While at C2E2 I stopped in to see Felicia Day’s panel. It’s amazing how honest and sincere she is. She’s extremely energetic and loves her fans, interacting with them instead of just having a power point presentation. Which she commented on, saying she didn’t bring it with her this time. She asked the fans with questions to state their favorite Chicago pizza place first, which would cause an uproar of applause. Or boos if you were from from New York or Green Bay. A fan from Wisconsin was booed enticing Felicia Day to ask what’s wrong with Green Bay? The audience yelled the Packers and she responded “Is that a team?” A great response for Chicago residence. However, another fan responded “if it wasn’t for Wisconsin, you wouldn’t have cheese for your Pizza!” The audience erupted in applause again, showing the love they have for Felicia Day, but also other nerds and geeks. C2e2 is definitely a place were people feel safe and accepted no matter where you are from.
Misfit Heights at C2E2
Come see our feature film “Misfit Heights” at C2E2! It will be showing Sunday at 1:30pm in room W473. I’ll also be doing a quick talk back right after if anyone has any questions about our film. We’re excited to be there and this will be our first time attending the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. So I’m sure I’ll be running around all over trying to see everything. It will be a tiring but fun weekend and I’m so glad that I will be able to share it with friends I haven’t seen in a while. If you’re going to be there let me know and I’ll try to stop in and say hello.
Also, stay tuned. Misfit Heights on DVD is almost ready for duplication and sale! We’re really excited to release it, it’s worth the wait.
Habitrpg review
I’ve tried many different goal or production organizing programs in the past, but my current favorite is Habitrpg. I’ve always dreamed of living in a game, fighting monsters for experience and gold. This is the closest I’ve come. Habitrpg lets you create a character that represent you, and you go up levels by completing task you’ve set for yourself. If you don’t complete these tasks, you lose hit points. Lose all your hit points and then your character dies.
There are three different typs of categories. Habits, dailies, and todos. Habits are goals you can constantly track but don’t usually fall into a schedule. Dailies are something you want to complete daily. These can be scheduled, but only happen once per day. Todos is the last category. You can keep adding things you want to get done to the list, over time it’s worth more experience. But if you don’t complete them, they don’t hurt you.
As you complete task your character earns coins. There is also a rewards category where you can make yourself feel better about eating a carton of ice cream because you purchased the reward with hard earned coins from completing tasks. After time, you also get access to a item shop where you can purchase weapons and armor for your character and make him look more like a hero than a college frat boy with a stick.
The creator, Tyler Renelle just finished a kickstarter campaign where he raised the funds to improve the site. In the future the site will have less crashes, more people updating the site, phone apps, and a an option to make a party. Where you can join your friends and help each other progress in the game of life.
One thing I wish they would have added was a skills category where you gain levels for certain skills you work on. I would love to go to my next job interview and present them with a Habitrpg character sheet of me. “I’m perfect for the job because I am a level 12 character. As you can see, I’m at level 3 in glassblowing, level 6 in writing, and level 8 in filmmaking. I’m just learning how to use power point, so it’s only at level 1. So if you want to know if I’m perfect for this job, just roll a twenty side dice and add my level 6 in persuasion…”
visit www.habitrpg.com
Misfit Heights Kickstarter Campaign
We launched our Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to distribute our first feature film Misfit Heights. In 24 hours we’ve reached over 25% of our target goal. However, there still is a long ways to go and we’re hoping we can keep up the momentum. I’ve been reaching out to websites, magazines, and other news sources to promote the campaign. If anyone knows of some that might be interested in hearing about our zombie puppet musical Kickstater campaign, please let us know. Here is the link to our Kickstarter page and the video. Below that is the Kicktraq information about how our campaign in going.
First Official Meeting 2013
We had our first production meeting of 2013 and here’s where we stand. Our feature film “Misfit Heights” is ready to be distributed this year. It was accepted into the Chicago Comic and Entertainment expo in April and we submitted it to this years GenCon and San Diego International Comic-con. So we are working on a kickstarter campaign to raise funds that will allow us to attend these festivals as well as release the film physically and digitally. Distribution is expensive, especially if you’re trying to do it on your own.
Our web series “Space Ale” is currently in post production. Currently Robert Durland is working on our special effects and the band Neil & Sky is working on our intro song. We are looking for a composer for the underscore and a post sound designer for the mixing. If you’re interested, send us a message.
We started to go over our next project and during the reading of the rough draft we couldn’t stop laughing. Apparently it’s pretty amusing to read any of my first rough drafts aloud. I have to write things down so I don’t forget them, so a brief story is added in order to try and plot the script. Yet, sometimes ideas change mid script and I don’t go back to correct the previous scenes until the full script is written. So it jumps all over the place and action scenes are generalized to the point that they don’t really describe the action. At one point, the action included a line explaining how a doctor was examining a corpse that has a bunch of holes in it where creatures have borrowed through the body. However the action just read “the doctor lifted limbs and prodded holes.” It described a different kind of action than we were going for. Maybe someday we will film a reading of one of my first rough drafts and you can laugh at my expense.
Moving Forward
As the end of the year approaches, I’ve been working harder to get ready for next year. I’ve created a press release for “Misfit heights” and we are getting ready for it’s release. We will send out some inquiries to a few distribution companies, but we are expecting to self-distribute in order to obtain the biggest return. This will include a kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to distribute ourselves. If everything goes according to plan, “Misfit Heights” will be released on itunes, Amazon VOD, and DVD on May 1, 2013.
Our web series “Space Ale” is currently entering post-production. We are still looking for a sound editor and composer, but should be releasing episodes by the start of next year. All depends on how quickly we can fill the positions we need and how much time is available. Robert Durland is our special effects editor and I believe it will make the series 10 times better. I can’t wait to see the effects added in.
Now that things are moving along, it’s time we start development on our next project. What that project is, we are not sure yet. Currently we have several ideas kicking around in our heads and a few that even have a rough draft written. But it all depends on our resources available and weather. If we choose to do another feature film, production may not begin until next summer. If it’s a web series, it might be sooner. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Store Open
After looking over several ecommerce options I finally settled on shopsite to host our online shop. It’s limited in the amount of pages we can create, but works to help us start selling a few things. Right now we only have a few T-shirts and posters but I will be looking into getting some Space Ale merchandise for sale too. But since demand is low right now, finding an “on demand” manufacturer would be the best option. While I research this, we will be selling the digital download of Misfit Heights soon. Our first feature film will finally be released!
GenCon 2012
Jim and I are on our way to GenCon to promote the premiere of our first feature film “Misfit Heights.” It will be showing Friday at 10:00pm and Saturday at 6:00pm. More seats are available during the Friday showing! We won’t have posters with us because the printer didn’t get it printed in time, but we will have T-Shirts. Do to the strict policies about selling without a booth, the shirts are for sale online in our store. And if you see us at GenCon, ask us for the secret code to get free shipping! But it’s only available during the convention.
Under Construction
Our website is under construction as we get ready to add a store and updated information. Stay with us as we make these changes. Things should be up and running by the time we premiere our first feature film “Misfit Heights” at Gen Con on August 17, 2012.