"Renaldo" - Director's Notes

Poor buddy-o Steve doesn't know what he's in for when he watches his friend's place for the night.  A pizza, a beer, cable TV with the hockey game playing - it's the perfect night for a dude...until he meets Renaldo.

You can also watch the video on YouTube. 

Director's Notes:  Thoughts on YouTube Popularity

It saddens me that Renaldo didn't do very well.  It's short; it's quirky; and it was a fast, easy, and fun movie to make.  Steve and I got to consume a pizza, and go through a couple of beers as a means of "method acting."  By the end of our two-hour filming, Steve had a good buzz going, and the bloopers were hilarious.

So why didn't Renaldo do very well?  I think about that dilemma  quite often.   At least when "Ashes of Man" performed poorly as a whole I knew why.  That was a three part movie.   Each segment requiring a minimum of 8 minutes of a viewer's time, which is an eternity on YouTube.   Not to mention it's grim content.  Looking at the stats, each installment had less views than the one before it.  So, I get all of that. 

However, Renaldo wasn't like that.  It's  short, and it's light-hearted - the complete opposite.

I haven't looked at the statistics to glean anything from the numbers.  I'm running completely on assumption.  However, I see now reasons why it may not have done well.  To begin with, the name doesn't call out to someone browsing YouTube.  "Renaldo" could be anything.  Something like "Stuffed Animal Smack-Down" might have done a lot better.   Hell, that even makes me curious as to what that movie is about.  At the same time, creating a movie title just to catch an audience is a bit of a disservice to yourself.  Regardless, I could have come up with something more catchy.

Honestly, I think that's the biggest problem, and maybe I'll add a subtitle to the movie and see if it does any better.  I can't do a whole lot with the video itself once it's uploaded, so I can't alter the title there.  It may have to remain a little gem buried in the mire of YouTube.

I didn't originally write a "Director's Notes" for Renaldo because I recorded a Behind-The-Scenes video instead.  I hoped that might have boosted views a bit.  It did, but only a bit.  Statistically speaking, no one watched the behind-the scenes.  Along with that, I also referenced a lot of projects that never happened.  So, I pulled that video.

On a personal level, I feel like Renaldo did not do well because I was in the wrong frame of mind when I made it.  There was a strung out desperation that overshadowed the production of it.  I had a different movie I was trying to make, but I wasn't able to pull a cast and a babysitter in time.  I was so determined that I had to make a movie, and I had to put one out monthly.  It was taking the fun out of the process.  Yes, it is important in the world of YouTube to be regularly making material in order to stay relevant, but if you're reaching at straws to do it just to put something, anything, out, I think you're missing the point of it all.

I love the movie though, and you should, too.   You should watch it, giggle, and share with someone!  Steve is so entertaining to worth with, natural at acting, and willing at the drop of a dime to just show up after work in the cold gloom of February and help out. It also helps if you have beer ;-)