Cool I-Man Art

darien_fawkes___living_hell_by_schuyler_fox_draculInvisible 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!

Shoom Zone’s Two-Year Anniversary

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. 

Project Update

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!

I-ManiCon 2008 Cancelled

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! 

 I-ManiCon 2006
Our Guest Cast Panel at I-ManiCon 2006

Shoom Zone Gets Profiled/ “Moonlight” Fans Push for Renewal

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.

Fans Campaign for “Jericho” Again

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.

Jericho Ad

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. 

I Need Your Brains

Group ThinkingThis is a request to all you I-Man fans out there.  I’m doing a research project and I need to pick your collective brains.  I’m looking for the titles of movies that are similar to The Invisible Man in terms of genre, style, and/or tone.

To be even more specific, they must meet the following requirements:

  • Must have been released within the last five years.
  • Must be a movie, not a TV show.
  • Can be a theatrical release, a TV movie, or a straight-to-DVD movie.
  • Must have been released in the U.S., but can also have been released in other countries.

This isn’t a frivolous request.  I’m doing this research for the film project and I can’t think of anyone better to ask than my fellow I-Man fans.  After all, you are the ones who know and love the show.  I need as many similar movies as you can think of, so if you can please put on your thinking caps and help me out, I would be very grateful.  The more, the better.  If you want to explain why you think a movie is similar to I-Man, I would be very interested in hearing that, but it isn’t necessary.  Don’t worry if you’re listing some of the same movies as someone/everyone else.  It’s actually very helpful to me to see which movies you agree upon.  

Please reply here in the comments section.  If you’re reading this from the mailing list, remember that the mailing list is read-only, so please don’t hit reply to the email.  Instead, just hit the direct link at the bottom of the email to get to the blog.

Your help is very much appreciated!  I hope to hear from you!

A Fan’s “National Treasure” Adventure

Mike McCafferty isn’t the only person I know who was in National Treasure:  Book of Secrets.  I-Man fan and I-Maniac Fan Club member Melissa Cavanaugh was also in the film.  Melissa is a big fan of National Treasure.  It’s one of her favorite movies.  So when she found out that the sequel to the blockbuster hit was being filmed in her area, she wanted to be part of the experience and so she got herself a part as an extra.  Better still, she didn’t get cut! 

Read About Melissa’s Experience as an Extra on NT2

Read Melissa’s Follow-Up Blog

Catch a Glimpse of Melissa in This Short Clip From NT2

Congratulations, Melissa!  Thanks for allowing me to share your experience with my readers.

Shoom Zone’s One Year Anniversary

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of this little project going online.  Can you believe it’s been a year already?  Wow, where did the time go?  This is a good time for me to catch everyone up on the latest happenings. 

Film Project Update

A week and a half ago was a nice little milestone.  The writer turned in the first draft of the treatment.  I looked it over and, overall, I have to say I like it.  Now, first drafts are never perfect and this one will probably have to go through several edits before it’s ready to show to the cast, but there were some really good scenes in it and it has a lot of promise.

Classes and More Classes

The last few weeks have been especially hectic for me.  Besides doing a lot of homework for my Story Analysis and Screenplay Development class, I have also taken a couple of film budgeting classes. 

One class was an overview of all the various film budgeting programs available on the market and their various applications.  The other class was an introductory budgeting class.  It’s funny, I would have never thought of budgeting as being a creative endeavour, but film budgeting is actually quite creative.  Did you know that a budget describes the fundamental look, feel and style of a film?  Yep, budgeters have to be able to take a scene in the script and have a point of view about it.  They have to imagine how they would shoot or direct the scene.  Now the director might have a totally different point of view on how a scene should be played, but if a director isn’t available yet, the budgeter has to make a best-guess estimate based on his or her own vision.  Every excruciating detail of each scene must be budgeted for:  every prop, every actor, every light, every vehicle, every piece of wardrobe, every camera.  And it’s just not what’s on the set that must be budgeted for.  A budget has to allow for how you’re going to feed the crew, how the actors are going to get to the set and how they are going to get home, how you’re going to get the equipment to the set, who’s going to build the set.  It can seem endless.  Needless to say, budgets are incredibly detailed documents.  Screenplays are often described as the blueprint of a film, but, interestingly, budgets are also blueprints of a film.  It’s really all very fascinating.

Saturday was a really busy and exciting day for me.  In the morning, I had my weekly Story Analysis and Script Development class.  In the afternoon, I met the writer of the treatment.  She had flown out from the east coast and we had a really enjoyable meeting over a seafood dinner at the wharf in San Francisco.  We hit it off and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with her on this project.  She’s just as excited about it as I am.  In the evening, we both headed up to Marin County, north of San Francisco, to attend a shortened writer’s workshop given by writer/producer James Hirsch.  I say shortened because, originally, the workshop was supposed to be all weekend, but the LA fires put a crimp in those plans.  Cheech Marin was supposed to be a special guest the first night, but because his home was in the middle of the fire area, he was busy hosing down his house and yard.  Thankfully, Cheech’s home is safe.  Because of all this, James Hirsch decided to give a “sneak preview” of the workshop instead.  It was a great mini class and James is a really nice guy.  I’m looking forward to attending the full workshop, which will be rescheduled in the future.    

Whoa…I just felt some tremors.  As I’m typing this I’m wondering if that is it or if they are just a precursor to a bigger jolt.  Well, so far, so good.  Let’s continue and wish for the best.

Website Updates

Between everything else in my insanely busy schedule, I’ve managed to get a few much-needed updates done to the website.

First off, the Blog Info page has been updated to more accurately reflect the various ways that readers can get news from this blog. 

There is still the mailing list, of course, and I’ve updated the mailing list subscription page with some info that subscribers might find useful.  For example, while the mailing list has a digest option, I don’t recommend it.  There’s a couple of reasons why:  For one, I rarely blog more than once per day.  Secondly, digests are usually sent the day after the blog has been posted, which often delays the receiving of time sensitive information.  Of course, the digest is still there if you want it and you are free to choose the options you prefer for this mailing list.  If you want to change your options, PLEASE DON’T EMAIL ME.  Simply go the mailing list subscription page, scroll down to the bottom and enter your email address.  You will be then be prompted for your password.  Enter your password to make the changes to your options.  Forget your password?  Scroll further down the page and you’ll see where you can have it emailed to you.

If you prefer the convenience of a blog feed, a feed for both posts and comments is available for your convenience.  Simply scroll down to the Meta section of the sidebar (available from any page of the blog) and click on “Entries RSS” and/or “Comments RSS”. 

For you Live Journal users, a syndicated feed is available for your convenience.  I want to give a big shout out of thanks to Sheera for setting this up.  To add the feed to your friends list, simply go to http://syndicated.livejournal.com/shoomzone/profile and click on the “add this journal to your friends list” link. 

Lastly, if you have a MySpace page, you can subscribe to the blog via the Shoom Zone Productions MySpace page.  Just click on “Subscribe to this Blog” and you’ll be notified whenever new items are posted to the blog.

Available on the front page of the blog, which you can get to from any blog page by simply clicking on the header, is a section for the online petitions.  Just because I’m not actively pursuing an I-Man project right now, doesn’t mean that they should be ignored.  I might be able to use those petitions to help sell my current project with the I-Man cast so, please, if you haven’t signed them yet, please do so.  We all benefit by getting to see the cast together again.

If you haven’t checked out Shoom Zone’s home page in a while, you’ll see that it looks quite different.  Well, I’m playing around with a new look when I can squeeze out the time and, as you can tell, it’s not done yet.  The logo there is simply a placeholder for now.  I’m going to be getting a new one designed in the near future.  Eventually, the whole website will have a new look. 

Fans Worldwide

Without you, fans from around the world, this project wouldn’t mean much.  Without an audience, films would be worthless.  So whenever I go and look at my website statistics, I am very encouraged by what I see.  It’s obvious that there are a lot of you who want to see the cast together again just as much as I do.  In the past year, the number of visitors to this site has more than quadrupled.  Fans from 55 countries around the world regularly visit this site.

I thought it would be fun to see what countries we hail from, so following is a list of all 55 countries in alphabetical order.

  • Algeria
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bosnia-Herzogovina
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Chile
  • China
  • Costa Rica
  • Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • Dominican Republic
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Great Britain
  • Greece
  • Hong Kong
  • Hungary
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Iran
  • Israel
  • Japan
  • Latvia
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Norway
  • Oman
  • Pakistan
  • Philippines
  • Poland
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Saudi Arabia
  • South Africa
  • South Korea
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Taiwan
  • Thailand
  • Ukraine
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United States of America
  • Vietnam
  • Yugoslavia

Wow.  I want to thank each and every one of you and I know the cast appreciates your support too.  It’s this kind of increasing awareness that will help to make this film a success.  Thank you and I look forward to another productive year as the film project moves forward.  I can’t wait to see Vince, Paul, Eddie, Shannon and Mike together again on the screen!