The Shocking Truth About My Project #3 Schedule
Rick Retro’s Realm, Behind the Scenes #28: Project #3 — 40, no, 50, no, 51 Dark Whimsy Favorites in 80, no, 200 Days
I can’t do it. I knew from the start that reviewing 40, 50, 51 movies in 80 days was going to be a challenge. But when I did Project #1 way back in December 2024, I was able to review a movie a day for an extended period of time, so I thought I could triumph over this challenge. But that was different.
I was doing short text reviews for our text group. That’s not the same animal as writing reviews for Substack. Back then, on average, I was working about four hours per review—a couple of hours to watch the movie and a couple more to write the review. Now I’ve added lots of new information and ratings that have to be tracked. Already, that adds about an hour to watching a movie, while I pause briefly from time to time to make notes. Then for Substack, I write reviews that are a bit longer, just because it makes sense for the format. Plus I add stills from the movie, links to other stuff on the site, tags to sort the posts, etc. It adds up. Instead of around four hours per review, I’m now spending ten, on average.
And there’s still a lot of other work I need to do to make Rick Retro’s Realm as great as I want it to be. That’s all coming along, but would come to a standstill if I kept to the previously posted review schedule for Project #3. So I’m going to stretch the schedule from 80 to 200 days, taking us to nearly the end of August. I’ve reviewed the first nine movies of the project already, and there are 42 to go. I’ll post the new schedule in the next post, tomorrow, if not sooner.
In order to get more content to you though, I will begin posting Retro Recaps—probably beginning sometime next month, after I’ve finished uploading all the reviews from the text group. The Recaps will be mini-reviews. In some cases, they will be of works that I watched or read months or years ago. Those Recaps will only have a grade (with no arrow) and a few brief comments. In other cases, they will be of works I have watched recently or currently, and just don’t feel like they need a full review. Those Recaps will be more likely to have the grade with the arrow and more of the other ratings you are used to seeing in the full reviews. In general, the Recaps will be used for works that I didn’t give a very high grade, and aren’t considered particularly important by the public or critics. If you see a Recap where I do give a high grade, or it’s considered an important work, then be assured I plan to replace the Recap with a full review at some point down the line.
In other news, click on The Realm in the menu banner on the home page of Retro Movie Reviews, then scroll down and click on “See all >”. Now scroll down some more and you will see that I’ve been adding images to all of these non-movie posts. That’s thanks to Ana Calin, author of the Substack How We Grow. My images were generated using her new app, Substackulous. She was kind enough to give early access to the app to those of us in her Mastermind event last week, but you can read about the app and get on the waitlist to use it here.
Substackulous also helps in generating Substack Notes—I’ve been meaning to begin using Notes, but haven’t yet, so I’ll start with one or two today. You can find Notes in the menu banner on the home page of Retro Movie Reviews, but I recommend also downloading the Substack app so that you will get notified when I post a Note.
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Last updated 2025-03-10