Back From Comic-Con

Hey, everybody, I apologize for being so quiet lately.  For the past week I’ve been in San Diego at Comic-Con.  What fun!  I got home last night and I’m trying to get caught up with stuff today, thus the reason for this short post. 

Some things coming up in the near future:

  • I’ll be posting a con blog.  I took quite a few pictures and I’ll be getting those up too on the website.
  • I’m really overdue on giving all of you a film project report.  Things are moving along and I’m sure you want to know the latest happenings. 
  • I’ve got cast news and other miscellaneous items I need to blog about too, so I hope to get caught up within the next few weeks.

This is it for today though.  Gotta run!

Registration Now Required

Well, I held out for as long as I could.  I really did.  When I first started this blog, the comment spam was none to minimal.  But as time has gone on, the spam became more frequent until, now, I am being bombarded with it almost every single hour. 

I’m tired of getting nonsensical ads for watches, purses, jewelery, promises to increase the size of body parts that I do not possess, or spam that is just plain lewd.  The sneakiest offenders are those who try to pass themselves off as legitimate readers with “Hey, I love your blog” comments, but when you look at the link to their website, it is obvious that they are a spammer trying to sneak in a link to their dubious website and up their search engine ranking. 

I’m a patient person, but enough is enough.  So, effective immediately, you must now register to post a comment on this blog.  I’m sorry I had to do this.  I really am.  I’ve never wanted to discourage comments from legitimate readers so I’ve always tried to make commenting as easy and painless as possible.  Unfortunately, I can’t be so accomodating anymore.

The registration process may not entirely stop spammers but, hopefully, it will slow them down a bit.  And I’ll still be moderating comments to make sure no spammers try to sneak in.

I hope this won’t discourage you legitimate readers from commenting on my blog.  I really love reading your thoughts and I would be sad if nobody ever commented anymore. 

The registration process is pretty simple and only takes a minute.  Just scroll down to the Meta section (on the right side of the blog), click on the Registration link, and follow the instructions.

Thank you for your understanding!

Eight Years Ago Today…

Eight years ago today The Invisible Man appeared on our TV sets for the first time.  It premiered with the highest ratings of any other Sci Fi Channel show up to that point; and was the number two show on the network during its two-season run.  It received several Saturn Award nominations and won a best ensemble award from TV Zone magazine. In addition, several episodes were among the Futon Critic’s Top 50 Episode picks for 2001 and 2002.  At the time of its cancellation it was the only show growing in syndication. 

I remember coming into the Pilot 15 minutes late because I almost forgot it was on!  I was kicking myself because I had been watching the commercials for the show and was really looking forward to checking it out.  I had hoped it would be good and I was pleasantly surprised.  I decided then to give this show a chance and by the third episode I was hooked. 

Little did I know back then what a profound effect this show would have on my life.  I could have never imagined that I’d be doing what I’m doing today.  But here I am years later working on getting the cast back together again and having a blast doing it.  Yes, it is a heck of a lot of work and sometimes I have to deal with frustrations, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  I’m going to keep at it until I get our cast together again in a film.  And who knows where that will lead?  Maybe someday we’ll get to see more I-Man too. 

Anyhoo, in honor of this day, I thought I’d create a poll.  Remember those?  I haven’t done one in ages.  So I’m asking two questions this time:  1) When did you start watching The Invisible Man?  and 2) Where have you watched it?  To answer the poll questions, go to the Shoom Zone home page (yeah, I’ve been playing around with the design again) and scroll down a bit until you see the poll.  It’ll be fun to see your answers!

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!

Downloads and Fun Stuff

Observant readers might have noticed that there are a couple of new pages on the website. 

On the Downloads page is a section called Banners.  Credit for the banner and idea goes to Rain, who suggested that banners would be a good way to publicize the film project.  If you wish, feel free to copy and paste (no hot linking please) the striking banner she created and place it on your own web page or use it in your sig line.

Banner

A fan art gallery has been created on the Fun Stuff page.  Rain has contributed three original drawings and I’ve moved over two original drawings by Shoshi from the Invisible Man Online site.  Check out the talent of these two fans!

If you have a banner or artwork that you would like to contribute, feel free to contact me.  I can only accept original artwork and graphics with non-copyrighted pictures.

A Brand New Year

Welcome to 2007!  I can’t believe it’s already here.  Now where did 2006 go?  I swear I just saw it around somewhere.

The beginning of the new year is a good time for me to take a few moments and talk about the status of the project and to take a look at what’s coming up in the future.

The LLCing is coming along slowly but surely.  I had hoped to have it done by now, but sometimes these things take longer than planned.  But it will get done.

Some of you have asked if we have a script yet, and the answer to that is no.  However, since the script development phase can be a long process, I’ve already begun talking to writers.  We’re considering several options in our search for a writer, from hiring a professional screenwriter, to an up-and-coming hopeful, to a talented student, to basically just putting the word out and seeing what we get.  Nothing has been decided yet.  It’s a complicated decision because, depending on which way we decide to go, contracts, union requirements, release forms, rights, funding, options, etc. may or may not have a play in our decision.  But, whichever way we decide to go, my first concern will be to get a top notch story.  It’s been said that you can make a good film from a good script.  You can make a great film from a good script.  You can even make a bad film from a good script.  But no one can make a good film from a bad script.  A quality script is absolutely vital.  That’s where it all starts.

The dismantling of The Invisible Man Online has been put off for a while due to time constraints, but I hope to start in a month or so and spread it out over the course of several months or more.  I really hate the thought of losing everything there, so I’ve decided to save as much as I can (without violating copyrights) and bring it over to this website.  The SciFi.com website has tons of stuff for fans and they even feature productions that are not theirs, so I figured, why can’t I?  So expect a new section for fan stuff in the near future.  I’ll make an announcement when it’s online. 

I look forward to a productive 2007 as we move closer to our goal of getting our film made.  Thank you for all your support.  It’s been heartwarming to get messages from you expressing your excitement and enthusiasm at the thought of seeing our cast together again. 

May good things happen for you in 2007!

Home Page Updated

Yesterday I was fiddling around with the home page and decided that while it looked okay, it needed some kind of caption or blurb that would help grab the attention of visitors.  Something that would make them say, “Hey, that looks interesting!  I think I’ll check it out.”  So I wrote a short one-sentence blurb.  But as I read it again, it seems a bit run on to me.  I understand what I’m trying to say, but do you?  Anybody have a better suggestion?  Or do you think it’s fine the way it is?

Also, if you scroll down the page a bit, you’ll see a blue box with the “Thought for the day.”  (I also put it up on the MySpace page.)  The thought changes daily (except for Sundays); and clicking on the box will take you to one of my favorite websites, The Daily Motivator, where you can read the entire message.  The box doesn’t exactly match the color scheme, but who cares?  We all could use a little support, inspiration, and motivation as we pursue our goals and dreams, so I thought I’d share this great little site with all of you. 

How Fans Can Help

First of all, let me say that it is a pleasure to have Mike McCafferty join this blog as a contributing author.  Without Mike and that conversation we had last year, I would have never been able to take on a project such as this one.  But Mike helped me realize that collaboration between a cast and fans is very possible.  It just takes willingness on the part of both parties to work together and get it done.  We’re definitely going into new territory here.  Already, old rules are being broken and new ones are being created.

In his post, Mike asked for your help to promote this project.  Now you may be thinking, “Of course, I will help!  As soon as that movie is released, I’m going to tell everyone I know about it.”  And that’s great.  But instead of waiting until the movie is released, how about start now?  Seems kind of early, doesn’t it?  Well, bear with me and let me explain.

It’s going to take some time to build buzz (which the dictionary defines as “excited interest or attention”) and there are fewer of us now than there was before, so the earlier we start the better.  Not only can buzz help increase the audience for the movie, but it can also help to get it made.  How is that? 

There are two big hurdles to jump over in getting this movie made:  financing and distribution. 

Let’s talk about financing first.  I mention on the About Page that I have had some preliminary interest from a funding source, and that’s true.  But at this point in time it’s not guaranteed.  That funding source might come through for us and provide all the money needed to get this movie made.  On the other hand, it could also fall through for a variety of reasons:  from simply losing interest in the project, to having resources already tied up in other ventures, to thinking that this isn’t a good investment.  Having funding fall through is actually a fairly common occurance in filmmaking and anyone who wants to be a producer has to be prepared to deal with that fact.  I’ve been told to not just wait until the check is in the bank, but wait until the check actually clears. 

People who invest in movies know that it is a risky investment, but they also know that the payoff can be big if the movie turns out to be hit.  There are several factors that they look at when considering whether or not to invest in a film venture, but I’m going to only cover a couple right now:  audience and distribution.

Having a built-in audience is not something that every film has, but producers often try to minimize the risks and make the film more appealing to financiers by getting a “name” star or two in their film.  It doesn’t always work and we could probably all cite examples when a known star was in a film that flopped.  But many times it does work.  How many of you have gone to see a movie just because Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, or Angelina Jolie was starring in it?  These actors are considered bankable, which is why if producers can get a name actor interested in their movie, they have a better chance of getting their film funded.

We happen to be very fortunate.  We have a very talented cast from an awesome little TV show for our film.  But the show has been off the air for a few years in the U.S. (though it is still airing in a few other countries), so investors are going to want to know if there is still a worldwide audience that wants to see this cast come together again. 

Another thing that investors consider is distribution.  While investors sometimes fund films without any kind of distribution deal in place, having a distribution deal already in place makes for a stronger case.  As a producer, I owe it to the investors to get the best distribution deal possible. To do otherwise is unconscionable.  After all, they are the ones who are putting their money on the line.

So do distributors consider the audience when deciding what films to promote and distribute/air?  Yes, that’s definitely one of the factors they take into account.  Like investors, they too are putting their money on the line.  A film that already has a built-in audience can definitely be more attractive to them.

Now, I’m going to work my you-know-what off for this film and try to make it as good as I can with the resources I acquire.  And, if you, the audience, are willing to support that and show that there is an audience for our I-Man cast, our chances for success will be that much greater. I know we can create something special of which we can all be proud.

Now you may be wondering just what is it that you can do to help, so I’ve taken Mike’s suggestions and added a couple of my own.  These ideas are easy to do and don’t cost anything.

  • Tell a friend–Do you have a friend that is a fan of The Invisible Man or its cast?  Do you know someone who enjoys quality TV and movies?  Tell them about this project and website!  And tell them to tell their friends.  Spread the word!
  • Bulletin Boards–Do you visit any online bulletin boards?  As long as it doesn’t violate the board’s rules or policies, how about posting a blurb about this exciting project?  And don’t forget to include a link to this website. 
  • Blogs and Websites–Do you have a blog or website?  Please consider putting up a link to Shoom Zone Productions.  Links help in a couple of ways:  1)  They help drive visitors to this site, and 2)  They help increase our search engine rankings.  Once you have a link up, please contact me via the Contact Form or leave a comment and let me know that you’ve linked to this site.  Don’t forget to include a link to your website or blog because I want to be sure to reciprocate by adding your website or blog to a new link category I’ve created called Friends & Supporters.  The idea is to grow the list of friends and supporters as large as possible.  When I give presentations to investors and distributors, I want to be able to show them all the people who support this project!  And I want it to be impressive!
  • MySpace–Do you have a MySpace page?  So does Shoom Zone Productions!  It’s located at http://www.myspace.com/shoomzoneproductions.  Please add Shoom Zone Productions to your MySpace friends list.  The goal is to spread the news and grow the friends list.  Let’s make it huge!  Let’s impress those investors and distributors! 

Those are just a few things that you can do right now to help out.  For your convenience, I’ve posted them on a new page called How Fans Can Help.  This list is by no means comprehensive, so if anybody has any ideas that I can add to this list, please let me know.

Thank you for your support.  Let’s get our cast together again!