#More than 20 Episodes per season

[vulpixhoney]

people keep comparing the WatcherTV move to Dropout (for obvious reasons) but I cannot emphasize enough how vastly different the circumstances between the companies is. like astronomically different

• Watcher does not have the years of experience that Dropout/CollegeHumor did. CH as a company formed in 1999. They've been doing sketch comedy since the early 2000s. they were a company, like an actual company with offices and departments and everything. Watcher hasn't even existed for 5 years

• Because CH has been established for that long, not only do they have an established connection to the industry, but they have an established fan base already. People that knew about and were fans of CH for over a decade, before Dropout was even a thought in someone's head.

• When Dropout was in its infancy, CH was still under their parent company IAC, they weren't roughing it completely on their own the way that Watcher is. They were later dropped by IAC, but having that connection and funding in the vulnerable start was important

• CH was still posting sketches and skits on YouTube for free while filling out Dropout's catalog. They didn't hard shift into exclusively subscription based, they continued doing both for the first couple years in order to help get Dropout established. Even now, they still occasionally post full episodes for free on YouTube, including whole seasons of Dimension 20

• They have a large rotating cast that they move between multiple shows. They have a variety of content and a variety of entertainers to be guests on shows. Watcher has 3 guys which the occasional guest

• A big part of this transition is because Watcher's episodes have a high production cost. That's what they claim. That it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to film one episode of Ghost Files. but why?? why does it cost that much?? I get cost of travel for talent and crew but hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode?

• When IAC dropped CH and they went bankrupt in 2020, they only had 7 employees. When Sam Reich bought the company, they only had 7 employees. not twenty five. I'm not advocating for laying off people, but maybe they shouldn't be payrolling more people than they can afford

• also. Sam Reich is very vocal about how Dropout surviving and succeeding was nothing short of a miracle. They didn't get that success because the business model works, they got that success from years of networking, hard work, and pure luck

#watcher #dropout

[undyinglantern]

one of the concerns i had about deciding to watch st in chronological order was that watching the original series after all the modern (aired after 2000) series' would feel a bit too dated to fully enjoy. i even waited until the next day to start watching it after finishing snw before going "well i remember growing up watching i love lucy with my family and enjoying it and that was aired even earlier, in the 50s." and starting it. unfortunately that didnt help because it still feels a bit too dated to really immerse myself into and i constantly find myself thinking the episodes drag on just a biiit to much

#its not bad per say but i wish episodes were like 40 minutes instead of 50 #i ended up watching 8 episodes of the 1st season before deciding to watch tng instead _(:3/ #maybe the 2nd and 3rd seasons are better but this is back when seasons were 20+ episodes so sitting though that would feel more like a chor #*chore #than bc i enjoy it so maybe ill go back to it some time later instead. but like at a leisurely pace #or maybe ill look up a 'best episodes' list and watch just those idk #problem for future me to figure out #personal

[cipheramnesia]

This is the process my brain goes through every time I see anything about Netflix Avatar The Last Airbender.

My first reaction is always: Why? The original, although not without flaws, doesn't leave a lot of room to improve. A good remake or adaptation usually involves an updated context or change in perspective that adds to the original work and gives it new meaning. It's a risky undertaking because it usually involves wanting to take on something established as iconic and make it your own. But Netflix is a corporation and seems very risk averse for the most part. Its only investment is in the name recognition of AtLA. It's hard to visualize Netflix deliberately taking a big risk on an expensive show.

My second reaction is: How? The original series is about 1400 minutes over 61 episodes, and it still had to rush the ending. We're looking at 8 episodes of roughly 45-60 minutes per episode for season 1, which would require Netflix to let it run more than 3 seasons, if the series has similar pacing. Historically however Netflix shows have glacial pacing, and rarely make three seasons. Not really sure how they plan to tell the story if the series is anything like the average Netflix series, meaning it either needs to undercut the story or let the series breathe for at least five seasons. But nothing Netflix has done makes me want to watch anything they make as an ongoing series? Why bother, they cancel everything I enjoy. So I wonder how. What's the hook to say "this will be able to provide something new and interesting compared to the original, and will be allowed to tell the complete story."

Which leads me to think, but you can't judge if something is good without seeing it. Except none of this is about whether it's good, I just find myself wondering what are the odds it's worth the effort? They're low, and it has nothing to do with whether or not it's even any good on its own merits.

Following this, I ask myself, what would a good version of this be. Imagine you are making a live action series with eight hour long episodes per season based on a children's cartoon with 20 thirty minute episodes per season. You are trying to encompass a story which was presented over three seasons as a cartoon, and you do not know if you will have more than those eight episodes. It's made for Netflix which, in terms of a company which will protect the hard earned fruits of your artistic labor, is the fox guarding the henhouse. What do you do?

If you are looking to make something good, that respects your audience investment and your own work, you make radical changes to the story. You change the pacing, the character arcs, the plot arcs. You make sure you deliver a complete story in those episodes with as much respect for the original work and as many new ideas as you can.

Except, at that point, what is even the point of a remake. The only way to work with it is either to trust Netflix allowing you to finish the story (which you'd need to be incredibly naive to do), or tell a story so different it may as well be wholly original. And that's where I always end up. Like, it'll probably be fine, but what's the point of it all? Another vanishing digital property to get canceled because of some undefinable failure to return on investment.

I think about it a lot because the two ends of the spectrum seem to be "dunk on every new piece of information" or "wait and see" but the only conclusion I can ever reach is "why even care?" That's been the lesson to take home from digital streaming in general when it comes to series, but Netflix in particular, and honestly for movie series too. If it can't be self contained, the companies who produce and release these kinds of series just cannot be trusted with it, and there are too many good original stories being put out to care anymore about big budget promises that one day they will definitely for sure deliver a finished story, this time for real.

I care enough to think about why I don't feel anything at all about Netflix Avatar. It'll be fine, whatever else. Just fine.

#netflix avatar

[mothellie]

I think the Duffer Brothers' history with racism in their show goes a lot deeper than a lot of people realize.

Lucas as a character has three distinct B plot stories that get assigned to him: being a minor antagonist to Eleven in season one, being a good friend to the rest of the Party, and being in love with his girlfriend. While Mike's plot is directly centered around two of the most pivotal characters of the show, Dustin is given two different role model characters that shape his arc and is overall the genius that helps the rest of the cast get out of several difficult situations, Will still being connected to the Upside Down after his disappearance in 1983 and that playing into several major plots, Max having a multitude of centric storylines especially in season four and Eleven literally being THE main character- Lucas is only ever given plots that help serve and uplift the other (white) characters. Unless you count him... playing basketball and being friends with Jason. I guess?

Erica is similar to Lucas, but to a much larger degree. I'd like you reading this to think of any single Erica standalone plot in the show that has nothing to do with/does not predominantly or solely benefit the white characters around her. I'll wait.

The Sinclair parents are only touched on in brief sections for the sake of filling the episodes, only ever playing a more major role in Season Four. If you could call it that. I'm sure most of you couldn't even tell me their names off of the top of your heads. (It's Charles and Sue, by the way.)

Argyle was the first somewhat major character of color to be introduced to the show after Erica played her part in season three. I could say similar things about his role in the season overall that I can about Lucas and Erica. Except they set him up to play a bigger role in the next season at the end of season four, going as far as to show him in Hawkins and have Jancy verbally allude to him sticking around, only for the show heads to ghost Eduardo Franco and let him find out he wasn't being brought back through an official social media cast photo.

Kali was a former subject from the same lab El came from, having escaped and subsequently began to lead a vigilante life of enacting revenge on those who played a hand in her suffering. She was the first subject El ever met after leaving the lab, shown to be incredibly powerful and strong-willed. Her and El had an immediate connection, calling themselves sisters right after meeting. But after El was finished with her self-discovery period on the S.S. Kali Gang for one (1) often-forgotten and poorly-written episode, Kali was quite literally abandoned both in spirit and on screen, never to be seen or even mentioned again.

All other characters of color are either killed violently (Patrick), have like ten minutes of screentime total (Jeff and Calvin Powell), or are just straight up background only and may not even have names.

They can dedicate an entire section of season four's plot to Suzie's family, but not to genuine character development for Erica or for Kali to return. They can make room for a whole pointless predatory plot between Billy and Karen, but not to give a more important role to the Sinclair parents. They have room to include a whole plot about El getting bullied in school, but not for Lucas to have a more meaningful story outside of his white friends and girlfriend. They can platform three known white zionists while Palestine currently undergoes a gruesome genocide even as I type this, but they don't have room for Argyle in season five (or even the decency to give Eduardo a fucking phone call).

Not only do the Duffers constantly write themselves into holes because they keep adding unnecessary fodder to the plot, and refuse to kill ANY of their main characters in favor of just creating new characters for the sake of killing them off in mediocre ways despite the fact that they're trying to fit 20+ B plots into 8-9 40-50 minute episodes per season and wondering why half their show doesn't make sense- The time they DO dedicate to character-specific B plots and character arc progression visibly favor the white characters.

If I watch S5, and that's a huge if, I will be sailing the high seas. Between all of this, the fact that they filmed part of season four in an old Nazi prison and tried to turn it into a fucking AirBNB, and the fact that at least four people who play major roles in the show actively support the current genocide of Palestine- I won't be giving them (or Netflix for that matter) another cent of my money.

While you're here, please do your completely free daily click to send aid to Palestine, and here's a list of other resources for how to help more directly.

#cassie talks #stranger things #free palestine #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #charles sinclair #sue sinclair #argyle stranger things #kali prasad #patrick mckinney #jeff stranger things #calvin powell #anyway excuse me im gonna go put these characters in an ungodly amount of fics #it's what they deserve

[genericpuff]

Scamlords is at it again.

A few nights ago, there was a sudden blow-up in the /r/webtoons server showing a new announcement from Snailords -

For anyone unaware, Death : Rescheduled has been on mid-season hiatus since October. And it's now, and only now, that Snailords has suddenly decided the comic is ending after it returns, but readers can get an extra 20 episodes... if they fork over $1k in merch sales.

Now, this could be a lot worse. They could be threatening not to return to the series at all unless their readers hand over money. But considering it's practically just one degree away from that, it's still pretty nasty. Not to mention, the further they divulged in their reasoning around this "idea", the more confusing it got.

They also even revived their @snailordsrant account on IG which, for those of you who were there and can recall, was the same account they used to put one of their own fans on blast over some very mild criticism.

None of this makes any actual sense, for several reasons:

1.) I literally fail to see how getting $1k in less than 24 hours is worth shoving in an extra mini arc of 10 episodes if you don't even have it planned out. Why do that to your audience or to yourself? Why drag things out just to scrounge up an emergency $1k? Why not just be honest with your audience and run a GoFundMe or just say , "Hey everyone, I've run into some financial troubles, I would really appreciate it if you could FastPass my newest episodes or donate to my Patreon or buy some merch so I can cover the costs". It's really telling that this shithead doesn't have enough confidence in themselves or their audience that practically worships them that they have to resort to this kind of underhanded shit to get the money they need. I wanna make it clear that this is NOT like a Kickstarter stretch goal or anything that incentivizes readers to support their work, they're instead holding the length and future of their series over their audiences' head (which they've done before) for money. That's not an incentive, it's an ultimatum.

2.) Maybe I'm misreading / being stupid (someone pls explain if I'm missing something here) but I literally don't see how their comment about working 50 hours a week explains why they're suddenly getting their fans to pay out $1k worth of merch in less than 24 hours. For anyone who doesn't know, $1k per episode is an example Webtoons uses in its post discussing how they pay out creators (this came after the platform got called out 2 years ago for paying creators too little, there are undoubtedly creators getting paid less). And yet for some reason $1k is apparently the difference between 10 episodes and 20? How does that add up? And is the bit about them wanting to buy boba supposed to be a joke? Where's the punchline here?

3.) They say they have writer's block and they want to use the money to "motivate them", but then just a few slides later they say 10-15 episodes is what would make them the "happiest" so which is it? Do they want to write 10 episodes or do they want people to pay them to write 20 episodes so they can draw the fluff scenes that they apparently want to draw? If you have an ending planned out, why rush it or drag it out depending on how this "fundraiser" goes? Why not just write the ending you want to write that will serve your story best? Why shove in an extra mini arc that you don't even have full confidence in writing and then try to compare it to a "super expensive cake"? What are you doing? Speaking as someone who's had trouble getting motivated in the past, suddenly getting a month's rent worth of money to do it doesn't necessarily solve that, it just turns up the pressure, and if you're not someone who deals with pressure well, then you're more likely to wind up just burning out entirely rather than fulfilling that goal.

4.) The fact that they did, in fact, hit their goal just makes it all the shittier to think about because their audience is mostly made up of teenagers who worship the ground that they walk on. It's horrifying that they keep pulling these stunts with their audience, and getting away with it to boot - and Webtoons, as a company, keeps enabling it by allowing it to happen by hosting and promoting people like this.

Anyways, there's already a lot going on here that's sketchy, but then... they went and deleted their posts. At the time of this happening (as I was there to witness it all play out in real time) I assumed this meant that they had hit their $1k goal - especially as they had been showing their progress on their IG and they were already at $900 after just a couple hours - but it gave me a sinking feeling seeing them delete it because they had also been called out by some brave readers telling them that it wasn't exactly a good look to essentially blackmail their audience through their own content into giving them money.

Snailords deleting it gave me a stronger impression of "burying the evidence", especially now that they had the money. By all accounts, they could do whatever they wanted now.

So what did they decide to do?

. . . Huh?

Okay, take a second to actually think about what Snailords has done here. Because I know some of you will go "oh, it was for charity all along! that was nice of them!" but . . . I don't know about the legalities of collecting donation funds under false pretenses, but morally speaking, it's a really shitty thing to do. They stripped away the choices - limiting them to three - of what their readers could donate to, and what I think their readers don't understand - due to being mostly teenagers - is that they're tax-exempt individuals and they just unknowingly gave Snailords an easy $1k tax write-off. You really, really shouldn't collect donation funds like this without being honest, it's just a shitty thing to do, especially after you've already collected the money. It mostly just comes across as damage control on Snailords' part to make it seem like they were always planning to donate to charity, when in reality, if they wanted to donate to charity, they would have been honest about that at the start. Again, even if they wanted to do that from the start, it goes to show how little confidence they have in themselves or their audience that they have to stoop to methods like these instead of just doing it honestly.

And do you really think Snailords will actually do those extra episodes? Or donate that money? This is the same asshole who has manipulated their readers for money not once but twice, and now seems intent on doing it a third time just for the charm. This is the same person who practically sabotaged their own comic, Freaking Romance, because they apparently didn't like the romance genre and may as well have only done it for clout / views / etc.

What was especially odd - and I found this out from folks who actually read Death : Rescheduled (I do not) - was finding out that it wouldn't make sense for D : R to end in as many as 25 episodes, because apparently, the plot has basically just gotten going.

So it does seem like this is foreshadowing that D : R will wind up just like Freaking Romance, rushed into an ending that wasn't expected. And this, of course, has the people who read their work confused because D : R was supposed to be Snailords' passion project, their magnum opus, the project they wanted to do. So them holding the timing of an ending that shouldn't even be happening yet for ransom contradicts that original intention. Really, it just goes to show that Snailords has no passion, they're just in it purely for the money, to a degree that I can't even cheer them on for being a hustler because it's missing the honesty and integrity.

And of course, every single time Snailords finds a way to backpedal and take his audience for a ride, they hop right in without a single thought for themselves.

And no, none of this is to hate on the readers directly, I hold Snailords entirely responsible for this - they have an audience of impressionable, naive, gullible teenagers, and they know it, and take advantage of it every chance they get. It's why they weren't just honest about wanting to collect money for charity from the start. It's why they resorted to basically holding their own comic's progression for ransom during its midseason hiatus. It's why the deadline was 24 hours and why the posts are now gone.

Thankfully the Internet does what it does - any evidence that Snailords was trying to bury is now all over reddit, and hey, just for good measure, here's a post on Tumblr that's been sitting in my drafts for days now, days after people have already seemingly stopped talking about it. Don't let anyone bury or forget about the stunts Snailords is pulling on their audience, with a platform that they've been consistently given by Webtoons, because that's what they want you to do.

#snailords #webtoon critical

[quinton-reviews]

have you ever thought about doing a Game Shakers video? or is the show too boring to really justify such a thing?

So when it comes to doing Henry Danger and Game Shakers videos, there are really a few things I think people need to keep in mind...

The mini-series so far is really heavily about me revisiting my nostalgia and kind of answering my curiosity about where these shows went. So reviewing iCarly and Victorious worked because they were of "my era." Sam & Cat worked on that level of "What happened after I stopped watching?" I think that if I don't have a specific goal or pitch, just flippantly watching kid shows from faaaar past my childhood works less as a concept.

One of the great things about iCarly and Victorious is that both shows are barely, and I mean BARELY, in the copyright system on YouTube. Once or twice per season, I'd get one clip or one episode that I had trouble with. But it was shocking how much I could get away with. Sam & Cat was hell because it was clear that by 2013 Nick was uploading stuff to the YouTube copyright library as it was made. So no matter what I did, I would get a copyright claim. This is honestly why those final two videos were much more indulgent than my usual style. I kind of went, "if I have to fight copyright anyway, might as well show more clips..." I regret this somewhat, as now my new video still has 20+ days until I'll have full ads AND I now have a reputation for only recapping plotlines. But that's what you get I guess.

This is much more a thing for Henry Danger than Game Shakers, but another issue is just how much content there is with these shows. Henry Danger has a decade of content, recapping all of it would be both unsurmountable journey and... Well, not fun to watch. So if I ever did these shows, I would have to really focus more on season-by-season analysis rather than actual episodes.

I think my videos on iCarly, Victorious and Sam & Cat are all connected by certain themes and points that I am now drawing closure to. The gags about "the creator," the cognitive dissonance, the attachment to childhood, etc. So if I do reviews on other shows, I have to find new angles and themes to establish. Drake & Josh and Zoey 101 are topics I like because instead of focusing on the creator, I can focus on the lives of the stars and how fame affected them. When it comes to Game Shakers and Henry Danger, the only possible throughline I can think of is how the shows were effective by the collapse of their creator and production studio. Henry Danger continued and improved while Game Shakers was effectively canceled early and fell on its face. But we've already covered all that. Game Shakers just doesn't have that pull to me, and because of that, I can't imagine finding an excuse to review it.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

03/03/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; OurFlagTurns2; AdoptOurCrew Rhys Cameo; Samba Schutte; Vico Ortiz; Nathan Foad; In Soup Now Fundraiser; Watch Party Reminders; Wrecked;Newark Newark; Our Flag Means RTL; Fan Spotlight; Taika Cast Card; Captain's Orders Cont'd; TX OFMD Meet Up - Well and Truly Docked; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika

#OurFlagTurns2!

Happy 2nd OFMD Anniversary Crew!

So many things were going on for the 2nd Anniversary! @AdoptOurCrew were putting out questions/prompts to increase community engagement! Did you all send any stories their way?

Thank you to @PaulineKnip for catching the #OurFlagTurns2 tag trending!

@adoptourcrew was kind enough to get the crew a Cameo from our esteemed Captain! They were having some technical difficulties getting the full thing uploaded, so I've included it here for now, but you can access it via their @AdoptOurCrew Tiktok

== Fundraisers ==

In Soup Now is now live! Interested in helping raise funds for Team Haven Belfast to support their work to feed unhoused neighbors? Check out: InSoupNow: In Aid of Team HAVEN for WeeJohnWonday

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

== Samba Schutte ==

Samba posted a couple of things in honor of the 2 year anniversary of OFMD in his Stories!

== Vico Ortiz ==

Just some photos of Vico and what they've been up to lately!

== Nathan Foad ==

Nathan has a bunch of stuff on BBC this week! Please give some a watch to support him!

Monday 4th 11:15pm - BBC2 - "Our Flag Means Death; s2e5'

Tuesday 5th 10pm - BBC2 - 'Newark, Newark' Ep 1

On iplayer (&repeating tonight, 11:40 pm bbc3) ' Things you should have done' ep two.

== Watch Party Reminders ==

For all current watch parties, check out Watch Party Calendar

Mar 4 - Mar 8: Wrecked Season 1

Wrecked is no longer on any streaming platform, and it is not available digitally on US sites. (Apparently, it is available on German Amazon?) There are sources being passed around. If access is an issue, DM @iamadequate1 on Twitter or Tumblr

Season 1 watch from March 4th to March 8th. 

Season 2 watch from March 11th to March 15th. 

Season 3 watch from March 18th to March 22nd. 

Times will be 10pm GMT / 5pm EST / 4pm CST / 2pm PST. Watch two episodes per day. Episodes are 21-22 minutes each. Use the following Saturday for the tags/watch if interested but not able to make this time.

Hashtags: 

#WreckedPirates

#SaveOFMD

#RhysDarbyFaction

= Mar 5: NewarkNewark with @adoptourcrew =

Please join @adoptourcrew for a @NewarkNewark watch party on March 5th at 10 pm GMT/ 2pm PS / 5pm EST!

== Deutsche Nachrichten / German News ==

Twitter-Watch-Along von Our Flag Means Death:

Streamt Staffel 2 ab dem 15. März.

Samstag, 9.3. 17:00 Folgen 1 bis 3, 

Dienstag, 12.3. 20:00 Folgen 4 & 5, 

Mittwoch, 13.3. 20:00 Folgen 6 & 7, 

Donnerstag 14.3. 20:00 Folgen 8 & 9, 

Freitag, 15.3. 17:30 Folge 10

Und anschließend bingen wir zusammen Staffel 2! 

Schaut und tweetet mit! 

Hashtag:

 OurFlag RTL.

== Fan Spotlight ==

== Cast Cards! ==

Our crew-mate @melvisik is back again, this time with a Taika trading card! So glad to see Taika joining the rest of the cast!

== Captain's Orders ==

Two more of our crew-mates, @amuseoffyre and @pehmokoira were kind enough to share their #CaptainsOrders pictures with us! Thanks for getting out everyone, even if the weather wasn't perfect!

== In Person Events! ==

TX: Sept 21/22 - Well and Truly Docked on the Strand Hey Crew! Some of our crew-mates in TX are holding an in-person OFMD Fan Gathering on Galveston Island in Galveston, TX - September 21/22! Learn more! For tickets, visit Truly Docked 2024

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies. It's been two years. Two years since OFMD started the journey to bringing all of us together. I know a lot of us are later to the party than others, but I just wanna say thank you to OFMD for helping so many of us feel loved, and included, and safe-- and for this fandom for always being so welcoming.

Whether you've been here since the first trailer was shown, or since the cancellation of s2, you are part of this found family and we're so happy to have you.

I know a lot of folks are worried right now, and we've been going for so long, but we have something to celebrate today! 2 years! Can you believe it?

I've had more fun in the last half a year with you all, than I have in nearly a decade. The love and support I feel in this community is so strong that I feel like there's hope for just about anything. I fully believe we're going to get our s3 at this point because everything we're doing means something. This show is all about queer joy, and we need that on tv, and we're showing everyone exactly what it means to us. It's gonna happen. We're manifesting that shit.

You are wonderful lovelies, every last one of you. Don't ever forget that. I hope you have a fulfilling, restful evening/day, and everything good you could need happens for you. Stay strong, we made it this far, we'll make it through <3.

= Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika =

Sorry but I can't speak with these gifs here:

Fingers. Palpable Fingers.

Darby Courtesy of @wastingyourgum

Taika Courtesy of @waititi-tho

#ofmd daily recap #ofmd daily recaps #daily ofmd recap #daily ofmd recaps #ofmd #our flag means death #rhys darby #save ofmd #blackbonnet #renew as a crew #taika waititi #gentlebeard #OurFlagTurns2 #AdoptOurCrew #adopt our crew #save our flag means death #renew our flag means death #in soup now fundraiser #fundraisers #vico ortiz #samba schutte #cameo #captains orders #nathan foad

[laf-outloud]

Supernatural Netflix Viewing Numbers - Jan. 2023 - Jun. 2023

Thanks to anon on this ask, I was able to download Netflix' report with viewing hours from Jan. 2023 to June 2023. I thought I'd run some numbers for Supernatural.

Now, obviously, with these numbers, there are caveats in that we don't know if certain episodes are watched more than others, so the best I can do is an average of views per episode in a season. Some episodes in the same season may get fewer views while others get more (this is the only way it makes sense to me why Season 15 is watched more than Season 14, lol!)

Based on the math below the cut, here are the rankings of most-watched Supernatural seasons (# = average views per episode):

Season 3: 65,421

Season 1: 61,822

Season 2: 49,614

Season 4: 47,794

Season 5: 45,253

Season 6: 41,633

Season 7: 36,681

Season 8: 35,054

Season 9: 32,744

Season 10: 31,909

Season 11: 30,889

Season 15: 29,820

Season 14: 29,206

Season 12: 28,048

Season 13: 26,958

As you can see, Seasons 1-5 are expectedly at the top, with 1-3 taking the top three,

People can draw their own conclusions, but for me, it just proves that the general public watch Supernatural for Sam and Dean, and anyone planning a reboot, looking at these numbers, should know exactly what to put back on our screens.

Now, I'm no math major (I actually got a D- in math in 7th grade), so if I'm doing something wrong, someone please correct me! But, I believe by dividing the total number of minutes viewed by the total number of minutes in the season, we can calculate the number of separate views per season. Then, if you divide the views by episode count, you can get a decent average of how many people watched each episode in the first 6 months of this year.

Season 1; 22 episodes:

1.254 billion minutes/922 minutes = 1,360,087 views/22 = 61,822 avg. views per episode.

Season 2; 22 episodes:

978 million minutes/896 minutes = 1,091,518 views/22 = 49,614 avg. views per episode

Season 3; 16 episodes:

672 million minutes/642 minutes = 1,046,729 views/16 = 65,421 avg. views per episode

Season 4; 22 episodes:

960 million minutes/913 minutes = 1,051,479/22 = 47,794 avg. views per episode

Season 5; 22 episodes:

900 million minutes/904 minutes = 995,575/22 = 45,253 avg. views per episode

Season 6; 22 episodes:

828 million minutes/904 minutes = 915,929/22 = 41,633 avg. views per episode

Season 7; 23 episodes:

804 million minutes/953 minutes = 843,652/23 = 36,681 avg. views per episode

Season 8; 23 episodes:

774 million minutes/960 minutes = 806,250/23 = 35,054 avg. views per episode

Season 9; 23 episodes:

726 million minutes/964 minutes = 753,112/23 = 32,744 avg. views per episode

Season 10; 23 episodes:

684 million minutes/932 minutes = 733,906/23 = 31,909 avg. views per episode

Season 11; 23 episodes:

660 million minutes/929 minutes = 710,441/23 = 30,889 avg. views per episode

Season 12; 23 episodes:

618 million minutes/958 minutes = 645,094/23 = 28,048 avg. views per episode

Season 13; 23 episodes:

594 million minutes/958 minutes = 620,042/23 = 26,958 avg. views per episode

Season 14; 20 episodes:

486 million minutes/832 minutes = 584,135/20 = 29,206 avg. views per episode

Season 15; 20 episodes:

498 million minutes/835 minutes = 596,407/20 = 29,820 avg. views per episode

#supernatural #netflix #supernatural on netflix #supernatural viewing numbers #supernatural season rankings #spn reboot speculation

[eriexplosion]

Here's How Shrimp Trooper Theory Can Still Win

This is as fringe as it gets folks.

I've done my very serious Tech lives essay now it's time for my actual wild theory. Plus @katara-stan-club wanted the shrimp trooper essay and I will take any opportunity to yammer. Please don't take this extremely seriously as it is just something that I'm spinning up for entertainment and is almost certainly not true. (Unless!)

So the opening to Confined is... Odd to me. I've mentioned this in a post before but just to recap, it is definitely the odd man out of the three season starters.

Season one of course we intro with Caleb, who then leads us directly to meet the batch and get our first character appearances, along with convenient introductions. A fun, action packed little scene before things immediately go to hell.

Season two we intro with the batch in the middle of a job, which gives us another fun action scene that shows us how much Omega has grown, as well as the current status of the batch itself.

Season three though? Season three starts us off with a ship going down in a lightning storm and all the stormtroopers inside assumed to be eaten by the giant monsters that lurk in Tantiss' jungles. (Going by Omega's tally marks later in the episode, we're about 20 days post plan 99.) Nothing to do with the batch at all, though we do get a glance at what's in the jungle, and a tiny bit more of Hemlock being a bastard of course.

Now, seemingly, this scene is the set up for episode three, when they make their escape and head for the downed ship.

Except it's completely unnecessary. When they get to the ship, it turns on but it's incapable of flight and the comms are still down and non functioning. The ship they end up taking and using to escape is the ship that came in pursuit of them. The plot would have gone down exactly the same if they had just picked a direction and fled without the downed ship. It's a complete red herring for how they ultimately end up escaping.

So why is it important enough to open the season on if the ship essentially functions as nothing more than a destination point?

Enter Shrimp Trooper Theory.

Going back to the stormtroopers. We have four of them inside the ship, the pilot and three others. We're going to be focusing on our boy on the far right of the second picture.

The pilot speaks before the ship goes down so we can confirm he's a rando. Our fellow in the middle speaks next, identifying himself as TK-343, another rando. The one on the far left talks about wild beasts proving himself, you guessed it, a third rando. But our boy on the far right doesn't talk at all through this whole scene, leaving his identity up in the air.

So we'll take a closer look at him and brighten the scene up a bit.

Now, seeing this guy hobble his way out of the ship, I thought that he looked somewhat familiar. Specifically.

That shitty ass posture. (Forgive the sloppiness of the edit I did this comparison once before and I am not remaking it)

We do not actually see the troopers all get eaten, we cut to the interior of Tantiss before it happens. Theoretically there is nothing stopping this shrimp shaped man from being Tech.

The timeline of shrimp trooper theory:

Tech falls from the rail car and manages to survive the landing but he's severely injured. He crawls away/gets scraped off the ground by Saw.

Roughly 3 weeks pass in which he is recovering and healing yet unable to comm out as, per episode 4 of season 3, Imperial planets monitor long range communications. But, he is able to gather information from the flights going in and out of Eriadu to determine which ones are being assigned to Hemlock's secretive lab. Once he is able to confirm this, he steals some stormtrooper armor and boards.

Ship goes down because gravity hates him in particular and he is almost eaten by a Beast.

Now stranded in the jungle on Tantiss, Tech finds his infiltration plan foiled by the fact that he is being continually hounded by even more Beasts.

Several months later, Batcher is released and for some reason goes straight for the wrecked ship. Somehow she survives out here, but we're not sure how - potentially she had help?

Tech IS the mystery clone X that we see but rather than being brainwashed he has finally managed to get inside Tantiss and yet again begins to Steal Clothing from others.

Crosshair and Omega immediately break out without him leaving him stranded in Tantiss where he presumably still is, attempting to avoid detection and continue to gather information that will aid in the eventual liberation of the other clones.

Is this unlikely? Yes! Is it overly complicated? Absolutely! Am I endlessly entertained by it anyway? You bet!

Benefits of Shrimp Trooper Theory include, but are not limited to:

A living, non brainwashed Tech! The most important feature one could have!

An extremely ridiculous Only In Star Wars series of events!

Retroactive explanation for why the ship going down was an important scene to start on.

Hemlock ruining his own life by not sending someone out to recover the team and just assuming they'd totally be taken care of by the wildlife.

More giant monsters than Wrecker could shake a stick at.

The possibility of Tech and Batcher offscreen shenanigans.

Tech thinking he's finally found Crosshair and making plans to retrieve him when, SURPRISE, OMEGA'S HERE TOO AND THEY'RE ESCAPING. RIGHT NOW.

Seriously just imagine the epic sigh Tech would let out as they flew away completely unaware of his presence. His life is a series of difficulties.

He can simply turn up with the coordinates to Tantiss because god knows how else they're going to manage to get them.

This is my conspiracy theory that I'm allowing myself to believe in as a treat. It will almost certainly not be what occurs but the thought of it makes me happy.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers

[crtter]

Speaking of Iyami! I’ve seen some people speculate on the current ages of the sextuplets and Totoko and Nyaa-chan, given how Nyaa-chan’s baby is all grown up now, which implies the characters are aging in real time and I just happen to be neurodivergent enough to have been keeping tabs on how old the characters have been getting as the years go by, so I might be able to shed some light on the subject.

First of all! The characters from -kun that had established ages were the Matsuno brothers and Iyami, being 10 and 36 respectively. Totoko, Chibita and Hatabō are often shown in the manga and 60s -kun as being in the same class as the sextuplets, so they’re probably about the same age as them as well, although sometimes they’re portrayed as either older or younger depending on the story.

The timeskip between -kun and -san is never outright stated. What’s officially mentioned is that the sextuplets are “older than twenty” and that “it’s been about ten years” since -kun.

However! We have a more concrete number when you take into account episodes 3.5 and episode 4 of season 1, set in 2015. In episode 4, Matsuzō claims he’s been married to Matsuyo for 24 years. Taking into account that having children out of wedlock is very uncommon in Japan (it’s becoming more normalized in recent years, but it definitely carried more of a stigma 20-odd years ago), we can assume that the sextuplets were younger than 24 as per season 1.

Episode 3.5 helps us narrow it even further: in it, Todomatsu claims he rented adult DVDs five years before, which would only have been possible if he was at least 18 then, since that’s the age one has to be to purchase pornographic material in Japan.

Taking all this information into account, we can infer that the sextuplets can’t be any older than 24 and were 18 five years before 2015. This gives us a solid number for their age: 23 years old, as of 2015!

Until now, though, it hadn’t been confirmed that the characters were aging in real time but seeing that Nyaa-chan’s baby has aged since her last appearance in season 3, I think it’s safe to assume everyone has been aging as well! That would make the sextuplets as of 2023, 31 years old and Nyaa-chan’s baby, who seemed to be a few months old as of her first appearance in November 2020, around three years old!

#reporting live #Osomatsu san #matsuno brothers #nyaa-chan #nyaa-chan’s baby #osomatsu san movie #the Takoyaki Party of the Soul and the Legendary Sleepover

[writergeekrhw]

Can you tell us a bit about what the current climate is like for screenwriters in regards to the WGA strike?

ISSUES FOR WRITERS THAT ARE DRIVING THE WGA STRIKE:

I wrote about this when I ran for the WGA board, so this is mostly a cut and paste from my candidate statement. That said, some of the most pressing issues as I see them:

DECREASES IN WEEKLY PAY

Many TV writers are suffering financially due to shorter episodic orders. Twenty years ago, show orders were for 22, 24, or even 26 episodes per season. For producer level writers paid by the episode, this guaranteed a comfortable wage. Now season orders, especially on streaming, can be for as few as 6 episodes and are commonly for 8 or 10 episodes. Yet writers are still employed to work on these shows for months at a time. As a result of pro-rating episodic rates for a reduced number of episodes over a significant span of time, many mid-level writers now earn a fraction of the wages they would have gotten 10 or 20 years ago. In other words, per-episode pay rates have become outmoded and disadvantageous to writers.

STAFF WRITER SCIPT PAYMENTS

Little known fact: Staff Writers (the lowest ranking writers on a tv show) don't get paid extra for their scripts, which are charged against their overall pay. With shorter orders, Staff Writers often get hired for many less weeks, and sometimes they have to repeat Staff Writer multiple times before getting promoted. Staff Writers need to get paid script fees to shore up their salaries.

LOW STREAMING RESIDUALS

Streaming services currently pay much lower residuals than networks or traditional syndication, both on features and television episodes. This practice undermines the financial stability of writers and also reduces payments to our pension and health funds. When I started in this business, writing several episodes of a successful show, or writing a successful movie, guaranteed years of future income, helping plug the gaps between jobs. Streaming has greatly reduced this income source.

The Guild is fighting for significantly higher streaming residuals, to bring them closer to parity with traditional network reruns.

LACK OF PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE FOR NEW WRITERS

Twenty years ago, a lower level writer might work on several scripts a year, supervising and rewriting freelancers in addition to writing or co-writing episodes of their own. Today, lower levels on streaming shows are lucky to write a single script a season. Often this script is shared with a senior writer. As a result, these writers are missing out on valuable writing experience as they rise through the ranks.

Unfortunately, this lack of opportunity extends to all aspects of production. In streaming, lower level and mid-level writers are often no longer with the project by the time prep begins. This means they get no experience in vital aspects of production, including rewriting for production and working in post. As a result, up-and-coming writers are often underprepared when they reach upper levels or sell their own shows. Compound this with a rise in “director driven” streaming shows, and the power and authority of television writers is under significant threat.

The Guild made several proposals to ensure that the future generations of writers get the skills they need to thrive, steer their own creations, and continue our success as a union. The studios rejected them all.

PROLIFERATION OF FREE WORK

This has long been an issue for screenwriters, and it’s increasingly becoming a concern for television writers as well, especially in streaming. More and more, producers secure established intellectual property as source material, then engage in protracted audition processes during which dozens of writers are asked to pitch their takes on I.P. they do not control, often over the course of multiple meetings for months on end.

Even for the winner of a pitch sweepstakes, actual payment can be months or even years away, and it’s almost always contingent on a network sale or securing financing and distribution. Which requires more pitching and more unpaid work. In short, writers are spending enormous amounts of time developing pitches, often paying for visual materials out of their own pockets, all just to secure if/come deals, many of which never bear fruit.

Finally, writers that do win sweepstakes pitches are often only paid for a single draft, while having to execute multiple unpaid "producer drafts. This is driving down writer wages in features and development.

MINIROOMS

Over the past few years, the companies have institute a practice called "mini-rooms" wherein they hire a handful of writers to start working on a show before it's greenlit or picked up for another season. Mini-rooms only pay scale, meaning a pay cut for most writers, and they come with no guarantee of future employment. The WGA wants the studios to pay a higher rate for mini-rooms.

TEXT GENERATING PROGRAMS

Falsely labelled "A.I." Text-Generators like ChatGPT could become a fundamental threat to human writers. These programs are essentially plagiarism machines. They are programed on our writing, then chop it up and spew it back out in a kind of algorithm driven version of the proverbial infinite monkeys with typewriters. We need to restrict the use of Text Generators and to protect human writers.

Hope that helps! Please note I am not a WGA board member and am not part of the negotiations. These are the issues as I see them. Opinions expressed are solely my own.

#ask me anything #tv writing #ask me stuff #wga strong #support the wga #wgawest #wga strike

[jaskierx]

maybe this is just how it is now

thanks for making a popular show with a dedicated fanbase it really helped contribute to david zaslav’s $39million 2022 salary but also fuck you you get less than 4 hours of screentime to work with and you might not get renewed so you should use some of that to give your show an ending and who cares if it feels rushed bc they’ll watch it anyway and it’s not gonna stop our shareholders buying new properties this year

no nothing is gonna have 20+ episodes per season again and you can’t have time for a beach episode or a character pov episode or anything like that. no ‘filler’ just bare bones 8 episodes of plot and you have to speedrun your character development bc if you make the same stuff but quicker and cheaper and worse then we get more money see. also we don’t fucking pay our workers properly :)

#sorry i’m in a mood #i had a low quality nap and it’s caused problems #ofmd #lyse.jpg #tbd maybe

[foxofninetales]

Sourcing and recreating Liu Sang's whistle

If you join me in being desperately sad at the lack of Liu Sang merch out there, there is one thing you can source: Liu Sang's whistle.

You know. That one.

All of the pieces you need to recreate this whistle are currently available. I'm going to tell you how to source the pieces, and then how to assemble them in the same style as Liu Sang's.

What I am NOT going to do is include direct links for items. This is because these components are available from a wide variety of resellers and the links go dead at the same time that new ones are listed. What I am going to do instead is give you the keywords that will help you be able to search for these items yourself. I have found all of these items on eBay, Etsy, Amazon, and Aliexpress. Note that Aliexpress tends to be significantly cheaper and more reliably available than other sources.

THE WHISTLE

The clearest shot of the whistle can be found in Reunion Season 2 Episode 18, timestamp 30:18.

This whistle is available online in both titanium and aluminum versions, in multiple color finishes. The most accurate colorway seems to be this silvertone-with-gold-wash titanium version:

The titanium whistle runs $40-$70 USD depending on where you purchase it. For a less accurate but significantly cheaper version, you can go with the silvertone-with-black-wash aluminum version ($20-30):

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two:

Search Keywords: "3 tube survival whistle" plus "titanium" or "aluminum"

THE BAT BEAD

Yes, this super-hearing nerd hangs a bat bead from his listening whistle. I love him.

Credit to @psychic-waffles for identifying this! We don't have a super-clear shot of it in the show, but here are some comparison shots. Timestamps are Reunion S2E18 30:18, S1E9 30:19, S2E18 39:07.

The bead runs $3-$6 USD depending on where you purchase it.

Search keywords: "brass bat paracord bead"

THE PARACORD

The best shot we get of the paracord is in that same really good whistle shot S2E18 30:18. I's base color is army green crossed with stripes of tan and cream with flecks of black. Below is a comparison shot lightened to show the detail.

This starts at around $1 USD per 5 meters.

Search keywords: "9 strand green camo paracord" (if you can't find that, drop "camo" and try again)

ASSEMBLING THE WHISTLE

The paracord is threaded through the hanging loop of the whistle and then tied in a series of knots. My best guess at the knot used is the Snake Knot. I used this tutorial, but there are many others available - just look for "paracord snake knot". It looks like there are about 6 full loops of snake knot.

After you finish the snake knots, thread the bat bead onto the two cords, with the ears towards the whistle. Then finish it with the stopper knot: the shots are VERY fuzzy, but my best guess here is a double Matthew Walker knot (I used this tutorial) , which leaves the same small length of unknotted cord between the snake knots and the bead that you see on screen.

The finished whistle!

#dmbj #the lost tomb reboot #liu sang #liu sang's whistle #dmbj merch #dmbj props #dmbj cosplay

[character-fan19]

So I calculated the exact screen time for all the love square ships in season 3...

I'm back again. Season 3 is finally complete. If you'd like to see my previous post, click here. Before we get into this, for newcomers and old faces (since there are new rules)...

Some Ground Rules

What I did and didn't count as screen time for the love square ships:

Both characters of the ship must be present in the scene for it to count as screen time for that ship and by that I mean the real versions of them. So Felix pretending to Adrien doesn't count.

At least one of the characters must be interacting with the other or both of them need to be doing something together for it to count because we can't have them acting like background characters and call that screen time.

If one of the characters believes that they are interacting with the alter ego of the character, it will count as screen time for that ship. Meaning Aspik with Ladybug will be counted as Ladrien because Ladybug knows that this is Adrien.

In case of group interactions, the screen time will only count if the interaction is specifically between the two characters or if one of the character's reaction to the other is given focus.

In case of reveal scenarios, screen time will be counted as whatever alter ego they are in. I debated with myself whether to count Box Noir and Ladybug as Ladynoir or Ladrien but I ultimately decided on Ladrien as Adrien isn't using the actual Cat Miraculous.

Now on to the data.

Screen Time Distribution

It seems that with every season, Ladynoir decreases in screen time as in season 1, it was 76 %, in season 2, it was 71.5 % and now in season 3, it's 68.7 %. Will this trend continue in future seasons? I guess will just have to see. But as usual it still has the most screen time. Also as usual, Adrienette follows behind, having improved in screen time from 19.7 % to 21.2 %. Similar to last season Ladrien comes in 3rd, having the same 6 % of screen time it did last season but being above Maricat by much less, it's screen time having been increased from 2.8 % to 4.2 %.

In terms of the overall distribution up until now, Adrienette has increased by 0.4 %, Ladynoir has decreased by 1.3 %, Maricat increased by 0.3 % and Ladrien increased by 0.5 %. So now we have Ladynoir still on top with 72 % of the screen time which is 5 hr 16 min 55 sec, Adrienette 19.8 % of the screen time with h is 1 hr 26 min 38 sec, Ladrien with 4.7 % of the screen time which is 20 min 35 sec, and Maricat 3.2 % of the screen time which is 14 min 10 sec.

Screen Time Trend

Similar to last season, Ladynoir took some hits, from 6 episodes, two of them being right next to each other, that is, "Oblivio" and "Desparada". Also similar to last season we had a string of Ladynoir exclusive episodes from "Gamer 2.0" to "Timetagger" which helped to prop up Ladynoir in the screen time distribution department. It's average screen time per episode is much less than the previous 2 seasons, with it being 3 min 34 sec.

Adrienette made love square screen time history in "Oblivio" by having more screen time than any ship has ever had in an episode with 9 min 3 sec of it. It one-upped Ladynoir in other episodes as well such as "Chameleon" and "The Puppeteer 2", but not by as much as it did in "Oblivio". It had an average screen time of 1 min 6 sec.

The designated Maricat episode of the season finally dethroned Ladynoir for the episode, with it having 3 min 57 sec of screen time in "Weredad", the most screen time it's ever gotten. It's average screen time per episode has slightly increased from the last 2 seasons, with it now being 13 sec.

Ladrien had also gotten more screen time than it's ever gotten before, having 5 min 35 sec of screen time in "Desparada" which also made it the ship with the most screen time in that episode. It's average screen time per episode is 19 sec.

We also had the first episode to ever include screen time for all the love square ships and what better episode to hold that title than "Cat Blanc".

Conclusion

That's it for now. Feel free to make your own observations with this data. Until next time!

#miraculous ladybug #ml season 3 #ml love square #adrienette #ladynoir #maricat #ladrien #marichat

[artsekey]

I'm not super into Lackadaisy, but I am super into animation, and...

How are they planning to finance an entire season with just 1,000,000?

(Everything below assumes that they're aiming for episodes that are comparable to the pilot & that they plan on fully financing the season with solely the donations on Backerkit. It's likely they have additional financing through merchandising, the pilot, and/or Iron Circus's other projects, but since that information is not available, I'll go off of what I know. Additionally, production management and budgeting are extremely project dependent, so the "averages" listed below may be far off what the PM on Lackadaisy's got quoted.)

[EDIT: It’s been brought to my attention that the episodes are 10-12 minutes long, which means it’s MUCH more doable than I was expecting! They budgeted for a lean (but doable!!!) production. Thank you to those who clarified! I’ll leave this post as-is for those interested, but read it knowing they’re considering roughly half the time I used to calculate everything below!]

Quick preface as to why I wanted to talk about this and Why I Feel I May Have Valuable Things To Say: I'm an indie filmmaker and professor of animation, production management, and VFX. I'm not trying to call out the company or the production because-- and I cannot say this enough-- I truly do not know what's happening on the back end. Every production is wildly different. Their original goal was 125,000, with 45% going to animation-- that includes rough, cleanup, & color. That means that for a ~27 minute animated episode, they've got $56,250. If we collect all facets of production together-- story, layout, animation, compositing, and editing-- we wind up with a grand total of $82,500. Even if we estimate at the lowest average production cost of $8,000 a minute, this budget would account for ~11 minutes of animation.

An animator's average hourly rate is ~$36. With the outlined budget, the Lackadaisy production would be able to afford ~1562 hours of animator manpower. Let's assume (for the sake of this discussion) they'll split that over at least four animators, leaving us with about 10 weeks of full-time work (~390 hrs per person) for four people.

Now this may seem like a lot of time, but as far as I can tell, the pilot was largely animated frame-by-frame without the use of 2D rigging. This means every frame needs to go through roughs, then cleanup, then color, then composite. Every frame you see on-screen has been worked over at least four times-- six if you count layout and story. Ten weeks is simply not enough time to finish 27 minutes of 2D animation.

Now, I know what you might be thinking; Artsekey, they never said their production period was ten weeks! And you're right! However, that's how much production time they can afford. Whether it's split over 20 weeks or a year, they only have enough money to pay their animators for 1562 hours of labor.... if they're paying them a competitive hourly wage. To be completely clear, I am not insinuating that they're low-balling their animators; there're a dozen unknown factors that play into this, such as:

The level of animator they're hiring (an apprentice animator may make ~$17-$23 an hour whereas an experienced pro may make ~$43-$45.)

Whether they're actually hiring animators as opposed to contracting animators (I assume their model is likely relying on the latter based on the fact that I'm seeing a lot of animators that worked on 1-3 shots). They may be doing single-sum deliverable based contracts rather than hourly.

The use of tools like EBsynth (which is listed among the programs they're using) and smart frame management (which they're definitely doing!). This can, if used properly, cut down on the number of in-betweens animators need to get done.

The amount of money the studio is planning to re-invest on their end. The goal on backerkit may just account for the additional funds the studio needs to enter production, meaning their budget may be far larger than what's listed. However, if this were the case, I'd hope they'd disclose it! If I were considering backing the project, knowing that the studio was going to be buying in would increase my faith in the fundraiser.

Obviously, the team loves animation. It shows through in the pilot, and I think that it's clear in their mission statement that they stand against the exploitation of animators. But... I also know that indie production is like trying to wring water out of a log. I'd personally like a more comprehensive breakdown of their expenditures not because I think there's anything suspicious happening behind the scenes, but because as someone who teaches production management for animation and who has an interest in indie production specifically, I'm wondering what choices they're making to stretch their funds.

And what about sound?

While I'm not an expert in audio design, I do live with a professional voice actress/audio engineer, and she had a few thoughts I'd like to share.

At their original goal, roughly ~12500 was set aside for:

Sound Design

Music Composition

Voice Acting

Now, I can only refer to my own experiences as an indie filmmaker regarding price, but the rate I received-- from friends-- for sound design was roughly ~325 per minute, and this was a very, very good deal for what I personally needed. The audio engineer can be responsible for collecting and/or recording foley, or the sound effects you hear in film. This can be expensive and time consuming. They're also responsible for editing all the foley, music, and voice acting together in a way that feels seamless. If we were going off the rate I was given (which was very reasonable given the amount of work that needed to be done), ~27 minutes of full foley, complex sound design, and mixing would run about ~8,000. This number could fluctuate significantly depending on whether they need the sound designers to create the foley, get some ADR in, or just mix the audio, but let's assume that Lackadaisy has a pre-existing foley library and that the price falls in a lower range of ~5,000.

Music's a complete wild-card. In my experience, most composers charge per-minute, and most of the indie composers I've worked with were at a rate of ~$100 per minute of music. That'll land at a nice $2,700.

Now where my friend got particularly heated was the rate for the voice actors. As a voice actress herself, she was floored that the budget for voice was so low-- particularly because the project's pilot pulled industry voices like ProZD. Obviously, the price for voice can vary wildly based on how many lines an actor has, their experience as a voice actor, their personal terms, ect. The cast for the pilot included 11 credited actors. I can't assume their rates or whether they charge a fee to even get in the booth (my roomate charges $100 flat at the start of a session), but if my other estimates are in the right ballpark, their goal budget accounts for roughly ~500 per VA (and it's extremely unlikely that it's divided equally for obvious (and logical) reasons). Honestly, for a full episode of animation, that's... about average. But average in the voice-acting community doesn't necessarily mean good. Voice actors are notoriously underpaid, and-- as previously mentioned-- bigger names with more lines are going to be taking in more of that pay-pool.

And, of course, the Production Managers.

I'm not going to speak on this for too long, but the original budget held 8750 for the admin team. I assume admin includes their PMs, director, and leads (if they have enough specialization to need leads). Assuming it's just one PM and one director, they're pulling in ~4375 a person. For the duration of the project. There's no way that prepro, production, and post would take less than 8 months. Of everyone involved in a production, these roles are on-board from start to end, and it's simply not enough! PM's are absolutely critical to success!

Not to mention the editor!

In animation, the editor is the director's right-hand man, and is working to edit the storyboards, reels, scratch music, and the final cut. This role is also on the production from pre-to-post, and their original budget allows for.... $2,500. What? If I go extremely low on the hourly for the editor, you maybe get one part-time weeks' worth of work for several edits of a 27 minute episode. With most everything else I've talked about, I've mentioned there's a lot of wiggle room because of all the factors I simply don't know, but in no universe is $2,500 enough for this editing job. (Even at the current budget of 1,000,000, $4,000 an episode is super low.)

But, hey! They've got more money now!

Of course, all of these concerns go out the window when you consider that the team's already raised a whopping $953,000 (as of 7/31/23) with the fundraiser only up for five days... right?

Well... It certainly alleviates some of the strain, but their stretch goals were scope increases! This means that once they reach their 1,000,000 stretch goal, they're adding on four additional ~27 minute episodes. This increases the budget-per-episode to 200,000 (yay!), but that still leaves the project with about $7,400 to spend per-minute... which, in the world of animation, isn't much!

All in all, I think that the original goal of 125,000 -- if there was going to be minimal investment from the company-- was completely insufficient, and it would have been irresponsible to try to produce a 27 minute long pilot with that budget. At the same time, I imagine the PM/Admin team could reasonably expect a strong outpouring of support from the fans based on past success and low-balled the original goal. Now that they're near 1,000,000, I think- and hope - they'll be able to swing it.

If anyone has any insight into the production of the pilot (either because you worked on it or know someone who does), please feel free to add context to this post! Again, I am not trying to call out Iron Circus. I'm fascinated by indie production and have been following the successes and failures of crowdfunded animation since it started picking up, and while the goal for Lackadaisy raised some concerns for me up-front, I think they're making strategic choices based on hard data (that we the public are not privvy to). They've already done it once, so they should be able to do it again!

#lackadaisy #animation #indie animatio #long post #production management

[lol-jackles]

Netflix finally released viewing statistics for its movies and shows. What do you think about it? And what about our beloved SPN and Gilmore Girls? about*netflix*com/en/news/what-we-watched-a-netflix-engagement-report

Link. Long live Excel lol. Steaming services don't get paid by views so it's no surprise that Netflix was willing to share the views data when the real metric is how much each show/movie contributes to getting or retaining subscribers and weighed against licensing and production costs to determine viability of continuing the show. But Netflix will never release that information for their competitors to see.

The main reason why #1 Nielsen rated Neftlix shows get cancelled is because they're front-loaded success, meaning people start watching but quickly lose interest and don’t finish out the series. Gilmore Girls has impressive completion rate from season 1 through season 7, which helped explain why Netflix was willing to produce a revival limited Gilmore Girls season. Gilmore Girls has 29.4 billion viewed minutes for the first 6 months of 2023, nearly 3 times the number of SPN, and averages out to 13 million viewers per episode. To put in discourse contexts I get from my Ask box, Gilmore Girls has 5 times more viewers than The Boys and is a proven cultural mainstay after 20 years. Also, Gilmore Girls' 7 seasons nearly beat out Grey Anatomy's 19 seasons. So little wonder that Jared is going outside the SPN-only conventions.

Supernatural ended 2022 with 18.8 billion viewed minutes at 21.8 million viewed minutes per episode, which averages out to 66,852 viewers per episode. In the first 6 months of 2023, Supernatural has 11.4 billion viewed minutes so it's on its way to beating their last year's record. Supernatural's completion rate is far less impressive than Gilmore Girls, but nonetheless has steady viewers through to the final season. Similar to the live & 7day ratings, most of the audience dip happened after season 4. If either Netflix or WBD plans to produce a SPN reboot/revival that stars both Jared and Jensen, then my guess it will be based on the first 3 seasons' formula i.e just two main leads and not have to pay for additional regular actors, so at best the low-tier recurring actors will only be back for an one-off, if that.

#supernatural #gilmore girls #ratings #netflix