BrokenProjector.com

One year of Dutch Angles, Double Bills, Interviews and Broken Projectors

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to announce the 1st year of Brokenprojector.com on the internet. Very recently Jonathan at Cinema Styles celebrated the first year of his blog by sending out some good technorati karma to all his favourite blogs in the sphere which is a very cool thing to do, to let your fellow cinebloggers know you care and send some love. I’m going to do the same here so lets just all imagine we’re all having a nice non-alcoholic pizza party with vegan options for every food item. Think of a nice football cake (soccer for the Americans), cone hats in primary colours fastened with uncomfortably tight rubber bands, Martin Scorsese piñatas, pineapple pizza and vanilla coke.

The Statistics

What good is looking back on a year of blogging without some numbers and figures? Like they say there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics- I apologize for quoting completely out of context but I felt like I needed to say something intellignent here. Anyway, first the firsts:

• Brokenprojector.com was officially purchased on July 16th, 2007.
• The first post was Brilliant Short-films #1: Pump. It was posted on July 18th, 2007 at 4:15 am.
• The first comment was made by Pacze Moj of Critical Culture on July 27th, 2007 at 4:27 am on the post Kammerspielfilm, Part 1: M by Fritz Lang.
• The first interview of the blog was with Andrew Semans and was published on August 7th, 2007 at 1:20 pm.
• The first entry to a Blogathon was for the Bizarro Blogathon held at Lazy Eye Theatre, published on August 28th, 2007 at 2:04 pm.
• The first Blogathon of the blog- The Double Bill-a-thon was proposed on September 12th, 2007 at 8:45 am and was hosted between October 22nd and 26th, 2007.
• The first Film Festival covered by the blog was the highly disappointing Hyderabad International Film Festival between January 4th and 10th, 2007.

Now the figures:

• Total hits since July 18th, 2007: 90,387
• Month with the most hits: April 2008 (10,441)
• Post that has generated most hits: Epic Hollywood Cinema and Unusually Wide Aspect Ratios (8, 404)
• Most used browser: Internet Explorer (43,180)
• Most used operating system: Windows XP (53,274)
• Most searched keywords: date beautiful women (577)
• Total amount of finances spent on the blog so far: $134.40
• Total income earned from AdSense: $8.32
• Current Alexa Rank: 831, 281
• Current Technorati Rank: 292,043
• Total number of posts: 71
• Total number of comments: 112

The Guest List

This is the part where I thank everybody that has helped directly or indirectly in spreading some good karma to this blog over the past one year.

• Jahsonic: Jan, you’ve given me two of the most addictive online phenomena in the form of your blog and The Culture Wiki. I wish I had the energy and the drive that you have for your online endeavours. Thanks for so much inspiration.
• Kimberly at Cinebeats: I can never get enough of your posts and your tasteful, high quality images of cinema’s finest moments (specially love the circle-cut ones). Your blog is an indulgence for any cine lover.
• Marilyn at Ferdy on films: You’re just an incredible writer!
• Ray at Flickhead: As with cinebeats, I’ve spent much time going through your wonderful blog and I continue to enjoy your collection of great images of cinema.
• Scott Nehring: Cannot get through my Friday evenings without awaiting your light at the seaport. It’s been an honour being a part of your fantastic Carnival of Cinema and I hope we continue to see another 527 episodes of it at the least!
• Vincent: Thank you for your wonderful blog and for proving that language barriers are no match for the spirit of cinema.
• Ed Hardy, Jr: For your great encouragement through the early days of the blog.
• Pat Piper at Lazy Eye Theatre: For an unmatched sense of humour and for Malcom X-Men: The Last Stand.
• Nitesh: Probably left the most comments on my blog, each the size of a full-length article. Thank you for your time and for your great interest in my blog.
• The Fantastic Filmmakers who’ve taken the time to share witht his blog some of their best experiences of making films: Andrew Semans, Ashvin Kumar, Guillaume Martinez, Blandine Lenoir, Daneeta Loretta Saft, Scott Cummings and Justin Calen Chiang.
• Other important people who I’d like to thank: Jonathan Lapper, Arbogast, Peter Nellhaus, Adam Ross, David Gaffen, J.D., Pacze Moj, Adam Hunt, Jeff Ignatius, Ed Howard, GCCR , Blueskelton and last but in no way the least Girish.

Thoughts and Plans for the Future

When I first started this blog I frankly did not think I’d last one year. I have a habit of starting many things and abandoning them somewhere along the line, I had started blogs before and websites even before that and have abandoned or discontinued them all. The same is the case with my career and personal relationships; none of the jobs or relationships that I’ve undertaken so far, have managed to sustain themselves for one year. So crossing the one year mark is something of a first to me. I am thrilled in a tragicomic way.

I’ve realized that I haven’t been too frequent with my writing on this blog lately and there are various personal and professional reasons that can be pointed at but the main problem with me is inspiration. It’s very difficult to be a cinephile in a country like India. People have no respect for cinema here and I don’t usually get to have a meaningful conversation on the subject of cinema- ever! It’s just too hard, trying to watch great films, finding something beautiful in them and then being completely lost to options of sharing that with anyone. I am a lover of cinema, I am a person who wants to eventually make his own films someday but that is just not possible here. It is just so very hard. I hate it when people talk in theatres when the movie is on, I hate it but I am always that guy in the movie hall who tells them to shut their respective traps and this is accentuated to a level of mad-man status by the fact that I’m always alone when I go to watch movies. I wonder what Satyajit Ray would’ve done if he were to be alive today and went to watch a movie at PVR Cinemas.

But crossing this one year mark gives me hope psychologically that perhaps this is a way for me to keep my love for cinema alive and not forget my primary dream in the harsh routine of the daily mechanical life, I don’t know but I just want to keep this little flame alive as long as I can.

For the future, my primary objective is to get back on a higher frequency of writing on this blog and make it more interactive through comments and discussions. But I don’t think I’m going to do that right away- I’m in the process of looking for a new job and only after I have done that and settled into it will I look forward to making some time for this blog again. I am especially looking forward to the 2nd edition of the Double Bill-a-thon this October, I’ll probably announce the final dates by the first week of September. There is a lot of work to be done on this blog, as with most marriages one must find a way to fall in love again. I need to get it out there even more- generate more traffic, spread more good karma and pierce the very hostile territories of world cinema and bring together in unification, one undeniable projector for the culture and the celebration of this wonderful craft that we love.

For I know one thing and I know it well- Cinema will save us!