Our 2011 interview by RobWrite was featured on HubPages.com.
The stay-at-home dad behind Movie Scores shares more about his excellent film-centric, fan-inspired Hubs
Rob Write: Your Movie Score Hubs are very popular. Could you say a bit about the formula you use to evaluate movie scores and how you came up with it?
Cogerson: One of the first things I read when I started writing online was to write about something you like and find a niche and stick to it. Well, I love movies, so that choice was simple. So taking a page from Bill James, a baseball statistician, I decided to create my own formula that would give each movie a score. I then looked at what makes a movie successful. I identified that positive reviews from critics and audiences, a strong opening weekend, stamina at the box office, outstanding box office grosses, and major award recognition were factors that most successful movies demonstrated. My formula gave each factor a percentage of the score….with the maximum score being 100. At first I was doing all the calculations manually, but then my awesome wife designed an Access database that allows me to enter all the movie’s statistics and then the Access program generates the Movie Score. My database now has over 6,000 movies with Movie Scores. Currently the highest rated movie is The Godfather.
Changes since 2011? Well most is still true….though our database is close to 30,000 movies now and Movie Scores are now called Ultimate Movie Rankings Score. Plus I should have mentioned that Joel Hirschhorn’s Rating The Movie Stars book was also a huge influence on me.
Rob Write: How do you choose your next Movie Score subject? Is it by reader request?
Cogerson: When I first started writing the Hubs I picked actors that I liked the most. Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks, Cary Grant and my wife’s favorite Julia Roberts were the very first ones. After about five or six Hubs I started receiving comments and requests from fellow Hubbers. At first the suggestions, were coming in slowly. Now I feel like Lucille Ball in the famous chocolate candy factory scene, where the candy keeps coming down the line faster and faster. I had to start a notebook so I would not forget any requests. I greatly appreciate the fact that people are interested in my Hubs and the requests are greatly expanding my movie knowledge.
Changes since 2011? Finally got smart and got rid of the notebook and now have a Request Hotline page….which is our 9th most popular page with over 300 comments.
Rob Write: You got 500 comments on your Top Films of 2011 Hub. That’s an impressive amount of comments for one Hub. Were you surprised by that?
Cogerson: That Hub has surprised me beyond words. I got a suggestion from fellow Hubber, Steve Lensman, to do a Hub that only looked at one year. I figured I it would be interesting to look at 2011 and update the information weekly as the new movies were released. I really thought I might be the only person checking out the Hub, as it is a work in progress Hub. Boy was I wrong. It has easily become my most popular Hub. Through comments I have received great suggestions that have made the Hub bigger and better. My latest suggestion was to link current movie reviews from fellow Hubbers to my Hub. So if you write a movie review, let me know and I will link it to my Hub.
Changes since 2011? That page ended being my 3rd most popular page on Hub Pages…trailing only our James Bond and Pixar vs DreamWorks pages. As for Steve Lensman….years later and he is still offering up some great ideas.
Rob Write: Your HubPages bio mentions that you’re a stay at home dad, with two young children. How does that feel after working so many years, and how does it affect your creativity?
Cogerson: I became a stay-at-home dad almost four years ago. Although people I worked with thought I was crazy, it has turned out to be one of the best decisions that I have ever made in my life. My family’s quality of life has greatly improved even with living on only one income. Finding time to write Hubs is always interesting. I do most of my writing late at night while everybody else is asleep. Being creative with a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old running around the house can be challenging. Ah, the joys of nap time. The only negative thing about my stay at home dad experience? Four solid years of Dora the Explorer will drive any sane person a little crazy.
Changes since 2011? Still a stay at home dad. Still one of the best decisions of my life. It is now almost 9 years since leaving the grocery business. Those two kids are now 7 and 10 years old….and Dora has not been seen in my house since 2012.
Rob Write: You’re a baseball fan, too. You write more movie Hubs than sports Hubs. Are you going to do more sports Hubs in the future?
Cogerson: I have done a few sports Hubs, and the response has been lukewarm at best. A couple of months ago, I got a request to do a Top 100 All-Time Sports Movie Hub. That Hub request required me to research over 1600 movies and write seven different Hubs on sports movies. The final Top 100 Sports Movies is one of the Hubs I am very proud of in my HubPages career. Just keeping those Hubs updated is a challenge in itself as new movies like Moneyball and Warrior have since joined that list and required it to be updated on a weekly basis.
Changes since 2011? About four or five movies a year get added to our sports pages….with one making it into our Top 100. Our Top 100 Sports Movies page is ranked 109th of 4860 pages/posts that get views on our website.
Rob Write: What new ideas for Hubs are you working on now?
Cogerson: Looking at my request notebook, I have 18 suggestions/requests to do, with William Holden, Sidney Poitier and Matthew McConaughey coming soon. The Hub that I am really looking forward to writing is Hub number 100. I am only 3 Hubs away from a number that I never thought I would reach.
Changes since 2011? We ended up with 158 hubs before moving most of our pages to our own website. During our stay at HubPages we crossed over a million views, won 3 Hubbies and ran across lots of great people.
Rob Write: Is that anything else you’d like to add?
Cogerson: I think the best part of Hub pages are my fellow Hubbers. Without the awesome feedback that I have received there is no way I would be still writing movie Hubs and having such a great time doing it.
Changes since 2011? This is still the best part of writing online. We have received over 15,000 comments over the years….and almost all of them are appreciated….even the ones that question the rankings we list.
When WoC suggested I get this interview movie to our website…I reached out to RobWrite and got his permission to include his questions. For those that remember RobWrite…he is doing well….he has had some success writing on a television show and still writes online about movies.
Enjoyable interview. Nice telling of how you got started. Did not realize you were a baseball fan. I am as well. I love the Red Sox. Please do not tell me you like the Yankees. Good stuff.
Hey Stein….thanks for checking out our interview. Yep like baseball….but sadly I do not have the time to watch many games these days…..maybe when they figure out how to speed the game up…I will be able to watch more games. When the Red Sox had Dwight Evans they were my favorite team…..but when they dumped him….I dumped them. Currently I do not have a favorite team…..but I most admit…..the Yankees bringing up all of these youngsters is pretty cool….and very unYankee like….I kind of like that….and I am pulling for them to make the playoffs….that might be the first time in my life that has been the case.
Hello, I read this and found it very interesting but I could not put in a comment but you corrected it so here is my comment. VERY INTERESTING. Thank you.
Hey BERN1960……thanks for the kind words…..yes I forgot to attach the comment box when I first published the page. So many thanks for coming back.
5 years! Wow! I sure miss you at HP, but I understand why you embarked on your journey. I’ll always remember if it wasn’t for HP we wouldn’t have become friends and taken so many more adventures together. It’s also been awesome watching your girls grow up via FB. It’s been a pleasure, Cogerson.
Hey Sunshine…I miss the people at HP….can’t say I miss the constantly changing rules and format changes that caused chaos for my massive tables. Though IMing….I now know you are a 5-Time Hubbie Award winner…..congrats on the wins I missed the last couple of years. It has been a pleasure. Thanks for stopping and checking out this “new to this website” old Hub Page interview. PS. Maybe it is time for you to revisit “our” interview of you.
If you secretly miss Dora…I have some DVDs you can borrow
Thanks Laura…for the last few years I have been wondering what has been missing in my life…..think I have figured it out….lack of Dora The Explorer…lol. Thanks for checking out our interview.
I remember this interview and I remember RobWrite too, brings back memories. Eventually Hubpages became overly moderated and controlling, it was time to call it day. I still have over 300 hubs on there.
I think your readers will find this interview fascinating Bruce, it was a good idea to bring it here. How it all began. I see that Steve fellow gets a mention or two, wasn’t he one of your harshest critics? Always complaining about the rankings? I’m sure he meant well. 😉
Hey come on how boring would it be if everyone agreed on everything? Nothing is set in stone. I get complaints about movie rankings on my video ratings, I just laugh it off and tell them they were lucky I included their movie at all, just like Bruce does when he reads my posts. [Bruce shakes his head]
Your 2011 hub was so successful, you should have done more yearly movie pages from the past too or weren’t they as popular?
Keep up the good work Bruce, you’ve achieved so much in just a few years, and it’s only the beginning… [Bruce groans]
Hey Steve.
1. Thanks for checking out my “new” interview. It is scary how in a blink of an eye five years have gone by.
2. I have 6 Hubs left on HubPages. They get about 500 views a month….with my World War 2 page being the one that draws in the most views.
3. One of my big regrets is that I deleted the hubs I wrote….so even though I have crossed a million views at HubPages….I did not get a million view icon……they actually only have me at less than 50,000 views….not thinking I will ever get that icon….which at one time was my number one goal.
4. That Steve fellow has been harsh at times….but in the end his thoughts have made our website better….since we changed the formula in our equation…..and gave reviews were credit than box office….he has been happier…..at least a little more than when the equation was reversed.
5. We have actually done a movie page for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and now we have a 2016….they have never been as popular as the 2011 one….so I have lost a lot of motivation in updating it weekly…..now I seem to update at every changing season. On the other hand…my 1939, 1946 and 1952 movie pages have been very popular….so your suggestion helped create some of my most popular pages.
6. Wow if this is only the beginning…..I can not even imagine how big this site will be in 5 more years.
Thanks for the visit and the comment.
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