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What every small town local bookstore should do April 1, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Markteting, HowTo, Video, Film, Shopping, Trends, Books, Travel, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Teaching, open source, Branding, Storytelling, Love , 2 comments

I jsut finished reading Rent Girl by Michelle Tea. It’s a neat little book - half novella and half graphic novel. There are some beautiful illustrations by Laurenn McCubbin in there that were a big reason for my picking up the book in the first place - it just drew you right in, you wanted to know what was up with this young girl from Boston and why she was into being a hooker in the first place - and the back of the book says something about her quitting, but still needing to pay the bills? I’m there.

However Michelle Tea and this book are not the subject of this blog. At least, not directly.

I picked up this indy book at an indy book shop - I was on vacation, visiting Tempe, Arizona, walking to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, hiking the Grand Canyon, getting yummy sandwiches from the co-op and drinking local beer. And next to the Trader Joe’s in the adobe-colored shopping center (really, they all were) was this little book store, Changing Hands.

Wait YUMMY!

Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe Arizona, corner of McClintock and Guadalupe. There was a café, I think, and there was a section up front with fun games - the kinds of stuff you’d see on the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble next year once they hit critical mass. Like all indy book shops, there was a table near the customer service desk with eye-catching books, new arrivals, and the ever-present signed-or-to-be-signed books. And here was Rent Girl. I had spent my time there checking out art books - graphic novels, collections of illustrations, and a couple of re-printed sketchbooks. I always love looking at stuff like that, but I don’t ever know what I would do with it. Then there was this illustrated storybook, but with naked girls and lesbianism and drug dealing.

I only read a few pages on the plane, it was too naughty. I actually couldn’t wrap my head around this book until recently, somehow I feel that by absorbing some women’s media I can try to understand the industry a bit better - things aimed at guys are too easy to understand, low hanging fruit - women’s music, film and books are another beast.

But I digress. I want to plant a seed at Changing Hands in Tempe and Urban Think in Orlando and the Bookmine in Jacksonville, and all the other places where you feel proud buying a naughty graphic novel. This advice isn’t exactly ground-shaking, but I think it makes sense:

Every small town book shop should:

  1. Print their own books.
  2. Teach classes about how to print your own books.
  3. Sell said hand-made and self-published books.
  4. Sell books by local authors on the internet.
  5. Show and sell art on the walls.
  6. Have free and open wi-fi.
  7. Record video/audio podcasts with visiting authors.
  8. Have a space in-store and online for customers to have a conversation, either about books or what happened on last night’s LOST.
  9. Be a place where you want to come to read a book.
  10. Be a place where you would hang out with your friends.
  11. Be the first place you want to visit when you get off of work.
  12. Have space for local groups to hold meetings.

In London I saw a store that only sells Chess and Bridge supplies. They’ve got the largest selection of that stuff you’ve ever seen - no big box store could compete. And on the same block is a store that only sells Flutes. I’m told there’s a store on the other side of the river that only sells French Horns. Granted, in a big city there is a need for places that specialized, but I think even a small town book store can take some tips from these places.

All Flutes Plus Villandry

I saw another place that was a grocery, bookstore, gift shop and restaurant all in one. They wouldn’t let me take pictures in there, it was so unique. They press their own olive oil.

In a certain way, Stardust Video & Coffee here in Orlando has achieved so much of what’s on my list, but the utility of the store, renting movies, was not lucrative enough for them, so they opened up to being more cafe-and-performance-space than video rental space. They’ve recently added a second stage with a strict “no dry-humping” policy, and they also sell hard liquor in addition to their amazing selection of beers, decent wine, tea, coffee, baked goods and original food.

I suppose if there was a local printer, they could achieve something similar without needing to do the actual printing themselves, but I guess that’s part of the point of the bookstore, yes?

As a “video and coffee” establishment, I don’t see where Stardust is the last word on video other than the selection, but I always felt like I wasn’t smart enough to rent there, that the right to rent a film was reserved for someone with a more cultured taste than I. However, the Thursday night Broken Speech Poetry Slam or the local rock shows they have are completely accessible, and I’ve played drums on stage at Stardust many times. Maybe that’s just partly attributed to my training as a musician, but why do I feel I’m below the film?

I guess I’m trying to encourage these book shops to become the Third Place that we are all craving here in Orlando right now. In the land of corporate coffee, the local coffee shop has evolved, mostly in order to survive. I think the local bookstore has a few more steps to take before they’re all grown up.

Which bookstores have you noticed fitting into their niche?

…continued…

This is an old meme I found via Tara Hunt and Pinko Marketing. I’ve been trying to describe local media (or at least the goals of the media I’ve been trying to produce) and what’s supposed to be for sale at Petentials and similar sites. The point isn’t to sell 24,000 of an item priced $1 but 1,000 of an item priced $24, let’s say.

Boutique (from my mac dictionary): French, literally ‘small shop,’ via Latin from Greek apothēkē ‘storehouse.’ Compare with bodega .

Some people are getting my reference to boutique mixed up with luxury brands. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead with Louis Vuitton bag and I’m sure most Boutiquers wouldn’t be either. The difference, as the diagram suggests (and there are many more differences than I quickly plotted in this image) is the motivations for buying. I said, “Bought for connection” because, as Sanford commented in the previous posts comment section:

“People go out of their way to purchase certain goods - like moleskine notebooks - or buy cheese from specific vendors because it broadcasts something about who they are. This statement can be personal/internal, shared with a small audience…”

The “small shop” concept is the feeling I got at Villandry in London - it was right in the heart of downtown, near the international embassy district, but instead of being generic, they were hyper-specialized. It was the kind of place you’d bring your aunts and uncles who were visiting town, to show off the awesome places that can grown up in your backyard, and they’d sit back and go “I would never buy anything in here, but I’m in awe of the place.” That’s how I feel at Stardust, that’s likely how some folks feel in the front room at Dandelion Communitea, or the co-op area at Infusion Tea in College Park. What does it all mean? How did these people come to create this art, or this custom stationery, or eco-friendly teacups, or press their own olive oil? Why are there hundreds of movies I’ve never heard of, and how in the hell can they organize them by country and director instead of genre? Who does that?

Boutiques do that. The perfect local bookstore would do that.

Villandry Villandry

Take a look at people who use open source software, you’ll find the same aesthetic. Hand-made, personalized, specific, and powerful in the hands of a well-informed user, but you don’t need to be the guy who wrote it to use it or change it. You think there should be a French translation? That’s up to you. A sixth checkbox? Hack it in, contribute it to the repository. Make this the best tool for you, and therefore the best tool for folks who know where to look.

I could go on all night. Maybe I’ll go on this weekend at BarCamp. But I don’t title it “indy bookstore”. What is it?

Interesting Brits and Aussies (and Floridians, Michiganders) February 2, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Orlando, Links, Quotes, Events, Trends, Travel, floridacreatives, London, Likemind.orl , add a comment

I’ve certainly noticed the work of Russell Davies before, but somehow I thought he just blogged about food, because he’s written a book about 50 great cafés around the UK called Egg, Bacon, Chips & Beans with an accompanying café blog, as well as one called a good place for a cup of tea and a think.

Then I was talking to Chris Wojda (woidah) from Jacksonville Likemind today about Pecha Kucha Night (more on that later, I promise), and we talked a bit about Florida Creatives and Likemind and a few other fun things. Then I told him I was going out of town, and it came out that I am going to England tomorrow. He absolutely insisted that I email Russell and go have a chat with him while I’m in London, so I started looking into it a bit.

Looks like Russell is an advertising guy, and my friend Chris knew him/ learned about him via Portland, OR. Now Russell writes about all kinds of stuff and has a consultancy with offices in 4 different parts of the world, Sydney, Amsterdam, London and New York. Wow.

Why did Chris think I needed to talk to Russell? Because we have similar goals? Social change? bringing people together? building communities? exploring technology and the future? Yeah, I guess so, but Russell also organizes this event called Interesting. Here’s a great idea. It’s simple. It scratches an itch.

The TED conference has just finished in Monterery. Sounds like a fantastic lot of speakers. I was lucky enough to go last year and I’d put aside the money to go again this year. But, a while ago, it occurred to me that I could take that money and we could maybe organise a conference of our own here in the UK, which might be even more interesting. Or at least easier to get to.

So this is the plan:

We’ve booked the Conway Hall for the 16th of June. Which is a Saturday. It’ll be about £20 to get in. I want to make it something almost anyone can afford.

The plan is to have all sorts of speakers speak about all sorts of stuff. Not brands, advertising, blogging and twitter but interesting, unexpected, original things. I’m hoping to find fascinating people and to just ask them to speak about something they care about. I want to replicate the experience of clicking from one really good blog to another, ranging across sciences, arts, musics, jokes and whatever. There will be 20 minute slots and 3 minute slots. Some people will play music or sing. And some people who can’t be there will be asked to send three minute videos. Perhaps. I reckon we can squeeze a lot of interestingness into a day. And then have a party afterwards.

But it’ll all be down to the goodwill and enthusiasm of the speakers anyway, because I won’t be able to pay any of them.

There’s been the problem with most of my ideas to date, or the execution of group ideas: too much thinking, too many discussions, too much of everything. This event gets down to the core. No sponsors, nothing frivolous. Just interesting people talking.

Maybe that’s why Florida Creatives works so well. I used to go to these great events in Detroit, but the whole lecture and the product demos and the committee meetings and the agendas were so complex, people would sit at most of the events and then go home right after, but they were missing more than half of the experience by not socializing at the bar across the street.

At my first SEMAFX event, I was begged to come hang out at the bar, but I hadn’t made plans to, and to be honest, the talk was not that interesting. We all tried to get people interested about going to a conference we had all just returned from, but the next event was a year away. I met some cool people and I wanted to network and hang out, but they were asking me to go somewhere else with a group of strangers where I was an outsider, and I didn’t get it.

The next month I went to both parts - the lecture and the socializing at the bar - what a huge difference! There was time for talkback with the presenters, meeting the important people who ran the organization, drinking beer, eating exotic foods, it was great!

In Orlando, the local SIGGRAPH chapter holds 3-4 events a year. At least one of them involves people who work at huge public companies like Pixar, LucasFilm, Electronic Arts or NASA. Before the events they have an hour of socializing, but it feels more like a minature expo, because companies buy tables and there are soft drinks for a dollar and a nice college student smiles and reaches into the ice to grab you a Sprite or a Diet Coke, and people wear nametags and give powerpoint slideshows or bring demonstration hardware for their video compressor/decompressor. Then when the lecture is over, everyone drives home, a bit more educated, but none the more stimulated.

In late 2006 when I was talking to John about doing an important cultural event in Orlando, we soon realized that we had neither the time, the influence or the healthy community to pull off such a grand event, so I tried thinking smaller. What got me motivated about the events at SEMAFX and the local SIGGRAPH? Why had I joined 2 community service organizations at school? I wanted to socialize, I needed a safe haven to be surrounded by likeminded people and think things out, and I’m sure loads of other people had the same desire.

So Florida Creatives became an event where we didn’t care about whether you were a hacker or a filmmaker or a blogger or a photographer or an improviser or a poet or an advertiser or a designer or whether you didn’t professionally, or if you were just getting started, or… anything. Come as you are. Don’t wear a nametag. Join the gang. Feel the embrace of the community. Cory writes about it a lot, and I really appreciate that outspokenness.

Chris (remember, from Jacksonville) started talking about doing a Florida Creatives up there, so it’s been on my brain. I’ve spoken to a few other people about doing an event where they are, but I think in order to be qualified, you need to be missing the community you once had in another town or at another school, or even at a bigger company. Maybe that’s the only qualification: to have an empty place that only your peers, superiors and protégés can fill.

I’ve been noticing particularly this week that a good idea must get harder and stronger and bigger simply by sharing it with people: the idea of having to sell someone on a thought you had in a dream and the subsequent brainstorm becomes difficult if they are critical, or if they play Devil’s Advocate. I’ve always known Florida Creatives should go to other places, but I guess I haven’t had to sell too many people on starting their own, and particularly people that fill the only qualification.

Russell, Chris, John, Cory, Alex, Jake, Scott, Randy, Brad, Jason, Charlie and oh so many others, thanks for getting me here.

Watch A Local Folkus, Learn About Central Florida’s Local Food Movement December 20, 2007

Posted by Ryan in : Podcasts, Orlando, Links, Video, TV, Trends, Earth, Travel, Restaurants, Web Sites, floridacreatives, OrlandoScene, Storytelling, Friends, Viddler , add a comment

I finally got to watch John Rife’s awesome locavore video, and I now feel very educated and inspired to explore and sample some of the places and foods he intoduces us to in his first installment of A Local Folkus.

It’s also nice seeing this project happen, because John is renting space on our server, and I helped him set up the Wordpress (a bit).

I’d like to post a lot of relevant links to go with this video, but that will take a little while. Check back soon for some more info.

Photos from London November 18, 2007

Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Travel, London, photos, flash , 2 comments


It was awesome. I’m going back at least twice next year. I have lots to catch up on, but it doesn’t feel like a chore. I’m getting some nice solidification of some of my crazy ideas, and some perspective on some of my old ones. 2008 will be the best year ever, and I have Kait and London to thank for it in part.

I have a few more photos to edit/upload yet, but that will be reflected in this slieshow when they’re ready. This player also has pics from my last trip to London in April as well. Cheers!

OSTV ELLA Music Fest Teaser

Posted by Ryan in : Podcasts, Music, Events, Video, Travel, Liberatr, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Arts , add a comment

Download OSTV ELLA Music Fest Teaser

The first ever ELLA Music Festival took place at the Rogers Building in downtown Orlando in October 2007. The festival was a celebration of female singer/songwriters and female fronted bands.

In this video, one of the performers, Rachel Goodrich, turns the tables and interviews our host Becky for a change! We also get a sample of Rachel’s musical stylings in the background, recorded upstairs just minutes earlier.

This is just a tiny sample of what happened at the ELLA Fest. Subscribe to OrlandoScene.TV to get updated when new videos are posted.

More videos coming out every week on Miro and iTunes. If you’d like to get involved by suggesting an event or venue for us to highlight, get in touch with us at OrlandoScene.TV - thanks for watching.

Coworking London, any takers? November 8, 2007

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Music, Coworking, Trends, Travel, London, Friends, Arts , 1 comment so far

If anyone has Google Alerts set for CoworkingLondon, they’ll come across this blog post and reply soon.

I am currently staying in Northern London, and I’m now an expert at the tubes and trains here, so I can get to anyplace I like. I have a day off tomorrow until around 1600 (that’s 4PM for you non-Europeans), and I’d like to co-work somewhere in town.

The easiest way to be in touch is by email < rprice AT ryanpricemedia.com >. I also have a phone, but I don’t have the number handy. I’m hoping to get a response from Noel, because I know he’s been here on a coworking expedition before.

This has been a fun trip, the other day we rode a boat down to Greenwich (as in Greenwich, Mean Time or GMT) where all time begins and saw the “Painted Hall”. Been to some other random places in town, and went to an awesome french horn concert the other night, followed by a “buttoned down” concert with period instruments and guys wearing trainers (sneakers). It was really neat, an event called The Night Shift, wherein the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment gets on stage for just such a no-collars-required concert every so-often. You can bring your wine and beer in the hall, get up during the performance, and actually hear a bit of talkback from the conductor and the host instead of having to read it all off the program (or have your girlfriend whisper it in your ear).

PodCamp Orlando October 20, 2007

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Orlando, Links, Events, Video, Trends, Travel, Liberatr, Facebook, Teaching, PodCamp , 2 comments


Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

Orlando has at least 4 healthy podcasting networks, as well as hundreds of travel shows, religious shows and whatever else you get from the regular podcast crowd. It’s high time that we get an event together.

We had a BarCamp in September with 170+ attendees, but there was only one podcast session, led by myself. I realized we could take some of the geekery out of it and turn it into a media convention, akin to the BlogOrlando unconference held by social media guru Josh Hallet - instead of focusing on techniques, we can talk about what it means to podcast and what this medium is doing for the world.

I’m really hoping to get a wide sample of the community, not just geeks - arts groups, university professionals as well as other institutions and corporations as well.

I’ve contacted a few people directly and created a PodCamp Orlando Facebook group to get us started.

We have a great local networking group here called Florida Creatives - we get together once a month for a Happy Hour downtown - and we have a wiki where a lot of the organization will be going down. I own the domain OrlandoPodcasters.com and PodCampOrlando.com - the community is mostly organized, we just need to make the event happen.

This group seems to have great support internationally. I’m excited to become a part of it.

A follow-up to my CVB Podcast post October 12, 2007

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Markteting, Podcasts, Orlando, Reviews, Trends, Travel, Web Sites, OrlandoScene , 1 comment so far

If one is creating a guide to planning a vacation, would one not want to point to specific places?

In one respect, the Orlando Travel & Visitors Bureau is missing out on some great conversion metrics by failing to include specific links to visit. In one podcast the “travel expert” mentioned the fact that “Orlando has a great Opera”. Such a statement could hardly be more true, but they fail to follow through with this idea. Not only that, but they don’t give their listeners an opportunity to follow through. They say “just go to our homepage, you’ll probably find what you want there… probably… but the homepage is the only important page on the site. We won’t tell you what to click on or what to search for. You’re on your own, have fun!”

You can spend all this money on a theme song and make us invest how many minutes in listening to it, and then miss the point entirely.

You made a podcast simply to make one. If there were goals in mind, I don’t think they came close to being fulfilled.

Here’s a possible list of goals:

  1. Set up this travel expert as a travel expert
  2. Reaffirm in the minds of people that there’s… something to do in Orlando
  3. Tell them not to bring any extra t-shirts with them, spend your money here so we get sales tax
  4. Let people know we have virtual tours of the parks on our website - too bad Disney has a whole video game devoted to this on their website
  5. Let them know there’s variety

OK, great. But aren’t you guys a for-profit venture? How did this one slip through the cracks? Here are some possible goals for a podcast:

  1. Promote our new “Endless Summer” campaign (this is a real campaign of theirs)
  2. Sell some hotel room stays
  3. Sell some Opera tickets
  4. Introduce people / drive traffic to our events directory
  5. Get the word out that Orlando is a great place for festivals
  6. Let people know about the awesome DIY culture in Orlando, or the vegetarian restaurants, or Vietnam Town, or Eatonville, or local businesses - something

That’s all for this installment of “What Were They Thinking?” See you next time!

Orlando Travel & Visitors Bureau Knows Podcasting? October 11, 2007

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Markteting, Orlando, Links, Quotes, Video, Reviews, Trends, Travel, Web Sites, Public Relations, OrlandoScene , 5 comments

No, they don’t. Honestly, this thing doesn’t even deserve any Google juice I might be inadvertently throwing at them by linking to them. Orlando Travel & Visitors Bureau - Orlando Florida Vacation - Podcasts

After checking out what they had to offer (I listened to one episode out of 3), I sent this email through their ONE contact form - no comments, no email addresses, just this dinky little form where you type a subject line, your email and a very small message box. I think it’s designed that way so you feel insignificant and to give you the feeling that nobody will ever read or respond to your message. If it’s not, you should work on that, guys.

Here’s my first message:

This is not a podcast. Your RSS feed doesn’t work. The first and only requirement of a podcast is the ability to SUBSCRIBE to it. Also, any podcast with a transcript defeats the point of it being audio or video. Give them bullet points and links to rich media or other guides (particularly those written by local bloggers, newspapers, etc.)

I’ve been participating in podcasting for 2 years now, and I’d love to talk to someone from TVB about the production and release of these.

A huge point is the difference in production and sound quality between your intro/exit and the rest of the show - I realise you guys must have paid some money for that Orlando theme song, but it doesn’t get me excited about taking a vacation.

If you want to talk, come down to the Crooked Bayou on Monday the 15th for Florida Creatives Happy Hour. There you will meet a group of passionate independent people who really love this town and all it has to offer. A number of us have our own podcasts, blogs, and videoblogs and we have great conversations about what’s happening in Orlando right now. Your podcast is almost 2 years old now - has Orlando stayed the same in the last 2 years? Really.

I would very much like to interview someone from your office for my video podcast, OrlandoScene.TV - if we can arrange something like this, give me a call or email.

P.S. That comment about transcripts was mostly a heat-of-the-moment statement. My commenters have let me know that transcripts can be useful, but I think in this case they still didn’t have any forethought applied to them.

Then I watched the video they had available, which was produced a whole year after the first two episodes, thinking maybe they learned something… they didn’t. Here’s my second message:

I’m now watching the video you made, and this is so clearly scripted, but the interviewer is on a phone line for some reason, and she keeps saying “um” while she looks at her script. If you’re going to create an audio brochure and not provide an RSS feed, don’t call it a podcast.

A HUGE point I have here - where is the feedback channel? if I want to ask a question about a podcast I just listened to or watched, I have to use this contact form. For all I know there is a person in India reading all of these. What’s the deal with that? Give us some space to comment and discuss what we just saw. You’ll be amazed when you see the visitors to your site actually coming back to check the comments.

I don’t care if they never contact me. This whole experience does not assume any intelligence on the part of the person doing the “Vacation Planning”. If they’re thinking about it before they go, give them a little credit. The entire podcast is just a brochure for their OrlandoInfo.com website and nothing else. Really. I know I said that already, but it’s so true.

If you’re reading this and you’d like to produce something real, email me - rprice AT ryanpricemedia DOT com and we’ll show these jokers what it means to podcast.

My application to TurnHere.com September 9, 2007

Posted by Ryan in : Career, Orlando, Video, TV, Trends, Travel, Web Sites, IPTV, OrlandoScene, TurnHere , 3 comments

John has been talking to me about Turn Here and their mission of using video as a medium to showcase local places and businesses for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until recently that I realised my cost of living is about to increase, and therefore I need to start making money for some of this “fun stuff”. One (seemingly) easy way to do that is through video. I’ve been saying for a long time that video is tangible and instantaneous, whereas audio takes concentration and time to absorb. I should be able to show you any frame of any video I make, and you should be able to gain some information from it. To do so with audio, you might need 5, 10 or even 30 seconds. With the same amount of video, how much more information can I get across than with audio?

Today I sent in an application to be a Turn Here filmmaker. In addition to the “Neighborhood Video Tours”, they also have a healthy number of Business Videos, at least for San Francisco and the Bay Area. I’ve been talking about doing something like this for Orlando, but these guys seem to have the infrastructure and the business model set up already. I’m not sure what the long-term opportunities are with the company, though. My impression is that all the filmmakers on the site are still trying to “graduate to mainstream media”. I see MSM as failing the 5th grade, not graduating. Maybe I should have included that in my letter.

Here’s what I said to try and sell myself to Turn Here:

I think the image of Orlando and Florida in general are far too candy-coated and commercial, and I’m trying to change the world’s view of my home to be closer to reality. Orlando has a very rich cultural scene, as well as a great community of do-it-yourself business owners, consultants and artists that are all just beneath the surface of what people think of when they talk about Orlando. I’d like to get into these different niche areas and let visitors and locals see a side of Orlando they’ve never known existed.

My coursework in college introduced me to non-linear editing, storytelling, motion graphics, audio production, 2D/3D design and web programming, and I’ve been working professionally as a web designer for more than 5 years. In school and my professional life, I’ve always had a passion for producing something that spans several forms of creativity at once, or taking a traditional idea and moving it to a new medium. Because of this, my friend John Rife, who has worked with Turn Here in the past, has been recommending I apply to the site for about a year now. I started working on a local travel, entertainment and lifestyle Internet TV show called OrlandoScene.TV at the end of last year, and while we’ve taped several segments, time and money have slowed down my editing and release schedule for these videos. I’ve reached a point now where I feel as though I’ve done enough work for free. We’ve been trying to design a business model around sponsorships, traditional ads and branded shows inside of our channel, and I wonder if we could save ourselves time and stress by hooking up with an established provider.

I got into online content production because of the low barrier of entry for myself to produce and distribute audio and video, as well as the universal access it provides to subscribers. I’ve been podcasting for close to two years and making video for 6 months now, and I feel like I’m coming into my own as a producer. I like working with personalities as hosts or co-hosts for all of my projects, and if you take a look at the interviews I’ve done through my Florida Creatives networking group, you can get some good examples conversational shows. I know there is an audience for conversational presentations of local people and places out there, and a distribution channel like Turn Here could help me find that audience.

What would you have said different if you were me? I spent a little bit of time writing this and re-ordering things. In addition to this, they asked for my resume in text format (thanks Emurse), as well as what kind of DV camera I use (Sony FX-1, Canon ZR-45, Sony Cybershot DSC-T20) and what editing software (Final Cut Pro, iMovie). They also want to know if you have insurance and lights and whether you do your own editing. Yes I do, but no insurance, sorry.

I’m hoping to hear back from them. Most of all I’m interested in talking with them and seeing what’s possible in the long term. Are they doing well? Does the idea have legs? Maybe you’ll be seeing an interview on this site soon. I’ll provide you all with updates as things develop.