Zombie Orpheus Entertainment [beta]

April and May got you down? Haven't heard from us in a hot minute? Well we haven't been idle. ZOE is cooking up a new project that will get revealed soon. But, a hint to our faithful viewers:

Who's your favorite character in the DG and ZOE'verse?

It's not quite Con Season, where it'll seem like there is a con every weekend, but here in Seattle, Emerald City Comicon, Sakura Con, and Norwescon happen in the span of two weeks, so it can feel like a warmup for what is to come.

We rocked the house at ECCC this year, representing on three panels, Women in Webseries (featuring Trin Miller, Kat Ogden, and Jen Page), the ZOE Premierathon, where we debuted new JQ2 footage (if you're a supporter, check it out here) as well as clips fromTransolar,Glitch, Night of the Zombie King, &@, and Standard Action, and finally, The Collectibles World Premiere. This third event was the last panel on Sunday, by which time lots of people have petered out or left the con, but it was still packed and a great way to kick off the first season of this hilarious behind-the-scenes superhero show. Look for new episodes every Monday for the next couple of months!

We also got to hang out with lots of super fans, including two who came dressed as Perf and Carrow, Tony got to abuse people, Christian Doyle got to narrate a Damsels of Dorkington improv show, and Ben got to meet his lifelong nerd icon, Disney comic genius Don Rosa. That's a hell of a weekend.

But I've been reflecting on what goes into a successful con appearance, and I realized it's a lot like working on a film project: No matter how much you prepare, no matter how much you plan, and no…

ZOE friends: this spring I and the rest of the GOLD team have been working on an independent film/webseries project called "Alice and the Monster" with a bunch of other talented artists. It's a romantic story about a woman diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, told with equal parts tenderness and humor. Not exactly typical nerd fare, but my character (the male romantic lead) is a huge nerd, and David H. Lawrence XVII (from Heroes) plays a large role, so we're at least geek-adjacent in this one ;-)

Like GOLD and JourneyQuest, Alice and the Monster has no studio backing, no corporate investors; it's just a group of dedicated filmmakers working together to make a great independent project. And we could use your help.

Visit http://indiegogo.com/aliceandthemonster to learn about the project. If you can spare $5, $10, $20 - whatever you think is right - I and the rest of the artists working on Alice would really appreciate it.

You can find out more about Alice and the Monster at http://facebook.com/aliceandthemonsterand http://twitter.com/aliceandmonster . 

Thanks so much for your time, and for supporting independent art.

-David

GOLD Creator

Alice & the Monster Executive Producer

Alternative title: Stuff we do when we're not ZOEing.



So I directed this play. If you're in the greater Seattle area, there are still tickets left for Saturday and Sunday.



Honestly the plug is secondary to the purpose of this article. I have been thinking about how intertwined so much of our work is, even outside of our ZOE/DG projects, although certainly it's as likely as not because of the ZOE/DG projects.



The play is called Proof. It has four actors, Trin Miller, Brian Lewis, Lisa LeVan, and Donn Christianson.



I'll start with Donn because he's the least connected. That isn't a reflection on him, I'm just starting easy. I worked on a theatrical show called Obsidian with both Donn and Ben Dobyns that started in 2008. It was when I met Ben, which is why, more or less, I now work for him. I directed a play with Donn and his lovely wife Kerry Christianson in 2009. It started as a short and the writer expanded the ideas and it all just came together. Kerry herself is a director and choreographer, most recently directing Pageant Play at Theater Schmeater in Seattle, and choreographing a dance number for another of their shows.



Lisa LeVan has not exactly appeared in anything ZOE related...yet. She does, however, perform as the emo poet Keats in Joe's Diner, the long-form improv comedy that also features Christian Doyle, Matt Vancil, Brian Lewis, Nathan Rice, and you get the idea. In addition to being an accomplished stage and screen actress, appearing in the award-winning shorts Connect To and Out of Darkness, she is also a film producer. On top of all that, she appeared in the short film Pretty Face and Green My Eyes with Kat Ogden, JourneyQuest Producer and 2nd AD on JQ Season 2. Kat also appears in, and was 2nd AD on,…

(And at the 'Hamlet' Press Room...)



GABE: I'm gonna start hard, and deliberate: The online posting of 'Hamlet' is at the moment being delayed.

(Crowd hubub)

GABE: Yes, yes we know.  And believe us, we are also terribly broken up about amount of time this is all taking-

KEETER: (under breath.) Not.

GABE: -but an interesting opportunity has arisen. An opportunity we feel we cannot back down from.  And so for the time being, secrecy is our friend, and more information will become available as soon as possible. Any questions?

EMMETT: Can you tell us anything at all about what we can expect from this 'opportunity' you speak of?

(The Boys confer.)

GABE: No.

LOTTA: Which one of you has the biggest feet?

KEETER: That would be me.  With a healthy size 13.

GABE: I would like to now turn the floor over to my good friend Buhmann, who has... some.. other form of news. Buhmann?

BUHMANN: Thank you Gabe.  We did not simply call all of you lovely people here today to shove it in your face that we can't yet release the long awaited final episode to SSN01.

KAYLA: I CAN'T WAIT ANY LONGER! (She runs to the window and tosses her purse though.  Beat.  She turns slowly back to the room.) I should go get that.  Sorry. (She exits.)

BUHMANN: We wanted to annonce here today, that we would love nothing more than to give you lovely people all the effin' 'Hamlet' we can.  So- we would like to pose a contest.

KEETER: At the current moment we are sitting pretty with 454 youtube views for the first 'Hamlet' trailer.  However, we're afraid that accountants in the basement just don't think this is quite cuttin' the mustard if you know what I mean.

VANCIL: Oh we do.

BUHMANN: We could only think of one way to remedy that.  If you kinda people can get us over 650 views- we promise a lovely sneak peak at what we have in store. Thank you.

(The crowd erupts into yelled…

Rarely seen in public, the shadowy figure known as Tony Becerra worked on JourneyQuest Season One in addition to having worked with Ben Dobyns on a number of projects. As I understand it, he is a master of what he does, organizing, planning, scheduling, monitoring, and supervising. We were lucky enough that he took a few minutes out of his near-frantic JQ Season Two prep to answer some questions from Beau and our fans. 

Beau: Tony, what is your exact title on JQ?

Tony: I am 1st AD on JQ. 



Beau: Tell me what you did today that was your job as 1st AD.



Tony: Currently we're in pre-production for JourneyQuest Season 2, so today my job entailed working out the Fight Training schedule for some of our actors, working on budget issues with my Producing team, resolving a few standing issues with the Screen Actor’s Guild, threatening our behind the scenes team, working on flights with our Production Coordinator Vanessa Eng, and having 3 other chat windows open while talking to you. I'm texting people confirmation on things while discussing base camp needs with my Producer and 2nd AD Kat Ogden. I’m also concurrently working on 4 other projects in various stages of production, and spent 5 hours tech scouting on another project.



Beau: Suffice to say you're busy. Can you give me the same example for what a day on set will be like for you?



Tony: Calm. Everyone I need to talk to, discuss and strangle, will be within arms length. On set is always easier than pre-production. Pre-production is about paperwork, anticipation, and preparation, which I never care for. When I'm on set, my day is mainly watching everything we've spent months planning for, going off…

Well folks, here we go, the first in a number of blog posts that you can expect between now and the beginning of March that will answer some questions from all of you, as well as looking at some of the pre-production process.

We got a number of thoughtful responses to my blog post asking what we should cover in terms of Behind the Scenes stuff on this blog. I have a file full of questions, but the first person I was able to sit down with and give some of those questions to was the Vancil himself!

BEAU: Let’s check in regarding the orcish dictionary first. Seth Davis asked how things were coming, and what words were most fun or challenging.



MATT: We’re at 850 words now, and I had approximately 200 words after JQ Season One. That does mean that some people still haven’t gotten me their words!



A complete answer the fun/challenging question will be in the foreword of the Orcish/English Dictionary, which we will release in a non-limited edition (date TBD, likely 2012), because there’s been so much interest in it.



Right away I knew the dictionary project was going to be a…

Yesterday at about 3:00 PM, we set the computer on the task of doing the first mix down of Hamlet.  We waited.  On our meager equipment it took the better part of four hours to compress.  At about 7:30- we saw it for the first time.  Full sound.  Full screen.

And we took notes. Of course.

It's amazing how 3db too loud on a sound clip of a drink being poured can pull you so far out of the action.  How half a second trimmed between shots can make the Queens movement natural.  How specific breaths need to punched, while the sound of hands falling to someones side is just distracting.

How slightly too much reverb can make birds sound alien.

The end is near indeed, this Thursday night (Feb 9th) at 6:30 we are sitting down with Ben Dobyns, Matt Vancil, and Andy Dopieralski for the first screening with the ZOE bosses.  Excitement cannot describe the feeling.

There will be notes. Of course.

Hey everyone, I'll have some more preproduction stuff to answer your excellent questions and requests soon, it requires some homework. In the meantime, for those of you who didn't see and/or follow the link, here is a piece we created for FilmCourage on how ZOE has done what it has done with JourneyQuest, a successful Kickstarter, etc.

THE STORY OF OUR SUCCESS

There are days when what you love pains you. There are days when the ideas won’t come, the shots won’t cut, the performances aren’t jelling, you don’t agree with your DOP, and you wish you’d never suffered from the annoyance we call “inspiration” in the first place.



Then there are the days where you launch your KickStarter campaign, asking your friends, family, and fans to publicly, demonstrably support your film project and you get almost $1000 an hour in contributions for the first day. And reach 75% of your goal before the first week is over.



Do those days balance out? Hell no. The days when everything works and you’re firing on all cylinders and your fans bear you up and your friends encourage you and Facebook is exploding with people wanting to get the word out about something that is incredibly important to you? Those are way bigger than the bad days. They almost, almost wash those bad memories away altogether.

How Did We Get Here?

The biggest question we keep getting after Zombie Orpheus Entertainment launched a KickStarter campaign to such great success is, “How do you do it?” This question encompasses a LOT other questions, like, “Where do I get me some of that?”, “Can I do the same thing?”, and “What makes YOU so special?”.



Simply, the answer boils down to one thing: Trust. We trusted that there was an audience for JourneyQuest. We trusted that…

Folks - while we're going to be spending our summer at cons (many with others from the ZOE productions teams) promoting GOLD and NOTZK and other nerd content, and we'll (hopefully) be spending this fall making more GOLD, right now we're gearing up for a side project. It's written by the same team that created GOLD & NOTZK, but it's not gaming related. It's called Alice & the Monster.

We're raising additional production money as we're shooting, and I invite you to check out the campaign and see what we're all about. As I say, it's not gaming related, but it is Fan Supported, Creator Distributed:

Thanks, folks.

IndieGoGo: Alice and the Monster

-David