Thank You From The Birthday Boy.
Monday, June 6, 2011 at 12:18PM 
How old is The Film Experience?
The Film Experience is so old that when we started Angelina Jolie was more famous for bloody antics (necklace vials, t-shirt scrawls) than for her humanitarian efforts. She had not yet collected or birthed any of those adorable children!
TFE is a dinosaur of the internet, yes, but it's a cute plant-eating one that never did anyone but Hilary Swank any harm! This dinosaur would like to live to see the next stage of human, animal, actress, mutant and movie evolution. You can prevent the meteor of webxtinction by donating just a couple dollars a month. It's like universal health care (TALKING ABOUT MOVIES SAVES LIVES!). If everyone reading pitched in a teensy bit nobody would notice the money and everyone would be healthier and happier and this service they need (heh) would always be available to them.
I promise to shut up about this real soon and thank you if you've already donated. You are the few, the proud, the sexy, the patron saints of The Film Experience community. (Some international readers are having trouble donating and some are not. I'll look into this.)
If you can spare the price of a cup of coffee (or more if things are good for you financially) once a month, please to consider it. If you're not comfortable with a recurring cup of coffee or tub of popcorn, why not a one time donation. It is Nathaniel's birthday after all... (Yes, I'm shameless. It's 2011) and I have boring needs like: computer maintenance. Example: I have to take both my desktop and my laptop in for maintenance / memory boosting next week.
Those spinny wheels on both Macs are just killing me and the Tek Serve people think my hard drive is going wobbly. Slowing me down soooo much.
BUT WHY DOES TFE NEED MONEY? All websites are free.
Nathaniel has been slow to monetize and he accepts full blame for that. He is working on solutions like a site store but he's slow about that because of the writing and the movie watching. TFE does not have corporate backing and Nathaniel does not have a trust fund. He almost had a book deal at one point but it fell apart. Simply put, ad revenues and freelance jobs pay some bills but not enough of them.
Basic expenses in running a site:
- regular costs (hosting, various web services, computer maintenance, dvd services, movie tickets when we aren't invited)
- This is the elephant in the room: TIME. It takes hours and hours to churn this stuff out daily making a regular 40-70 hour a week job an impossibility at our current rate of publishing. If Nathaniel goes back to that -- if they'll even have him (it's tough out there, as you may know) the site will have to vanish or be a weekly thing again like it was 10 years ago.
Professor R*'s psychic powers tell him you are still doubtful about donating. But think of how much more we could do here!Dreams for the site that would require turning a profit:
- Travel -- would love to cover Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, etcetera.
- Web Series -- Nathaniel is speaking to a videographer friend about this -- he's filming a documentary that I'm in right now (not movie related) -- and a few promising ideas are brewing but we'd need some operating budget.
- Better Computer Equipment In General (software programs, classes, etcetera)
- Health Care & 401 K. Okay... let's not get greedy. That's a dream for the scifi future. We'd have to become a huge corporate behemoth site and that's probably not happening any time soon.
Q: Won't you keep blogging even if I don't donate?
A: Probably in some form, yeah. This site has always been a labor of love and, well, an OCD can't-shut-up thing. But frequent blogging -- The Film Experience as it currently exists -- will have to end this year or in 2012 if finances don't turn around this Oscar year. Man cannot live on blogging alone.
Angelina Jolie, The Film Experience
Reader Comments (9)
Happy Birthday to you then.
(And I hope you won't mind my choice of one donation for a year's supply of coffees up front rather than subscribing to a monthly donation - I'm not a big fan of those subscriptions. But I'll gladly invite you to another round of coffees same time next year.)
Happy birthday from my side too.
I really like reading TFE so as soon as my new Master Card arrives (annoyingly I had to cancel my old one lately) I'll try to donate. I hope I have no problems since I'm in Germany.
Like MrW I think I'd also rather buy you coffee for a year in advance, or maybe popcorn for six months, and after these six months, we'll talk again.
Happy bithday!
I donated using Paypal and I had no problem (just hoped you received it, at least they gladly accepted it). All those safety measures get too lousy, when you make the most stupid mistake, like pressing enter when you don't have to- you have to fill in everything again. It took me 4 times, yes I can be really... thick, but other than that, no problems with my humble credit card.
I've donated once before and definitely will again... But as I'm a greater TV fan than a film buff, I want to request more entries about television... (yes, yes, I know it's the FILM experience!)
I didn't know FTE was so old... I think I started reading in 2008.
Happy Birthday, Nathaniel! Hope you had a great day!
I will donate in a lump sum a year's worth of coffees. However, I'll do it tomorrow from my work computer. At work we have better firewalls, security, protection...etc., so I'll feel more comfortable accessing my paypal account from that computer. BTW, much as I like films, I also like tv, shows such as True Blood, Game of Thrones...etc., so I'd like to have more coverage of them, if possible.
blinking and anthony --- i am definitely going to do more TV. I know that more people watch it and i'm noticing that all the other movie sites seem to do a lot of it. i should at least write about the tv i atcually watch
we'll see
thanks again everyone. MWAH.
I didn't have any problems with the donations using paypal either, although i don't think Canada counts as international anyway.
Happy Birthday Nat.
i hope you never have to stop the blog for any reason.
Happy birthday Nat!
I'm from Spain and had no problem donating with paypal. As long as you have a Visa card you are fine.
I think I just donated a monthly sum. I'm not sure if it went through or not. PayPal is so aggravating. I'll check my card statement, and, if it didn't go through, try again. I do hope you keep blogging. This is my favorite movie site, hands down.