How we work during COVID-19 Lockdown

Dear Readers,

a lot of people have shared their experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown around the world.

For us the lockdown was a little blessing as we used the time to focus ourselves and to give our projects in post-production a massive boost.

This is the reason why we may come late with our experiences because it was a great one.

The lockdown first had some negative influence on our work as we had to decide to stop the production of #RightNow and the planning for our filming in Fall. Instead of being depressed from what is not possible now, we decided to use the Chance to give other parts a boost.

Of course, like all people we have been working from home. Our advantage was that we already worked and communicated online and introduced a Cloud platform to share and exchange our work. We had not much to change in our way of working.

 

Krung Thep

Before COVID-19 brought the world to lockdown we already finished version 6 of our raw-cut for the Krung Thep documentary which is planned to premiere this summer. The lockdown gave us the chance to focus on the finalization of the voice over script which goes into the third stage now. We also go the chance to fix some problems we had with the video editing process since we updated the software. This was an important milestone for all our productions. We believe that the lockdown will not have any negative consequences to the publication date of Krung Thep.

 

Special Events

The lockdown gave us time to cut some Special Event episodes from the material filmed in Thailand in September 2019. We focused the Island Ko Si Chang in the Guelf of Thailand. One part gave a general introduction of the Island. Parts 2 and 3 focused on underwater filming, which is for us still in an experimental status. Parts 4 and 5 will come soon. All events should give a small preview to what Thailand can offer in beautiful places before Krung Thep starts. We used the chance to test a new publication method. Parts 1 to 3 have been published on all video compatible social media accounts and the website at the same time including the sharing on several groups on Facebook which we became member in the last months. In our view this test was very successful as we decided to use this way for all future Special Events and trailers for other productions. For our huge Original Productions, the website, Vero and YouTube will be the only publication platforms.

 

SPACE-FRIDAY

The lockdown gave us the chance to give the production of the second SPACE-FRIDAY Season a massive push. We finished the raw cuts of 3 episodes and the voice over scripts for 4 episodes. We will be soon be able to communicate the date for the Season Premier and the monthly publication dates of the further episodes as specific as possible. A trailer will be published as well. We also give SPACE-FRIDAY a push on YouTube as you can read in the next paragraph.

 

YouTube

During the lockdown a lot of people were sitting at home, streaming or had to educate their kids at home. We thought this could be a great idea to bring our YouTube Channel to the attention of the people. As we are suffering for years with low viewer numbers on YouTube, we used social media to push the YouTube Channel. With SPACE-FRIDAY we have an interesting production who purpose it is to educate people about space science. As many kids and their parents have been trapped at home, we tried to make SPACE-FRIDAY interesting to them. We can say, compare to the former viewing numbers this was a success and we are happy that our social media promotion was effective, even if we are talking about low-level numbers.

 

Instagram & Facebook

Our new advertisement channels on Instagram and Facebook also got some boost from us. The simultaneous publication of the Special Events showed a huge success so that we decided to publish old "exclusive Content" from our Vero Account from 2018 and 2019 on Instagram and Facebook as well. This is still in progress and will only be material from before September 2019. All Originals will stay exclusive to the website and later YouTube and Vero.

We also used the time to start communication with some Influencers and Companies about possible collaborations. We also get in touch with people who have given us advice to increase the quality of our future productions.

 

Advertising & collaboration programs

Since January we are working on an official business registration to create the legal base for our paid advertising and collaborations programs. These processes are almost finished as we are expecting to get our VAT number next month.

The waiting gave us the time to reorganize our collaboration programs and to calculate the prices for paid collaborations. All our collaboration partners for paid promotion will get a proper invoice about every ordered promotion. All details will be published on our collaboration page soon.

We have been starting to request several companies and Influencers to build up a collaboration (paid and non-paid). Everyone who wants to contact us for a collaboration can email us to advertising@nemethstarproductions.de

In April we have also started an Account on Patreon. You can now get a patron of ours. We have two Patreon tiers. Once for 3 € per Month, another for 15 Euros per Month. All tiers will give you exclusive first information about post-production, trailers, wallpapers and status updates. With the 15 Euros tier you will be able to decide for which project or part of post-production we should use your donation.

You can also still donate via PayPal Me to us.

 

The website

Since months we are angry about some small bugs on our website. We have used the time also fixe the most of them. First, we fixed a mistake in the thumbnail sizing and updated the page for "Picture the Food". We re-ordered our history timeline on the front page and prepared the project page for Krung Thep. Several updates on our "productions"-map have been done as well in the "Originals"-Overview page. We introduced a GDPR conform Cookie policy already in January.

Currently we are preparing some changes to our privacy policy and adding a cancelation policy page for future costumers, mainly for our paid collaboration programs. These updates will come online soon.

 

Statistics

We used the time of the lockdown as well to build a well readable statistics for the video views on our website. These stats were first published beginning of May 2020. We updated our list of social media channels in the statistics. In June we will first publish video statistics for Vero, Facebook and Instagram, as best as it is possible for us to get numbers from these social media networks.

 

Post Lockdown

What's the plan when we talk about filming own content? Currently the material for all original productions in 2020 is filmed and saved. What about 2021 and further? Our original plan for further filming in Asia in Fall 2020 is canceled. The preparation for beginning of 2021 are on hold as it is our filming slot for South Africa. We are observing the COVID-19 situation in South Africa to make final decision in late summer. The filming in Asia could be combined with the filming in South Africa after February 2021. Also, for Asia we are observing the COVID-19 situation in several countries that could be our destination for the next Asian production.

Nevertheless, in the last 5 years we collected material from South African and many European countries which was still not used for our productions. If filming in the beginning of 2021 is not possible, we can use these materials to create a journey through Europe. A possible third and fourth Season of SPACE-FRIDAY are not in danger as we acquire the video materials from NASA, ESA, ESO, DLR and JAXA.

We hope that we can go back to a normal state of filming, without restrictions, by the end of 2021.

International filming also includes our Picture Event Series #RightNow which accompanies our filming destinations live. As are all filming are canceled for 2020, #RightNow will only return for a few episodes this year. If the COVID-19 situation in Germany continues to relax as it is now, we hope for a few single episodes of #RightNow around Frankfurt in June and July - in Europe maybe until the end of the year. But everything depends on the continued relaxing of the COVID-19 situation in Germany and Europe.

The second Season of "Picture the Food" in 2021 is save as well. The final 4 episodes of Season 1 will premiere in the coming weeks. We have enough food pictures of international, local and self-cooked foods to run a second season in the beginning of 2021.

Of course, we also still have a few seasons of our Original Writings Ungekleart (Cold and Open) and Fluchtpunkt (Vanishing Point) available and waiting for us to get an update and being publish. They are still planned for 2020, 2021 and 2022. We also working on a new Captured Miniseries that continues the story of where the first miniseries ended. We have also some other Miniseries in the backyard for publication.

At all you can see that you don't need to worry about getting new content on our website. In which media ever we will be able to bring content to your screen until 2025.

This is what we have done during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Best wishes,
Your Nemeth/Star Productions News Blog