BUCK ROGERS: Coming to a Laptop Near You!

The Power of the Web Compels You...

DMc has a great post up today regarding the change that is raining down over Canadian television (or perhaps a better phrase would be lack of change in certain corners of their business), and how creative people are leading the way - "story" in hand - to create better looking, more dramatic shows such as FLASHPOINT, THE BORDER and BEING ERICA (which I haven't seen yet). This is in the face of an industry that is seemingly ill-prepared to embrace the future.

But that's kind of how it always is isn't it? The "creatives", the "weirdos" leading the charge "...half a league, half a league half a league onward... into the valley of death..."

(Okay, maybe that wasn't a good analogy)

But the creative types see not how things are, but what they could be... what they hope and work at it to be. Because that's part of the sustaining energy and excitement of it all.

Never was that more evident than at last night's premiere party for COMPULSIONS a new web serial created and written by my friend Bernie Su. This was a compelling piece of work that looked good. Tee Vee good... but different. Made for a fraction of the cost. (I write that because the economics of it always factor into these things).

Tubefilter has a nice write up of the event here:

Last night in Los Angeles, in a packed screening premiere at Cinespace a room full of some 200 or so lucky ones had a chance to collectively writhe and squirm through the first 4 episodes. “I know the expectations are high,” wrote creator Bernie Su in a post before the premiere, “especially for independent web content but I honestly don’t know if the general audience will love it or not. Our show is dark, intense, and gritty. Though I can say this… our show is definitely something else.”

The series centers on three hidden desires, or compulsions, afflicting three respective main characters. There’s Mark (Craig Frank), the compulsive sadist chillingly unaffected by his routine torture games. Mark’s mysterious handler Justine (Janna Bossier) who’s compulsive “trophy hunting” has something to do with tracking down a missing “package.” And Mark’s office co-worker Cassandra (Annemarie Pazmino) who delivers a tech-infused modern day twist on compulsive voyeurism.

Here's the trailer:





Bernie and co. are doing something new-ish for the web, creating something they wanted to see made that didn't fit into the normal "box." If the last night's audience response was any indication, they struck a nerve.

When was the last time you read something like that about a series on television that wasn't written by the PR department of the network?

Striking. A. Nerve.
Plowing. New. Ground.
Making. Something. Yours.

And Bernie isn't the only one. Good friend of the blog James Moran (Twitter: @jamesmoran), writer of the recent TORCHWOOD series CHILDREN OF EARTH, struck out on his own (okay, with others in his merry band) and created GIRL NUMBER 9.



So, where am I going with this?

Well, to quote Denis:

See, I'm really not doing it justice. And that's the point. Reaching back to an earlier form, the rules are different, the delivery different, but what was there, gloriously alive and vibrant and entertaining -- was the story. The story will survive, no matter what form or challenge we throw at it. For those of us whose business is story, that's got to come as a comfort, no matter how backward and antiquated and maddeningly out of touch the captains of the industry seem, it's we, who have rolled with the punches and changed what we do already over the last few years...it's we who will survive.

Yes, we will survive. Thrive even. If we own it, grow it and deliver it ourselves. So, in light of everything Denis talks about in his post I have this to say:

Go web, young man, and grow up with the world.

Pulp by Design: MERCURY MEN

From the Mercury Men.

Yes, your design and your story walk hand in hand. Messing with one messes with the other.

When you are pulling your story together, pull in your reference work- pictures, video techniques, snatches of dialog, lighting schema, music, title sequences - all of it.

YES - EVEN BEFORE THE SCRIPT IS WRITTEN.

And I know very well the idea of science fiction in an analog world.

Don't I, Mr. Bellware?

Watch Out For The Mercury Men! (The Almost 20Q Interview)

I have been fascinated with this project ever since I became aware of it. MM is a blend of Scifi, serials and pulp delivered to your laptop with the speed of the internet.

Here with our 2nd "Almost 20Q" Interview - I present Chris Preksta the Captain behind this pulpy production:


1. What is the origin of the Mercury Men?

The short: I noticed a serious lack of ray guns in modern entertainment. The long: I had been working on a feature project with a production company for nearly two years that just wasn't gaining any traction. I was getting really anxious not filming anything, and I've always wanted to film something with ray guns, so I pulled together a small crew in October 2007 and filmed a black and white short over the course of a day and half. It just followed this nameless office employee fighting off glowing men with a ray gun. We screened it at a few film festivals, including Comic Con, and it was really well received. I started thinking there may be an opportunity to tell a bigger story.

2. What drew you to creating a pulp / serial styled adventure ?

I love both the look/design and the style of storytelling, especially the cliffhangers. I'm also a huge fan of black and white.

For years I've been saying they ought to bring back serialized shorts proceeding feature films, similar to what Pixar has been doing for years. That way viewers get a bit more for their buck and studios get the opportunity to try out ideas, characters, actors/directors before committing to an expensive feature. Can you imagine going to see Iron Man 2 and before it they play a 5 minute Captain America live action short of him storming a Nazi base? And if you end it on a cliffhanger people will make sure to check out the next Marvel movie to see what happens. Maybe one day we'll get to see Mercury Men before the summer blockbuster at your local cineplex!

3. What was your writing and development process? Did you conceive it as a feature THEN break it down OR was it always conceived as a serial? What sparked the title? The idea?

I, along with story contributors Ben and Curt, work in outlines/index cards for a long time. Probably 75% of the process. Once you get into a script it's pretty easy to lose sight of the big picture. I really aimed for this story to work both as a serial and as a feature/DVD. Each episode works on it's own, but a few episodes together form a larger act.

The original short was called The Mercury Men so the title just carried over. It was the first and only title I came up with, and it was there from day one of the idea. When you hear or read it your brain sort of naturally poses the question "Who are the Mercury Men?" Which makes for great marketing/posters of course.

We were a little worried calling the new series The Mercury Men and even considered changing it for two reasons. One, I knew a lot of people would confuse us with The Mystery Men Ben Stiller movie. And two, further sequels won't always have the Mercury characters so it may be a little confusing later. While discussing a possible title change, Curt Wootton, who plays Jack, told a story of a Terminator 2 trading card he had as a kid with a picture of the liquid metallic T-1000. The card was subtitled "Mercury Man." He told us that name always struck him with a bit of awe. That settled the debate.

4. What's your background? (School? self-taught? location? experience?)

Went to a local film school here in Pittsburgh. Hated it. Everybody was making either really bad experimental video stuff or a rip off of Boondock Saints. I left after three years and took the money I was spending on tuition to help pay for my first feature film Captain Blasto.

5. Yes, Captain Blasto was your first foray into this arena - what did you learn from it (Production, marketing, distribution)?

I learned practically everything from it, both good and bad, and too much to list here. The most valuable lessons I took away were: the nuts and bolts of how to make a production run, that being incredibly well organized will help you gain and keep volunteer cast/crew, and the incredible amount of discipline it takes to make it through an entire production. I also learned that the "make a good cheap movie, take it to film festivals, sell movie" model of filmmaking was dying REALLY fast.

6. Let's get into the production: How long did it take? Ups / downs?

Pre-production went from March 08 - September 08 and included everything from writing, designing/building/buying props and costumes, schedules, shot lists, and storyboards (I draw storyboards for every single shot of the film.)

Principal photography began on October 2nd 2008 and went for three weeks, shooting on nights 6 days a week. Average crew size was roughly 12 people (from Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Ohio), all working till one, three, sometimes five AM and then having to go to their day job and come back to film at five PM! We shot for a week in a downtown parking garage and it was really neat/eerie to be eating "lunch" at midnight outside in the middle of a dead quiet city.

We had three locations: a church office floor, an insurance company office floor, and the parking garage. We found locations through both the Pittsburgh film office and friends. Once we knew what we needed we just started asking around, even putting it out on my Facebook status. If you can't find it that way, try to get in touch with your local film office. They should have a ginormous database of location pictures. The trick is finding the ones that won't charge you thousands of dollars. We got turned down by about a dozen places.

We shot on a Panasonic HVX and rented a small lighting/dolly package from The Gaffhouse, a local equipment house. If you're interested in shooting your own film/series and don't have your own equipment or a great budget, never be afraid to ask a local equipment place for help. A lot of times they have equipment just sitting there not making money so they'll gladly rent at an incredibly reduced rate.

7. Postproduction: what tools are you using to create this look? This sound? The VFX?

Most of "the look" is created by our lighting design. But as far as post-production I'm editing on a Mac Pro using Final Cut Pro and After Effects for the VFX. I learned how to do FX while working on the original short just by watching an insane amount of online video tutorials like videocopilot.net. I wasn't copying any specific effect or tutorial (you can see a lot of their stuff being copied ALL OVER the internet now a days) just learning how the program worked.

As for sound, we have a local studio (Market St. Sound) handling the mix for us. While I'm able to handle a lot of different areas of filmmaking, sound is the one I have to hand off.


8. Who designed your poster?

I did the poster. Art and design is my other love/hobby.

9. What are your favorite pulps?

While it's not originally of the golden age of pulps, and often not considered pulp, I've got to go with Raiders of the Lost Ark. That film inspired Mercury Men a great deal and remains a constant source of conversation between the cast/crew.

10. What are your favorite comics and comic artists/writers?

Darwyn Cooke hands down. The New Frontier is easily among my top 5 comics. The style of art, story, and characters is everything I love. I'm a big fan of 60's design.


The Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale dynamic duo is a close second. They create the most cinematic comics.

11. Raygun or jetpack?

Jet pack, which I'm REALLY hoping we can pull off in a Mercury Men sequel.

[Check out a cool Mercury Men raygun here]

12. Underground mole machine or rocketship?

Rocketship. I'm claustrophobic. And a huge fan of space.

13. What's next for Mercury Men?

Beyond just getting the series finished we're working hard on some fun stuff for this season such as the digital props and trading cards we've been releasing on the blog (http://themercurymen.blogspot.com). We're going to be releasing something every few days. We've got some behind-the-scenes video coming soon and some projects that viewers can contribute to the story. We're also already working on the story for the next volume of the series.
















14. I see it's available on blip.tv - is this the only venue available?

It's also available on iTunes.

15. What online marketing tools are you using? Facebook? Twitter? Ning? etc... what do you think of each one in terms of effectiveness for what you're trying to accomplish?

We're VERY active on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mercury-Men/60005770026), Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/themercurymen), and the blog.

I really think the interaction and dialogue with viewers is the most important part of this for me, and I am absolutely genuine about that. I love both sharing what we're doing, how we do it, and also hearing what others are doing.

16. Do you have traditional distribution (DVD, TV, Cable, International) yet or are you shopping it around? What's been the response so far?

No distribution agreement just yet.

17. What's next for you?

I've got two other projects ready to go, but all energy is being aimed at Mercury Men now.

18. What are your longterm goals in this industry?

Feed and house my wife and future kids. Beyond that I like telling fun stories that also have a deeper meaning in there. I'd love for Mercury Men Pictures to one day be the Pixar of live action film.

19. What do you want to say to the audience out there?

Hi. My name is Chris.

Pursuant to my Earlier Post re: Web Video Money

That you can find here, Nikki Finke has a nice announcement that foretells the future of entertainment:

"Reveille last Thursday has signed a deal with Machinima.com, an entertainment network for the gaming generation. It's to executive produce and secure sponsorship for the Machinima Comedy Lab, a collaboration with 15 leading episodic television writers from popular TV series like The Simpsons, Futurama, SNL, Seinfeld, to develop original episodic comedy pilots for the Machinima.com network. One of those writers happens to be WGA West President and animation writer Patric Verrone. By securing sponsors for the Lab, Reveille and Machinima.com claim to be creating "a cost-effective way to incubate episodic series that can migrate from the Internet to TV with Reveille packaging the most successful series as pilots for broadcast and cable TV". (Machinima.com is the 7th most subscribed YouTube channel).

The writers working on the Machinima Comedy Lab pilots include: Ken Keeler, Stacie Lipp, Bill Oakley, Max Pross & Tom Gammill, Patric Verrone, Maiya Williams, Chris Cluess, Bill Freiberger, Eric Horsted, Christina Lynch, Peggy Nicoll, Mike Rowe, Loren Segan."

Green Hornet Conquers Web...Again

Many folks here in these parts know of my affection for the french Green Hornet short that made the rounds a couple of years ago.

Now, from MTV's SPLASH PAGE comes this announcement that there's a new Green Hornet web series shooting in Chicago:

Over at Destructo, they’re reporting that filming for a “GreenHornetTV” web series recently occurred at a famous landmark in Chicago. While their sources say the project isn’t related to the “Green Hornet” movie, they do claim that whatever does come of the shoot will end up online at www.GreenHornetTV.com. (The site currently states that whatever is planned for it is “coming soon.”)

“Filming at the Uptown Bank building seems to have been for basic interior shots and did not appear to involve the Hornet himself,” reads the site’s report. “However, other witnesses said that the police who were present may not have been wearing Chicago issued uniforms, but this could not be confirmed.”

Could there be yet another medium Green Hornet is headed to in the near future? We’ll be sure to keep you posted as any news develops.

Could this be where The Knightmare heads to in the future?

Hmmmm...

What are they? They're The Mercury Men

This was just sent to me by Pulp Legionnaire Peter Noble.



Go to the website: The Mercury Men

We will discuss later, but note how the website is laid out:

Easy to subscribe via several options.
Easy to get info.
Easy to contact them and interact (Facebook, Twitter)
Merchandise.

The only problem I have is that the gallery is in Flash and you can't pull pics to further spread the word. They could have put the site's url in the corner of each photo and driven some more traffic.

But overall, very good.

Web Creators: A Call to Action

Marc Hustvedt over at Tubefilter News has written a wonderful Call to Action for anyone and everyone who has been comtemplating creating or distributing a web series.

Must reading.

Of particular note:

Your Audience is Out There - Go Find Them

I mean this, actively go out and find people who might be interested in your series. You have a series about the perils of dieting and dating in your thirties? Awesome. There are plenty of people who can relate to that. But they probably aren’t hanging out on YouTube every day watching Jessica Alba clips. Go find them. The world is niche.

To all the actors and writers out there, you have to get over the idea that someone else is going to promote you. This is an old school Hollywood relic of an idea that has to go. It’s time to find your own audience and connect with them directly. Having an actual personal connection with your audience means you have to be the one that responds to comments, emails, tweets, phone calls.

Think Startups Not Pilots

Web series are startups. Creators are entrepreneurs and need to think that way. Seriously, ditch the old Hollywood mindset right now. Stop waiting for someone to pick you, find you, groom you or pitch you. You have everything you need right now to grow your audience. So get off your asses.

Put every bit as much of the attention you put into your creations into your press outreach, your social media connections, your fan correspondence, your business development. A lot of you know every frame of the final cuts your series. I need you to take that obsession into knowing every pixel of your web sites. I can’t tell you how many web series I’ve seen with the most garish pieces of junk web sites. What gives? It’s like trying to sell people on a car with two shot tires and no paint. Doesn’t matter how fancy your engine is if they aren’t even going to open the hood.

Streaming video will go down as the single greatest advancement in entertainment since the television set. We owe Chad Hurley (founder of YouTube) and dozens of others for getting us where we are today. They have literally handed over the keys to a new entertainment medium, for free. There used to be only three channels that controlled all the moving images in you living room and now every single one of us can have their own channel. That’s a big deal.

And to wrap it up:

It’s time for all of us to start making a living doing this. It comes down to this: attention is moving online in leaps and bounds. That’s happening no matter what the economy does. And no matter which numbers you look at, the trend is this: online video advertising dollars are heading into the billions this year.

This revolution in entertainment means we’re all on equal footing here. Don’t talk yourself out of doing something great just because the ‘big guys’ have more money or a bigger name than you. Get that out of your heads for good.

The next Felicia Day or Joss Whedon is out there. This is the year to get serious. Trust me, the ones who do we’ll be talking about in the same sentence as those two this time next year.

Wiring TeeVee and the Web

WIRED has an excellent couple of articles regarding the nature and future of television and the internet.

Let's be clear - THIS IS MUST READING FOR ALL OF US - Writers, producers, cameramen, directors, everyone. Anyone in this industry who has ever felt, "Damn, I'm on my own with this one."

ARTICLE ONE

ARTICLE TWO

These are the must-read articles which we will discuss in the next couple of days as I pull them apart. There are also several articles on web attention-getting strategies, some How-To's, and just general good stuff to know - Bookmarked!

Oh and let's add Kay Reindl's new post on Dr. Horrible to the mix.

Get ready to put your debate blazer on...
----------------------------------------------------------------

Alex Epstein weighs in on the topic here.

DMc puts his spin on it here.

Get Ready for "Scary City"

In a bit of good news - investment in web entertainment - the executive producer of "LonelyGirl15" is readying the launch of SCARY CITY a $5.2M web project spanning several countries.

From Content Agenda:

The U.S. version of the story revolves around a haunted Los Angeles apartment complex and the missing 10-year-old daughter of an architect who battles the building's unseen evil forces. Tenants from all over the world who get caught up in the global intrigue.

The Japanese version begins with a murder mystery that a Tokyo high school girl tries to solve.

Future versions of the mystery are planned for Korea, Israel, the U.K., France and Thailand, with the international casts involved in the globetrotting narrative.

Series will start with five episodes of 11/2 to three minutes. Viewers will be able to email episodes of the show; installments will also be syndicated to sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

Aoyagi intends to distribute content to mobile phones and adapt the plot as manga graphic novels. She also hopes eventually to develop the property into a full-length feature. "It's like a full-fledged pre-release campaign, with each story in every country serving as a trailer for the movie," Aoyagi said.

Raiders of the Lost Ark: Final Chapter!

We've had a lot of fun with this re-imagining of the first of the Indiana Jones movies. I promised Roger I would ask the audience:

1. What did you like?
2. What did you dislike?
3. What can he do differently next time? (and yes, there will be a next time)

Because the adventure is always ... To Be Continued

Raiders of the Lost Ark: Chapter 12

For your Friday Fun!

Imagine if you were to get one of these chapters sent to your email box every Friday for free (with ads attached, natch) and then you could go to your local store and pick up the DVD after that 10 or 12 chapter run and see not only the movie version, but the cool extras of how they made the serial in the first place.

Welcome to the future - it's a lot like the past only faster... and it comes to you.