Fanatic Crew

Please make sure to check out my update to the last post. It will land you the comfort of knowing there is one more David Fincher commercial out there you have seen!

Listen inside yourselves: Do you know a situation where you want to do something and you want it so much and so totally that you want everything to be perfect, which only leads to you putting it off and off and off? I know what that is like and this post will be the end of that in a major way. Is that a perfect cliffhanger or what?

I am not very aware of anniversaries. That's the only explanation I have of why every beginning of the year I think, wow, wouldn't it be great to have something really special for the Fincher blog on it's anniversary this year. And then that date comes and goes, as it did this year, again, and nothing happens. I barely even mention it on the blog.

Well, believe it or not, the fincherfanatic Fincher blog has been around for a little more than three years now, and I am very glad to keep seeing some of the same names around and know that this little site is the major Fincher news resource out there. I want to thank you all for that, because this site lives and breathes with your contributions.

And let me say something very important upfront: This is not the scene where all of a sudden I start asking for money, like the last site did. So relax, wipe the sweat of your foreheads, what I am announcing won't cost you a dime.

Here's the downside of running this blog "on the side": In the last three years I have luckily gotten round to having more and more assignment work in my real life job, which means I have less and less time and nerve to work on the Fincher blog. And by "working" on the Fincher blog I don't mean blurting out some half-baked news post every once in a week. Working on this blog would offer such a wealth of cool things to do, it's even kind of hard to sum it all up.

When I think about all this blog could be, and when I think about just how awesome I would love to make this blog in order to come even close to the appreciation I feel for David Fincher's work and genius, it's actually depressing to see how little I get done -- despite all your wonderful contributions. I would love to make this blog look a lot more appealing, I would love for it to have a sleaker and better design in terms of surfability and organizational structure, I would love to follow up all stories ever posted and make sure there are working links available, but most I would love to be able to take more time for research and the development of original content -- analysis of Fincher's art and craft, behind the scenes stories we fanatics care about, interviews with some of the great minds Fincher has collaborated with and of course (never giving up) putting the ultimate effort into getting an interview or even as much as an established contact to the management and to David Fincher himself.

That's a load. And I realized the very bottleneck of why very little of these cool things are happening is my inability to devote more time to the site. As many of you fine contributors have noticed, it happened more than once that you send me some truly fantastic finds but they kept crowding up in my inbox for a prolonged period of time, simply due to time constraints or severe disorganization on my part. I apologize for that, and with this post moving forward I am hoping we can start a new chapter on the blog.

Here's the idea, bare boned: I would love to find a handful of you, who would love to help out on the blog. Whatever you are good at and whatever you would have fun working on, whether that be web design, research, maintaining the archive of (wow, it's been more than) 420 posts or write new stories -- if you want to contribute to this site and help to make it better, I would love to hear from you.

Drop me an email here and let me know what excites you. You can send me feedback and ideas of what you would love to see on the blog as well as suggestions on what you would love to do. Let's assemble a core team to handle all the challenges and work on more of the potentials this site has to offer! That would excite me!

My perfectionism is kicking in again, warning me to add more detail and figure out more precisely that trappings and workings of how this will all work out. But I say: yeah, give it a rest, it will all come together. Of course we will need to agree on some "rules and regulations" and "terms of collaboration" if you will. But if you don't mind, drop me an email and we will figure this stuff out together.

So that's it, hope to see you in the virtual editing room soon. Since I don't know how many people will respond to this, let me say upfront, I believe the perfect team size for this blog would be around three to five, so in case everyone comes knocking we will have to "downsize", haha. But in case noone writes it will all remain the same old. So I guess, listen into yourself if you have a real passion to do some work for the site, and if you do -- write me.

6 comments:

  1. By chance do you have a Twitter feed that links back to the site? A good way for more traffic! :) The site is fantastic. I wish I had skills to help out.

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  2. I love this site. I guess I know this place almost "from the beginning". I'm not quite into money at the moment (for some time...), but I'd like to make a friendly monthly subscription of 1 $. So I'll send you my humble 12 bucks for this year's (poorly but sincerely appreciated) worth if you fix a PayPal pipe or something similar

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  3. Thanks for your comments.

    1) I do not have a Twitter account and haven't looked into it, to be honest. How does it work?

    2) George, I am really, really glad you like the site and have been with it since the beginning. I appreciate your offer to make a "friendly subscription", and I think this is not what this blog should be and will be about. The only "pay" you should give for this blog is to come back to visit if you like it. I confess at the beginning I thought, if the blog makes money on the side it would be great. Well, it doesn't and that's fine. It's not about making money. I am running ads to cover server costs and related expenses, like I wish I could have more sweepstakes and contests going on, but the last one nearly bankrupted me... ;-)

    So I guess this goes out to everyone: I appreciate all financial offers, because they show your appreciation for this Fincher newssite. However, I don't intend to make money with this blog, it spoils the spirit of true admiration and appreciation of Fincher's genius.

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  4. Wish I could make a contribution, been following this blog for a couple of years now, I appreciate the time you spent on it; would love to see the site blossom into something bigger.

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  5. I guess the best thing about Twitter is just the speed at which information is spread. Unfortunately, there's a real lack of anything Fincher over there. I follow a lot of Tv and movie info, for example the movie site Get the Big Picture. Whenever it is updated, he sends a tweet out. It's a nice "reminder" for days I have forgotten to click over there and see what's new.

    I'm not sure how Blogspot works, but a lot of sites like this now have the option to send directly to Twitter or Facebook. If there's not a way to automatically send a feed to Twitter, then you could always set up an account and do it manually.

    Just a thought! :) It's definitely a way to gain more traffic which could mean more help/ideas and ultimately growth! :)

    I'm sorry if that was a huge ramble that made zero sense.

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  6. please, think about it, i'm not suggesting a compulsory payment. just found out that roger ebert (kind of) does it, from now on: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/03/i_wonder_if_this_will_work.html . take a look at the videos too (added value, micropayments etc.), it's simply about acknowledging & respecting the value of "web" work. and your site is not a newbie, it definitely proved its usefulness over (a long) time, now it's the go-to place for fincher stuff. updating the database and digging for well stashed bits and pieces of info/pictures/interviews over the internet (and not only) will require patience and dedication and a bunch of other qualities, day and night. so, being like a couple of oceans away, at least i can "cover" for a couple of mugs of coffee, to keep you guys from falling asleep right before finding a scratched and torn photo of fincher kicking the millennium falcon.

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