Can you believe there are only two weeks left of voting for Round 1 of this competition? Yikes! So how are we doing? Well, in one week we went from 40 people voting and 95 votes to 111 people voting and 341 votes! We more than doubled the number of voters we have and we more than tripled the number of votes! Way to go!
But the big question is, how are we stacking up against the competition? Last week I found 33 entries with more votes than we have. We plowed right past about a dozen or so entries that seemed to have started out pretty strong, but then fizzled out. And we are getting very close to passing by four more. But then I found a few more entries that were in front of us. So as of today, there are 25 entries that I know of with more votes than us. While it is very encouraging that we appear to be moving up, please keep in mind that I haven’t seen all the entries and have no idea how many that I haven’t seen have more votes than us. Also, I’ve found at least three entries that started after us and have passed us by. So we need to keep voting every single day and we need to keep finding more voters!
To see how we stack up against the top players, here’s how the top ten entries (that I know of) are doing:
- 3,235 votes, 706 voters
- 1,334 votes, 299 voters
- 1,283 votes, 156 voters
- 1,025 votes, 269 voters
- 958 votes, 145 voters
- 898 votes, 111 voters
- 895 votes, 196 voters
- 863 votes, 181 voters
- 722 votes, 96 voters
- 721 votes, 151 voters
So please don’t get complacent! We’ve got a ways to go yet! We need every vote!
Joyce, our I-Maniac fan club president, is currently moving the fan club mailing list to a more reliable program. So if you get an email from her, be sure you opt in. She’ll be sending out an announcement about this contest as folks opt in. Some of the email addresses no longer work, so if you have contact with an I-Maniac that may not be aware of this contest, please lend a hand and let them know about it.
I attended a United Filmmakers Association mixer over a week ago and was able to get a free copy of the Reel Directory, which is the Northern California version of the Hollywood Creative Directory. Basically, it’s a directory of services and everyone in the business from audio post facilities to production equipment to stunt equipment rentals to traffic and crowd control services…virtually everything you could possibly think of and would need to make a movie. I’ve used it to start calling around to studios and getting rental rates for the video we’re shooting. My director is prepping for another shoot right now, but we’ll be meeting again on Friday. I’m happy to say that my financing came through, so this video is officially green lit!
I’m also starting to get quotes from artists and will be commissioning some custom artwork as part of my submission. Exciting stuff!
The contest requires that if I use any third party’s name, I must have a signed release from them. This weekend, I got emails from Paul Ben-Victor, Eddie Jones, and Mike McCafferty and I talked on the phone to Vincent Ventresca on Sunday. All these wonderful guys are very willing to sign a release so that I can use their names when entering my submissions into the contest! Vince is contacting Shannon for me and I’m still waiting to hear from her. Do you realize how lucky we are to have such a supportive cast? I can’t think of another cast that would do what these guys do.
There is still so much to do and it’s going to get crazy. Please don’t mind me if you see me wearing a straight jacket in the near future!
Paul Ben-Victor
