbering a little slower.
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Cost?
Sept 18, 2006 22:19:15 GMT -5
Post by corcaroli on Sept 18, 2006 22:19:15 GMT -5
The creators also seem to have hired a professional casting agent, Leyna Noelani Raskoff, for at least a day on May 6, 2006. On her resume at realitystaff.com, Ms. Raskoff says that, on that day, she worked as casting agent for "The Children of Anchor Cove," which we now know is the title under which the casting call for lonelygirl15 was advertised on Craigslist. At the moment, I'd guess that the creators had to pay for Ms. Raskoff's services, because I haven't found any evidence yet that they're her personal friends. But I admit I don't know anything about how much work these young Hollywood types (Ms. Raskoff is about 26) are willing to do for free in order to flesh out their resumes and/or gain experience. I also have no idea how much it would cost to hire a casting agent of Ms. Raskoff's caliber (whatever that may be) for a single day. As a side note: I found it interesting that, even though she appears to have had nothing to do with lg15 apart from casting, Ms. Raskoff posted a little plug for lg15 (called "Oh, to be 15 again... ") on her myspace blog on July 6. I guess maybe she was just following up on the project she helped to cast.
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jsmith
Anchor Cove New Resident
Posts: 14
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Cost?
Dec 13, 2006 15:27:47 GMT -5
Post by jsmith on Dec 13, 2006 15:27:47 GMT -5
Well, I wasn't privy to *all* financial information, but I do know some things.
Without violating the NDA, I can say:
The creators are paying Yousef & Jessica, they are paying for dedicated server(s) (i won't reveal how many), and other things.
I do not know how much the production costs or anything like that.
I can say they are paying multiple thousands a month just on technology.
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Cost?
Dec 13, 2006 15:37:07 GMT -5
Post by Terryfic on Dec 13, 2006 15:37:07 GMT -5
I don’t really know networking or all that jazz, but what is eating up all the bandwidth? All the videos are hosted offsite so they don't have to worry about that. Pretty much it is just a message board with 50-200 simultaneous users, does that really translate to thousands in hosting costs?
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Cost?
Dec 13, 2006 16:10:28 GMT -5
Post by curiousgeorge on Dec 13, 2006 16:10:28 GMT -5
OK, I'll bite: How much did the Flash (Chat engine) Server (software) cost and did it require a dedicated server, other than the mothersip and forum server(s).
We heard rumours that a new piece of hardware had to arrive via Fed Ex to run the "chat", what's up with THAT?
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Cost?
Dec 13, 2006 16:15:40 GMT -5
Post by Terryfic on Dec 13, 2006 16:15:40 GMT -5
A quick google told me the cost of the software for the new chatroom is about $300, no clue how the hosting for it works. Hopefully the service works along the lines of P2P and doesn't sit on the server and increase traffic that much. If they are spending a lot of money on bandwidth to support audio and video chat just so everyone can listen to the Greystroke radio show... well, that just seems wasteful.
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jsmith
Anchor Cove New Resident
Posts: 14
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Cost?
Dec 13, 2006 16:40:04 GMT -5
Post by jsmith on Dec 13, 2006 16:40:04 GMT -5
the bandwidth actually isn't a problem. they are well below the alloted bandwidth limit. they get 2000 GB/month of bandwidth without counting the upgrades that were planned (and mentioned) below in this post. The site only uses 300-400 GB/month and the chat system only uses about 60 GB/month. the problem is that dedicated servers are expensive themselves - cause you are not only getting the bandwidth but you are leasing IP space and hardware.
a new piece of hardware did not have to arrive that's a complete rumor. I said I was waiting on a piece of software to be given to me (online) before I could set it up. Someone turned that into hardware & fedex somehow.
the chat client software was a one-time expense and was more than the $300 you found. I can't go into details on the server side - cost wise.
I will say that the chat software requires flash media server. I was not familier with flash media server, nor were the creators. I had a little bit of difficulty setting it up but eventually got it setup. We had it all (webserver, ftp, ssh, flash media server, mysql) running on one server. Flash Media Server began to hit 99% CPU usage - and it became obvious it was designed to have its own server. In addition, MySQL hit 30-40% CPU usage and it became obvious it would need its own server.
Right before I got fired, I had set it up, with their approval, to have 3 total servers (2 new ones). 1 for mysql, 1 for flash media server, 1 for http/nameserver/ftp. they would all share the same bandwidth - and LAN bandwidth (that is, communication between the servers themselves) would not be charged.
The move to the new setup should have been completed no later than tuesday and it is now wednesday. I am assuming they cancelled the order as soon as they fired me. This is why everyone is experiencing freezing and locking up with the chat and the site. Flash Media Server is holding at 99% CPU, and the apache/mysql servers have to fight for priority.
I will admit that I have never dealt with server administration for something this large (relatively large, at least). I did learn a lot from this experience. I will also point out though that had it not been for my obsessive pushing - and even a fight or two, LG15 would still be hosted on a virtual private server at mediatemple. No offense against mediatemple but the VPS wasn't good enough.
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Dec 13, 2006 17:57:06 GMT -5
Post by VanillaFlava on Dec 13, 2006 17:57:06 GMT -5
Yeah, I thought there would be a Flash Media Server in the mix with that chat. That's so overkill, and yup, it's a touchy beast and doesn't like to share it's playpen. Quite bad at scaling too.
The setup sounds pretty minimal, but then I guess bandwidth wouldn't be the issue, response times would be, especially from the DB, I assume.
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kleenex
Anchor Cove Jr. Resident
Posts: 16
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Cost?
Jan 3, 2007 23:53:49 GMT -5
Post by kleenex on Jan 3, 2007 23:53:49 GMT -5
I can't imagine they're making that much money with all the actors, the equipment, the long hours editing, writing and filming, and Revver doesn't exactly pay a lot - and only if someone clicks on the ads - most people watch on YouTube anyway. They're probably looking for a sponsorship deal to take the series on a more mainstream platform, like TV or something- just my guess as an outsider, thats what I'd do
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