Sunset on Perelandra
Last summer, I was at a friend's going-away party, meeting new people, and I was trying to tell this gentleman I'd just met about Real American.
"Where can I find it?" he asked.
"You have to look up Real American on YouTube," I said. "Well, except you can't just look up 'Real American' because Hulk Hogan comes up. So you have to look up 'Real American Perelandra.' Perelandra is spelled P-E-R-E–"
Whenever I promoted my work, I found myself having to spell out Perelandra. And each time, I could see people's eyes glazing over. No one knows how to spell Perelandra, and no one knows how to pronounce it. I'm not even sure I'm saying it correctly! My all-time favorite mispronunciation I've heard is "Perlandria."
When I picked the name, I thought it was a cool reference that sounded otherworldly in a way that fit a sci-fi studio. I wasn't thinking about Google searches.
Now that I'm moving away from no-budget filmmaking, I'm sunsetting Perelandra in favor of Cinder. It's easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and it's a simple word I can put in big, bold letters on a poster or the cover of a book. I'm trying to learn from the many mistakes I've made as a business owner. In this case, the lesson I've learned is: make it easy for people to find your work.
Speaking of my mistakes, I'm seriously considering hosting a YouTube series about my experiences as a filmmaker called Everything I Did Wrong. The pitch is:
"Do the opposite of everything I did, and you just might succeed at filmmaking."
For example, I think I have a novel take on that age-old question: "Should I go to film school?" I went, and yes, it was a mistake, but not for the usual reasons.
Would anybody be interested in that sort of thing?
Also, even though this is a mailing list, I don’t want it to be too formal. Let me know what you are up to or whether these emails are too long or if every month is too frequent.
Thank you for reading!
–Jacob de la Rosa