If I Had To Do It Over...

Hi team! The blog has been dormant for a while, but rest assured the ESR universe has been quite busy. Our spare time is being spent in updating the website. Its official release date has been pushed back several times, either due to other commitments, or simply because as I go along, I say "Wait- let's add this as well!" Which is why, for the moment, we're looking at a tentative launch around Labour Day weekend. All told, there will be roughly 300 separate pages for individual film reviews and articles. Many are gleaned and updated from Volume One of our old print run, and there will also be a few dozen new pieces never before seen. All in all, it is shaping to be an exciting creative venture, and I for one can't wait to share it with the rest of the cyberverse. 

This fall will also mark ESR's 20th Anniversary. Because the pandemic continues to discourage any plans for literary fairs and festivals, sadly it won't appear likely for us to be touting a new print issue at any events this year. However, the re-launching of our website, which will produce a greater web presence than ever before, will seem like a fine substitute. And rest assured, once our site is up and running, new content will continue to added to the site, and yes, plans for a "new" print run will be put into motion. 

Anyway, as I've been going through the archives in preparation for the site, I've been given to much reflection. Chiefly, I've asked myself what I would do differently with the old print run (circa 2001 to 2012) if I could go back and start all over again. I'm strictly talking in creative terms, not what I'd do differently in sales and promotion (which is a different animal altogether). At a cursory glance of the 25 issues, I'd say that there were too many that devoted themselves to one theme. This is not to say that I'm unhappy with the content of those issues, as they've allowed for fuller explorations of various movements or genres such as film noir, educational films, 70s cinema, drive-in movies, etc. 

Each issue would still have columns devoted to midnight, foreign, Canadian and experimental cinema, as was planned at the outset. Additionally, each would have a midsection devoted to recent DVD releases. Since ESR was publishing during the boom of the DVD revolution, there could have been so much more during those years we could have covered. Many issues featured book reviews, but I'd also ensure these too would be regular features. And still, there would have been plenty of space devoted to revival screenings or retrospectives we managed to catch. In other words, consistent ingredients like this would've allowed ESR to be more of a historical "journal" of its times. For instance, ESR #16 (pictured here) is a snapshot of what the entire print run could've been. I'm not suggesting it's the best issue of the run, but perhaps it's most representative of my desired scenario. It was one of the few issues that really attempted to keep up with the times, with a midsection of DVD reviews, a "thinkpiece" about current trends affecting collectors, and an article about a recent big-screen retrospective.

I'd perhaps have published two or three "regular" issues a year, and then done the theme issues as special "one-offs", not numbered with the regular issue run. By the end of its print run though, it was down to one issue a year, and therefore it would've been harder to stay on that path. However, if I had followed that model from the start, it could be said that it would've ended differently. As it stands now, much of the content has remained "timeless". On the other hand, the scene has changed so much in those years, it would've also been nice to create a living document how things changed around us. Who knows? Just a thought.