Welcome to the ChappyShowcase BlogSpot

Please enjoy an eclectic diversity of content and subjects created by Matt Chapman. This blog page gives more in depth detail and cool anecdotes pertaining to each video, film, or perhaps something else completely. On top of that, you will find info about the online video making paradigm, production, post-production and more. ChappyShowcase has content channels all over the web. All links for each channel are located for your convenience at a click of the button. Be sure to check the blog regularly to be updated on what is happening with Growing Up Guide Pup, ChappyShowcase, and GurillaTV. Or, better yet, subscribe to one of the RSS feeds so every new post is automatically emailed to you. Enjoy...and remember, keep that camera rollin!

Search This Blog

Sunday, May 31, 2009

My Hard Life as a Online Filmmaker

Life as a filmmaker is tough. I'm not talking about conventional filmmaking, but as a video creator that makes content specifically for the internet. I mean, the amount of hits you need to make even a minimum wage type of scale requires a video creator to get tons of hits. For example...across 20 different user-generated websites i acquired 150,000 hits last month. Of those, only one of the sites will generate some tangible revenue that could pay a bill or two; that being YouTube. Metacafe is no longer paying out the producer reward program, Redgage gets so little hits that my accrued money is less than $7 dollars, Revver also gets so little hits that I have accrued $14 in one year. Videojug is no longer paying out and break.com only pays if you make the front page which is no easy task. The other sites don't even have a pay share model. Sites like yahoo, myspace, vimeo, etc.

I made $150 and some change in April and I got to ask myself, why do I keep doing this? I guess because i love it. Luckily i don't have all my eggs in this online basket or I would be out on Tennyson boulevard holding a cardboard box with a sign that says "will shoot for food".

I still can't help but think things will get better. As the internet continues to evolve better technologies, bandwidth gets cheaper to push, advertisers jump on the band wagon, and the ubiquity of my videos spreads across the globe I hope to find some real revenue.

Ok..so this posting was more like a bitch fest, but I feel better now. Thanks for reading, and remember, keep that camera rollin!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Naughty Priest

I have been working on NAUGHTY PRIEST for the last 8 months. It has been the project I go to whenever I have free time.  Although the subject matter is somewhat controversial in nature, it is all in fun, and i think it walks an appropriate line.  Society is constantly hearing about the latest scandel with some religious official; so I wanted to poke fun for that reason.  

 So why did I make this movie?  I wanted to do something profound and memorable with our dog.  Eli is five years old now and in his prime.  After reading MARLEY AND ME by John Grogan, I couldn't help but think of the inevitable future and the short amount of time Eli will be around.  We will always have this film to look back at our four-legged goofball.

Naughty Priest from Matt Chapman on Vimeo.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Metacafe PR Program is DEAD!

Since April of 2008, things got worse and worse if you were a video producer partnered with Metacafe. That fateful month sprung the mark of a new list of rules that needed to be met before a a video was accepted. Things like cool bar and coin tricks were no longer eligible, and then any video that showed too much skin, or was rated 13+ was rejected. And just when producers thought it couldn't get any worse, Metacafe announced their new pay schedule which kicked in around November of 2008. This new pay shedule no longer was the old $100 for 20,000 views pay model. Now it had become $40 for 20,000 views. And producers were told that only domestic views would be counted and international views were out. On top of that, they said that they would only pay producers when their unpaid balance reached $100. Then at the beginning of this year, Metacafe went too far. They had a new rule which stated a video could be ruled having no entertainment value. Of course all of us producers argued, "if it had no entertainment value, how could it have acquired 20,000 views?". And it was this no entertainment value that gave the white collar folks at Metacafe basically a get out of jail free card anytime they decided they needed to reject a video for no reason at all except they didn't want to pay.

Below is a video I made with my brother who plays Young Conan on GurillaTV.   TEEN PREGNANCY SOLUTION was given a no entertainment value rejection even though the video is just shy of 30,000 in two weeks on Metacafe as of May 9, 2009.



So this short history lesson of the Metacafe roller coaster ride takes me to where we are now. Metacafe announced early this week that the PR program will officially be stopped next month. That's right, the business model that helped put them on the map, along with all the producers whom they partnered with are no longer going to be part of the equation. Now they have moved on to larger collaborations with bigger companies and sponsors. So instead of paying out, they have been focused on generating revenue in. Metacafe's once viral video ubiquity has now been replaced by corporate sponsorships and hollywood contributions. The statement Metacafe is dead is a popular one amongst former and current Metacafe producers, and it certainly is true from a certain point of view.

Last week, a fellow producer pointed out that my last video WIFE NAILS HUSBAND was approved for Metacafe PR program. It was only one of three videos approved for the entire month of April to show how stingy they have become. He also stated that it is probably the last video to be accepted into the program. If it's true, I will not hold this honor too highly. Here it is below.



What does Metacafe's new development mean for video producers? In my opinion it means that unless you have figured out a way to generate money and views outside of Metacafe, you are no longer a value to them. It is the time to start your own websites and generate your own audiences. We are at the dawn of a new journey as video creators. The days of easy money on Metacafe with it's stellar $5 CPM for doing nothing but putting a video up is long gone. I don't think another video site will ever make that move again unless the cost of pushing bandwidth drops dramatically over the next few years. That is a different story all together.

Late,
Chappy