Director's blog

Egads, I'm behind in keeping up with this blog! Hopefully, you are following us on twitter and facebook, where I've been more micro-blogging production updates.

But a lot has been happening! DA&D featured us in a full page national spot in the UK Metro (Jan 12, 2010).  It's a pretty cool piece. Check out the article on flickr, download a PSD, or read the DA&D blog post.

We had at least 150 new producers join from the UK via the article, helping us pass 12,000 Producers, and raise over $1,500 for our production!

download a PSD of this article

Funds raised by the UK Metro article helped us buy much needed harddrives and RAM for editing our documentary. BIG THANKS to all of our new crew who signed up and chipped in, and thanks to the folks at DA&D for the article!

Meanwhile, I've been working with our development team at Ciplex to finish our new site. We did some beta testing, and have fixed over 200 bugs. We're now down to the last 4 bugs to fix!

The remaining challenge for launching the site will be to import all of our crew data. In addition to the data import, we also need to optimize our Drupal site caching and correctly configure our server to handle potential traffic spikes. The last time we launched a site, we ended up on the homepage of digg.com, and our servers crashed. Hoping to avoid that this time. The good news is that the Drupal experts at Lullabot are going to help consult our web team. Lullabot has a lot of experience with setting up high traffic Drupal sites, so it will be a huge help to get their guidance.We have a conference call Thursday.

Finally, there has been lots of progress on the new teaser video we have been putting together. We had a sound design session donated at KeepMePosted, and are now working with Cirque du Soleil composer Jean-François Côté, who is creating some original music for the new teaser. 

So a lot is coming together. Hopefully we will be ready to launch the site in a week. Just a heads up, but we may have to shut the live site down for 24 hours as we transfer the data and get the new site up.

Best to all,

n

It's been quite a bit since my last post; I've been making more small updates via our twitter and facebook. But I did want to give an update on our web development.

This past month I've been working a ton on the new site. Development had stalled for a while for lack of resources.  The good news is that things are moving forward again. I met with Ciplex and went over our remaining needs. We now have a new project manager named Ramin, and a set of new developers (Alex and Slava) focusing on our project. Together, the new team has been making a ton of progress.

We reached a point last week where more of the site was working than not working, and it really lifted my spirits. The web development process has been my least favorite part of this project; but it is pretty exciting to see it all come together, and I can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel.

I've been spending many long nights testing, making notes, and more testing. There are currently 40 critical bugs left to fix. After the site is stable, we will have a round of private beta testing where we invite some volunteers to try and break the site and make a list of final bugs. We will then fix any critical issues. Then we will have to take this site down as we do a fresh database import and set up our servers. And then, finally, the new site will launch. If things stay on track, I think this will happen sometime in January.

I'm so looking forward to sharing this site with everyone in the new year.

best,

nirvan

Screenshot of remaining tasks:

I wanted to give a brief update on our web development, which, just between you and me, continues to be the most time-consuming and frustrating part of this project.

What was estimated to take three months has now taken over a year, and still isn't finished. How is that possible you may wonder? Well, it is one of the results of not having enough money to pay for the true costs; short on money means long on time.

One of the ways we are saving money is by building our site using Drupal, an open source content management platform. Drupal is great, but there have been a lot of unforeseen complications in building some of our custom functionality. This ate up programming hours and resources, and has caused a lot of delays. Development has been stuttering, moving forward in spurts, and at times, idling.

I had a long heart to heart with our web team last Friday. In short, I told them we have to get this site done sooner than later. I can feel the project losing momentum as we continually postpone opportunities until the new site launches. On the flip side, once our site launches, there's lots of light over the horizon.

Our web team was very open with me about the challenges they are facing. Having a better understanding, we discussed ways to reduce the amount of features for launch. We also have a new project manager, Ramin, who is in charge of tasking the remaining work to a developer.

I spent the early part of the week prioritizing and cleaning up a final list of features, and sent them to Ramin on Tuesday. I just got word from him today that a developer has been found, and has started working on the remaining items full-time. This is great news. Expect a further update mid next week.

Meanwhile, I'm in Houston Texas this week visiting my grandmother and helping out my dad's travel agency. If anyone needs to book a cruise or a destination wedding, let me know. :)

Here is some video of my pitch to Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, two of my favorite filmmakers. I was super nervous at the time, but they were both super cool. We shot this with a little mini-dv, no lights, and no mics, so  lighting and sound aren't so good. But honestly, I'm happy we were able to get any of this on video.

My buddy Mike came with me to the screening to run camera. It was at the Arclight in Hollywood, and was sold out. We didn't have tickets, but we went anyway. it rained that night, which in LA scares people, so a lot of folks didn't show up and we were able to get in.

This was back when we only had 800 or so producers, which seemed like a lot at the time. Spike became producer #819 and Charlie was #820. Spike was just starting pre-production on Where the Wild Things Are, which comes out next week!

I was waiting to post this video until after our new site launch, but the web delays have continued, and I wanted to post this before Where the Wild Things Are hits the screens... I'm SO stoked to see that film! Here is an awesome little WTWTA featurette with Spike and Maurice Sendak: 

best to all,

n

Here is a little moment from when I pitched Kevin Bacon. He thinks we got a shot at an Oscar! But he also spotted a potential problem with an Oscar run...

Meanwhiles, work continues on the new website. We ran into some data porting issues with the donation history data. The new site will offer itemized transactions of every members donation history, showing who gave what, when, and how (i.e. whether it was a donated service).

 I've been putting together a few wire frames for the developers, and we're working on cleaning up the data - which unfortunately, may involve some manual databasing work on my end. Urgh.

But I'm also encouraged. Getting the donation history all squared away is one of the last bug bugs that we need to fix before we can launch the site, so things are definitely getting closer.

I also met with Stephen Nemeth over the weekend, and shared with him some of the new site and footage we have been editing, and he was really liking what he saw, so that was encouraging. Hopefully, a lot of things will be coming together for this project with the launch if the new site.

Meanwhile, we have 11,448 Producers and counting. If we ever get an Oscar, maybe we can cut it into tiny pieces and send everyone a little sliver.

best to all,

n

Hey everyone, I just got off the phone with Ilya and our web team at Ciplex, and there has been a lot of progress to report. Lauren has been knocking off bugs, they have been fixing IE browser issues all last week, and we are getting ready for a final big push to compile and deal with the remaining fixes.

Over the next 48 hours, Ciplex will be doing internal quality testing and bug fixing. Tonight, I'm putting together an itemized list of things I've noticed that still need fixing. After they take a crack at fixing bugs internally, there will be one more round of quality checking on my part, 3 developers will fix what is reasonable, and then we will open the new site up for beta testing.

Some of you have already offered to help with beta testing, and I'll be contacting you all about that. If you haven't contacted me, and would like to help with beta testing, please let me know.

The time it will take to fix the remaining issues is still up in the air- we may end up putting off some fixes until another round of development if they are not priorities. Our main goal is to get the core functionality of the new site working and stable so we can get things moving. 

So, I'm still in Houston as I mentioned in the last vlog. Looks like I'll be back in LA next week- and am looking forward to getting back into video editing. Until then, just wanted to share the web news. It's been a rough process lately, but I'm encouraged by this latest spark of progress, as well as the latest bunch of producers to sign up, helping us pass 11,300 Producers.

Yeehaw, from Texas.

nirvan

This vlog has some quick sneak peaks at the new website.

I stayed in the studio late last night editing the Colbert pitch. I'm finessing it. Eager to post it, but still want to wait til the new site launches...

I'm out of town for at least a week to deal with some family stuff. Digitizing and editing will be on hold, but will continue to work on the site and fundraising while I'm gone.

Have a great 4th of July,

n

This week welcomes two legends, Mr. Elliot Gould and Jules Fieffer, to our crew.

It was kind of cool how I got to meet them.

Jules was to be in town from NY to screen his film Little Murders at the Silent Movie Theater. My friend Amalia, who has been volunteering when possible, works at the Silent Movie Theater and knows that The Phantom Tollbooth is one of my favorite books (Jules did the illustrations). Jules had flown into Ocean Side to visit friends, and needed a ride 2 hours up to LA. So Amalia, who doesn't drive, asked if I could volunteer, and I happily said yes. She and I drove down together Sunday, picked up Mr. Feiffer, and got to spend an amazing 2 hours in a car getting to know him.

Jules is 80 now, and super hilarious. Aside from hearing lots of amazing stories about his creative process, I also got to give him his first Skittle (which he did not like), and to explain the rules of Ultimate Frisbee, which he had never heard of. I also got to tell him about The 1 Second Film, which he found interesting, and joined as an Associate Producer! We stopped at El Pollo Loco where we started to talk about the concept of perfect moments. Jules shared this moment as a possible one-second film:

During the McCarthy years, around 1955, Jules was in the NY subway waiting for his train when the news ticker caught his eye: the headline read that a Brooklyn artist had been arrested and accused of being a Russian Spy. Jules knew most of the NY artists, and couldn't help but wonder if it was one of his friends. He looked away for a second, and when he looked back at the ticker, it had changed... and sure enough, the spy was one of his friends. In that moment, all of his assumptions were turned upside down. This wasn't one of the cases of paranoia, this guy actually turned out to be a spy. Jules wasn't sure who anyone was anymore... he later wrote a play about that feeling.

I thought that was a pretty cool moment. Not just the drama of discovering one of your friends was an international spy, but also hearing this story in an El Pollo Loco.

From there, we  stopped to visit Jules friend, three time Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Paul Conrad. It was amazing to hang out with these two artists. I didn't even think to pitch The 1 Second Film, I was way too busy soaking in their stories. It was a short, but very sweet visit.

Later that evening, before the feature, we were treated to a beautiful 35mm print of Munro, the Academy Award winning animated short that Jules wrote. Then came Little Murders.

Here is Munro:

Little Murders was made in 1971 and still holds up. There are all sorts of amazing and absurd details. I especially loved the wedding scene with Donald Sutherland as the minister. You can see a bit of that scene in this original trailer. Supposedly the film has been recently released on DVD, which is awesome.

Elliot Gould, who plays a lead in Little Murders, was at the screening, and hung out after to do a Q & A. It was great to hear Gould and Fieffer share stories. After the questions and answers, I waited until everyone had said hello to Mr. Gould before attempting to pitch him our project. By then, he was in a bit of a rush to get home- it was around midnight and he wakes up at 3am! - but he took a moment to hear about our project.

I told him I was collecting some of my favorite people to make this film, and that it would mean alot to have him on board. He dug into his pocket, and asked if 52 cents in change would help. I told him it would, but that there was a $1 minimum to be a producer. With very good humor, he smiled and pulled out a dollar from his pocket. 

And with that, we raised another $1.52 and added two more amazing folks to our crew. It was a pretty great Sunday.

Work this week continues with digitizing, editing, and site development. There was a bunch of progress on the site today. Making bug lists and inching ever closer to the beta launch... oh, I can't wait for that! I'm also putting the finishing touches on an edit of the pitch to Stephen Colbert and his wife Evelyn. Will be posting that with the launch of the new site.

Here is the weekly vlog:

Best to all,

nirvan

This week we bought and installed another 3TB of digital storage for editing our documentary. One benefit of this project taking so long to complete has been the falling cost of digital storage. We got 2 internal 1.5 TB SATA drives for only $300. A few years back, a 1TB external drive cost $900.

Just wanted to thank everyone who chipped in recently to help us get these drives! We also passed 11,111 Producers, which was pretty cool.

I'm back to digitizing while continuing to work with the programmers to fix the site. There are still a lot of issues, but it is making progress. Hope to have more info on the site soon.

best to all,

n

Meet 2 of the volunteers that have been coming in when possible to help with editing and sub clipping. Meanwhile, digitizing continues. We have re-digitized the tapes that were lost, and are starting to make forward progress again. We just filled up another 1.5 Tb drive, and will need to get some more storage next week.

Also, we passed 1,100 producers this week, although sign ups have been slow. It's a hard time for non-profits arts organizations to try and survive on fundraising... hoping to have more flexibility with the new site, but for now we are going at the rate of random generosity.

Big thanks to those who have donated recently!

best to all,

nirvan