Easter Eggs and Interaction

Two major issues I had with crowdfunding campaigns, (and I've done them before and changed my perspective on them) is 1.) you really need to go all-or-nothing and 2.) the rewards/perks have to be something that the normal audience won't get.

I learned a lot over time about crowdfunding and one of those things is that if you're only offering DVD's, T-shirts, screening tickets, etc then how is backing a campaign any more special than just buying that stuff after it's done?  The answer is... it's not!

Now To The Interaction

Our smallest support level will be at $10 or more.  We followed Zac Braff's lead with this one and will focus on hiring a camera operator to record those cool behind-the-scenes segments that will air as private videos to our supporters.  Honestly people don't want video updates, they want that stuff on set watching people trying to make it happen.  Making it happen means that the funny, off beat moments, the stress moments, the "that's cool" moments are viewed by you as if watching segments of a reality TV webseries.

We also came up with some cool limited reward levels.  One of them is  Name the Character.  A few of the character names will be up for change at certain support levels.  People who choose this limited reward option will be given the option to change the character's name to their own or a name of their choosing (based on approval of the producers)

Another limited one is a Easter Egg Hunt.  Ever seen people like J.J. Abrams hide "easter eggs" in their trailers.  Artists sometimes like to hide symbols, names, clues within the images of their art.  Think about a pledge level where you name gets to be hidden around the Big Event scenes.  Maybe on someones cloths, or a car, or a wreckage object.  This would happen 12 times within that even timeline so people have to search out your name like playing Where's Waldo. 

Or another limited reward is Be The Character where they get to own the costume of the main character after the Big Event timeline is filmed.  No other audience member would be able to say, "I own the outfit that Andrew Roth's character wore in the Big Event scene".

These are just a few of the ways that we're trying to interact with our audience with our campaign.


Yeah, maybe the average audience member might not embrace these rewards/perks, but it's another way to interact with the audience.  Our belief is that if we do more than just make something, but interact with our supporters we'll connect on a bigger level.

J.W.B.

Crowdfunding: Pursuing Audience Interaction

Most of the time when I see the phrase "crowdfunding"... I cringe. 

-I know, it's not the positive response many in the indie film world want to hear.  For many people who are not in the indie film world the term "crowdfunding" was relatively knew until Spike Lee, Zac Braff and those people with the Veronica Mars movie rolled out their kickstarter campaigns.  Before then, and still with many people I talk with, the term "crowdfunding" still puzzles people.  I get the response, "you can actually do that?", or "people actually support that".  Yes crowdfunding has turned into a millions (yes plural use of the world "million") of dollars business.

The concept of crowdfunding had a major appeal to me when I heard the term in 2010.  -The reason is the idea that an artist or an entrepreneur could go to the crowd, the masses, and get those people to back something that the crowd wants instead of trying to convince a rich investor to bank roll their risk venture.   Today's economy means that investors are very hesitant about backing anything that isn't a sure bet... and nothing is a sure bet.  With film it's even worse.  The big studios only want to back $200 million dollar franchise movies that sell easily overseas (primarily in China!).  But research shows that the audience desires more diverse content.- That's why I like the concept of crowdfunding...  The audience's backing of a crowdfunded project proves demand.

One of the things that many film audience members don't know is the bulk of the films now showing at festivals were either partially or completely crowdfunded.  Investors are also more apt to invest in a film that has raised some support through crowdfunding because it shows the demand and creates a less risky venture.

But here's my major issue.  Crowdfunding should really be about One Major Thing: pursuing audience interaction.  I should, as a filmmaker, try to connect with you, the audience, on a storytelling or emotional level where you feel compelled to support the campaign, and not feel pressured to donate. 

In the book, "Good in a Room" by former MGM Executive Stephanie Palmer, she talks about building rapport before going into the meat of a pitch meeting with a studio exec who could greenlight a film or TV show project.  If the audience is the group that can essentially "greenlights" a project by supporitng a crowdfunding campaign, shouldn't the filmmaker start out the campaign by building rapport?  Start out introducing the story, focusing on the "why", introducing the characters, the key participants?...  Then after the introductions are made start talking about reaching a financial goal.

As you can tell we're doing a crowdfunding campaign for the AMNESIA TV show coming up.  No one, to my knowledge, has attempted to do a crowdfunding campaign for a TV show concept.  As I've stated before I'm not pursuing produce a TV pilot, we're going after all 6 of the episodes of the first season.  We're breaking it down into phases since the story is told in 3 timelines (saves big $$ going this route).  So what we're going after is a big deal!  No one has done this before.  If we reach our goal we'll make history.  Sept 6 is the launch day.

If you like what we're trying to do, then on Sept 6 when we post the link to our kickstarter campaign please post the link with the following statement "I want to watch this TV show!"

Later this week will be some blogs posts that describe some of the interactive perks/rewards we came up with for our campaign.  We tried to brainstorm about how we could kick back to our backers things that make the experience more than just watching a show.  We're open to suggestions if you have any ideas?

J.W.B.

The Influence of Star Wars and the "Overshadowing Darkness"

The original Star Wars movie came out in 1977.  I was born in 1979 so I obviously missed seeing it on the big screen.  I was part of the VHS generation, which now many people treat like antiques.  If I could only borrow Dr. Who's TARDIS for a few hours I'd jump back to '77 so I could see what it was like to see it on the big screen.

Star Wars influenced a large portion of my original screenwriting.  I don't mean those prequels either.  There were some basic writing elements that I noticed in the first three which sadly were lost when the prequels came out.  One of them was what I call the "Overshadowing Darkness".  From the first moment in the original film we introduced the dark character of Darth Vader.  His first introduction needed no words.

Star Wars IV starts with... A really large spaceship is chasing down a much smaller one.  They capture the smaller one and a shoot out commences.  After the military easily out numbers and kills of the defenders of the smaller ship this dark character emerges.  He says nothing.  His presence already makes it very clear he is the person that everyone should fear.  From that point forward there was always a sense that the "evil", the thing that the main characters fear, is always just two steps away.  This exists, even if just subtly, in every scene for the entire 3 films of the original trilogy and sadly it was one of the main things that was lost in the prequels.  The audience needs to always be reminded that the thing the main characters fear that might happen is always lurking somewhere in the scene.  It doesn't matter what type of genre the writer is writing in, the audience always needs to be reminded that there is a potential of losing and failing at the main goal.  I tried to keep this focus in mind as I wrote each TV show episode.  What is it that the main characters or other characters are trying to achieve?  What are the potential pitfalls, the "overshadowing darkness" that follows the characters?

Another influence that I gained from the original Star Wars was the idea that you can toss that audience midway into a story and always stay two steps ahead of them and they're smart enough to follow along.  Audience members don't need a play-by-play of what happened before.  They can think on their own.  And actually allowing them to think on their own is really fun.  They keep guessing, putting the clues together.  It also creates more conflict and tension because certain characters know certain information while the others don't.

On of the other things that Star Wars did (the original ones not those prequels) is jumping into the action of the scene.  It was like George wrote the beginning, middle, end of a scene and then trimmed off a bunch on the beginning and the end.  He gave you the meat of the situation without giving you a lot of fluff exposition.  He didn't try to explain everything but just kept the story going.  My last few drafts of AMNESIA were driven with this in mind.  Why not jump into the chase instead of slowly building up to it.  Why not jump you into the meat of the flashback instead of a slow build up of  the important material.  Is it possible that the reason so many of the blockbusters today are almost 4 hours long is because there's too much extra "stuff"?  I used to compare a script to a steak.  You don't want the fat, you don't want the gristle.  You want the meat.  Give the audience the meat, the stuff worth watching and nothing else.

J.W.B.

AMNESIA and The Planet of The Apes Inspiration

When I was about 17 I sat down with my brothers to watch TV one summer.  When we clicked it on it was about 1/8th of the way into a classic film, The Planet of the Apes (1968 version).  We missed all the credits, the spaceship crash, everything that happened in the beginning.  We had jumped straight into the part where the apes show up and start hunting the humans.  As a viewer just jumping into the show at this point and seeing these apes chasing these people was a rush.  Who are these people being chase?  Who are these apes and how did they end up in charge?  What planet are we on?  Will the main characters survive?  The effect of jumping in the middle of a chase sequence and having to run with the characters (mentally) and try to play catch up with the facts of the story was really compelling...

Flash forward to 2001, four months after 9/11.  I was inspired by the events of the tragedy and  embarked on one of my longest writing assignments.  For me inspiration is different than other people.  I don't try to come up with a story.  Something triggers me to "see" a scene or series of events in my mind and I start to play out the scenario.  So what did I see that triggered this story?  I saw a man waking up in a post-apocalyptic world with amnesia.  He had no idea how he got there or what was happening... and then he found himself being chased.  Yes, I went from apocalypse, amnesia and then chased. 

I had always had these weird reoccurring dreams when I was growing up of being chased by some strange army.  Never knew who they were or what they were after.  These played out in my mind as a key factor in the story development of Amnesia.  The story would always be a mix of searching for clues while constantly trying to evade capture or death.

I'm not a big "cause film" kind of person.  If  I'm going to watch a film it's because I find the story compelling and then themes develop within the story.   This is also how I write my scripts.  Out of the story, the struggle of the characters, the flaws and triumphs these themes emerge.  You don't have to force themes to happen.  Themes generally happen as the writer empathizes with the character's struggles.  The questions that you struggle with as a writer, the ideals you try to hold to that you question rive the theme.  This happens whether you want the themes to happen or not.  Ironically the themes, which generally for me are unintended, resonate with the audience sometimes more than the story plot.  With Amneisa the theme is simple but consistent:  Hope Still Lives. 

Even when things look bad and everyone says there's no hope... Hope Still Lives.  Hope maybe hiding behind all the bad things that are happening.  Hope maybe very subtle, small, almost invisible, but it's there.  Hope is like the rays of a sunrise just as the dawn of day is coming.  Just that little sliver of light that tells you that things will get better.  Hope Still Lives.

J.W.B.

TV Show vs. Webseries

First thing I wanted to announce that Julie Kendall has been attached to play the character of Anne Steavens in the TV show.  Julie has so much passion and talent that every director out there should be looking at her resume.  Now back to the main topic...

Naturally when people think TV show verses webseries the assumption is that the main difference between the two is broadcasting medium.  It is assumed that a TV show is something you see on your TV with either cable, satellite or, back in the day, they had those antiques called "bunny ears" that hook in the back of your TV when things were analog.

But there's a problem with assuming the difference is "how it is delivered".  If the deciding factor was that you had to watch it through those options then House of Cards, produced exclusively to be viewed on Netflix, shouldn't be nominated for an Emmy as a TV show.  Netflix streaming is online.

So what is the major difference?  The format of the script.

Webseries are shorter.  A traditional TV show script is broken down as Teaser followed by 5 Acts.  The act break downs were as such because of advertising, but I also find that it helps with pacing.  A TV show moves faster than a movie.  A TV show is traditionally 45 pages long/45 minutes long.  A film traditionally goes 90-120 minutes (or if your making a tent pole movie it could go onto until eternity).

The break down of the script is the key factor on how myself, the writer/director, tells the story and how you, the audience, responds to it.  Most webseries are 5-10 minutes long and really have to get to the point quickly.  With a TV show script I focus on how to get to the beginning and end of an Act with a sense of mystery and urgency so that by the end of the act you're driven to go to the next one.

With AMNESIA it is a series of twists and turns.  Just when you think you've figured out what's going on or who to trust then something is thrown into the mix and you become concerned with the outcome.  If I had attempted to tell this as a webseries it would be novel and interesting, but it couldn't be developed the way the TV show format is set up.

In many ways I think it can be easier to do a webseries.  And don't get me wrong I think there are some great webseries out there.  But if I was going to go big enough and emotionally compelling enough to give this story what it deserves than I had to "go big" and it had to be written as a TV show.

By the way, my style of TV show scripts was inspired by two famous TV shows which had the same writer/director on both shows.  The writer/director is now directing some of the biggest movies right now.  Take a guess which two TV show scripts inspired my style for AMNESIA?