Okay! I said I would post more detail. No time like the present.
I've had an idea for a television series kicking around for several years now. In fact it's based on an idea I had when I was about 18 years old, and I am a bit older than that now. :b It has a horror theme, loosely, but far removed from my teeny version as that was an all-out gothy thing. The 2012 version just has gothy aspects. The emphasis is on the characters. I like having strong characters. Good plots are great but if you don't give a damn about the characters who cares?
So I envisaged it as a half-hour format. You might call it sitcom format, but think Spaced rather than Men Behaving Badly, etc. I have no (creative) interest in playing with the latter format. It has comedy but also has an amount of dramatic content. Not too much. It isn't heavy. Audience would prolly be 18-40 age bracket roughly speaking, I guess.
I have the five episodes of series one plotted and part-scripted in rough notes form, and a third draft, almost-finished script for ep one. I have ideas on some of the casting, suitable theme song, a basic design for a logo, etc.
Do I believe in it? 1000%. IF it was made, IF it found its audience, I believe it'd go down great. Realistically I'm thinking one of the smaller UK channels is where it could end up, best-case- scenario. That's fine. When I say I think it'd go down great, I mean in a semi-cult kind of way, not a Bigger-Than-Jesus way. I get enthusiastic sometimes but I try to avoid being outright delusional.
Well.............................
Slush piles. They suck. And someone with a bit of wisdom once said to me, "Show, don't tell!"
So the idea in my head for some time now is to consider independently funding a pilot episode. That's surely the best possible way to 'show' rather than 'tell' in this medium -- if you can make it happen, anyway. A sample show that has all the qualities you hope for, there in moving pictures, trumps any amount of hyperbolic jabber. And festivals, art houses, etc, are possible venues for public screenings. I know a couple-three venues where I think showings would be very feasible. I have contacts.
What was mentioned in another thread is a chicken-and-egg thing. Part of me says, stick to your guns on this and just shoot high as I can and see what happens. To wit, wanting two (moderately, mildly) known actors to play the two leads. The first reason for wanting them is nothing more than their being absoultely perfect -- one in particular, bearing a distressingly uncanny resemblance to the character as depicted in sketches, etc. I mean so good that it's almost freaky. And she was not in my mind, nor in the mind of the person I've worked with on some of this material. It's just a strange lightning strike that hit me probably 18 months ago, seeing her in something.
As I said elsewhere, I believe at least one of these actors (the one mentioned) has some sympathy and interest in independent projects. That might be a good thing. Who knows?
If they liked the idea, I have no concept of what their fee would be. That's an obstacle re funding budget in any case. Unless I find this out first. I have little practical experience on film-making front, just to be clear, but I do consider myself imaginative and resourceful. I am quite confident about my control over expenses and getting something out of very little. But a cheapjack production isn't an option. Even if £25 is spent on the FX budget (there would be a couple of FX-based moments), it'd have to look good enough to be shown on the box. Digital HD, I suppose.
I have a rough speculative budget. I think it could be done for about £10,000. I'm making a wild guess about acting fees. And, for instance, one location would be the lounge of a flat, and I have a friend in London whose pad would do just fine. (He doesn't know it yet, so don't quote me!) So that, for one thing, is a low-expense aspect. I know someone who I believe would be very capable of handling a couple of practical FX to a pretty good standard. I have a few others who'd pitch in as crew variously.
What I don't have is: two camera people, a sound person and a video editor. These, at minimum, are essential. I've discussed this with a writer/director friend in LA who has appraised my overall ideas as basically sound -- he offered a few other terrific pointers. He is ostensibly Associate Producer. Not that he can do much 3,000 miles away, but his input is highly valued, plus his name does no harm at all. I'm hoping, anyway, such people are findable on the grapevine. Conceivably we also need a CGI person. If the theoretical video editor also happened to be good with this, great. But the first step, outside of writing a standalone pilot script (which is partly done as I type this), is finding a theoretical crew as above.
After that... well, the dilemma of approaching actors before or after funding. I see the logic in after. I really do. But raising 10k without the extra publicity they'd help to attract seems quite a tall order. With them, I genuinely believe it's possible. Obviously there is the hurdle of them loving or hating the script anyway...
Sorry for being so long-winded! This is a scary thing in a way. I can blow hot and cold on whether to attack it head-on. I have about four other projects I want to do, but this is the big one. It can fail big-time or it can be a big deal. Finding people who GET the thing is really important. For instance I talked with a camera guy some months ago, and basically after reading the script he clearly had no interest... chiefly because it wasn't balls-to-the-wall horror. As a horror fan himself, he pitched ideas at me that would've made it more in line with that approach and I couldn't accept them... I can't/won't bastardise the idea for the sake of spectacle. So that was the end of that. People have to click with it, or not. There isn't a single drop of blood spilled in this show. That should tell you a lot.
Enough said for now. Apologies again, for length!!
I've had an idea for a television series kicking around for several years now. In fact it's based on an idea I had when I was about 18 years old, and I am a bit older than that now. :b It has a horror theme, loosely, but far removed from my teeny version as that was an all-out gothy thing. The 2012 version just has gothy aspects. The emphasis is on the characters. I like having strong characters. Good plots are great but if you don't give a damn about the characters who cares?
So I envisaged it as a half-hour format. You might call it sitcom format, but think Spaced rather than Men Behaving Badly, etc. I have no (creative) interest in playing with the latter format. It has comedy but also has an amount of dramatic content. Not too much. It isn't heavy. Audience would prolly be 18-40 age bracket roughly speaking, I guess.
I have the five episodes of series one plotted and part-scripted in rough notes form, and a third draft, almost-finished script for ep one. I have ideas on some of the casting, suitable theme song, a basic design for a logo, etc.
Do I believe in it? 1000%. IF it was made, IF it found its audience, I believe it'd go down great. Realistically I'm thinking one of the smaller UK channels is where it could end up, best-case- scenario. That's fine. When I say I think it'd go down great, I mean in a semi-cult kind of way, not a Bigger-Than-Jesus way. I get enthusiastic sometimes but I try to avoid being outright delusional.
Well.............................
Slush piles. They suck. And someone with a bit of wisdom once said to me, "Show, don't tell!"
So the idea in my head for some time now is to consider independently funding a pilot episode. That's surely the best possible way to 'show' rather than 'tell' in this medium -- if you can make it happen, anyway. A sample show that has all the qualities you hope for, there in moving pictures, trumps any amount of hyperbolic jabber. And festivals, art houses, etc, are possible venues for public screenings. I know a couple-three venues where I think showings would be very feasible. I have contacts.
What was mentioned in another thread is a chicken-and-egg thing. Part of me says, stick to your guns on this and just shoot high as I can and see what happens. To wit, wanting two (moderately, mildly) known actors to play the two leads. The first reason for wanting them is nothing more than their being absoultely perfect -- one in particular, bearing a distressingly uncanny resemblance to the character as depicted in sketches, etc. I mean so good that it's almost freaky. And she was not in my mind, nor in the mind of the person I've worked with on some of this material. It's just a strange lightning strike that hit me probably 18 months ago, seeing her in something.
As I said elsewhere, I believe at least one of these actors (the one mentioned) has some sympathy and interest in independent projects. That might be a good thing. Who knows?
If they liked the idea, I have no concept of what their fee would be. That's an obstacle re funding budget in any case. Unless I find this out first. I have little practical experience on film-making front, just to be clear, but I do consider myself imaginative and resourceful. I am quite confident about my control over expenses and getting something out of very little. But a cheapjack production isn't an option. Even if £25 is spent on the FX budget (there would be a couple of FX-based moments), it'd have to look good enough to be shown on the box. Digital HD, I suppose.
I have a rough speculative budget. I think it could be done for about £10,000. I'm making a wild guess about acting fees. And, for instance, one location would be the lounge of a flat, and I have a friend in London whose pad would do just fine. (He doesn't know it yet, so don't quote me!) So that, for one thing, is a low-expense aspect. I know someone who I believe would be very capable of handling a couple of practical FX to a pretty good standard. I have a few others who'd pitch in as crew variously.
What I don't have is: two camera people, a sound person and a video editor. These, at minimum, are essential. I've discussed this with a writer/director friend in LA who has appraised my overall ideas as basically sound -- he offered a few other terrific pointers. He is ostensibly Associate Producer. Not that he can do much 3,000 miles away, but his input is highly valued, plus his name does no harm at all. I'm hoping, anyway, such people are findable on the grapevine. Conceivably we also need a CGI person. If the theoretical video editor also happened to be good with this, great. But the first step, outside of writing a standalone pilot script (which is partly done as I type this), is finding a theoretical crew as above.
After that... well, the dilemma of approaching actors before or after funding. I see the logic in after. I really do. But raising 10k without the extra publicity they'd help to attract seems quite a tall order. With them, I genuinely believe it's possible. Obviously there is the hurdle of them loving or hating the script anyway...
Sorry for being so long-winded! This is a scary thing in a way. I can blow hot and cold on whether to attack it head-on. I have about four other projects I want to do, but this is the big one. It can fail big-time or it can be a big deal. Finding people who GET the thing is really important. For instance I talked with a camera guy some months ago, and basically after reading the script he clearly had no interest... chiefly because it wasn't balls-to-the-wall horror. As a horror fan himself, he pitched ideas at me that would've made it more in line with that approach and I couldn't accept them... I can't/won't bastardise the idea for the sake of spectacle. So that was the end of that. People have to click with it, or not. There isn't a single drop of blood spilled in this show. That should tell you a lot.
Enough said for now. Apologies again, for length!!
Jusss playyyin'
