Hello from a freshly refrozen winter wonderland, gorgeous Benzie County in Northern Michigan, USA. The epicenter of transmogrifying cinema for the middle of Turtle Island and perhaps everywhere because, yep, this is where the Daughter of God will incarnate, she is coming and you, YOU are helping, you’re in on the blessed event by listening to this podcast and even more so when you offer feedback.

Just back from Chicago and Dan Savage’s Hump! Film Festival, Where Everyone is Sexy. Just doing research, I didn’t have anything entered. The short films had more humor than arousal going on, at least for me. Variations on intimacy that expanded my horizons, tho I’m still mostly straight. Humans are amazing.

Yet even with all those writhing bodies, I was itching to get home and back to Daughter of God. Nothing is sexier right now!

Before Hump! I visted Chicagoland Toys and Hobbies, and bought three boxes of 1/48th scale Hasagawa Aircraft ordnance and a tiny Predator drone. That sort of made up for missing the Great Lakes Scale Modeler meeting in Traverse City. Model shop? Miniatures?

Nuts and Bolts

The stats for social media as of Sunday February 18, 2018.

Vimeo.com Canyon Princess had 12 plays on vimeo and 1 play on dog.movie for a total of 13 plays total, with 23 impressions and a 57% play rate. Because I posted a 12 second version and then a 36 second version, the engagement graph was whacked, dropping to 45%.

Ello.com
Messed up the tags and forgot to enable the video, so traffic was light, tho inexplicably there was 1 love. After fixing on Sunday evening, 61 views.

Facebook.com
261 people reached, 129 views for 50 minutes and 2 shares, Ray and Joe. 3000 secs / 19 secs long = 157 plays. 129 views / 157 plays = 82% engagement.

Most watched

Do it Again leads on Vimeo with 24 plays followed by Smart Money with 16 plays and 12 Mediatronic Ads with 15 plays. Canyon Princess is 4th with 13 plays. The Vimeo audience is tiny compared to Facebook. On Facebook, Open Season leads with 214 views, followed by Canyon Princess with 132 views, then Smart Money with 112 and Do It Again with 89.

Overall

Views of dog.movie declined over the last week or so, but looking back over a 6 month history, there’s a steady increase. I haven’t checked the Google stats in months. Maybe we’ll got there in Episode 079.

The stats for the podcast show that listens were down by 50% starting in November of 2017, before the Crowd Creation started, and then perked up a bit in February of 2018.

On Vimeo the Daughter of Godcast Episode 077 had 5 plays (4 on dog.movie, 2 on vimeo), 18 impressions and a 28% play rate. Less than half the plays of Canyon Princess. That applies to the entire Crowd Creation, there are more plays of the scenes than the podcast episodes, so far.

For the unabridged social media analysis, check out the transcription for this episode, and btw this is Episode 078 Best Scenario Yet, Season Two of Daughter of Godcast, Crowd Creation. The unabridged social media analysis, read the full transcription at www.dog.movie, Episode 078. Here’s the overview. Generally, Crowd Creation is becoming more accessible, especially on Facebook. Each scene seems to perform better than the previous scene. Canyon Princess is the second most watched scene after Open Season, which was also true last week with Do It Again.

Feedback

There’s so much great feedback coming in that from now on I’m only going to give an overview. That means I can speculate and have epiphanies like crazy without having to worry about how long the episode will take to record and edit. For you transcription readers, more Dan Kelly goodness.

The gurgling of gentle river current and the chanting of devotees echoes off steep rock walls. Far above, a massive derelict is silhoutted against the azure blue, a rust pitted and ancient remembrance of the long ago.

The feedback question was, what (if any) connection is there between this scene and Elon Musk’s space car?

All the feedback for Canyon Princess is consolidated as comments on Episode 077.

Canyon Princess was posted twice, as an excerpt of 19 seconds and then complete at 37 seconds. Joe and Pam both had beautiful commentary on the short version that’s still up on Facebook.

Joe on FB.

weird juxtapositions, the calming water, lifeless background, complacently mystical voices in prayer (all too reminiscent of my discomforts as a child experiencing organized religion and the smug, grossly ego laden knowers of truth). A lot of thoughts flowed through, a prayer to the ship (the princess) a relic of the lost garden of eden of our present (much like Musk’s car maybe for our descendants one day). Two voices, male and female, a new Adam and Eve? The future seems slow moving like the water, the red rocks feel like the hellish side of purgatory like crossing a desert, but the blue sky seems hopeful and you catch a tinge of that in the prayer and that the ship points up and to the left seems to suggest progress and the past or maybe that both those things are now dead. All in all, lightly eerie and discomforting – maybe that’s the point.

Joe is gives phenomenal feedback. By bringing himself to the table, he is contributing big time to DOG and also demonstrating how fun and easy feedback is… he just notices what comes up for him and writes about those feelings.

The chanters in Canyon Princess remind Joe of organized religion of which he is not a fan. Maybe because the chant starts off with “To her spirit, let us pray.” I lazily borrowed “let us pray” from the Catholics, and thought that the object pronoun “her” would be a fun flip of patriarchal divinity. Not so for former Catholics. Catholicism has a strong feminine aspect, the BVM or Blessed Virgin Mary, and so praying to a “her” would prolly still resonate for Catholics and ex-Catholics alike.

Joe wondered if the big boat might be “a relic of a lost garden of Eden”, and the chanters “a new Adam and Eve”? Again there’s that strong Christian overlay – really, really helpful.

The chanting could be gently tweaked, I don’t want to imply Christianity by default.

I love Joe’s observation that “the future seems slow moving,” and the interplay of hellish red rocks and hopeful blue sky. For Joe, the orientation of the ship “seems to suggest progress and the past or that both of these things are now dead”. Whoa, that’s super intriguing. In the Daughter of God universe are progress and the past dead? I want to give that some thought.

Pam on FB.

Eerie and hypnotic, and the prayer chant nicely hints at the stranded ship atop the canyon walls. Certainly piques one’s curiosity about the origin story, and sure, Elon Musk’s car (maybe more like his SpaceX project) could have a role in that. Loved the atonal weaving of the two voices and the concept of nature’s canyon as a house of worship, or at least spiritual center. I may have more to say later as well…..

Of all the feedback for Canyon Princess, Pam’s made me the most happy. Only after reading “Certainly piques one’s curiosity about the origin story,” did I realize that Pam articulated my agenda for most of the vignettes posted so far. How the fuck did that cruise ship end up at the top of that canyon? The implication is that there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, consistent with the DOG universe, so that the audience expects to, wants to find out.

Perhaps these scenes are like interlocking puzzle pieces, such that they both give and get context from their neighboring scenes. Canyon Princess as a single thread woven into a colorful and captivating tapestry of story. In the final cut, the origin of Canyon Princess could be discoverable, but perhaps not obvious.

Is an elegant pattern desirable? Can randomness be a captivating aesthetic?

In the TV series Twin Peaks, David Lynch tossed out one mystery after another, but he never offered a pattern to fit them into. That worked for 30 episodes or 2 seasons, and then the audience crashed. Maybe David Lynch didn’t really want to make a TV series, he was off making Wild At Heart for most of season 1 according to Mark Frost and Salon.

I also totally love Pam’s “nature’s canyon as a house of worship or at least spiritual center”. That is also very encouraging, we’re on the right track.

In episode 077, I offered lots more hints about the Elon Musk connection, but slashed them out to shorten the podcast. They are still in the transcription however, but only a few of the faithful prefer the transcription to the audio. I dropped another clue on Facebook just for fun.

<hint2> I’ve seen criticism of the Falcon Heavy launch as a publicity stunt. I can’t say what Elon’s motivations are, but looking back ~12,600 years ago and even just 1000 years ago, I like to think he’s being pro-active. I’m dreaming of a compassionate and just human culture moving out to the stars, or at least to Mars. But that’s not Elon’s responsibility, that’s all of ours. </hint2>

Whereas Joe and Pam only mentioned the Elon Musk space car connection in passing, Scott and Seamus leveraged Elon to leap right off planet. Pretty sure they both were watching the completed longer version.

Scott on Vimeo

[snip] This scene has this eerie luminance of the canyon country, coupled with the burbling audio track, intonation of robotic worshippers, paying homage to the big boat in the sky…making this viewer wonder at the passage the worshippers reference, their berths in the ship… Ala Elon Musks Tesla Starship… Parked upon some distant Mesa/pinnacle, like a Super Bowl ad pimping the next, best, incarnation of tiny carbon boot prints, or a green and smokey cast to some persons existence…
The scene conveyed to me the sense that one might have on a post, post, post apocalyptic Circle Line cruise around what’s left of Manhatten, with monolithic vestiges of the 20th/21st century rusting and disintegrating on bridges, building skeletons, and the rotting husk of Trump Towers…
I am truly anxious to see the entirety of DOG, as this amazing variety pack of these little boxes of prepackaged goodness are a veritable tease of Sugar Smacks, Fruit Loops, and Count Chocula… I’m ready for a veggie, cheese, and chorizo packed omelette of epic proportions- when is breakfast? [snip]

Scott wonders if the big boat is actually a derelict starship, converted I guess like the FTL tramp freighters from the Gentle Release Daughter of Godcast Episode 039 or the influential 70s anime series Space Battleship Yamamoto. He then waxes a little too poetic for me to follow, but I get the gist. Very cool interpretation, makes me rethink the premise.

Scott then gives some crucial feedback about the scenes so far, “I am truly anxious to see the entirety of DOG, as this amazing variety pack (of scenes) are a tease.” He seems to saying that he’s ready for more substantial content. I replied with several questions to get clarity about what he’s experiencing.

[snip]

Are you saying that you are itching for more substantial content? That even though the scenes have so far been tasty, that they leave you feeling unsatisfied, even frustrated? Are you feeling doubtful that these scenes can come together to form a deeply fulfilling cinematic experience? Are you loosing interest in Crowd Creation?

Seamus via dog.movie

Meanwhile Seamus dazzled yet again with another hilarious alternate narrative. “Elon Musk (in his 5th body) decided to one-up himself on launching absurd vehicles into space.” The mission to send a cruise ship to orbit Mars runs amuck and threatens to “cause an extinction level event on a planet still struggling to be habitable.” But possibly all that success landing boosters comes in handy and they’re able to drop the big boat on Mars intact, “cruise ship payload alighted near the top of a rust-red Martian canyon“. Duh! Rust-red Martian canyon, of course! This shot could be a terraformed Mars! See how cool feedback is? So fixated on my premise was I that this never occurred to me. Goodness gracious.

Does relocating Canyon Princess to Mars advance the DOG gestalt? Possibly. Maybe. Gonna let this settle in.

Best Scenario Yet

Two mismatched hands clasp across a stainless steel surgical table, one young and smallish, the other large, dry and discolored by ill health. Over the sounds of a busy hospital ambience, an unconventional farewell speech. The rasping voice asserts that his death is an illusion, a trick he is playing on everyone else, except her.

Question

Is the person with the rasping voice worthy of trust? What other impressions do you get?

Stupendous and vital feedback once again, so lucky to have courageous collaborators sharing inner experience. I’d welcome a few more, maybe YOU have an impression to offer? C’mon Mr Beebe, have a bathe.

You’ve successfully recovered your booster rockets with the Daughter of Godcast, episode 078, Best Scenario Yet. What planet is this anyway? Earth, Mars or other? Jigsaw pieces strewn across the table, 1000s possibly, a panorama of rust red desert, a roiling ocean at dawn, other? The big picture’s out of focus, too soon to tell. A handful of fragments glint and flicker. Eight scenes so far, disparate, teasing, random. This a self aware puzzle, mediatronic and fluid. The images on each piece seem to shift as they are placed, influenced by their neighbors. With your attention, your touch, you decide. Is this my movie or yours? Shri Fugi Spilt discovers himself to be a mere steward, a pinch of catalyst that starts the reaction fizzling. No audience before you has ever made a movie like this! Transient personas cascade from our attention, our beliefs. Practice with us full presence, enter the Daughter of God dojo, sanctified temple, sacred cave. An adventure of a thousand revelations begins with your first comment, and there will likely be stickers and t-shirts along the way.