NEW PLAN

POSTED BY: OLDDUCK
UPDATED: Friday, July 11, 2008 10:09
VIEWED: 9843
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SCATHAC

Sunday, July 6, 2008 6:35 PM

I've been thinking, and I don't know if this adds to your plan or detracts from it, it's maybe just another way of going at/looking at the problem. It's not that I don't think we can do this - I believe. But I forsee a lot of challenges and stall outs on the way. So somethings to think about.

A lot of people have made the point that all of our BDH have moved on and are into new projects now, as is Joss himself. Are we willing to watch a new Firefly with a new cast? Or new characters?

Also, I read in another thread that each episode of Firefly cost upwards of a million bucks EACH to make. That's gonna be a TON of cash for us to raise, per episode.

I was thinking, maybe we could get Joss' permission just to officially 'play' in his 'verse. Not deal with the crew of the Serenity, just to muck about in the worlds. After all, we've added a lot to his universe, haven't we? New characters, speculations about worlds, theories about ships drives, and stuff like that. If Joss gave us a thumbs up, we could start with some short fan films. There are some brilliant writers on here - I've read the fan fic. So maybe we hold a little contest, vote on a few good scripts. We would need stories that were low on special effects, unless someone knows a brilliant special effects person just dying to donate their time! So, character driven stuff, maybe with fight scenes and/or gun battles. You know the drill.

Then we could assign a script to a local group of Browncoats to produce: raise any funds they need locally, get people to volunteer time - I have a lot of experience with this, actually - both of my undergraduate degrees are in film and video production, so we could go into further detail later.

Anyhow, we post these "officially sanctioned" 'verse based episodes on youtube, build up a fan base. Do what Browncoats do: raise a ruckus. Get people hooked. From there, we start moving our fan base to our official episode website. Using Joss' example, as our production value gets better, we start charging a small amount for downloads. Or for dvd bundles of all episodes. Or whatever. This money goes back into the productions - making new episodes. Basically, we become a little independent production house, focusing on these projects, and going straight to the net - avoiding networks altogether.

With enough of a fan base, we could get some companies interested in promoting with us - more money equals better production value. As our episodes become more polished looking, it would be possible to bring back our heroes for guest appearances and stuff, unless, you know, they wer like "hey, I'm onboard, where's my bunk." Well, we would know what to do with that!

That's in the long run. We would have to start slow, and learn on the way. And we would have to get Joss' ok. And I don't know what the odds are on that.

Anyhow, just my thoughts. I'll leave you with one of my favorite fan videos of all time:

SHINYGOODGUY

Monday, July 7, 2008 7:17 AM

This is a very solid idea. A grass roots movement by the fans who love this verse is needed to push forward since neither Fox or Universal have made any inroads.

But, as others have posted, certain things need to be in place to move forward: T's crossed, i's dotted, etc.

At any rate, Joss needs to be on board with any movement towards production.

Shiny! Let's be bad guys!

SHINYGOODGUY

Monday, July 7, 2008 7:34 AM

I love your idea even better Scathac.

I have seen tons of Star Wars webisodes online that are very good indeed, with characters and the like created by the fans. Some of those productions are quite good and funny, etc.

Although I still think that purchasing the DVD rights is the way to go. Why do you think nothing has happened in the last 6 years in TV land. In another post I stated that Fox has the rights for DVD sales (I believe until 2012) and that's why their anxious to ask us browncoats what we want in the Blu-ray version of the series. To capitalize on the tv series sales (last figure I saw was $60M). Universal has the movie DVD sales rights. Fox is the reason why the movie is called Serenity, so there's some confusion for the fans, but not their beancounters.

Well...that's my theory anyway.

Shiny! Let's be bad guys!

PENTHOS

Monday, July 7, 2008 2:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Scathac:
I've been thinking, and I don't know if this adds to your plan or detracts from it, it's maybe just another way of going at/looking at the problem. It's not that I don't think we can do this - I believe. But I forsee a lot of challenges and stall outs on the way. So somethings to think about.

A lot of people have made the point that all of our BDH have moved on and are into new projects now, as is Joss himself. Are we willing to watch a new Firefly with a new cast? Or new characters?

Also, I read in another thread that each episode of Firefly cost upwards of a million bucks EACH to make. That's gonna be a TON of cash for us to raise, per episode.

I was thinking, maybe we could get Joss' permission just to officially 'play' in his 'verse. Not deal with the crew of the Serenity, just to muck about in the worlds. After all, we've added a lot to his universe, haven't we? New characters, speculations about worlds, theories about ships drives, and stuff like that. If Joss gave us a thumbs up, we could start with some short fan films. There are some brilliant writers on here - I've read the fan fic. So maybe we hold a little contest, vote on a few good scripts. We would need stories that were low on special effects, unless someone knows a brilliant special effects person just dying to donate their time! So, character driven stuff, maybe with fight scenes and/or gun battles. You know the drill.

Then we could assign a script to a local group of Browncoats to produce: raise any funds they need locally, get people to volunteer time - I have a lot of experience with this, actually - both of my undergraduate degrees are in film and video production, so we could go into further detail later.

Anyhow, we post these "officially sanctioned" 'verse based episodes on youtube, build up a fan base. Do what Browncoats do: raise a ruckus. Get people hooked. From there, we start moving our fan base to our official episode website. Using Joss' example, as our production value gets better, we start charging a small amount for downloads. Or for dvd bundles of all episodes. Or whatever. This money goes back into the productions - making new episodes. Basically, we become a little independent production house, focusing on these projects, and going straight to the net - avoiding networks altogether.

With enough of a fan base, we could get some companies interested in promoting with us - more money equals better production value. As our episodes become more polished looking, it would be possible to bring back our heroes for guest appearances and stuff, unless, you know, they wer like "hey, I'm onboard, where's my bunk." Well, we would know what to do with that!

That's in the long run. We would have to start slow, and learn on the way. And we would have to get Joss' ok. And I don't know what the odds are on that.

Anyhow, just my thoughts. I'll leave you with one of my favorite fan videos of all time:

I'll be honest, I don't really care for this idea. Firefly was special because of the combined ingredients of cast, crew, writers and producers... It was really the actors relationships with Joss and each other that made it what it was and I just don't think that chemistry could be duplicated in a spin off.

Sure, it could be a good show and I'd watch it, but it would always be compared to the original and unless it was as good, it would be considered a dissapointment. Yes, the Firefly universe is very cool but it's nowhere near as cool without the Serenity crew flyin around in it; that's just my opinion.

If you just want another Joss Whedon show then wait for Dollhouse.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zoe: Don't think its a good spot sir, she still has the advantage over us.
Mal: Everyone always does; that's what makes us special.

SCATHAC

Monday, July 7, 2008 2:23 PM

Well, I understand your feelings on the matter. I had meant for the idea to lead to more than a spin off, but rather a way to develop moneys, fans and skills while the original cast, crew, writers and producers were engaged in other projects. Possibly, a way to lure them back to the Serenity.

SCATHAC

Monday, July 7, 2008 2:40 PM

One more thing. I think the long term goal of a project like this would be to either develop enough of a fan base and interest that someone would start up the show again, or to develop ourselves as a production company capable and professional enough to buy the rights and do it our selves.

OLDDUCK

Friday, July 11, 2008 9:34 AM

NEW CAST: Whether the fan base of FF/SERN is ready to accept a new cast is difficult to quantify, but a review of a number of fan sites suggests that the story line and the chemestry of the original cast is so inextricably intertwined that any attempt to recreate the verse with a new cast would doom the project to failure. We should expect some cast defections due to commitments or excessive salary demands, but how far we can reduce the original cast is an open question, but I suspect that Mal, Inara, Zoie and summer are a minimum returning cast

Resurection: Whedon has a new project and the cast has various commitments, but it doesn't appear that there are any problems that can't be time budgeted and mesh with the fund raising function of a fan based financial model!

COST: Supposedly true story - 40 years ago a man enters a Reno casino that touts that they will take "Any Bet", walks up to a craps table and places a million dollars on an even money wager. The man wins the wager and cashes out the then two million. As he exits the casino he's asked why he'd bet a mil on any bet - it is reported that he replied, "a million dollars just isn't that much any more"! Moral: Don't get hung up on money, because if you do we'll never see any more chapters in Joss's adventure! What we need to understand is that quality story telling ie., top notch writers, actors, production people, sets, special effects and marketing cost MONEY - LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY! To get some idea of the cost to make our dream a reality, please see whedonesque.com (August 6, 2007) and a Variety piece about hollywood costs for a less than blockbuster film - Sahara variety.com/tompsonhollwood/2007/04/sahara (sorry about no links, but I have poor computer skills) In brief, Serenity had a production budget of 39 mil. plus marketing costs of between 1 and 3 times that amount. I couldn't find The budgets for individual Firefly episodes, but the series was referred to as "low budget" and sites quoted
episode costs as being 1.5 to 2,6 mill each. Fox's marketing costs for the series appear to be minimal (maybe non existant). With inflation, current episodes could cost as much as 3 mil depending on the amount of special effects, cast costs and the existance and availability of the original sets. With the internet, an active blog campaign and some volunteer labor we might be able to cut soe costs.n Plus we could consider moving production to Canada or Australia and look for some government subsidy to reduce or defray expenses.

Open Universe option: If we use Whedon as the FF/SERN gold standard, any open verse would, IMHO, become a bell shaped curve that would be sharply skewed toward medeocrity! It also might fragment the fan base, destroy any hope of raising money and turn off new comers to the verse. I also seriously doubt that Joss would let those who didn't share in the pain and love of birthing the verse, muck about in it. Certainly, we could incorporate script submission as a perk of stock ownership in a fan based financing - if Joss were amenable to the idea.

My fear is that every passing day erodes fan support and that those of us that could moe this story to completion failed to make the effort

OLDDUCK

OLDDUCK

Friday, July 11, 2008 10:01 AM

The idea of a production company for this or other projects has merit and might mesh well with fan based financing, but Joss has an interest in Mutant Enemy Productions and MEP produced Firefly in conjunction with Fox. It even had an office on Fox's lot. Per Wikpedia, MEP closed but has reopened on the Fox lot in the samr "Glass Office" for the new project!

With Fox having killed Firefly and Universal wanting to maximize revenues on Serenity via dvd and future bluray sales, I doubt either is interested in another FF/SERN project

If there is even a kernal of truth in "Entourage" concerning the expenses/overhead that a new project has to bear, Traditional financing for further chapters of FF/SERN are about as likely as my exceeding light speed by jumping off a chair while flapping my arms vigorously!

OLDDUCK

OLDDUCK

Friday, July 11, 2008 10:09 AM

The recent PENTHOS post is spot on - without Joss and the original cast, FF/SERN becomes a ghost story with a few dedicated fans telling others what it could have been if only ..........! SAD!!

OLDDUCK

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