Sunday, May 24, 2009

Some Good News And Some Less-Good News

Before I begin writing today's babble, do me a flavor: If you have a moment or two, click on one of those Google Ads. (Below, right-hand column.) Gotta be something there that looks remotely interesting to you. Google pays about a penny a click so, if you click, I get some pennies. If you do that, I'll feel all peachy cuz, suddenly, I'm writing and working for pennies rather than for free.

Thanks.

Okay, having now begged for pennies and selling myself quite cheaply to The Man, here's a brief update regarding a couple of projects I'm involved with, namely the reality show, Porntourage, and the Pretty Girl Shooter photography DVD.

On the good news side, besides acquiring a distributor, a sponsor (i.e., a paid advertiser) has come aboard the PGS DVD project!

What this means is a manufacturer of photography-related gear is purchasing advertising/informational time on the DVD. That translates to a two-to-four-minute informational "spot" that will run at the head of the DVD and will also be available as a DVD menu option. Don't worry, we're not going to hire Billy Mays or the ShamWow Guy to shout and pimp this advertiser's gear. (We couldn't afford them anyway.) And while this might represent another example of me selling myself to The Man, we'll try our best to produce the spot as entertainingly and informatively as possible.

The sponsor will also have full use of the "spot" for trade show, marketing, web streaming, and whatever other uses they deem fit. The sponsor segment will be separately produced as a stand-alone "spot" from the rest of the program. We're selling two sponsor slots for the DVD and one of those slots is now taken. I'm not naming names until the deal memo is signed by everyone involved. That should will happen in the next week or so.

On the less-good, good news side, The Hollywood guys report that Showtime passed on the reality show.

Showtime, we're told, decided it too closely resembles their series, "Family Business." And, after weeks and weeks of back-and-forth phone talks and face-to-face meetings, A&E decided the show is too "racy" for them. Although this all sounds like bad news, the Hollywood guys say they and their agents are fully committed to this project and they, the Hollywood guys, will produce it in one form or another: Either in association with a cable caster or as an independent project financed with investor funds or their own financing. I say, "in one form or another," because the Hollywood guys have even mentioned producing it as a theatrical-style feature documentary--or mockumentary which probably better describes it--instead of a reality TV series.

The pretty, plaid-clad, girls at the top are Louisa, left, and Morgan, right. The photo is another sample from a set I shot last week and posted in a recent update. This time, I thought I'd post a photograph sans their white blouses... not that anyone is interested in viewing pretty girls without their tops. I'm just illustrating a different "look" from the set.

Louisa and Morgan captured with a Canon 5D w/ Canon 70-200mm f/4L. ISO 100, f/16 at 200th. Two modified front lights battled the harsh, mid-day, sun. The B&W conversion was via the Channel Mixer method. I also applied a small amount of the "Midnight" effect from Nik's Color Efex Pro filters.

4 comments:

Peter Wine said...

Call me crazy, (OK, you're crazy. Thanks a lot) but it seems to me it could be possible to combine both of these ideas into one, at least in the beginning.

How many parts are you planning to have on the DVD? Five? Ten? more?

If you were to produce each episode of the reality show as a or, better as a pay-per-view (PPV) event, with a tie-in to a how-to additional PPV of the behind the scenes instruction from that episode.

Just a thought. On-going revenue vs wait until it's fully produced revenue. Hmmm...

Plus those of us that find it hard to come up with the $100 or more for the DVD would likely be able to find $10-15 on a somewhat monthly basis for the one or the other part of the package. (Perhaps a subscription deal...)

Plus... (wait for it...)

A year from now, you could take the episodes and de-naughty them to run on cable (in the manner of Sex and the City.)

(this is one of those times that living in Ohio, vs. say, LA is a drawback.)

jimmyd said...

@PeterWine,

Actually, I have another reality show idea that's being pitched that would tie in most excellently with the PGS DVD.

BTW, the PGS DVD will probly retail for between $19.95 and $24.95 and will be approx. 1 hour in length. Additional, follow-on PGS DVDs are being planned even as the first one is in pre-production. We're hoping for it become a DVD series of sorts. At some point, the boxed-set of all of them will be offered.

Anonymous said...

Hey sponsors are great Jimmy! I'm so glad the project is progressing! I can't really wait to see it :D I know it will be awesomely informative :)

And I'm sorry to hear both cable networks declined :(... although a documentary film would be COOL too!!

Sending you good vibes from Central America :D
your friend
Eduar

Warfizzle said...

Pitch the show to the Spike television network!