etana
10-01-2002, 04:38 PM
Yesterday I was writing on our Save Farscape Canada board that we needed to start coming up with schemes that were somehow self-perpetuating... basically, although I think it's fabulous we've got flyers and rallies and lots of people-to-people contact going on, I think we're going to be hard-pressed to shake every person's hand that we want to watch Farscape. That's a lot of hands to shake.
What we really need is to get those people that we touch to advertise Farscape to ten of their friends, then those ten do another ten and so on and so on... but what does that?
Answer: Email
And by email I don't mean spam... people ignore spam and quite rightly delete it before they open it. What people will do however is find something cool on the 'net, go "Wow! That's cool" and then tell their friends about it. And if there was a note to watch Farscape attached to that something cool, then all the better.
I have an idea... it's got a few associated problems but it could conceivably be that "something cool"... it would be a short animated Flash movie eCard that people could either post or pass around.
The premise would look something like this...
Shot of a men's washroom door with the man symbol having little alien antenae on it. The shot pans down the line up of people... or in this case aliens... waiting outside the bathroom door to get in. You see Londo and G'Kar arguing about something, you see the tops of Yoda's ears, and the neck down the Chewbacca, you see nameless grey alien... and a couple other recognizable scifi characters... note these are all done Flash style in 2D animation... finally we end on D'Argo and Star Trek's Lt. Data who's standing ahead of D'Argo. Data glances back a couple times in his trademark curious way and then he opens his mouth, about to ask a question and D'Argo snaps at him "Do not make me tongue you." Data quickly turns around
Snap close to 'Title' page with slogan alongside a LIVE ACTION still photo of the cast/characters (we want people to know that this is NOT an animated series): "Farscape. Add them to your scifi lineup." and then when to watch and 'brought to you by the fans of Farscape."
COUPLE problems...
1) Oh copyright infringements up to ying-yang--not just from Henson who likes us but from other scifi producers who potentially don't. Also the only way I can see making this really work is to snatch the sound dialogue directly from the series and then animating to that... it HAS to sound like the actual character to sell the laugh. That I could limit to just D'Argo's line if I cut the rest of the sound as sort of muffled, noisy atmosphere that's going on outside this washroom.
2) Well, I'm a first year animation student... the most complex animating I've done so far is a walk-cycle. I *THINK* I could pull this off--if someone could tell me how to tell Flash to make this thing a mail-able eCard... however it would be a lot of work and a very steep learning curve for me.
3) Copyright infringements up to ying yang... yes I'm repeating myself but if this is something that does end up getting sent around as a promotional tool and then gets traced back to me, I won't just had Henson on my ass, I'll have every other sci-fi producer out there looking to hunt me down too.
COUPLE good things...
1) If it were successful we could make lots of spin-offs... imagine Yoda and Rygel glaring at each other with something like "Who are you calling shorty?" or some kind of comment made by Mulder and Scully while observing the sexual tension between Aeryn and Crichton. It would be tricky splicing the dialogue to work but it could also be really really funny as well.
2) It's a way in to a LOT of fan groups... it would give them a starting point of reference and hopefully cause them to pass it around to their friends as well.
3) We could post these things as content to sites like AtomFilms (http://www.atomfilms.com)... who I know will post copyrighted fan-produced material... I've seen great Star Wars spoof clips done with stop-motioned action figures.
4) If they were actually cool enough and funny enough, MAYBE people would pass them around on their own... might be a refreshing change from having to pass out a quad-zillion paper flyers ourselves.
augh... long-winded.
So any thoughts? I'm thinking that, with the learning curve and all, I could *probably* have that first idea ready and animated by January... in time for the last crunch... but I really want people's thoughts on all the copyright issues surrounding it before I spend a lot of time trying to make this work.
What we really need is to get those people that we touch to advertise Farscape to ten of their friends, then those ten do another ten and so on and so on... but what does that?
Answer: Email
And by email I don't mean spam... people ignore spam and quite rightly delete it before they open it. What people will do however is find something cool on the 'net, go "Wow! That's cool" and then tell their friends about it. And if there was a note to watch Farscape attached to that something cool, then all the better.
I have an idea... it's got a few associated problems but it could conceivably be that "something cool"... it would be a short animated Flash movie eCard that people could either post or pass around.
The premise would look something like this...
Shot of a men's washroom door with the man symbol having little alien antenae on it. The shot pans down the line up of people... or in this case aliens... waiting outside the bathroom door to get in. You see Londo and G'Kar arguing about something, you see the tops of Yoda's ears, and the neck down the Chewbacca, you see nameless grey alien... and a couple other recognizable scifi characters... note these are all done Flash style in 2D animation... finally we end on D'Argo and Star Trek's Lt. Data who's standing ahead of D'Argo. Data glances back a couple times in his trademark curious way and then he opens his mouth, about to ask a question and D'Argo snaps at him "Do not make me tongue you." Data quickly turns around
Snap close to 'Title' page with slogan alongside a LIVE ACTION still photo of the cast/characters (we want people to know that this is NOT an animated series): "Farscape. Add them to your scifi lineup." and then when to watch and 'brought to you by the fans of Farscape."
COUPLE problems...
1) Oh copyright infringements up to ying-yang--not just from Henson who likes us but from other scifi producers who potentially don't. Also the only way I can see making this really work is to snatch the sound dialogue directly from the series and then animating to that... it HAS to sound like the actual character to sell the laugh. That I could limit to just D'Argo's line if I cut the rest of the sound as sort of muffled, noisy atmosphere that's going on outside this washroom.
2) Well, I'm a first year animation student... the most complex animating I've done so far is a walk-cycle. I *THINK* I could pull this off--if someone could tell me how to tell Flash to make this thing a mail-able eCard... however it would be a lot of work and a very steep learning curve for me.
3) Copyright infringements up to ying yang... yes I'm repeating myself but if this is something that does end up getting sent around as a promotional tool and then gets traced back to me, I won't just had Henson on my ass, I'll have every other sci-fi producer out there looking to hunt me down too.
COUPLE good things...
1) If it were successful we could make lots of spin-offs... imagine Yoda and Rygel glaring at each other with something like "Who are you calling shorty?" or some kind of comment made by Mulder and Scully while observing the sexual tension between Aeryn and Crichton. It would be tricky splicing the dialogue to work but it could also be really really funny as well.
2) It's a way in to a LOT of fan groups... it would give them a starting point of reference and hopefully cause them to pass it around to their friends as well.
3) We could post these things as content to sites like AtomFilms (http://www.atomfilms.com)... who I know will post copyrighted fan-produced material... I've seen great Star Wars spoof clips done with stop-motioned action figures.
4) If they were actually cool enough and funny enough, MAYBE people would pass them around on their own... might be a refreshing change from having to pass out a quad-zillion paper flyers ourselves.
augh... long-winded.
So any thoughts? I'm thinking that, with the learning curve and all, I could *probably* have that first idea ready and animated by January... in time for the last crunch... but I really want people's thoughts on all the copyright issues surrounding it before I spend a lot of time trying to make this work.