Positioning the Bottle

So I'm sitting alone in the Kairos Productions office in downtown Seattle. An hour ago, Ben came out of the ZOE compartment, rests his hands on his hips, gunslinger style, and eyes me while I peel an orange.
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"Matt, Kat, congratulations." I blinked at him. Was he complimenting my ability to flay citrus? Which, to be fair, is pretty badass. "Tomorrow, we head off to start filming our first feature-length production as ZOE. A production and a company that didn't exist just a few months ago."
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I consumed my orange contemplatively. He was right. Neither Zombie Orpheus nor JourneyQuest were more than ideas a year ago. JQ started talking to me on the train ride back from Comic Con at the end of July. And Ben and Kat first grokked the concept for ZOE, or the company that it would become, in September. A couple months later, JQ morphed from an eenie weenie farce bound for YouTube to a genre-bending, high production value webseries that will introduce ZOE to the world. And it all happened in a whirlwind that continues to gather people and talent to it.
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Honestly, I have no idea how JourneyQuest will do. I have no idea whether non-fantasy fans will find it accessible. Or if DG's amazing fanbase will embrace it, since it's not a Gamers film. Or if sales will allow us our second season, since the first one ends so abruptly. (Well, at least that's how it still feels to me -- several people I trust who've only read the 10-episode and not the 20-episode Season One have said there's no problem.)
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The last weeks and months have all been prep and logistics. Tomorrow, we're off to the first location, which is the farthest removed, and the most remarkable. And that's where I'm most comfortable: on set, on location. Once we're on set, the worries and the fears melt away. Or at least recede to ebb tide. I'm surrounded by colleagues and allies, and against the backdrop of one of the most beautiful parts of the world, I get to tell a lovely and entertaining story with my friends. All the right components for magic.
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Let's see if we can't catch lightning in a bottle twice. Got the same bottle, got the same team. Been studying this storm rather closely. That cloud overhead sure is a-roiling. Zap me, you bastard.

Support JourneyQuest by Seeing Company

If you're in the northwest and have this Thursday free, you can support indie film and local theater at the same time. Details, cross-posted from the Dead Gentlemen site:

Live in Washington? Want to hang out with members of Dead Gentlemen and ZOE? Want to catch a great show and help us get JourneyQuest made?

Seattle Musical Theatre has generously agreed to help us out with shop and construction space for our JourneyQuest spaces. Now we want to return the favor, so we’re arranging a group night to go see Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical “Company”. And we want you to join us!

So if you live within driving distance of Seattle, call their box office at (206) 363-2809 and mention JourneyQuest. They’ll give you a ten dollar discount, no questions asked. (Here’s a hint–the discount works all weekend. But we’ll only be at the Thursday show, if hanging out with us is important to you.)

See you this Thursday!

Need more convincing? Need to explain to your gaming buddies how musicals and gaming go hand-in-hand? Here are some bullet points to help you out:

• Attending the show helps us get JourneyQuest built. Really!
• We had to cut the big musical number from the first season of JourneyQuest, so here’s another place to get your musical fix.
• Stephen Sondheim (who wrote “Company”) has been a huge creative influence on our stories and writing. The man knows fairy tales!
• Small theater companies everywhere are struggling in this economy. The more we support our local performance scene, the better able we are to keep awesome actors in the area.
• It will be fun. And the set is way cool.

So please, spread the word, bug your friends, call for tickets before they sell out, and we’ll see you Thursday!

(And as a reward for reading this whole post, here’s the secret link to the list of JourneyQuest lead actors: LINK)

Fear the Boot

Last week I got to do an interview with the guys at Fear The Boot, an RPG podcast based in St. Lewis.

Fear it! Fear it, I say!

That interview is up on their site now. Check it out. It's about 55 minutes long, we talk Gamers and Dorkness Rising and JourneyQuest, and you can hear Camille heckle me not five minutes in.

Onward

And I'm off to Washington to film JourneyQuest for the next seven weeks.

It's hard not to see parallels between this project and Dorkness Rising, and not just of subject matter and who all's involved. Five years ago, a month after wrapping photography on Dorkness, we moved to Los Angeles. And a month after JQ is done, if we've found a house -- and, honestly, even if we haven't -- we're moving back. Five years in LA bookended by fantasy-comedies.

I have nothing especially witty or insightful with which to close this. So I'll just say that I'm thoroughly excited to launch this project; I'm dreading being without Camille for almost two months; and I'm praying we'll be returning home sooner than later.

Anyway, to quote Glorion: "Onward!"

JourneyQuest Scout Pics

Hey, so remember that promise I made a couple of months ago? Better late than never.

So these are a bunch of pics taken on the JourneyQuest location scout back in November. Many of these locations will wind up in the first season, some in the second, and some not at all.

At the edge of the forest

Rolling coastal plains

The ghost coast of Oregon

Slipping between boulders

This would make a great profile pic, but I prefer the one of my feet

Young trees clawing their way out of the stump of another

Jen by another nurse stump

The dungeon's entrance

Staircase into the (near) darkness

Abandon traction all ye who enter here.

Jeremy Spray: Dungeon-Crawlin' Badass

A lovely, if chilly, place to picnic

Jeremy in a spooky coastal forest

Announcing I have to pee

A ruined church in a ruined outpost

An old, overgrown foundation, too cool not to use

A light, refreshing shower

Our final shot of the season?

Right back atcha, nature.

McSterlingthong Interview, Part 2

He Who IS Fantasy speaks again, in part two of this remarkable interview. I can't wait to get my hands on his upcoming masterpiece, The Clock of Time. And I do hope he releases a cookbook -- the PBR Smoothie and Russian Van Winkle sound too good not to try.

Here there be brilliance.

Restructuring JourneyQuest

Forget my last post. We've managed to split one giant season of JourneyQuest into two seasons, pretty much right down the middle (with some minor tweaking). It's actually going to work out much better this way -- we won't be rushed or under the constant threat of running out of time -- and by splitting it so perfectly, our second season is already written. Plus, bisecting the project into two seasons allows us to keep all of our fabulously talented cast and crew -- both DG regulars you'll recognize, and some wonderful new folks as well.

Story-wise, the split will allow us to stay comedy-heavy in the first season, and explore the deeper and darker sides of the characters when the story continues in season two. Can't wait to get started -- it's going to be fantastic. It's going to be the next Gamers, I truly believe.