Thursday, April 03, 2008

Where's Episode 4?

To see Thomas Brin in action, visit the official movie site at: Adventures of Thomas Brin

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By now, some of our loyal Brin fans may be wondering why Episode 4 of the Adventures of Thomas Brin is not yet out. After all, at the end of Episode 3, it clearly stated "Episode 4 Coming Fall 2007". Since fall technically ends in late December, we're only 3 and a half months late--so far!

The truth is that we have not yet started to post produce Episode 4.

As I stated in an earlier post about E3 production statistics, it took A LOT of hours to create TBE3 (Thomas Brin Episode 3). That is one reason, among many, that we introduced Brin 2.0. To keep producing episodes, we need help.

Unfortunately, we only have had one individual inquire about Brin 2.0--a very nice individual from England who was really inquiring about the production equipment and software we used. So, with Brin 2.0 announced just a little over a year ago, we have zero people (outside of the original production team) getting involved. Furthermore, to add insult to minor injury (hey, we have big shoulders here) we have not had a single comment on the Blogging with Brin Blog and only one fan email in the past 12 months.

Although this is disappointing, it is not too surprising. Most of our viewers watch the Adventures of Thomas Brin via iTunes or some other podcasting directory. In fact, according to our server logs, fewer than 1% actually watch Thomas Brin directly via our website. This means that, although the episodes have been downloaded over 1.5 million times, we have only had 15,000 unique visitors to our website. This is one of the problems with the podcasting paradigm--the podcast directory websites get the vast majority of the visits whereas the websites of the creators' of the content (that is freely given away) receive very few visits.

So, the only way for the creator of a podcast to know how he or she is doing is from viewer comments. If they receive only a few comments, then they have to come to terms with the fact that they are not providing the type of content that viewers truly want.

When will Episode 4 come out? We'll, with seemingly little interest from our viewers, we are in no hurry to put in the 800 hours or so we estimate it will take in Post production. But, perhaps we are wrong in assuming that there is little interest left in Thomas Brin.

With all the Thomas Brin downloads, we know we have viewers. We'd love to know how we are doing. Some feedback from our viewers would be nice! As a viewer, do you enjoy what we've created? Do you want us to continue?

Please take a moment and leave a comment on this post. Or go to the Thomas Brin website and leave a comment on our Frappr Map or join the Cloud City Community.

9 comments:

Todd Bradley said...

Maybe the number of people viewing it from this site is low because it doesn't work! I'm trying to watch the video using Firefox 3.0 on Mac OS and all I get is a page that says to click to play the movie. I've clicked all over the damn page and nothing happens.

SayreMedia.com said...

Todd-

Thanks for the feedback. I've fixed a potential issue with the coding that may have caused the problem. Please give it a try again.

If you're still having trouble viewing Episode 3, check to make sure that the QT plugin in Firefox 3 is properly installed. You do that by visiting this Apple webpage via your Firefox browser: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/troubleshooting/

If your QT plugin is installed properly (and is the most recent, stable version), the next step in debugging the problem is to make sure that javascript is enabled in Firefox. If it is not, you will not be able to view any of the episodes. This is because each episode's webpage makes a javascript call which automatically generates the proper object and embed tags for the QuickTime file.

If you're still having issues viewing Episode 3, you can view it directly by loading this url into your Firefox browser: http://www.thomasbrin.com/QTEncodings/GOT3NS.mov

I hope this solves your viewing problem and that you enjoy Episode 3!

Jeff

SayreMedia.com said...

If any of you are having the same issue with Firefox as Todd reported, then try the above suggestions. If none of those fixes work, then here are the direct links to view the episodes. Just copy the desired url and paste it into the browser of your choice.

Episode 1: http://www.thomasbrin.com/QTEncodings/GOT1NS.mov

Episode 2: http://www.thomasbrin.com/QTEncodings/GOT2NS.mov

Episode 3: http://www.thomasbrin.com/QTEncodings/GOT3NS.mov

Please note, you must have at least QuickTime version 7.1.5 installed to view the episodes.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jeff,

Don't take no comments as people are not interested I was a video podcaster for sometime and only ever got responses when we gave away a prize. Think about after you watch a movie you rent do you want to find there web page and write them a message consumers have got what they wanted. Watched your show for free! I'm also making a feature film myself and I think you should merge the 3 episodes and complete it as a feature film and enter film competitions and perhaps sell it as a film.

Don't give up its a great creation you did well I love the green screen and episode 3 was great!.

Lynne Gryphon

SayreMedia.com said...

Lynne-

Thanks for the feedback!

I agree with your thoughts. I'm working on post producing Episode 4 and feel that this series has one more episode left. Once Episode 5 is in the can, I am interested in merging all episodes into a 30-minute feature and making the rounds of some of the film festivals.

Good luck with your feature!

Jeff

Anonymous said...

Hi Jeff,
Thats great to hear good luck with the film festivals!
p.s. you should get on facebook

-Lynne

SayreMedia.com said...

Lynne-

Yes facebook, LinkedIN, and Twitter are something I will be joining shortly. I have so many emails each day that I've tried to keep some semblance of sanity by limiting my communication outlets. But, by doing so, I think that I am limiting my opportunities!

Jeff

Anonymous said...

i'm a big fan of this series and it would be a real shame if you gave it up. i know there hasn't been a new episode for more than a year, but i just discovered thomas brin and have been showing it to my friends. it's exciting to see someone go for it so directly. i also think it's futuristic to intend for it to be seen as a podcast. please try to get some new episodes up, people are still discovering your work and are inspired by it. where are you based out of?

SayreMedia.com said...

Thanks, CF!

Episode 4 is in the can. We just need to find the time to finish post production. I'm in the middle of a large software development project. Once that is deployed, I'll find some tme to devote to TB.

Where are we based? Well, right in the heart and soul of big media--Indiana. Okay, pretty far away from the heart and soul of big media, but that shouldn't matter these days.