It’s time for another quick break from watching movies to handle some podcast business.
As regular listeners know, I started this podcast as a tool to help me remember the plots and details of films I watch. I often find myself forgetting what happened in a movie I watched, or if I’ve even watched a particular film, so when I heard on another podcast that a way to fix this is to write about the film, and then record yourself speaking about it, I created this Substack. I didn’t think anyone else would read or listen to it.
Now that I have subscribers, whom I assume are reading and listening, I sometimes find myself thinking about what I should be doing to best serve my audience, rather than what’s best for me. Truthfully, I sometimes assume that no one is actually reading or listening. I suspect many people subscribe to podcasts and blogs only to ignore or delete them when they show up in their inbox. Based on the complete lack of interaction or comments, I do sometimes feel it’s safe to say that no one is really listening to any of this, which wouldn’t be a bad thing, per se.
Nonetheless, when I started, I was posting articles quite often, but now that I have subscribers I have slowed the pace, so as not to overwhelm anyone, and I now have a backlog of complete, but unposted, podcasts. So, at the risk of overcrowding your inbox, I’m going to go back to watching and posting at my own pace. If that means a post every day for a week, or three weeks without one, so be it. I hope that doesn’t lead to people bailing on this podcast, because I genuinely enjoy knowing that others have taken an interest in my weird little project, but if you do unsubscribe, I won’t be offended. Plus, I have a list of over 2,100 movies to watch, and I’m not getting any younger.
Speaking of the list of movies, more than a few people now have asked if they can see that list. So far I’ve declined, so as not to spoil the surprise of what movie will come next, but I’ve come up with a way to share it without really sharing it. I’ve been getting a steady stream of emails from Substack reminding me to monetize my podcast. Clearly they think there is a big market for podcasts about really old films that no one knows or cares about, but I’m skeptical. Nonetheless, I’ve acquiesced to their polite demands, and have created a paid option of this Substack. The perk? If you pay you can see the list of films I’ve concocted. Keep in mind, I’m still adding to it all the time as I realize “oh yeah, that movie exists,” so it’s a work in progress, and one that you can now be privy to for the small fee of whatever it is Substack charges people for paid posts.
If anyone is dumb kind enough to subscribe, I’ll come up with some other fun perks. I was thinking that maybe a video tour of the library of film books I sometimes consult while researching articles could be fun, and I have some other ideas. In any event, feel free to send your hard earned money my way if you see fit.
Another feature Substack has been pushing on me is chat. They now have a way for readers to chat with one another. I’m not too clear on how it works, but maybe all my subscribers who aren’t commenting can also not chat. That sounds fun, so I’ll look into it.
The last thing I want to bring up while I’m writing about something other than a movie is a website I like called Letterboxd. It’s a site where you can keep track of what films you watch, write reviews of films, create lists, and so forth. I’ve been using it since 2014 to keep track of what I watch, though in a very half-assed way. I’ve tried to be better about that lately, and I’m pretty good about entering films I see in a theater, but I tend to be pretty haphazard when it comes to stuff I watch at home. However, fans of this podcast may enjoy the lists I’ve created to track what I write about here. Anyway, if you like movies, check out Letterboxd. And no, they did not pay me to say that, I just like that site.
If you’d like to see them, here are the lists I’ve created so far for the All the Movies podcast. You can click each one to be taken to the list. The 1915 list is still private when I write this, but I’ll make it public once I’ve posted the last of the podcasts for films from 1915, so I may as well drop it here for future readers.
And that’s it for this little intermission.
Another Quick Intermission