Adventures of a Fan Turned Producer
Invisible Man fans, check out this terrific drawing done by Kristy (a.k.a. Rain), an I-Man fan from Australia. The piece is called Darien Fawkes – Living Hell. You can see a larger version of the picture by clicking on the above link and then clicking on the picture.
Kristy is the same artist who created the wonderful artwork for our I-ManiCon 2007 t-shirts, which some of you may remember.
This fandom has some very talented fans!
Today marks the second anniversary of the online presence of this film project. Looking back over what seemed like a year of rather slow progress, I feel confident saying that this project is finally starting to pick up its pace. It’s about time, eh?
What feels good is the feedback I’ve been getting. In my gut I know this is a really good project, but sometimes it’s important to verify what you think you know to check yourself, so I make it a point to talk about the project whenever I can. I’ve got to say that the feedback I’ve been getting from experienced producers and investors has been very encouraging indeed.
The feedback I’ve been getting from my fellow I-Man fans has been great too. Thank you for the emails of support and encouragement. I’m just as excited as you are at the prospect of seeing our cast together again someday. When I started this website two years ago, it had just over a 100 visitors. This year that number went up to over 1,400 visitors. Now that’s just a drop in the bucket of the millions of people who watched I-Man worldwide, but considering that I really haven’t done any sort of PR yet, that’s not too shabby.
I’ve got three, yes three, treatments going at the same time in various stages of development, so let’s talk about where each one is in the stream of things.
Treatment #1—Yesterday I mailed copies of the fully executed producer/writer agreement to the writer. That part is finally done! The next step is for her to send me the revised treatment and then I’ve got to get busy reading it and giving notes back to her.
Treatment #2—Monday I received the first draft of the producer/writer agreement from my lawyer. We made a few changes to it and it is almost ready to send on to the writer for her review. I really need to keep this agreement moving forward quickly so that the writer will have enough time to get the treatment done.
Treatment #3—This is the treatment I’m writing. I’ve put it aside for a while to get caught up on other things, but I’ll be revisiting it in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to getting back to work on it, especially since I’m going to be working under the mentorship of a WGA writer who is not only a produced writer, but also the author of two screenwriting books. One of the things I really like about this writer is that, besides having written for both film and TV, he has worked on a couple of sci-fi TV shows. I think it will really help to have someone with that kind of genre background to give me feedback.
The first treatment is scheduled to be finished around the end of January, so the other two treatments will need to be finished around the same time. The plan is to submit all three treatments at the same time to the cast for their consideration.
So that’s where we are with the project. If all goes well, we could start writing the screenplay early next year!
Times are hard for a lot of folks right now and, unfortunately, the I-Maniacs fan club board hasn’t escaped feeling some financial pressures as well. So, I’m sorry to say that this year the fan club will not be hosting an I-ManiCon.
I always look forward to our annual gathering of cast and fans, so I do have to say I’m disappointed. But this isn’t the first time that a year or two has been skipped, so if you were saving your spare change to attend, please keep saving. The fan club board will, hopefully, be able to swing it financially next year. I’m crossing my fingers!
Our Guest Cast Panel at I-ManiCon 2006
Fellow Invisible Man fan, Laura M., wrote a nice little profile piece about Shoom Zone Productions and my project in her blog Musings of a Grown Woman. Go check it out!
While you’re there, check out the rest of her blog. Laura is a very talented writer who is currently working toward her Ph.D. in English. Besides being an Invisible Man fan, Laura is also a huge Moonlight fan; and most of her blogging is about the show, its stars, and the fandom’s efforts to get Moonlight renewed. Yep, another fan campaign.
Moonlight is doing quite well in the ratings; and while it looks promising that the show will get renewed, the fans are not taking any chances. Instead of waiting till their show gets cancelled, they are playing it smart and supporting their show while it’s still on top. If you’re a Moonlight fan and want to help show your support for the show, go to http://renewmoonlight.com.
Yesterday as I was glancing at my electronic version of Variety, I came across this clever little ad from the Jericho fans who are trying to save their show. Boy, does this bring back memories of our own campaign to save The Invisible Man.
Besides the ad in the electronic version, the fans also purchased a full-page ad in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. They spent over $11,000 on these ads. What makes this a bit sad is that this is the second time that Jericho fans are fighting to save their show. Their first campaign involved sending over 40,000 pounds of peanuts to CBS. To their credit, CBS listened and brought back the show. In an open letter to the fans, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler wrote:
“You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard,” Tassler wrote, and seven episodes have been ordered for midseason 2007-08. “In success, there is the potential for more. But, for there to be more `Jericho,’ we will need more viewers.” Fans must do their part to rally interest while the network does its job, she said.
This is the point where most fan campaigns tend to falter. The fans are tired from campaigning and overjoyed that they got their show back, but they fail to realize that now the real work has to begin. Nina was right. (And this applies to any in-danger show, not just Jericho.) In order for the show to survive, it needs more viewers. The fans have to aggressively market the show…and this is much, much harder. While before they were targeting only a few specific entertainment executives, suddenly their target becomes much wider and, thus, much more of a challenge. Fans have to start thinking like marketers and publicists.
I remember in the days of our own campaign when Farscape was first cancelled. We had gone to their bboards months before their show was cancelled and had warned them that what happened to I-Man could very well happen to them. We didn’t do it to be malicious, not at all, but to make them aware that they should start working to get their show’s ratings up. Boy, let me tell you, if you ever want to get a bunch of fans angry at you, go to their bboards and tell them their show might be cancelled. Yeah, that works real well. As you can imagine, nobody listened to us. Farscape was the number one show on Sci Fi at the time and they didn’t think it would happen to them. But, hey, I-Man was the number two show on the same network and the only TV show that was growing in syndication at the time it was cancelled. So cancellation can happen even to a show that appears to be in a good position.
I’m not telling this story to put down Farscape fans…no, just the opposite. When their show was cancelled we had Farscape fans coming to us asking for our advice. What did we tell them? To go market the show. And market they did. They put on one of the most aggressive and sophisticated fan campaigns I have ever seen. Because of their efforts they were able to get a mini-series and now they have a webisode series too. My hat off to them.
So what’s the point that I’m trying to make here? Well, if you’re the type of fan that loves a show enough that you would spend your resources campaigning for it if it were cancelled, then, my advice is to promote and market it before it gets cancelled. It’s much easier to support your favorite show now while it’s still on the air than to wait until it gets cancelled.
Now, if you’re one of the fortunate few who has had your favorite show cancelled but brought back due to your campaign efforts, then be prepared to work even harder. As I mentioned above, your target has now become even wider and that’s going to make your mission considerably more challenging. You need to get more eyeballs and you need to get those ratings up.
If the ratings don’t go up, then you’re going to find yourself in the difficult position that the Jericho fans currently find themselves in…campaigning to network executives yet again to try to save their show.
I wish the Jericho fans all the best with their efforts. I like Jericho. I think it’s a smart, well-written show with an interesting premise and I would like to see it continue. As someone who has “been there and done that” with regard to fan campaigns, I can totally sympathize with their plight and efforts. But as someone who is making the journey from fan to entertainment professional, I won’t be joining their campaign. I love quality entertainment and I think my efforts to bring quality entertainment to audiences are better served from within the industry…starting with our own I-Man cast, of course.
But if you love Jericho and the spirit moves you to want to help out their campaign, by all means go over to http://bringjerichoback.com and give them a hand. I’m sure they will appreciate it.
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