Today seems like the perfect time to step back, take a deep breath, and put all my ducks in a row. The reason it seems like a perfect time is because we have new members from the Readers Judge book club, Love Books Tour, and Stage 32. The latter is a website dedicated to creatives who want to be involved in film, television, or related media industries. If you join you can learn from many posts, lease time with industry professionals to help you with your project, and expand your contact list dramatically. If you’d like to visit my page to get an idea of what it’s like, just CLICK HERE and have fun.
Welcome everyone.
While I will soon be appearing in a couple international anthologies and at speaking events and cons, I’ll focus today on the one project that makes my wife smile in anticipation. Specifically, The Brittle Riders series, project, and journey.
As you’ll note when you click the link, the book has fans. Many have asked when it will be made into a film, not understanding that it’s not realistic for me to call a potential investor and say, “I’m a nice guy, people like my books, give me several million dollars. Please.” And, when this journey really started, there was no one in the industry claiming this would make a good movie or series. Hell, there wasn’t even a cheerleader for a five minute cartoon.
Fortunately, there was a place you could go to get an idea of whether or not your creative efforts are worth other people’s money. The company, now defunct, was called BookScribs. The site was run by Allen Redwing who has moved onto to create some amazing literary aids using AI over at notions.so.
A nice rep Skyped with me and let me know that I would need a sixty percent or better score to be shopped via BookScribs. When you glance down you’ll note my score was ninety-seven point nine two.
Yes, I railed at clouds wondering why I didn’t get one hundred.
That led to a series of meetings that, while none led to financing, taught me tons about the industry I was falling into. I had thought my years in the music business would have prepped me for most of this. I was wrong. Fortunately, I’m the guy who asks directions when lost, and the nice people I’ve met have been more than willing to assist.
Near the end of 2022, thanks to Voyage Media, I ran into Garrick Dion, a film producer who’s worked on Joker, Drive, and many others. He liked the idea and even gave me the new pull quote we’re using on the back of the book. You can read it when you review The Brittle Riders link.
One thing that became apparent was, good book or no, we needed more materials than we had and we had no clue how to get them. A patient film producer named Rocky Lang took pity on me and showed me how to build a pitchbook. After some rough bounces, it got done. Just CLICK HERE to take a look. Since it’s a high resolution PDF I would suggest looking at it on a larger screen.
Another thing we needed was a tone reel. Tone reels are industry oriented shorts that use footage from other sources to create a single feel, or tone, so that investors and others will grasp what we’re trying to create. And, let’s be honest, The Brittle Riders is not easy to match with anything out there. I began to understand how hard it would be when the third company that does these things turned me down. Oh, sure, they wished me luck too, but they still turned me down.
Again, Rocky swooped in to save me and introduced me to Freddy Noriega. Not only did Freddy accept the challenge, he created a masterpiece. As with the pitchbook, this is movie-theater quality footage with a great soundtrack. Do yourself a favor and watch it on a big screen with good sound. A minor CONTENT WARNING; like the book the tone reel contains graphic violence and chimeric nudity.
I followed that by writing a script for the pilot and getting people smarter, and more experienced, than me to edit it. While we’re calling it a “pilot” it’s really more of an “introduction to the universe.” The story is so dense, and the world building so detailed, that creating a single episode and hoping people would get it simply proved impossible.
As Garrick said in one of our meetings, “The good news is you’ve created a unique IP. The bad news is you’ve created a unique IP.”
Over the last couple months I’ve had a few meetings and only one, outright, rejection. They were terrified of the budget. Which is fair. Although I’ve met some VFX specialists and they seem to think this could be done for a reasonable amount of money.
I guess this brings you up to date. As always, if you have any questions, just reply to this email. I’ll get back to you within a day. Until next time, stay safe and sane.
