More help wanted

[Ross Scott]

Unfortunately I still have no update on releasing new videos (speaking of which, if someone wants to make me an offer on Freeman's Mind or Civil Protection, go ahead and email me). In the meantime, I've mainly been doing freelance voice acting work, but I want to work on future videos, whenever they come out. There are two key areas I could really use help in:

 

WEBSITE DESIGN / PROGRAMMING:

I've been wanting to make updates to the site for over a year now, but don't have web programming knowledge myself. Some of the things I wish to do are update the FAQ, add extra info fields to the episode pages, and have some sort of Wordpress plugin system so I could manually generate new episode pages myself, etc.

 

AUDIO EDITING:

I have had some great audio editing help in the past, but it's a real dice toss as to whether anyone will reply if I need help with a video. I'm looking for someone to add in sound effects, do some general reverb processing, and volume balancing. If you have examples of previous work you've done, please send me a link to them.

 

- - -

 

If you're interested in helping in either of these positions, please contact me at [email protected]. They will have to be volunteer positions since I'm currently in Ramen noodle territory myself. For audio editing that I use, I will put you in the credits of the video, and for website help, we'll find a way to credit you somewhere on the site.

 

Also I'd like to add that if you are interested in helping, try to sound semi-professional. If I get an email like this:

 

"

ya ill fix ur site wat u want

 

-Sent from my iPhone

"

 

it doesn't inspire confidence in me as to your abilities. I'm old-fashioned like that.

 

EDIT:

I've received a bunch of offers since I made this post, so I'll probably be covered once I sort through it all.

[JudasPhysicist]

I think you can release the Freeman videos all by yourself, you have big enough fan base to get things going.

And if you care about the ad revenue then people can help spread the word.

[BTGBullseye]

I'll have to think about it, but I might be able to be of assistance with the site...

[The Scoutman]

"

ya ill fix ur site wat u want

 

-Sent from my iPhone

"

but ross im real gud jus giv me a chance and i promise ure going to lik the new lookz of da site

[Box Tactics]

I hope this goes very well for you! I'm beginning to gain hope that, regardless of what Machinimia does, you will rise up and the content will go on.

[BushMonstar]

I would love to help, but as I have no actual experience in either of the two things your asking for, I'd probably screw it up badly. Anyways, I do hope that things go well for you, and that everything gets somewhat back to normal sometime soon.

[Lord Ornlu]

I think your videos are pretty famous by now to be able to stand on their own on Youtube, at least if you didn't sign the rights over to machinima. Your FM videos range from 1 million to 250 000 views, which warrants a lot of ad revenue from viewing counts. We could all help in spreading the word as well, and we could do some shameless advertising in reddit, 4chan, 9gag etc etc.

 

Some people suggested RT as well, which I prefer over machinima personally. I usually have to swim through a sea of crap in all 50000 machinima channels to find something I like, whereas in RT everything is more to my taste. You can also go to the Escapist to be posting your videos. They recently announced they'd start hosting the Dolareous & Associates series (to all who don't know it, it's a very fun show).

[Philmnator]

Some people suggested RT as well, which I prefer over machinima personally. I usually have to swim through a sea of crap in all 50000 machinima channels to find something I like, whereas in RT everything is more to my taste. You can also go to the Escapist to be posting your videos. They recently announced they'd start hosting the Dolareous & Associates series (to all who don't know it, it's a very fun show).

 

I'd be careful with The Escapist actually :/ I still watch their stuff once in a while, but it's interesting cuz Dolareous & Associates debuted on their site but their contract fell thru when the Escapist was having issues paying them (and other content producers) in a timely fashion

 

but hey there's no small amount of love for all things Half-Life on that site lol...RT is def my top tho

[Otto]

I'm beginning to gain hope that, regardless of what Machinimia does, you will rise up and the content will go on.

 

The content will always go on! As long as the internet exists, the content of Accursed Farms shall always make an appearance, ad-supported or not.

[SanctusEspiritus37]

EDIT! Okay. So my computer spazzed and posted twice? Sorry about that.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Guest (see edit history)

[SanctusEspiritus37]

Yeah, I am also going to put forth RT as a totally viable option when it comes to suggestions. They are a very dynamic productions company and they are always expanding, which is a good thing. The more growth there is, the more money there is. But I suppose it is one of those things that they would have to reach out to Ross and not the other way around. Perhaps us fans should hint at it?

 

Joking aside, I wish I could help out around here. I feel useless since I am just a fan that watches CP and FM. But since I know crap about websites and stuff like that, it's best I NOT offer to help.

[imperial1scout]

RT is probably the best way you could go. Your feelings about their quality aside, they have a reputation for being fairly benevolent.

 

But I suppose it is one of those things that they would have to reach out to Ross and not the other way around. Perhaps us fans should hint at it?

 

Let's go drop tons of *subtle* hints.

[Dreed]

I still sayTGS so he can be on their podcast.

[Dazro]

So does he actually still have the rights to do more freeman's mind? Well thats something at least, whatever he might find to do next at least he does at least legally have the chance to continue it.

[Otto]

Oh yeah, he definitely has the right to create and release his own videos, but if the contract is broken between them, the difference is Freeman's Mind and Civil Protection will no longer be sponsored by the Machinima guys. Machinima has always brought Ross a bigger audience, and more pressingly a regular payment. They also have quite a bit of power due to their channel popularity, which can be really beneficial sometimes, like when they removed that one guys scam YouTube account because he was making money off duplicate FM episodes.

 

 

I doubt the contract itself has a requirement of "10 years continuous production" or anything like that, so he'll always have enough power to end it himself, "legally", when he wants. That's if it hasn't been terminated already. Not that I've read the contract myself, but it seems apparent that it is Machinima who have broken their agreement with Ross. Given that Ross is still following the rules and producing videos, and they are neither paying him nor hosting his work, there's not really any agreement left to break from. Except if he does now decide to host his own videos publicly, Machinima might avoid sponsoring him again and may not offer him their "new" contract, whatever it may be.

 

Fortunately there are other options around too, as mentioned above, but Machinima is still the fifth most popular YouTube profile ever, (RoosterTeeth ranks at about 22nd) with far more uploaded videos than any other channel in the top 40. I recall them laying off about 10% of their staff last December, partly because of how much they've grown in such a short amount of time. This part of their "reorganization" after the film festival is probably a big reason why they've been so silent to Ross lately. You never cancel a contract before offering a new one, not unless that person has either broken it, done something so extreme as to obviate a warning, or if you're undergoing major overhauls to the format which are too urgent to give notice. Even if Ross wanted to stay with Machinima, but told them he was moving to another website or channel, Machinima might actually start taking him more seriously and either communicate with him properly about their new contract, or else quickly revert back on the old he was happy with.

 

At least, I would presume this because Freeman's Mind is very popular. It's starting to surpass the amount of followers that Arby'n'The Chief has right now, who I only compare it to because they began around the same time... Except ANTC came with a much bigger fanbase, and currently has three times more videos than FM, most of which are all longer in length. So I would think Freeman's Mind to be a fairly big priority.

 

 

Wow, a bit off track there. In any event, when you get down to specifics, since contract law is overseen by the state in which it was drawn, which I assume was California, I'm sure we could figure out how much control Ross actually has over the situation. If this were taken to extreme lengths, for instance, a right of rescission would let one withdraw from a contract without penalty, should this be a contributing reason to why one might avoid it in the first place. And I see no writing where Machinima has claimed intellectual property over Ross's work, so point is... don't worry about him losing his own series. (long way to put it!)

And of course, I don't think anybody's trying to break an agreement anyway. It's just getting something out fast that works for everyone.

 

 

I still sayTGS so he can be on their podcast.

Dang it, I just figured out what imperial meant by "RT", don't make me guess was TGS is!

[Otto]

Well, sorry for the double long posts, but it's interesting to find out there's another guy in Ross's situation.

 

After that random post of mine where I compared Freeman's Mind with Arby'n'The Chief for no real reason, I was going over the view count, video length and release dates of a couple 'Happy Hour' series to try and average out some general numbers. Since the popularity and exposure of both the Freeman's Mind and Arby'n'Chief shows have been so similar lately, I wondered if the creator of AntC (DigitalPh33r, or 'Jon CJG') had recently experienced any slow down with Machinima either.

 

He has, and his case might seem worse.

This would explain why there's been a sudden drop to his release rate as well. This is his Blogspot: http://joncjg.blogspot.co.nz/

 

He hasn't made any posts or videos at all this year. Almost all the blog pages from last December mention a few "delays" on Machinima's part. This was probably obvious to a lot of you, it was certainly well known to the many fans of his shows, but this struck me by surprise. I should have known it wasn't just Ross that was struggling to get back some solid information from Machinima.

 

Jon has apparently been hearing "conflicting stories from staff of varying levels of seniority" about the delays going on, and he's expressed his confusion a number of times on his site. The timing would also coincide with this: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/14/entertainment/la-et-ct-popular-youtube-gaming-channel-machinima-has-layoffs-20121214

 

"So there's a good chance that the next Byte won't air this Saturday either, I'm so sorry; and I don't want to alarm anybody as nothing is concrete yet, but I've been hearing worrying talk very recently from the programming team that handles my content that my position among the company is being re-evaluated due to a lack of viewership of my show, I assume in comparison to their other Happy Hour content (and the million-high figures of my show throughout the first three seasons). I'm guessing this has been the real reason behind the recent hold on the airing of my stuff..."

 

 

So anyway, I can't see a lot of other Happy Hour directors having problems. Jon's the only new case so far. Only the 'HISHE' (How It Should Have Ended), 'Minecraft N00b Adventures', 'Battlefield Friends' and 'How to Annoy People' channels have any clear headway over Freeman's Mind in terms of viewership, so they shouldn't be worried about re-evaluation. Still a puzzling story... does anyone else have weird news on Machinima?

Edited February 10, 2013 by Guest (see edit history)

[SanctusEspiritus37]

Fortunately there are other options around too, as mentioned above, but Machinima is still the fifth most popular YouTube profile ever, (RoosterTeeth ranks at about 22nd) with far more uploaded videos than any other channel in the top 40.

 

I don't know if what you were trying to say is that Machinima is more popular than Roosterteeth, but if that is what you're saying, then you are very wrong. RT was very slow to getting onto Youtube. In fact, they only got onto Youtube within the last six or so years, so it hasn't been too long for them. And the bulk of their fanbase is on their site. If I had to take a guess, Roosterteeth is FAR more popular when it comes to the internet all together. But on Youtube Machinima is more popular.

 

If you were not saying anything of the sort... then disregard this post. It's early in the morning for me and my brain isn't working. So excuse me if I offended you.

[Otto]

Not at all, and my brain hardly ever works properly either. The reason I use the word "popular" is so I could mix the amount of subscribers, viewers, views and likes of the profile, which basically means its influence on bringing in such a larger audience partly because it does a lot more than just "gaming" videos. Yet it still advertises its 'Happy Hour' channel in the many other genres like Machinima Prime, Machinima Sports, Machinima Trailer Vault and so on.

 

I wouldn't really know how popular RoosterTeeth is in comparison, but I figured Machinima would typically get more exposure in most cases. Machinima wasn't that big six years ago either, (was it?) but you're right that RoosterTeeth is certainly very widespread to the gaming community. I'm not sure about "the internet all together" part though... maybe it's just the things I do that lead me to YouTube more often, so you could well be telling truth.

 

Speaking of which, I haven't been on RoosterTeeth in ages, I normally forget about their emails, so I'm not saying it's a bad place to get a series hosted. I wouldn't even have a recommendations on what a good place would be. I've just not had a proper look at their massive database in eons. Thanks for the info though, I'll have a visit. Maybe catch up on a few RVB seasons.

[imperial1scout]

RvB has gone a few interesting directions of late. I've no way to quantify their overall reach, but I've a feeling that they could catch up to Machinima at some point.

 

More recently they've being doing other things than comedy. Like RWBY (well I'm assuming, the trailer seems to suggest that).

 

But more to the point, if Ross can release some of the stuff to get them to pay more attention to him, then I say he should do it. The key being, of course, that those actions will not cause further harm down the road.

[Otto]

Quite true.

 

I think you can release the Freeman videos all by yourself, you have big enough fan base to get things going.

And if you care about the ad revenue then people can help spread the word.

Funnily enough, I always thought about printing off some quick A4 sized posters and sticking them up near a busy city intersection where I work. There's also a large block of road covered in movie & music posters that are always tearing apart. It would be easy to sneak one in there every couple days.