Tuesday, 30 January 2001

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

From Yahoo! Internet Life's Best 100 Sites For 2001:

"Best Movie News & Gossip

Roughcut.com

Any entertainment site can give you weekend box-office figures, but Roughcut gives you the weekday numbers, too, as well as enough industry news to make you feel like a Hollywood player. We especially like David Poland's column, "The Hot Button," an entertaining mix of rumors, facts and ranting."

And now, it is but a memory. Well, most of it is. You can go and rummage through the roughcut archives. I believe that TNT will keep that cache of material available for a long time to come. The site was just months away from celebrating its fifth anniversary. And by my standards, we were just hitting our stride. But there was a brick wall called a merger that could not be maneuvered around. I'll tell the whole story sometime soon, but now is not the time for that.

I am very proud of the work this team did up at Sundance. Laura Rooney led the way, making sure that a massive and painfully slow railroad got across snow and rock and small explosions along the way. Jennifer Boynton edited over 5000 words a day of diverse and complex material. And Heather Feher kept the website looking sharp and easily navigable.

The writers were all revving at full speed. Each one brought a unique and vibrant style to the hard work of 10 straight days of both viewing and writing about the world of Sundance. Whether is was Rod Hewitt or Alli Joseph or Andy Klein or Ed Pelissier or Ray Pride (note the alphabetical order!), every day of columns gave readers a chance to see a view of Sundance that no one else even tried to deliver.

This staff worked through the entire festival, even with some knowledge of the rug that was about to be pulled out from under them. The work didn't suffer. And I couldn't be prouder of the effort.

So, what's next?

Well, for now, The Hot Button will continue here at the silly, but simply named DavidPoland.com. I'll be going to a 5 day a week schedule and in the days and weeks to come, by agreement with TNT, the entire archive of Hot Button columns (and The Whole Picture and Working Hollywood) will make their way to this site.

Honestly, I have no idea what comes after that. There are a lot of possibilities. My TV series looks like it will arrive sometime next fall, so you'll have to wait a while to ponder that. I've been advised that banner sales are not my best option for generating revenue, so I'll continue exploring alternative options. And I'm sure that I'll do some freelance work… stuff I really want to do… for some print outlets. Heck, the right web offer may even come my way.

In the meanwhile, I am already looking forward to the EbertFest, the new and improved Bermuda International Film Festival, a late summer floating film festival and all kinds of other events. I'll invest some more of my time in my family.

And as we start down this new stretch of highway together, let me remind you of the real key to my future. It's you. The freedom to share my passion for film is at the core of all of this. Part of me wants to go back to Park City and be a ski bum. Part of me wants to rage against the world. Part of me just wants to take a month off. But knowing that you all are out there, ready to keep the conversation going… ready to say things, in agreement or disagreement, that will make me think… that's what has me writing a column tonight after traveling all morning and spending the afternoon being fired. And so, I thank you for helping me keep it all in perspective.

And before I sign off, very special thanks to Jon Strum of NadaPC.com and Laura Rooney for making today's column and DavidPoland.com not only possible, but easy for me. I am truly blessed to have friends like these.

Tomorrow, my latest future begins… it's back to the movie business for The Hot Button. I hope you'll join me.

E ME: I need a great ROTD for tomorrow that isn't just someone being nice to me. Come on, bring it!