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The 7th Guest posted:actually there is probably a way to surefire get an S14 greenlit but it'll never happen: bringing Mike, Kevin and Bill back That would do it. It sure doesn't seem like any of them want to come back full-time though. Mike has made it clear that he's not interested in participating. Kevin and Bill did cameos on the new show, and that seems to be enough for them. And Rifftrax is doing pretty well. I noticed that Kevin and Bill don't have writing credits on the more recent riffs, which makes me wonder if they're starting to step back a bit from this niche industry. I would absolutely love to see Trace and Frank back, but Joel burned some bridges by not including -- or even informing -- them when the revival happened. Frank has at least supported the fundraiser on social media, while Trace still seems to be pretty sour about it. I get it, he was nearly as instrumental in creating and shaping the show as Joel and Jim Mallon, and for ~18 years he didn't get any royalties despite the show continually airing in reruns and being sold in DVD sets. Honestly, the S11 fundraiser was amazingly successful, and the S13 one did really well too. I hope they write the current attempt off and try to do another one that's closer to what they did for S11, but I'm worried that they see this as "nobody wants to pay for MST3k", because I don't think that's the case at all. Joel's latest Email mentions that the support doesn't seem to be there for S14, but they did it to themselves with awful reward fulfillment for S13, an unknown fundraising platform, lack of promotion, lack of cast participation (understandable given the strike), and a general sense that nobody involved is all that invested in or excited about a new season, including Joel. Do it right and we'll still pay for it!
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Nov 26, 2023 06:05
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I do think it's worth remembering that Cinematic Titanic struggled because everyone lived in different parts of the country; even if Joel figured out how to smooth things over with Trace and Frank, scheduling conflicts might prevent them from doing much besides cameos. And even then it could require more green screening, which I know a lot of people dislike.
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Nov 26, 2023 07:44
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I thought the idea of the Gizmoplex was that they'd make enough money off of there to not need as much crowdfunding and it'd become somewhat self sustaining
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Nov 26, 2023 07:51
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El Generico posted:I thought the idea of the Gizmoplex was that they'd make enough money off of there to not need as much crowdfunding and it'd become somewhat self sustaining I remember them saying something like that. It just seemed like a pipe dream.
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Nov 26, 2023 08:47
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There are still a few minutes left in the fundraiser but the links to it have already been scrubbed from mst3k.com. No point in staying up past their bedtimes I guess.
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Nov 26, 2023 08:48
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drat, didn't even make it to the sex number ah well, better luck next time
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Nov 26, 2023 09:03
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I’m watching Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, and that part with the seductive magic lady who turns into a spider, dies, and turns back into a seductive lady is uncomfortable and confusing. It’s like the movie was written with an older main character in mind and they just changed it slightly after they cast a 12-year-old. Is she seducing him? Are the other kids on couches really there, or part of the illusion?
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Nov 26, 2023 09:26
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Narsham posted:Part of the problem is that MST3K is the big-ticket version, with licensed films and a cast and crew in place of a microphone closet or a webcam. It can’t operate without a substantially larger yearly funding. Yeah, the Season 13 episodes during the Turkey Day Marathon really drove this point home. I swear to god the credits (even without the Kickstarter backer list) are five times longer than the originals. Unlike Redditors, I'm not insisting Joel & co go back to sitting in a closet lit by an itty bitty booklight (this is literally what they are suggesting), but surely there's some room to trim and consolidate roles? Or maybe there isn't? Like you said, it would be useful to see the accounting details. $4.1 million for six episodes SEEMS like an awful lot of money. El Generico posted:I thought the idea of the Gizmoplex was that they'd make enough money off of there to not need as much crowdfunding and it'd become somewhat self sustaining The Gizmoplex seems to be confusing, and even more confusingly explained. I checked it out when it launched, but I only discovered during the marathon that you can watch all(*) the old episodes on the Gizmoplex for free. While I appreciate that, it feels like it might make more sense to charge even a couple of bucks a month for that access. Or maybe they're figuring that getting exposure and new fans for their annual crowdfunding is more valuable? * all the episodes they're legally allowed to stream. Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Nov 26, 2023 |
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Nov 26, 2023 10:09
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El Generico posted:I thought the idea of the Gizmoplex was that they'd make enough money off of there to not need as much crowdfunding and it'd become somewhat self sustaining The last kickstarter says this: quote:1. MAKE MORE MST3K episodes with a new, sustainable model, that lets you decide how long we should keep going, and lets us bring new episodes directly to you, without depending on a network to distribute or keep renewing us for new seasons. However at no point do I think Joel every mentioned what this "sustainable model" was supposed to be, outside of "maybe we'll get some money from the Gizmoplex". Then there's this big huge wall of text about the Gizmoplex: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/makemoremst3k/posts/3178709 The main thing about funding more MST3K being: quote:Q: Will Gizmoplex membership fund future episodes of MST3K? Also this bit in response to why they don't just toss all the new episodes on Youtube: quote:Part of our goal in launching the Gizmoplex is to make sure we can distribute our own episodes from now and bring in some ongoing revenue to support more new episodes, instead of depending on another Kickstarter for each new season. So if you want to give Joel the benefit of the doubt, it never says that the Gizmoplex *will* fund all the new episodes, he just hopes it will bring in revenue to help do so. But the thing is, the Gizmoplex was an abject failure. Even Joel mentions that creating a new subscription video on demand service wasn't going to work, so there's a lot of focus on live programming to justify your subscription: quote:While you will have access to watch old and new episodes "on demand," the value of a Gizmoplex pass isn't just about "access to episodes" – it's more like having a season pass for your favorite theater or sports team. Every month, we'll have at least 1-2 new "live events," and a Gizmoplex pass gets you into all of them. After all the new episodes premiered, those live events stopped happening. If Joel had actually delivered on that promise of 1-2 events per month I think people would have been happy to keep paying a subscription; after all I know plenty of us buy a ticket to the Mads each month. While I'm skeptical that it would have brought in enough to fund a whole new season of episodes without crowd funding, it might have lowered the bar enough that people weren't balking at the amount being asked. So basically a situation like Season 12 where they went back and sold some producer credits to people to make up for money Netflix wasn't giving them.
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Nov 26, 2023 10:12
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Nemo2342 posted:After all the new episodes premiered, those live events stopped happening. If Joel had actually delivered on that promise of 1-2 events per month I think people would have been happy to keep paying a subscription; after all I know plenty of us buy a ticket to the Mads each month. I definitely would. Those crew watchalongs they did on YouTube for the Season 13 campaign were awesome. I've gone back to watch the Hobgoblins episode a few times, because it's so good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugO9coWrw0 Have cast members pick episodes they like, and record everyone having a good time and laughing at the jokes and I'll pay you a monthly sub. E: I've had random episodes playing on shuffle from Plex all day while I work around the house, and I had forgotten just how many amazing riffs there are in the Manos episode. *sheriff pulls over the family* "Hey sorry,, but you're not filming Manos: Hands of Fate in OUR town." "Do you have any idea how you were framing back there?" "This is just one guy talking here! ... Just one guy... just one guy... That was just one guy doing all those voices, I can't believe it..." *more footage of grimy scenery going past* "So we're what, about half an hour into the movie by now?" "No I'm afraid not... more like a minute." "No..." "Joel, this is going to turn into a snuff film." "NO!! NOW THEY'RE GOING BACK THE OTHER WAY!" Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Nov 26, 2023 |
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Nov 26, 2023 10:16
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:Yeah, the Season 13 episodes during the Turkey Day Marathon really drove this point home. I swear to god the credits (even without the Kickstarter backer list) are five times longer than the originals. Unlike Redditors, I'm not insisting Joel & co go back to sitting in a closet lit by an itty bitty booklight, but surely there's some room to trim and consolidate roles? Or maybe there isn't? Like you said, it would be useful to see the accounting details. $4.1 million for six episodes SEEMS like an awful lot of money. This was the breakdown given during their last kickstarter, when they were doing everything remotely:  The prices go down as you make more episodes, because there are certain things that have upfront costs that stay the same no matter how many episodes you use it in. The new campaign had the following original budgets: 6 episodes (4.8 million x 0.65 / 6 episodes) $520k per episode 9 episodes (6.1 million x 0.65 / 9 episodes) 440k per episode 12 episodes (7.2 million x 0.65 / 12 episodes) 390k per episode And if we lop 800k off them for Joel moving everything to LA and giving up their offices and fabrication facilities: 6 episodes (4.0 million x 0.65 / 6 episodes) $433k per episode 9 episodes (5.3 million x 0.65 / 9 episodes) 382k per episode 12 episodes (6.4 million x 0.65 / 12 episodes) 346k per episode Some of that increase comes from Joel wanting to pay people a better wage, but it also seems like a fair bit came from him trying to "do it like they used to" by moving everyone to be local to him and having to build a whole bunch of physical sets again. A full breakdown would be nice, but that's all I could dig up with what we have available.
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Nov 26, 2023 10:41
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Nemo2342 posted:Some of that increase comes from Joel wanting to pay people a better wage, but it also seems like a fair bit came from him trying to "do it like they used to" by moving everyone to be local to him and having to build a whole bunch of physical sets again. Yeah I 100% support paying everyone a better wage, and will gladly contribute to that. The second part feels ... ambiguous and misguided? Obviously I don't know the specifics as well as Joel does, because I'm just some dude on the Internet and he was there. But it feels like back in the day it was organic -- people didn't move in to the Minnesota area to work on MST3K, everyone was local to begin with, instead of needing to move to the boondocks in rural Pennsylvania -- and they also had the support of a channel subsidising costs. This jumped out at me in the Wikipedia article: quote:The Comedy Channel offered Best Brains $35,000 per episode but allowed Best Brains to retain the show's rights. I know inflation is a thing, and money is more expensive than it used to be, but a jump from $35 000 per episode to $520k per episode feels drastic.
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Nov 26, 2023 12:33
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Did they even pay people with that?
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Nov 26, 2023 13:57
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Freemason Rush Week posted:I do think it's worth remembering that Cinematic Titanic struggled because everyone lived in different parts of the country; even if Joel figured out how to smooth things over with Trace and Frank, scheduling conflicts might prevent them from doing much besides cameos. And even then it could require more green screening, which I know a lot of people dislike. I seem to recall when CT was first announced, they promised a new episode every month but only made twelve over a five-year period and half of those were live recordings.
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Nov 26, 2023 14:00
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Another problem with the Gizmoplex is a lot of the episodes were already streaming on other platforms (Tubi, Plex, etc).
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Nov 26, 2023 14:24
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That just helped them with ads I don't wanna jump around to watch ads so one stop shop, adless was a plus for me
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Nov 26, 2023 14:59
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Seems like there’s some disjunction in the Gizmoplex model between the costs as they’ve been presented to us and the special events we were promised but which didn’t continue after the new episodes aired. And I wonder if it isn’t to do with reliance on free content. I assume the cast was willing to do Zoom events and watch-alongs as promotional events attached to the show: for free, in other words. So any tickets sold for access to these promotional events would have been pure profit, in theory. In practice, that money had to maintain their office and their permanent staff, plus the Gizmoplex itself. Asking the performers to keep doing live events after the new season aired, without paying them, wouldn’t have been an OK thing: most of the cast were working “regular” jobs to make ends meet. Why should they donate their time to volunteer for live events which make money that goes to the office staff at Joel’s company and not to the next season of the show, which will pay them. I am frankly left unsure how much the cast actually got paid—we know from Yvonne, unfortunately, that they don’t get health coverage through the show—and while I’m OK supporting MST through crowdfunding, I’m uncomfortable with pledge goals this high if the cast doesn’t share in the wealth. If they’re all getting SAG TV scale, that’s extremely different from SAG streaming scale for the number of episodes each cast does, and I’d like to know which. A subset of people online seem to have compared numbers with the Comedy Central years, but how much were they paying their (non-union) cast back then? Was J. Elvis getting McDonalds-level compensation for his year on the show? We know only Jim and Joel saw residuals. “Why should we pledge more when the show cost so much less back when it underpaid everyone except Joel and Jim” isn’t exactly a strong rallying cry from my perspective.
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Nov 26, 2023 15:51
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Davros1 posted:Another problem with the Gizmoplex is a lot of the episodes were already streaming on other platforms (Tubi, Plex, etc). Yeah, and it's taken some of the magic out of Turkey Day too. If every day is Turkey Day, why bother?
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Nov 26, 2023 16:24
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Pershing posted:Yeah, and it's taken some of the magic out of Turkey Day too. If every day is Turkey Day, why bother? Bumper segments and fun intermissions with the hosts and casts can do a lot of heavy lifting there; I think the first time I became aware of Emily's existence was a few Turkey Days ago. But between the strikes, the fact that the "live" streaming content apparently has to be packaged ahead of time for platforms like Pluto, and the generally...shambolic? vibes MST3K has been giving off recently, it's not surprising that this year's Turkey Day felt extremely meh. EDIT: oh, and the ads. idk if it was just because I was watching on Pluto or what but the frequency and duration of ad breaks felt oppressive. HannibalBarca fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Nov 26, 2023 |
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Nov 26, 2023 16:30
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Is SoL LLC presumably getting some licensing cash from the various ad-based streaming platforms? I wonder how that factors into things.
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Nov 26, 2023 16:42
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Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2 is not a good movie, but I respect Roger Corman’s work ethic. He’ll find a way to make it work at any budget. I imagine David Carradine and his wife character were on the same set filming a different movie and that’s why they’re there, but only for a bit, and that the situation is reversed for the other warrior guy who’s only there at the beginning and the end. I also like the idea of an adventurer couple with a good marriage.
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Nov 26, 2023 19:56
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new email from joelquote:Greetings, backers. big takeaway is that they'll try again sometime next year, probably with an actual fundraising campaign
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Nov 26, 2023 19:58
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Raskolnikov38 posted:new email from joel Skeptical about this, but that would be ideal if it ends up being true.
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Nov 26, 2023 20:11
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I honestly don't think crowdfunding is going to work for future seasons. You can only go to that well so many times for large amounts like that.
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Nov 26, 2023 20:13
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HannibalBarca posted:Skeptical about this, but that would be ideal if it ends up being true. *monkey pay curls* "Welcome to Elon Musk's Mystery Science Theater 3000!"
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Nov 26, 2023 20:13
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Being marooned aboard the Cybertruck of Love would be too evil.
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Nov 26, 2023 20:20
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Pershing posted:Yeah, and it's taken some of the magic out of Turkey Day too. If every day is Turkey Day, why bother? I know it wasn't official, but after clubmst3k I think that horse was already out of the barn. Still, Turkey Day is always going to have higher participation numbers than any other time of year.
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Nov 26, 2023 23:41
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Jose Oquendo posted:I honestly don't think crowdfunding is going to work for future seasons. You can only go to that well so many times for large amounts like that. I think it would work better if they could arrange outside funding for an initial base season order and the crowd funding is just for additional episodes beyond that
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Nov 26, 2023 23:57
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Jose Oquendo posted:I honestly don't think crowdfunding is going to work for future seasons. You can only go to that well so many times for large amounts like that. Obviously it's comparing apples and oranges, but there are boardgame companies and miniature companies that use Kickstarter as a way to get funding for new projects all the time, even though they could technically fund these things with their revenue streams. It's a good way to gauge interest in your upcoming product while also raising money that can go towards funding or expanding it. I feel like Joel could still do the same with MST3K, but he's going to need to do some serious budgeting and also lower his expectations/ambitions a fair bit.
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Nov 27, 2023 00:22
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Roger Corman's Mystery Science Theater 3000
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Nov 27, 2023 00:24
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Murdstone posted:Roger Corman's Mystery Science Theater 3000
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Nov 27, 2023 00:45
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:Yeah I 100% support paying everyone a better wage, and will gladly contribute to that. Back in the day everyone was local because they had no money and just recruited whatever locals who were willing to work on what amounted to a passion project. It was especially bad during the KTMA season: quote:Beaulieu: Our budget for the show was microscopic. I think Josh and I were pulling down $25 a show, and I think Joel’s budget was a little higher, because he had to build props. We thought, well, let’s see how far this goes. We didn’t really know how long the show would last or if anyone was even watching it. The main issue though (as far as costs) is the crew. Joel wanted to be hands-on with everything, and so wanted to hire crew who were based in Pennsylvania. But Pennsylvania doesn't exactly have a huge pool of talent just sitting around looking for a temporary gig, so he was going to have to pay more per person on average for everyone he needed to hire. In contrast filming in LA would have given him access to a much larger pool of crew to recruit from, which drives the average cost down even accounting for the higher cost of living in CA versus PA. Shaman Tank Spec posted:I know inflation is a thing, and money is more expensive than it used to be, but a jump from $35 000 per episode to $520k per episode feels drastic. Adjusted for inflation, that's about 87k per episode for 13 episodes compared to 390k per episode for 12 episodes Joel asked for. One thing that wikipedia (and the article it cites) doesn't make clear is if that listed budget included the licensing rights. It talks about the cable channel being the one to obtain the rights for them, but I can't tell for sure if that was factored into that figure. The original MST3K kickstarter clarifies that part of why it costs them so much per episode is because they have to license the movies themselves, and the rights got a lot more expensive once people realized what the movies were going to be used for. Joel also noted back then that "even in the ‘90s, an episode of MST3K cost us between $100K-200K" so that 35k figure may only apply to the very first season. The one thing I do know is that they weren't making poo poo on that first CC season with the 35k budget: quote:Mallon: We had to take a warehouse space and turn it into a feasible studio—and also pay staff and support people—on next to no money. So hardly anybody made anything on the first [Comedy Channel] season. But everyone was getting to do what they’d dreamed of, which was to make a living making television comedy. Even if it was a poor living, it was intoxicating. And that energy helped carry the day for the first season. At the end of the day, I feel pretty certain that the amount of money Joel is asking for is reasonable for the kind of show people would like to see (i.e. physical sets, movies that aren't just the same public-domain stuff everyone has riffed before, etc). Unfortunately it just doesn't jive with the mythologized image we have in our heads of the show being made for the loose change you find in the couch cushions. And ultimately it may be impossible to keep funding seasons on the backs of the fans without Joel bringing in some significant additional revenue streams.
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Nov 27, 2023 00:49
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Murdstone posted:Roger Corman's Mystery Science Theater 3000 So under budget but bland and boring, got it. 
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Nov 27, 2023 00:56
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seems like the whole concept of a movie host show is somewhat enivitably tied to a network or similar larger company. it's a symbiosis. they existed to fill time with movies the station already had. crowdfunding it is just trying to do it backwards. obviously it would be great if you could just do host shows independently without issue, but it's rare. Mr. Lobo seems to be pulling it off, he has a network kind of but I think he also runs that? it's unclear. I assume Svengoolie has a deal with Metv, Joe Bob has one with Shudder (who seems to have one with Vinegar Syndrome and also has AMC above them). Elvira seems like she works out a new contract with the rights holders every time maybe? Rifftrax was successful probably largely since the product they sold was just audio (at first) and thus they could make stuff for any movie they wanted to. Also means all they need are talent, writing, microphones, and time. No sets or costumes. They've evolved into a more expansive business over time at an apparently sustainable pace. I guess Legend Films was involved to some degree but how much is perhaps unclear. If you want to be total independent with video based content you probably need to stick to public domain stuff. Which is definitely an option. But you will end up covering the same stuff as many others doing the same thing as there's only so much out there. Maybe MST3K needs to find a way to sell video that the user can overlay onto movies? that'd be interesting. Also now that I think about it more yeah how the hell does Mr Lobo do it? I watched a movie on there once that has essentially zero Internet presence at all. The only thing you get looking it up is a letterboxd review asking if this movie is a prank or what?
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Nov 27, 2023 01:12
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Light Gun Man posted:Maybe MST3K needs to find a way to sell video that the user can overlay onto movies? that'd be interesting. It'd certainly be doable technically, but it runs into a big hurdle that the Rifftrax bring-your-own-film joke tracks generally don't: MST3K's movies aren't going to be big and famous and easy to find. It's almost effortless to obtain a legal copy of, say, Rogue One to watch with the Rifftrax; good luck finding a copy of The Deadly Spruce Trees (1973) to pair with an MST video overlay.
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Nov 27, 2023 01:29
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I’ll do it, I’ll send Joel my DVD copy of Mystics in Bali
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Nov 27, 2023 01:34
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Shudder would be a perfect partner but IDK what kind of money they have (and whether AMC will one day, well, shutter shudder). I go back to my previous point that Shout Factory can't have their cake and eat it too, and should front some of the money for future seasons
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Nov 27, 2023 01:39
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Dawgstar posted:So under budget but bland and boring, got it. Look at this guy never watched Death Race 2000 
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Nov 27, 2023 01:57
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I feel like I saw it mentioned somewhere at one point, but I wonder how much the timing of the fundraiser going on during the strike hurt them? The people you'd want doing promotion on it couldn't do much for a while. Hope they figure a way to come around on it again, caught a few season 13 episodes and thought they were still going solid.
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Nov 27, 2023 01:59
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Is shout putting out the physical releases of the new seasons? If so, they should definitely put up for making more new seasons.
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Nov 27, 2023 02:01
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