#i wish ups had just hired me i would have gotten a solid 30 hours a week at least

[nerdfighterwhatevernumbers]

applying to more jobs. it feels like the only jobs willing to take me are bad ones even though i know i can do full time customer service at least.

[canaryatlaw]

okay, so. most of the day was fairly boring lol as expected but tonight of course was super awesome. I had set a 1 pm wake up if you’re not already awake alarm but I ended up waking up to my phone buzzing right at 11 am, it was a Chicago number so I answered and chatted with this guy from this legal company that does boring shit like document review and is doing like part time temporary hiring projects, which would obviously be a short term fix as I’m still looking for full time employment, but they pay like $20 an hour (and you don’t technically have to be licensed for some of their stuff, so being that I am licensed I miiiiiight get to do some more intense stuff for more pay? Idk, have to see) so I have an 11 am Skype interview scheduled with them for tomorrow morning to chat about that stuff. I’m obviously not like dying to get this job or anything but it’d be nice to have some income while I’m still looking, like if I did like 15-20 hours a week that’s $300-$400 so that’s not insignificant. I’m just gonna be super upfront with them about the fact that I’m seeking permanent employment and if I start anything with them there is a solid chance I will up and leave with fairly short notice, and if they’re not okay with that then we won’t do it, but I get the feeling since a lot of their shit is short term they’ll probably be okay with it. So after I got off that phone call I looked up the number for Ulta and called them to push back my haircut appointment which was booked for 12, I was trying to do think if there was somewhere I could plant myself downtown and do a Skype interview to then just run to the appointment but I obviously don’t want to do like, starbucks, and beyond trying to sneak into my old student org office at school (that’s no longer mine obviously) there’s not very many options, so I was hoping we could just push the haircut back a bit till like 2 and she happened to have an opening then so that was perfect because she gets booked up fairly consistently, so I lucked out there. After that I was lazy and went on my phone for a bit before getting up and going on my laptop at the kitchen table while I ate breakfast and then eventually moved over to the couch and was just listening to podcasts while on my computer for a while, then ended up watching the pilot of the new amazon prime show “Hanna” that’s not actually premiering to March but they were making the pilot available for like 24 hours after the superbowl for some reason and I was fairly intrigued by that (I never did actually see the movie its based on) and it was okay I guess? I wasn’t like super enthralled in it but I may give it a try for a few episodes when it comes out. The main actress is pretty good, but she’s a lot older than I thought she was (she actually turns 19 like, today) when I thought she was more like 13 or 14. and she’s apparently not been in much of anything up to this point, so good for her. After that I just turned the tv off and listened to more Panic music since I downloaded a bunch last night on top of what I downloaded after the concert last week so I could be more familiar with that while doing some computer stuff and trying to get some more Batwoman comic reading done. I was trying to see what they had on DC Universe before switching over to Comixology (which I have to pay for) but they only have issues 1-12 of her new 52 run which is apparently significantly longer than that and I burned through those very quickly, and the other ones on there are basically just one-off appearances in a random Batman story. So I guess I’ll read those then see what I can get on Comixology (they apparently have a subscription thing now which may be more affordable than paying for each comic, I’ll have to see what’s the deal with that). Around 4:30 I started getting ready, tried to do my make up very carefully and ended up trying to use my liquid eyeliner on my bottom lid which I normally don’t do but I like accidentally got some on there when trying to get it on my top lid (not sure how I managed to do that) and wanted to see if I could do the rest. It turned out pretty good in the immediate aftermath at least, but when I got home it had migrated down my face a good bit which is basically my biggest pet peeve with black eyeliner so I probably won’t be doing that again (I’m gonna see if I can find a better one at Ulta/Sephora tomorrow, since I’ll be at the Ulta and there’s a Sephora down the street and I want to find something that’s a Sephora brand product. There’s apparently also a Sally’s around there which I may also hit up for some hair dyeing supplies). But I finished getting ready and got on the bus at like 5:30 to meet Jess at her work so we could go straight to the concert from there, I was supposed to get there slightly before she got off so she could use it as an excuse to leave but the bus was being uncooperative (as public transit often is) and I ended up not getting there until like right when she got off, but it wasn’t a big deal because we weren't really in a rush being that we knew Panic didn’t actually take the stage until like, 8:30 lol. We stopped at a mcdonalds drive thru on the way where we got twenty nuggets, two cokes, and a medium fries (it’s always a debate about how many nuggets to get, because Jess is like “but I want more than 10″ when we’re splitting 20 but it’s more expensive to order 30 nuggets than it would be to order 40 nuggets and that’s just way too many (we did try that once) so I was saying we could do a 20 and a 6 piece but ended up just going with the 20 for us to split. Drove the rest of the way out, the concert was out by the airport which is a bit of a hike but we’re used to going there because most Chicago cons are in a venue that’s right by there. There was fairly massive traffic getting into the venue, and we had some momentary panic (no pun intended) regarding paying for parking because we didn't have any cash and didn’t know if they’d take card, but luckily they did so that crisis was averted. of course it’s bullshit that they’re charging $25 to just park in their giant ass parking lot, but that’s life for ya. Once we parked we had to kinda run to the venue because it was cold and we were both bumming it without our regular coats (I had a leather jacket on) so we were happy when we got in there. Got in without issue, climbed up the stairs to the top level of course and found our seats. We were literally like, the furthest section back on the side before the other seats just weren’t sold because you couldn’t be able to see (the other half of our section was actually closed off) but despite that we actually had a fairly good view and could see most of everything, just mostly from a side view and sometimes the back, lol. I was pumped though because I spent like all of last week wishing I could relive the concert and now I was getting to do that, so I was very excited. The new perspective was interesting, we got to see things from different angles which was interesting, like him popping up onto the stage when he first came out and just jumps up so it looks like he just gets shot out at fairly high speed lol. The set list was the same of course, except I’ve been listening to the music all week and actually knew the vast majority of the songs this time and could sing along, so I felt accomplished for that. I did manage to take a good amount of videos that I posted all on my instagram story if you want to check those out (@ racheleiley) and this time I didn’t ugly sing while recording lol so they’re better quality than the ones from last week. But yeah it was really good, I still got super anxious and cringey when he was on the floating piano above the crowd and very clearly not strapped into anything and like, going to the edge of the platform and I like, couldn’t watch because it stressed me out too much lol but thankfully he made it back okay. When Girls/Girls/Boys came on we hadn’t gotten the little paper colored hearts to put over our cell phone lights this time because we were in the reject section that was mostly empty, but it was still enjoyable and he definitely had no less than 10 pride flags thrown onstage at him during it which he picked every single one up and draped them over him and he was like “this is a record” which was great. But yeah, I really enjoyed all of it. When he came back out for the encore someone threw a little teddy bear onstage and he was like “aw, this is the cutest teddy bear, I’m keeping this” and put it in his back pocket as he kept performing and it was really fucking cute lol. He must be in really good shape to be doing this sometimes multiple times a week because it’s so much energy expended and his voice is so strong to be able to handle it (makes sense that he did a stint on Broadway). But yeah, I enjoyed it a lot and got much better videos this time so I’m pleased with that. Once it ended we managed to get out of the parking lot relatively quickly, definitely a lot quicker than we expected because we kinda cut around part of the line to get to the exit faster (sorry not sorry 🤷🏻‍♀️) and then made it the rest of the way home, and Jess made me walk back to my place from her apartment instead of dropping me off which she could’ve VERY EASILY done, but she was being a butt and trying to get payback because she always has to make the walk when we hang out at my place (which we do the vast majority of the time). So I walked home, thankfully it wasn’t too cold, and then spent a while uploading the videos to my instagram story because it was being uncooperative while at the concert so I had to do them all after. My roommate got home shortly after I did and somehow managed to leave her keys in the front door, but now our front door wouldn’t unlock, so she was gonna go around the back to get to the front and asked if I had my front door key, which I thought she meant the front door to our apartment, so I gave her that she disappeared. Not long after I could hear someone calling my name so I went to the front door and was like ??? yes??? but she wasn’t at the door and I was thoroughly confused as to where she could be until it occurred to me that maybe she was locked outside, so I went down the backstairs to the back door where she was in fact stuck, we had a slight miscommunication on the key situation and she couldn’t get the front door of the building to open because I gave her the wrong key, whoops, but we got it figured out and fixed the door situation so that was good. After that was settled I got in the shower and started getting ready for bed and now I am here. I’ve been writing this post for about 40 minutes and it’s now 2 am, I have to get up at at least 10:30 tomorrow to make sure I’m presentable for the Skype interview so I think I should get to bed now. Goodnight loves. Have a lovely Tuesday.

[brianhandy]

Time to Search for Marketing

My plan was for things to let up this month to leave a little more time for job hunting, and do marketing research half the time. Instead I’ve found that even finding a marketing person is a full time job, cold emailing and searches are always tough, and onboarding new folks will always be tricky (so consider instead investing in more long term contracts since onboarding is a real time cost). These two weeks’ news: marketing knowledge, searching for the right person once more, and onboarding! 

Nintendo Power praises by Chris Zukowski.

Marketing Knowledge

I watched a GDC talk most mornings the last two weeks, including:

Erik Johnson's “Making Indie Games That Sell”

Chris Dwyer's "(Opportunity) Cost Effective Marketing & PR for Indies"

David Wehle’s “No Time, No Budget, No Problem: Finishing The First Tree”

Casey Yano's "Slay the Spire: Success through Marketability"

“Put Your Name on Your Game, a Talk by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage"

Nick Popovich's "Making Games That Stand Out and Survive"

Mike Rose’s “Making the World Give a Damn About Your Game in 2018″

Chris Zukowski’s “Build Your Own Fan Club: How to Use Your Email List”

Mike Rose’s and Chris Zukowski’s I’ve linked since I found them especially formative to how I will approach marketing now. All the talks are good for different reasons, all reinforce the same ideas of developing a relationship with your audience and all suggest, like a good friend, investing in that relationship by routinely sending them cool stuff you think they’d enjoy. Nintendo Power is cited in Chris’s talk as the best example of this yet. But having an audience that loves consuming your work, whether it’s love letters as an email newsletter for Date Everything, or a Discord server that gets secret news and updates early, investing in the community and connection that is your audience will help grow and maintain that so that when your game does launch, the strongest fans can immediately invest and help push it up the charts. It’s a great core idea, and it depends on respecting and mutually investing in your audience in a really healthy way.

Also: did some preliminary video tests with friends so we can start making more marketable content soon. Hopefully more on that soon!

Do you like filling out webforms? Yes? Great, cold emailing is perfect for you!

Searching for Marketing Folks

Cold emailing folks is still hard! I think this will be rough forever. Making a template helps so you don’t rewrite the same core every time. Tweaking it to respect someone’s individuality and showing what you care about helps too. We all have to communicate with a lot of people, and I think as long as there is respect both ways in mind and in action, using your own templates for certain emails is fine. If you’re going to say the same three sentences every time, stop wasting time rewriting them. They do their job - customize the message elsewhere.

The search has been just as rewarding as when looking for an artist though. It broke down into a few steps like last time:

Searching for portfolios I trusted. This was on Google, leading to individuals’ sites for “indie games marketing” or “mobile game marketing” keywords, then cold emailing, getting rejected, and then asking for their recommendations for more folks which had a 1 in 5 chance of getting another 2-5 names. Repeat. (this process took about 3 rounds to find/email some 10-20 people, with rounds costing probably 4hrs of time each on separate days since email replies average 24-48hrs)

Sending back and forth emails with a smaller pool of the top 5-8 individuals. Different backgrounds gave some leads for trailers and PR folks that were not marketing directly as well. This email back and forth averaged about 5 emails, taking 2-3hrs each day for about 3 days. 

Phonecalls and Skype chats with just over half of those individuals, a half hour each with buffer times for setup and notes/emails after, have narrowed us down to probably the final two candidates once again. That meant another 3-5hrs combined to talk with everyone and read some longer emails that needed 30min+ each to read and reply to.

One last round of phonecalls, another 2hrs, and we should have the final marketing candidate. That means in total, finding a candidate for this position probably took between 23 and 28 hours, or a little over half workweek but divided over two weeks. That’s not a small amount of time! I would expect any major new hire, from a zero reference starting point, to just cost a week of work over 2-3 weeks in the future. Due to the back and forth there’s not a great way to accelerate this either. It’s part of the process I didn’t really know how to make time for, but both hiring for design and hiring for marketing have worked this way so I want to make that a clear expectation in the future.

SBA’s website is fancier than I’m used to for government sites!

Business Plans & Executive Summaries

A friend introduced me to SBA - Small Business Administration, a government support agency for entrepreneurs and small businesses. It is surprisingly excellent and has given me some really good wakeup moments for facing the upcoming financial challenges and expectations. They want people who walk through their doors to be well equipped to make a sustainable business, or acquire funding to grow, and in return they want to see your business numbers so they have a sense of what markets are shrinking or growing. From the perspective of a small business, it’s a very useful tool - and they’re not only holding me accountable but teaching me where I need to focus my efforts to financially survive. I am excited to keep working with an advisor I have here now and turn an executive summary I wrote this week into more of a real business plan - useful both for managing expectations of returns, and for marketing to the best audience possible. 

Better “onboarding” (like a boat) involves “iterating” (like the photo)! Ahh? Ahh??

Onboarding

Don’t be fooled by the silly photo - this part was hard and important!

Searching for new contractors took more time than expected, but onboarding known contractors also took a larger than expected amount of time. My biggest regret on this is not taking a more iterative approach to onboarding. I passed on instructions for a new artist I worked with recently (a cool person at that!) and later learned I had not been clear in communicating my needs, the style, or the goals in the way I believed I had. My value is that it is on the communicator to deliver a message on average, and I wish I had done more checking early to ensure I had delivered the right message.

For a contracted game designer I am bringing on to do a pass on adding animal videos, I’ve asked that they show first drafts early and often at the start so we are on the same page before too much work risks being done down the wrong path. I value the concept of hiring good people, clearly communicating, and getting out of the way - but at times those last two points can be in conflict with one another. I hope to share more details soon on finding a better approach here too.

Ahh! What’s this? Secret developer options ingame? 👀 

Design & Tech

Just some fun final details! I added a debug mode to show all animals, questions, and silhouettes! This increases onboarding and test results times in a way I’ve always wanted to do, but couldn’t justify until it was slowing down the work of others. Now that’s in and has gotten me to also do a quick pass at optimizing the videos, so they’ve all been trimmed to 11sec and cropped to the size of the frame, saving us 400/600MB of video space. Awesome!

Rapid video bulk editing was done with ffmpeg for trimming and MPEG Streamclip for cropping and video quality level control. I’ve also added dynamic quality adjustors (whoops forgot that before) so low ram devices run lowres videos compared to high ram devices. Accidentally, I had set everything to low ram before. But that’s fixed!

Toggl report so far for 2020! March is work from home + halfway into the month.

Time Keeping

Toggl is my timekeeping app, and it’s been very useful lately as I bulk categorized all work that had been done on both this and my last project. When working for others, I seem to successfully track 7.5hrs/day of work (there’s a little wiggle room here as I don’t always start tracking exactly when I start - but it’s a solid approximation) and when I work for myself, I successfully track about 6hrs/day (and even though personal tracking is significantly less accurate, this is still is a concerning number). In short: I’m slacking! I really want those numbers to go up, even if I think a big part of it is also how many of those hours are focused vs unfocused work. But it’s good to see my work numbers aren’t ridiculously off the mark. It’s definitely possible for me to hit full workdays in self employment, I’m just not there yet.

Pomodoro Timer techniques on my smart watch have actually been incredibly effective lately for that focus. I’ll set a timer for 25min, then a break timer for 5min, and the wrist accessibility keeps me really focused and moving forwards to getting those hours in. With startup work especially, it’s hard to tell where breaks give the creativity needed to keep up with how the goals change, and where focus gives you the work needed to pump out a product on the current path. Lightfield capture technology was a big distraction this week among all the virus news (if we have to stay indoors, I want to develop a better and more 3d Skype!) and while that might be more profitable as a field longterm, short term it’s better to focus on just finishing the job you started. So what’s best? I think that’s something to continuously be reassessed by context, per project, and a healthy dose of gut feeling.

Was it most efficient to reuse UI for testing? Or just done to look pretty?

Conclusion

Time is short! How do we make the most of it? One of the marketing talks said 30% of your time as an indie dev should go towards marketing, starting before the project starts. And that makes sense. But how do we fill in all the other balancing pieces? Should optimizing get as much priority as finding a good marketing person? Should we spend more time onboarding someone we find, or finding someone who doesn’t need onboarding? And depending on what kinds of profits you can expect and how confidently, you can take all the time in the world. Marketing, business, and development time have this entanglement that I’m only just starting to feel directly - and beyond creating art to change the world, I am experiencing now everything about the marketing and business side of game development, and the stresses of it, directly.

Next time: I hope I decide on a business and marketing plan and a target demographic before I commit to a game’s development, rather than the end of it. It will make sustainable game development significantly easier. 

3/13/20

[rodrigohyde]

The top 10 Hollywood bulk-ups of all time

Has anyone ever received more praise for getting fat than Robert De Niro? In 1980, the method actor famously gained 60 pounds of flab by gorging himself on pancakes and milkshakes to play bloated ex-boxer Jake LaMotta in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Nearly 30 years later, film buffs are still marveling at his man boobs.

Nothing against De Niro's amazing performance, but Men's Fitness has had enough of critics praising extra pounds.

That's why we're paying tribute to 10 actors who worked their abs for their art—because it takes more effort to curl 80 pounds than it does to gain it.

[RELATED1]

10. Eli Roth in Inglourious Basterds

For his role as a Nazi's worst nightmare in Quentin Tarantino's fantastical World War II flick, the already physically fit Eli Roth needed to step up his game. His character — Sgt. Donnie "The Bear Jew" Donowitz, a Boston badass who disposes of SS officers with nothing more than a bloodstained Louisville Slugger — isn't the type of guy who would be caught anywhere near Crunch fitness. Instead of getting cut, Roth needed to bulk up. So the Massachusetts native headed home to Beantown, mastered the local accent, stuffed his face with steak, and hit the gym until he packed on 40 pounds of heavy muscle. If you've seen Roth swinging for the fences in the film, you know his dedication paid off.

9. Jason Statham in The Transporter

British actor Jason Statham didn't set out to be an action hero. Starting his career in Guy Ritchie gangster flicks like Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the former championship diver was best known for playing skinny conmen before Hollywood came calling. So when he was cast as the world's most dangerous chauffeur in the 2002 martial arts flick The Transporter, the part-time model needed a physical overhaul. But instead of going the typical Hollywood route of hiring a personal trainer, Statham motivated himself, increasing his time in the gym and taking his interest in mixed martial arts to the next level. By the end of his intense training, Statham was so physically fit he was able to perform most of his own stunts in the film.

8. Robert De Niro in Raging Bull

Here's the flipside to De Niro's Oscar-winning performance—before he gained the equivalent of a small child to play Jake LaMotta in his darkest, fattest hours, the New York native got completely shredded to play the Italian middleweight pugilist in his prime. But De Niro didn't just hit the treadmill to achieve this look. The GoodFellas star underwent a full-on training routine, working closely with the real-life LaMotta on every facet of a boxer's regiment. In fact, De Niro was so dedicated to becoming a convincing brawler, he actually competed in three organized bouts, winning two. LaMotta was so impressed with De Niro's dedication, he claimed the actor could have fought professionally if he wished.

[RELATED2]

7. Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday

Thanks to the Academy Award he nabbed for the 2006 Ray Charles biopic Ray, Jamie Foxx is no longer known as that scrawny dude from Booty Call. But the actor first showed his dedication to his craft in Oliver Stone's 1999 football flick Any Given Sunday. For his role as fictional quarterback Willie Beamen, Foxx hit the weights hard, bulking up to a solid 200 pounds. Then, the former MF cover model reported to football training camp and dropped 25 pounds as a result of the vigorous, real-life training. Luckily, the muscle remained and Foxx ended up with the kind of chiseled physique that looks even better on film. "It made me look bigger on the screen because I was tighter," Foxx told MF.

6. Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

To take on the role of washed-up grappler Randy "The Ram" Robinson in Darren Aronofsky's 2008 film, Mickey Rourke had to do a lot more than just bleach his hair and wear lime green tights. In order to convincingly portray the kind of guy who could hold his own against King Kong Bundy, the 55-year-old had to pack on nearly 30 pounds of lean muscle. Realizing this could be his comeback role, Rourke dedicated himself to the part, working out religiously and training with professional wrestler Afa the Wild Samoan for months prior to shooting. Rourke pulled it off and his impressive build not only added to the realism of the film, but helped him land a role as a villain in the upcoming Iron Man sequel.

5. Ryan Reynolds in Blade: Trinity

Much like Jamie Foxx, Ryan Reynolds was best known for a not-so-great sitcom (the poorly-titled Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place) before an eight pack turned his career around. When the relatively unknown actor was cast as a vampire hunter in the third film in the Blade trilogy, he knew he needed to do something to grab the audience's attention — after all, he was starring alongside Jessica Biel. So the Vancouver native began to train like a madman, doing everything from intense 3-hour daily workouts to a eating eight to 10 small meals a day. The result? Countless magazine covers, the leading role in the upcoming Green Lantern flick and a marriage to Scarlett Johansson. If that's not motivation to get into the gym, we don't know what is.

[RELATED3]

4. Edward Norton in American History X

Before he knocked audiences on their asses with American History X, Edward Norton wasn't much more than a solid actor with a bad haircut and few decent flicks under his belt. Then he stomped onto the screen as Derek Vinyard, a raging neo-Nazi skinhead with the kind of physically imposing look that would make most men cross the street. Norton didn't just have the cut biceps and chiseled chest of a typical Hollywood leading man, he looked like a guy who had spent some time lifting weights in the joint. So how did the scrawny Ivy Leaguer go from Yale grad to jail bird? A high protein diet mixed with strength-building exercises like squats and presses. If only Norton could've manned up like that in Fight Club.

3. Christian Bale in Batman Begins

Christian Bale's physique in this Batman revamp may not be the most spectacular on the list, but consider this — six months before playing the caped crusader, Bale weighed 120 pounds. Taking a page out of Robert De Niro's playbook, the Welsh actor had dropped over 60 pounds (mostly through a steady diet of coffee and apples) for his role as an emaciated insomniac in the psychological thriller The Machinist. When he landed the lead in Batman Begins, Bale only had half a year to get in shape. Wasting no time, Bale started a high protein diet while utilizing heavy core training, plyometrics and resistance training. By the time cameras were ready to roll, Bale had packed on 100 solid pounds. Ironically, director Christopher Nolan felt Bale had gotten too bulky and ordered him to drop 20 pounds.

2. Will Smith in Ali

If you're going to tell the story of the greatest professional boxer of all time, you have to do it right. Working with Sugar Ray Leonard's former fitness coach, Will Smith rose to the occasion, turning his 185-pound frame into 220-pounds of lean, sinewy muscle through grueling six-hour-a-day workouts and intensive weight training. At his peak physical condition during the filming of Ali, Smith was benching 350 pounds while moving with the agility of a skilled fighter. Through his focused training, the rapper-turned-actor ended up with a physique just as impressive as the former World Champion. And while the film garnered mixed reviews, Smith's performance was praised and the actor received an Oscar nomination.

1. Gerard Butler in 300

    To portray King Leonidas, a Spartan warrior who disposes of thousands of hapless Persians while wearing little more than a Speedo and a cape, Scottish actor Gerard Butler needed a physique right out of a comic book. But the longtime smoker's body was far from loincloth worthy. Enter Mark Twight. Twight, a renowned mountain climber and conditioning coach, put Butler and his costars through hell for four grueling months. A small sample of their agonizing daily workout included non-stop sets of pullups, deadlifts, pushups and clean-and-jerks, coupled with unorthodox training methods like Olympic-style ring work and flipping gigantic tires. While Butler did most of his preparation with his co-stars, the 6-foot-2 star had to look even more chiseled than the 299 other shredded warriors who were standing behind him, so he would put in an extra workout after these training sessions. The results speak for themselves.

[RELATED4]

Celebrities

from Men's Fitness https://www.mensfitness.com/life/entertainment/top-10-hollywood-bulk-ups-all-time

[gwenariano-blog]

Abby Lee Miller Interview 2011

Reality TV World: How did the reality show come about and what made you want to be on a reality show with some of your dancers? What were your goals and intentions?

Abby Lee Miller: Well, the show came about from my friend John Corella. We're personal friends and we've been friends for 20 years, and every summer I end up in LA and we talk about all these crazy mothers and how it should be a reality show. And then I come back to my life in September and he gets back to his life, and then every night I call him saying, "I want to throw out this one and I want to throw out that one and this one's dumber than dirt and it doesn't matter how talented the kid is -- I can't stand the mother," and whatever.

So he was kind of taking notes and writing it all down and pitched it to a producer, and then the producer took it to a production company and then Lifetime came onboard and the rest is kind of history. As far as me being on the show, I wasn't really supposed to be on the show at all. I didn't want to be on-camera at all until after the first episode when Minister Dawn wreaked havoc on my studio and interrupted my rehearsal when I have to take care of business, and then that's when they were like, "Oh my God, we need her on the show."

And as far as my goals for my students, having my dancers perform on national television every week -- I mean, come on, that's like back in the day of the Fly Girls or Solid Gold-- What dancers are on weekly? On So You Think You Can Dance, they're doing other people's work. They alwaysstick to what they do best.

Reality TV World: The show has shown a lot of drama between you and your dancers' mothers and generated some controversy about your stern teaching approach. Has the publicity been good or bad for business at your studio -- do you have a lot of new students coming in or has the show scared off potential students?

Abby Lee Miller: No, we have students -- I've been doing this for 31 years, so my studio's very much a place of education. It has very high standards and I have the reputation in town of, "This is where you bring your child when they are talented and they really want to do this."

Right now, I have four kids -- they hired four people in Pittsburgh to do a movie with Michael Rooney and three were mine and one they booked directly from LA. I have 15 kids in Tokyo Disney in Japan. I have a girl in The Book of Mormon on Broadway. The seriousness and the dedication and the intensity, let's say if you will, at my studio has always been here. For 30 years, it's been going on. For the TV show, it's kind of just like icing on the cake.

Reality TV World: You put a lot of stress on your pyramid of dancers for your competition team. It seems like you see it as constructive criticism and want to motivate the kids on the bottom to work harder, but do you see a negative to it at all in that it might promote jealousy or competitiveness amongst the girls, or is competitiveness actually the goal you're striving for?

Abby Lee Miller: Well I do everything in my power not to put the kids against each other. I don't know if you know too much about competitions, but there's many different age divisions and many different categories. Here at my own studio and in the history of the Abby Lee Dance Company, I want to win as much as we can possibly win. So, to put three girls in against each other is dumb. I'd rather put three girls in three different categories like one in lyrical and one in jazz and one in musical theater. Why put all three of them in jazz when you could win every category?

So as far as the pyramid goes, that's why sometimes all the girls don't do solos, is because they would be against each other and sometimes we don't want that. We want them to compete against themselves really, rather than others. And production created the pyramid so that the audience would know each girl by name and recognize them.

Reality TV World: Just to clarify, are the girls shown on the competition team [on Dance Moms] the only Abby Lee dancers competing at the events they attend, do you also allow other Abby Lee dancers that aren't on the competition team to compete if they want?

Abby Lee Miller: Okay, good question. Last year when they started shooting the show, it was the middle of April. My competition season for the Abby Lee Dance Company was pretty much over. We compete in January, February and March here in Pittsburgh. It just so happens that most of the competitions locally that we attend -- that come into Pittsburgh -- I attend really high-end things and they come into Pittsburgh in the winter.

Why? I don't know, but that's when they come in.

So after Easter, we're pretty much done. We're just working on our showcase -- our dance concert. So, that's when the show started shooting. The show had to find competitions for me to go to and nothing was [here] in Pittsburgh, so that's why we would go to the extent and everything of going out of town to find different competitions for them, because my stuff is over.

Had we been going in Pittsburgh, sure, my other kids could have attended. They would have had to pay their own way and signed up separately, but sure. I try to get them to show more kids on the show. I really have some amazing teenagers.

The Mr. Dance of America and the Miss Dance of Pennsylvania are here in my studio right now. They're my students. They have been since they were three-years-old, and they're quite incredible dancers. I wish you could see all of them on the show, but there's just no time.

Reality TV World: Your intense teaching methods have sparked controversy, so would you consider or describe yourself as a role model and mentor to these young girls or would you say you're all business and are simply dedicated to being their dance coach and seeing improvement and results?

Abby Lee Miller: No, I'm definitely their mentor. Some of them are child prodigies and the ones to achieve greatness that only I have dreamed for them, I sometimes -- I've said it before. I think my dreams are bigger than their own dreams. I raise every child in this studio as if they were my own children and that's what parents forget.

A lot of the moms on the show, like Kelly, this is her first teenager with Brooke. I've been through a thousand teenagers. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Kids have gotten sick all over me. I've held a kid's head, I've stood there while they're throwing up from something they ate that was bad -- every bruise or every bump or every broken bone, I'm the one that's there with them.

I did the "mom duty" quite often. It's just these people on the show that are there all the time -- most parents can't afford the luxury of traveling with the kids. They can't go everywhere that we go. So, the kids often travel with me by themselves. I have a temporary guardianship of them, so yeah. It's more than that and you know, when they're at that audition or they're on their way to that big audition, usually I'm the one driving them.

Reality TV World: I don't know if the shooting schedule is why, but the show showed you on the road with your competition team for several weeks but you obviously have a lot of other students that take classes at your studio -- a few that you have mentioned -- beyond the girls on the competition team. So how much involvement do you have with the studio's non-competition team kids and are you able to teach them on a regular basis?

Abby Lee Miller: Yes. I don't work with too many of the -- we call them rookies -- the recreation students. They come once a week for class, and I'm usually here. I write the lesson plans for their classes, but I'm not always here because I do travel. But that's not only for the show. I do a lot of master teaching all over the country prior to the show.

So, I was gone a lot anyway and you kind of need a day off to re-charge and that's what our recreation classes are, and I have great faculty here. Most of my faculty that I have were trained by me. They started here at three-years-old, and they either left and worked professionally and then had time to come back to the area or are married and are working for me, or they've been here since they started dancing and never left. I'm here at 4:30, so I'm here. I actually teach all the time. (Laughs) My classes normally begin at 4:30. So, I'm here and ready to teach.

Reality TV World: Christi was shown [on the show] saying that you always say "dance needs to come before school" and that the girls miss school all the time for dance competitions and such. Do you really believe dance is more important than a school education and how does that work-- are the girls home-schooled while on the road?

Abby Lee Miller: Absolutely not. I never say that. She's probably lying. I don't agree with everything in the public school system. I believe that, certainly, they need an education. I would love it. I freak out on my girls, especially my senior company, and I always tell them if they could speak seven languages fluently, they would be able to write their own ticket and get a job anywhere because they're gorgeous girls. They know how to interview, they wear a stunning suit and they could work in any huge company internationally. They could fly out all over the world if they could speak Mandarin or Chinese and they laugh at me. So, I definitely think -- like Maddie for example -- she's extremely intelligent, and I yell at Melissa all the time, "Let's hire a private tutor to teach her Chinese. She's not getting that in school."

But on the flip side, I do not think that my dancers need to take [physical education], and in Pennsylvania, that's a huge thing here -- the physical education requirement, like getting into the gym uniform and getting hit in the face with the dodgeball and hit in the bust over and over and over and calling it phys ed, that's really important here in Pittsburgh.

I think that my girls who are dancing 16 hours a week should be exempt from physical education and during that 45-minute period, they should be in an accounting class or another math class or another language class. So, I think Christi has that a little bit confused.

If I could eat lunch while I'm driving my car, they can eat lunch at their desks. There's a lot of time wasted of going to the cafeteria and getting in line and getting your food, and then you have to shove it down your throat and then run back to class. They could all sit on a yoga ball during class and eat at their desk and then be out of school at 2:00. So when it comes to their education, I'm just anti-wasting time. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: How was it decided to focus on the specific young girls on the show and their mothers? Was it as simple as these were the seven girls on your competition team when the show began filming?

Abby Lee Miller: Actually, [the production company] Collins Avenue Entertainment, they interviewed -- I believe it was 23 families, to choose those mothers. The children were never auditioned.

Reality TV World: Would you be able to elaborate on that a little more and discuss what criteria was used, if you know?

Abby Lee Miller: I have no idea. You'd have to check with the producers on the show. I really don't know. I laugh about this all the time, but it's sad, because I have some amazing students who pay their bills on time, who follow all the rules, who say, "Yes, Ms. Abby. Thank you, Ms. Abby," give me birthday gifts and Christmas gifts and are excellent students. Excellent. And they are not on the show, sadly, because they don't make good TV. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: Do you think the editing of Dance Moms has portrayed you and your interaction with the students accurately or no?

Abby Lee Miller: Well, my alumni say, "Why didn't they do this show 20 years ago when I was really mean?" (Laughs)

Reality TV World: (Laughs) How much turnover do you normally have on your competition team and is it always the same size? Are you expecting all the girls who were part of the team for Season 1 to return for Season 2?

Abby Lee Miller: Yes. I don't [have] too much turnover. Where you get in trouble is when kids aren't the star and they want to be and they can't handle -- people leave for two reasons: they can't afford it or they can't cut the mustard.

And it doesn't matter if they say, "Oh Abby was mean to me or another teacher," or "It's too far to travel," or whatever their excuse is, when you boil it down and push comes to shove -- even if they didn't have the money or they weren't good enough -- if they were good enough, somehow, they'd come up with the money. And my classes are extremely reasonable. I mean, I'm as cheap as a babysitter. It's down to like, I think, only $2.50 or $2.75 an hour to take from me.

Reality TV World: Do you think the reality show will improve your competition team next year in that maybe you have gained more interest from stronger students and have a more talented selection of dancers joining?

Abby Lee Miller: I would hope so, but I don't know if the show -- they don't seem to want that. They want the same kids.

Reality TV World: The show showed Maddie's father blaming his divorce on dance and pledging to do everything he can to not have his daughter return to your studio for the new year. Are you concerned or worried about that?

Abby Lee Miller: Maddie left California when we were finished shooting. She left California at the end of the shoot on a Wednesday. The next day, Thursday at 9:30AM, she was in ballet class at my studio and hasn't missed a lesson since. So, I don't put too much...

Reality TV World: ... concern into that?

Abby Lee Miller: Not at all.

Reality TV World: In regards to Cathy, the idea that one dance studio owner would decide to take her own child to another dance studio some distance away seemed odd to viewers. Is that normal in the dance industry, and why do you think Cathy came to your studio to begin with? Do you find that suspicious?

Abby Lee Miller: I don't know if it's normal or not normal, but I will tell you in the past that I have taught several other dance teachers' own children. It's difficult to teach your own child, especially if you're the only child or it's a mother-daughter situation where the daughter becomes a teenager.

I think sometimes the parents, even though they might own a successful studio, they're like, "You know what? We're just going to take you somewhere else and have somebody else yell at you." Because the child won't be disrespectful to me, but they are to the parents. So, to sum that up, I have taught many other people's children who own studios. So, that isn't very odd to me.

The other thing is, a dance teacher at another studio can get in trouble for pushing their own child. When their child is in the front and the middle of everything, the other customers feel like, "We don't have a shot in hell here. The dance teacher's daughter is going to win everything all the time. Our kids are never going to get a fair shot."

So that's another reason they'll take their child elsewhere --so they can build their own business. So was I suspicious of Cathy? Having known Cathy previous to the show and knowing Vivi-Anne and her level, I was not suspicious. I thought that she wanted the child to learn more about acrobatics and Cathy really isn't an official on acrobatic work.

The child has a flexible back and flexible legs, so I thought that was her game. I also thought that if I was sitting upstairs in my studio watching, that she would be stealing some of my teaching techniques and so forth and so on, but she really didn't. She was never even here. She was always out to lunch or right around here shopping or doing this and doing that.

Reality TV World: Do you expect Cathy to be part of the second season and have sort of her own storyline since she was a big part of the first season but is now seems more focused on her own studio and not involved in yours anymore?

Abby Lee Miller: I would hope she would. I don't know what availability she's going to have or -- she has either like a partner or an assistant,  that she's in business with, I believe... I don't know if the girl's expecting -- I don't know. I don't know how much she's needed there, how much freedom she has to drive here, I have no idea. I hope that she'll be a part of it. She's definitely comic relief.

Reality TV World: This season showed a Broadway casting agent really being interested in Maddie and training your dancers to become professional seems to be what you're all about, so without meaning any offense, why isn't she working as a professional yet? Do you feel she's just not ready yet?

Abby Lee Miller: Well, she actually had to tell Billy Elliot she was unavailable because of the television show. So, she would be working. That's for the tour that's closing. The Broadway company of Billy Elliot is closing in January.

Reality TV World: Were you aware of the rivalry between Maddie and Chloe and Christi's resentment of Maddie's success and treatment, before filming?

Abby Lee Miller: Absolutely. As far as the girls go, they're the best of friends. Girls are going to be girls and that's one thing as a parent you need to learn -- to stay out of it, because if you jump in the middle of it, then those same kids are going to be best friends two weeks later and it was all for nothing.

So, you kind of have to let girls be girls and let them pick their own fights and their own battles. But when alcohol is involved and -- What do I want to say? -- language, inappropriate adult language, and a parent is that psychotic about somebody else's kid and believe me, Christi is nothing new. I've seen it before.

I could take you back 10 years, 20 years, 30 years -- I can name the mother and I can name the other kids. It's history repeating itself. People are just jealous. It's an ugly disease in the world.

Reality TV World: It was always a concern of Christi's that Chloe couldn't win in a competition if she was in the same category competing against Maddie, so there was one competition where you decided to not have Maddie perform. How much of your decision to not have Maddie perform in the competition was based on how you were sick of Christi's complaining, and how much on genuine dance competition reasons?

Abby Lee Miller: I don't know what I can say and what I can't say. When we do the show... First of all, I would never pull a kid from a competition because of someone else's mother complaining. Absolutely not. I don't care who it is. The reason that different children did not compete at certain events during the show -- and it happened more than the time you're talking about. It happened other times with different kids.

It was because when we did the first six shows -- when Lifetime started the show and we did the first six episodes-- then Lifetime, fortunately to our surprise, they ordered six more shows, but our summer [competition] season -- our summer nationals where we were attending had already been planned for my whole studio for my other kids.

So, some of the numbers that were going to compete at nationals, Maddie was in. So, she couldn't be on the show because we needed her somewhere else. Does that make sense?

And then there was another time where I gave Chloe the week off, so it was because Chloe had to be somewhere else that she committed to months before we got the show. But it was kind of like "the show must go on."

We were in the middle of our real lives thinking the show's going to be over, make your hotel reservations, pay your plane fare, you can do that for my whole entire studio and then the next thing you know, "Oh my God. We have six more shows. Uh oh. What happens when we already planned on these other events?"

So that's why we did the best we could to work around -- so as to not hurt my other students.

Reality TV World: How do you decide which girl gets what for a competition as far as costumes and new choreography? Kelly was shown complaining about that a lot this season.

Abby Lee Miller: Well yes, because once again, our season was kind of over and we had to scramble for all this. Seamstresses book up very quickly and they can only make so many costumes. Most of my seamstresses here in Pittsburgh are just one person. It's not a factory, so to make those costumes -- We can't run down the street and buy fabric and make this, that and the other thing. We have to buy -- we have to go to New York or fly to LA and get all our stuff.  

Reality TV World: Do you offer scholarships at your studio or offer financial help to talented students who can't afford the lessons?

Abby Lee Miller: Actually, we offer scholarships yeah. They take on a discounted rate because we have scholarships -- We have one in my dad's name George L. Miller Scholarship and we have a [scholarship in the name of] one of my mom's former students. What I've done is every year these kids fill out their financial papers and blah, blah, blah. No one wants to do it. It's almost like embarrassing. So, what I do is give -- those are all for boys. So, I just give all boys a huge discount and then we also have another scholarship that we give for a girl. You have to fill out -- It's strictly on finances. It's not about talent. It's not like the most talented kids come in here free, absolutely not. It's strictly on necessity.

Reality TV World: How much of a hand do you have in your studio's instructors teaching styles? Do you require them to use the same stern taskmaster approach that you use with the competition team or do they work more independently and executive their own lessons how they see fit?  

Abby Lee Miller: Well, my ballet teachers yell way more than I do. That's number one. Sometimes I can hear him screaming like out at the front desk. Everyone has their own teaching tactics, but the ones that were raised here by me, pretty much teach the same -- with the same demeanor. I don't know. They're probably nice. I've been told by parents that when I step into the room, that the whole ambiance of the room is different -- that it's much more serious when I walk in. But again, my name is on the front of the building and I think it goes back to the kids wanting to please me, you know? Everybody wants to be the best or the best in my eyes.

Reality TV World: When one of your girls did mess up during a competition, a mother would say you waited too long to give her the music or didn't spend enough time going over the routine during rehearsals. So when that happened, did you think it was more of a reflection on you and your studio or just on the girl herself because of her work ethic?  

Abby Lee Miller: Well, you know, when you're onstage and there's lights and music and a spotlight and judges in front of you and a tabulator with papers and kids running up and down the aisles and it's not like going to see a Broadway show where everybody pays a hundred bucks a ticket and nobody's moving and nobody's talking.

At some of these dance competitions, the audience and parents really need to take an etiquette class in theater, because they are so disruptive. So, anything can throw you off. Anybody can be thrown off. What happened in the particular case of Paige, she missed her back tuck. It was low. Her hand touched the floor.

So immediately when she stood up from that, she looked at those judges and thought, "I just blew this." Then, about 16 counts later, she forgets her dance. Unbeknownst to the worldwide audience or viewers that we have, that is the same exact choreography that Paige learned in August. She had been doing that number for eight months and forgot it-- seven months at that point, seven months.

So, it had nothing to do with getting the music the night before and you can see in the episode if you watch it again that Melissa was trying to download the music. It wasn't Abby Lee Miller picking the music. We have to use music that we can use the right to for the television show, and so we gave them the original music, and they were finding something that sounded like it that we could have the rights to. And that's what happened.

But once again, I train my students, "You just keep dancing. You just keep going. Nobody knows the choreography except the child and myself or the teacher." The judges don't know. She could have just strutted around and kept dancing and picked it back up, and the show must go on. That's what you do.

If a child is injured, they have a splinter in their foot or cut their hand on something on the floor, I've always told them to just dance off. And then when the sound guy sees them exiting the show, he will automatically shut off that music so they're not standing there like an idiot.

Reality TV World: Do you encourage your dancers' mothers to work with the kids at home a lot on their dances or do you fear their help might interfere with or contradict your prior instruction?

Abby Lee Miller: If they don't know anything about dance and they take the written notes that I've had them take during the child's private and read them to them at home verbatim, then it's definitely helpful to the child to rehearse with their parents at home. That’s what I have Holly doing with Nia. If the parent pretends to know something about dance, and dances themselves and adds in their own little personal corrections other than the notes I had them take, then I feel that it's a hindrance -- that it's definitely a step in the wrong direction.