Archive for January, 2008

Just read the news that the ABC FAMILY network has picked up THE MIDDLE MAN. This is significant for many reasons. The first being it’s great news for my pal Javier Grillo-Marxuach. You can call him “Javi”. I do. Javi and I worked together on season one of LOST. Many of his ideas are still present in the show. Including the recent season ender. He also wrote THE LOST EXPERIENCE ARG. Javi is a brilliant writer, a fun guy to hang with, obsessed with star wars, and russian aircraft design. The Middleman is his creation. It’s the story of a young woman who is recruited by a secret agency to fight aliens, robots, and talking monkeys. And now it’s a TV SHOW!

For years Javi had wanted to do something with a cool script he’d written called THE MIDDLEMAN. He thought it could be a feature film, or maybe a TV show. But his Agents said it wouldn’t fly. It was too wacky. And told him to put it on the shelf and focus on other things. Javi’s not that guy. He never gives up. Especially if he thinks something is awesome. And talking monkeys are awesome. So Javi took matters into his own hands. He found an amazing artist online, and together they turned his pilot script into a comic book. Then Javi found a publisher, and got his book on comic store shelves. Critical response was positive. And Javi used his BLOG as a place for fans of the book to gather online. He put art from the book on the web. And script pages. He did signings at stores. And had a young woman dress-up as the book’s heroine, and walk around the San Diego Comic Con.

Now that THE MIDDLEMAN was a tangible thing. Was well reviewed. And had a fan following. Javi talked his Agents into trying to sell his baby as a TV show. He twisted their arms. They did it. And what a shock — sold it to ABC FAMILY.

Javi’s belief in his own idea. Even when other people told him he was nuts. Should inspire all of us to get off our butts and bring our own ideas to life. Javi’s success is not a one-off. Another pal of mine named Luke McMullen is behind the ABC FAMILY pilot: SAMURAI GIRL!

If these two geeks can do it — you can too!

THE MIDDLE MAN.

UPDATE

Javi’s added a post to his blog about THE MIDDLEMAN as transmedia property. And creator ownership. Check it out HERE!

UPDATE

Luke McMullen’s pilot SAMURAI GIRL just got picked up!

Paul Grand just told me that Amazon has this insanely great self-publishing operation called CREATESPACE. It allows ANYBODY to upload a PDF and have it PUBLISHED as a book on demand. No books are actually printed until somebody orders one. They offer the same service for DVD authoring. Audio CD’s. Video Downloads. I’m having a bit of a hard time grokking this one. It’s so huge. I’d heard about it. But I’m checking out the site right now. Seeing how easy it is. How tempting. Wow. Should I do it?

All those unsold screenplays sitting in this folder on my computer. I could make books out of them? That sounds cool. Why not? Maybe people would read that futuristic car racing script I wrote. Or how about the one where the guy crash lands on the space station. Or the wacky college comedy where those frat pals drive cross country with a donor heart in their convertible. How about the one where the terrorists take over the oil rig? Or the one about the super hero who retires? I could do it. With just a few clicks. But there probably isn’t anybody out there who would read any of that stuff. I mean, there’s a reason those scripts didn’t sell. Right? But what if there was even ONE person. Who read one of ‘em. And what if they like it! That would be so cool!

But what if they hated it… I’d feel so guilty. I would’ve taken their hard earned $4.95. Just because I was bored at the computer one night during the writer’s strike. And I thought it would be fun to upload a PDF file of an unsold screenplay. I know it would be fun to make the cover in PHOTOSHOP. It makes me think about something I take very seriously. As a content creator, I make an implicit pact with my audience. If you are willing to devote your valuable time. And hard earned money. To purchase, or watch, something that I’ve created. Then I have a responsibility to give you something worthy of that commitment. So are any of these scripts worthy of PDF’ing into a novel? I don’t know. Maybe in the description I can add the writers room mea culpa: “Here’s the worst idea ever!”. Maybe that would assuage my guilt. I’d be making it clear to the buyer that what they were about to purchase was terrible. Hmmm. I don’t know if I’m gonna do it.

But you should! I bet you’ve got something amazing sitting on your hard drive. That novel you never sold. Or screenplay. A student film perhaps. A prog rock opera. You should do it. And I’ll buy it. And if I think it sucks… too bad for me. Caveat emptor isn’t just for toasters. It goes for entertainment too.

I’ve been searching for ways to manage user generated content for an upcoming project. I want individuals around the world to contribute to the narrative canon of a major entertainment franchise. I want to build a sandbox big enough for everyone to play in. But how do I manage a community of that scale? Has anyone done something like this before?

Dave Perry is once again blazing a trail for the rest of us. His work on the MATRIX games was a groundbreaking foray into TRANSMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT. He is at it again with PROJECT: TOP SECRET. Dave has opened up the design, and production, of a video game to the global community. He has something like 50,000 developers working together on this thing. Just random folks with the right skills, and passion, who want to make a great game.

I recently asked Dave how could he possibly manage something like that. 55,000 people?! All working for the same goal?! Spread around the world. IS HE NUTS!? Dave told me it was all about finding great leaders within the community itself. Staffing THE ADVISORY BOARD of the project from the inside. Of course. Exactly the way a good FAN BOARD is run. Wow. Could it really be that simple?

If Dave is successful with this. Executing a collective project on a mega scale. Then the creation of any form of entertainment is up for grabs. GAMES, MOVIES, COMICS, MUSIC, ETC.

To see what Dave is up to checkout the homepage for PROJECT: TOP SECRET.