You Are Your Own Star Meter! - Take Charge of Your Internet Movie Database Profile, etc

My Internet Movie Database Star Meter was up 1558% two weeks ago. My writing partner's rating had increased as high as 950% too!

Pop the champagne!

What heady heights of popularity I must have been enjoying without ever realizing it. And if I wanted to know why I was experiencing such a meteoric rise all I had to do was sign up for imdb Pro for a modest price. But basically all the Star Meter does is check out how many queries there are about you on imdb and box office receipts. It's hardly an accurate Q Rating service. The truth I already know why my popularity was up.

My interest in myself was rising!

During the summer I received an e-mail congratulating my writing partner and myself on being submitted for consideration to the Gemini Awards. Of course, there was no hint of what script was submitted. Nor did we have any hint of who submitted us.

Weeks later it was confirmed, one of our Iggy Arbuckle scripts had been nominated. We worked hard on developing the show then turned it over to story editors Myra Fried and Steve Wright. I remember we were determined to take advantage of the short window we had for writing scripts before moving on to another project and make them as spectacular as possible. Looks like it payed off!

But it was hard to focus on celebrating the nomination or anything work related when the countdown had begun for my wife's big immigration to the Great White North from the United States. In fact, the whole summer I made little effort on the career front. I told myself I needed to recharge my batteries.

Soon after my wife’s arrival we got all dolled up to go a Gemini reception. In a smart bit of party planning, they booked the reception weeks before the awards so people could actually relax, talk to each other and drink without worrying about a possible speech moment. My wife’s recent experience at the Emmy Awards was quite the opposite, with everyone standing around nervously hours before the show either talking distractedly while looking over your shoulder for a better networking opportunity, living in fear of making a fool of yourself on stage, or praying that if you don't win, you will still look gracious and delighted for the person or people who beat you.

So here’s to Canada and ACCT and the Geminis for doing it up right!

For a night, my writing partner and I both let go of the feeling we’d been spinning our wheels, until she ran into an agent who decried our pathetic imdb presence. It made sense that people who might want to google would find little information and a fuller imdb profile would at least back up our player status.

That is how I ended up spending the better of week inputting as many of various credits as I could. Inputting on the site is a challenge, with many style settings creating denials and the need for internet proof of the existence of shows or episodes (often without a space to put that proof!)

It takes a while for any changes to show up but our profiles are much more accurate than they were. The site rejected some items but not others so there’s still a number of things to add and correct. But now a casual search will back up the career and experience I really have.

Within two weeks my Star Meter is up a modest 9%. I'll take the drop with a smile. Because I know I'm back on the hunt, planning how to reach my new goals. And I'm not going to overlook any tool.

Like this blog for instance.

Three months ago, I started a Star Wars themed, Sci-Fi Blog, www.rebelalert.com, to go back up www.theimperialnews.com, a website I helped create to support my friend Darryl Gold's fan film, Death Star Repairmen. I found more of the silly stuff getting pushed aside to write ideas and realized one blog would not suffice.

I do have things to say about television writing and art. I have many idea to explore; to twist and turn until new insights are found or old insights are illuminated. In short, I just may have something to add to the world of the web after all. Now to see how disciplined I can be about posting! Come along and enjoy the ride.

Incidentally, my wife's Star Meter is up 304% since last week. Any guesses what I've been up to this weekend? ;)

Live the adventure.