Let's have a look around and see how we're doing...
LAMB Membership
My initial reaction months back when I saw the number of LAMBs jump from 13 to 18 to 24 in February through April was that I would have so many new LAMBs on my hands by now that I would need a team of people to help me weed through them all. That's turned out to not be the case, but that's not a bad thing at all. We're averaging a steady 19 new LAMBs/month since March, and that's including an incomplete October, where we will indeed hit 200 before the LAMBs B-day (10/31). We're sitting at 196 right now, but I have 5 or 6 in the hopper already.
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Plugs
I just posted this the other day, but if any upcoming special events (blog-a-thons, contests, etc.), shoot me an email or post about it at the Forums.
Recently "Baaah-ed" LAMBs
Yeah, it's a terrible name, but you might be glad to hear that I've added the Blogger feature "Blog List" to the bottom of the right sidebar. Every active (meaning, URL still works) LAMB has been added to the list, so every time you update your site, it will show up on the LAMB. I have it set to display only the most recent 25, but you can click "Show All" to see everyone (or make sure you're on there; if you're not, let me know!). Additionally, this serves as a great tool for seeing who the inactive (no posts in weeks/months) are.
LAMB Top 10s
Here's the number of votes by genre for the Top 10s we've had thus far:
Comedies: 36
Action/Adventure: 30
Horror: 55
Sports movies: 25
Westerns: 34
Musicals: 24
Animated Films: 16
Documentaries (active): 16
Doc voting ends tomorrow, so hurry to the polls! As a bonus, don't forget that I've made the choice of which genre to do next a democratic one, adding a question at the end of the poll for you to tell me what to do next. Majority wins.
Who are LAMB? (part II)
About five months ago, when we had around 100 LAMBs, I asked you all to participate in a little demographic study to see who you all were. The results were interesting; click here if you'd like to see them.
Well, I'd like to take the temperature again. I've set up a new poll, updated with some suggestions from those of you that took the survey last time. I've got it set to run for a month, but please, take a minute or two to go do it now. It's really short, non-invasive, and...well, just too much fun than should be legally allowed. Go take it now!
A LAMB Partnership
You know how, every now and then, you'll receive an email from some small filmmaker asking you to screen their film and give a review for it?
Recently, I got an email from a freelance marketer (and aspiring filmmaker) named Erik Martin. He represents a number of smaller filmmakers and distributors and he found the LAMB online. Wisely, he was thinking that it might be better to work with the LAMB (and shoot one email) rather than shooting off (potentially) hundreds.
I'd been looking for exactly this sort of thing for the LAMB. I'd love for indie filmmakers to come to the LAMB to promote their films; if it can't be a centralized resource, what can?
Long story short (and there were a lot of other ideas thrown around between Erik and myself), Erik has his first "project" for us, and here it is in his words:
"David Weissman, the producer of Kiss of a Spider Woman is available and would be excited to do an interview with the LAMB community. I think it would be best to do the one central interview where everyone can re-post, and then if any bloggers want a follow-up interview I can see if David would be interested in those as well. He'd be great to discuss everything from Saul Bass to Roger Corman, but I think the ordeal of how he produced KISS would be especially interesting to the community.
Here's the trailer for the making of doc on Kiss and David's Bio.
I'd also have review copies (DVD or Blu-Ray) for any blog that wanted to review."
So, what I'm looking for right now is just interest from you. If you have any questions for Mr. Weissman (or can think of any good ones), post them here. If I get a handul more after a few days, I'll send them along to Erik. He'll get the answers, and I'll post the "interview" on the LAMB, which anyone can re-post on their site. Additionally, let me know if you'd like a review copy and I'll send that list on to him as well.
Any questions, let me know...
LAMB Events
Finally, just a hearty thank you (in case I haven't said it enough) to the latest members of the LAMB editorial team, Dreamrot, host of Trailer Talk, and Carla, host of Stump the LAMBs. I know we don't have fancy schmancy graphics for these features yet, but I'm workin' on it (Mrs. Fletch, who serves as the LAMB's creative firm when she's not running her own business, has been pretty busy as of late). Of course, should any of you have ideas for graphics, or - better yet - have the time to create something, let me know.
Also, I know we have a lot of new faces, so we probably have a lot of folks that aren't aware of our "battle" events that we've had in the past. Nick of R2D2 has been the host for them previously (you can see them here and here), but is busier than a presidential candidate these days with his student-teaching gig (on top of regular school and blogging, along with watching movies, of course). If anyone would like to orchestrate (or even suggest a theme) a new one, head over to the LAMB Forums and start up a discussion. It's definitely time for a new one.
Eek - one more thing. The LAMB MOTM is due soon! Don't forget it.
