Downstairs Theater

Transitions..

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 23:13:40 -0500

The switchover to our new Downstairs Theater is beginning...but first we need to clean up and archive some of our legacy work. As part of that, and to fight off the spam that has been taking up way too much time, we're turning off parts of the site one by one while we work on the new site. First to go: The forums will be locked down and archived, as well as the news comments. Soon after our email addresses will be removed and deleted, once we have a new way to contact us put in place. Please bear with us, and check back next month to see the face of Downstairs Theater

End of an era...The future of the show (part 2)

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 06:22:53 -0500

In part 1, I described the birth of the show, and the reason for the ending. However, with all the knowlege I've gained, with all the work I've put in, I'm not ready to simply walk away and kill off the site, the show, and the spirit of what is Downstairs Theater. I'd rather continue it in some fashion, keeping, in spirit, alive the work that we did. We filmed the episodes to be 'timeless', so that they can be enjoyed even years from now. I feel that the time and effort we put into them requires that we provide the videos a home that they can live..to still be shared and viewed by family, friends, and those that drop by the site.

Before I get into the future of the site, I'd like to talk about what I feel I've learned since starting the show. There is the obvious stuff, such as lighting, framing shots, audio, special effects, planning, making tough choices, and other such lessons learned of any project of this type. But more importantly, I learned that I didn't understand the internet audience.

Lou and I designed the show at the start to come in close to an hour an episode. The beauty of being a web show is that you dont have a time slot..there isn't a show on after yours..so you dont have to honor any kind of time guidelines. An hour show though seemed like a great idea...in practice on the net..it is often (not always) a failure. The internet audience is not the 'MTV' generation..but the 'YouTube' generation. If you want to make them laugh, you have about a minute to do it. If your video's longer than that, you'd better be doing something damn impressive. Reason being is your competitors are sitting out there, millions of them....on youtube, revver, collegehumor, and other such sites...with nice brainless, short videos that viewers can watch, and be just as entertained. The internet casual surfers are looking for this content...they dont have the patience, time, or sometimes knowlege even to download several hundred megs of video which may take them a half hour to watch.

So one object that I don't feel we ever nailed was the length of the show...another was community. I feel that spending time building a community would've been well worth the time. See hak5.org or the forums over at purepwnage.com to see this in action. Thousands of posts and users providing feedback, ideas, and discussions related to the show, and beyond. That has to provide a sense of purpose and motivation for the vidcasters that our site and show lacked. Between episodes our site became a black hole. I definitely feel that we could've did better here..but then there's that time issue again.

Lastly, I learned that our show's content was a bit too haphazard to gain a big following. I should've caught onto this when we had a hard time writing a simple three line description of the show. What are we? Are we tech? Not really...we do mention some tech, but we also mention and enjoy things like Cubees. Are we a website show? Not at all, that was something that was just one of our many features. Were we a tutorial show? I did make the Daz 3D tutorial, but never followed up with it...it put us way out of touch with our viewers...I'm sure that they didnt know what they were in for when they started watching.

In short, we all learned alot. I don't regret any of it. But continuing on would be madness.

The good news is that the dream of vidcasting is alive and well. Other sites have gone on to be very successful, relatively speaking. I'm starting to see some shows get sponsors. Technology and clients continue to come out, providing better ways to get the content to the viewers. Windows Media Center, Xbox 360's, PS3's, and the Apple iTV's are all looking to bring internet video to the living rooms of the world (I'm not sure if there is streaming planned for, or available on the Wii). Clients continue to pop up, and development of new sites and technologies are announed every week. The project "Democracy" is still going strong. The vision is there...and growing.

Which leads me to the future of this site. I'll pay for hosting for another year or so to give the videos time to live on. There may be one more release of an episode we filmed in Seattle several months ago, provided I can fix up the video enough to have something to put out on the web. From there on, Downstairs Theater..the show as it's currently known, will cease to exist.

Tenatively, this site will see a relaunch in late February, for a new project. The project, "DST: Take Two" will consist of very small video releases which will most likely be very technically focused. I will be working on the show alone, with no promises of dates for release. The focus of the site will not necessarily be on the videos, but on using distribution channels and technologies to test..and if successful...educate future and current vidcasters on the techniques used. Until then, I'll be using Downstairs theater as a blog to talk about the same quirky topics we've always discussed in the show..pointing out strange and fascinating websites, tech tips, and maybe even some interesting news. Please, if you want to contribute..post in the forums, try to reply to our news script, or even email us (please use "DST" in the subject so we can see the mails..our spam count is through the roof and takes a while to filter through right now)

I'd like to thank all of our viewers for sticking with us for over a year. Next year, the site will relaunch. Until then feel free to subscribe to the blog, leave feedback, and let us know what you think. It's been an honor.

To my fellow cast members...Thankyou...words can not express my appreciation for the long weekends, nights, and days of meetings, filming, swearing, and laughing.

To Lou...thankyou for not killing me and letting me get a chance to live this dream for the past year...thanks for the tireless nights of editing and the constant work on the web design. But seriosly, mostly, thanks for not killing me. :)

Joe Farro
Downstairs Theater
Producer, Actor, Writer, Technician, etc. etc.

End of an Era..open letter to our viewers..part 1

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 05:46:11 -0500

It's over a year later. We've grown from a team of 2, with a small idea for a project, into a team of 7. Our show has become an unplanned hour long ramble to a fairly structured vidcast. We've gone from a camcorder that I found on the shelf of a second hand store to a true widescreen production with microphones, lighting rigs, and even 'sets'. Our planning went from 15 mins of chatting and then freelancing it to..well several scheduled organized meetings where cast members would bring content ideas, it'd be discussed, written, skits added, and then filmed. Overall, the project grew greatly in every way, except audience.

My goal for Downstairs Theater was to be a part of what I saw as the logical next step for online entertainment. Blogs were taking hold, reality TV had jsut peaked, and bandwidth costs were decreasing. It seemed to me that the time was ripe to put some video content on the internet in a form of a webshow, distributed using the latest technologies. I wanted to know what would be involved. We had the camcorder, some free time, some editing knowlege, and some stuff we wanted to put on the net. Thus we created Downstairs Theater.

Momentum felt like it was growing. Our website hits increased every month. Our views slowly but surely went up. There was lot of goodness pointing in the direction that our show could eventually get a 'big break'. I truly felt that any day, we coudl put an episode out there, and get 50 thousand views. Youtube was growing in popularity, 'vidcasts' were coming out of every corner of the net, rumors were floating of advertising deals. The 'scene' was growing, and I was excited to feel like a part of it.

The time to produce a show grew as the show grew. More cast required longer meetings to get feedback and plan shows. More structured segments and skits required alot of thinking, writing, rewriting. Ideas that weren't 'free flow' discussion required more research. Complexity led to more takes, more takes leads to much more difficult editing. The show would take us several planning meetings, several days of filming, caputring of website segments, weekends of editing (which was on Lou's shoulders), and then hours of 'promotion' time where we'd post or tell anyone that'd listen that we were out there on the net. The episode for PAX took Lou an entire month to edit, and took Jen quite a bit of time for planning and meetings, each of which we'd all attend. As you can imagine, this adds up.

After a while, life inevitably got in the way. During the winter, holidays and family took away time. During summer, house remodels and other such tasks demanded attention. Since the show was never designed to be a revenue generator, but simply a hobby, its priority fell to the bottom of the pile.

With the slowdown in releases, the hits to the site plumeted, and views dropped off. We never got a ton of views, and never felt like we had a huge audience. The only way for a vidcaster to know their audience is through interaction...emails, posts, links, forum posts. To have this interaction, it requires a community to be built..which we never had time to fully pull off. This was the most disheartening part of the show...we didnt feel that many people (outside close friends and family) cared. If you get 1000 views on a video, and noone says anything, either bad or good, it has you wondering...was it so terrible that it wasn't worth even saying that it sucked?

There were of course exceptions...we have a few of you who'd let us know that you were out there viewing, and for that we are eternally grateful. Each forum post would generate a comment among the cast..it was simply that big of an event. We appreciate those of you that emailed and gave feedback, and for those, that even silent, watched the show.

I've known that I was going to have to change something for a while now. I've battled internally to figure out what to do about the site, the show, etc. I had to look at why I started the show in the first place, what I wanted to achieve, and what I could achieve in the future...

I wanted to be a part of what I thought would be the next 'big thing'. I wanted to share ideas and educate others out there on things that I thought were 'cool'. I wanted to learn about filming, producing, lighting, sound, distribution, promotion...to live a dream of being an actor that I knew I could never realize outside of a show I created myself.

I achieved my goals. I know I could do better, but continuing what we've already done seems pointless. And the amount of work is no longer delivering the same amount of knowlege it once did. It's time for me to do something different. In my next blog post, I'll describe a bit of how I feel about the vidcating scene, and where I'm wanting to take this site, and the show.

Halloween Season

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:53:42 -0400

The staff has been busy these holidays, so we haven't been able to put out another episode. However, that doesn't mean we can't list some fun websites for those visiting the site to help out for the holidays, so here goes...the links that would've probably gone into an episode were there more time:

1) Pumpkin Stencils: Our very own Ninja and 80's knowlegebase, Mario, sent us this excellent site of stencils which can be used to carve up some pretty nifty pumpkins.

http://www.zombiepumpkins.com/

Some are free, though many require a small donation. For the money, it's less expensive than the local grocery store, and yet there are many more options.

2) Cylon Pumpkins: For those fans of battlestar galactica, or for those looking to combine some electronics with their pumpkin carving, here's a fun project showing just that:

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/CylonOLantern

He includes a very nice breakdown of the circut, as well as some classy photos and a small video of the lights in action.

3) Pumpking Gutter: Taking pumpkin carving to the next level, this guy has actually resorted to sculpting his pumpkins. His FAQ page shows he has a quirky sense of humor, which we apprecate here. For Sci Fi buffs, he has several amazing carvings of such classics as Han Solo in carbonite, the "Predator", and an Alien, as well as political figures, celebritys, and even some great original work.

http://www.pumpkingutter.com/

That's it for this month, we're going to get costumes ready, pick up candy, enjoy the holiday, and should be back with some content in November. Till then, have a happy Halloween!

Downstairs Theater Episode 7 featured on Torrent TV

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:16:34 -0400

The folks over at G4TechTV in Canada just can't get enough of Downstairs Theater. In their 22nd episode, they featured the Castle Wolfenstein segment from Episode 7 of Downstairs Theater.

In case you haven't seen Episode 7 already, you can watch it below via YouTube, or follow the links on the left side of this page for high quality downloads.

For more information about Torrent, head over to the G4TechTV website.

Welcome Slashdot!

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 02:04:20 -0400

So the site was slashdotted yesterday (under the games section, not a 'full' slashdotting..and our servers thank them for that...). To help offset the load, we've enlisted libsyn.org to host the xvid version of our show. The xvid encode is an excellent quality version, and if you're able to play xvid files, we highly recommend watching the show in that format. If you're not sure, we have an ipod version for Mac users and a WMV version for windows users...the links can be found on the left side of the page next to "Episode 8".

For those wanting a quick link to the xvid....

Downstairs Theater Epiosode 8- PAX

Downstairs Theater - Episode 8 Released!!

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 21:13:41 -0400

The wait is FINALLY over! Episode 8 of the returning Downstairs Theater is LIVE! In this very special, 50 minute episode, the entire cast and crew of Downstairs Theater (Joe, Louis, Jen, Jess, Lance and Benny) travel to the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington to cover the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX '06)! In this episode, you'll see:

Interviews:
Ryan Rucinski - Obsidian Entertainment (Neverwinter Nights II)
Justin A. Ziran - Wizards of the Coast (Magic the Gathering Online)
Chris Larkin - RedOctane (Guitar Hero II)
Mike Mika - Foundation 9 Entertainment
Chris Charla - Foundation 9 Entertainment (Brooktown High)
Lewis Mohr - ArenaNet (Guild Wars)
Tom Fulp - The Behemoth (Castle Crashers)
John Cox - Mythic Entertainment (Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning)

You'll also see gameplay footage from some of the games mentioned above, as well as interviews with people that attended the event, footage from the Pitch Your Game Idea talk, and much much more!

The episode is available in XviD, WMV and iPod format. You can also watch via YouTube below.

We thank you all for your patience while we were getting things moving once again.

WARNING:
This episode has been unedited for language content. It contains strong language.

APOLOGIES:
We apologize for some of the quality of the video footage. We were unprepared for the low lighting conditions in the exhibit hall, and unfortunately had to "fix" some of the lighting via software. We hope the content will make up for the footage.

Keep checking back, as we will be posting additional footage that didn't make this already massive episode. Please provide feedback in the forums, and if you enjoy this show, tell your friends!

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Episode 8: WMV | XviD | iPod
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Downstairs Theater - Episode 8 progress

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 08:26:24 -0400

Yes, yes. It has been a while indeed. While on the surface it appears that nothing has been going on, we have in fact been extremely busy working on new content. At the beginning of August, we filmed an exhibit that we think most of you will really enjoy. Then Joe and I worked on a Project Video, which was already mentioned on the site. But, we weren't quite sure that either of these were worthy of making a great come back. So, this past weekend, we filmed another major event. Am I being vague? Yes I am. Is it going to be worth the wait? I guarantee it. Keep your eyes peeled, and your RSS subscribed, because soon, we're going to blow your mind!!

Filming started on Project 2

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:16:30 -0400

We've begun filming tonight for our second project video, which will be introduced in Episode 8. We've spent alot more time planning this time around, which hopefully means we'll be able to deliver a higher quality show, as well as more video content in the coming months. Sadly, due to the time it takes to film and edit, it'll take us a bit to get the video out to you. However, August will be a huge month for us.

Upcoming videos include a new audio / video related project, as well as Episode 8 (with our usual array of fun segments and skits) and a special presentation from an event we've been invited to film in the Seattle area. I'm excited when I look at the great things on the horizon which we'll be able to deliver to our viewers. But for now, we need to get back to work to make that happen.

If you have show ideas, segment ideas, or feedback, please don't hesitate to email myself or Lou.

The return

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 23:07:25 -0400

We're all back from vacation, and from our commitments, and are commencing work on the next episode. We appreciate all of our fans bearing with us as we took time out to take care of some obligations and catch up on some much needed R and R.

Planning for episode 8 will begin wed night, with tenative plans for filming on the 22nd. We'll try to get an episode out by end of month, or early next month. There is also some content from our vacations which would be fun to share, we'll have to decide if it fits in the show, or as blog entries.

Thankyou for all the kind emails, forum posts, and kind comments we've recieved. We're fired up after our hiatus, and ready to keep pushing the bar to make the show better than ever!